Soon as the rest of the team pulled themselves together, and they did unnaturally quickly, Riley and Zoe kept gaping at the rover they abandoned as it streaked straight into a big spider-web type structure. Bulky thick shimmering fiber bundles built that web so stretchy and flexible that it negated the impression of the crash in no time. They were both eagerly and avidly waiting to lay their eyes on a grand explosion, but it never came to pass to their utter disappointment.

During that time, Ryan was busy as he raised his hand and extended it as if he was holding onto a doorknob until all of a sudden an opalescent knob had actually formed in his palm. When he turned the knob clockwise, a barricade made out of thick energy particles appeared on the only staircase located in the south-west corner, barricading the path both to and fro the upstairs.

Sir Nick was still breathing when Zoe and the others found him pinned on the pillar a few minutes later which meant the spike just grazed his heart not too deep. But the blood gushing out of his mouth onto his worn-out jacket screamed otherwise.

That place was crawling with six-legged wolf-panther hybrid beasts that were confined outside the protection shield Ryan was holding up. He was gathering all his soul energy into his palm and transforming it through the ground into that barrier while Zoe through her palms was pushing hers into the pillar, directed toward Sir Nick. Soon as it reached his perforated body, his wounds healed instantly and woke him up from his heavy trance.

He moaned as he lifted his body up out of the spikes before falling onto the ground underneath. For a moment there, the depth in the pain of his groans overpowered the howling of the mutated creatures outside the barrier.

“About time you woke up, old man. Care to crank up?” Riley threw her taunts at Sir Nick. “The barrier can fall any second now.”

“Forgive me for burdening you, Madam. Please sit back and relax.” apologized Sir Nick, bowing in front of Riley.

Curling his fingers into a fist, he folded his left arm backward and rested it on his hip. That hand of his radiated a pale but pure light that could ease any heavy heart in no time. That glow crawled up his arm and headed toward his heart when he raised his other arm and extended it as if he was reaching for something. It then climbed onto that other arm and made its way up into the palm of his hand where it got intensified before cooling down into the shape of a chain-sickle.

The sickle was decorated with a design of queued perforations along its well-honed edge and was mounted on a bluish-crystal shaft. The shaft’s end was connected to a heavy stainless steel chain. The chain was long. Maybe ten meters or even more. A gear-shaped iron weight with razor-sharp teeth along its outer circumference was welded to the other end of the chain.

He held the sickle shaft in his left hand and the chain nearer to the weight in his right while he asked Riley and Zoe to get on the ground.

“Ryan, can you open only the front side of the barrier without bringing it all down.”

“I can try. But I’m running on my reserved power. So, whatever you do, do it real quick.” Ryan said as he strained his whole body to burn up his last reserves and succeeded in lowering the front part of the shield.

The hungry wolves waiting outside it darted toward the opening, all at once, and charged ferociously at Sir Nick who was standing guard in front of his team. They were half his height, double his size, cement colored stripes on their charcoal dark skin. A single horn twisted in many circles and pointed forward outgrew from their forehead.

He swung the sickle by the chain in a vertical circle toward the first one heading towards him and that stroke sliced its face into two perfect halves dangling from its neck. It’s corpse slid over near to his feet due to the momentum of its stampede.

For his second and immediate attack, he got down on one bent knee before swinging his sickle clockwise with his left hand, and his toothed weight anticlockwise with the other, both in horizontal circles simultaneously over his head. It was one among his many combo attacks that could hack any living thing in flesh and blood within its radius.

The blade slashed clean through each and every wolf in the first wave and they were all cut in two, one with the upper torso and the other with the lower. The sharp teeth fused around the weight did nothing less. As he continued to keep them twirling, he landed a third blow over the next wave of the wolves with his second swing and it was his combo two attack.

Then he kept slicing and dicing through the next wave and the one after that without changing his about-to-propose stance. That lasted till he reached combo ten where he dealt the only wolf left after the astounding slaughter with his final blow when it tried to bolt out of there alive.

He swung around his weighted chain in a large circle over his head and entangled the wolf with it immobilizing its legs while he planted the shaft of his sickle into the ground behind it with the sickle blade facing it. He then whipped the beast forward toward the standing blade gashing it all the way from its mouth down to its behind.

Meanwhile, Zoe tended toward treating Liss but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t heal her wounds, not even a shallow cut on her forehead.

“She must’ve fallen too deep into her soul abyss. That’s the only possible explanation I can think of,” she said, looking at Sir Nick as he lifted his crank from the ground and trudged towards them, completely exhausted. “We have to pick up our pace. The infection is spreading rapidly than anticipated. At this rate, she doesn’t have much time left.”

“How much...?” he asked, his face all sad and gloomy and his mood darkened.

“An hour at the most. Maybe less.” Zoe replied.

Clusters of glowing particles emerged from within the corpses and clumped together to form big shining spheres with a divine glow, levitating on top of their mutilated remains.

“Time to eat, Bone Slicer.” when Sir Nick raised his weapon up in the air, it created a magical force field and siphoned all those energy spheres in. That mass of energy gathered in it then got transferred within his body to his heart where it vanished in a split second.

“Ryan’s body won’t make it through another crank up. That’s two down. By the looks of it, you used a considerable amount of your power on those puny feeble creatures.” Riley analyzed their current situation to Sir Nick in a taunting manner to provoke him.

“Without Liss, I’m the only one left with a decent attack-type crank in our team. So, you have to follow my lead. That’s your only option if you want your daughter to not die.” she told him, her tone very much domineering.

... to be continued.