Chapter 17: Battle in the Rift [3]
"You’re not listening!" the escort bellowed, voice crackling with strain and fury. "These are Platinum-Ranked Darcbeasts! They are too powerful for you or your mechbeasts. If you want to live, you must get back to the Rift opening now!"
Instinctively, everyone turned to Songred, waiting for his say on the matter. As the captain, it was his decision that mattered most in situations like this.
But Songred was quiet; his head was low, and his face was full of profound distress as he thought silently.
"What are you thinking about?" Moffrey said. "We can’t just abandon him here."
"You’ll die if you don’t!" The escort retorted and spun around just in time to meet the Blight-Tusk Howler’s renewed charge.
Both his hands shot out, molten fingers sinking into the thick hide around the beast’s skull as he strained to halt its spearing momentum.
—Only for the beast to recover and toss him into a pillar. Mid-flight, the escort rolled and punched outwards. His magma-wreathed fist slammed into the pillar, shattering a chunk of it before he hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet with a grunt of pain.
"Go now!" he yelled at them. "I’ll hold them off till backup arrives."
Before anyone could form a rebuttal or even move, the cathedral wall exploded inward with a thunderous KRAKOOOM!
Shards of stone rained down as they threw up their arms, ducking behind cover or diving to the ground, shielding their heads and faces. Then, when they peeked through their arms and into the settling dust, they saw predatory amber eyes glaring back.
A new Darcbeast announced itself with a roar. From the dust, it slithered out; A serpent-like creature with obsidian scales, each the size of a dinner plate, oscillating over its massive body. It possessed a crown of bony spines, and one its end was a tail tipped with a barbed stinger that shattered a pillar as it moved.