“!” Tgurneu sensed the impending danger and tried to intercept Adlet with a kick. He ducked to avoid it and, as he did, took one step forward. Clenching the Saint’s Spike in his hands, he came within striking distance of the fiend.
Eight years ago, this monster had stolen Adlet’s home. It had killed his sister, stolen his friend away, and robbed him of his life of peace. He would kill it. For that sake alone, Adlet had become a warrior. For eight years, he’d yearned for this moment.
Adlet plunged the Saint’s Spike deep into Tgurneu’s stomach.
“You did it!” cried Mora.
“Just what we were goin’ for, Adlet!” Hans cheered, jumping away from Tgurneu along with the Temple Elder.
With an audible throb of pain, Tgurneu’s body violently convulsed, evidence that the poison had begun its circulation.
The initial symptoms of this toxin were madness and intense pain all over the body. Next, the fiend would completely lose its sense of balance. After that came visual and auditory hallucinations, and then its memory would start to become impaired. Finally, it would be in agony for five to ten days, with inevitable death waiting in the end.
Adlet stood there, just gazing at Tgurneu as it shuddered. He felt incredibly calm and quiet. Oh. That’s anticlimactic, he thought. But the moment he did, something happened.
“Duck!” Mora yelled, and that moment, a violent impact hit Adlet in the face. He didn’t even have the time to think, What was that? He was instantly knocked out.
“Hey, Adlet, are you actually taking this seriously?” The last thing the boy saw as his vision grew dark was his mortal foe, the Saint’s Spike still in its stomach, calmly swinging a fist.
Mora had thought they had finished the battle—that when Adlet had stabbed that nail-like object into Tgurneu’s stomach, victory would be theirs. As Tgurneu had spasmed wildly, Adlet had stopped, watching it with pity, like he was sure they had won. But then Tgurneu had swung a punch like nothing had happened, throwing him backward.
“Duck!” she had yelled, but it was far too late. The Brave’s body flew through the air, rolled about twenty meters, and then stopped moving.
“Adlet!” Fremy screamed.
“Huh? Addy?” Rolonia had been spewing profanities and scattering fiends, but now her eyes widened. In an instant, as if she had been replaced by another person, she was back to her old, timid self.
Fiends surged toward the fallen Adlet to finish him off. Mora bounded over to him and slung him over her shoulder. She touched his neck—it wasn’t broken. He was breathing.
“Oh my, he’s still alive?” The lizard-like creature approached leisurely, the spike still protruding from its stomach. The fiends massed around Tgurneu, protecting their leader.
This battle was now a lost cause. Chamo could no longer fight, and they had lost Adlet, too. Far from actually killing Tgurneu, the whole party could very well be annihilated. Still holding her companion, Mora thought, I must use my secret weapon.
“You still intend to fight, Mora? Well, that’s no surprise.”
Mora glared at the fiend and steeled herself. She could not back down now. She could not let this chance to kill Tgurneu slip through her fingers. There was a reason she had to do this.
But the moment she was ready, a shadow blocked her path. Hans grabbed Adlet’s unconscious body away from her. “We have to run, Mora. Don’t use it yet.” There was no way that Hans could have known about her last resort. He had merely read her expression and understood that she was about to do something. Mora’s secret weapon was to blow herself up and take Tgurneu with her.
“You hold back Tgurneu, Mora! Goldof, you carry all our packs! The rest of ya—run!” Hans yelled, and he wove through the stampede of fiends. He found Chamo where she lay curled up, spewing mucus, picked her up, and carried her and Adlet away at blinding speed.
“Let me go, you dummy! Dumb, dumb dummy! Chamo can still fight!” Chamo pummeled Hans’s back, but he ignored her.
“You think I’ll let you go?” Tgurneu tried to follow, but Mora realized what it was trying to do and punched the fiend from the side. Hans’s words had brought her to her senses. This would not necessarily be her only chance to kill Tgurneu. For now, it would best to escape and regroup.
“I’ll cover you, Mora.” Fremy threw a bomb, scattering the troops protecting their leader.
“Run…run? How should I…?” Rolonia defended herself from the fiends as she nervously looked around the area.
“Rolonia! You go, too! Follow Hans!” Mora yelled at her, and the newest member of the group finally came to her senses and ran off after Hans. The hill was completely surrounded. Rolonia snapped her whip while Hans fought back with kicks, but they couldn’t secure a way out.
“All of you, get down!” Fremy chucked her bombs indiscriminately, every which way. A number of fiends were blown to pieces, and the blast caught Hans and Rolonia, too. But still, she opened up the slimmest of escape routes. “Mora! You run, too!” She fired a bullet into Tgurneu, and Mora took the opportunity to turn her back to the enemy and escape.
“Head to the mountain! Flee to the Bud of Eternity!” cried Mora. The whole group broke out of the encirclement and ran down the hill to Goldof, who was carrying their packs. With the group reunited, they headed for the mountain rising in the distance.
“We’re the rearguard, Fremy,” declared Mora as they fled. Tgurneu was chasing after them with incredible speed. It would be Mora and Fremy’s
