Erich froze, his breath catching in his throat as the huge garr swung its head to the side. Before he could restart his brain, Michelle sprinted past him leaping on top of the garr’s nose and scurrying toward its head with the grace and anger of a soaked cat.

  He blinked his eyes, throwing himself to the ground a fraction of a second before the garr shook its head back and forth, sending its snout through the air just over his back with enough force to send one of the militia members flying into the rice field with a sickening crunch.

  Erich rolled to the side, mud soaking through his clothes and armor as he jumped back to his feet. Another volley of arrows hit the garr as the militia members backed away from the fight. Half of the arrows didn’t even penetrate enough to stick into the monster’s hide, but Erich didn’t have enough time to care about that.

  Mana throbbed through his body, setting his muscles aflame. He couldn’t even feel the bite on his leg through the burning sensation of his magic increases his speed, reflexes, and strength.

  The world seemed to slow down. Erich still wasn’t strong enough to survive a proper hit from the adult garr, but its snapping jaws seemed to be moving through molasses. He could feel his aether bubbling inside his image begging for more, begging for the extra power it would need to spill over and push him into the next tier.

  He darted forward, sword slashing a line in the garr’s shoulder. Erich fought his weapon, straining his arms as the animal’s thick skin and corded muscles tried to deflect his attack.

  The garr swung its clawed flipper at him, but Erich was too quick, side-stepping the clumsy swipe and stabbing upward with his sword. The tip of his blade punched through the skin under the animal’s armpit, sinking almost a foot into the relatively soft flesh before hitting bone.

  Erich pulled his weapon free, dodging the gout of hot arterial blood that erupted from the wound. Behind him, Derl shouted something he couldn’t hear over the driving rain and bellows of the garr.

  A dive to the side saved Erich from another swipe of its claws. The garr turned to face him, murder flashing in its dark eyes. Arrows hung loosely from the monster’s other flank even as Allthier and Derl did their best to distract it.

  It wasn’t going to work. Erich could see that right now. Derl’s sword style was quick and light, leaving tiny wounds all over the monster that barely managed to pierce its natural defenses. Allthier could put a bit more strength behind his attacks, but they didn’t seem to do much, bludgeoning the implacable animal.

  The garr snapped at Erich and he kicked off the muddy soil, jerking to the side and slashing down with his sword. He cut skin, but his sword bounced off the bone of its snout before it could do any real damage.

  Above, Michelle shrieked with rage, latching onto the monster’s cheek with both paws before sinking her sharp teeth directly into the huge garr’s right eye.

  That got its attention.

  It swung its head back and forth, bellowing angrily. Erich dove for the road to avoid the garr’s bulk. As its muzzle came back, he thrust upward, sword glowing a dull red as he managed to find the soft spot between its jaw bones and pierce upward into the monster’s tongue.

  His shoulders felt like he’d grabbed a runaway cart and tried to stop it with his bare hands as the garr’s momentum dragged him along the ground. Overhead, Michelle went flying through the air, chittering triumphantly through the goopy mass of ruined eye that stained her jaws.

  Erich barely had time to ensure that she was flying toward the water before the garr jerked its head backward, almost yanking his sword from his hands. Instead, the blade slid from its lower jaw with a sickening squelching noise.

  He jumped to his feet, left hand rubbing a smear of mud and animal blood from his face. The garr barreled forward blindly, scrambling up onto the roadway ahead of Erich’s group. It turned to face them, blood flowing from the wounds he’d left in its thick hide, quickly washed away in the heavy rain as it glared down at them with its one good eye.

  “It’s going to charge!” Derl yelled. “Erich, distract it, I need a couple of seconds to activate an ability.”

  Erich just grunted as he jogged toward the giant animal. Now that it was fully in the open, part of him wondered why their group had ever thought they could fight it. Sure he’d cut it a couple times and Michelle had blinded one of its eyes, but it was the size of five or six bears smashed together. The garr wasn’t just a predator. It was the predator. The top of a food chain that absolutely included both humans and cinderborn.

  He darted forward, swinging his sword at the garr’s muzzle. It didn’t even try to dodge his attack, instead snapping at Erich.

  His heels dug into the soil as Erich arrested his charge, barely stopping himself just shy of the garr’s bite. His sword hit its snout, but it didn’t have anywhere near the force it would’ve if he’d been allowed to complete his attack. It barely made it through the skin, drawing little more than a trickle of blood before Erich had to jump backward out of the range of another quick bite from the giant amphibian.

  A volley of arrows passed over his head, most of them aiming for the creature’s face and remaining eye. None of them did any damage, but after its recent encounter with Michelle, the huge animal flinched, shifting its head to the side so that its already injured cheek faced the cinderborn.

