Jim shot up, face grim. Without a word, he drew his war hammer and summoned a strange monster, a pink shark-ray hybrid with a turtle shell and skin layered with sharp, jagged teeth.

  Climbing onto its back, he gave Jer-kal a quick glance. “I’ll draw it away. You know what to do.”

  Jer-kal nodded. “Yes.”

  With that, Jim charged toward the source of the sound.

  “It’s coming back!” someone shouted.

  “We’re all going to die!” another voice cried out.

  Panic spread. People scattered in every direction.

  Jer-kal clicked her tongue. “Don’t run!”

  No one listened.

  She stomped the ground, and a massive cockroach-like monster burst forward. Its lobster-like pincers glowed a deep brown as it drove them into the earth. Dirt rose and formed a solid barrier around the crowd.

  “Let us out!” someone yelled.

  “You’re going to get us killed!”

  The wall was thin but strong, impossible to break through.

  Jer-kal turned to Vernisha, her eyes sharp. “Don’t worry.”

  “Yeah...” Vernisha mumbled, uncertain.

  Time passed. Vernisha scanned the area, heart pounding, afraid to let her guard down.

  That was when she saw it, a bloodied knife lying near one of the houses. Someone must have dropped it trying to defend themselves.

  She pointed. “There’s a knife. I’m going for it.”

  “A knife won’t save you, but... fine. Just be quick.”

  Vernisha ran. She already had a dagger, but in this situation, an extra weapon could not hurt.

  The moment she grabbed the knife, the air turned hot. Where Jer-kal had stood seconds ago, the ground was scorched.

  There was no way. That same monster again.

  Jer-kal looked just as stunned. “Why is it back...?”

  Vernisha shouted, “If it’s here, where’s Jim?!”

  The creature growled, its voice warped and twisted.

  “Get... the shovel... for the apples... bathe the apples...”

  The words made no sense.

  Jer-kal’s face darkened. “Hide.”

  Vernisha nodded and sprinted into the nearest house, slamming the door behind her.

  Outside, Jer-kal’s cockroach monster hurled soccer-ball-sized rocks at the creature, now clearly the Sharfeline. Each hit made it roar, but it did not back down. In return, it launched fireballs at Jer-kal’s beast.

  Jer-kal reached her monster and kicked it. It sank into her feet and vanished.

  Then the Sharfeline’s legs split open, revealing a vertical mouth filled with rows of jagged shark teeth. A horrible stench poured out.

  Vernisha gagged and threw up, eyes stinging from the smell.

  She wondered if that had been a skill.

  Jer-kal stomped again, summoning a new creature, part woman, part spider. Her upper body was disturbingly beautiful, but her lower half was a massive black spider. Her hair writhed with blue, bleeding tongues.

  The spider-woman grinned. Her long legs twisted like spears and lunged at the Sharfeline. One pierced its shoulder. Another stabbed into its gut.

  Jer-kal followed, spear in hand. The Sharfeline’s head swelled three times in size, then whipped toward the spider-woman like a wrecking ball.

  The spider-woman reacted fast, blocking every hit with her arms. Each blow landed with a sickening thud.

  Jer-kal gritted her teeth. Her arm shook. The damage to her monster echoed in her own body, the cost of their bond.

  She slashed at the Sharfeline, her spear cutting deep into its neck.

  Vernisha turned away, staring down at the weapons in her hands. A knife and a dagger were not enough.

  She needed levels. Power. Monsters under her control.

  Her hands shook. She forced the fear down and looked back through a crack in the wall.

  The Sharfeline slammed one massive leg into the spider-woman, sending her flying. It turned and blasted a wave of fire straight into Jer-kal’s face.

  Jer-kal flew through the air, skidding across the ground before crashing into a tree.

  The creature did not stop. It charged another fireball. Then another. And another.

  By the end, all Vernisha saw was flame. There was no sign of Jer-kal.

  She could not be dead. Not like that.

  “Get... pints... food... dying...” the Sharfeline rasped from the grotesque mouth in its stomach.

