Blood welled up from the eyesocket and rolled onto the sand. Something in all the other tritons flipped. A sudden frenzy took hold of them.

  A wet chorus of talons scraping, jaws snapping, splashes, and scratchy voices ballooned out from the growing collective of wild monsters. Tritons stumbled to race towards us faster than their stubby legs could physically allow. Sand sprayed and water arced as each one came closer. I took a step back, giving the next triton more room on land. The scent of blood tickeled into my nose with the smell of sea spray.

  The next triton chargeed me, jaws gaping revealing all of its triangle shardlike teeth. It was faster on the wet stones than I expected. My reflex didn’t need to take over: I pushed from my front paws and fire an ice shard into its face. Then I summoned an ice shield to land on it to hammer it deeper.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 7: 17%.

  The body sank into sand and sprayed out a soft puff of sand. Another one came up from the side. It snapped at my shield and snapped it in two. The ice shattered and I twist to land next to it. My jaw clamped down on its tail; I tasted salt, blood, and cartilage. Pain stabbed around and in my muzzle from the sharp ridges along its hide.

  I caught movement of a triton running past me. Yanking the one in my mouth by the tail, I clubbed the other in the head. No message, but it stopped moving. Another climbed over the corpse of the first and aimed for my tail.

  Yaz lunged first with an almost childlike violence. His talons hooked into the triton’s back; the creature shrieked—an ugly, wet sound—and twisted.

  “Yaz, just past the dorsal fin, dig there,” Keagan hollard. “That’s where their hearts are.”

  They thrashed against one another. But Yaz’s talons hold as he took one of his arms to slash repeatedly until the triton stopped moving. I spun and slammed the triton still in my mouth into the face of the one that I last hit.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 7: 33%.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 7: 50%.

  There was no sharp sounds of bones breaking. When cartilage broke, it was much softer. Yaz scurried around the sand just out of reach of another triton bitting at him.

  “Yaz, behind Lucia.”

  Flit was everywhere at once. Her talons flashed like knives, even in the fog. On the outer edge of our growing battle field bigger tritons rear their heads. Her wind magic didn’t cut, but it would throw a creature’s off balance with a sudden gust. Or it would fling sand directly into their eyes, causing them to flinch. In their distraction, she dove in and split them down the side, disembowling them.

  I didn’t think her talons were long enough for that.

  Yaz slipped trying to get behind me. A triton gained on him ready to scoop the raptor up tail first. He turned back to see the threat coming. I spun again and launched the corpse in my mouth and let go. It barreled into the open mouth of the charging one. Yaz’s beak clicked as he got to his feet.

  I gave him a nod before diving for another triton coming for me. I dug my fangs into its gills. The triton’s claws reached for my muzzle. It managed to tear open my front leg, but I held on. My teeth sink a several inches. I pull hard, dragging it through the sand and open a hole. Blood drained out from the wound.

  It spun around and slapped me with its tail. The world spun until I hit the ground. I felt my hip socket pop, heard a rib crack. A shower of sand rains down on me as the spike of pain blinds me for a moment.

  “Lucia!” Keagan called out.

  I get to my feet and shake the sand from my fur. “Not yet. That was nothing.” I twisted and put extra weight to prealign my hips before watching the triton that hit me go still.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 7: 67%.

  “Now, left flank! Eyes, Yaz, go for the eyes!” Dillon bellowed.

  Yaz’s arms go wide as he jumps over slashes with a talon to an eye socket. The triton keeps charging and crashed into two others.

  Fernella stood knee-deep in a pool of blood around a half dozen torn apart corpses with their innards littering the ground around her. A column of seawater erupted underneath a charging triton. The wild monster flew into the air.

  Two more came at her from different direction, flanking the pillar of water. The nymph snapped her fingers. The water column split and dropped on both tritons, crushing them instantly. When the airborn triton came back down, she snapped her fingers again, collapsing both halves back on it.

  There was nothing left of it but a red mist.