  Erich broke into a run. Instincts that had been honed on a battlefield and hiding beneath walls as artillery spells detonated overhead screamed at him. This was a chance, and likely the only one he’d manage to get.

  He reached the garr’s side just as it turned back to face the rest of the militia. Erich grunted, mana igniting in his body as he swung his sword with full force at the creature’s flank. Skin and muscle parted under the blow.

  The garr shuddered and its feet shuffled in the mud as it tried to turn just enough for its long muzzle to bite Erich a second time. He followed it, staying out of reach of the creature’s jaws as he kept hacking away at its side with heavy double-handed swings.

  His blade sheared flesh and muscle free, clicking off the monster’s ribs. None of the attacks did critical damage, Erich had no real way of actually hitting the garr’s major arteries or internal organs after all, but they kept it distracted. It didn’t even react as another volley of arrows struck its other side, hanging limply from its rubbery flesh.

  A flash of movement drew Erich’s gaze as Derl seemed to blur forward, his body flickering through the rain drops like a candle flame on a windy night. The garr didn’t even have a chance to react.

  When Derl struck, it didn’t look like the thrust was all that powerful or deep. The attack was just as shallow as any other but it had the same eerie quality as Derl’s body.

  Somehow, the garr’s thick hide didn’t seem to stop Derl’s sword at all. The thrust passed through skin, muscle and bone like it wasn’t there, puncturing the monster’s heart in one clean stab.

  It lashed out, hitting Derl with a paw that sent him flying off the road, sword still lodged in the garr’s flank. After that, it only made it another two steps, both toward the trembling militia fighters, before slumping to the ground, blood gushing from the wound.

  Erich spun to face the downed animal, sword clutched in both of his hands. He searched its still form for any sign of life or movement.

  Nothing. The adult garr was dead. Blood was still trickling from its wounds but there weren’t any more bright arterial sprays. Its heart had truly stopped beating.

  Aether seemed to flow off of the corpse like mist, passing through the rain like it wasn’t even there as it soaked into Erich’s body. Still more of it rolled down the side of the roadway enveloping Derl as the cinderborn tried to drag himself up out of the water.

  Energy roiled inside Erich and he stumbled, falling down to one knee as the aether coiled around him, sinking into him like hooks of flaming power. He took a deep ragged gasp, and his gaze turned inward.

  His image snapped into focus, quicker and sharper than it had ever been. The feeling of emptiness, of being almost but not quite full, disappeared as aether reinforced everything around him. For a moment, the image was realer than the world outside his body.

  Erich could feel the lighting as it forked and arced through the sky, sending crackles of static and excitement down his skin. The fire burned with an anger and intensity that eclipsed the greatest bonfires he’d ever seen. Heat crashed over him, scorching his perception. Erich could feel himself drying out, under the heat even as the vital energy from his image’s trees tried to restore him. The light from the stars bathed him soothing the burns.

  It raged inside him, fire overwhelming life only to be washed away by lightning, all the while the stars shone above. Erich could feel his muscles twisting and writhing under his skin as his aether overflowed, reshaping his body into stronger and more efficient forms.

  After a couple of seconds the rampaging mana calmed down, settling into a steady balance. Once again, Erich’s image was stable and silent. A dull ache filled his gut as it called for more aether, parched and empty after his evolution.

  He stood up, groaning at the dull aches and pains that plagued him. The bite mark in his calf was completely healed. Nothing but a vague itchiness from the now smooth skin remained of the wound.

  A groan from the side of the road, barely audible over the howling wind and driving rain, snapped Erich’s attention over to where Derl was clambering back up onto the raised walkway.

  “What in the name of the angels was that?” Erich asked, his throat raspy from his body’s recent rebirth. “One minute you could barely put a mark on the thing, and the next you killed it in one hit.”

  Derl walked over to the dead garr, planting his left hand on it and breathing heavily even as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword that was still buried in the huge monster’s body.

  “Combat technique,” Derl replied tersely between deep breaths. With a grunt, he yanked his sword out of the garr, grimacing at the thick ichor covering it. “Penetrating Blade. Penultimate technique of the Wavering Candle image. It makes up for the rest of my image’s lack of burst damage, but it takes almost all of my mana to use it. The Wavering Candle school would be useless against monsters without it, but every time I pull it out, I forget how miserable it is to actually activate it in combat.”

  “Still,” he turned to face Erich, the ghost of a smile visible beneath his exhaustion in the light cast by his eyes, “I can’t say how glad I am that you were here to help me. Ordinarily I need the militia to hold a target in place long enough to execute the technique, and that usually ends in a serious injury or three. I think this is the first time I’ve managed to pull it off without someone at least breaking an arm or a leg.”

