“Come on we’re burning daylight,” Cronceet said breaking the silence placed by his own ominous declaration. “I’m taking the lead now and we will be going double time. Mercenaries cover the apprentices. Apprentices use your discretion to attack and try to cover the mercenaries.” His words were conveyed with a tone of utmost seriousness.

Words spilled from his lips but I lacked even the most basic ability to understand them and his hands contorted into multiple strange gestures flipping into shapes that boggled my mind. Whatever spell he was now invoking was far beyond me. The Detect Magic that I had been surreptitiously casting flared up showing me the sheer volume of the magic before me and my eyes widened as I saw the spell resolve. Dozens and dozens of black gloves appeared all around clutching trees and grasping the ground as they flickered in and out of existence. Could this be a tier four or even a tier five spell?

“Before you ask it’s a tier five spell,” Cronceet said as he stepped forward leaving us all standing for a moment before the two mercenaries followed him and then June. “Tier five is my limit. Tier four is Myrrah’s. Blue was at tier eight the last time I saw her and she might even be knocking on tier nine now. That is the strength that is required to contest against a dragon.”

“Got it,” I said at the same time as June nodded. I wanted that strength so badly. The hands moved along with Cronceet in a skittering lurching motion, like an avalanche of gloves. A dozen eagles dived down through the trees only to get caught and torn to pieces by the hands like they were made of paper.

I thought about speaking up but right now the wizard was travelling quite fast and I felt myself struggle to keep up to the extent that I found I couldn’t waste my breath. Maybe there was a potion to promote air intake or something because my stronger muscles were still leaving me gasping and trying my best to keep pace with June. These paths weren’t well made and there was still detritus left over from the storm and even one or two trees in the road, but every time they popped up a dozen hands would swoop in and dispose of them leaving us with a straight path.

The ground in front of me exploded as a creature that looked like an oversized mole burst through the ground and I instinctively flexed my muscles in a fledgling attempt to backpedal from those heavy looking claws before the thing was obliterated by a swarm of hands that broke its neck and tore out the thorny vines in less time than it took for the words of my spell to even begin forming in my lips. The whole process took less than a second and left me feeling quite inadequate at my own spell work.

“What’s changed,” June said panting out as she ran ahead of me. A hurried Detect Magic pinged some form of ongoing spell that allowed her to move faster and I pushed my muscles to go further.

“They encircled us. Rudimentary tactics indicate that the monster is employing some form of low cunning,” Cronceet said maintaining his pace. “Class Four is generally the highest that monsters can reach without achieving some form of sapience. The fact that it is displaying that sapience now means that it’s on the verge of becoming a Class Five Monster. There is a large chasm between a Class Four and a Class Five monster. I can’t beat a Class Five monster.”

“But you’re a…” June began only for her master to cut her off.

“I can cast two tier five spells,” he said. “I am not a wizard that focuses on combat. On the other hand you will be hard-pressed to ever find a monster that isn’t a born scrapper.” As he spoke a massive grey armoured creature with a single sabre-like horn over a mouth of sharp jagged teeth burst through the trees and charged towards the group. Once again I started an incantation before three enormous hands that were larger than me grabbed the beast lifting it off the ground like a doll before hundreds of those hands materialised around the creature beating it and tearing its armour apart before they dug into its writhing frame and tore out the thorns as well as a chunk of organs and brain. The smell was actually disgusting and I gagged a little at the pulverised corpse.

“More extensive use of parasitizing,” Cronceet said. “Normally it seems to be localised in the skull but this seems to have travelled down the spine. That could indicate that the modifications on the Spikey Dhrinodon were more extensive or that it required more effort to exert control over a pure monster rather than an animal or a chimera.”

“Are Spikey Dhrinodons tough,” I said wasting a little oxygen more than I wanted.

“Class Two,” June spoke up unexpectedly, getting a nod from Cronceet who had slowed down slightly until his pace was only at a brisk jog. “They have a tough hide and their charge is very deadly. Their horn doubles as a proboscis that can suck out the life fluids from you and convert it to Vitality.” She seemed to be emboldened by her mentors and so divulged more and more information. “They often travel in small groups of three or four.”

