Sorin went sprawling into the dirt, and whatever had hit him disappeared. That was better than the alternative, because it was heavy enough that it would have made it difficult to climb back to his feet if it had still been clinging to him, and staying on the ground was an excellent way to die in a hurry. Almost as soon as he hit the dirt, he was back upright.

  A burst of fire exploded near him, immolating something fat, round, and pink. The pink thing released another high-pitched scream of incoherent rage, ignored the flames engulfing it, and charged with a series of long, stomping hops that shook the ground with each impact.

  Three more of them came flying out of nowhere to attack Sorin. Now that he’d had a second to get his bearings, he could see they were some sort of pink-furred, giant, eighty-pound rabbit, with incisors that could easily bite off a few fingers at a time and feet three times larger than his own. It took no imagination to know how much it would hurt to be kicked by one of these monsters; he was almost positive that was what had happened to him the instant he’d arrived.

  Nemari was about fifty feet away, hurling fire at everything that moved while Odric served as her front line to keep the massive rabbits from kicking her to death. He’d taken a beating, so much so that his healing soulprints couldn’t keep up with the damage, but he was still on his feet. Rue was on the other side, running interference between any monsters trying to flank them, though her inability to put down a rabbit with a single, decisive blow was costing her.

  What is it with this group and stepping into the shit the second they walk through a gate?

  As expected, Floor 2 monsters were significantly tougher on average than what the group had been fighting prior to defeating the portal guardian. A single ice blade wasn’t enough to put one of the rabbits down, and they were quick to dodge the conjured weapons anyway. Sorin did manage to break apart their formation, preventing them from slamming into him one after another.

  The first one reached him, only to fall back in a spray of blood as he whipped his sword out and cut a long slice across its body. It rebounded immediately, getting tangled up with the rabbit coming up behind it, but the third of the trio leaped over both and descended on Sorin, its feet leading.

  The problem with being in the air, at least on the lower floors, was that it was really hard to dodge. That particular rabbit found that out the hard way when two ice blades slammed into it. Its controlled kick turned into a desperate tumble that ended with it coming down on Sorin’s raised sword.

  His arms quivered from the impact, but Warrior’s Vigilance proved its worth again. He held his ground, swinging the sword with both hands to slide the body free. It flew through the air, a fleshy missile that smacked into the two rabbits just now untangling themselves.

  Huh. Is it just me, or were those a lighter pink a few seconds ago?

  Sorin used the free second to do another quick sweep of the battlefield, and something jumped out at him. There were no monster corpses. Despite numerous grass fires and multiple monsters actively burning to death, he didn’t see a single dead body. Color variations in fur he’d initially dismissed as individual shading or distortions brought on by the flames suddenly jumped out at him.

  Ah. Fuck. Berserker jacks.

  He didn’t know how long the fight had been going on before he’d arrived, but he’d bet those rabbits all had pristine white coats at first. The longer they fought, the darker their fur got until it was bloody crimson. They’d start to ignore injuries, too, and eventually heal from them. Hurting them just spurred their frenzies on.

  The correct tactic was focused fire on a single target to kill it before it got out of control. Even that would rush the rest of the pack to the peak of their frenzy, but it was better than the alternative. Unfortunately, that was what the rest of his team had inadvertently done while defending themselves.

  There were eight berserker jacks that he could count, most of them still in the pink phase, but a few darkening toward true red. That included the one Sorin had just wounded, as well as two of the five the rest of his team was fending off. Those needed to be the priority targets.

  “They’re berserker jacks!” he yelled. “The darker their fur, the stronger they get. Focus on killing them one at a time!”

  “Sorin! You’re here,” Odric called back. “We were worried.”

  Sorin drove his sword into the wounded berserker jack’s skull, eliciting a death spasm from it and a trickle of anima flowing into his soul space. The other two came at him, but he dodged out of the way. His instinct was to draw his blade across the nearer one’s leg and hobble it, but it likely wouldn’t be slowed at all if he tried.

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  Withdrawing across the field to get closer to Rue, who was struggling to hold off two jacks at once now, Sorin drove his pursuers off with a barrage of ice blades. Luckily for him, they weren’t so far gone in a berserk state to just charge right through the magic. Unluckily, it only gave him a few seconds before they were chasing after him again.

  Sorin swooped in to intercept one of the jacks harrying Rue, choosing the more wounded of the pair to focus on. He only had a moment, but a trio of ice blades softened it up and got it into position for him to behead the monster as he went by.

  Two dead, six left.

  Rue had one in front of her. Sorin had two following him. That left three for Nemari and Odric, all of which were darkening as they reached suicidal levels of abandon. Odric really wasn’t doing much damage, but Nemari had spread out her flames equally between the monsters.

