Three days.

It took that long before the endless surge of devilbeasts ebbed. Yuriko stood on the wall for the entire day, retiring only to her tent when Otlaca sent her a message that they should take turns on watch.

Feeling more than a bit tired, she had agreed. Over the course of the day, three more Dire Beasts had made their presence known. One had been a bony bear that was even larger than the hound. When it stood on its hind legs, it could actually reach the top of the wall.

Again, she wondered how it managed to go through the tunnels. She didn’t see it enter, and it had seemed like it wasn’t there then a blink of an eye later, it roared and charged.

Yuriko had been stunned by how it looked so similar to her bony bear back in the forest that she wasn’t able to react until Otlaca had interposed himself between them. Then he summoned the three-headed snake silhouette and blasted out with fire, ice, and that violet gas that she assumed was venom. The bear squealed in agony when the mist got into its eyes and it teared up uncontrollable. Then it started weeping blood, so maybe it was strong acid.

Then Otlaca blasted a cone of fire then a cloud of icy mist at the bear’s face. The fire focused on the left side while the ice focused on the right as if there was a dividing line between the two. The Dire Osterrus, as they called it, collapsed in a heap. It took half an hour to die, but it was essentially helpless the entire time.

The second Dire Beast was another Dire Hound and she took care of it in the same way she did the first one. The third beast was a serpent with two heads, that could control fire and ice at the same time. Otlaca enthusiastically attacked and defeated it.

So, tired but not exhausted, Yuriko returned to her tent. One of the snake-kin brought her a plate with roasted meat. She didn’t ask what it was but it was gamy and pungent enough that the strange black sauce in a little bowl next to it wasn’t enough to mask the taste. The meat was sliced into bite-sized pieces and she was handed a bowl of white rice and a pair of chopsticks to use with it. A mug of something, beer or ale, she thought, came with the meal. No water. She didn’t touch the mug after a sip revealed how bitter the brew was, and resorted to drinking from her condenser canteen.

The meal wasn’t nearly enough to fill her tummy, so she took a sip of the amber liquid she had collected from the strange room under the Labyrinth. It filled her with a pleasant buzz and chased away her fatigue. She did her evening ablutions, washing up and doing her business in the communal lavatories, before returning to her tent. She made sure to close the tent flap and set alarm stones around her before she slept.

The next day was mostly a repeat of the first. Otlaca took his rest, and they alternated in twelve-hour shifts. She took care of a gigantic river lizard, who was actually just trying to exit the cavern. She needed the Ivory for her fare home though, so she attacked. Besides, she was sure that if it made its way up to the surface, children and other people would be at risk.

Aside from the river lizard--crocodile, she reminded herself--another Dire Hound appeared. The flaming doggies seemed to be the most common devilbeast in the Tide. Compared to the other Dire Beasts, the hounds were middling. But Otlaca and Yuriko were stronger than the huge devilbeasts, so there weren’t any surprises.

Though she was gruesomely reminded why Otlaca asked for her help on the third day when two Dire Hounds attacked at the same time, hitting the opposite sides of the battlements. She’d taken care of one in less than a minute, but in that time, twenty-three snake- and lizardkin had been savagely mauled and killed. The hound had bowled over another squad and had managed to get to the camp by the time she managed to catch up to it and kill it.

The Lucentians stoically hauled the dead away from the wall, some giving her an unreadable glance. She couldn’t help but stare at the bloodstains. And the pieces of flesh scattered about. A hand there. A finger. A foot. A forked tongue.

“Good job taking care of the Dire Beasts,” Masa said cheerfully behind her.

Jolted out of her morbid fascination, Yuriko mumbled a reply and walked back to the wall. She saw the rest of the Vizugmonians watching her silently from nearby. The cold light behind their eyes said that they didn’t much care for Lucentian casualties.

The rest of the day was spent fighting off the devilbeasts. Yuriko waited on the battlements, though she occasionally jumped down to the cavern floor and massacred the beasts when they gathered in a large enough clump.

She didn’t use her Animus blades at all: her fists and feet were more than enough to do the job especially after she condensed her Anima over her extremities. The resulting strikes were just as powerful as if she had a matching Journeyman tier Empowered Strike. The coating of Anima prevented the beasts from even reaching her skin.