“I’ll have to be on the lookout then,” I muttered to myself. “Can you beat a Class Two?” I asked only to get a firm shake of the head from June.

“We’re nearly there,” Cronceet said shutting off any conversation as he came to a stop and I took the opportunity to take deep breaths of oxygen as I recovered. Barely had I gotten two deep breaths before a vast cacophony shook the woods. Howling, hooting, hollering and other onomatopoeias chilled my bones and instantly filled me with a sense of futile horror and I had to fight to regain my nerve. Next to me June had gone white and started shivering and I couldn’t imagine that I fared too much better.

“Aura,” Cronceet said offhandedly as if the supernatural fear was a light drizzle. “Pretty much all monsters have it to some extent. You’ll get used to it.”

“I_I_I hope so,” June said , her teeth chattering as she rubbed her shoulders in a pointless attempt to get warm considering it was damn near midday at this point. “Any last minute advice to get through this?”

“Compared to most monsters humans are fragile,” Cronceet said. “Don’t get hit.”

“Don’t get tunnel vision when going after monsters,” Boris said. “Preserving your own life is more important than killing one more monster.”

I stayed silent deferring to the veterans among our group as I instead chose to scan the trees. Instances of isolated movement kept me on edge but the shadows seldom seemed to have the inclination to gain substance. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the shape of an ape creature resolve about fifty paces away and I cast a Hydraulic Push in that direction. My aim held true clipping the shoulder of the beast causing it to flinch and fall out of the tree and I felt a visceral sense of satisfaction before the woods exploded in a wave of motion.

“The onslaught of creatures was an incoherent mess of limbs, hide, horns and claws. Chimeric abominations lurched towards the group and were obliterated by a wave of hands that rent apart the waves like they were made out of mere paper. I fired off Hydraulic Push after Hydraulic Push but for every blow I landed that would hurt a monster a hand would appear and tear that same monster apart.

I stopped firing at that point and just took a moment to observe the attackers. The swarm of monsters threw themselves forward with no regard to life or limb and they were given no regard in turn. The spell had a haunting beauty. I had noticed this for a while but it bore a resemblance to the spell he used to defeat that chimera back in the camp. He called it a modified spell; did that mean that this spell was a modified version of that one.

I looked up just in time to spot a bird with a metre wingspan break through the treeline and I immediately focused on it before sending three jets of water to pierce its wings causing it to plummet to the ground just in front of me. The creature had barely hit the ground before it attempted to clamber to its feet and lunge at me but a quick kick to the neck with my boots prevented that from happening. Even then it twitched disturbingly afterwards in a manner that reminded me of their unique origins.

I looked away from my defeated enemy only to blink as I saw the state of the battlefield. The overwhelming charge had been reduced to pockets of resistance. The hands had done most of the work but even the mercenaries were surprisingly effective and I watched in slight awe as the pair of them moved about as if their armour weighed nothing hacking through the chimeras without resistance. I had overlooked them because they weren’t wizards which I was now regretting as I saw one of the men, Brett I think it was, duck beneath the swipe of a wolf creature before he proceeded to hack into the ribs of an ape-deer hybrid; easily cracking the spine before kicking the lower half causing the top half of the creature to fold backwards on itself.

I had no idea how they moved that fast and hit that hard and while I was eager to uncover that mystery I was distracted as the waves died. Corpses littered the forest floor and the smell was so thick and cloying I began to find it hard to breathe. I turned my head back to take a look at June and Cronceet when I saw out of the corner of my eye the corpses start to decay; far swifter than was normal.

“Be careful,” Cronceet said, his voice absolutely serious as the corpses started to melt into the ground. Hand lifted up a nearby chimera but even as the corpse was lifted up it was decomposing into sludge that slipped through the ethereal fingers and landed in the dirt before disappearing. “It’s beneath us.”

