Chapter 321: Targets

'Doevm would know what to do,' Frey thought as he tore his way through the crowd. 'Demons, weird floating doors, basements filled with souls; I don't know about any of this crap. All I know is that my targets are in front of me.' With each demon he cut down, his view of the shamans became more clear. Standing between the twins was the snarky captain, who still maintained a cocky smirk.

The otherworldly creature slammed the other side of the emerald door again and again, the smell of blood driving it into a ravenous craze. One of the black chains finally gave out, crashing to the ground with discordant clanks. The thrashing stopped, and the hairs on the back of Frey's neck rose up. The dark cracks of the emerald door lit up with the yellow light of an enormous, slitted eye.

Thomas drew his crossbow and took aim at it, but Frey stomped on the young noble's foot. "Stay focused," he barked as he deflected a blow aimed for the noble's blindspot, which had appeared with his slight lapse in concentration. The group had found a steady rhythm. Each time Frey blocked, either Elero or Thomas struck. They were already overwhelmed as it was. The slightest misstep would bring down their entire formation.

Elero tore a deep gash across a demon's chest and kicked it to the ground. "But Frey, we don't make it at this rate."

Frey hesitated. He glanced up at the crumbling emerald door, then to the dozens of demons in their way. If he tried to urge his friends forwards, they would be completely surrounded. If he didn't move, the unknown creature would literally break the balance he had risked so much to establish.

He blocked another strike. His arms had grown numb, and the pain from accumulated damage slowed him down. Pushing forward was the only choice. As long as there was a chance, no matter how small it may be, he would save his friend.

He had clung to that goal once before, during the year-long war where he had been overwhelmed by ghouls. 'Not again,' he thought when Doevm had rescued him. 'I will repay what I owe him. When that day comes, I swear to the goddess that I will not fall.'

Frey raised his shield too late, and a demon's sword stabbed into his leg. The creature's lips stretched into a fanged smile right before the giant grabbed him by the neck. Its face contorted in pain. Its skin blackened and shrunk as if life had been sucked out of it. Frey yanked the sword out of his leg and his wound vanished as if he had never been cut in the first place. He exhaled a flaming white aura that spread along his body, just like in his grandfather's stories.

The demons saw this and their eyes went wide in recognition. "Hero," they cried in their ignorance.

Frey stepped away from the safety of the wall, and pushed. Even though he bore the brunt of the swarm, with each demon he cut down, his cuts and gashes stitched themselves back together. The demons completely surround the three, cutting off retreat. Frey started a new rhythm: smash. He punched through metal armor, shattered weapons, and shielded against any attack that came his way.

"Frey," Thomas laughed as he glanced over at the shamans, estimating the distance between them. "This will work. I just need a clear shot."

The captain's smirk was replaced with a frown. He attempted to get the shamans' attention, but he couldn't break through their intense focus. The last chain around the emerald door cracked as the monster continued to charge into it.

The captain shouted and pointed. His face went through several expressions, ending with a strange smile. He had an idea. He reached around his back and displayed an arrow with a small sack of powder tied to the end of it. He lit something akin to a candle's wick, which jutted out of the sack, and took aim.

"Frey," Thomas cautioned. The arrow streaked through the air just as the word "black powder" left his lips. Frey thought the arrow had missed when it landed a couple feet away from him, but then a bright flash filled his vision with white.

A force punched through Frey's entire body, leaving both dull and searing pains. He blinked and saw shadows of limbs flying through the smoke-filled air. He sat up coughing and clutching his chest, where a bit of shrapnel had embedded itself. They came out with a quick yank, causing blood to trickle out of the wounds.

Frey leapt back to his feet with ringing ears. He could take a punch, but his friends on the other hand… He whipped around to see that both Elero and Thomas were fine. They had been further from the blast. He let out a sigh of relief.

Thomas smiled: "This day just keeps getting weirder." The three had taken damage, but the same could be said of the enemy. Demons slowly got back to their feet, at least those that still had two feet. New weapons were difficult to use after all. Sometimes they had unintended consequences, such as opening a path.

The ringing in Thomas's ears served to mitigate the distractions, leaving just the drum of his own heartbeat to fluster him. His crossbow was loaded and the bolt dripped with deadly toxins. The cloud of smoke meant that his target wouldn't see the attack coming.

Exhaustion toyed with the steadiness of his hands, so he knelt down and leaned the crossbow against his knee. He put his finger to the trigger. He held his breath. He fired.

The smoke trailed behind as if it were attempting to snatch away this one chance. In the silence that followed the explosion, the bolt whistled true.

The captain didn't move, letting the bolt fly past him with a smirk. He didn't even turn his head to see where it had landed, in the heart of a shaman.

"You don't need to be a fierce warrior to win a battle," General Alexander Finlish had said during Thomas's training. "You just need a good opening, and to act upon it."

The emerald door vanished, the arcane ritual broken by a simple pull of a trigger. The other shaman knelt over her sister's corpse with tears falling from her eyes. Thomas fired into her exposed back.