Fully a fifth of all the Ivory collected had been given to her with the other fifth belonging to Otlaca. That came up to nearly twenty thousand Denari. They paid her in twenty gold coins in the shape of a laurel leaf that was stamped with a crown on one side and the number one thousand on the other. The coins were lighter than an Imperial gold mark, though she rarely carried that denomination back home. She placed the coins in the safe pouch that she’d taken to wearing around her neck again.

After the first day, she left her pack in her tent, inside the lockbox, though she kept her coins and licenses in the safe pouch.

With the lull in the Beast Tide, she found herself back in the conference tent with Otlaca once again hosting dinner for the two of them.

“A resounding success!” Otlaca toasted, raising his glass of red wine high. Yuriko clinked glasses with him politely.

“So many dead,” Yuriko said flatly.

“Casualties are less than half what I expected.” Otlaca snorted. “Forcing the devilbeasts into this bottleneck is dangerous but it is one of the only ways to monopolize the Ivory. You’ve made a pretty penny yourself but I hear you didn’t turn in the spoils from the Dire Beasts.”

“How much are they worth?”

“A thousand, at least. More to someone who wants it.”

“Oh, what do you mean?”

“Hahaha, it doesn’t matter to you, but if the source of Ivory is from a beast that matches someone’s Geist, there’s a big chance that the Geist evolves to a higher tier.” Otlaca chuckled. “It’s why I rushed that two-headed serpent. Hahaha.”

“Ah.” Yuriko nodded. “Have a look.”

She fished out the Ivory she took from the Seven-Headed Serpent King and Otlaca dropped his glass. It shattered on the table and spread red wine all over the food.

“Oh, Chaos!” He yelped once the liquid dripped on his clothes. “My apologies, you startled me! Is that a Serpent King’s Ivory?”

“Yes.”

“Oh dear. Hmmm, I’ll buy it for ten thousand Denari! You won’t find a better offer even on the surface, I’m the only Elder with a Hydra's Geist.”

“Hmmm.”

“Alright, fifteen thousand.”

Yuriko arched an eyebrow and was about to agree when Otlaca said, “Fine, twenty!”

“Sure,” she happily agreed.

She only needed another sixty thousand the rate things were going but she didn’t know how much she’d spend until she could buy passage. The rest of the meal, after Otlaca summoned attendants to clean and replace the mess, proceeded without any other surprises.

Once they were done, she asked, “Will you send a guide to lead me to the surface then?”

“Oh, no, not yet. The Tide isn’t finished. There would be pockets of devilbeasts all over the caverns and tunnels. The next step is to clear as many of the stragglers and remnants as we could. That’s the work of a week or so then the tunnels to the surface will be clear. If you want, you can hunt for the remnants. You still need to build up your funds, I believe?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Very well, I’ll arrange for Fang Leader Rhox and her team to guide you.”

“Her?”

“You want to bring more members? Perhaps that Vizugmonian team that gave their parole?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Good, I'll let Usaza know.”

The next day, she and several squads were gathered near the portcullis. Rhox, who had apparently been female all along, was already there by the time Yuriko arrived. The catkin were there, too. There was an awkward distance between them and the snake- and lizardkin.

“Elder Yuriko,” Rhox greeted pleasantly, though she made a point not to look at the Vizugmonians. “We stand ready.”

Yuriko looked at Masa who gave her a weary nod. Anda the tigerkin and the lion-maned Dai had stoic looks while the last member of the four-person squad, the full-blooded catkin Hixe, was frowning.

“I suppose we aren’t being sent to die then?” Anda rumbled. “Surprising.”

Yuriko saw Rhox bristle at the slight, “You!”

“Fighting your instincts, snake?” Anda hissed. “You’ve taken enough innocent lives!”

Rhox glared back. “Your kind has stepped on our backs for long enough!”

“As we should since you and yours are lying, double-dealing, treasonous scoundrels!”

“Whoa!” Yuriko interrupted.

“What do you want?” Anda asked crossly. “You side with these murderers like the rest of your kind?”

“Anda!” Masa tugged his sleeves fretfully.

“What?”

