Chapter 9
“The first twenty to emerge will go onto the final round in one month,” the weird little troll guy announces.
If he’s the same thing as my guys, he has to be hating life, because life has certainly not been fair to him in the attractiveness department. His face looks like the inside-bend of an elephant’s leg. I’m not even sure where his eyes are, if I’m being honest.
“He’s an angel?” I ask dubiously.
“He’s a form of angel,” Jude states absently as the man drones on.
“He totally got gipped,” I say on a sympathetic sigh.
Gage chokes down whatever sound just tried to escape him.
“The rules are written in the devil’s blood. No competitor may use lethal force against another competitor while in the gauntlet,” the elephant man goes on.
I glance around, seeing a lot of really hard, nasty people also around us, all of them glaring at the four guys surrounding me. Apparently they don’t like that rule, since it looks like they want to break it.
The guys don’t notice the angry glares or just simply don’t care.
“No competitor can use any form of teleportation to get from one area to another. Doing so will have you immediately disqualified,” the man states, facing one woman in particular before dropping his eyes—well, the area where I think his eyes are—to the scroll he’s holding.
“No competitor may leave the gauntlet until they’ve completed it, or they forfeit their chance at ascension and go back to the surface to complete their tasks until someone comes to reap them.”
“What?” I hiss, jerking my gaze to Jude.
“The trials are to thin the crop of the weaker links, so that only the strongest guard the surface,” Ezekiel answers at my back. “Getting reaped puts you back at the throat to grow stronger again.”
I’m not sure I want to know what the throat is.
“Your teams, as you know, can change, should you decide to shift alliances. But only if the other team accepts you.”
There’re only two other four-man teams. Judging by the groupings, everyone else is solo or in twos, I notice.
I suppose if you can change teams mid competition, it’d be hard to trust someone who might stab you in the back. Unless you’re as close this quad.
“If one member of your team is left behind, your team forfeits the thirty bonus points, and that member is disqualified for not crossing the line with you.”
“Glad I’m not part of the team,” I grumble. They’d totally leave me behind if they could.
Kai snorts when he hears that.
The man rolls the scroll up very slowly, staring up at the stands over our heads as he does so.
I follow his gaze, seeing him look up to the box where there are six people in ornate, golden chairs, set up like royalty. Manella is among them.
“Is Lucifer here?”
“Never. It’s too risky for him to leave the underworld. He’s untouchable there. Not so much here,” Jude answers.
So those must be the six heirs.
The woman with red hair who spoke to Manella is sitting down, her hand on her chin as she smirks down at the world with her red-painted lips and scarlet red dress.
Manella is beside her in a black suit, his long black hair tied back.
A blonde woman is dressed in a sparkly silver dress on the other side of Manella. And to the right of her are two men dressed like they’re here to slay. And lastly a man with such dark hair and eyes that black isn’t black enough to describe them.
All of them are stunning. All of them look pure evil too.
Which, obviously they’re the devil’s children, so that makes sense.
“Manella, you already know. He’s the one who has evaded history, and has the most discretion. Hence the reason he’s the trickiest to deal with and the reason we need to get underground to learn more about him,” Jude explains.
“The redhead who looks like she can’t wait to see blood being spilled is Lilith,” Gage tells me.
“As in the vampire?” I hiss.
“As in the devil’s firstborn,” Jude tells me as though he’s exasperated. “After announcing herself to the world as Lilith, she made a few other appearances as women you might have heard of.”
“The twins are the Gemini twins—Collin and Marcus,” Gage goes on. “They prefer the second round of the trials, since that’s when mortal combat comes into play.”
I hate these damn trials.
“There are two hundred competitors here today,” the man goes on, his eyes staying fixed to the evil royalty in the stands. “The horn of Jericho will blow every time the gauntlet claims a life.”
“The blonde is Hera,” Kai tells me, resuming the interrupted conversation, and when I open my mouth, he adds, “Yes, that Hera, and yes, she posed as a Greek Goddess for a while. She’s vain like that. They all are.”
Just…mind-fucking.
“And the last guy is Cain. The same Cain who killed his brother—Abel. The same one born to Eve, after Lucifer deployed his plan to corrupt humanity and prove he was right all along, sending his own son into the womb of Eve, just before he was cast from the heavens,” Ezekiel tells me.
They don’t even have to look back to see these people. They just know them, probably have them memorized.
The elephant man looks away when all six heirs give one nod of approval in eerily timed unison.
