The stone statues screamed; that was the only way to describe it.

  A deep grinding shriek tore through the cavern as hairline cracks spiderwebbed across every statue at once. Dust rained down. Chips of ancient rock clattered across the tiled floor.

  “RHEA!” I roared. “Release it! Now!”

  We hadn’t primed a spell for all the statues. A dozen pedestals still lacked one, but we couldn’t wait anymore.

  Quinn had been right.

  Again.

  Rhea’s hands slammed together. The layered rituals all along the walls flashed in sequence, a chain of light racing around the cavern like a fuse.

  Every stored spell fired.

  Dozens of darts and blasts tore through the air in a single heartbeat. Stone heads exploded. Torsos shattered. Arms blew apart in sprays of debris. The cavern became a storm of dust and fragments.

  All the awakening elders that received a spell got blasted apart before they could fully move. Blood and heads flew out of the alcoves in the walls, staining the ancient shrine’s floor.

  Unfortunately, for the others, we were too late.

  Cracks split open, light seeping from within as stone sloughed off like a shell. Muscular forms twisted free, bone masks gleaming white, as curved golden blades regained their lustre.

  A dozen warriors hit the floor, alive.

  And the giant shifted.

  “I knew it!” Quinn shouted, his voice cracking.

  Alya and I did not wait.

  I flung an empowered dart infused with extra mana at the nearest warrior still half-encased in stone. It punched through its armoured chest and pinned it to the wall behind, lifeless before it could take a step towards us.

  Alya crushed another’s knee with a blazing swing of the mace, finishing it with a downward strike that caved in its mask.

  Two more went down in those first frantic seconds.

  Then I launched another empowered dart at one that managed to get completely free of its stone casing.

  It moved not to dodge the spell; it stepped in, blade flashing in an upward, casual arc.

  My dart split apart mid-flight into blue sparks, severed cleanly.

  What. The. Fuck.

  That had never happened, not once. My spells shouldn’t be so easily brushed apart; that one was will-infused, and I put in extra mana for good measure.

  Two more eldir blurred sideways, avoiding Alya’s follow-up blast without breaking stride. Their speed had always been high, but this was another level.

  A roar echoed through the cavern.

  Quinn, trying to slip past the giant towards Mary, vanished in a burst of motion.

  A massive curved blade came down where he had just been.

  BOOM.

  Stone stairs exploded, chunks of them blasting outward. Quinn reappeared in a role, scrambling back, eyes wide.

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  The giant stood in the same place it was before, guarding the altar.

  Behind it, on top of the stairs, Mary, or the being that possessed her, looked at us.

  She was wearing the mask now, the three eye sockets burning with a golden-green flame, hiding her eyes.

  “Kill them all,” the voice commanded, cold as winter, “and bring me the essence of the corrupted from that one.”

  Her finger pointed straight at me.

  Wonderful.

  Maybe I should just cut off the head of the snake.

  I started casting hex after hex towards the mask; as my spells flew, dark sparks burst around Mary’s form as a translucent barrier flared with the same colours as the mask’s flaming eyes.

  Every hex shattered.

  I felt each one fail.

  How? Even the root monstrosity had not fully resisted my curses. Especially after I invested so much into willpower, after the last achievements I got, it should be even harder to shrug them off.

  I had no time to think about that.

  The warriors were on us.

  I stepped in front of Alya as one came for her back. She was already locked in a duel, mace blazing with a red flame as she forced her opponent back in a storm of blows. Its incredible speed allowed it to avoid all of her strikes, but her ferocity didn’t allow it to move in to attack her.

  Before the warriors reached us, I cast my spells. Eight hexes spread, slamming into the remaining warriors, dragging at their speed, and then eight more, blurring their coordination. They weren’t enough to cripple them, but they’ll give us the edge we needed. I couldn’t waste too much mana; there was still the big guy to take down after these.

  Alya’s opponent stumbled, and her strike found its mark; its arm broke under the mace head, skin singed as the flame that remained on it burned through its flesh. As it screeched in pain, she smashed the mace on its leg, sending it on the ground, then one last blow took it straight into the chest, crumpling the armour and caving it in.

  I began multicasting Arcane Blast, waves of force slamming into the advancing line. They slid back across stone but stayed on their feet. Tough. Much tougher than the starved ones outside.

  I switched.

  Drain the Accursed.

  Seven golden streams snapped from them to me; their life force flooded in, hot and exhilarating, like always.

  I shaped five empowered darts at once, feeding them mana and stolen vitality, then went a step forward and cast Arcane Infusion into each for good measure. They swelled, humming with barely restrained power.

  Behind them, Quinn peppered the giant with knives.

  The giant lifted an arm far faster than its bulk should allow. Metal rang as every knife bounced off his vambrace.

  “Quinn! Keep him busy for a bit more!”

  “I’m trying!” He screeched out.

  Then the streams cut through.

  The flows of lifeforce disappeared, as seven other green-gold streams went into them from Mary’s outstretched hand. My hexes failed too, restoring the warriors at their peak.

  This was not going well.

  “Retreat to me!” Rhea shouted.

  A flaming red sword spun past me towards a warrior’s face. I fell back, firing standard darts to keep distance, saving the empowered ones. Alya retreated a step.

  Every projectile we threw was parried or avoided.

  We reached Rhea halfway into the corridor.

  Quinn was still out there; if they turned on him, it was over.

  “What did you prepare?” I asked; there was no way that she called us for nothing.

  Before she even had time to say anything, the closest warrior just stopped.

  One foot stuck to the floor, held by a glowing circle of runes.

  I blasted it point-blank. It crossed swords, absorbing the force of my spell, but my follow-up dart punched through its chest and threw it into another.

  Alya smashed into one caught by another circle; with its mobility ruined, she tore it apart in a brutal exchange and moved on, a red light trailing her mace and a stolen sword.

  Rhea’s invisible trap field couldn’t stop them all; another got trapped, but the remaining three were on me in a moment, and Alya was still busy with her own.

  I pushed them away again, but one managed to swipe the blade and somehow cut through the blast, coming too close to me. One of the empowered darts flew at his chest from nearly point-blank range, but with a twist of its upper body, it dodged and swiped my leg with a blade at the same time.

  I felt the barrier I always kept around me flare, then shatter as the blade cut deep into my thigh. I didn’t even register the strike that made me fall to the floor as I cast another blast all around me to gain a second of respite; again, the other two were pushed back, and this one bastard cut through the spell another time. As I was trying to rise up, my leg buckled, and I saw a blade descending on me.

  I reached up with my hand, layering multiple barriers on my palm and infusing each of them with extra mana. The blade cut through three before stopping; I folded the barriers as I closed my hand around the blade. I used it as a crutch to stand from my kneeling position as the other blade came from the side. I reinforced the barrier protecting me as the blade slammed into my ribs. I felt the hit; it didn’t cut through, but it bent my barriers enough for me to feel the strike. It took the breath out of my lungs, but I pushed through the pain and closed the blade between my side and my arm.

  Locked as we were, the eldir raised a leg, but before it managed to kick me, a dart punched through its head from the side; its bone mask broke off its face, clattering on the floor.

  I staggered as the sword I was using to stabilise myself didn’t bear my weight anymore. Now I was really feeling the pain.

  But I couldn’t rest for a moment; the other monsters were on me again.

  20 chapters ahead!