  Alright, I’m terrified of her now. And she stopped fighting early, why? She could probably handle this all by herself, why doesn’t she?

  I really didn’t have time to contemplate another monster’s career choices.

  Fernella held up her open palm. The fog shield inwards to her hand and turned into a bubble. It popped into a thin beam of water. It touched a triton mid-lunge then it excited out the other side.

  The creature was split from gills to tail, and landed in a wet splat. Fernella dropped her arm and her wings drooped for a noticeable moment.

  That’s why. She doesn’t have the endurance to keep this up.

  Flit’s voice cut across the fight in a maniacal cackling. She’d gone savage on her targets. Before she was being cautious, but now she was drenched in blood as she spun like a drill and burrowed through a triton the long way. When she flew away from the utterly destroyed monster, she dipped herself into the ocean and came out, most of the blood had been washed off.

  I’m glad those two are on my side.

  I darted back towards another. My paw slapped its nose away as I fired an ice spike into its eye. As I continued going by, I slapped the spike with my tail.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 7: 83%.

  Yaz retreated back, I could see him breathing heavily too.

  “Everyone, back up!” I shouted.

  The ocean water was more blood than water, and I could see some of the tritons eating the corpses of their kin.

  A pair of tritons barge past the others. I focused and fired an ice spike down the throat of the one on the left.

  “Yaz take the one on the right,” Dillon ordered his partner.

  As the raptor bounded towards his target, a geyser of water cut him off from the side. I stepped forward to keep from getting caught myself. Growling, I charged the one choking on my projectile. I created a frost shield with a point, aimed the point just past its gills, and drove my shoulder into the flat side. The shield split into it, cutting all the way to the dorsal fin.

  Enemy defeated. Level 7 achieved. New trait available.

  The other triton carried on without stopping. It was headed right for Keagan. My first impulse already had me pivoting to cut back the way I came and intercept it.

  Nieve stepped up. For a heartbeat she looked like she might drop her weapon, spin, and flee. But she didn’t. She tightened her grip on her rapier and stopped shaking.

  The triton lunged towards her. Nieve shrieked, turned her head, and held up her arm to protect herself. The wild monster bit down and latched to her arm. Then it hung from her as it kept trying to bite her. She looked at it. Even though her helmet didn’t show emotion, I knew she was more than a little surprised.

  She took her rapier and stabbed it in the eye. Her head turned away again as she buried the weapon further. Suddenly, the triton dropped to the ground. Nieve let go of her sword as it did.

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  “I… I killed it?” She held her hands close to her chest as she took a step back. I ran up to her. “Congratulations. Now, pull out your sword and get the kalands back.”

  She nodded, but after looking at the corpse off the triton, she held up her hand and remanifested a new one.

  Alright, I guess that works too.

  Yaz stepped up to me. He was dripping wet, half covered in sand, and panting. “Why run? We winning.”

  I turned around. Fernella was hovering only a foot off the ground as she went by. “You’re going to die of exhaustion at this rate. All of your movements are too inefficient. You’re being too flashy. And also, the beach is too covered in blood. Fighting over the corpses only gives them an advantage.”

  He shook some of the sand off. “I not tired. I fight.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  The next wave was not numbers; it was size. Two of the beasts burst through the carnage, gobbling a corpse on their way up. Instead of being three feet shorter than me, they were only a

  foot and a half shorter while being a bit longer at the same time. They were following a small trail of blood. I followed the trail of blood to Flit. She was dripping blood, but I noticed that her one leg had a mark that looked odd.

  She saw that I saw it. “I got caught on one of their teeth, okay. It’s not serious.”

  It wasn’t serious, but the larger tritons were locked onto her. She flapped her wings hard and a gust of wind flipped them both onto their backs. Spinning, she soared upwards to dive into the belly of the one. I dashed over to the other before it could roll back over.

  But I didn’t make it. It rolled over and attempted to slap me with its tail. I spun around then caught the tail. I tried to stop and flip the triton up and over my head. My paws dragged through the sand as I was pulled along. The area around my mouth ached more and started bleeding from its rough hide.