“The day of the gauntlet begins now!” the man shouts.
Without a second of hesitation, everyone on this platform starts racing through me, rushing toward the drop. My guys are the first to drop off the side. That’s at least a hundred feet worth of drop zone!
I dive to the edge, even as people continue to pass through me en masse.
I watch as they land on their feet, and I curse when they propel themselves into the thick fog cloaking the gauntlet.
The horn is already blowing, signaling a death so soon, and my heart beats in my ears as panic consumes me. Was it one of them?
Before I can even think about it, I’m suddenly dizzy, and I’m spinning around, seeing all four of my guys cut through the fog as they charge right toward me. Shit. I somehow ended up in the gauntlet.
In front of them.
I turn and run with them, easily keeping up, since my spirit body happens to be very fast and nimble. It helps that I can run right through many of the obstacles they’re having to avoid.
The blades shoot out, nearly decapitating Jude before he can dodge it like it’s no big deal. If protective spirits can suffer cardiac arrest, then it damn near just happened to me.
The acid spray mist takes out several of the men behind us, their screams of agony piercing the air as that horn of death blows twice.
Fire shoots up into the air, and Ezekiel barely stops in time. Another man can’t stop so quickly, and a bloodcurdling scream rises into the air as the skin melts from his body.
I cut my gaze away, unable to watch. “That’s hellfire instead of fucking eternal flames,” Jude growls. “That’s supposed to be outlawed.”
“Hell on earth better not happen if I turn whole,” I grumble as I leap through it, trying to find a way to let them pass.
I finally find a boulder and stare at it, because it would be perfect to create a path. It’s just big enough that it would take it a minute to melt, and they’re fast enough to use it before it’s gone.
Now…how do I get it to move?
Ghost girl problems.
Several more screams erupt when more people dive into it. I hear someone shouting, “It’s hellfire! Not eternal flames!”
They came to the conclusion a little later than my guys, it seems.
“They’re trying to kill us all. How are we supposed to break through hellfire?” a woman shouts.
Meanwhile, I’m back to staring at the boulder, wondering if I concentrate hard enough, if it’ll move into the flames. The fire has gotten closer to it, and it doesn’t seem to be affected by the flames.
The ground rumbles under me, and I whirl around and sway a little as I see that giant, scaly, furry worm thing leap out of the ground, a blackened soot color giving it an all the more ominous appearance.
It roars into the air as a spiraled mouthful of teeth protrude from its huge mouth.
Holy deadly centipede.
But the creepiest part is when three more heads suddenly appear, popping out of its neck with gooey strands attached to them. And the new heads are carrying the same razor sharp teeth.
“Hydra!” someone shouts just as the centipede from hell—huh, that might be literal—dives and swallows a mouthful…of people.
My heart almost kicks my chest when I see Ezekiel fly over the top of the centipede’s back, now that it’s blocking some of the flames, and his eyes widen on me.
“That thing seemed a lot more skittish the last time I was here,” I say on a shaky breath.
“You walked through hellfire,” he tells me, but before I can remind him that nothing can touch me, the centipede rears back, and Ezekiel draws his sword.
“E! Just go! We’ll catch up when we find a break in the fire,” Jude shouts.
Ezekiel smirks as he pulls his sword back. “I’ll make you a break in the fire.”
I hear Gage cursing, and Kai calling him a string of names, as the centipede roars again.
But the giant monster thingy suddenly reels back, much like it did the last time it saw me. Three of the four heads slink back inside its body so fast that I almost don’t register the action.
Then it turns and dives into the ground, just as it did the last time, running like it’s fleeing.
“What the hell?” Ezekiel asks incredulously.
“The boulder!” I snap. “The fire is touching it but it’s not burning it, so I assume it’s something special and can block the flames.”
He stares at it, glances at me, then goes behind it. Like he has all the strength in the world, he shoves that boulder hard, and it rolls, cutting through the flames.
Jude is the first to fly over the boulder, but when Gage starts to follow, I see the glint of a red sword as it swings down. My hand flies out so fast as fear pumps through me, and the woman holding the sword is launched backwards.
Her back slams into the wall, and the head of that giant centipede bursts out, snatching her and dragging her inside it as she screams in vain.
Gage’s eyes are on mine, and right behind him is Kai. They’ve made it past the boulder, and they’re just staring at me as others pass them by.
“If you idiots keep staring at me like I’m the centipede monster, you’re going to lose this life-and-death race, and then you’ll get your shot at seeing hell from the wrong side of things.”
