With a forceful fp of its white wings, the harpy relinquished the angel’s corpse and took the air, a blur of feathery white. The hatchet spun harmless through the space where it had just been, and without talons holding it up, the dead angel colpsed forward, falling like a tree coming down.

  Just as the angel spshed, the harpy dove with a screech, talons at the ready, its wings tucked. It was too quick. Jenny caught a glimpse of Its beautiful white hair trailing behind it, and then she summoned her hatchet back with a fsh of light, just in time to parry.

  Sparks ignited upon contact. The obsidian edge of her hatchet against the harpy’s razor-sharp talons. And the impact shook her to the bone, but once she knocked the talons to the side, Jenny ducked and rolled through the water.

  The harpy fpped its wings hard, generating rger waves as it gained altitude. Jenny's leg bumped against the angel corpse, and from the corner of her eyes she could see tarnished angels grabbing other souls, making their way toward the eggs on the wall. Now that the wretched angels were gone, some of the tarnished angels were feeding on the eggs like opportunist scavengers. The sight made Jenny feel sick.

  Miriam was still up against the wall, staring up at the sky. When the harpy looped around again, she screamed "look out!"

  It tucked its wings and dove again for Jenny, coming at her with its talons outstretched. Jenny waited till the st moment, waiting till she knew the harpy wouldn't be able to pull out quick enough, and she flung her hatchet with another savage throw.

  She saw a fsh of worry on the harpy's face. The smug expression vanished, and then the hatchet struck its talons and cut right through one of them before spinning off and leaving a nasty gash in the snow-white wings.

  A horrible screech filled the corridor of the byrinth, high pitched and so shrill, Jenny had to cp her hands over her ears. The harpy fpped away awkwardly, spilling droplets of blood as it struggled back up to the tops of the walls. Jenny summoned her hatchet back then dove into the water where she was sure the long talon had fallen.

  She found it partially buried in the ground and yanked it out. Bck and sleek, the talon looked like a long, rounded dagger that ended in a hooked point, and a squishy but of brain was still stuck to the curved, razor point edge. She looked at Miriam who hadn't moved from the wall. "Here," she said tossing it over.

  Miriam caught it, and stared, admiring the length of the cruel talon, and Jenny remembered how she'd once given the girl the pink helmet Susan had made. How Miriam had crawled along the hallway floor to escape an angel so long ago. That was all before Miriam had turned into a bloodthirsty monster beyond reason.

  She was trusting Miriam with the talon. It would help the girl fight.

  "You filthy mortal wretch!” came a high-pitched shriek from above the walls. The melodious way of speaking had given way to a nasty, screaming voice.

  Jenny squinted up, ready to strike again. She suspected that diving was the harpy’s best move. They didn't have hands. They couldn't fight up close. Their best attack was to swipe down and strike quickly, and they'd been too used to fighting souls who couldn't fight back.

  “I’m going to peck out your liver and rip all your intestines out like worms and-”

  “Why don't you come down here and say that to my face, you ugly bitch?” shouted Jenny. She had half the mind to use Ignite, to roast that harpy and turn her into a bucket of wings.

  “WHO ARE YOU CALLING UGLY?!” The harpy spread its wings, blood freely dripping from the wound, and screeched again - a high-pitched screech that rippled through the air, as though the sound waves had force that could push Jenny back. Rubble vibrated; waves spshed Jenny’s legs. And the sound sent chills of warning through Jenny's body. She turned to see Miriam with her eyes screwed shut, clutching the talon to her chest.

  It stopped abruptly, and for a second there was spshing. Jenny clenched her jaw, looking up at the harpy, wondering what it’d done. Then she heard pshing sounds. Loud sloshing, like a crowd of people rushing through a flood.

  From both sides of the corridor came angels, tarnished ones as well as wretched ones. Maybe twenty or so tarnished, their thin fragile bodies glistening with wetness, their hisses so loud that it hurt, and then the wretched. Large ones with red and bck stripes. One with a dark blue exoskeleton. And a third in yellow, the female one that had run away before from the harpy.

  The harpy must have some control over them, Jenny realized. The angels were closing in; it would be a mad battle in no time, and all the while, the harpy would be overhead. She looked around for Miriam, trying to figure out how best to deal with the onsught. That was when green lightning shot straight up into the sky like a bolt of lightning.

  For a second, she'd hoped it was Yeshua and his lightning, and that the lighting had affected her eyesight and the color of things, but this was different. This bolt sizzled and snapped. This lingered in a way that felt unsettling, unnatural, and she knew without looking where it had come from. The green chrysalis she’d spotted earlier.

