We kept hunting throughout the day, pausing only to return to the transport for lund to grab more ammo from the bins in the back. Even as effit as I was with my shots, I was starting to run low after the sixth fight. The beasts up here were ironger and more numerous than the ones we’d faced before and we had all been wounded and healed up at least once, even with effectively two tanks and a crowd trol specialist.

  But we were growing, everyone had at least one new level to review before we finished eating and got back out there. Ephirin especially was growing both in levels and in familiarity with her magiuch so that she was having an internal quandary over it during lunch. The mage was silent as she sat in deep focus, levitating a lump of sto twisted in the air before squashing and stretg slowly as she frowned.

  I tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Hey, something up? You seem unhappy.”

  She looked at me, then the rock, before slowly nodding. “The base spell that almost every offensive caster gets is Elemental Bolt. That’s the first spell I used on the bear-bee things. You pi element as you cast it so it’s really versatile, though not very strong. The other elements all felt okay to use, but the stone bolt felt better, more natural.”

  “So earth is probably your specialty. That’s good to knht?”

  She shrugged. “It feels better, but still not…” She trailed off and thought for a moment. “It’s like flower arra. Like there is a mostly plete vase and I’m putting in a flower that feels ‘good enough’ but not perfect. You know?”

  I raised a brow and smirked at her. “Flower arra, that seems to fit you—but when did you have a ce to learn it?”

  A blush crossed her fad she cleared her throat. “I, kind of, spied on my older sisters when they were taking lessons. Even then I was in denial. I don’t even remember aper thin internal justification I use for it, but I’m sure it was dumb.”

  I leaned over and kissed her, making sure that it sted long enough for her breath to deepen. As the kiss broke I looked into her eyes. “Well you don’t hose justifications anymore. You’re a beautiful woman and you are allowed to like and want what you like and want.”

  She bit her lip, her cheeks flushi red. “M-My point is, I think I might, um, have a sub-specialization?”

  Qwil, who had beeing with us and seemed extremely amused (and slightly embarrassed) at the affeate dispy chose to speak then. “Oh yeah, my cousin has one of those. She’s water based but steam is way, way easier than liquid water or ice. She’s crazy dangerous down in the ss of Father’s Fingers. They have her hunting trolls a lot-” She paused as her eyes flicked over to Luvetra. Qwil’s face paled as she started to stammer out an apology.

  Luv cut her off before she could get a word out. “I know more than most how v-vile those things are. Your cousin does good w-work and I personally thank her for her service. I sider myself an ord a mem-member of the Path. That I have their blood in me is…” My giant love turo smile at me, her eyes alight like the full moons, filled with the same love I held for her. “It’s not something I worry about anymore.”

  I felt the blush in my cheeks as my smile spread wide. “I love you.”

  “As I love you.”

  [As I love you both dearly, my hearts.] Carmil’s words wrote themselves for us above my arm.

  Azuriel was shimmering blue with embarrassment at this point. She cleared her throat, drawing attention and dragging us ba topic. “What sub-specialties exist for earth?”

  Ephi sighed heavily. “A lot. It’s the most varied of the base elements. Metal, sand, va, crystal, mud, the list goes on. But I’ll figure it out with some practice.”

  I patted her head softly. “That’s the spirit. Keep that optimism ing.”

  When we did head back out for mrinding’(a term I wisely kept in my head and not on my lips), Ephi found moments to experiment. A few different kinds of sto flying at enemies as we made our way through a few miles of wilderness. But none seemed more potent than others. A crystal spike lodged itself in the side of a manticore and she smiled. A wave of sand blinded a group of giant spider things, then a sh of the same tore two in half. A glob of va turned a pnt monster of some kind into a screaming bonfire.

  “Some feel closer, but not quite right.” She muttered as the sun grew close enough to the mountains that we started to head back.

  Jaina gave the elf a kiss on the cheek. “You’re really dedicated, I’m sure you’ll figure things out quickly.” Ephi blushed in response and smiled.

  I opened my mouth to speak but a familiar tingle pulled my attention behind us. I drew my rifle and spun around, searg the treeline for threats but saw nothing. Red rushed to move between me and where I was looking, shield up and ready. “Whatcha got Esme?”

  I shook my head, the feeling growing almost painfully strong. “Not sure, sense is going absolutely ihough. Damned near hurts.”

  Azuriel’s eyes sed everything slowly, her sword raised in a defensive posture. “Anything that isn’t rushing in is likely to be on the smarter end of animal intellige a minimum.”

  Luvetra slid to the side, starting to vanish. She was going to sneak around the area to scout for danger. “Luv no! Stay with the group.” The words came without me thinking about them. Sixth Sense ractically screaming at me now.

  Luv nodded and pulled back to us, looking as worried as I felt. Redagga stepped back slowly. “Luv, lead us back to the sergeant, Azuriel and I will keep an eye on our rear.”

