Even from a little over half of a mile away from the village, we could still very much see the Current Reaper. The beast was absolutely massive to start with, encompassing almost the entire village with its length alone. It wasn’t just long though. It was also very thick. To the point where I thought that all of us could probably fit inside of its mouth with relative ease. As if it wasn’t terrifying enough, the reaper had spines running up and down its purple and blue body. To cap it off, the beast had piercing red eyes that glowed faintly to create an extremely disturbing aura about it.

Currently, the creature was practically coiled around what was left of the village. There seemed to have been magic defenses at some time, but now all that remained were a few melting blue spots of essence. The Current Reaper was blasting jets of what looked like pure water essence. The glowing blue streams went hurtling towards the houses, causing them to catch fire, somehow. The strange blue fire ate away at the structures, turning a once beautiful village in to a steaming collection of rubble.

Thankfully for us, we could see a few undamaged houses and shops that the reaper was firing wave after wave of energy at in an attempt to finish its work. Blue shockwaves rippled across the ocean with each hit as essence struck essence. I could practically feel the power and we were still pretty far away. One specific building we saw that was still left standing was one of the larger ones. I couldn’t see what it was exactly, but my guess was that it was some form of town hall currently being used as a stronghold to keep the villagers safe.

To try and confirm what I was thinking, I activated my observer’s eye. When I looked at the village, I saw that the aura of the Current Reaper was quite interesting. Its essence wasn’t concentrated in to one single larger display like that of any of the other beings I had seen so far, it was broken in to dozens of smaller auras spaced out along the length of the massive creature.

I focused my attention back to the village and specifically the town hall where I saw maybe thirty or so faint auras inside. Some seemed to be dimming which I could only assume meant that their owners were badly injured or dying.

I turned to the group to ask a question I was surprised no one had asked yet. “Do we have some sort of plan to deal with this thing?”

The rest of the group stopped and we all looked at one another. “Well, I do suppose we probably should come up with one. What have the two of you seen?” Maxim asked, gesturing to Ameila and I.

“Currently, there are thirty-four people inside of a large building in the middle of town. That building is under attack by the reaper who seems to have sustained very little damage so far. There are around five sets of two and three people dotted around the rest of town who seem to only be surviving because the reaper’s attention is directed elsewhere. The creature is currently coiled around the entire village, making entry from any point quite difficult,” Ameila answered.

I stared in shock because her analysis of the situation was far more in depth than anything that I could come up with. Her eye must have been better trained than mine by a wide margin.

“Given the reaper’s positioning around the village, any point of entry doesn’t really give us an element of surprise unless we move slowly, but considering the state of the village we don’t have that luxury. This means we should get in there as quickly as we can,” Lilith supplied. Sometimes, I forgot that fire apprentices had natural tactical and fighting abilities, but she was just impressive.

“Alright, so we get in quickly. What then?” Viktor asked.

“The obvious move would be for the majority of us to fight the reaper while a smaller group of no more than three people evacuate the villagers to a safe distance to minimize any collateral damage while we fight the beast,” Maxim answered, gesturing to the village in the distance.

“I think it’d be best for me to go,” Lilith said. “I’m not going to be much help during this fight since I can’t really use my magic and mobility is difficult for me as well.”

Maxim nodded. “Ameila. How about you go with her too. It’ll be helpful to have someone with such a well-trained observer’s eye in the mix to help with identifying the most injured people.”

Ameila nodded. “So then, you, Avien, Julian, Viktor, and Alex will fight the Current Reaper until we can get everyone evacuated. Then, we’ll join you, but hopefully, you won’t need our help.”

We all exchanged glances before silently reaching an agreement. Alex, Ameila, and Maxim all formed large seals behind us. They were going to be used to create a massive, super-fast, current of water that got us to the village in almost no time at all. I readied myself, clenching my sword and preparing my body.

“Ready?”

We nodded.

“Go!”