Jude’s dark grin slowly grows, resembling the man I met on that first night before he was a total dick. I turn and start running ahead before I forget he threatened me later that night.
“You’re lucky I must be some type of giant bug repellent,” I call over my shoulder.
None of them say anything in response to that. Which they are a little busy dodging more of those blades that I just run right through.
“Right now, I wish we had her ability,” Jude growls as he slices through one of the blades just before it can take his head off.
By comparison his sword is tiny, but it has no trouble splitting the giant saw blade in half. He dives and rolls, putting his sword up and grabbing his two piece bo staff out like he’s about to fight something.
The rest of the people who aren’t them are lagging way behind, struggling with the reemergence of that giant bug from hell.
Again, that might be a literal reference.
I turn around just as Jude leaps into the air. A true giant beast—not exactly a man—with one eye and veiny skin is bringing his fist down.
Jude spins in the air, coming down with just one part of the bo staff, hitting the monster in the face so hard he flies backwards. Dirt scatters into the air, causing some of the fog to lift and make room.
Tingles spread over me as Ezekiel runs right through me, launching himself into the air and coming down with his sword. It slashes the cyclops’s chest, spilling blood everywhere, and then Jude shoves his hand into the fresh hole.
My mouth goes slack as the giant’s eye bulges, and his body turns to ash that Jude breaks through. He walks away like it’s a common occurrence.
They slice through about five more of those, and Jude keeps turning them to ash.
A shot of fire launches out, almost connecting with Kai’s head, and my hand flies up on instinct. The fire diverts, shooting backwards. I hear screams in the background and grimace, but I drop my hold on the fire the second Kai is out of the path.
The fire shoots through me, and I run out to see Kai’s jaw hard while he studies me.
“Feel free to start sharing some gratitude when I save your lives,” I grumble, passing through him and the wall behind him.
It’s all dirt and bugs and holey canals where creatures live, as I run through the wall they’ll have to go all the way around. Surely they can survive while I scout ahead.
Just as I burst through to the other side, my stomach sinks. I can’t see them at first, but I sense their dark presence. Things become more obvious as I stare at the walls, seeing the subtle differences in the rocks.
Ten men at least.
I turn and run back, catching the guys before they’re about to come around the corner.
“Stop!” I shout, and the four of them come to an abrupt halt.
It surprises me so much that they listen that I almost forget they’re waiting on me to tell them why I just screamed stop.
“At least ten men are waiting to ambush someone, likely the four of you because of that conspiracy stuff you were spilling on about.”
The horn to announce deaths blows four times, as though it wanted to make this moment more ominous.
“They blend in perfectly with the walls. There could be more that I didn’t see,” I go on.
“Chameleons,” Jude says to the other guys.
“There’s only one reason why upper level assassins would be in the gauntlet,” Ezekiel groans.
Jude puts his two pieces of his bo staff together to create the long, shimmering metal stick, and he spins it in his hand as a dark smile curves his lips.
“I think we can handle ten of them,” Kai says as he pulls out his swords, not his sai.
“There could be more,” I remind him.
I’m ignored. I guess they’re done listening to me.
“On one,” Ezekiel says with a grin that matches Jude’s.
“One?” I ask, confused.
They all dart through me or by me, and my breath rushes out as I turn to chase them. Apparently I said the magic word.
Jude is already throwing the bo staff through the chest of one as he breaks away from the wall, coming after him.
His eyes widen as the staff breaks through the skin, and he drops to the ground, a look of pure disbelief on his face. Then his gaze lands on me as the life drains from his eyes.
He holds my stare, and I freeze, certain he sees me. But as he collapses to the side, lifeless, I return my attention to the guys. An awed breath escapes me at how they seem to fight like they can read each other’s minds.
Jude ducks as Kai swings a sword, decapitating two of the men rushing Jude from behind. Jude snatches his bo staff out of the other guy’s chest, and spins it, putting it through the neck of one guy who is still hidden against the wall.
Ezekiel takes a hard hit to his side, but he immediately slams a sword through the guy’s chest and twists it as the guy screams in pain. His head dips as Gage’s sword swings by, catching the throat of another attacker.
The four of them work like their own well-oiled army. I prop up and watch, unable to look away.
A man runs right through me, charging Ezekiel from behind, but Gage throws his sword, catching the guy in the face.
He drops, and I frown.
“I thought these were upper level assassins,” I state as the final one lands in a heap. More than ten. Definitely more than ten.