  We got about thirty feet before a new pull hit me. “BOTH SIDES!” I yelled a moment before movement revealed our stalkers. Each bly red skin covered in crooked and broken scales on thin twisted forms. They looked like someoried to make a person with wolf limbs purely from a drunken description. The six deformed digitigrade legs moved far too fluidly for their messed up shapes and carried them forward with terrifying speed. The stretched out humanoid torso had a pair of human-like arms ing out of its back, ending in hooked cws that looked long enough to decapitate a person in a single swipe. Their heads were stretched and vaguely rat like with teeth right out of a dentist’s nightmares. Or mine for that matter. They didn’t look exactly like Carrion Feeders, but it was hard to imagihese were anything but another variety of the same beings.

  “DEMONS!”

  Red’s shield smmed the first aside hard enough its front legs snapped like twigs and it flew into the side of another, making it stumble directly into a rapidly rising crystal spike that had gown from the ground, spearing it pletely through.

  I drew my attention to the other side and saw Azuriel fending off three of the damhings while Luv harried them with her bdes. As shallow as the cuts were, I figured arrows wouldn’t do a lot against their thick hides. But whatever was coating my giant’s bdes was doing something potent to the demons, their legs were trembling and making them easier targets for the ao cut dowively speaking. They still sshed at anything within reach, their partial immobilization be damned.

  Sixth Sense reminded me of the dire of the inal forewarning and I turned back just in time to see more of the creatures barreling towards us. “Rear!” Three rushed us as I took aim. A round drove into the skull of the lead one, but it merely stumbled.

  Azuriel’s suddenly booming voice tore through the sounds of violence. “AIM FOR THE CHEST, NO REAL BRAIN!”

  The sound of her thundering, celestial-power enhanced voice drew the attention of every demon and seemed to drive them mad. I sent two rounds into the torso of the first one I’d hit, thankfully this time it fell to the ground twitg as it died.

  [Swarming Nightmare Demon Drone lvl 37 defeated]

  I did not like the word ‘drone’ in this text. But I also didn’t have time to think, as I was too busy putting bullets into the demons as quickly as I could. Azuriel was being overrun, nearly a dozen of the things all focused oo the point that I had to risk hitting her just to be able to take any shots at all.

  Redagga rushed in with axe and shield, tearing at the things from behind viciously. But even as she hacked into them they ignored her in favor to rend the angel apart. Jaina used her magic, struggling to keep Azuriel’s wounds closed but ranged healing was weaker and more costly in mana.

  “EVERYO BACK! Azuriel, pull your arms in close to yourself!” I heard Ephi yell as she started weaving a stronger spell.

  Within a few seds everyone fell bad Azuriel ulled into as small a profile as she could make. Then the ground exploded. Smooth, shining bck stone rose so suddenly it looked almost like it had simply appeared. After a moment demon body parts fell all around us, many of the creatures severed in half along with losing a limb or three. A few still writhed on the ground but Luv and Red quickly ehem, not willing to assume their helpless and iates would prove lethal on their own.

  The wall dissipated, turning to bck sand and blowing away with a wind I couldn’t feel. Azuriel gnced around and found herself standing in a bloody circle in the ground, looking somewhat worse for wear but no longer being attacked by demons.

  “The hells was that?” Reddagga asked the elf who let out a breath.

  “Uh, I think I figured it out.” Ephi muttered with a small smile.

  “REAR!” I screamed the word out with the iy of the pull Sixth Sense was giving me, a feeling like someone had jabbed my neck with a lit torch. We all turo see the source of that warniion emerge from the treeline.

  I was so horrified that I nearly fot to fire as I saw the monstrosity. At least twenty feet tall with a tral lump of a body that looked like it was made of a fused pile of corpses, a lumbering mass grave given a horrible mockery of life. It had far too mao t stig out at a hundred wrong angles, all dragging the thing across the ground faster than such a thing should move. It cwed its way over a tree rather than around it, toppling the thick trunk and filling the air with the sound of splintering branches. With a feral rage it came at us, its eyeless head stig out of the front of the mass, screaming from a gaping jaw that would have swallowed a car whole. The sound was the cries of the dying and the damned in torturous discord with the sound of metal grinding together and made my blood run cold. I was dht terrified by the creature, especially when my shot did little more than put a small leaking hole in its hide.

  It rushed at Azuriel and Redagga barely mao get in its path. She glowed from an activated Skill, grunting in effort as the thing smmed into her shield and was just barely held back. “PUT THIS FUG THING DOWN!” I drew bad hit the ground, lining the scope of my rifle with the thing and taking a breath to focus.

  As my Skills slowly began activating I saw Luv struggling to hit anything more than a leg with her bdes, a still glowing Red holding her shield with both hands and trembling with effort, Azuriel fending off sshes from cwed limbs reag over Red’s shield, and Jaina p restorative magito the front liners as they took gng blows. Ephi sent a few spikes of that shiny bck stoo the beast but they didn’t seem to pierce far enough to do much.

  Then all of it started to fade. The wrew more quiet, the surroundings indistinct. The only thing I was aware of was the demon and the details of it’s hideous form. Weak es for its limbs, a badly cracked scale against the hinge of it’s jaw, her worth while. Ah, there ot on the tral body where the lumps were thinned, where the tangled masses that looked like bodies didn’t protect it as well.

