Crashing into the forest was a little unpleasant, our speed not lending itself to caution or avoidance. Instead, Adra and Sigmir simply barreled through, branches breaking and leaves scattering in their wake. Even I, moving in the back of our formation, got scratched up but getting under cover was vital, certainly more important than some minor discomfort.

The shrubs slowed us down, turning our frantic dash into a quick walk, as Sigmir took the lead and used her impressive strength to make a path where there hadn’t been one before. Not to escape, but simply to get a little more distance from the edge, trying to find a nicely dense patch of wood, where the Manticores with their massive bodies would be unable to bring their full potential.

Behind us, I could hear splintering sounds as at least one of the Manticores crashed into the forest, the sound spurring us on a little more, before we reached a thicket of tangled brambles, dense, slightly prickly and a wonderful spot to stop. There were even some small trails, barely large enough for me to squeeze through, that allowed for a little mobility.

As we stopped, there was a moment of silence, of stillness, before the noise from the Manticores above shattered the moment, their shrill cries pressing home the point that while we were in the woods now, we were far from out of the woods.

“I’ll take a look.” Adra said, her breathing a little laboured, before she stepped to one of the slightly thicker trees, though I doubted it would hold her weight. She never even tried climbing it, instead simply placing her hand against the wood, her eyes closed, before pulling her hand away as if she was scalded a moment later.

“Incoming!” she warned, squeezing herself through the brambles in an effort to move. There was a sound unlike anything I had ever heard before, a mix of splintering wood, strange, ripping noises and the piercing cry of a Manticore mixing together into one unholy cacophony, sending cold sweat down my spine and a Manticore crashed into the thicket in an attempt to use its body to simply break through. It almost bounced back up, even as Sigmir took the opportunity to swing her axe, the brambles hindering her quite a bit but scoring a light cut in one of its legs.

The Manticore scrambled around, its wings frantically flexing while its legs tried to find purchase within the brambles, only to shred those it came into contact with. None of us were willing to let the opportunity it had given us pass, Adra turning her bow into a spear and stabbing it, the reach of her spear allowing her to attack almost unimpeded, while Rai was daring, stepping through the shadows into the Manticore’s space, striking at the base of one wing before dodging to the side, using his smaller body to fit into a whole.

For me, I couldn’t use my beloved Frozen Shuttles, the Astral Power they had been made of turned into a cold mist to cover our earlier escape, but I did have other means to fight. Taking a page out of Rai’s book, I stepped through the shadows, focusing on the ribcage of the Manticore and landed in the brambles right next to it, a smirk on my face and a silver blade in my hand. I barely used my Athame in combat but if an enemy managed to get itself restrained in such an inviting fashion, I almost had to take advantage.

Carefully stabbing the Athame’s blade through the thick muscles and between the solid ribs, deep into the Manticore’s flesh caused it to let out a noise somewhere between strangled chicken and stepped-on cat, as its movement became even more frantic, thanks to the sudden pain. I got battered by its wing a bit, but my position meant there was little leverage behind it, making it endurable, as I focused on the hilt of my Athame and channelled my magic.

The earlier noise went up by a few octaves, a guttural sound of pain and suffering, the Manticore trying to complain to the world itself that it was in pain, in terrible pain, to the point that a few of its still flying companions echoed the cry, as if offering sympathies. Not that there was any sympathy to be had from me, I could feel the Astral Power within its blood draining out of it under the control of my Blood Magic, forming beads filled with power that I could use later. If nothing else, Blood Magic, at least in the way I was using it, had the best possible Astral Power efficiency, letting me invest a small amount, to get a larger return.

In this case I wasn’t only after the return on my investment, but I was quite willing to use the by-product, the Miasma that formed within the Manticore, to my advantage, Lenore and I using Death-Magic to agitage the vile power even further, poisoning the weakened beast.

Sadly, we couldn’t take our time to fully finish the job, our position on top of the brambles too exposed and before we had more than a dozen seconds, one of the other Manticores was carefully swooping in, probably trying to pick me up for easier disposal. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Manticore’s talons and pushed off, pulling the Athame with me and tumbling through the brambles, getting scratched up but that was a price I was very willing to pay.

It took me a moment to reorient myself after landing on the ground and during that time, the others weren’t inactive. However, the same was true for the Manticores, at least one of them had realised that trying to brute force their way through the dense brambles from above was nearly impossible, even their massive weight didn’t allow that. The brambles were simply too tangled and interwoven, giving them enough strength to hold them up, making it difficult to apply their strength anywhere. It would work with a bit of time, by slowly shredding the individual vines, but during that time, they would be sitting ducks.

On the other hand, they could follow the path we had taken, using their bodies to crash through the thicket from the side, which was what one of them was trying to do, its wings tucked in against its body, while it used its front-claws to open up the way. Sigmir stood ready to oppose that one, while Rai had taken another stab at the one entangled.

“I’ve got the one above!” I called out, realising that each drop of Astral Power, each point of stamina, were valuable to us, that we needed to conserve resources as much as possible. My lips curled into a wicked smile as I grasped the Athame in my hand and spoke a single word, both command and curse at the same time. “Die!”

There was no magical meaning to the word, but as I spoke it, Lenore and I joined our minds together, casting Death-Magic and channelling it through the Astral Power within the Blood, using that as a medium to affect the Manticore I had taken the Blood from. The Blood was the perfect medium to circumvent its defenses, it even supplied most of the power needed for my spell. As if to obey my command, the Manticore that was still tangled within the vines above us let out a soft, almost mournful, cry and stopped moving after a few more twitches. A quick glance at my log told me that we had killed a level seventy-five Young Manticore.

Sadly, there was no time to celebrate that, not while just a few meters away Sigmir was clashing with another Manticore, trying to keep it from moving further into the thicket we had taken refuge in. Everyone else was backing her up, Adra standing directly with her, using her spear to stab the Manticore whenever it tried to advance, Olivia using her Divine Magic to protect Sigmir’s body and reduce the impact of the Manticore’s attacks and lastly, there was Rai who used the complicated foliage around us to his advantage, slipping in and out of the Manticore’s space, causing deep wounds every time he appeared.

If our foe was only that single Manticore, the fight would be trivial, even though my Observe told me that this one wasn’t a Young Manticore, but a mature one, with an impressive level of hundred-twenty. If only.

Before the others could do more than wound the beast, another was pushing in, not following the same path and getting stuck behind the first one but forging its own path. It couldn’t move swiftly but without anyone to stop it, it would be only a matter of minutes until it would be able to tear into any of us with abandon.

Sigmir let out a loud growl that turned into a howl and I could feel her determination over our bond. At the same time, I could see her body change, as silver hairs sprouted on her skin and her head took on canine features. My own experience made it easy to guess that she was using her Avatar-form, no longer incomplete now that both, Sigmir and Ylva, had crossed the second Divide.

She truly looked beautiful.