All around Emily thick blood coagulated as the heat sapped the life from it, causing their cocoon to tighten around them.

  Emily had found over the last week or so that her blood was even more heat-resistant than before. It was obvious as to why, but she hadn’t yet had a chance to test the limits of this particular adaptation.

  However, she was not grateful to be testing its heat-mitigating features live and in person. Worse still, the flame was not receding, the stone was half the size it had been to begin with, and the torrent of flame showed no signs of stopping.

  Alex had been drawing runes on his blade since he arrived, but their relief came as a fog bank.

  Emily felt the heat drop by a degree, and then there was a presence just beside them. It was too small to be the elemental, and when the heat subsided completely, Emily broke them out.

  Kael was standing beside them his spear weeping an icy fog.

  “I can only keep this thing down for a minute, we’ll need to end this by then.”

  From here it was obvious where the monster was, it just about glowed like a beacon in the misty world.

  Emily's brow raised.

  “Not even going to ask how this happened?”

  Kael grunted.

  “No offense Emily but it's you we’re talking about, you probably annoyed it into attacking,” he said dully.

  Emily pouted at the man.

  “That’s the asshole that I’m after, I want the killing blow,” she said firmly.

  Kael’s eyes flickered over to Emily with a steeled gaze.

  “Forced exposure? That hasn’t happened in a while. But I heard older Mages were trained to do this if there was no way of winning.”

  Emily cocked her head.

  “Oh great, thanks for sharing.”

  A faint flush crept up his neck and he frowned at Emily.

  “You can’t be serious,”

  Emily shrugged her shoulders as a wail came from the mists.

  “Not the time. We should attack now while it can’t see,” she said

  Alex grunted as he finished the runes on his blade.

  “The ward I just drew will sever the connection between the husk and its source, but I’m going to need an opening, can you two make it?”

  Kael and Emily scowled at one another but nodded firmly.

  “Where do you need to be,” Kael asked.

  “As close to its chest as possible.”

  They both nodded and broke into two groups Emily and Kael moved toward the glowing embers and Alex took up the rear.

  The closer they got the more visible the torrent of flame grew.

  They had the perfect opportunity to launch a sneak attack on the monster who was flailing about searching the mists.

  Moving to the side Emily took the scepter off her hip. Her bridge was throbbing with a dull pain, but she could still handle it, for now.

  Pouring grey source into the weapon made it glimmer, but it also had the unintended consequence of drawing the elemental’s attention to her.

  “Shit-” Emily yelped when it made a lobbing motion.

  A fireball the size of a car loomed from the mists and Emily dove to the side, tucking herself into a ball. The detonation landed, punctuated by the sound of rushing air. Ignoring the pain of rolling over a surface littered with sharp stones, Emily turned and fired a shot from her rod. The force ball smashed at her feet and exploded outward, just big enough to stop her from being swallowed by the flames.

  During this time Kael had closed the distance between them. He spun the shortspear out in a swiping motion causing the mists to gather up into a thin blade of water. The attack sizzled and popped on contact, but it certainly got the thing's attention.

  Before it could turn away though Emily lobbed another sphere of force at its head. When the thing landed it detonated but the effect was bearly enough to disperse the monster's head.

  Which began gathering shortly after.

  It screamed into the open air once its mouth had reformed and Emily glanced about for cover.

  Waves of radiation baked the surrounding stone causing it to crack and crumble near this creature's base. Emily could feel the glow biting into her skin causing it to blister visibility.

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  She had a feeling if it weren't for Kael’s cloud they would probably be unable to get close to the creature right now.

  Even with it, the experience was unpleasant to the extreme.

  Emily gathered her blood into a spear but she poured a fair amount of life force into it weaving in an explosion.

  If the attack was not big enough, it would just fizzle out before it got there. So putting some extra spin to it, Emily aimed it at the thing’s base and released.

  The missile-sized spear shot forward stabbing into the elemental’s body and exploding into a shower of blood. There was a hiss and screech before the blood died out and carbonized in seconds.

  The attack only served to piss the monster off further as it sent a fist after Emily.

  Kael seemed to arrive from nowhere and stabbed towards the attack, knocking it off target.

  Emily moved toward Kael, putting as much distance between herself and the attack. Unfortunately, the proximity seemed to be too much for Emily's travel leathers to handle, and the back of her clothes began to smoke and then ignite.

  Cursing, she released her blood gown to coat the armor with a sizzling crackle.

  Kael intercepted her and jumped them both backward.

  “This is ridiculous we can’t make an opening with these little attacks, I’ll distract the thing you hit it hard.”

  Emily shook her head.

  “I’m a bad match-up for this thing, I’ll distract it”

  Kael sent her a narrow-eyed look.

  “You sure you can?”

  Emily snorted and pushed his arm off.

  She called two large whips from her blood as Kael retreated into the mists.

  Emily lashed out with the first one, pouring power into the whip to prevent it from burning to much.

  The crack and sizzle wrought a scream from the creature and it lunged at Emily who was already running from the spot she had been seconds ago.

