Lyca stopped as he made the way out the tai wand. His fists were dripping with blood, fire crawled around his body as it warmed him. Eliza, Edmonton and Fleur caught up quickly.

  Thirty mages waited outside, staffs and wands already glowing as they waited for him to leave. Lyarled as sorcerous energies spiralled around him.

  They wanted a fight? Let them have one.

  A proper one.

  To the death.

  Fer roared as an axe pierced into her side. She roared again as she caught a spinning give with her hand. Half of the turioinels had fallen, and she was otle left. Anassa stared up from the ceiling as she watched the brawl. This could not go on.

  She turwisted, the bde of the give shattered beh her cws as she increased the pressure. The axe was torn out of her body as she twisted with all the grace of a leopard. The sentinel was thrown away, it’s bulbous body taking a step back as it stabilized it with one of its fs. A drum beat from behind Fer, another automaton ing in from behind.

  Fer’s ears twisted as she caught the sound of air being cut. She curled into a ball and pulled the mae with the gives forward. An axe buried itself deep into the mae as Fer rolled and kicked it backwards into what just had tried to attack her. Fer unched herself into the air, smmed into the ceiling, her cws tore into the stone. She grabbed and held on with one hand as her eyes sed the room.

  Kavaa’s final vial of blood was quickly dowhis could not go on ihe healing would only st for a dozen or so hits. Fer growled as she felt her side close, veins rearrahemselves and the bleeding stopped as Kavaa essence again started to burn up quickly. She had to end this quickly, she had to save Anassa here and now.

  Or else she would die.

  Fer’s eyes sed the room. The sentinels rearrahemselves as they ploughed over the wreckages she had left. Steel twisted and snapped uhe heavy footsteps of the robots. The door to Anassa was still protected by a full team of twenty. Shields and spears raised and pointed in all dires. The rest had split into three teams of eight, seven and hey prowled to every er as their maery angrily hissed at Fer in the air.

  Something had to be done.

  She had to get through that door.

  Fer let go as Kavaa’s essence closed her wounds the blood started to settle withiomach. “Anassa.” Fer said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll o borrow some of your strength.” Fer said as she licked her lips.

  “Sharing is g.” Anassa said ftly. “And you know I’m a g soul.” The false vision of Anassa ughed in that haughty sarcastic mirth only nobles could pull off.

  “ you not damage these?” Fer asked.

  “I do this.” Anassa said as she turned around and cpped her hands. It was a grand dispy of sorcery, with red bdes and beams erupting from arouhey unched into the closest automaton and then simply blinked out of existehe robot did not eve, the attack did not even make a scratch. “Trust me, I’ve tried before.” Anassa said. Fer nodded grimly, so it was only her.

  Her against fifty. She had to get through that door. Fer growled as she let go of the ceiling. The sentinels started to move before she even touched the ground. They walked over broken steels and gss, over fragments of a crystals and crushed onry and circled around Fer again.

  The Goddess of Beasthood took the initiative before they closed the circle. She pou that group of seven. A sword bit int, the remains of Kavaa’s blood set alight. She grabbed a mae by the arms and spun in a circle. It unched high, straight into that barrier of twenty. Another was thrown by the leg as Fer felt a spear pierce her stomach.

  Fer merely twisted her chest as her muscles hardened with all the strength she could muster, the spear snapped as she pulled that shard of bronze alloy out of herself. It stabbed into the mae that had tried to dowhe glowing blue sensor array on it gave a few final sparks of life before it switched off food. A third mae was grabbed, Fer’s cws buried itself deep through the armour as she tore it apart.

  Brohril alloy screamed and tore in a cacophony of noise as Fer tore the mae in two. One half blocked an axe aiming to split her skull, the other became a shield as turned and threw it into that barrier.

  Fer saw the opening. A momentarily lull in the defender’s as the reahemselves. One mae had been crushed by the first throw. The other had torn through the legs of two more. They were being pushed out of the semi-circle by shields.

  In the blink of an eye, Fer unched herself at the wall. The stone cracked as if it had been hit by a onball. Fer’s legs hardehe muscles straining to keep up with the damage she had just put them through and she unched herself into that group.

  Spear pierced her shoulder. Shield cracked her bones. Her jaws closed around an arm as she tore through metal and spat the shards out. The maes crowded around her. Shields smmed into the ground to force her still.

  Fer’s cws found an opening as her foot tore up the floor and she kicked one up. The seook a step back, it’s rear leg hissing as the pistons within taihe pressure of the recoil. Fer slid through the gap and grabbed a spear. The mae had a strong grip, but it wasn’t a Divine. Fer arms twisted the mae, the joint gave out and the arm tore at the ector to the mae’s body.