  But before she could confirm her suspicion, the angels colpsed onto her and Miriam, and everything blurred into spshing water and the red glow of the sky and nails and skin and teeth. Naked and shriveled, they cwed and scraped her armor, spped and threw themselves at her. The wretched angels struck angels down, leaping into them and forcing their heads underwater gurgling as they cmored to attack Jenny and Miriam. The striped angel was the first to reach Miriam.

  She scraped its face with the talon, and the weapon proved even more effective than Jenny's hatchet. The sharp point cut almost effortlessly through the exoskeleton, and the wretched angel howled in agony. Jenny struck down several tarnished angels in one go, barely noticing them before she stood back-to-back with Miriam

  The wretched angel swung again, cwing at Miriam. She buried the talon in its wrist, Jenny whipped around and used savage throw again. Her hatchet struck the angel right in the gash Miriam made earlier, bursting through into its face. Just before the hatchet ripped through the other side of its head, Jenny summoned it back to her hand, leaped, and brought it down tomahawk style onto the second wretched angel.

  The hatchet’s edge struck this angel’s yellow skull with a mighty crack. It was weaker and lower leveled, and Jenny managed to cut straight down into its chest, splitting its face and throat in half. The angel was dead before it hit the water.

  But there wasn't any time to enjoy the kill. To enjoy the spray of blood that covered her face. Green lightning surged through the water, snapping and hissing. Miriam and the remaining angels suddenly went rigid, all of them screaming as they burned.

  The scent of scorched flesh filled Jenny's nose. She was familiar with the sulfuric odor, but she was puzzled. The lightning hadn't struck her even though she was waist deep in water.

  She looked down to see smoke rising from her scorched armor. Some more of her scales had cracked, but the lighting never made it to her body. She looked back to see Miriam floating face down, her dark hair fanning out. The other angels were floating as well, their flesh bloated and dark red. Bile burned the base of Jenny’s throat, but there was another crackle of lightning.

  Jenny dashed toward Miriam as the harpy sang above them. And, just as the water started to boil, Jenny scooped Miriam up and held the girl up in the air. Jagged green bolts flickered across the surface of the water, sizzling around Jenny’s armored legs and burning the angels floating nearby. She held Miriam overhead, the girl’s arms and legs dangling, water dripping from every part of her. Before the green lightning faded, there was another screech from above, and the harpy dove again.

  “No!” shouted Jenny as talons hooked on to Miriam’s frail form. The harpy tore Miriam away.

  Blood rained down. Miriam screamed as the harpy fpped higher and higher, and before Jenny had the chance to strike, something rge and green smmed into her with enough force to send her rocketing through the pile of floating angels, generating rge waves that spshed against the walls. Jenny crashed into a bunch of stone blocks, nding with a spsh as loose rubble piled down on top of her.

  Wheezing, she forced herself to stand. She had to lean against a stone block. Everything hurt inside. Something was broken. Several something's. Maybe her ribs. With golden light she quickly made a potion Major Potion of Healing and downed it one go, dropping the gss as she caught her breath. Something popped and shifted inside her. Steam erupted from her mouth as she healed, and then she climbed out of the rubble. Shifting the colpsed blocks to size up what had attacked her.

  Desecrate Angel (level 63)

  This one was different from the blue armored one in the cafeteria. It wasn't as rge, and it was covered in a thin green armor that she knew was ridiculously hard just by how it felt during that impact. Several of her scales were cracked, but her enhanced armor had held up.

  It was hunched forward with extra-long arms. Its legs were thicker than the rest of its body, each one almost as wide as Jenny was, and it sort of reminded Jenny of an enormous, monstrous rabbit. Dark spiky hair shot out of its scalp, and judging by its wider frame and the thing between its powerful legs, it was a male desecrated angel.

  Jenny spat blood, readying herself. She thought about running, using instant acceleration through crowds of souls and angels till she lost this thing or it lost interest, but Miriam's gut-wrenching screams echoed down from the top, and Jenny could see the harpy's silhouette. It was perched on top of the wall, kneeling down and tearing something out of Miriam. Jenny couldn't leave her to that.

  She cracked her neck, and waded toward the desecrated angel. Its eyes were shut, and its arms swayed as though it was unsteady on its feet. Was it asleep? Jenny slowed down trying not to make a sound, holding her breath. Iblis? She thought, trying to summon the demon from the back of her mind. I could really use some-

  Then she saw what was happening. What the angel was doing. Electricity snapped and fizzed around its thighs, curving from its torso to its arms. The angel was charging up. Little bolts of lightning climbed through its body. It dropped down on all fours with a heavy spsh, and enormous bolts of lightning fshed toward Jenny, bigger and more powerful than before. She knew these would do far more damage than the electrical currents before.