Monsters were used to death. Murder pulsed in their body. Few things had them driven to a frenzy like the scent of black blood.
A whole temple had just witnessed their priest getting felled and better yet, they could not perceive the killer.
The beasts enraged!
"Kaele!" The legged rapt near me shrieked.
Oh. When she said I should save everybody, she meant everybody. Uh, fine.
The platform the monster priest had stood on was barely visible from our position below, but she had seen the body collapse all the same and was now looking at me, terrified. Like everyone else, she was missing the killer.
She would see him in time.
For now, I raised my arms while looking at her and told her:
"Say, mass heal."
"Mass heal!" She hurried and put forth her own tiny forelegs.
A magic circle appeared under her, raging with potency. Flames went wild all around from that wave of released mana. She could not believe it!
But the wounded monsters down with us in the temple's pit had their bodies restored in mere instants. Their renewed strength let them easily escape whatever restraint remained, be it threads or nets.
And above us, behind a triumphant killer and a mesmerized crowd gone silent, the preacher was getting back up.
A miracle!
The assembly that had been about to charge just a second ago was taken aback, torn between piety and rage.
"You should go stop that killer." I told the legged rapt.
"What, me?!" She panicked. "But I can't fight!"
"Don't worry, Caline. After all... Kaele is with you."
She didn't have much time. Up there the killer was about to get back to work. But the rapt didn't even know how to get up there in the first place. Without ramps, all she could have done was leaping and scraping on the vertical walls like the rest.
Still, she reared, squeaked and leaped! And found herself practically flying over the whole assembly before magic sent her back to the ground, right in the monsters that saw her roll in their midst.
She saw a greyhound get cut in half, the rocky hide of that reptile unable to withstand the strike.
"Heal!" She yelled with her forelegs put forward once more.
The two parts of that beast just dragged themselves together and she could not comprehend that level of potency.
Healing was familiar to monsters, even for those that had forsaken magic. But it usually took seconds to close shallow gashes, minutes to treat worse wounds and to put a creature back in one piece? Yeah no, that level of magic was sorcery to them.
Now the killer had turned on her, but two things stopped him.
One was the crowd that, having a rough idea of where he stood, was falling on him from all sides. The other had been how she looked feral and nothing like the other cultists. So he just groaned and turned on his attackers.
Heal! Heal! She could barely keep up with his own prowess. The monsters fell one after the other while striking blindly in the air, hitting nothing. And as soon as they hit the ground, if it even went that far, their body was pristine again.
Did he think she would run out of stamina? Maybe. He wasn't wrong, it was taxing to provide her with that kind of potency.
But had he been able to dodge a crowd for that long, it would have taken him hours.
No. Within two minutes the crowd of beasts finally grazed him. A claw drew a bit of blood from his cheek and he hopped back, his focus lapsing.
He had never been invisible. Rather, his trick showed a good understanding of the realm. By depriving himself of mana, he used an art to distract everyone away from him and toward everything else. His glassy blade, for example.
The horned hare frowned while licking the black blood on his wrist.
He was humanoid, standing on two legs, the fur primal on his shoulders and chest but so light everywhere else. A scrawny body with more bones than flesh. His art was indeed unforgiving, forcing him to weaken himself to the extreme.
Even that graze on his cheek had to burn for him.
"So, you won't let me kill them, is that it?" He offered a devious smile.
The crowd was already on him long before the cute rapt could even think of answering. He threw his sword in the air and met them with a dodge, then another. He was dancing in their midst! Hit! His punch had a sky lynx stop and crumble.
This was another art used to bypass armors and stun the internals. The rapt was about to heal again but, seeing no wound and the beast still moving, she wavered.
That hare was moving through his assailants with the ease and grace of a ballerina! It took him all he had, but the flurry of claws and fangs kept missing him all the same. He was a ghost to them!
Hit! And the greyhound went rolling on the rocky floor. Hit! A menilis, hit! And his friend hit the ground in turn. Then the killer caught his falling sword and swung to keep the mass at bay.
But there was only so much he could do by himself.
No matter how he stunned them, that could only last seconds, minutes at most and there were a hundred of them against him. And that had him grinning! Each time he barely skimmed death, his whole body tensed!
Oh, I could tell that was what he lived for.
"You should help him." The rapt heard me say.
"The scary bunny?! But he is scary!"
Not just scary. Despite his human looks, the beast was feral, willing to kill and use all means available. But he lacked mana for spells, used art instead to block the colport's claws that finally hit him. A brief instand, all of his strength pooled there and still could not protect him fully.
Shallow marks had black blood spill on his shoulder.
It all went quickly from there. Had he had a second to recover, the hare would have been fine. But that crowd was relentless. Another dodge, one more and he was cornered.
A greyhound leaped on his back.
"Say, earthworks."
