The barrier hissed closed behind them, sealing the three into a fragile bubble of blood and breath. Jean sagged in his arms, too still. Richter eased her to the ground and tore into her pouch with shaking hands, praying she’d packed the antidote she’d mentioned.

  Jean had told him how Mal and her had fought a toxic snakelike creature and she had worked on antidote pill, it was designed for toxins and poisons but it was all they had. he found it, dropping it into her mouth.

  While Richter was tending to Jean, Mal held the line against Sarah and Jon as they advanced. Neither could get past the towering man, his presence a wall of steel and fury. Each piece of Mal’s armor shimmered faintly with etched runes, each one a relic of a prior battle. He’d once fought a boar that wielded rune-based powers, and in studying it, he'd learned to mimic them. Though he only had three rune variations, Mal had figured a way to layer them, creating unpredictable combinations with devastating results.

  The rune responsible for repelling the two attackers pulsed on his shield—a glowing green circle surrounding a square marked with an X. With each impact, the rune flared brighter, flooding Mal with a verdant aura that surged through his body. The hits didn’t slow him, they fuelled him. He moved faster, sharper, his reactions unnaturally quick without ever needing to activate a boosting skill. It was like the shield was turning enemy aggression into pure momentum.

  Jon’s chin caught the edge of the shield as Mal swung it up in an arc, his body flung backward into Emma’s glowing white barrier. He crumpled on impact, unconscious before he hit the ground. That left only Sarah and Mal, still locked in brutal combat.

  Then came the shot.

  There was no deafening blast, no dramatic boom, just a low, eerie whistle that barely registered before it struck. Ren had stepped from behind Emma’s barrier, calm and focused. The barrel of his pistol glowed with a ghostly white light, the metal at its tip shimmering like molten silver. Wisps of smoke-like light curled from it, an imitation of real smoke, conjured magic and soul-energy forged into a deadly tool.

  The silence made it worse. It felt wrong. Unreal. As if the shot had never happened at all, until Mal stumbled, eyes wide, hand going to his shoulder where the round had hit.

  The shot had bypassed his shield, not around it, but straight through, as if it ignored the barrier entirely. It pierced his armor without resistance, threading through the metal like smoke through cracks. There was no blood, no spray, just impact. Mal’s face didn’t register pain, only confusion. His shield arm dropped limp at his side, fingers twitching uselessly, as if the limb had simply forgotten how to move.

  Jean was beginning to stir, the antidote pushing back against the sedative in slow, uneven waves. She wasn’t fully back yet, but Richter didn’t have time to wait.

  Sarah saw the opening and surged forward. Mal had no shield now, just his body, bruised and unguarded. She had trained for this kind of fight. He hadn’t. Fighting one-armed wasn’t just harder, it was lethal. And Richter could see it, Mal was running out of tricks.

  Richter's red barrier pulsed as it repelled Sarah’s strike, the edge of her blade hissing against the magical surface before it was flung aside. Mal staggered his way back toward them, teeth clenched, his injured arm dragging behind him like dead weight.

  Richter’s heart pounded in his chest. He could feel his mana thinning, the barrier fraying at the edges under the combined assault. Sarah pressed harder, her attacks relentless and practiced. And behind her, Ren raised that ghostly pistol again, another shot already forming at the barrel’s edge.

  The crimson barrier held, for now. Ren's bullets slammed into it with eerie precision, each impact a sharp, glassy thrum that echoed through Richter’s bones. Where Mal’s armor had failed, the barrier endured, but not without cost. Every strike pulled at him, draining both mana and will. It was a tug-of-war between survival and collapse.

  Richter gritted his teeth. This wasn’t sustainable. His breath came ragged, shallow. The barrier wouldn’t hold long, and when it broke… he didn’t want to think about what came next.

  He risked a glance at Jean. Her eyes were half-lidded, flickering with the return of awareness. Not yet. Not fast enough.

  "Come on, Jean," he muttered under his breath. "I need you awake. I need you here."

  He summoned another layer of shielding, this one thinner, desperate, drawn not from calm focus but sheer instinct. It shimmered like fresh blood, volatile and unstable.

  They were running out of time.

  Richter gripped his staff tighter, the runes etched along its length glowing dimly as he activated its healing enchantment. A warm surge pulsed through his chest—subtle, but enough to mend torn flesh and refill the shallow well of his health. It wasn’t a cure. It was a delay tactic.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He used the reprieve to reinforce the barrier again, pouring the reclaimed vitality into raw magical defense. Blood for time. It was a grim transaction, but one he could afford, barely.

  Shouts echoed from beyond the barrier. More figures emerged from the chaos, joining Sarah and Ren. Arrows thudded into the shield. Bullets followed, their impacts like cracking bones. Then came the spells, burning, freezing, rending. Each one chipped away at his defenses.

  Sweat slicked Richter’s brow. His hands trembled with the effort to hold everything together.

  “They're not going to stop,” he whispered. The attacks were relentless. Arrows. Bullets. Sword strikes. Magic bolts. It was only a matter of time.

  "We should just surrender," Mal said through clenched teeth. His voice was ragged, defeated. The health pill had done nothing for the wound, whatever that bullet had done to his arm, it was deeper than bone, beyond simple healing. His shield arm hung limp, his breathing shallow.