“They are,” Ezekiel says as he jerks his sword out of a man’s body that is pinned to the rocks.
The body drops lifelessly as he wipes the blood off his sword.
“The reason they want us dead so badly, is because we’re far stronger than we should be. And if we can get into the underworld, we might be able to stop the coup before there’s a purge,” Jude answers as he starts stalking down the gauntlet again.
We’re now way ahead of the other competitors.
“There’s a moment between life and death when people seem to be able to see me. Other than that guy I touched. Clearly upper level royalty can’t even see me unless that moment occurs, since the heirs couldn’t. So I’m assuming my touch had something to do with that one guy, because aside from the four of you, he’s the only one who has seen me outside of the in-between moment of life and death,” I state more to myself than anyone.
I’m used to talking aloud to them, expecting them not to answer because they can’t hear me.
I’m surprised when Kai speaks. “It would make sense if you’re suspended in the same state. But it doesn’t explain how you’re getting stronger instead of weaker.”
“Maybe I’m just really hard to kill,” I suggest.
A sword slices through me as if summoned by that brazen proclamation, and my eyes widen as a man charges by, that sword aimed at Jude.
He dispatches him quickly, and my heart slows down again.
“Eyes open in case we missed more,” Kai says, rotating his sword in his hand as he looks around, still walking.
I move way out ahead, growing queasy when I see a massive pit of moving lava blocking the path. The volcanic river that floats through probably isn’t very inviting.
The guys join me at the ledge, viewing the hundred or more feet in front of us.
“Can’t go around this,” Jude curses. “We’d have to leave the gauntlet to do that.”
“How the hell do they expect us to cross this? What if it’s more hellfire instead of eternal flame?” Ezekiel growls.
I can just walk on top of it, since I’m weightless. I move out onto it, trying to study it better. As I tap my foot, I find all four of them studying me.
“What?” I ask, feeling uncomfortable being the subject of all those intense stairs.
I guess that shows I was an idiot to think I could handle an intense foursome. Well, fivesome—whatever that is.
I still want to try it. Just not with these assholes. I saw some other quad teams up there who looked fierce but still high on the list of sexy. Maybe I can attach myself to them and grow whole enough to finally get my fantasy.
I bet their Three wouldn’t even be selfish.
“Is it hellfire or eternal flame? One we’ll survive. The other we won’t,” Gage states dryly.
I look down and back up. “How would I know? I can’t feel anything physical.”
Ezekiel runs a hand through his hair. “They’d have had to put hell stone up here to hold all this lava. The fire beds would have taken a while to prepare, but something of this caliber would take much longer, and it would have drained the individual a large amount. How badly do they really want us dead?” he asks the other three.
“They knew there’d be no way across without running out of the gauntlet or siphoning. Both would disqualify us and likely cost us our lives. What happens when dark angels who never died before finally do die? What if that’s what all this is about, and they need us to die?” Gage asks.
“If anyone cares, I vote you stay there while I try to channel enough protective mojo to knock some of this away or something.”
They ignore me, since they likely know that’s a last ditch effort.
“I doubt anyone could want us dead this badly,” Kai says, deciding to risk it.
“No!” I shout too late as he steps onto the fire.
It happens so slow and so fast, all at once. The fire rushes up his leg, and a feral sound of agony explodes from him. The guys rush to grab him, just as the lava evaporates, a path around us quickly being carved out and stretching across the fiery lake.
The fire is still licking up Kai’s leg, and I dive, landing on him. The flames extinguish along his leg, and he roars that same inhumanly sound again as his body tenses and contorts with excruciating pain.
I push off him, my eyes tracking the lava that continues to retreat as though someone is peeling it away now.
None of that power is coming from me. That’s way above my fear-induced, what-will-happen-this-time, beginner’s level. It’s an intricate and complex power that hums through me and makes me envious, almost covetous.
I have to blink a few times to keep from going into a rage about it. It makes no sense, since I’m really grateful someone is helping out.
I whirl around, finding a familiar redhead perched on a rock like it’s her favorite seat in the house, as she chews a piece of gum around a smile.
Lilith.
Why the hell did she just save them?
The guys start carrying Kai, rushing across before the devil’s eldest daughter changes her mind. I watch her, even as she never sees me. She stands and spins in a circle, twirling her hair around her fingers as she walks away with an exaggerated hip shake.
I turn around, watching as the lava starts closing back in, slowly at first, but steadily growing speed the longer she’s away.
