Ursa turned as she ran, but they weren’t there. She looked up and back at the castle gate. She looked at them, and she quickly moved back over.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes moving from Damian to Darrow as she stopped in front of them.

  Were the two scared, or had they seen something while fighting the beast that the rest of them hadn't?

  They in turn looked at the barrier, then back up at her, then out of nowhere, up and to the far west. There was no way they were going across this line, but if they didn't follow her, then she would start asking questions.

  They exchanged a glance with each other, but before they could speak, they heard it.

  The screams coming from the direction the adventurers had headed were sharp, real, and all too sudden. They came from the mists and had everyone, even the half-giants, looking to the west.

  That seemed to make up their minds. They didn’t know when, but they had crossed the line indicating the barrier and were headed east.

  “We need to go east,” Damian said as Darrow made his way past him.

  “Why?” Ursa asked when she caught up with them.

  “Just trust us,” Darrow said.

  “The creature will be headed where we’re going,” Damian added, just to get them all moving.

  Ursa raised an eyebrow, frowned suspiciously, and didn’t ask, but just followed.

  The sound of the half-giantess running with her Goliath soldiers made the ground shake around Damian and Darrow. It felt like running with a herd of buffalos the ground shaking with every step, and the mist parting in front of them. If Damian had to guess, it had to be some sort of movement skill, but even he didn't know for sure.

  They made their way into the furthest ruins of the district until they reached some of the tallest broken walls they could find. They moved toward the collapsed roofs and into them, under them, and into the rubble.

  “This looks like a good place,” Darrow said, looking around.

  “We need to prepare,” Damian said as the rubble crunched under their feet and they made their way inside.

  “Prepare for what?”

  “The monster will definitely be coming over here,” Damian said, explaining, but this didn’t make sense to Ursa.

  “Why are we hiding then?” she asked, watching Darrow fade into the shadows.

  “Because we need to ambush it,” Damian said, leaning against a broken wall and looking at her and her guards who stood in the open rubble.

  There was no way he was going to stand alone and issue a challenge to the beast. He was no noble doing this for the fame or whatever they perceived as honour. If it had to come down to fighting the monster like an adventure and not the noble duelist, then he would.

  Ursa was still confused, but she listened, and she told her warriors to spread out among the rubble.

  “I hope you’re right, because otherwise this is a waste of time.”

  “Oh… don’t worry. The monstrous centipede will be here,” Darrow said hi voice coming from the nearby shadows.

  As they had guessed, the monster didn’t take long before it noticed them. A loud screech tore through the entire region, and something told the twins that it had noticed them.

  There was a sudden silence that came after that. Then the Goliath scout, who was looking out into the distance, stiffened as he looked in the direction of the fighting.

  “It’s coming this way,” the scout said, turning around in his rugged leathers, jumping down and finding a place to hide.

  Those who had been sceptical found themselves finding better hiding places, making themselves disappear among the shadows of the broken ancient city that once was.

  Damian watched them and heard the sound of skittering feet against stone, and in the ever-growing noise of the adventurers and the other two scions running and chasing it, or in this matter following it in a misguided assumption of their superiority.

  Closer and closer the creature came. It was to the point that one of the Goliath warriors frowned, still confused.

  “Why are they driving it this way?” one of them asked.

  Soon, they all knew it was in their midst. The massive creature appeared, and its massive shadow fell over them and the entire area.

  The massive coiling creature bent its body down. Its legs skittered around them, and its mandibles scraped stone.

  It was closer than before, and when Damian looked up, he saw the creature’s mandibles and its reptilian nose sniffing the air.

  At this point, it was nearly on them. It was in reach of Damian, Darrow, and Ursa, and seeing the scion in imminent danger, one of her guards yelled to attack.

  “Attack the beast!” a Goliath bodyguard yelled, breaking cover and striking the enormous centipede from the back.

  The rest of the Goliath soldiers ambushed the creature as well, and it whipped around to end this new threat to its life.

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  The adventurers who had presumed to be chasing it came to a stop when it turned around to face them as well, and the fight continued as though its cowardice had been a twisted joke before.

  Lightning, arcane blasts, and arrows crashed into its head from the adventurers, and the Goliaths of Ursa’s party threw chains over and under the beast to prevent its movement.

  The creature roared, and it braced against the charging warriors of the adventurers. It tried to pull free.

  But Ursa was there, ordering her hunting party to keep hold of the chains. She used her minor ruler skills to strengthen her men, then, without hesitating, made her move.

  She jumped out of her hiding place, war spear in hand, stepped onto the beast as she scaled its body and readied her spear to strike it.

  But for Damian and Darrow, what terrified them was the creature itself.

  It began with Darrow noticing its leg and pointing it out to Damian. The creature’s leg that they had managed to cut off had somehow grown back.

  Just as Ursa got close to the creature’s spine, it turned and narrowed its eyes on her. Then it opened its mouth, and a stream of acid gushed out from it.

  Screams followed wherever the stream of acid landed. Adventurers fell back. Some half-giants holding the beast down were doused and died by the acid, but they all knew this was coming.

  They had seen the creature’s acid in the scrying orbs and mirrors from before.

  The prepared adventurers raised their shields and activated arcane barriers. Ursa also activated her arcane barrier, and the acid enveloped the area around her.

  It pulled against the chains, then once it was free from this nuisance, it charged the adventurers who were setting up a fighting wall.

  It slithered over the shielded wall and right for the mages who were casting fireballs, lightning, and ice at it.

