Anakitty came over his shoulder, ignoring every sword pattern the creature had watched and kicking the inside of its knee instead.
The joint buckled, and her shield smashed into the side of its head while Raul twisted the spear in the opposite direction and dragged its upper body off balance.
The Enhanced Species tried to adjust using movements it had already learned, but none of them fit the situation.
Anakitty's sword entered beneath its arm and opened the torso nearly to the ribs.
The monster roared and threw both adventurers away with brute strength.
Raul rolled across the floor, recovered his shield, and stared at the creature with something close to vindication.
"That actually worked considerably better than it had any right to."
Anakitty landed hard beside the barricade and forced herself upright.
"That was because the plan was to stop fighting like ourselves. Try not to become proud of being unpredictable through bad decisions."
Tsubaki laughed once from behind them.
"I'm beginning to see the appeal."
Asfi gave her a flat look while preparing another explosive.
"Please don't make 'fight badly on purpose' a permanent doctrine."
The Enhanced Species came again before the conversation could turn into another argument.
This time Rayleigh let Ais move.
Gonryōmaru met the broken sword.
The monster immediately shifted its feet, studying her guard and preparing to adapt to the next exchange.
Ais recognized what it was doing and abandoned the guard entirely.
Instead of giving the creature a sword technique to analyze, she stepped inside its reach and punched it in the face with her free hand.
Bone cracked.
The monster staggered, and Ais drove her boot into the same damaged knee Anakitty had already weakened.
The creature nearly fell.
Ais glanced toward Rayleigh.
"That should confuse it."
"It certainly confused me."
Tsubaki laughed again, but nobody stopped fighting to extend the joke.
The Enhanced Species recovered with an angry roar and began swinging both weapons much more violently. Its technique deteriorated almost immediately.
With no recognizable sequence left to answer, the careful spear work and copied swordsmanship fell apart, exposing the wild instincts underneath everything it had practiced.
Rayleigh saw the exact moment imitation stopped carrying it.
"Now!"
Tsubaki released Tobiume.
"Snap, Tobiume!"
She deliberately fired past the monster.
The fireball struck the floor behind it, and the resulting explosion hurled the creature forward before its body could absorb the attack directly.
Raul ducked beneath it. Anakitty moved aside.
Asfi's explosive flew into the mouth that opened during its roar, and the detonation destroyed most of the lower jaw.
Ais entered through the smoke and drove Gonryōmaru through the damaged chest, releasing a short, concentrated burst of lightning before breaking contact.
Ardi swept Nejibana across both legs, and a compact surge of water folded the wounded knees beneath the creature and exposed its torso.
Rayleigh saw the magic stone through the opening.
"Raul, Anakitty! Finish it!"
Neither hesitated. Raul recovered the sword he had abandoned earlier and came from the left.
Anakitty attacked from the right despite the pain in her leg.
Their blades entered the exposed core almost together, and the magic stone shattered.
The Enhanced Species collapsed between them and began dissolving before either weapon had fully withdrawn.
Raul remained bent over for several seconds, one hand braced against his knee while he struggled to breathe.
When he finally looked toward Rayleigh, exhaustion had stripped most of the humor from his expression.
"When I imagined the rescue party arriving, I thought the rescuers would do substantially more of the actual rescuing."
Rayleigh looked at the dead monster.
"You already knew everything needed to beat it. We just gave you room to use it."
Raul wanted to complain, but the answer apparently made enough sense that he settled for muttering something impolite before lowering himself beside the barricade.
Anakitty simply sat down.
"That may be the first intelligent decision you've made today."
Raul did not have enough energy left to argue.
That was probably for the best.
Asfi had already moved toward the remains of the Enhanced Species.
Something dark had survived around its wrist, and she crouched and pulled a torn strip of fabric free before the dissolving flesh consumed it.
Her face changed at once.
Hermes Familia material.
Lulune's cloak.
"This is hers."
Raul nodded grimly.