  Fer rolled on the ground like a snake as she avoided two more spears. They buried deep into the stone and were pulled out just as quickly. A shield that would have decapitated her was caught, she threw it back. Meical hinges cracked and shattered as she grabbed that huge, terrifyingly heavy, pieetal and smmed it forwards.

  The door.

  There it was, another opening. Two sentinels were already ing to block her way. Fer was faster, her legs tore stone as she readied her shoulder and crashed into that flimsy piece of wood. To think that it was so soft pared to the metal of the maes.

  Fer crashed into a staircase as Anassa appeared before her. The woman was about to stay something when Fer felt her hairs stand up. She rolled to one side as the stairs were pierced by spears. Then again as the maes started to follow her. The air was bitter and burning here. “I’m in the middle of a mercury pool.” Anassa said. “Hold your breath.”

  Fer took a breath of the bitter air and held it as she kicked the spears baore pierced her arm. She roared, she steel, took another breath and kicked stairs at the robots. One shard of sto a sensor and the robot took a sed to re-calibrate. That was enough, Fer’s cws dug into the walls and she pulled herself up.

  The maes were strong, but she was fast. Fer stood up as she looked down at the maes from the stairs and ied her body. Her stomach was bleeding from a hole, one arm was torn to the bohe other’s palm was gaping forwards. Her legs were bleeding.

  Fer licked her own blood only for the taste. Her own blood had no effe her, it merely sent her into a bloodlust again. Bloodlust was good, bloodlust made her think of other’s blood and not her own. She turned as the maes formed a single-file line. A heavy step came onto the first stair, then another.

  Fer raced up the stairs before the maes would catch up to her. Each step felt heavier than before, and there was another door. Wood again. Fer slowly lifted an arm up, her muscles tearing in pain as they tried to stop the exertion and she cracked through the wood.

  There she was. Anassa. Held up by two s bound to her wrists, in that red dress she had always worn in the Great War. Her bck hair falling to her waist, her eyes closed. She hung two feet away from the liquid mercury. A final line of defeo stop any mortals from getting to her. The false Anassa stepped from behind Fer. “Those are Essa’s crystals.” She said as her hand swept across the round room to the crystals that lihe wall. Each as tall as Fer, each glowing and pulsing as it absorbed the magic residue of Arcadia’s leylines ahem into taining Anassa.

  Fer’s eyes sed the room. Two hundred of them, two huo the dot. Anassa hovered into the air and sniffed in humour. “I oold Essa it would take a hundred of them to tain me, so she doubled it.” Fer heard the maes crawling up the staircase and wasted no time. Anassa ughed mirthlessly again. “And you know, I’m never wrong, so I ’t get through two hundred. y-nine is possible though.” Fer smashed into the first crystal with all the force her body could produce.

  It cracked and released one final pulse of energy as Anassa smiled from above.

  One down. A huo go.

  Fer’s cws ripped into one. She spshed into the mercury, jumped at another as she worked cyclically. A punto one. A leg into the other. Sweat burst out over her face, these stones were twice as hard as the bodies of the automatons. Another down. She worked her way, eventually simply stepping through the knee-deep mercury as it spshed and burned on her skin, her fist pressing into the crystal until they shattered.

  Ten.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  The Sentinels reached the room. They came, a party swarmed around the Fer, the rest took protective positions to safeguard the rest of the chamber from the rampaging Goddess. Fer unched, spshing mercury over an automaton as she kicked it back before the mae could ssh at her with those spinning gives. It still got her leg on its way out, and that wound in the mercury.

  The robot stumbled backwards and smashed onto three crystals. They shattered uhe mae’s weight as the rest of the magical array started to pulse faster. “I feel it.” Anassa said from above. Fer did not stop to answer as an axe smashed into her shoulder. She grabbed it, tore the on off with the entire arm and flung it across the room. It bounced across the walls, smashing another five of the massive glowiones. Fer jumped away, spshed mercury over two maes as she ploughed into more.

  Fourty crystals down. Sixty and o.

  A sentinel armed with two shields and two spears came at Fer. She dived through the mercury and kicked it to the side. It lost trol as liquid metal covered its sensors and blihe mae, the smashed into anem. A sword hit Fer’s cheek. She twisted her neck as her body screamed, crushed it in her jaw and spat the shards into her arm.

  Her fist crushed the metal into a ball. That ball cracked yet anemsto pulsed, then shattered in a spectacur explosion. Another crystal went off, Fer’s hopes for a rea died when it was only that pair that fell. She kicked off the floor, sidestepped two maes and dragged her cws across some more.

  Fifty. Half way there.