My gaze snaps back to see them running faster now. Jude turns and grabs Kai, putting him over his shoulder and running behind them, but losing a little too much ground.
The other two turn to grab them, and launch them way ahead. By some miracle, they manage to make it across just in time, and all of them collapse a great distance away from the lava.
“Energy sucking fucking rocks,” Jude groans, arching his back like he’s in pain.
“They don’t just want us dead; they want us fucking tortured too,” Kai bites out, his leg still charred and slow to heal.
“I’ve seen him slice a thumb off with one of his soul sucking blades, and the damn thing healed back immediately. What’s taking it so long this time?” I ask aloud, again forgetting they can hear me now.
“Hellfire,” Ezekiel answers, kneeling to rip the jeans up and away from the worst part of the leg. “It’ll take days for this to heal. We still have to cross over the last ridge, that will likely have lethal monsters, and dragging him up there is going to take a lot more energy than those rocks left us with.”
“Lilith never bestows a gift without offering a curse with it. It’s how she maintains balance,” Jude says as he tears his shirt off and starts putting more pressure on Kai’s leg when he bleeds through the first one.
“She wants us to have to choose to attempt to make it by dragging him to the line, knowing there are only twenty places available. We might all die if we’re slowed down too much. Or we could leave Kai behind so we can occupy three of those spots and ensure we survive, even if it means sacrificing his life,” Ezekiel goes on.
My heart sinks.
“Is there a way to speed up the healing?” I ask, getting closer and kneeling beside his leg.
He hisses out a sound that tells me he really doesn’t want me this close right now. Since he hates me and all.
“No, not in here, and we can’t waste anymore time. Tie it off and cut it off. It’ll grow back in a couple of weeks. We have time before the second trials. It’ll make it easier on him that way. The hellfire hurts worse than amput—”
Gage’s words cut off as I run my hand along the wound, tears in my eyes for no reason at all. I really don’t like Three. He doesn’t like me. But it still feels like my heart is breaking.
So much pain.
It’s almost like I can feel it too.
I look down as the skin tries tugging together under every swipe of my hand, and my spine stiffens. My hand freezes against his leg, and he hisses out another sound as the skin starts to slowly pull together, the charred pieces breaking apart like brittle fragments hiding new skin.
It’s a little slow, but it keeps going, and he sucks in a breath of what sounds like relief as his body relaxes. It’s not completely healed, but the burns are gone, and the skin is healing faster on its own now.
He darts a gaze to me—a mix of wary curiosity and guarded appreciation, but it’s gone before I can be sure.
“She put the fire out, and she healed his leg. I’m starting to think she really is a damn protective spirit to balance out the scales that have been tipped against us,” Ezekiel says as he studies me with narrowed eyes.
One corner of my mouth tugs in a grin.
“Let’s run then discuss what she is or isn’t,” Jude says as he helps Kai to his feet.
Kai is able to run now, not slowing anyone down. I look around for the woman in red, curious if she’s still watching. Fortunately, no one is.
I don’t really want anyone knowing they have a protective spirit.
That’ll mean more people than them trying to figure out a way to get rid of me.
I look back and quickly cover the same ground they just made in half the time. Kai looks over at me as I run beside him, but I don’t meet his gaze.
If he’s nice right now, I’ll rant about what a jerk he’s been. If he looks at me like I’m still gum on his shoe, I might just let them all die the next time and not give a damn.
Either way, it’s not a good time for either.
Running through Ezekiel and stealing some of those tingles, I keep going until they finally stop, heaving for air.
“What’re you doing? We still have to climb over the ridge,” I remind them.
“We’re lucky we haven’t come across any hell beasts yet, but we’re about to go up a ridge that is notorious for them. Those stones stole a lot of our energy, so we need a break before we climb that thing.”
My eyes lift, seeing the lava evaporate, and then sensing lives before I see them. A massive spiel of people who were likely trapped there are being let through, but this time it’s the Gemini twins who are atop a rock and grinning.
“I’m not sure how many are going to survive, but I strongly suggest running again just in case it’s more than twenty,” I point out.
“Shit,” Kai groans, turning to start climbing.
A surprise burst of tingles happen down below, and my eyes dart down to see a hand poking out of my pubic bone.
“What are you doing?” I ask Jude, knowing without a doubt those dark tingles are his.
“Seeing if you somehow offer a power charge too. Unfortunately, the answer is no.”
