RD 4 Ch 16

The others were in the process of luring a warrior to fight me, while they would then take care of the scouts, when everything suddenly went terribly wrong.

Circe gasped as blood sprayed out of her mouth and a spine shot through her chest. A faint pink glow wrapped around her and despite the damage she was still conscious.

A Hivnara appeared. It was a thinner variant with clear gossamer wings that buzzed behind it, its body shimmering as if its invisibility was fading. The winds that Circe had been producing came to a grinding halt and the stalker's wings buzzed as it tried to launch itself into the air with Circe in tow.

The woman's eyes were still wide open and she swung her hand, a blade of wind smashing against the Hivnara.

[Hivnara Stalker SS

Level: 101

…]

I didn’t have time to read it all.

The stalker flinched at the blow but the hit wasn't hard enough to dislodge her from its grasp. Having an entire limb through her chest took far more force.

I activated a charge, surging through the distance between us before jumping and grabbing onto the Hivnara before it could get too high for us to reach.

We needed to keep it from carrying Circe off.

"Not happening" I said, throwing my weight around. Even with the Hivnara's strength, my weight was formidable because of my physique.

The monster tried to steady itself, wobbling in the air. A moment later, its wings picked up speed and activated an ability as it tried to climb higher while shaking me off.

I chuckled and, while holding on, pulled out the drop sword before activating the ability and holding tight to the monster. I bodily slammed all three of us into the ground.

Nyx was on top of us a second later. Her dozens of serpent-shaped locks swarmed around Hivnara's arm that had punched through Circe. Some of them lifted the woman while others bit at and pulled the Hivnara's arm back.

As soon as Nyx got the monster’s limb out of Circe, the arch-sorceress' eyes glowed with baleful fury. She threw a palm into the Hivnara before blasting it off into the distance with a concussive thump of wind that belonged to cannon fire and not a simple palm.

Simone was already sliding down on her knees to get next to Circe and put her hands on her ally, pumping healing into her. "You're gonna be okay," Simone promised.

"Of course I am," Circe growled, her light blue hair whipping around her as her eyes tracked for the stalker's reappearance. “That thing surprised me before I could even use my skills.”

"Blowing it away was the wrong move," I said, watching her gaze. Her attack had been powerful enough to rip it out of my hands.

"Well, you have other problems to deal with, don't you?" Circe asked, glancing back at the warriors and scouts that Merlin was currently doing her best to keep at bay all on her own now.

"Fine," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. I knew better than to try and argue with an angry woman. "Nyx, you and your serpents are on watch for that thing's reappearance."

She snapped me a salute and drew her bow back, ready for action. Circe looked like she wanted to argue, but huffed, the wind around her dying, and she pulled her hair out of her face.

"Fine. When it does come back, know that I owe it an ass-whooping," Circe said, her eyes darting around, more on edge. "It was stealthed," she said defensively.

I held my hands up, "I didn't say anything. I saw it drop out of some sort of cloaking ability. Now that we know what we're dealing with, we'll keep an eye out." I promised her, hoping not to repeat that particular activity again.

Simone's magic was quickly stitching Circe back together.

I was honestly impressed with how well the caster had weathered being run through. Too many panicked in that type of situation and lost all semblance of fighting back. And in their panic, they often made the situation worse.

Merlin grunted to get my attention. The raven-haired woman was slinging spell after spell, summoning frost golems with complete disregard to conserving her mana. Even as the golems were squished or shattered into slush by the warrior nearly as quickly as she made them.

Then again, they were practically throwing themselves away as they did their best to make up for Circe's lack of wind, and instead were bodily checking the Hivnara that were on the ice, and keeping them from catching our group while we recovered from the stalker’s ambush.

Simone glanced up from where she was working on Circe to see the situation, and a thoughtful expression crossed her face before her eyes glowed, and a dozen illusionary versions of me sprang to life, rushing the Hivnaras.

The monsters reacted, twisting and snapping at the illusions as they rushed them, only to find their mandibles and skulls brush right through the illusions, many of them losing their balance and giving Merlin's golems the chance to grab onto them like a linebacker and kick off against the ground, getting enough momentum to easily slide the Hivnara back fifty feet or more.

"Good work, Simone." I shot her a smile, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"It wasn't much." She grinned, clearly happy if downplaying the praise.

The only person that seemed upset still was Gloria, who had her fist clenched white-knuckle tight with her arms crossed under her chest, being essentially benched because her fire would undo Merlin's ice. It was clearly not sitting well with the woman.