  Flit plunged in and buried herself into the prone monster. The triton tried to circle on itself and bite me, but it wasn’t flexible enough. I had to follow it around to keep my footing for a couple of rotations. A bullet of water zipped through and penetrated through the side of the triton’s head. It went still.

  Fernella frowned. “Real efficient—chasing its tail like that.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I growled as I kicked the dead triton with my paw. “I deserved that.”

  Flit dropped beside me, wings half-spread, dripping seawater and blood in equal measure. There was a breathiness betraying her exhaustion. “Less failing, more killing, unless we’re giving up the shoreline. We’re more than a little outnumbered.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  The fog thinned out to more than fifty feet out, and the number of shapes sprouting from the water were growing. Before, the tritons had come in scattered sprints, a half dozen at a time. Now I saw more tritons than water, and the sand was pooling with copious amounts of blood as many of the tritons stopped to tear apart those we killed.

  “Lucia, we need to back off!” Keagan shouted.

  That command irked me. “No! Not yet. I will not give up. I can’t give up. He will not get away.” My vision turned red. “If you need to back off, do it. I’m not done.”

  A deep, throaty, reverberating growl resonated through me. I heard Keagan’s voice, but it couldn’t reach me through the growing fury. One of the smaller tritons was closest and getting closer. Two more were shortly following behind it.

  The surf bulged as a dozen more jagged fins sliced surfaced. They weren’t just the small ones either. A couple of them were the larger.

  I didn’t care. They were all going to die. I wasn’t going to let them stop me.

  The first one took an ice shart to the eye. As it reeled back from the pain, I charged, planted my front paws, spun around, and kicked it with my hind legs. Small cuts opened on the pads on those feet.

  The triton bowled head over tail into the two following it. As the trio attempted to reorient themselves, I rushed to the one on the right. I circled to the side, where I planted my claws to give me easy access to tear at just behind its dorsal fin. Its rough hide dug into my paws, but I just ignored the pain and minor cuts opening.

  My fangs tore through the skin and muscle all the way to the heart.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 14%.

  I didn’t relish the kill, I was already throwing the corpse at the on-coming swarm. If they’re going to eat each other like animals, that will buy me some time to thin them out a bit.

  The two remaining righted themselves, but the one with a missing eye was running back to the ocean. I had too many others to concern myself with the wounded.

  The healthy one lunged for me. I slammed my paw on the bridge of its snout and forced it into the sand. My claws then dug in as I pinned it to fire an ice spike into its eye. I let the mana charge for four seconds, and it punctured all the way through the eye.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 29%.

  Three of the five that were part of the next wave continued past the first corpse I threw. With a heave of my claw, I tossed the corpse into the middle of them. They turned on it instantly. While they did, I charged another ice shard.

  The tritons’ teeth tore through their kin with brutal ease, and it seemed that they completely forgot about my existence. One remembered as I got close, but it was already too late. It lunged low—I stomped down on its snout, used the leverage to vault over it, and shot its gills with an ice spike mid-air. It thrashed wildly.

  A second triton looked up from its meal before I landed. I put all my weight into my front paws and landed between its eyes. The poor creature’s cartilage skull collapsed. As I pushed off it, I could feel it spring back, some of the way.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 43%.

  The third was too engrossed in its meal to bother with me. I bit down on its tail and swung it at one of the larger tritons as it ignored everything on its way to me. A wet slap and an overturned triton hit the sand with a spray of sand. The side of its face was marred by dozens of small cuts.

  Their sharp skin harms each other—convienent.

  I spun around and hammered the still alive, but very stunned triton caught in my fangs into the face of the other. It caught my improvised weapon in its maw.

  After letting go, I summoned a frost shield, aimed it horizontally across its gills, and slammed my shoulder into it. The shield shattered, but the shards dug into the organ. With a simple hop over it, I created another shield and did the same thing.

