Chapter 25
The Cascade - Part One
The front was already drowning in monsters when our unit arrived.
A twisted mockery of a rooster with dragon scales and a serpent's tail was spitting a stream of acid that caught a man's arm and melted it to the elbow.
His screams cut short as the beast snapped the man's head in its beak, crushing it; blood and acid dripped to the floor in a sizzle.
"Keep moving!" Kaz shouted, his voice carrying without effort over the chaos.
"On me, you worthless wretches!" Kaz's Origin flared bright. Golden light poured from his skin, his eyes turning into twin suns.
"Fish!" Kaz's voice snapped my attention back. "You're with Zo. Keep your constructs tight and controlled."
"There are roughly fifteen beasts approaching from the northern tear. They look like a man and a hyena did the unspeakable… Oh, and they have really sharp weapons." Mabel's voice slithered through my mind.
It was seven feet of muscle and matted fur, its hyena head thrown back in a horrible cackling laugh. It held an axe high and brought fourteen of its packmates with it.
My constructs formed faster than ever, blade on one arm, partial exoskeleton across my torso.
I met the first axe with my worm-blade, the impact shuddering through me, then with my encased hand I gripped its throat and pulled hard, tearing muscle and sinew out.
Blood sprayed hot across my face; my tongue traced my lips, tasting the hot blood, as the hunger surged again.
The worms beneath my skin were practically foaming their little spiral mouths.
Not yet.
The combat collapsed into pure chaos.
My world shrank to the immediate surroundings.
The Hyena-man lunging for my throat, the pack trying to surround me.
The training with Mabel kicked in. I didn't think about my movements; the worms reacted before conscious thought, forming shields against the incoming strikes, and hardening beneath the skin when claws raked across my chest.
Zo fought nearby, her cyan hair whipping as she moved.
I watched as a club crashed into her, and she laughed; it was a sound of pure joy as she absorbed the kinetic energy.
Her Origin flared, and she released it in a devastating counter that sent three of them flying, their bodies breaking apart in an explosion of gore.
She controlled the tempo; she was overwhelming, seducing the fight itself into her rhythm.
Kaz was a sun. His olden axes were encased with flames that seared flesh; he turned the hyena-men to ash before they could scream.
He advanced slowly, methodically, an unstoppable force that created a zone of safety behind him.
An alpha emerged from the back of the pack… it was larger than the others.
It had a long scar across its muzzle and wielded an axe that seemed to have been forged from an ogre's skull. It rallied its pack with a howl that raised the hair on my arms.
"The alpha can empower its underlings," Mabel observed. "Kill it first or this gets substantially more difficult."
One of them slipped past my guard, its claws raking across my side, breaking through my hastily-formed exoskeleton.
The pain flared hot and immediate. My worms rushed to repair the damage, consuming my own energy to regenerate. The hunger screamed louder.
Feed. FEED.
I gritted my teeth and kept fighting.
The pack alpha fixed its yellow eyes on me, seeing weakness, seeing blood. It charged, axe raised.
I let it come.
At the last moment, I created a whip-like tendril of jagged bone-worms. It snapped towards the alpha, wrapping its weapon arm around it and yanking it off-balance.
My blade punched through its chest, the worms surging forward, their sharp little mouths ripping through flesh, bone and muscle.
I let out a roar of triumph, trying not to lose myself in the frenzy. The alpha's eyes widened in shock, then dimmed.
Its body went limp on my blade.
The remaining beasts broke and scattered, their morale shattered with their leader. I stood over the corpse, breathing hard.
"Acceptable," Mabel said, which, from her, was practically a standing ovation.
"Push forward!" Kaz called, his golden light cutting through the smoke and chaos. "We hold this position!"
◆◆◆
Time lost meaning in combat.
Had we been fighting for minutes? Hours? The sky above us was torn open, multiple tears bleeding different colors.
Kaz intercepted a wolf pack alpha. The beast tried to dodge, but Kaz’ flames caught it, and the wolf died screaming in agony.
The worms sensed something, sending a tingling sensation.
I spun, my blade already forming, and caught a wolf with the tip of my sword. The blade sank deep into its chest, but momentum pushed us both back.
We hit the ground hard, the beast's weight crushing the air from my lungs. Its jaws snapped inches from my face.
Zo was there in an instant, her fist connecting with the monster's skull.