  An angry bellow echoed through the rain, coming from the general direction where Erich remembered seeing the garr lair. Derl’s face fell.

  “I don’t suppose you tiered up there Erich?” He asked hopefully. “I barely have any mana left. Enough to use Candlelit Steps for a minute or so, but beyond that I’m completely empty. I won’t be able to do much beyond distract the other garr, and it sure doesn’t sound happy.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Erich twisted his head to the side, stretching his neck. He hopped up and down twice, testing the bounce in his calves.

  He was stronger than before. A lot stronger. Erich’s mind seemed to move faster, now able to pick out individual raindrops as they pelted his skin. He felt like he could run five miles in twenty minutes, like he could wrestle a bear to the ground and headbutt it unconscious.

  Euphoric and energized. It was probably a side effect of the excess mana roiling through his system after the aether had reforged him, but it took Erich a moment to push the heady feeling aside.

  “Yes,” he finally replied. “Killing the adult garr was what put me over the edge. I don’t know how much stronger and faster I am than before, but the results are pretty impressive. I don’t think the juvenile garr will be much of a threat to me anymore, but I can’t make any promises about the adults.”

  “They are absurdly hard to damage,” Derl said with another grimace, wiping his sword off on the remaining rags of his outfit before sliding it into his sheath. “Still, I don’t know how far we’re going to make it without fighting that thing. It’s going to ambush us from the water if we aren’t careful, and I don’t like our odds if it has the benefit of surprise. I think we have to track it down and fight it in the water, here and now.”

  “I agree,” Allthier called out over the wind. Michelle was cradled in his arms as he pushed through the crowd of militia members. The otter looked more or less all right other than her front left paw which she was holding up limply, as if it were injured.

  “Erich,” he continued. “I see that you’ve gone up a tier. Have any of your techniques progressed as well? I know that you’re at a fairly rudimentary level with your sword skills, but if they were to advance-”

  “Allthier,” Derl hissed. “It’s not polite to talk about a man’s sword technique like that. You can’t just call it ‘rudimentary,’ even if he has all the grace of a sixteen year old meeting up with a girl after his first harvest festival.”

  Erich blinked.

  “That’s an oddly specific example Derl,” he said slowly. “I know that I’ve mostly been relying on my strength and speed to make up for my skill deficiencies, but it sounds like there’s a bit of a story there.”

  “There is absolutely not a story that I will be telling there,” Derl replied quickly. “Anyway, new topic, did your techniques progress? A little bit more elegance with your sword might make the difference between life and death here.”

  Erich drew his sword and dropped into the first stance of Magma Blossom. He lunged forward, slashing through empty air and his feet settled into the second stance. He parried an imaginary thrust before chopping with the blade, using the momentum of the attack to shift into the third-

  His left foot landed an inch further away from his body than it should have. For a fraction of a second, his center of gravity shifted and wobbled before he was able to correct the misstep, but the fluidity of his movements was gone.

  “Not quite,” he said with a sigh, lowering his sword. “I’m almost there, but I haven’t quite crested that hill yet.”

  “Well,” Derl remarked unhappily. “Crap.”

  “Sometimes all we have to work with is crap,” Allthier replied. “Still, we have to do our best with what we have, even if we’re trying to muddle our way through a whole lake of excrement.”

  Another angry bellow from the rainstorm ended their complaints.

  “How are we doing this?” Erich asked, his fingers closing around the hilt of his sword as he stared off into the cloudy twilight of the submerged rice fields.

  “I’ll take point,” Derl said unhappily. “I should be able to keep it occupied for about a minute until my mana runs out. After that, I’ll need Allthier to pull me out because I’m probably going to collapse. I need you to kill it in a minute. Or don’t and let us all die and get eaten. Either or.”

  “Do you think the rest of the militia can stand on the road to keep the juveniles off of us with their bows?” Erich asked. “I might be able to do enough damage to bring it down in a minute, but there’s no way that I’ll be able to do that if I have to dodge attacks from the little ones the entire time.”

  Derl thought for a second before nodding.

  “You saw how they were against the other adult garr,” the cinderborn warrior replied. “I doubt they'll even be able to distract our prey if they shoot at it. Frankly, we would’ve been more at risk from a misfired arrow than the garr would be from an entire quiver of the things. Shooting at the juveniles makes a lot more sense, especially now that we’ve thinned their numbers out a good deal.”

