CLANK!
Sous had used her seal on her neck to bring forth her power with the swords and blades. When they went to the next hole, het Faye, Tany, and the threaders, it was discovered the hole had turned into a portal.
By the time they got to the location, demons were already escaping the portal.
SLASH!
Faye and the threaders used their needles to fight with the demons.
Faye's fingers moved like lightning, weaving tiny threads through the air. Each flick of her needle sent shimmering strands slicing toward the demons, cutting through scaled hides with sickening precision.
Beside her, the threaders worked with diligence, their movements a fluid dance of death. Needles glinted in the dim light, threading reality itself into lethal weapons.
One demon lunged, claws outstretched, Faye sidestepped, her thread snapping. The creature's head tumbled to the ground, its body collapsing in a heap of twitching limbs.
SPLURT!
Blood splattered across the cracked earth as another threader's needle carved through a demon's ribcage. Ribs shattered, spilling hot entrails that steamed in the cold air.
Faye pivoted, her boot grinding. A three-eyed horror charged, saliva-dripping jaws agape. She didn't flinch. Her needle flashed, sharp and on a mission. It sliced upward, cleaving the demon from groin to gullet in a single, wet rip. Glistening organs slopped onto the ground, pulsing.
Sous moved like a whirlwind. Her blades, extensions of her fury, were a blur. One moment she was still, the next, she'd spun low.
A demon's leg tendons parted with a fibrous crunch. The creature stumbled. Before it could roar, her second blade arced up. It punched through the underside of the jaw, bursting out the top of its scaled skull in a spray of bone shards and grey matter. Hot blood misted the air.
Sous landed in a crouch, blades dripping. She didn't pause. A low-slung beast with too many limbs scuttled toward Tany. Sous blurred.
One blade swept low, severing multiple clawed legs mid-stride. The demon collapsed, shrieking. Her other blade plunged down, silencing it as the point drove through its spine and into the packed earth beneath, pinning it like a grotesque butterfly. Its remaining limbs flailed uselessly, ichor pooling black and thick.
"I can take care of myself, you know," Tany said, a spell was shimmering down in one of her palms.
Sous smirked at the witch and shrugged. "I don't know, I thought you were going a bit slow, is all."
Tany flipped her hair and hmpfed at Sous' statement.
Tany's palms ignited with a soft, incandescent blue light that pulsed. Without a word, she stepped forward.
Crunch, crunch!
Her shoes stepping on gravel. A skeletal demon with too-long claws skittered toward her, its jaw unhinging with a wet snap.
Tany didn't glance at Sous; her focus narrowed to the arcane symbols shimmering into existence just above her upturned hand.
A whip of pure, crackling energy lashed out and blindingly fast. It wrapped around the demon's neck. There was a sizzling hiss and the acrid stench of burning bone as the head vaporized, leaving the headless body to stagger and collapse.
Tany's feet shifted slightly. The blue light in her palms deepened to violet, swirling around her hands.
Another demon, its skin bubbling with pustules, charged.
The demon slammed into this invisible barrier with a meaty, wet thud. Bones crunched audibly under its own momentum, its distorted face pressing grotesquely against the unseen wall before it slid down, leaving a smear of dark blood and broken teeth.
Tany lowered her hand, the barrier dissolving into particles of fading purple light. She turned to look at Sous with a smug expression on her face.
"FIRE!" Alana yelled.
The ships in the sea blasted their first canon at the opposing ships consisting of the Apex pack. Riley watched as her ships were being attacked and also gave off the signal to attack the Island of Dimona.
"Should we release the jets?" The Prince asked his Queen.
"Only if we desire over kill," Alana answered. "Let's see how this works first."
The command echoed across the waves, a thunderous drumbeat that shook the salt-laden air. On the decks of the royal fleet, cannons roared to life, barrels glowing red-hot as they spat iron death.
On the Island of Dimona, Riley watched her Apex pack vessels shudder under the onslaught. One ship buckled amidships, its deck erupting in a geyser of flame and crimson spray as a cannonball punched through the gun deck.
Bodies, or parts of them, rained down, a severed arm still gripping a sword, a torso spiraling into the waves trailing intestines like macabre streamers. The sea turned murky pink.
Cannonballs slammed into the Apex pack ships with brutal efficiency. Wood splintered explosively, showering the deck in deadly shrapnel that punched through flesh like wet paper.
A direct hit near the waterline ripped open a gaping maw; seawater rushed in, pulling screaming wolves down into the flooded darkness, their cries choked off by the inrush.
WACK!
On one vessel, a mast shattered halfway up, collapsing onto a cluster of archers. The impact was a sickening crunch of snapping bones and pulped muscle, spraying gore across the polished deck.
A wolf near the blast was bisected at the waist; his upper torso cartwheeled overboard, eyes wide in disbelief, while his legs crumpled where he stood.
"Hmm," Alana chuckled. Surely the Apex pack was going to send in reinforcements. To just have ships, that would be ludacris.
Alana spoke to soon.
ZOOOM!
Alana saw the jets coming toward the Island of Dimona. She gave the signal for her own jets to take off.
The jets hovered and soared around one another. The Queen hadn't any idea Apex would be that far in advanced when it came to technology. She looked at her husband and the two stood there.
Alana slowly began to float to the air; her magae coming alive. She placed her hand out, opened palm and fingers.
SNAP!
She closed her fist, the opposing fleet blew up instantly. With such distraction, even some debris managed to make it to the beach.