“Keep bouncing them away!” I yelled at my friends.
The monsters roared again, and another pair of flaming whirlwinds joined the first two. Now, there were four roaming pyres to deal with, and it made Vesma and Kegohr’s job that much harder.
I concentrated on the timing of their travel paths, saw an opening, and sprinted toward the hellhounds. I spun out of the way of one whirlwind and summoned a Plank Pillar in the trajectory of another. Rather than bounce off the pillar like it had done with the Flame Shield, the pyre was only interrupted for a moment before it engulfed the wooden wall in flame.
But a moment was all I needed. I skirted around the third whirlwind and spun to avoid the fourth. Then, I was facing two rhinoceros-sized canines that immediately attacked. They snapped at me from either side, and I jumped onto the head of the one on my left. I plunged my sword into its brain, and it died with a yelp. The other monster roared, and a sphere of flame shot out from deep within its throat. I lifted both palms and shot an Untamed Torch into the middle of the sphere. It split in half and passed me, the heat of the flames burning my ears. The fireball turned into two, smaller whirlwinds, but they were Kegohr and Vesma’s problems now. I had a hellhound to kill.
The monster pounced at me, and I ducked beneath a swipe. The other paw blindsided me and knocked me to the ground. I rolled away from a whirlwind a second before it would have devoured me and jumped to my feet. I whipped my blade around as the hellhound snapped its jaws, but it chomped on the end of my blade and tore it from my grip. With a massive gulp, it swallowed my sword and lunged toward me.
I summoned a Plank Pillar, and it tore through it as though it was made of plywood. I needed a weapon to defeat the monster, and it had just swallowed my only one.
No, there was another weapon here. The Sundered Heart Sword.
I danced around the roaming pyres and blocked them with Plank Pillars as I raced toward the plinth at the back of the chamber. The hellhound’s footsteps boomed from behind me, and a roar signaled the entrance of yet another flaming whirlwind. My hand gripped the Sundered Heart as I whirled around to face the beast.
It paused for a moment and snarled, as though it dared me to strike.
“You came for me,” Nydarth spoke from within the sword.
“I couldn’t exactly leave you in here with this thing,” I said as I swung the blade. I was surprised when no wave of flame erupted from its tip, and I quickly blocked a swipe from the hellhound’s paw.
“My power is weakened. The sword no longer carries martial techniques.”
“I won’t need them,” I managed to say as its jaws clamped down on the blade.
Instead of tearing the weapon from me, my grip held fast, but the monster used it to fling me to either side. I crashed into the ground, but my hands stayed firmly wrapped around the sword’s handle. I put every bit of strength into not releasing my hold. I didn’t know what would happen when it swallowed the Sundered Heart, but I couldn’t risk losing my last hope of killing the monster.
The hellhound attempted to fling me behind it, and I held tight. I felt its teeth weaken around the blade as the sword slipped from its teeth, and I flipped over its back. The weapon still in my hand, I somersaulted behind it and landed on its back. A spike extending from the creatures spine left a gash in my thigh, and pain flared from the wound as the hellhound jumped and jolted like a bucking bull.
I slashed and cut the beast’s back as it tried to remove me, but I continued carving it apart like a Christmas turkey. Soon, my attacks chipped away at fur and penetrated its rough skin. The hellhound grew more fervent in its attempt to throw me from its back, but I managed to hold on. Every movement made my wound larger and more painful, but I forced myself to continue.
When I saw soft flesh beneath its tough hide, I drove my sword down into its body. The monster howled, and its mouth ejected the largest blue sphere of them all. As the hellhound fell in death, the projectile expanded into a whirlwind that covered almost the entire chamber. It absorbed the other pyres as it traveled, and I watched in horror as it moved toward my friends.
Kegohr and Vesma had increased their Flame Shields so that they covered their whole bodies, but I doubted it would be enough. To save them, I would give every last ounce of Vigor in my body. As far as I knew, wood was only weak to fire, not completely ineffective.
My thigh screamed in pain as I climbed over the hellhound’s corpse. All I could manage was a desperate limp as I faced the giant whirlwind and spread my hands toward it. I gathered the Vigor inside me and summoned a Plank Pillar on either side of the massive pyre. It attempted to bounce off one wooden wall, only to collide with another right next to it. I dropped to a single knee and forced myself to continue. As soon as one Plank Pillar engulfed in flames, I summoned another. I continued the grueling process until I felt like a wet towel that had been wrung out, over and over.
I fell to both knees as Vesma and Kegohr joined the fight with their Flame Shields, and the whirlwind grew smaller and smaller until it was little more than an ember. I produced a final pillar, and