  It didn’t kill the monster right away, but from the way it was thrashing and heaving, it wasn’t long before it would drown in its own blood, if it could drown. But I could feel that my mana was almost completely spent. Maybe I had enough for two or three minimally charged ice shards.

  I saw the next triton too late as it rammed into my ribs before I could twist away. The impact lifted me off the ground and threw me back several paces. My breath left in a violent grunt. Sand clung to the fresh blood streaking my now heavily bleeding side.

  “Lucia!” Keagan cried.

  “It’s just a scratch,” I lied as I got back to my feet.

  My vision darkened to a shade of red that was closer to black than not. The wound on my side screamed. Something in my hip joint grated wrong. My wrath flickered behind my eyes begging—no, demanding—to take over.

  Not yet. Too many opponents to lose control.

  Yaz darted in and tackled the triton, slashing with his claws at the creature’s gills. The beast collapsed sideways.

  Flit swirled above me. “You say back off, but go running in anyway. I think you just want to hoard all the kills for yourself.”

  Fernella picked up a corpse of a triton and sung upwards at a triton coming up behind Yaz. The tritons both bent at extreme angles.

  She held up the dead on in her hands. “You know, I do have to hand it to her. Using them as weapons against each other is a one of a kind idea. Plus, it’s effective.” A short nymph holding up a shark-lizard creature twice as long as she was tall was a curious sight. “But I don’t care much for the way their rough skin feels. If my defense was any lower, it would probably hurt.”

  I marched forward. “If you don’t want to fight, then leave. I don’t care. I’m going to kill them one one or the other.”

  Another triton lunged for her and Keagan threw the bait bag at its face. Raw meat exploded everywhere. Every triton head whipped toward the scene.

  The tritons converged on each other. Almost twenty of the wild monsters clammered over and through each other for a bite of the meat. The shock of the scene cooled my wrath enough for me to blink my vision back to normal. No more tritons were coming out of the ocean. Yaz was backing up with a look of confusion on his face as he constantly flicked back to watch me.

  “Fernella, whatever the biggest spell you’ve got, now is the time to use it,” I barked. “Hit all of them now.”

  She tossed the corpse in her hand to the side and closed her eyes. Her hands swirled in wide arcs in front of her. More of the mist was drawn to her and turned into trails of water following her hands. She built it up further, drawing more water from the air around to power her spell. Her face scrunched as she was obviously pushing herself harder and harder. Then I noticed the tritons had finished the meat and were starting to refocus on us.

  “Now!” Dillon shouted. “You’ve got to do it now!”

  Fernella’s magic flickered for a fraction of a second, the water trailing her hands looked like it was about to fall to the ground but she grunted and returned to her swirling. The water around her streamed out to encircle the tritons. As it circled around, it created another lap on the inside. It continued, creating water from the air until all the tritons were swept up into a whirlpool on the beach. As the wild monsters spun and tumbled around, the center of the whirlpool rose up and pulled the outside of it inwards into a column.

  Fernella dropped to the ground on her knees, her wings and head slumped. Dillon ran to her.

  The swirling pillar of water burst in what seemed like a pop and it started raining tritons. They hit the beach, each one bursting up a burst of sand. Each impact sounded sickening. After they all landed, I surveyed the carnage and saw that most of them survived.

  I sprinted to the nearest one. “Quick, finish them off.”

  Yaz and Flit didn’t say a word as they moved to separate tritons. The tritons were clearly dazed and heavily concussed. Finishing them off was a mercy, since I doubt any of them were going to make it to the ocean before they suffocated. I quickly eliminated four on my own.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 57%.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 71%.

  Enemy defeated. Progress to level 8: 86%.

  Enemy defeated. Level 8 achieved. New special attack available.

  All the tritons were dead, the beach was soaked. Dillon held Fernella in his arms as he headed over to Yaz. Merella stared at all the bodies as she covered her mouth. Her face was starting to turn green.

  Keagan put his hands on his head. “We… we did it?”

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