  By the time the warrior adventurers realised what was happening, their ranks had collapsed, the archers and mages finding themselves in the thick of the battle — the last place any ranged fighter wanted to be.

  Damian, along with the Goliath warriors, ran in from behind. Ursa was beside him as they attacked the creature from the rear, and he hoped Darrow was not doing something too dangerous.

  More of the warriors grabbed hold of the chains and tried to pull them back in order to exert some control over the situation, and the creature was stopped in its tracks. It glared at the mages, its front claws gauging soil, rock and debris as it tried to pull itself forward.

  The few remaining mages ran backwards, creating space between themselves and the beast, and the warriors did their best to cover their retreat.

  Damian noticed the creature’s burnt carapace — its cracked, jagged, and darkened flesh. He remembered that the last time they had been able to cut the creature’s leg off, it had been burnt as well, and he targeted this area.

  He wasn’t like the other warriors, trying to strike at its body as a whole. No, he targeted its burning flesh and used his new [Double Strike] skill.

  Darrow appeared beside him and, without thinking about it, borrowed and used Damian’s skill, [Salute the Foe].

  The creature felt the familiar power land on it, and it turned toward them. This time, it wasn’t looking at the adventurers and the warriors of the scions. It was looking directly at the two.

  It flicked its tail. Its body rippled like a wave, and like an enormous whipping cane, it sent Damian, Darrow, and a few of the Goliaths falling back.

  Now freer from the chains, it turned toward the twins, locked onto their falling figures in the rubble around them.

  It watched them get up, and it charged.

  The Goliath warriors of Ursa who tried to stop it were ignored, pushed to the side, and those unlucky enough found themselves trampled or crushed under the skittering many feet.

  Damian got to his feet, then in one fluid motion raised his sword and blocked the creature’s mandibles, which sent him stumbling back.

  In the same motion, Darrow exploded from cover in nearby shadows, and his daggers flashed as he pierced the creature’s right eye.

  The creature let out a screaming screech that split the air as it reeled back from the twins.

  Damian took the opportunity and advanced, using Quick Step, landing another blow and letting the mana-forged sword bite deep into its weakened, burnt exoshell flesh.

  Darrow landed hard, rolling clear of the beast, and as if it were part of their big elaborate plan, Ursa ordered her Goliath warriors of the Brassthrone to attack and take down the beast.

  “It’s injured! Attack!” she ordered, rallying and pointing at the creature’s missing eye.

  Seeing this, it did not take long for the adventurers united and the warriors of the Brassthrone to move and attack the enormous monstrous reptilian centipede.

  Reeling from its injured eye, the creature had no time to defend itself. Adventurers surrounded it and started cutting at it. The mages, those few who were still able to fight, raised their wands and staves and cast spells of their own.

  The creature’s exoskeleton started to weaken and fray at the edges. Its skin blackened, and it even started bleeding at some points.

  But then it happened.

  The creature opened its mouth, and Ursa, as well as many others, knew what was coming.

  "Acid!!!"

  The warrior adventurers prepared their shields, and the mages prepared their arcane barriers. They all prepared, ready for the creature’s acid spray — but that didn’t happen.

  Instead, the creature raised its mandibles, and rather than acid going in one directed direction, a thick fog of poisonous green acid filled the air.

  The adventurers — all the adventurers and scions and warriors who hadn’t been expecting it — were caught by surprise.

  The thick poisonous gas made them choke, then, realising the creature was using another attack, their eyes widened, but it was too late.

  The adventurers choked on the air. The flesh under their armour began to burn, and those who kept their eyes open began to go blind.

  Ursa, who had been in the thick of it, screamed when the poisonous gas touched her shoulder and burned her flesh, and Damian was the first to react, pulling her back and avoiding the gas as well.

  They all got as far away as possible from the green gas. Screams faded into heavy coughing fits as many adventurers dropped their steel and dispelled their magic.

  The creature coiled its enormous body within the poison, and no one dared attack it, giving it a chance to breathe.

  —

  “Retreat!”

  The word cut through the battlefield as Ursa half-screamed and half-choked on the pain.

  Had she been paying attention, she would have noted that Damian was a lot stronger than he looked.

  That wasn’t what she was paying attention to, however.

  The others also issued the order to retreat.

  The rest of the scions of the third, fourth, and first chair also issued a retreat for their soldiers.

  The adventurers, seeing that some of the strongest fighters were pulling out of the fight and retreating, also issued the order.

  Their voices overlapped, and panic spread through the battlefield.

  The adventurers scrambled toward the direction of the castle. Boots scraped against the old cobblestone.

  The orders were shouted twice, three times, but some did not hear. Other members of small parties refused to heed the call and rushed into the gas for vengeance for their fallen friends.

  This was when the creature made a counterattack.

  It turned toward the fleeing adventurers and scions. With unnatural grace and speed, the creature cut through the rubble and the fleeing people.

  It blocked the route leading to the safety of the castle, and the adventurers leading the retreat back to Emberfall Castle became the victims of the creature’s acid as it turned its mouth and destroyed them.

  The adventurers came to a stop. Jorand came to a stop, and he would have died if one of his men hadn’t sacrificed himself to block the stream of acid.

  Realisation hit them all then. The creature was much more intelligent than they had given it credit for.

  The closest place to safety was toward the castle. Running to the other district would only make them easy prey.

  Ursa wasn’t the first to realise they were trapped. No. It was the screaming band of silver ranks who died choking and burning as they tried to get past the monster.

  “Adversity introduces a person to themselves.” – Avery Robinson