"Earthworks!" The rapt screamed.
A slab of rock rose between that lizard and the hare who put his back against that welcome shelter. he had his second, hopped on that wall and, kick! The monstrous bear staggered before crashing down.
Now the beasts turned on the rapt as well.
She shivered, frozen in fear as the monsters approached to lunge.
A magnal jumped in front of her. "What are you doing, run!"
Ah yes, him. The fire lizard was playing hero again, not realizing how badly outmatched the whole sect was. Meanwhile, I was so bored that I had turned my attention to the altar.
That four-horned statue with pyres on its side had stood for long enough. Earthworks! But, to my surprise, it withstood my attempt at making it crumble. No doubt the ritual was tied to it.
A glance at the screaming rapt. Yeah, she was doing fine.
Interesting. The ritual was still being performed. So, if that hare had gone and freely killed, he would have played right into the hands of that temple. And it was quite a powerful ritual, probably its third or fourth incarnation. No wonder it resisted so well.
I really, really wanted to see what happened upon its completion.
The magnal had been flung to the side. The claws had only marked his chitin plates so he was mostly fine but struggled to get back up. And the legged rapt, pressed on three sides, could not rejoin him.
She watched the greyhound that was falling on her get hit and crushed on the ground with enough force to have the stone break on impact.
"Still want to keep them alive?" The hare asked her.
He had hopped to her side, his glass blade along his forearm. That stance, on one leg, was something he could only have learned in Hashal.
His tone was almost that of a jest, but I knew he was craving black blood.
"Yes! We have to save" and she turned back to the magnal "Coquin!"
Three meniles had jumped on the magnal. Their long fangs had pierced his scales, making him scream! Still he thrashed around, pushed back one and threw another away. Heal! A sudden surge of strength let him smash the third of him.
Already his companions had joined him to form a makeshift circle around which the beasts prepared their next assault.
"Earthworks!" The rapt yelled the moment they lunged.
She needn't say more. The ground itself had become her blunt weapon. Slabs rose while blocks fell from the ceiling and started to fly around. This technically went beyond earthworks but for the beasts it hardly made a difference.
The hare took full advantage of that dynamic. With his foes in disarray, he plunged in their midst and battered them at his leisure. Another wave of beasts tried and met the same fate as the first, forced to retreat or laying on the ground, whimpering.
"Enough!" Their preacher yelled.
The falcis was standing on the platform, before the raging statue of his badger god. By now I could tell he was fully in control of the ritual. And despite the commotion, it was practically complete.
Which meant he was still able to commit a mass sacrifice.
"How dare you desecrate this sacred ground! You miscreants will suffer the judgement of Kaele!"
"Priest!" The magnal pleaded. "This rapt is a."
"The will of Kaele will follow its course! O mighty humans, you who have suffered our erring for so long! We lay before you with humility and devotion in our hearts! Claim us and claim the realm, for it is yours to inherit!"
I liked him.
But he was going to upset a cute rapt and that was not something I was in a position to allow.
"Caline." She heard me chime in.
"Ah!" She panicked and faced the feline mantis with both her short forelegs. "Push!"
She had improvised but, per her will, I used simple airworks and with a gust sent the beast falling backward. And given the platform rose just before the pit of a hundred beasts gathered as sacrifices, that was where he fell.
Down and crashing on the ground. He survived the impact, tried to get up but his legs were broken. And then the beasts he had wounded and kept imprisoned for so long fell on him with a vengeance.
I had to suppose she wanted me to stop that. Yet I could not help but wait a little.
"Everyone stop!" The rapt's cute voice echoed through the temple.
To my surprise, even the famished beasts in the pit listened to her.
I discreetly healed the preacher just enough while she was busy talking. Otherwise he would be beyond saving before she was finished.
"Kaele is with me! So stop it, all of you, or I kick your butts!"
"Silence!" The staggering colport growled. "We are chosen, we are going to join the humans!"
"Caline?" I interrupted her incoming answer. "Can I?"
She nodded and I took control of her body for a bit. They could, just by the tone, tell they were facing a whole new beast.
"You will, but not here. Not now. Can't you tell? Your preacher, Mandale, has failed you. Now, go in peace before I chain you all."
They had every incentive to stay in denial, to fight to the last and proceed with the ritual. They needed to be sacrificed, lest they returned to a life of pain and misery.
But the temple was starting to shake, mostly because I had cast tremor on it and it would soon collapse. That was enough for them to believe they had angered Kaele, which they had, and so they chose later to never.
"Eh!" I called them through the legged rapt. "Where do you think you are going?"
"We are leaving, like you wanted!" A menilis shot back.
"And abandon your sacrifices in the pit? Put the ramps back!"
A few listened, shaken by that cute rapt ordering with such confidence. As if the voice of their four-horned badger was talking through her.