Dusk was falling over the narrow valley when the air suddenly turned freezing cold. A thick, viscous black mist rose from the ground, forming humanoid silhouettes with glowing red eyes and elongated claws. Corrupted shadows—half specters, half beasts—emerged from all sides, howling like damned souls.
"Formation!" Frost shouted, stomping the ground. A massive wall of earth burst up in front of the group.
Caden instantly ignited his fists.
"There are too many! Aletha, Bella—flank them!"
The battle erupted.
Caden charged the front line, unleashing a roaring wave of flames that incinerated three shadows at once. One creature lunged at his side—he pivoted and drove a flaming knee into it, causing it to explode into black particles.
"You won't touch anyone today!" he roared.
Zetch and Frost fought back to back. Zetch raised sharp spikes of rock that impaled the shadows, while Frost, more fluid, shaped the earth into massive fists that crushed enemies from a distance. A shadow leapt at Frost—he grabbed it mid-air, twisted its arm, and slammed it violently into the ground, reducing it to dust.
"They're tougher than the monastery demons!" Zetch growled, blocking a claw strike with a stone shield.
Lyseria, her hands glowing with pure golden light, fired radiant beams that pierced the shadows like divine spears.
"By the light of the sanctuary!" she cried, sweeping through an entire wave.
Aletha drew water from a nearby river, shaping it into whipping streams that froze some enemies in place before Caden finished them with flames. Bella spun through the air, generating slicing wind blades that tore through the shadows.
But the creatures were countless.
A massive shadow struck Bella from behind, slamming her to the ground. Caden rushed to help her—but Aletha was suddenly surrounded. Without thinking, he changed direction.
"Aletha! Hold on!"
He blasted a column of fire to clear a path and rushed to her side. They fought together—Caden creating fiery explosions while Aletha formed a protective sphere of water around them.
Still on the ground, Bella saw them.
And anger surged.
"Caden!" she shouted as she got back up. "We're in the middle of a fight and you're still glued to her?!"
Caden deflected an attack while replying:
"Bella, this is really not the time! I'm just helping her!"
"Oh really? Like when you help her set up her tent? Like when you spend hours adjusting her posture?!" Bella yelled, unleashing a violent tornado that shredded two shadows. "Meanwhile, I can just die, right?!"
A shadow took advantage of the argument to strike at Caden—but Aletha blocked it just in time with a wall of water.
"Bella, stop!" Caden snapped, breathless. "We'll talk about this later! Right now we're all going to die if we don't focus!"
Zetch blocked a blow aimed at Lyseria and shouted, exasperated:
"You're arguing now? Seriously?!"
Frost, crushing a shadow with an earth-forged strike:
"Bella, focus! The shadows feed on your negative emotions!"
But Bella didn't stop. Between attacks, she kept going:
"We don't do anything together anymore, Caden! You avoid me! You spend all your time with her and then you dare say there's nothing going on?!"
Caden barely dodged a claw and snapped back, irritated:
"Because she almost died recently! I'm helping her recover, that's all! You're acting like a child!"
"A child?!" Bella compressed a sphere of air and blasted it into a group of shadows. "You're the one constantly touching her and smiling at her like an idiot!"
Lyseria, firing another beam:
"Guys… they're coming from the left!"
The argument continued in the middle of chaos, almost absurd.
Zetch rolled his eyes:
"We are literally getting eaten alive by shadows and you're arguing about who touches who…"
Frost sighed while fighting with composed precision:
"If we survive this, I'm making you all attend group therapy."
Finally, after a long and brutal battle, the five mages combined their powers: Frost and Zetch raised a massive dome of earth, Caden and Aletha filled it with burning steam, Bella compressed it with air, and Lyseria infused it with a burst of pure light.
The shadows screamed before being annihilated in a spectacular explosion.
Silence fell—broken only by their heavy breathing.