I saw the gruesome creature lunge at Inalia. A second later, I was right in front of it. I swung my sword out wide, mercilessly cutting through its chest. The skin split open, and blood sprayed out. It tumbled backward, but, in less than half a minute, it was already back on all fours, the wound on its muscular chest healing.

We were learning a lot about these creatures in a matter of minutes.

“We’ve got to get the others out,” Amelia said, then bolted in the direction of one Brother, about twenty yards away. She moved fast, light on her feet, as she dashed past the creature towering over the Cerixian man and left it with claw marks that ran painfully deep. The beast growled, temporarily distracted as it chased after Amelia. The Cerixian man was able to get up and run away, while the rest of us kept the monsters distracted.

“A little while longer, dammit!” Riza grumbled, then vanished and reappeared forty feet back. A creature showed up right next to her, determined to tear her to shreds.

“This is unbelievable,” I mumbled, unable to process what I was witnessing.

None of our blows were fatal to these monsters. Sure, we managed to annoy, injure, and distract them long enough for the remaining Brothers of the Shadow to get up and escape, but we didn’t seem able to kill them. Whatever these creatures were, they’d been designed with people like me in mind.

Riza was trying to get another Brother out of harm’s way, dodging one creature, but she had another that had caught her scent and was able to teleport along with her, across short distances. I instinctively wondered if they could do the same where miles were concerned.

I stayed close to Eira and Inalia, surprised by their quick reactions. They complemented each other beautifully, as well. Inalia had destructive fireballs at her fingertips, while Eira used water from the underground to launch ice spears at any of the creatures that dared approach them. The one I’d cut through was back, as well, circling around us and licking its ridiculously sharp fangs, looking at me as if I were its prime rib steak dinner.

Needless to say, I was scared. I couldn’t say it out loud, but I was scared. Not of the monsters themselves, because we could kill them, eventually, if we worked hard enough. No, I was scared by the number of Cerixians that had already died, and, most importantly, I was scared by the extent to which the Hermessi were going to in order to get us.

“This has to be the Hermessi’s doing,” I said, mostly to myself, then teleported myself behind the enemy creature. It vanished. A split second passed, and I heard the bloodcurdling growl in my right ear, its hot and putrid breath brushing against the side of my neck.

Think fast.

I teleported again, leaving the creature behind, before it could snap its jaws shut and rip me apart. However, as quickly as I moved, so did it. It reappeared in front of me, on its hind legs and with its front claws out, eager to break me.

“Get behind me!” I heard Inalia shout.

I did. I teleported myself right behind her.

“Duck!” she said.

Without hesitation, I dropped to the ground and glanced behind me. The monster teleported itself closer as well, persistent in its pursuit of me. I did spot the glimmer of surprise in its many eyes when it saw Inalia. Fire shot from her incandescent palms. She groaned from the effort, sweat covering her face, but she did it—she released a curtain of fire strong enough to take one creature down.

I shot back up and gave her a thankful smile. “You should consider a career with GASP,” I said.

“I might, if nothing else comes up,” she replied with a wink, then turned her focus to the other creatures that were moving in on us. It was a painful reminder that she was still expected to sacrifice herself as the next Hermessi.

Herakles’s grunts startled me. Looking around, I spotted him on the northern edge of our battlefield, pinned down by two creatures. It had taken two to hold the titan in place, and I worried they’d be the end of him, too.

I teleported next to them and slashed with my sword multiple times, going for the soft parts, their chests and thick, strong necks. There were muscles there that I could cut through. The aim was to deliver enough damage to keep them busy while I rescued their targets. I managed to teleport Herakles back by Eira and Inalia’s side, noticing how the creatures continued to circle them, without attacking.

Inalia’s fire and Eira’s ice hurt them, but, still, they didn’t retaliate. That seemed odd, at first, until I realized what was going on. One creature had tried to attack Inalia already—but only once. The others seemed to be holding back now. Maybe my theory was correct and much more complicated. Maybe the Hermessi had control over these monsters and were able to tell them not to attack the person they perceived to be the next Fire Hermessi. The elementals’ children were off limits, from what I could tell.