  I lined up the shot, exhaled, and the cray rifle happened a moment before the vile thing’s side split open like a rotting fruit. It screamed and drew back, but I was barely aware. The disorientation effect of Heavy Heart Piercer making the world wobble just enough to make me not want to try standing just yet.

  I mao focus enough to look at the demon a shudder before it turs attention to me. Even eyeless I could tell it was gring raw hatred at me for a moment before it screamed loud enough that I felt it in my bones, even through my weakened awareness. But before it could turn itself away frga and Azuriel, a bck blur ehe wound I’d made. There was a sharp, loud, high pitched crag sound a moment ter, just before the demon’s body jerked sharply, then toppled over.

  [Swarming Nightmare Demon Hive lvl 58 defeated]

  I flopped forward and groaned as I let my mind turn into pudding for a minute.

  Someone picked me up, a moment ter a reized the feeling of my Luv’s breast against my face as I was carried. “Mmmm, soft giant is soft.” I mumbled with a grin. I was aware we were moving faster than a walk and something told me that was usually a cause for worry, but I was too fortable to care. Also Sixth Sense was being quiet so I just let myself have a moment of rest.

  The full duration finally passed and I felt my eyes open to see that we were in fact moving quite fast. Luv carrying me, Azuriel carrying Ephi, and Jaina piggybacked on Red as the three ran at a good jog.

  “Did something more happen?” I mao ask.

  Luv shoot her head. “No, but Jaina and Ephi are both low on mana and you w-were out of it so we expedited our return.” She smiled down at me. “Good shot by the way.”

  “I got it?” I raised a brow. “I thought I remembered it still moving.”

  Azuriel grunted lightly with the effort of the run. “You made a hole. Ephirin threw a bomb into it.”

  “A bomb?” I looked over at the elf, who’s arms were around the angel’s neck for stability.

  “Elemental Burst. Exploding fireballs are the most well know it does other elements too,” she offered as an expnation with a wide smile. “I figured out my specialty.”

  Red ughed, her voice tinted with manic glee. “The girl throws fug volic gss!”

  My eyes widened. “Your specialty is obsidian? That’s holy kind of horrifying. So the ring you raised around Azuriel…?”

  Ephi gri me. “Elemental Wall, I kept the top edge sharp and raised it as fast as I could.”

  “And the bomb?”

  “Big hunk of the stuff that exploded into shards ihe demon and did things to its ans I don’t want to think about!” She procimed with a mix of cheer and minor revulsion.

  Azuriel smiled for a moment before she buried the expression under a look of dour professionalism. But she still spoke her mind oter. “That specialty seems less defehan many others of earth elemental casting, but the offensive capabilities surely more than make up for it.”

  I snorted. “No, it’s plenty strong defensively. Gss is a lot strohan people think, but so much of what we enter is really thin and in shapes that lose structural strength. So the fact that it’s also really brittle makes it seem weaker than it is.” Dani’s memories of sce css came to the fround of my mind, but I didn’t think there oint in trying to expin the Mohs scale right then so I just smirked at the thought. “Also, she make a thinner angled barrier that breaks easier, but leaves a deadly sharp edge to tend with, so still more than just viable for defense.”

  Luv slowed just after I spoke, her face showing relief as she spoke. “I see the transport.”

  Thankfully everything was fine and we entered no additional plications. Qwil was a bit worried seeing us being carried, but rexed at the expnation. We all loaded up into the transport and headed back immediately. I think some part of me was waiting for the disaster to hit, but once we passed the border bato patrolled nds we all rexed.

  I rested in Luv’s p and smiled at my team. I pulled up my Status window and asked, “So, hoeople doing on levels now? I hit thirty three and got an Adva.”

  Ephi beamed, “Oh, me too! Same level!”

  Luvetra patted my head and gave me a squeeze as she answered, “Forty one.”

  Redagga grunted out, “Thirty four.”

  Jaina yawned as soon as she opened her mouth to answer. “Oh, sorry, kinda drained from low mana. Uh… twenty nine, niore for an Adva.”

  One of the soldiers with us perked up, a grin stretg across his lips and making his tusks jut out quite promily. If I hadn’t been living with mostly orcs for a while now I’d have found it intimidating. He ughed and looked at us. “Hey! We got attacked by something while you all were out and it pushed me to forty! I got my adva!”

  The other soldier, a human woman, swatted the back of his head. “You’re supposed to wait till we’re back at base to check that, dumbass. Keep your attention on the surroundings, not your Status.”

  Qwil spoke up from the driver’s partment. “You’re on triy tomorrow, Hrue.” The first soldier’s grin faded immediately.

  Some giggles and snickering at his expense brought my attention to the fact that el was beiremely quiet. “Azuriel, everything okay?”

  She avoided looking directly at me, but I could see tears of fear and frustration welling in her eyes as she slowly shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was a jagged spike of venomous self-loathing that barely rose above a whisper.

  “Thirty Nine…”