  Then it looked at Vernisha, through the crack she had been peeking from, and grinned.

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  Her heart dropped.

  The Sharfeline tore open its own belly. Blood spilled into pulsing sacs. From them, smaller creatures squirmed out, miniature versions of itself.

  They looked like red sharks with four legs. No tails. About the size of huskies. Their eyes gleamed with a chilling intelligence.

  Twelve of them rushed toward Jer-kal’s dirt wall. Their glowing bodies crackled with energy as they slammed into it again and again.

  At first, it looked like they were hurting themselves. Then the cracks formed. The wall began to break.

  Ten more hits. The wall split.

  Five more. It crumbled.

  The villagers froze, terrified, as the creatures advanced with slow, deliberate steps, like hyenas circling prey.

  Even if Vernisha wanted to help, she could not.

  She had to run. The Sharfeline knew where she was.

  She kicked open the door.

  One of the newborns was already there, staring at her.

  Oh, shit.

  She grabbed her knife, heart hammering.

  It lunged fast. Vernisha felt the impact before the pain. Then the blood. A chunk of her shoulder was gone.

  She slashed at its face. It blocked with its claws and countered, cutting halfway through her wrist.

  It went for her neck.

  Then Jer-kal’s spider-woman intercepted it with one of her legs. The newborn clawed at her, but she dragged it to her mouth and bit its head off like it was nothing.

  Thank God. Then Vernisha realized something was wrong.

  The headless newborn dropped. Jer-kal stood nearby, hunched over. The fire was gone, her face badly burned. She did not move naturally, more like a zombie waking up.

  This was bad.

  Vernisha pressed a healing touch to her shoulder and wrist. The pain dulled, but not enough.

  She stared at her hand, at the flickering red aura around it.

  She tried to steady herself, silently urging the healing to work.

  Nothing changed.

  She begged it again. Pleaded for it. It did nothing. It did not care.

  The delayed pain hit all at once. Vernisha bit down on her lips, holding back the overwhelming agony.

  Useless.

  Then another thought cut through the pain. It was her hands. Her power.

  It was hers.

  She focused, commanding it to obey.

  The aura brightened, steady and calm. Her healing surged, and her wrist knit together faster than ever before. It was not instant. Far from it. But it was better. She could actually see the tissues weaving themselves into place.

  The realization stunned her. It really had been that simple. When she turned her gaze back to the battlefield, she realized something weird.

  Jim and Lo were still too far away. Either the creature had fooled them somehow, or the torn-open belly had already birthed something else to stall them.

  She glanced at Jer-kal again. Jer-kal and her humanoid spider moved oddly, their rhythm off, like puppets pulled by uncertain strings.

  Vernisha did not know what was happening.

  But she was grateful the spider was not tearing through the village.

  Vernisha wanted to help her. But how? Healing Jer-kal would kill her. She was not a monster.

  Then the screams came. Not from Jer-kal, but from the villagers.

  The newborns were on them, slaughtering without mercy. They were not feeding. They were ripping, tearing, destroying. Fiery claws burst through skulls, shredded open torsos, snapped necks like twigs.

  Some even turned on their own, stabbing their siblings in a frenzy. Maybe for dominance. Maybe for sport. Maybe for no reason at all.

  Natasha had never described them like this. She had always told Vernisha to avoid them, portraying them as natural disasters that delivered justice for sins. This was something else entirely. Natasha must have been out of her damn mind.

  Two of them fought over a toddler, tugging her between them like a horrific game of war.

  Then came the rip, a sound like wet cloth tearing.

  No one cried.

  The child’s parents lay beside her, heads severed, necks gaping like broken stumps.

  Vernisha felt sick. Worse than that, she felt ashamed.

  She could not help. She did not want to help. She did not want to die trying.

  She was not frozen, though. While chaos reigned, she slipped into an abandoned house and crouched beneath the window. Running was pointless. They would pick her off the moment she broke cover.

  So what could she really do?

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Her hands were slick with sweat. Blood was not the only thing soaking through her clothes. She was drenched in fear.