On the other side of the cave opening, from which more beasts emerged, I could see the trouble that the rest of my crew was in. Amelia was holding on well, and so was Eva. Both were fast and agile enough to avoid the serious hits as they did their best to rescue a couple more Cerixians. Varga had caught one creature in a syphoning link, but three more were coming up behind him.

Riza couldn’t lose the five creatures that were teleporting with her. And Raphael had his wings fanned out, flying around and cutting through as many monsters as he could. Deformed bodies started dropping, blood pooling around them. But the victory didn’t last long, as a more enterprising creature rammed into Raphael from the side and took him down.

I tried to zap closer to his location so I could help, but I got cut off by two monsters with their sights set on me. Two short arrows flew past my head, both piercing the creatures’ foreheads. All their eyes grew wide and glassy as they collapsed, lifeless, on the cold, hard ground. Glancing behind me, I saw Herakles with his wrist-mounted crossbow, sneering.

“They’re not impossible to kill, then,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, just difficult, and we’re already short on time!”

“Tae, watch out!” Amelia screamed.

Too late. I was tackled. I landed hard on my left side, my face nearly crushed against a jagged rock. I felt the skin crack, warm blood trickling down my cheek as I wiggled around to avoid the incoming claws. One creature had just gotten the drop on me, and I had mere moments to get myself out.

These bastards were big and agile, a cross between different species. Their teleportation ability offended me, so I wasn’t willing to let myself die here. I muttered a curse under my breath, then punched the monster hard in the chest, with all the strength I could muster. It was enough to push it, enough for me to bring my knees up and slip my boots between us. I kicked it, then zapped myself out of its reach.

My reprieve didn’t last long. The creature showed up next to me.

“This is getting repetitive and annoying,” I grumbled, then slashed at it with my sword and knife. I gave it everything I had, until I remembered Herakles’s move with the crossbow arrows. Those were precise headshots he’d delivered—right between the eyes.

I ducked and swerved around to avoid the creature’s left set of claws, then jumped and drove my knife into its forehead. It froze, staring at me in what had to be sheer disbelief—the last inkling of conscious thought before its damaged brain shut down, permanently. It fell to the side with a heavy thump, and I retrieved my blade, thrilled to see another freak of nature go down.

“Aim for their heads!” I shouted.

“Yeah, easier said than done!” Raphael moaned while straddling one of the creatures.

This wasn’t looking any better. There were still a dozen Brothers left here, all of them injured, crippled to the point where they could no longer walk on their own. We were grossly outnumbered, and the creatures’ ability to teleport severely hindered our rescue operation.

This fight wasn’t going to end soon. If we took one creature down, two others took its place. They were all remarkably fast and resilient, in large and constantly increasing numbers, and they were determined to kill us. Before I could even think of a way out, I had four monsters to deal with, on my own. One way or another, we had to get out of here. But first, we needed to make physical contact so I’d be able to teleport everyone away from here. Hoping, of course, that the creatures wouldn’t be able to follow us across wider distances.

But, no matter what I did or how I moved, our monstrous enemies were clearly adept at keeping us apart from one another. We’d willingly walked into this in order to save as many innocent Cerixians as we could—and now, we had to get ourselves out. The dozen Brothers left were doomed to die soon, and in horrible pain, as the creatures gained more territory.

Riza managed to get them all in one spot, eventually, but, as soon as she did, more creatures appeared around the Brothers and started tearing into them. I felt the need to retch but couldn’t. A single second that we didn’t spend fighting for our lives could lead to the demise of one or all members of my crew.

Myself included. But I’m not going down without a fight.

I raised my sword and all the hell I could muster, swinging left and right in a constant spinning motion as my four monsters tried to go for the kill. Ribbons of blood rippled around me. The sleek sound of steel cutting through flesh and bone. I went all in, angry and determined to either survive or die taking as many of these fiends down with me as I could.

Time was running out for all of us, not just Cerix.