Chapter 87: Regroup
Pyra sat with her back against a tree, her chest still heaving, and the confusion on her face hadn’t faded one bit despite the several minutes of rest they’d finally allowed themselves to get.
"I still don’t get it," she said, glancing toward Lucas. "We could have killed it. We were close. Why did we just — run?"
"Because he told us to," Iris said, not looking up from where she was, and before Lucas could answer himself. "And every single time he’s told us something like that, it’s turned out to matter more than it seemed to at the moment."
"That’s not really an answer." Pyra replied, still as confused as she could get, maybe even more confused...
"It’s the only one you’re going to get." Iris finally glanced over, something firm having settled in her expression by now. "If Lucas said killing it would’ve made things worse, then trust me, it would have made things worse. I’ve stopped needing it to be specified. Trust me you’ll get there too, eventually."
Pyra didn’t look fully satisfied, but she let it go, exhaling and leaning her head back against the bark, too exhausted to push the argument any further.
Lucas said nothing, staring out at the empty stretch of sky where the Avallion had finally vanished, the weight of a fight he couldn’t fully explain sitting heavy in his chest. He’d died to learn that lesson. Nobody here would ever know that part, and some tired corner of him was more than thankful that they couldn’t...
They were gathered, prepared to move when voices were heard from further down the path by their side, and Mark’s group emerged from the treeline a moment later, all four of them looking similarly battered — Sera weaponless, Bertram limping slightly and Kai nursing what looked like a bruised jaw.
"Well, this looks fun," Mark called, taking in the scene — Lora’s dazed expression, Pyra’s bloodied claws, the general exhausted wreckage of Lucas’s team. "What happened to you guys?"
"Avallions Golem," Lucas said. "It was fast. Used hit and run tactics. We couldn’t land a clean strike on it, and every hit we did land just made it angrier."
"So you killed it?"
He shook his head. "We ran."
Mark’s eyebrows rose. "You RAN. From a beast. You... That’s a first."
"Survival probability was twenty nine percent," Lucas said flatly, which was true enough on its own to justify the decision without needing to explain the rest of how exactly what that number meant. "Didn’t like those odds against something we couldn’t even predict."
"Fair," Mark said with a nod as he turned to his team. "We had our own detour. Makara Golem in the river. Won that one, but Sera lost her sword in the process, so we turned back before pushing any further toward the Gateway."
"You destroyed my weapon," Sera said, deadpan.
"I destroyed your weapon killing the thing trying to kill all of us," Mark corrected again. "Context, Sera. Context."
"We could have kept going," he added, facing Lucas, "but the road ahead’s still a good stretch, and going in with someone unarmed felt like asking for trouble we didn’t need. I can only protect so much..."
"Smart call," Lucas said.
"I know right? I have them occasionally." Mark grinned, then glanced over Lucas’s group again, something teasing creeping into his expression despite the exhaustion clearly written across all their faces. "So. Ran from a beast, huh. Never thought I’d see the day the great and terrible Terror turned to his heels...."
"Don’t," Lucas said, too tired to have to deal with whatever Mark was about to do.
"I’m just saying, there’s gonna be jokes about this. Historic moment. The first recorded retreat of—"
"It was a tactical retreat, Mark. Twenty nine percent was far too low for us to just charge in like that..."
"Fine, fine." Mark held up both hands in mock surrender, grin still on his face, and Lucas let it slide, too worn down to argue and quietly grateful Mark had no idea just how close that fight had actually come to costing them everything.
Twice for him actually...
"What about Eleanor’s group?" Iris asked, glancing toward the third path, still empty and silent in the distance.
"It appears they haven’t run into any compromising situations," Mark said, sobering slightly. "Figured we’d wait here a while, see if—"
"No need," Lucas said, glancing at the darkening sky, exhaustion clawing at him with every passing minute. "We should head back to the fortress. Regroup properly, patch everyone up, and let Elle’s team come back once they’re clear. Standing around out here isn’t helping anyone."
Mark considered that, then nodded. "Yeah. Good call. Let’s move before it gets any darker out here."
The combined group set off together, exhaustion slowing their pace considerably, and Lucas fell into step near the back, glancing once more toward the third path before the treeline swallowed it from view.
’She’ll be back,’ he thought, ’yeah she’ll be back...’
***
Eleanor’s blade caught the Bora’s exposed flank, flame biting deep into armor already weakened by three earlier strikes, and the creature staggered shrieking, finally cornered against a jagged formation of rock with nowhere left to retreat.
It had not been a clean fight.
