Vis and Hunter glance at Astraea, who is unconscious on the ground, and back to the one who just spoke and Vis responds, dusting off his new bruises. “You’re Dolus, I take it?”

  He replies, “So you've heard of me, it seems. Good, then we will waste no time on introductions. Hand her over to me and I will allow you to live.”

  ?elare stands up from the ground, still disoriented, and looks at him silently. Dolus stares back expectantly. Hunter releases the two he protected and takes his bow from his back, nocking an arrow.

  “We are not going to abandon a comrade. If you want her, you'll have to fight us.”

  Dolus sighs.

  “So be it. You two, remember the plan.”

  He draws a sword from his scabbard and takes a step towards them and Hunter releases the arrow, the bowstring snapping in twain.

  It flies straight through Dolus’ head, which spews brain matter, blood and bone. He falls to the ground, dead instantly. All three inside the building’s ruins pause for a moment, entirely taken aback by the success of the attack.

  The now-deceased man’s companions take advantage of this pause. The woman throws the bomb in her hand at Vis. The man kicks the ground, causing a boulder to be thrown into the air, which he punches to launch at ?elare.

  Vis manages to grab and throw the explosive back at the attackers, but it detonates in the air between them. The woman clicks her tongue in annoyance as the bomb creates an inferno, leaving scorch marks on the rock below but injuring nobody.

  ?elare turns his body to avoid the stone projectile hurtling towards him, turning invisible at the same time. Moments later, Hunter vanishes as well. Vis charges, launching himself into the air with a burst of might. The woman below him attempts to dodge to the side as he slams his bracers together, producing a spear. The additional reach catches her off guard and her side is pierced. She yells and clutches her injury, but Vis does not relent as he drops the spear, dashes towards her and slams his foe against the ground. Blood and chunks of flesh coat his hand as he punches the wound, the woman crying out in anguish.

  Vis is knocked away by a powerful impact on his side. He hears a loud crunch and he grimaces as a rib is shattered. Rolling with the momentum, he gets up to see a rock flying toward him, too close and fast for him to dodge entirely. He twists his body just enough for it to miss his neck, but it collides his shoulder and dislocates it. As he stumbles back, he sees that the weapon used to save the woman was a large, earthen gauntlet around the man's hand- a gauntlet that is barely a metre from his face.

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  Capitalising on the split second until he would be struck, Vis allows himself to fall onto his back, ducking underneath the punch. He kicks the attacker’s leg out from under him and slams his bracers together. He grabs the summoned greatsword and attempts to plunge it into the falling man, but he reacts quickly and blocks it with the gauntlet before being winded by hitting the ground. Vis scrambles to his feet and brings the sword down again, managing to cut straight through his foe’s arm. Simultaneously, a sphere akin to the previous explosives lands next to him and releases a large volume of opaque mist.

  Unprepared, and so inhaling a small portion of it, Vis begins to cough and sputter. The gas creates a burning sensation in his lungs and he falls to the ground clutching his throat. Similarly, he can hear his foe wheezing, who shouts out a sentence through laboured breaths until all he can produce are pained gasps.

  “Melissa! Thirty metres in front of you!”

  Vis closes his eyes and focuses, blotting out the pain and circulating energy throughout his body to ensure his vital processes do not collapse.

  Melissa, Dolus’ female companion, hears her ally’s final shout. Without hesitation, she rolls a handful of marbles onto the ground, which explode into a cloud of smoke. A fraction of a second later, an arrow from seemingly nowhere rips through her face. Her skull is shattered, her right eye bursts, and her brain is splattered for metres behind her. Her corpse falls to the ground.

  Hunter and ?elare become visible once more, each of them immediately running to different objectives. Hunter runs to Melissa's body and roots through her pouch while ?elare rushes to Astraea in the ruined building. Relief washes over him as he sees the hole in her stomach already partially reformed.

  “I'm glad you're so tough,” he mutters to nobody in particular before meeting back with Hunter, who notices his approach and speaks to him.

  “She's got to have an antidote somewhere here.”

  ?elare carefully inspects the body, before replying, “Surely she's hidden them specifically for this purpose. I note that one of her boots has an odd pattern on the sole.”

  Hunter stops searching the pouch and instead checks the mentioned boot, indeed dislodging a tiny compartment from the bottom. It contains a miniature wooden box, which itself holds a number of small pills.

  They look at each other and nod, ?elare taking the container and walking to Vis, who is lying silently on the ground next to a barely-breathing, unconscious man. Taking a pill, ?elare leans down to his friend and places it in his mouth, forcing him to swallow. He decides, while he waits for Vis to recover, to investigate the other man. He walks over and crouches next to the body, noticing that it has stopped breathing.

  Then, all three foes explode.