"If the stalker comes back, those wings looked pretty fragile, Gloria. I bet you could torch them off. That thing would be far easier to deal with if it couldn't fly." I offered.

The mafia princess scowled lightly because she hadn't thought of the idea first, but she nodded as her fist loosened. She began looking to the sky along with Nyx to spot our tricky friend.

I kept my expression neutral, not wanting to say anything and ruin the independent woman's new purpose.

Gloria was certainly not the kind of woman that you could ask to stand back and do nothing. She was most comfortable as an active participant, if not the leading one.

I knew I'd have to be careful and find a better purpose for her in one of the upcoming fights. Otherwise, I'd be with a powder keg ready to blow. I also suspected I didn't really need to manage her. She'd find her place easily enough.

"And if it's not showing right now," she said after a moment, "how about I join you?"

I grinned at her, welcoming her help. I moved away from Circe and Simone; it seemed the stalker was going to wait for its next strike. That, or it wasn't coming back. Standing around and protecting Circe wasn't going to do anything but prolong the current fight.

"Do me a favor and clear a path through the ice," I said, jerking my head to the side.

At the idea of blasting away the ice, Gloria smiled. She flashed a terrifying grin and flicked her hand out. A purple crack of molten fire stretched between me and the nearest hidden aura scout underneath the ice before scorching it away and blasting upwards.

I rushed forward, the fire disappearing with every step I took, parting for me before I came through the other side. My sword raised against a monster that hadn't seen me until the last second. I was easily able to cleave its mandibles off before it could wind up another attack. Then I bodily checked it to the side, only for a pillar of Gloria's flame to explode underneath it and assist me in flipping the hivnara over on its back.

Our teamwork was solid and she wrapped its face in fire as I buried my new bloodiron blade into its underside.

Quickly, we mopped up the remainder of the Hivnara. The stalker never showed.

“Bran, why didn’t you warn us about that new type so we could be on the lookout.” Circe said as she summoned a folding screen from her spatial ring and stepped behind it only for her shredded dress to flop over the side and her shadow moving as she put on a new one.

“Didn’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ve seen three instances of hives, and none of them were quite the same. They all had the same basic premise, but flying, cloaked ambushes? Haven’t seen that before.”

She huffed and reappeared as the folding screen vanished now in a simple white dress that looked like a scandalous toga showing off her curves. “It is poor form for me to say, but your knowledge fails at the most unfortunate times.”

“We shouldn’t be going into anything assuming everything I know is accurate and complete.” I argued, a frown dropping onto my face. “As time goes on, my knowledge will become even more directional. A lot has changed.”

“Now we know about them.” Simone tried to mediate. “And we can prepare. This is why we all have abilities for emergencies. Guardian of Lust kept you alive until I could put your organs back in.”

Circe huffed but gazed back towards the hive that we were fighting to reach. “Fine.”

I had an idea of what was truly bothering Circe. She was too used to being untouchable and when that was shattered, it rattled her. Most people would instinctively blame anything but themselves, however those who were intelligent enough to survive would eventually settle on some way to improve themselves and adapt rather than waste more breath on blaming others.

“I’ll just have to be more alert. Perhaps one of our inspect abilities can pierce their cloaking or I can do some wide area damage to break it. There is a real risk that one of those goes after Simone, and I’m not so sure that we’ll be as resilient as this time.” Circe cast a concerned glance towards me and Simone.

At least she was starting to think about it.

My eyes shifted to Simone as well. “You have a good point. We’ll need to figure out a countermeasure immediately.”

Circe had certainly shifted to fixing the problem, however the idea of Simone being at risk made my blood boil with barely contained rage.

The beautiful saintess flashed me a brilliant smile. “Don’t worry.” She slid up next to me. “Bran will save me if anything happens, and when he’s off crushing bugs I’ll stay next to Nyx. I watched Nyx’s hair react a moment before Circe was skewered. I just hadn’t known at the time what it was signaling. Now I do.” Simone gave one of the snakes a little pat on top of its the head.

The snake leaned into the touch.

I nodded, still scanning the surroundings. That knowledge at least helped ease my concerns a bit. “Nyx, call it out if it happens again and everyone can use their strongest defensive ability. Merlin, Circe and Gloria, if we get that signal, let loose all around us and see if you can’t damage it out of that ability.”

The group nodded and I felt my boiling blood calm some. The idea of losing any of my women still lingered in the back of my mind, but now we at least had a plan.

AN - I'll speed us up out of this instance and get back to the apocalypse.