The first exchange had nearly ended them. The Bora had come out of the undergrowth low and fast, bronze plating catching the filtered light as it closed the distance in a single bounding lunge. Eleanor had barely gotten her sword up in time; the impact sent a jolt up her arms that left her fingers numb. Wren had rolled clear of the initial charge, daggers already in hand, while Finn used [Fleetfoot] to blur sideways, blue energy trailing behind his boots as he avoided the sweeping horns by inches.
They had circled it then, testing.
Eleanor pressed from the front, blade trailing fire that scorched the air with every swing. The Bora answered with raw force, ramming its plated shoulder into the space she had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Stone cracked under the impact. Dirt and shattered rock sprayed outward. She felt the heat of its breath, thick and metallic, as she twisted away and scored a shallow cut along its foreleg. The creature roared, more anger than pain, and the plating along its side flared with a dull internal light as if the wound itself had fed something inside it.
Wren moved in the openings. She was smaller, faster, and she used the terrain the way the rest of them used weapons. A dagger flashed toward the joint behind the Bora’s front leg. It struck true, sinking between plates with a wet, grinding sound. The Bora whipped around, nearly catching her with a thrashing horn. She was already gone, rolling under the sweep and coming up with another blade ready.
Finn kept the pressure from the flanks. Every time the Bora committed to Eleanor, he was there, boots sparking blue, a short spear jabbing at the softer seams along its ribs. Most of the thrusts glanced off. One found purchase. The Bora shrieked and spun, forcing him to abandon the weapon and vault backward as the horns swept through the space his chest had been.
The fight stretched.
They bled for every inch. Eleanor took a glancing blow across the shoulder that left her arm heavy and her vision swimming for several heartbeats. Wren’s left sleeve was soaked through where a plate edge had caught her during a close pass. Finn’s breathing had gone ragged; [Fleetfoot] was a costly skill when held too long, and the blue glow around his legs had begun to flicker and thin.
Still they pressed.
Eleanor found a rhythm. Feint high, step inside the horns’ reach, cut low. The flame along her blade left blackened streaks across the bronze. Each successful strike seemed to slow the creature a fraction more, though its fury only grew. It stopped trying to end them in single lunges and began to use the clearing itself—driving them toward the rock wall, forcing their backs against the jagged stone so that retreat became a narrower and narrower option.
Wren nearly paid for it. Cornered for half a second too long, she had to plant both daggers into the Bora’s neck plating and use the blades as handholds to swing herself over its thrashing head rather than be crushed against the rock. She landed hard, rolled, and came up coughing dirt, one dagger still buried in the creature’s hide.
Finn seized the opening. He drove forward while the Bora was still half-turned, [Fleetfoot] flaring bright one last time. His recovered spear found the wound Wren had opened earlier and punched deeper. The Bora’s shriek this time carried real pain. It staggered, one front leg buckling.
Eleanor did not waste it.
She closed the distance, boots sliding over loose stone, and brought her sword down in a two-handed arc. Flame roared along the edge as it bit into the exposed flank—armor already compromised by the earlier cuts. The blade sank deep. Something inside the plating gave with a wet crack. The Bora staggered hard, shrieking, finally driven back against the jagged formation of rock with nowhere left to retreat.
"That’s it," she called breathlessly, circling to cut off its last remaining space. "Finish it!"
Wren’s dagger flew, burying itself deep in the Bora’s exposed throat, and the creature’s shriek cut off into a wet, final gurgle as it collapsed, motionless, into the dirt.
Silence fell over the small clearing, broken only by the group’s ragged breathing.
"That’s one," Finn said, wiping sweat from his brow, [Fleetfoot’s] blue energy still flickering faintly around his legs. "Gateway’s in sight just across that bridge. We’re almost—"
The ground erupted a second time, violent and sudden, and a shape far larger than the one they’d just killed tore free from beneath the earth in an explosion of dirt and stone.
Its bronze-plated hide catching the pale light, five horns curling backward along a skull built for exactly this kind of ambush.
[Warning: Bora Class entity detected.]
[You have encountered a Bora Golem]
[New Objective: Slay the Beast.]
[Survival Probability: 49%]
Eleanor’s stomach dropped as the creature reared up, easily twice the size of the one they’d just killed, amber eyes fixed with the unmistakable light of hunger on all three of them.
"Of course there’s two," she muttered, blade rising back into a ready stance, exhaustion from the first fight still burning in her arms but she held steady. "Of course there is."
"New plan?" Wren asked, already reaching for another dagger, voice tight and exhausted.
Eleanor studied the creature’s stance, accounted for its size—the sheer overwhelming difference between this and the one they’d already killed—and felt the familiar, grim realization that they had no choice but to kill it settle into place despite the fatigue dragging at every limb.
"Same plan," she said. "Just twice as hard."
The Golem lunged, they took their stances, and the fight began again.