Rynth: Four Beats

| 7th of Teryusin — Year 362 of the Cycle of Synthesis, Grand Cycle ??? |

Idri and Cali poised up to the gigantic beast, each making rigid swipes at its fur with enough force to cleave bone from body. The bear made no effort to defend itself, taking each strike with surprising resilience. It groaned a fair few in response to the deeper cuts, but otherwise kept a relentless assault of claws on the two.

Deftly weaving under a slash that tore through the air, Cali kept low and ran a cut along its legs. The blade of her dagger did not tear past the first layer of skin. Even its fur, battered and matted, posed as tough as a sheet of steel. A few droplets of blood oozed out along the start and end of the curve where she dug in and pulled out, dripping only a few inches before sizzling up and evaporating into a musky crimson vapor. At the same time, the shallow wound mysteriously closed up all in the span of a few seconds. Wrought with confusion, she was just barely fast enough to bring her blades in front of a devastating shove that sent her flying back.

Now free to focus on Idri, the bear roared, attempting to catch the girl off guard with repeated low blows. The first she leapt over and used the angle to drive a deep wound along its chest. Unlike Cali’s thinner and flimsier daggers, Kranstor easily tore through its skin, seeming to stop the bear for a short instant before it powered through and primed a weaker claw toward Idri’s arm—still perfectly capable of slicing it off, were it not for the artillery.

A set of Jati Missiles and an Ice Shard made contact directly on its fatter pad, impeding it just enough for Idri to bring Kranstor up to shield herself. The wound formed on its chest was again healing, only much slower this time around. Raoul furrowed his brows, immediately clocking the discrepancy with the wounds they had dealt it and the ones laid out along its body that didn’t heal and maintained as scars. Worse still, the wounds from theirs seemed to disappear entirely.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Avil was quicker.

“I saw it too. It’s regenerating from Cali and Idri’s hits.”

Raoul shuddered. He reared another casting of Ice Shard and sent it straight for the next paw coming for Idri. It pierced through and drew blood that quickly froze, but again healed up and left not even residue of the injury. “I’m getting a strange feeling of déjà vu. Hold on.”

He narrowed his eyes, focusing entirely on the process of healing.

By then, Cali had returned into the fray and was going straight for open vital spots. Namely, the two eyes on the bear’s otherwise equally-scarred face. She shadowed Idri and used the single half-second the bear took in between its hits and seized a firm grip on its fur. Using it as a handhold, she carefully scaled its hulking form amidst all its thrashing and flailing. The bear growled in fury, swiping frantically at Cali, but could not land a single strike on her as she retreated to its back.

Now positioned perfectly, she held onto its ear and drove her dagger straight into its left eye, forcing out a louder roar of pain and more forceful swings. She finally lost her grip the second after and was thrown off. Thankfully, Idri caught the disturbance in the air, caught her, and set her back down on her feet.

“Are you okay, Cali?”

She wiped herself down. “I am fine, Idri. Thank you for that.”

The same could not be said for the bear. It hooked a paw around the dagger and wrenched it out, forcing a fountain of blood out along with it. Twice now angered, it turned toward Raoul and Avil, who had been keeping back the entire fight and started charging in their direction. The girls raced back, but were slightly too far to reach top speed in time.

Raoul had gotten what he needed. He quickly raced in the opposite direction confidently and beckoned Avil, who did the same but with less gusto.

“Are… are you gonna tell me where we’re going?!” shouted Avil as he vaulted over a thick fallen log after his friend.

Raoul took his time in replying, focusing his gaze on the blurry cord of Jati that trailed in the direction they were running. “I saw cyan leading off the bear! You remember our Jati Color Theory classes, right?”

“Of course! Jati conforms into the personal color of its wielder, but in its natural, untouched state, they change depending on the element the spell takes. Fire is usually orange but can take on all the colors flames are able to. Water is blue or whatever naturally existing color of it the caster sees fit, and vice versa. But what does this have to do with anythin—oh! Cyan… that’s Time Jati!”

“Exactly,” he grinned, firing off an Ice Shard backward to slow down the bear slightly. “There was a thread of Time Jati connecting the Mauler-Bear to something. Each time we struck it, the wounds didn’t simply heal, it reversed in time to before it was struck. We just need to find the source of the thread and end it.”

“Those eyes of yours are otherworldly as always.” Avil blurted, running faster. “But this direction… isn’t it toward the waterfall? I can hear the sound of water crashing… and is that fighting?”

They quickly caught sight of a distant shine of sunlight along with echoes of screaming and the clashing of steel. Finding the foliage’s threshold, they broke through into an open field of clean-cut grass.

Up ahead, a sweeping current of water slammed down from the steep wall of stone and onto a fractured stone statue of a half-naked gray-skinned man with a head of hair as abundant and long as the seaweed in the seas. It stood an incredible height, extending far beyond the tallest animals Raoul had seen. He found it difficult to pay too much attention to said statue, given what was in front of him bade more of it.

Wading ankle-deep in the plunge basin and dressed in a simple cloth robe of tangerine that served little to hide the bulging muscles on his frame was a man almost as tall as the Mauler-Bear. His face, a handsomely-carved portrait of a sharp bearded chin and a bald head, frowned as three humans clad in simple nondescript leather gear brandished their weapons at him. Raoul traced the thread of Time Jati to the hooded one in front with a steady glare.

“Get bent, monk,” the hooded one spat, waving his scimitar in a threatening curve. “We’re seizing this site in the name of the Six-Winged.”

The monk was silent in the face of the man’s goading. He slammed the back end of his pewter staff into the surface of the water. It cleared away in response, gathering around the many rings in a stable revolving flow. “Back away, our misery. You will not intrude on Il-Lancasta’s holy site. I will give you a chance to turn heel and run, lest you desire to face the might of the tides.”

All three of them exchanged a cocky laugh, only feeling emboldened.

“You’re crazy if you think we’ll give up on an easy snag. In time, you’ll be wishing you hadn’t thrown in with the likes of a pretender god,” he replied, raising a finger into the air and yanking it down. Along the length of the pointer, a thin cyan thread was wrapped around it in three circles, and the distant thuds of the Mauler-Bear rumbled as it drew closer. “Get ready to die.”

The monk pursed his lips in caution, following the sound and seeing Raoul and Avil. “Children. If you are incapable of fighting, flee. These vagrants are cultists of Misericorde.”

Huh. Raoul frowned. Where have I heard of that name before?

The name escaped him, but he nonetheless shook his head and turned to Avil. “Let’s help. If we take out the cultists in time, we can gang up on the Mauler-Bear once it gets here.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” smirked Avil. “You cover me this time.”