  Before Richter could respond, Jean’s eyes snapped open. Glazed but defiant, her voice scraped its way up her throat.

  "No... they can't take us... we have to fight..."

  Her words were barely more than a whisper, thin and slurred, but they cut through the air like a blade. She was still drugged, still half-submerged in the fog of whatever Doc had dosed her with, but she was fighting it. Fighting back. She was right. Even like this, even surrounded, surrender wasn’t an option.

  He looked at Mal, at Jean, at the trembling edge of his own barrier. The red shimmer was pulsing too fast now, like a heartbeat under strain. It wouldn’t last.

  He had one option. Reckless. Dangerous. A move he'd never willingly chosen before, only ever triggered in moments of raw, desperate instinct. But now? Now was exactly that.

  Richter summoned the scroll. The crimson parchment flared, its runes already stirring, hungry.

  "Sorry," he muttered to no one in particular, and drove the blade of his soulbound dagger into his own shoulder.

  Pain roared through him. Not clean. Not tactical. Just raw and jagged and endless. His vision swam. Blood poured freely down his arm, soaking into the parchment as he staggered back, breath caught in his throat.

  The scroll responded.

  It fed on the agony, on the fear twisting in his gut. On Jean’s terror, on Mal’s quiet resignation. Their emotions weren’t just his, they were shared, and the scroll drank deep.

  The crimson glyphs burst alight. Three bolts formed above him, red, unstable, pulsing. They didn’t spiral into birds this time. They hovered, trembling, thick with too much power. Then, slowly, they began to fuse. Lines blurred. Shapes distorted. Wings melted into edges. One shape remained, huge, ragged, hungry.

  The flock was gone.

  What replaced it was something new. Something desperate.

  And it was ready to explode.

  Richter let the outer barriers collapse, the sound of shattering mana like a gasp sucked from the battlefield. He immediately summoned new ones, tighter, denser, wrapped around just the three of them.

  Mal, as if sensing what was coming, moved on instinct. He stepped forward with a grunt of pain, his good arm raising the battered shield in front of them. The rune on its surface flickered weakly, drained but holding.

  Richter pulled Jean close, her body still sluggish, and crouched low behind Mal's broad frame. The moment stretched, silent but charged, until the world detonated.

  The fused bolt exploded in a storm of crimson light and chaotic force. The shockwave hit like a war hammer, slamming into the hastily-formed barriers. The sound was deafening. The air twisted, screamed. Outside their shelter, the square turned into chaos, a dozen attackers thrown off their feet, spells and arrows scattered to the wind.

  Behind the shield, Richter held his breath. Everything was red.

  Then, silence.

  Richter’s barrier was gone, shattered by the blast like glass under a hammer. Mal’s shield had held, barely, but it now bore a deep gouge across its surface, the rune etched into it flickering weakly. Shredded remnants of the scroll drifted through the air like ash, glowing faintly as they fell.

  Richter reached out, fingers trembling, and recalled the ruined scroll into his ring. The magic obeyed, drawing the tattered remains inward with a hiss of energy. It would need time to repair.

  As the dust and smoke began to clear, Richter took in the aftermath, and felt his stomach twist. No notifications had pinged. That meant no one had died. But that didn’t mean no one had suffered.

  Bodies lay scattered across the square, unmoving, groaning, some crumpled beneath collapsed rubble. He saw limbs twisted at wrong angles, faces bloodied from impacts, people who hadn’t been shielded, who hadn’t braced. The explosion had spared them only by luck.

  The buildings ringing the square were mangled wrecks. Stone facades had crumbled inward, wooden supports shattered. Smoke still curled from broken windows and collapsed rooftops. It looked like the aftermath of a siege. And in a way, it had been.

  Richter clenched his jaw. He hadn’t meant to do this. But he hadn’t known how not to.

  "Richter, move, barrier's down, we need to go!" Mal barked, urgency sharpening his voice. He had Jean upright, her arm slung over his shoulder, her legs barely steady beneath her. Mal's face was pale, sweat streaking down his temple, but his grip on her was firm. One good arm holding her up, the other still useless at his side. They didn’t have time. If another wave came now, none of them would survive standing still.

  The trio slipped out of Lakeside under the cover of chaos. Smoke still rolled from the square, shrouding everything in ash and confusion. The explosion had scattered both enemies and civilians alike, and in that panic, no one stopped to question three battered figures moving through the carnage.

  They blended with the tide of fleeing bodies, ducking through alleys and winding streets, stepping over fallen signs and shattered glass. Shouts echoed from behind, but none were close. Not yet.

  By the time they reached the canyon’s edge, Richter could barely breathe. His legs shook. Jean leaned on Mal, her weight no longer dead, but still far from steady.

  He turned to look back.

  From this distance, the square was just a blur of smoke and broken light. Pillars of dark grey still billowed upward.

  Jean touched his back, her hand light but solid. "Don't think we'll be welcome back there anytime soon. Can't take you two anywhere, can I?"

  Her voice was hoarse, raw, but wry. A flicker of the old Jean. It was the first sound that felt almost normal in hours.

  Mal groaned beside them. "Looks like you're stuck with us now. We’re all fugitives thanks to that little light show of yours. And by the way, you owe me a new shield. That explosion of yours practically turned mine into scrap."

  They kept walking.