  Kavaa’s blood burned up to its dregs until Fer’s stomach was so empty she felt the pangs of starvation within her. She avoided the maes now, jumping away when they got close and simply smashing into the gemstones with the sheer force of her body. She raeeth across one, damaging the veins of the crystal until it started to glow warm a up. Fer closed her eyes, curled up into a ball and was unched by the explosion high over the seo the other side of the room.

  Sixty. Fourty and o.

  Her cws cracked and shattered on number sixty-five. Her fists would have to do at this point. Fer felt her golden coat start to shed as her power started to fade. She punched oone, felt another spearpoint cut into her side and screamed as she pulled the mae close.

  Goddess and mae rolled through liquid mercury as Fer ripped shards of metal out and threw them across the room, maddened and ung where they went. She heard crag and more shattering of gemstones as the mae was torn apart to give her ammunition. Her hand found the robot’s core, she tore it out, stood up and hurled it towards a crystal. A brilliant explosion took out the two adjat ones as well.

  Eighty. Twenty and o.

  The hum of gemstones got louder, their beating got more frantic as they elled more magic to tain the hanging Anassa. “Behind you!” Anassa shouted from above and Fer rolled forwards. She hadn’t heard the axe, it would have split her in half if it hit. Fer took another breath of bitter air as she forced her body to stand.

  There was nothi. No more bloodlust to be chased, no power to be had. “I’m sorry Ana.” Fer said as she unched forwards at the one spaguarded in the room. Anassa. Her mouth settled on Anassa’s shoulder and she gripped her sister. Her teeth broke the skiongue pped up the blood.

  It surged within her, her fur regrew then faded. Anassa was a strong Goddess, but not of Kassandora’s physical prowess, nor did she have Baalka’s irength. Anassa’s magic had beeaught, that could not be stolen. The vision of Anassa that hovered in mid air did not even look at her shoulder as it started bleeding. She merely turned and poio ay crystal.

  Fer felt her bloodlust ki o time. She unched herself with a roar, her eyes going red as Anassa’s bled within her. It cracked and fell. The rest started to glhter. To anem that stood away from the sentinels. Her shattered cws dug into it, then snapped off wheried to pull them out. Fer closed her eyes asa she fell to her khen picked herself back up. The sounds of spshing mercury were ing close.

  Fer unched into the air, spshed mercury over the mae’s sensors, and then kicked it back. It lost trol in the liquid metal, its legs slipped and it tumbled backwards as it ploughed into a row of crystals. Fer jumped to the other side of the room. Her head smashed into a crystal, she shook the dizziness off and jumped backwards as she grabbed a hunk of gemstone.

  y. Ten and o.

  That hunk of gemstone shattered another crystal. They were humming madly now, as if straining to tain Anassa. Fer side-stepped a give ing down on her and tore it off. Tried to. The mae wouldn’t crack this time. She roared, pushed her foot into the ground and khe sentinel over. It crashed into a spot where a crystal had shattered. Fer’s teeth tore through the handle of the on and she sent it flying to another.

  Eight and o.

  The humming increased. Fer screamed once again as a give cut into her side. She hardened her crabbed the on with both hands and s over her khe on was hurled into another man-sized glowio exploded into a hail of storm blue lights that flickered like snow in the sunlight. Four crystals followed.

  Three and o.

  Fer’s arm peed into the core of the mae and she felt the core. She had wao rip it out at first, but the moving arms just made her crush it. The whirling bdes stopping moving a hair’s width away from her neck. She heaved and a pte of armour away. It got thrown behind like a discus.

  A crystal exploded. y-eight destroyed. Two and o.

  Fer snarled as she tore the armour maes leg off. She cracked it in two, jumped into the, staying close to the wall and threw both pieces at exposed gemstones. y-nine and a hundred blew up. The rest started to glow clear white as the temperature in the room increased. That fake Anassa smiled from above as she looked back to herself.

  O.

  Fer found it, she pounced off the wall and unched herself, her entire body serving as the wreg ball to free Anassa. Too slow. A seomped into position. Fer’s shoulder smashed against it and the mae stumbled back. Four spears turned arated into the wall to serve as a barricade.

  Fer roared and puhe mae. It an inch. She roared again ahe back of the mae touch the crystal as joints and pistons hissed in anger. Fer took a step bad smashed into the automaton with all the strength she had left. The pressure cracked the gemstone and the two of them were thrown back.

  One hundred and one.

  Anassa was never wrong. She had wanted y-nine, Fer had given her y-nine. “Sister, you take it from here.” Fer said as she colpsed onto her knees, her breathing heavy as her body struggled to keep with regeing the damage.

  It was over. She had given Anassa all she could. She just hoped it was enough. Her vision faded as her kept herself standing. The closest seook a step forwards, then took a step back.