  “Then we should head out,” Erich said decisively. “The more time we spend worrying about it, the less prepared we’ll be mentally. The constant wait knowing that a major battle is around the corner, it's almost worse than the fight itself. If we get everyone moving, it should keep all of us occupied. Less time for us to worry about what’s to come.”

  Derl put two fingers into his mouth, whistling loud enough to cut through the constant wind and rain.

  “Malla and Raen, help Stather walk and tend to his wounds. The rest of you, we’re going to need to get moving. Your job will be to fend off the juvenile garr, the rest of us will be responsible for the remaining adult.”

  They began walking. All around them the rain beat down, thick enough that it was hard for their group to breathe without inhaling water. Occasionally, thunder rumbled in the distance, the only real sound that they could hear over the constant howling wind.

  “What if there’s more than one adult left?” Erich asked as they trudged onward. He strained his eyes in the half light, looking for any movement on the water. The constant rain sent ripples everywhere, making it impossible to spot a garr unless he directly saw the light reflecting from one of their eyes.

  “Well then we die,” Derl said darkly. “Really not that many options at that point. You saw how hard it was for us to take down one with all of us working together. Unless I get four to five hours to regain my mana, I’m nothing more than an annoyance. At this point, you’re the only one that can do real damage to the thing.”

  “Well,” Erich replied, “we should hope there’s only one left-”

  He didn’t get to finish the thought. A flash of lightning overhead illuminated the next submerged rice field, and Erich finally spotted the garr den. The giant mound of dirt towered above the water, a massive garr, easily the size of the one that Derrl had just killed, crouched atop it glaring back at Erich.

  Part of him wanted to look up, to track the crackling fork of the lighting as it arced across the sky, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. The garr could see them through the wind and rain, and it was angry. Either they came to it, or it was going to come to them. There was no chance that their convoy would be able to make it all the way back to Madla without fighting the beast.

  It stood tall, lifting its elongated snout to the heavens and bellowing a challenge at their group. Then, the illumination from the lightning was gone, dropping their group back into the perpetual dusk of the rainy season’s constant storms.

  Erich glanced over at Derl and the cinderborn nodded. It was time.

  “We’re heading into the water!” Derl shouted. “Keep Stather back and cover us with your bows. Don’t bother with the big one. Erich has agreed to handle that one. I don’t even care if you hit the garr, so long as you don’t hit us and manage to scare them, that’s all I ask.”

  Erich grimaced. The word ‘agreed’ was doing a lot of work in that sentence. He’d agreed to kill the adult garr in the same way that he’d ‘volunteered’ for the army.

  He took a couple steps toward the edge of the road. With a deep breath, Erich went over the edge, half running and half skidding down into the water with a loud splash. A second later, Derl and Allthier had joined him. Michelle was still in Allthier’s arms, her right paw held pathetically in the air.

  Water soaked through his clothes and rice plants brushed up against his thighs and legs. Erich pushed forward, his newfound strength letting him to easily push the water aside as he waded toward the garr lair.

  Lighting crashed overhead, illuminating the garr den. It was about two hundred feet away, and even as Erich watched, the adult garr slipped into the water and began galloping toward him.

  Unlike the juveniles, it was too big to swim in the shallow rice pond, but that didn’t do much to make Erich feel better about the situation. The water barely seemed to slow the garr as it plowed forward, its jaws half open as it homed in on his companions.

  “Go!” Derl yelled, unsheathing his sword and stepping forward. “I’ll keep it occupied. Remember, you only have a minute.”

  Mana seemed to gather around the cinderborn, the water covering him converting into steam that seemed to create a small bank of fog around the warrior. Erich veered to the left, running to the side so that he would have a clear shot at the garr’s flanks when it attacked Derl.

  He barely made it fifteen feet away before the garr pounced, its body an angry shadow as it launched through the dark wind and rain as it sailed overhead. At the last second, Derl scampered away, his mana making his body as light and elusive as a candle’s flame as he danced across the water’s surface.

  The garr landed with a splash that sent a wall of water flying in every direction. Rather than dodge or avert his eyes, Erich simply charged.

  There wasn’t any room for delicacy. Erich wasn’t Derl. He didn’t have a technique that would let him skate across water like it was a frozen pond. Instead, he hit the wall of water and powered through it, his newly upgraded muscles easily punching through the tsunami and delivering him to the animal’s undefended flank.

  It snapped at Derl, but the cinderborn flickered away. He wasn’t moving any quicker than Erich could on dry land, but to a creature bogged down in the rice field, it was like he was a hummingbird, flitting in and out of reach with absolute impunity.

  Erich gripped his sword with both hands, planting left food in the mud and silt just beneath the garr for leverage, he swung his blade.