“How do we__” I began looking down at my feet only to suddenly feel hands grip me and lift me from the ground. I instinctively struggled only for the fingers to grip harder and lift me upwards and stationed me down on a nearby tree and disappeared. Next to me June was placed as well with dozens of ethereal hands placing her down gently but firmly before also winking out of existence.

Down below both of us Cronceet stood in the middle of the path flanked by the two mercenaries who had their backs to him in an aware and ready posture. He looked rather casual despite the situation as he knelt down and placed a hand on the ground before I felt him prepare a spell. It felt a bit weaker than that hand spell that he had previously used but it was still not something I would be able to do in the near future.

I held my breath as the spell discharged and there was a moment of confusion and surprise as nothing happened before the ground erupted beneath their feet, cracking the path and causing the tree on which both June and I stood to tilt slightly. Both of us would have lost our footing if it wasn’t for the hands that once more tightened and kept us firmly on the tree.

Scores of thorny vines thicker than me burst from the ground in a tidal wave of barbed limbs that met waves of hands before they were brushed aside. Those hands broke apart into light before reforming into gloves the size of those monstrous chimeras. These phantom appendages grasped the thorny vines before dragging them up and I watched as more and more of the vines came through. To the side the two mercenaries were hacking at the vines but the work was slow going for such a massive plant. It would take them a while to do significant damage to the monster and I doubted that their foe would be so kind as to stand around.

As if I jinxed it the ground burst forth behind the sole wizard of the group as a head the size of a small cottage but shaped like that of a feathered lizard burst forth from the ground and launched itself forward to try and devour Cronceet.

To his credit the wizard barely hesitated a second summoning forth a wall of ice with three gestures that cracked when the massive head crashed into it but ultimately held. In retaliation a bolt of lightning burst from his hands and hit the plant directly causing it to scream in agony, a sound that was astonishingly reminiscent of a deer being burnt alive, before backing down and hovering in front of the wizard.

I was just about to relax, relieved of his victory when another head similar to the first burst through the ground nearby followed by a third on the other side of the first. The ground broke apart further as the creature pulled itself to its full height, above the treeline and bore down on the comparatively smaller humans. I felt a desperate need to do something deep inside me, but I had no idea what I could do in the face of that.

“It’s a Class Four beast still,” Cronceet said breaking off my train of thought and I saw the mercenaries visibly relax at his words. “You could be a problem if we left you alone for a bit longer, big guy,” the wizard said and I could hear the relief in his voice, even as I stared at the creature that was taller than ten of me with scores upon scores of vines thicker than my whole body. Just what the hell does a Class Five beast look like?

My musings were interrupted as all the hands that were scattered throughout the forest faded an instant before a massive hand appeared above the plant and crushed it into the dirt with a crunching sound as green blood poured out of the plant monster. Without a pause Cronceet started a chant with words that were too fast and low for me to even begin. Simultaneously his hands gestured as he pointed out four locations and I watched four black rods appear, three stabbed into the heads of the monster and the fourth at the location where the heads joined. Cronceet had already turned away and went to sit down as with a crackling noise lightning arced between the four rods causing the creature to scream and writhe.

“We dodged a bolt there boss,” Boris said as he stood there not taking his eyes off the creature whose struggles were growing slowly weaker and weaker.

“Absolutely,” Cronceet said saying a few words before the lightning flared up causing the creature to twitch more vigorously before the twitching slowed and came to a dead stop. “Do you need a hand down,” he said looking up to June and I.

“Was that it?” I said, not sure why I was saying that. The whole thing felt painfully disappointing. Despite the size of the creature it was defeated in a few moves by the wizard.

“Sometimes it is just that easy,” Cronceet said shrugging as the lightning redoubled one last time with a cracking, popping noise that caused my teeth to grind before quieting down. “I came into this fight knowing the monster’s weakness and having a pretty good idea of its modus operandi. If I couldn’t beat a Class Four with those advantages then I would have to go track down my wizard hat before throwing it away for good. Now who’s up for a dissection?” he said with some weird glee.