The longsword completed its arc.
Steel met the thick neck of the kneeling monster with a wet, decisive sound. Flesh parted cleanly. Bone gave way with a muffled crack.
The head dropped forward, hit the leaf-littered ground with a heavy thud, and rolled once before coming to a rest against a thick root.
The jaws of that thing were still half-open in a silent snarl. Dark blood fountained from the stump in thick, rhythmic pulses, painting the ground and the nearest ferns in glistening black-red.
For a single frozen heartbeat the massive body remained upright on its knees, as if the creature had not yet realized it was dead.
Then it toppled.
Not forward.
Backward.
The bulk of the corpse crashed directly onto the glowing mana circle with a wet, crushing impact. The violet light vanished under the sudden dead weight. The continuous stream of small monsters stopped mid-formation. The half-solid shapes that had been rising from the runes simply dissolved into fading sparks and drifting motes of light.
For a moment the clearing fell into an unnatural, almost peaceful quiet broken only by the groaning sound of the Fioran hunter, who was down, and the slow drip of blood from the severed neck of the large creature.
Rhuvia's voice shattered that quiet after a while.
"What are you guys doing? Don't let it sit there! Move it….Now!"
She was already moving before the last word left her mouth. Boots slipped in blood and wet leaf litter as she reached the corpse and threw her full weight against one massive shoulder.
The body barely shifted. The sheer mass of the thing was denser than it looked, muscle and bone packed tight under the thick hide. Vessa reached her side in two long strides, boots planting hard, and heaved with everything she had left. Their combined strength moved the bulk only a few stubborn centimeters. The whole thing was on top of the magic circle now.
Drosha stared, confusion plain on her broad face even as she kept one eye on the unconscious Fiora hunter still bleeding out a short distance away.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, voice rough. "Isn't it better that the thing is blocking the circle? Nothing new is coming out. Why the hell are you trying to move it?"
Rhuvia's head snapped toward her. The guild master's eyes were bright with anger and something colder, closer to panic.
"Do you seriously not know?" she snarled, shoving harder against the corpse. "Instead of helping, you're standing there asking questions?" Her voice rose, raw from exhaustion and the sudden spike of fear.
"Don't you know, a circle larger than Tier Two cannot be safely blocked. If you try, it starts pulling mana from everything around it- trees, air, the residual energy of the dungeon itself- and builds pressure. When it finally releases, the output is multiplied. All at once. Do I have to spell everything out to you every time? Now stop talking and help us move this damn thing before it decides to blast every one of us!"
She added, sharp and cutting, "I guess the rumors were true then! Fiora's are obsessed with only body enchantment, knowing nothing about magic itself."
The insult should have stung now. But instead Maya and Drosha both absorbed it with a strange, almost proud acceptance, as if the words had somehow confirmed something they already believed about their own strengths. Without further argument, they closed in.
With them joining, massive strength joined Rhuvia and Vessa. Four sets of hands and shoulders strained against the dead weight. Muscles burned. Boots dug deep trenches in the soft earth. Breath came in harsh, synchronized grunts.
And finally, even after pushing so long, the corpse shifted, centimeter by stubborn centimeter, until finally it rolled clear of the circle with a heavy, wet lurch that left a broad smear of blood and dirt across the runes.
The moment the glowing lines were fully exposed once again, Rhuvia's eyes went wide.
"Huh…? What the fuc….. MOVE!"
No one questioned the order, as she literally screamed it aloud.
They threw themselves sideways and down with the desperate speed of people who had already seen too many close calls tonight. Maya dragged the unconscious hunter with her, ignoring the fresh spike of pain in her own wounded leg. Drosha covered both of them with her own larger body, arms braced against the ground. Vessa rolled clear in a tight, controlled tumble that brought her up behind a fallen log. Rhuvia dropped flat behind the thickest root she could reach.
With a large boom sound, the circle detonated.
A column of violet-white light erupted upward with a sound like the world itself was tearing open. The brightness turned the night into momentary, searing day, burning afterimages into every open eye. The pressure wave slammed outward in a perfect expanding ring, flattening undergrowth, snapping smaller branches, and making the nearest mature trees groan under the sudden force. Leaves shredded midair. And the ground itself seemed to shake a little.
Before anyone could see what was happening, from the heart of that light a flood of monsters forced their way into existence.
Not the usual slow trickle of one or two at a time.
A continuous, choking torrent of small dinosaur-creatures poured out, dozens upon dozens of them, all solidifying in the same heartbeat, scales still glistening with residual mana.
They did not hesitate. And they did not even turn toward the strike team.
The entire mass oriented as one, as if pulled by a single invisible command, and surged forward into the darkness in the direction of Buena village.
Claws tore the ground. Hissing voices rose in a single hungry chorus that faded only as distance and the black trees swallowed them.
The clearing was left in sudden, ringing silence broken only by the heavy breathing of the survivors and the slow, steady drip of blood from the headless corpse that still lay where they had rolled it.
Rhuvia pushed herself up on trembling arms, staring after the escaping wave. The remaining glow of the circle flickered weakly, almost spent, but seeing what just came out of it and escaped, everyone knew the damage had already been done.
Somewhere ahead in the night, a living tide of monsters was running free toward the village they had left behind.