The seals engulfed us in blue light for an instant before we were sent rocketing towards the village and the Current Reaper. It lasted maybe ten seconds, but then we were there and that’s when everything became real. We could plan all we want, but until we were actually here, we had no idea the kind of fight and terror we were in for. Unfortunately for us, when we stopped, there was a large shockwave that sent ripples through the water around us that caused the Current Reaper to turn and face us.

Up close, the Current Reaper was even bigger than any of us could have possibly imagined. One of its eyes were the size of me and Viktor put together. Without pupils, the glowing red gems seemed to pierce right through us down to our souls. This beast did not see us as people. It only saw us as spare energy in the word that could be snuffed out with a single breath.

As if hearing my thoughts, the creature opened its mouth, displaying several human-sized sharp teeth and a glowing jet of blue inside its throat. I concentrated hard, trying to slow my vision. It flickered green for a moment and seemed to slow down slightly, but then it returned to normal and I was directly in its line of sight. I screamed as a jet of blue energy came flying towards me.

I raised my sword up to block while also creating a shield of wind essence in front of me, but it did nothing. I was sent spiraling backwards, blue flames licking at my body and singing my skin. I remembered what had happened to those houses and I knew that my skin was certainly not tougher than marble.

I panicked, flailing around as I tried to somehow remove the strange blue flames. Sadly, my cursed healing couldn’t help me here. I had found that it only really worked when something was severed or separated, not outright destroyed like with burns. I then had an idea. I close my eyes and concentrated hard on the shape of my body and the site of the burning sensations. At each of the points, I created a layer of wind essence right on my skin. With each layer, the burning sensation subsided until all I could feel was a hot energy through the layers of wind essence. I moved the wind constructs away from my body, taking the flames with them as they ate through the constructs and disappeared.

I quickly swam back to the village to rejoin the fight. Lilith and Ameila had already split off to begin the evacuation, so it was just Maxim, Alex, Julian, Viktor, and I now. Much to my dismay, the reaper had not relieved any of its anger while blasting me. I was in a fairly similar position right now, but I wasn’t sure if I had the means to do anything about it.

Julian, understandably cautious about exposing his black wiring, was simply creating rock spikes that he was tossing at the reaper in an attempt to impale it, but he wasn’t having much luck. Viktor had created a dozen or so small stone golems that were pounding against the reaper’s sides. Maxim and Alex were the only ones having any real luck as they froze the reaper’s teeth and mouth shut to prevent blasts, but it didn’t hold for long and was making it angrier.

Since my eye was still active, I could see the reaper’s auras and I could tell that nothing anyone was doing was having an effect. I tried to fire off a few blades of air from Aetheris, but underwater, they disappeared almost immediately. I thought about conjuring another air bubble to give us the advantage, but that left me pretty drained last time and the effort to make one big enough to contain this thing would be immensely greater. It would be a miracle if I didn’t pass out, at the least.

I was about to charge in and try and assist with some fast-paced sword strikes, but then the reaper opened its mouth to let out an earthshaking roar. We all covered our ears to avoid going deaf and I gave Maxim a frantic confused glance. The roaring stopped and he shouted, “Incoming!”

The sound that followed was something I could only describe as an underwater tornado. The tornado quickly transitioned in to a bubbly earthquake that shook the entire ocean. We were soon met with the culprits as a torrent of menacing sea creatures surrounded us from every direction. I didn’t have time to try and identify any because as soon as they all arrived, the Current Reaper let loose another thunderous roar. With this call, the creatures attacked, swimming as fast as they could to come and kill us.

I tried once more to slow my vision and once again, I was met with a haze of green that quickly faded. I blocked several spikes from some kind of octopus, but was bashed in the back by what looked like a turtle. I was sent flying forward in to the spikes of the octopus. I was able to dodge enough that I only received cuts. They quickly were sewn back together with black stitches like I’d planned.

