The group couldn't believe their eyes, a Krukin that could speak their language.
"How can you speak…" Liro was the first to break the silence, his voice trembling. He turned to Darian, his expression practically shouting 'Did you even know something like this existed?!'
Darian gave a quick shake of his head.
"They helped us," the Krukin snarled, his voice thick with fury. "They taught your language… the language of the invaders."
The word hung in the air like poison.
'Invaders?' The thought struck all three of them at once.
"What do you mean, invaders?!" Vane shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
"YOU are the ones who invaded us and started killing us all!" the Krukin roared back. His body trembled—not with fear, but with rage.
Vane's face twisted in anger, though his stance betrayed the pain still wracking his body.
"We were just defending ourselves—" Vane began really mad.
"But it's over for you humans now," the Krukin cut in, stepping forward. "We are becoming too powerful. You're nothing but foolish creatures who dream of being heroes." His voice deepened, growing more animal than humanoid.
"And you will die here… and the others will follow."
In a flash, the Krukin sprinted toward them.
Darian threw up an ice wall, but the creature smashed through it as if it were paper. The brief delay, however, gave Vane just enough time to transform into a massive buffalo, placing himself between the Krukin and his friends. He lowered his head and met the creature's nails with his horns, but the Krukin's strength was overwhelming.
The nails pierced Vane's side, and Darian barely dodged a strike aimed for him. Liro's legs shook so violently he could barely stand.
Darian retaliated with a razor-sharp ice shard, the strike exploding into smoke. When the haze cleared, the Krukin found himself staring at two buffalo and no trace of the humans.
He lunged at one, but the two animals moved in perfect sync, leaping aside. One crashed down from above while the other launched another ice shard straight at his body.
"COME OUT, YOU FOOLISH HUMAN!" the Krukin bellowed, destroying the shard with one swipe while swinging at the nearer buffalo, only to hit empty air.
In that moment, he realized something was wrong.
Liro's magic was disguising Darian as a buffalo, while simultaneously creating the illusion of a second. When the Krukin's gaze shifted, Darian reverted to human form and Liro crafted two illusory buffalo again, this time placing the real Vane atop one of them.
Vane sprang from the buffalo's back, shifting into a polar bear mid-air and latching onto the Krukin from behind, his claws sinking deep.
Darian flanked the enemy, hurling another barrage of ice shards. This time piercing through before the Krukin could react.
The creature screamed, but the sound twisted into something stranger, its back splitting open, a grotesque spinal column extending outward to coil around Vane, crushing him.
Vane roared in pain as his body was slowly constricted. Darian spotted a large wound in the Krukin's abdomen, likely from their earlier strike, and fired an ice shard straight into it. The explosion tore the creature back and freed Vane, smoke filling the chamber once again.
"STOP THIS!" the Krukin bellowed, slamming another strike toward the polar bear, but some ice shards formed on the body that deflected the blow and blasted the creature backward.
As the Krukin staggered to his feet, his eyes narrowed. He had finally pieced it together.
The plan had been to confuse him, Liro altering Darian's appearance while Liro hid behind a small ice wall, which Liro disguised as stone whenever the enemy wasn't looking. But Liro could only maintain one illusion at a time, meaning whenever Darian was disguised, the wall was exposed. Now, the Krukin understood the trick.
After he saw again two boffalo after the smoke of an ice shard he wandered around with his eyes. And he was a small ice wall.
He charged the ice wall.
"LIROOOO!" Darian shouted, launching an ice shard. It exploded harmlessly, only serving to shroud the area in smoke.
Blind, Darian stumbled forward, heart pounding. Where are they?
Then he saw it.
Liro was lying in a spreading pool of blood, unflinching. The Krukin stood over him, and in his claws… Vane's body.
The creature tossed Vane aside. Human again, Vane's stomach bore a gaping wound.
Darian's breath caught. His legs refused to move. The Krukin turned back toward Liro, nails dragging along the ground with a metallic scrape, taking slow, deliberate steps as if savoring the moment.
'Move… do something… anything…' Darian's hands shook so violently his own ice was threatening to break before leaving his palms. He knew he wouldn't make it in time.
The Krukin's arm drew back like a spear.
"Mass Blade!" a voice thundered.
The ground shook.
From the smoke emerged Kael, there were Lara and Allocen at his side. Allocen's dirt golem scooped up Vane, rushing him to Lara, who immediately began healing.
Kael advanced without hesitation, warping gravity in a small field around the Krukin. The creature stumbled, disoriented, but managed to take flight in the lower gravity. Kael leapt after him, reaching impossible heights, and slammed a devastating kick that sent the Krukin crashing back into his own throne.
"You've lost," Kael said coldly, stepping forward to finish the fight.
But the Krukin laughed bitterly. "You humans… you got lucky you had your companions. I cannot win for now."
From the rubble, he pulled a red stone and crushed it in his claws. It shifted to green instantly, and a swirling portal burst open behind him.
"This isn't the last time we meet, humans. We will have our revenge."
He stepped backward into the portal. Darian hurled an ice shard, but it was too late, the gateway snapped shut.
Had they won? Darian didn't know what to think. Vane was gravely wounded, Liro was bleeding from every inch of his body, and as Darian staggered toward them, he felt Snowy emerge from within him, just before he collapsed into darkness.