There was a crack, and the beast went limp. She pulled it off me, grinning wildly, blood streaking her face.
"You getting slow, Fish? That was sloppy."
"Just giving you something to do," I gasped, getting to my feet.
Her laugh was bright and sharp against the backdrop of battle. "There's plenty to do without you playing the damsel."
The ground beneath us trembled.
"Move!" Mabel's voice was sharp with fear.
Without thinking twice, I grabbed Zo's arm and yanked her back, just as the earth exploded where she'd been standing.
Three meters of armored centipede burst upward, mandibles dripping with venom.
Its segmented body spiraled as it fixed on us, then lunged for a group of prisoners a few meters away.
Three people were gone in the blink of an eye, ripped apart.
The centipede dragged a fourth underground, her screams fading as the earth swallowed her.
There were more eruptions around us, the ground becoming as dangerous as the air. Prisoners screamed, caught between the monsters above and the horrors below.
I scanned the battlefield, trying to make sense of the chaos.
The tears kept opening. The beasts kept coming.
This wasn't a battle we could win; we were all going to die…
Curtis's voice boomed across the front; his retreat orders echoed throughout the remaining units.
Retreating would be difficult. Our reality was complete chaos, prisoners scattered and running in every direction, the beasts pursuing them, cutting off all paths of retreat.
"Fish, stay close!" Zo called, backing toward our fallback position.
I moved to follow, and saw the woman with snake-scale patches across her throat.
A beast had her, its image shimmering a meter from its actual location as its tentacles wrapped around her throat.
I moved toward her, but Zo pulled me back.
"It's too late for her!"
I could only watch as the tentacles tightened.
The woman stopped struggling as she was pulled apart, the skin of each limb stretching and tearing, her blood spraying across the battlefield.
Our unit reached the rally point, which formed a natural chokepoint between the rock formations.
Kaz had blocked off the monsters, his flames burning brightly, creating a barrier of fire the beasts seemed reluctant to cross.
"What's the status report?" Kaz demanded, scanning what remained of our unit.
"We lost eight," someone called. "Fourteen wounded."
I leaned against a rock, trying to catch my breath. My body ached from wounds that had already closed, from the constant drain of using my Origin.
Beyond Kaz's wall of flames, the beasts prowled back and forth, watching, testing it for weakness.
It was a moment of safety that wouldn't last long.
As if on cue, a tear split directly within our little sanctuary.
The air cracked, and undead soldiers poured through; their ancient armor hung from their desiccated flesh.
Kaz charged into their midst, his golden axes blazing like twin suns.
"Regroup! Don't let them break our ranks!" he shouted.
His axes and flames met the undead resilience.
While Kaz was occupied, the wall of fire weakened.
Beasts that had been held at bay began to find gaps in our defenses.
"We can't hold!" someone shouted.
Curtis's voice echoed throughout the front again… he wanted all units to converge on the fortress's central defensive position. All bridges, all survivors.
This was it. The final pullback.
Kaz finished off the last undead, his flames cremating the monster.
"Fall back, you heard the order! Fish, Zo, take point. Everyone else, maintain formation!"
I found myself near the front, Zo beside me, Sophie appearing and disappearing on our rear like a bloody ghost.
Her crimson constructs cut through the beasts that tried to intercept us, her pale blue-grey eyes cold and focused.
We found Bridge One's survivors mid-retreat.
Sadie was unmistakable; her radiance turned her into a beacon of white light, her weapons of light forming and reforming as she covered her unit's withdrawal.
She fought like she was conducting a symphony… brutal, beautiful, perfectly controlled.
Rafe was right next to her. His quickstep made him a blur.
He wasn't as visually overwhelming as Kaz or Sadie, but his efficiency was on par. Nothing touched him. Nothing came close. Between attacks, he was helping wounded prisoners move, his warm voice cutting through their panic.
"Stay with me," he was saying to a limping man. "Just a little further. You can make it."
The two groups merged.
Kaz and Sadie were exchanging information. When I felt something shift in the air.
I looked up at the largest tear on the horizon. It was growing. Spreading and consuming the other tears.
I could see something massive moving behind it.
"Kaz," I called, pointing. "What the fuck is that?"
He followed my gaze, his golden light dimming slightly. For the first time since I'd met him, I saw fear in his face.
"Run… Everyone run!"