“Then can you withdraw your hand? At the rate I’ve been saving your lives, I’ll be powering up anytime now, surely. I’d rather not turn whole while your hand is in my vagina.”
Gage grins, and Jude laughs under his breath as he withdraws his hand. I stare at the ridge before us. It’s really like a thousand feet of mountainside that mostly goes straight up with a few ledges where you can hike instead of climb for a bit.
Already I see something scurrying into a dark cave on the side, a long tail whipping behind it a second before it darts out of sight.
A chill runs along my spine. Not cool.
That looked way too snake-like.
“What kind of monsters are we talking about?” I ask them as they start ascending, looking for footholds and such.
The horn of death wails loudly in the background, announcing a lot of fallen competitors. I suppose the Geminis are a little crueler than Lilith.
“What are the point of these trials? Other than to cull the weak? To show everyone how cold they can be?” I ask, turning to start scaling the mountain beside them.
“It’s another balance system. They can’t have the weak. The weak will betray far faster than the strong. They want to know who sticks with their team. They want to see how many will cheat. It’s called hell for a reason. Not the most trustworthy applicants are applying for these jobs,” Kai explains through strain as he hauls himself up.
It’s way easier for me to climb. I’m not pulling a muscled body up the oddly angled side.
“But some will always have favorites they want to succeed, because they usually already know the ones they don’t trust,” Ezekiel adds.
Another long tail whips over my head, and an embarrassing squeal shoots out of me before I can help it. It’s just a tiny lizard. In my head, that tail was forty feet long.
“Good thing you look like a leather-wearing badass today,” Jude says from above me.
“Fully equipped with unusable weapons,” Kai adds.
“Fake it until you make it. I’ve saved your lives more than once. Speaking of which, why was that girl going to stab one of you? That’s breaking the rules.”
“Like we said, they want to know who will disrespect tradition. Bad applicants don’t make it past purgatory.”
The clang of a sword has my gaze darting up, and I get a little queasy when I see the huge lizard snapping at Jude, raising a scorpion-like tail like it’s about to strike.
“No!” I shout, just as Kai launches his sword into the air.
The beast screeches and darts away, scurrying into a hole as the sword flies up.
“Yelling brings more,” Kai growls.
My eyes dart around in a panic, and I look around, worrying the entire climb where the rest are.
Screams from below me have me looking down—terrible idea, by the way.
I get dizzy as I stare below, watching the monsters pile all over the men and women, ripping things to shreds.
“At least it called them down there instead of to us,” Gage says, a hint of sadistic delight in his tone.
I’m busy staring down still, unmoving. I never knew I had an issue with being on the side of the mountain until this moment. Then again, it is the first time I’ve found myself in this predicament.
For a moment, I don’t realize I’m falling until the world is whirring by me. My eyes come up in a panic as I see Kai grab for me, his hand slipping through my body on my way down.
In the next breath, I’m suddenly clinging to the wall again like a wet cat dangling above water, my whole body shaking as I clutch it for dear life.
Jude’s chuckle comes right beside me when I see it’s him I’ve just landed by. I really like this being able to move without actually moving thing right now, even if it does leave me a dizzy and disoriented.
“A protective spirit who’s afraid of heights,” Jude mutters under his breath, still laughing a little as he pulls himself over a ledge.
I zap there too, happy that I seem to have that down pat, at the moment.
“It’s more of an aversion to being on the side of a mountain than it is the actual height,” I correct.
“We’re almost there. The second we reach the top, stay close. They kick us out when we cross the finish line,” Gage says as he leaps over the edge, joining us.
The other two join us as well.
At least they gave me a warning.
The mountain turns into more of a hiking trail that I managed to glimpse from the ground earlier, but it’s a lot higher up than I realized.
We cut through a huge forest I never would have known was up here, keeping a quick pace. I warily cast a glance in the direction of every sound.
I follow closely, since I have no idea what a finish line even looks like. I doubt there will be a bright red ribbon to run through.
May have to jump through a fire hoop or something.
Something loud roars, and the guys start moving a lot faster as the trees behind us start shaking fiercely.
It’s like a spike of adrenaline hits them, and they move twice as fast, causing me to struggle to keep up.
I see trees flying up as something massive barrels through the forest, a hint of dark fur peeking through the top of the tree-line as we start hiking a steep incline.
That’s not good.
A hellacious roar almost deafens me even in spirit form.
Just as it crashes through the trees and I get a glimpse of a mouthful of teeth, tingles shoot through my hand, and a white light blasts.