  “Go help them kill those three,” Sorin told Rue. “I’ll hold these ones off.”

  He darted in front of the girl, sword leading the way to intercept a flying two-legged kick. It smacked heavily into the blade, driving the edge deep into the pads of its paws, but that only elicited another angry squeal from the monster as Sorin shoved it back. He had the perfect opportunity to finish it off but no time to follow up on it with two more of the jacks closing in.

  Keeping the rest of his team within range of Blind Sense was the most he could do to watch over them, especially with his attention being taken up by three extremely aggressive berserker jacks. The goal was to push them back without injuring any of them while he circled the other half of the fight so he could help get the other three monsters loosely under his control.

  Odric let out a deep, throaty bellow of pain as a still-burning jack slammed into him. His shirt caught on fire, but that was the least of his worries. The monster rode him to the ground, then started jumping in place, each hop slamming its feet into Odric’s stomach and chest.

  “Get away from him!” Nemari snarled, unleashing a focused blast of fire from the tip of her wand.

  It was an instinctive reaction, one that Sorin couldn’t really fault her for making. Her teammate was in trouble; she attacked the monster. For almost anything else, it would have been a helpful response. In this case, all it did was ignite even more of its dark red fur and cause its eyes to brighten with unrestrained fury.

  They needed something with weight to throw the monster off Odric, but Sorin’s ice blades weren’t strong enough to make a difference. Even at full speed and maximum power, he didn’t think it would slow an enraged jack down.

  Rue saved her brother, but it cost her. She practically tackled the jack, lighting herself on fire in the process. Both blades led her lunge and pierced through the monster, one in the stomach and the other through its shoulder and out its back. The jack didn’t care, of course. It was too far gone to be deterred by something as simple as pain, but it transferred the focus of its rage from Odric to her.

  Unlike Odric, Rue didn’t have slabs of muscle to help keep her internal organs safe from blunt trauma injuries. She was maybe half Odric’s weight, at best. Worse than that, she didn’t have his healing soulprints, so when the flames spread to her clothing and hair, never mind the jack trying to bite her face off and kicking with its powerful hind legs, she immediately started screaming.

  This just went from bad to worse.

  The plan to hold his three indefinitely was no longer viable. The rest of his team had lost control of their half of the battle. The only way to save them was to extract all the enemies from the battlefield. That part, at least, would be easy to do. It wasn’t hard to lure a berserk enemy into a trap. The only problem was that Sorin didn’t have one set up.

  “Pull back!” he yelled to Nemari as he ran by, the trio of jacks in pursuit. “Get Odric and Rue back on their feet.”

  He sprayed out ice blades as fast as he could, peppering the two jacks closing in on Odric while he hacked his sword into the one about to kill Rue. There wasn’t time to set his stance, so he relied on momentum and the raw power in his arms to drive the edge through magically-reinforced fur and bone.

  He didn’t cut deep, but he did slap the jack off of Rue mid-jump. It tumbled ten feet before rolling to its feet and throwing itself at Sorin. A quick check confirmed that six of the monsters were focused on him now. That part was pretty easy. As long as Nemari didn’t try to ‘help’ by lighting up the monsters’ back sides, he wouldn’t need to do anything else.

  She was too busy trying to put out the fires on both her teammates to assist Sorin, which was just the way he wanted it. Providing they didn’t die from their injuries, the rest of his team was safe for the moment. That was by no means a guarantee, but they had a healer who could both heal and treat the infections so common with burns.

  They’ll be alright. Now I just have to make sure to survive, too. Dying after less than a minute on Floor 2 would be embarrassing.

  The grasslands stretched out before him, miles and miles of open plains leading to a forest he could barely see on the horizon. There were probably hundreds more jacks between him and the trees, and it would be just his luck to pick up every one of them.

  He wasn’t planning on running far, though. Truthfully, he couldn’t outrun the jacks, anyway. Blind Sense was the only reason they hadn’t already caught him. The monsters all wanted to jump on him, and that gave him a window to dodge out of the way at the last second. Twice, a jack went flying past him while he juked to the side. The third time, he was ready and took a leg from the offender.

  Then the first two came back around, catching him between them. Sorin ducked under one and blocked the other with his blade while on one knee, but it bowled him over. Flashing teeth snapped down at his face, and he shoved an ice blade into its mouth. The ice wasn’t strong enough to stop it, but it did force the monster to chew once to break it apart, and that gave Sorin time to heave it off him.

  He scrambled to his feet just in time to see the rest of the pack bearing down on him.