“She’s the one who got us out of the stockade. Please…”

The tiger man’s features loosened and he took a deep breath. Then he bowed to Yuriko.

“My apologies, I spoke in haste.”

“Perhaps you’d rather not join this team?” Yuriko shook her head. “Divisiveness like this can only lead to accidents.”

“Pardon, Elder,” Rhox said, “but no other team will work with them and they will not be allowed out of the camp with no chaperone.”

“I see. Then a bit of civility, please.” Yuriko directed her words to both of them. Rhox nodded, while Anda grunted his assent. The other two members of his team still looked ill at ease. “Then let’s go.”

The other teams gave way and they were out of the portcullis in a matter of minutes. Rhox directed the team to leave through one of the exit tunnels that the devilbeasts had gone through.

The tunnel immediately sloped upwards and the very first cavern it emptied into had a few dozen humanoid ants with a dozen fiery hound corpses. The ant-men’s heads swivelled in their direction but even with Yuriko alone, they would not have been a match. Rhox’s Fang had a dozen and there were four Vizugmonians. The ants were killed down to the last man, er, ant.

“Barely worth the effort,” Anda grumbled as he cut into the hound corpses.

Only a couple had Ivory which he tossed to Rhox pointedly. Nobody bothered to touch the ants.

The next cavern was empty but on the third…

Smoke and fire streamed into the tunnel before they could even react. Rhox managed to roll backwards, but a couple of snakekin were too slow. They were engulfed by the smoke and when the cloud receded, Yuriko gasped in surprise and fear. The two snake men had turned to stone.

“Stone Auroch!” Rhox gasped.

She hadn’t been completely spared as the tip of her fingers were slowly turning grey. She manifested her Geist, which turned out to be a brown spider. Animus channelled into her finger and the grey flaked away from her flesh.

“Run!”

The tunnel trembled as dust and small rocks fell behind them.

“Watch out!” Yuriko flared her Anima as the wall erupted with a spike. It collided against her golden flames but failed to penetrate.

Boom!

“Cave in!”

Behind them, Yuriko rushed towards the cavern. Reluctant she may have been to touch the petrifying smoke, she knew that her Anima would protect her. And she was right. The smoke peeled away from her and gave her team the shelter they needed.

The cavern was huge. As big as or bigger than Forgestride’s cavern. And right in the middle was a humongous…cow?

It was just three paces high at the shoulder, but its horns were ridiculously huge. They looked longer than the cow’s length and were thicker than its thigh. Its broad and muscular body was covered in iridescent scales, much like a Hunter Wyldling, and it had a tail like a lizard’s.

It pawed the ground when she entered, and in the next movement, snorted more of the grey smoke from its nose, followed by a plume of yellow flames from its mouth.

Yuriko dodged out of the way, diving into a roll towards her right.

“Ahh-”

Choked screams from behind and when she glanced back, a lizard man had been petrified. The rest scattered towards the sides.

Masa, trembling little kitty cat that she was, lay prone on the ground some distance away, but she managed to aim with her crossbow. The bolt bounced ineffectually off the cow’s thick hide.

“Fight to live!” Rhox yelled even as she spurted white threads from her fingertips.

Dai cursed as the smoke collided against his tower shield. The metal turned grey, and when he bumped it against a rock, cracks formed across it.

Anda was yelling hoarsely even as he shot his crossbow, somehow managing to draw the string and lock it with the winch as he was moving. It probably took longer than it normally would but she was no judge of the projectile weapon. Hixe threw ineffectual daggers at it.

As for Rhox’ Fang, the brave warriors started to surround the creature but it snorted more smoke in their direction, forcing them back.

“Alright,” Yuriko muttered, gathering her strength.

She condensed her Anima into a fist and launched herself at the monster bull. The smoke parted before her charge, repelled by her Anima. The bull’s blue eyes widened in surprise, but it managed to turn. Yuriko hit its flank instead of its head. The shockwave of her blow created a visible ripple as it travelled across the hide. Dirt and dust exploded under its hooves and it staggered back a couple of steps.

“Oh!”

Yuriko gasped as the huge crescent-shaped horns smashed into her side and the impact blasted her into a wall, where she hung for a split second before she toppled to the floor.