"That creature came back through the lower route roughly two hours after Lulune disappeared. It had different weapons when we first encountered it, and several of those techniques were new."
Rayleigh looked toward the spear and broken sword dissolving beside the corpse, and the picture came together: the training marks throughout the tunnels, the captured adventurers, the creatures returning with improved technique.
Whatever lay deeper had turned the lower passage into a school built from unwilling instructors.
Tsubaki lifted Tobiume.
"Then we've waited long enough. Lulune and my smith are still down there, and every extra hour gives these things more time to learn whatever they're trying to learn from them."
Ardi looked back toward the wounded.
"We can't all go."
Rayleigh followed her gaze. Fourteen injured adventurers remained in the chamber, some unable to walk and several barely conscious.
Leaving them undefended would turn the rescue into nothing more than exchanging one group of captives for another.
Ardi rested her hand on Nejibana.
"I'll stay here. This chamber is narrow enough that Nejibana can control both approaches without forcing me to maintain large attacks against anything long enough for them to drain the sword.
More importantly, the wounded need somebody capable of stopping a whole pack if they return before Finn's group reaches us."
Lyra nodded after looking over the two entrances.
"Arachne is more useful here too. I can web the approaches without touching the monsters until they commit, which gives Ardi time to hit them before they reach the barricade. Between us, we should be able to keep this position intact."
Rayleigh agreed immediately.
"Then you two stay with Raul and the wounded. Finn should eventually reach this chamber through the main route, and once he does, you can move everyone back together."
Raul pushed himself away from the wall.
"Then I'm coming below. I know the route, and after spending most of a day fighting those things, I'm considerably more useful than I look."
Three people rejected the idea before he had finished standing.
Rayleigh did not need to raise his voice.
"No. You have broken ribs, you've been awake for most of a day, and you just admitted you can barely keep your shield raised. Staying alive long enough to guide Finn when he arrives is more useful than collapsing halfway down the next tunnel."
Asfi nodded toward the wounded Hermes members.
"We also need somebody who knows exactly what happened here and can explain the creatures' behavior if the rescue force arrives before we return. You already held this position for eighteen hours. Finish that job rather than abandoning it at the end."
Raul clearly disliked every word.
Then he noticed Anakitty forcing herself upright beside the wall, and his expression changed.
"You're planning to go with them."
She tightened the bandage around her wounded leg.
"I know the route Lulune used, and unlike you, I can still move quickly enough to avoid becoming luggage."
Raul stared at the blood seeping through the cloth.
"Aki, I'm not arguing because I think you're weak. I'm arguing because if something goes wrong down there, I physically won't be able to follow you this time."
His words stopped her. For several seconds, the exhaustion and joking disappeared from both of them.
Anakitty gently removed the hand he had placed around her wrist.
"You've kept fourteen people alive since yesterday. Stay here and make sure that means something. I'll bring the others back, and when I do, you can complain about my leg as much as you want."
Raul hated the answer. He also knew she was right. His hand fell.
"Bring Lulune and the others back."
Anakitty nodded.
"All of them."
The group going deeper was settled: Rayleigh, Ais, Tsubaki, Asfi, and Anakitty would continue, while Ardi and Lyra remained behind with Raul and the wounded until Finn's larger rescue force arrived.
Asfi began checking the explosives remaining inside her pouches, while Tsubaki inspected Tobiume's modified blade and Ais quietly tested the connection with Gonryōmaru.
Rayleigh had just turned toward the lower passage when a metallic crash echoed from somewhere beneath them.
Everyone stopped.
A woman's scream followed and it travelled clearly through the tunnel.
Asfi knew the voice immediately.
"Lulune!"
Talaria flared beneath her feet, and she shot into the passage before anyone could stop her.
Tsubaki reacted next, racing after her with Tobiume already in hand, while Rayleigh and Ais followed close behind.
Anakitty pushed off the wall and forced her injured leg into motion.
The scream came again from somewhere below, close enough now that they could hear the pain in it.