  She had not pissed herself. She would not have been surprised if she had.

  Fuck her life.

  She gripped her dagger tighter. It felt like a twig in her hand. She could not even scratch one of them.

  If she stayed here...

  One of the monsters broke away from the carnage, sniffing the air as it drew closer to the house.

  Shit.

  She dropped to the floor, covering her nose, breathing through her mouth. Praying.

  It did not see her. Not yet.

  But it smelled her.

  Its voice was close. Too close. It muttered to itself in a garbled mess.

  “My... daughter... Dad! San... I am... Mammy...”

  It was repeating things it had heard, trying to piece together language from fragments.

  It crept forward, step by step.

  Fuck.

  The only thing that set her apart was her healing. But she was still just a vlandos. Maybe it was time to use everything that meant.

  She tried to augment her speed.

  Insufficient modification points. Please gain more levels to earn modification points.

  Please bind with a monster to gain levels.

  Fuck.

  She crawled toward the kitchen and spotted the hanging pots. Her enhanced dagger stayed in her hand, but she tossed the regular knife aside and grabbed a frying pan. Maybe it could stop one hit. Maybe.

  A normal pan. An enhanced dagger.

  That was all she had.

  She could hear Jer-kal fighting the Sharfeline outside. The noise of their struggle drowned out the footsteps of the newborn approaching.

  Vernisha was anxious. Terrified.

  She needed a plan. She did not need to kill it. She just needed to—

  The wooden walls shattered.

  “Don’t... kill... see!”

  Shit.

  The newborn lunged at her, its tongue lashing out as its twisted smile widened into a grotesque grin. It was too fast. Far too fast.

  She wanted to close her eyes, but she could not. Not if she wanted to survive. She raised the pan in defense, shielding her throat. Its claws sliced through the metal like water as she swung her dagger low, cutting toward its gut.

  The blade sank halfway into its stomach. It recoiled, shrieking in confusion.

  “QUA!” it roared, slashing wildly. Claws raked her chest, blood spraying across the floor.

  Then came the tail, whipping, wrapping, throwing.

  Vernisha flew. She hit the ceiling. Heard her nose snap. Pain lit up her skull. She collapsed, breathless, choking on blood and panic.

  Then she saw it. The claw that had cut her was glowing now. Heating. Turning into flame.

  She dropped the pan and clutched her chest, trying to force her healing into overdrive. Every second drained her like water through a sieve.

  It came at her again, mouth and belly unhinging like some twisted snake. She raised her hand out of instinct, but something in her screamed no.

  Fuck that.

  She slapped it. Hard.

  Its tongue lunged, wrapping her arm, trying to tear it off.

  That slap was not blind. It was a choice.

  A black flash erupted from her palm. Dark energy exploded outward. The creature disintegrated, reduced to a cloud of black dust that shot into her hand.

  Vernisha stared in disbelief.

  “It worked.”

  Then searing pain tore through her hand. It felt like lava coursing through her veins. Against her will, another surge of black energy erupted, and the monster reformed, its reappearance accompanied by even greater agony. It twitched violently. She could not let it kill her.

  She acted fast, exploiting its disorientation. Grabbing it by the neck, she slammed all her weight onto it. It crashed to the ground. She hovered over it and drove her blade down again and again, relentless.

  “Die. Die. Die!” Vernisha screamed as it shrieked, its claws tearing at her back and sides. Blood poured from her wounds, yet she could not stop. Every stab was a desperate bid for survival, even as she teetered on the brink of death.

  Clutching it with her left hand, she summoned another burst of black energy from her palm. She gasped as blood trickled down her back and legs, pain building like a storm, until a brutal, bone-crushing agony tore through her hand.

  The monster flung itself free, but she seized the moment and drove her blade in again.

  She kept stabbing with everything she had.

  Her life depended on it. And it clawed desperately because its life depended on it.

  It thrashed, violent and erratic, like a creature on its last legs. Vernisha’s vision swam as it weakened with every strike, each movement slower than the last.

  Then there was nothing.

  Its body went limp beneath her.