The creature took a step forward, and the stone cracked beneath its hooves.
It no longer rushed. It didn't have to.
The four faces moved independently now, constantly scanning, lips twitching in madness. Its arms flexed and unfurled from its back like a crown of violence, blades of flesh and bone twitching, ready.
They attacked first.
Nola shot forward, gold-light blade trailing fire as she slashed across its side. The cut went deep. Too deep. It staggered and took a step back.
But before she landed another strike, the wound closed.
Instantly.
Her boots hit the floor and she skidded back. "It's regenerating."
Tris launched a volley of four arrows. They struck true, shoulder, gut, neck, eye.
The smiling face twisted to look at him.
The arrows hissed out of existence, spit from its skin like splinters.
Felix's jaw clenched as he raised both arms.
"We'll see how it handles entropy."
He cast a distortion glyph, a glowing sphere of black energy that struck the creature dead center. The fusion of magic and force imploded its torso with a sound like shattering stone.
The amalgam buckled.
Its scream roared through all four mouths.
But seconds later, the torso stitched itself back together.
"Pain is a myth to us. A lost friend."
"You still believe in happy endings. So sad."
Ari, braced against a column, muttered a quick runic prayer and etched a power glyph onto Vera's back.
"Try again. Faster."
Vera surged forward with twin blades, striking low and high, a decapitation attempt.
The whispering face fell.
For three seconds.
Then tendrils of muscle sprouted from its neck and rebuilt it. The same face, the same voice, even more smug.
"Wrong god, little blade."
It was hopeless.
And still, they fought.
They threw every ounce of Stage Two mastery, every combination of flame, arcane force, kinetic disruption, and divine glyphs they had left.
Each cut was meaningless.
Each wound healed.
Each moment of progress was erased.
And then it struck back.
A sudden swipe, just one limb. But it was faster than any of them expected.
It caught Felix in the stomach.
No warning. No time to counter.
The clawed limb tore straight through his abdomen.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
His mouth opened in a choked breath as he dropped to his knees, arms still reaching for the next spell.
"Felix!" Tris shouted, already moving.
"NO!" Nola screamed. She turned in mid-air, slicing the limb clean off in a single arc of golden light. The severed appendage writhed on the floor like a lizard's tail.
Vera slid in beside him and caught his body before it hit the stone.
Felix's hands trembled. His lips moved, trying to speak, but no words came except for a grunt.
Ari crawled to his side, already sketching a healing glyph with shaking fingers.
Tris fired again and again, trying to cover them.
The creature watched, heads turning in lazy synchrony.
"He bleeds beautifully," said the weeping face.
"He dreamed of leaving this place," said the whispering one.
"Now he is part of it," said the smiling one.
Nola stood between it and her friends, katana raised, fire radiating from her like a star ready to go nova.
"If you touch them again," she hissed, "I'll show you what true endings look like."
"Felix is still breathing but barely." Ari said.
Ari's glyph glowed weakly, trying to knit the flesh back together. "I can't fix him. Not completely. Not here."
Vera leaned over him, her voice low but unshakable. "He's not dying. Not on my watch."
Tris's voice cracked from behind. "Then someone needs to put this thing down."
But they were exhausted.
Their powers were dimming. Their relics hummed erratically, worn thin from overuse. Their rhythm was broken. Their formation was shattered.
The amalgam stepped forward again.
Arms rising.
Four mouths opening.
Each head speaking in a sequence of horror.
"One down."
"Four remain."
"No gods left to save you."
"Now comes the feast."
Nola clenched her jaw.
She didn't retreat. Didn't blink.
"If we fall," she said, "then we fall standing."
Vera rose beside her, blades in hand. Tris lined up his next shot. Ari, pale but furious, stood over Felix's still form, a new set of glyphs sparking to life across her staff.
Whatever happened next, they wouldn't give it the satisfaction of watching them run.
The amalgam was no fool though.
It does not attack recklessly. Not blindly.
Every move of its was calculated.
It stepped forward, hooves booming against stone, arms rising in a chaotic halo around its malformed body.
And all at once, its full attention turned, not to Nola, not to Vera or Tris, but toward Felix.
Who was still wounded.
Still on the ground.
Ari knelt beside him, blood smearing her gloves as she frantically reinforced the stuttering healing glyph beneath his body. Felix was pale, sweat beading on his skin, but his eyes were open only barely now.
He saw the creature looking at him.
And he knew.
"There lies the breach," hissed the whispering head.
"Break the support, and the frame collapses," murmured the weeping one.
"Snuff the mind. Shatter the spine," howled the screaming voice.
The creature surged.
Its dozens of arms stretched forward, not random swipes now, but focused strikes aimed with terrifying intelligence. Blades, claws, spikes of bone shot from its limbs in rapid succession, hammering toward the broken line around Felix.
Tris loosed arrow after arrow, his aim unshakable, but it was like shooting into a storm. For every limb he hit, two more lashed out. Vera threw herself into the onslaught, her twin blades deflecting three strikes before one slammed her backward into a wall, cracking the stone.
Ari raised her staff, runes flaring gold as she pulled every last ounce of her energy into a barrier, paper-thin, but burning bright.
It held.
For a heartbeat.
Then it cracked as well.
Nola saw it all happen in fragments. The way the barrier rippled. The way Felix tried to lift his arm and couldn't. The way Ari's staff trembled under the strain. The next wave of limbs already rearing back to finish the job.
And she didn't think.
She just moved.
One breath. One step. One final desperate attempt.
She placed herself between Felix, Ari, and the monster.
Right in the heart of its wrath.
Time bent around her. The creature's limbs reached for her from every angle, blades and fangs and hate converging like a ritual sacrifice.
And Nola, her golden katana drawn, her boots barely touching the ground, didn't move.
She braced for the pain as she shielded them.
"NOT THEM," she roared.
Then the light came.
A blast, yellow and pure, erupted from her body.
Not a spell.
Not a rune.
Not a trick.
It was a detonation of pure strength and magic.