  He was hardly a novice with the sword. Years with the Swaying Willow Blade and hard days of constant combat with Magma Blossom had etched callouses into his hands that would take years to fade, but when Erich’s sword struck the side of the garr, he instantly realized that he was holding it wrong.

  Not by much. His shoulders were a half inch further forward than they should be, leaving him a bit off balance. The pinky of his right hand overlapped the index finger of his right, preventing him from maximizing the entire length of the handle.

  The garr reared back, a massive gash in its side where Erich had just cracked its ribs. Quickly, he moved hands and adjusted his stance before attacking again. In the back of his mind, something clicked.

  This time, the mana seemed to explode out of his image, rushing through his body in an eyeblink and setting his muscles on fire with barely constrained energy.

  His sword cut through skin and muscle before shattering the garr’s ribcage, sending bone splinters deep into the animal’s internal organs. It screamed in pain and pushed off the ground, flipping toward Erich in an attempt to crush him.

  He backpedaled, legs aching as all of his mana seemed to ignite inside them. Erich made it back a step, the rotating body of the garr looming large above him as the water grabbed hold of his rapidly pumping legs, slowing them as it tried to keep him in place long enough for the garr’s death roll to smash him flat.

  Erich made it back another step. He was moving faster now, but so was the garr. As strong as he was, the giant predator had a much bigger body, most of which was looming above him, thundering down toward him without any resistance from the rice field.

  The water of the rice field pulled at him, slowing Erich to a crawl. With his newfound strength, Erich could’ve easily escaped the rolling animal on dry land. Here, his every movement was uphill, a constant struggle against-

  Another step backward was all he managed before tripping and falling into the water. Michelle launched out of the water, landing on the garr’s throat as it lay on its back. Then, Erich’s vision disappeared as the garr slammed into him.

  Rather than fight the monster’s bulk and momentum, he took a deep breath and went limp, letting the garr knock him face first into the water. A second later, its weight was on top of him, pressing him deep into the soft silt and rice plants that lined the bottom of the pond.

  Erich felt a rib crack. The pressure was like being buried alive. His chest and limbs were compressed under its weight until he swore that he could feel his bones creaking. Even if his head were above the water level, he didn’t have enough strength to take a breath as it forced him deeper into the mud at the bottom of the pond.

  The garr thrashed on top of him. Evidently it was taking some serious damage, but that barely mattered for Erich. It took everything he had to not let the shifting weight of the huge animal force the air from his lungs.

  Silently, he fed mana from his image into his physique. For a second, nothing happened. Then, strength bloomed inside of him, starting in his chest and growing to encompass his arms and legs. Erich’s skin hardened, taking on the texture of leathery tree bark. Almost immediately, the scrapes and bruises from being forced into the bottom of the rice paddy healed over.

  More weight pressed down on him as the garr tried to stand up. Mud slithered up Erich’s nose. He was almost a foot deep in the bottom of the lake, air burning in his lungs.

  He shifted slightly, planting his forearms and knees deep into the slick mud and pushed back against the garr. Erich’s muscles strained, bulging as they rubbed against his chainmail.

  The garr moved. Not much, but enough to give him a spark of hope as its bulk slammed him back down into the mud.

  Stale air choked him, but Erich put it out of mind. Everything disappeared other than his limbs and the unrelenting need to press upward. For a second, there was nothing but the sound of his heart beating in his ears as he put every ounce of his being into forcing the garr off of him.

  For a second nothing happened. Then the garr slid an inch off his back. Erich pressed harder, levering himself up onto his hands and knees.

  It rolled off of him, and Erich broke the surface, gasping for breath. Behind him, the garr thrashed, still struggling to pull Michelle free from its throat with stubby limbs that simply couldn’t reach the enraged otter.

  Erich staggered to his feet, struggling through the stars that filled his tunnel vision as he dragged his toes along the bed of the rice pond, looking for his sword. After a couple seconds of fumbling he found it, ducking down to pick the weapon up as Michelle continued her assault on the garr.

  He stood up and took a step back, squinting through the rain as he gripped the sword in both hands. The slick rubbery flesh of the garr’s back was barely a foot from him. Blood was pouring down its side from the pair of wounds Erich had inflicted on the creature only for the downpour to almost immediately wash the stain away.

  A shake of the head cleared most of the fog that was clouding his brain. Erich set his feet, digging his ragged shoes into the mud.

  Erich lifted the blade straight above his head. Lighting flashed in the sky, illuminating him as he held the sword still for a second, gathering his mana.

  He slashed downward, cutting through the monster’s armored back and severing its spine.