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Now, Darien was drained. He stood in the tunnel with the others, chest heaving with frantic breaths, sweat covering every inch of his aching body. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to ease the sharp burning in his lungs. Thick black liquid ran down his cheeks and dripped off his jaw with every blink. The Venom was losing its potency, the supply in his blood dimming at an alarming rate.

Too much magic. He was using too much magic. The thoughts were a warning blaring in his head, but he ignored them, shoving them back and back and back, until he couldn’t hear them anymore.

He took the bottle of Venom out of his pocket. Tipping his head back, he dripped more into his eyes, liquid spilling over and dampening his eyelashes.

Ivy stepped forward. “Darien, we can’t keep going like this. You can’t keep going like this.” She had barely finished speaking before something drew her eye. Lightning-fast, she angled her body to face the entrance into Spirit Terra, index finger poised on the trigger on her gun, the others around her doing the same.

Darien didn’t want to look, because he knew whatever he saw would douse the last of the hope burning inside him.

But he did anyway. He looked—and regretted it instantly.

“Fuck.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he couldn’t help it.

Because there were more demons coming, and they were only two dozen metres away.

Darien stalked over to the table—the only one that hadn’t been knocked on its side—and sifted through the items scattered across its surface, searching for the weapon he’d spotted earlier that evening.

He found it tucked between two boxes pressed up against the wall.

A grenade. A bomb containing raw magic, aura colors swirling within the smoky glass. The weapon he had been saving for when—and if—he needed it.

There was only one. He would have to make it count.

He turned back around. The monsters—four of them, all of them different breeds—were only twelve feet away now.

“Get back,” Darien gritted out, pushing past the others so he was in front of the gate. He pulled the pin out of the grenade, wound his arm back, and threw.

But one of the creatures—a humanoid thing with gray skin and a maw of sharp black teeth—stooped mid-run and grabbed—literally grabbed the grenade.

Darien’s mind emptied with shock. “No,” he breathed.

Tanner whispered, “That’s not possible.”

No. No, it wasn’t possible. They weren’t supposed to be that smart!

Boots crunched as several people in their group backed up a pace. Fear choked the room.

Darien shook his head in denial. “No, no, no, no, no.”

It was too late. Too late to react—to stop it.

His whole body turned weightless as the demon threw the grenade back through—

“GET DOWN!” Darien’s warning shredded his throat as it ripped through the tunnels.

His magic snapped out like an elastic band, forming a bubble around their group. It coated the walls and ceiling in under half a second, sending chills all over his body.

Darien held firm—

The echo of his last word was still fading away when the grenade detonated—right in his face—and the whole tunnel exploded.

—

Loren stuck close to Erasmus, hand extended in his direction, in case he were to fall, as they shuffled along the first ledge of sheer cristala that wrapped around the outside of the Control Tower.

They were about a hundred and fifty meters above ground, the height giving them a clear view of the chaos ensuing in every district.

Dead people lay in the streets. More were being slaughtered right before her eyes, and as they fell, their Familiars—if they were magic-born people—fell with them. Dogs and cats and wolves and birds and other animals faded away, becoming nothing but curling black tendrils that were soon evaporating in the wake of defeat, not a trace of them left behind. Dead. Gone, just like the people they were bound to.