  When the thing crashed down there was a rush of hot wind at her back but it didn’t stop there.

  The elemental began crawling forward dragging itself forward with its arms, so to get out of range Emily shot one of her whips out and grabbed onto a collapsed structure.

  A yank of her blood pulled her off her feet and into the air.

  When the monster saw this it opened its mouth and released a cone of flames at her back.

  Without much choice, Emily used the momentum from launching herself forward to take to the air.

  Emily's gown expanded out and she turned back to face the thing to make sure she had it attention.

  Having dodged the wave of flame she could see that its neck was craned to look up at her with a single focus.

  “That’s it Ariandel, look at me” she whispered.

  At the same time, she created half a dozen blood bolts, only this time she drained them of vitality and hardened them into solid projectiles.

  From her place in the air, she rained down a hail of attacks.

  Though it didn’t look like it was doing much damage, it was certainly annoying.

  The monster wailed and its form began to swell upwards growing to as it reached for her.

  Emily growled as she ascended higher into the air, never turning her back on the thing.

  After she released another salvo of projectiles, it blocked them with its hand.

  Seeing the thing coming at an incredible rate Emily twisted and slipped through the gap in its large fingers.

  What she didn’t expect was the sudden shift in its form.

  Unlike a human hand, the thing had no fixed shape so it bent its fingers backward and grabbed hold of Emily around the waist. The sudden crushing force yanking her back caused her to expel all the air from her lungs.

  Letting out a howl of pain as her skin boiled, she pushed through the pain and flicked her wrist out, creating a scythe.

  The palm gripping her had shrunk to reel her in like a fish, but she wasn’t about to let that happen.

  She cut through the thing's wrist causing the fist to dissipate all at once. The monster's scream was music to Emily’s ears as she took off again, flying out of its reach. Peppering it with more bolts from above.

  The thing seemed to have lost its patience when it began to lift up towards her –because of course, it could fly. However, Kael had been waiting for this exact moment.

  The creature’s attention was solely fixed on Emily and so when he charged the thing did not even attempt to dodge.

  The man swung his spear out and then launched himself at the thing's chest. His spear extended out in front of him.

  Kael was traveling so fast that he was nothing more than a blur surrounded by thick vapor. So much so that visible droplets formed in the air where he passed before evaporating.

  Kael crashed into the elemental's back and contrary to Emily’s expectations, he didn’t stop. The monster's form warped as Kael’s spear tip stabbed through its body coming out the other side.

  Unable to stop the violent intrusion, the elemental form wavered but remained fixed.

  It hunched over in pain unable to even scream. Surprisingly the hole in its chest didn’t seem to be able to close.

  It was through the window into the inferno that Emily could make out a large chunk of burnt charcoal. Squinting from on high she realized it was Ariandel’s body curled up in the fetal position.

  Emily’s eyes widened and then she saw Alex hurling toward the opening in its chest.

  She lowered her altitude in case he needed help, but he easily slipped into the gap and stabbed the husk through its center mass.

  The monster let out a dying scream, its body unraveling into motes of flame, but before it did, it went for Alex.

  Shoving its arm into its chest the elemental grabbed Alex and tried to crush him like a bug.

  Emily's heart dropped into her stomach as she watched Alex consumed by a fiery fist. There was a grunt and the smell of sizzling flesh before the creature was unable to hold its form any longer and broke apart leaving a crispy Alex panting on the ground but alive.

  Emily dropped for the sky with a scowl. Approaching Alex she saw he’d lowered the breathing corpse to the ground with his sword still in it.

  Emily touched down beside him and saw that he was covered in burns. To some extent his bridge probably protected him but there was a particularly nasty burn covering the whole left side of his neck having burned its way down his back and ribcage like a python.

  Emily could see where the hand had basically wrapped around him.

  Sighing she searched through her pack and uncorked a healing tonic.

  Here you’re going to need this,” she said as she handed it to him.

  Alex took it with a sweating hand and threw it back as quickly as he could.

  Emily on the other hand busied herself with the cause of all of this. Kneeling down one on leg she inspected the charred body in front of her.

  “I can’t blame you for trying, I would have done the same thing,” she said as she searched what she thought was his face.

  Emily was watching closely so she could see the faintest rising and falling of breathing, and if she strained, she thought she could hear the faintest chuckle on the night's wind.

  She pressed her lips together and grabbed the hilt of Alex's sword. It was glowing red hot with power but Emily showed no hint of pain other than a twitch as she pulled the blade from his stomach and swiftly chopped off the Silvaen's head.

  Alex was still shaking from exhaustion when the cloud of mist receded and Kael appeared limping his way to them.

  Their surroundings lay scorched from the battle, the ground charred and the air thick with smoke. Before Emily could make sense of what was happening, a thunderous crack shattered the night, its echo rolling through the city like a storm.

  Emily’s head snapped toward the front gate. In the flickering firelight, she saw the gate collapse, crumbling under the force. Through the haze, the armies of Sam’eth surged forward, pouring into the city like a relentless wave.

  Blood points: 336