Understandably annoyed, I drove my sword directly through the octopus before turning around and doing the same to the turtle. Their splintered bodies collapsed in to the ocean below. I turned my attention to the rest of the creatures. From the auras I could see, I guessed around 200 enemies left.

I shivered. It was freezing now, for some reason. I looked in the direction of the sudden temperature change and saw Maxim with a large seal below him that was radiating an air of cold that turned the water a lighter blue color. The creatures within the space slowed and Alex took this opportunity to attack and kill them.

We continued fighting all the new creatures all the while dodging attacks from the giant Current Reaper behind us. I watched the auras fade one by one until there were almost none left except for the reapers’. Then, I came up with an idea. I swam over to Julian.

“Julian, I have an idea on how we can defeat this thing!”

He turned to me and gave me an inquisitive glance.

“It’d take too long to explain, but I’ll just say this; There’s going to be some openings appearing in this thing’s body. When that happens, run some black wiring inside of them and try to suck out as much essence as possible.”

Before he could say anything, I swam over to Alex and Maxim. “Guys! Hey! I need you to slow this thing down, so that I can get in some good hits!”

They gave me some strange glances before nodding and forming new seals. They pointed towards the reaper and I watched as the water color shifted from a deep cyan to an icy blue.

Now that they had done their part, it was time for me to do mine. The only problem was that, as of yet, I hadn’t been able to do any damage to this thing and what I was about to do was something I had never performed under this kind of pressure or in the real world, for that matter.

I made my hand in to a shape that looked like a finger gun without the hammer, my index and middle finger pressed together with my other fingers down. I used the seal on my hand as the conduit as I closed my eyes and cleared my mind. I needed to form three “ribbons” or air and swirl them around each other while retaining a point at both ends of what would be essentially an arrow without a bow.

I created the first ribbon. A sliver of teal wind formed above my fingers, about a foot in length. It formed the points and spun just like it was supposed to. I formed the second one and offset it so that it spun along with the first. I created the third and fourth the same way and marveled at how I’d actually been able to create it. However, it wasn’t spinning fast enough. I willed the ribbons to spin faster and faster until they were nothing but a blur teal above my fingers. Now that I had it going like I wanted, I had to move it.

I shifted the seal maintaining the arrow to my right hand and let out a sigh of relief when it stayed intact and still spun properly. Next, I formed a second seal on my left hand to actually control the arrow. I launched the arrow forward and watched as it soared right at the reaper. Once it hit, I was afraid it wouldn’t work, but it bore right through the reaper’s body and hit the first point. The aura behind the impact faded quickly to a much dimmer blue. I shakily moved the arrow to hit the next point.

It continued striking the points over and over, dimming more and more auras. Each movement was shaky, but the arrow didn’t fade or slow down. Thanks to Maxim and Alex, the creature was too cold to move very quickly and I was about to hit the final point. The arrow pierced the reaper’s head under its jaw before emerging out the top. I released my seals and the arrow disappeared as Julian placed his gloved hand on the reaper’s midsection. Black wiring spread across its body, snaking in to each of the holes that I had created. Once they were all in place, Julian’s seal glowed brightly and the wires pulsed blue, currents of essence flowing towards the glove.

The auras began to dim further. Some were almost completely out now. Then, Alex dropped to the ground along with his seal. Maxim raced to catch him, abandoning his seal in the process. The color returned to the water around the reaper and I saw it begin to move.

“Julian, Viktor, move now!” I shouted to them, but before they could, the reaper used its tail to smack them down in to the village, destroying several houses as their bodies crashed in to the walls.

I screamed angrily as I stared directly in to the reaper’s eyes. “How dare you hurt my friends, you stupid fish!” I charged the reaper, my sword fully charged with energy. Unfortunately, it was not ready to take another beating and it quickly swam off, leaving a cloud of blood and energy behind. I would have chase it, but I rushed down to the village to check on Viktor and Julian. If that stupid thing had killed them, I was going to hunt it down and make sure it paid dearly.