Valiantly

(This chapter starts in Natalia's perspective)

She leaned against the tree the others had **** her to sit down in front of. They were worried that she would be too exhausted from her spent mana to be ready in the event of an ambush, no matter how much she said to the contrary. She let out a sigh, 'It has always kinda been like this. Grutrod has always been super caring in his own way, and they always told me how supportive Oliver had been before the incident. I even got to see a bit of it before his arm was taken. And of course, Silvia is and has been the type to overexert everyone and then seemingly feel bad about it after the fact, not that that has ever stopped her from doing it again.'

She shook her head as she reminisced, looking back on old times fondly. 'It feels like a great change is coming, with Matthew showing up. Not to mention the fact that he brought news of a new god, he warned of the Hornet Queen planning an attack, and healed Oliver. No matter what, this is going to change everything, and I don't know if I'm prepared for how.' As she went over the events one last time in her head, she felt something strange.

The corrupting mana within her resonated, it felt like it was being tugged towards the cave. She got up slowly, watching the cave carefully. Now that she looked for it, she could sense all of the twisted mana around her funneling towards it, until suddenly it stopped, leveling out again. The most concerning part, was that the mana felt much less dense, as if a lot of it was just spent.

Oliver looked over to her, noticing her standing. "Hey, just rest, it will be-" He stopped talking as he noticed her staring intensely towards the cave, and a look of concern covered his face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Before she could answer, a great roar echoed out from the cave. It was unlike anything she had heard, a horrid sound that sounded as if its maker was half drowning. The roar was most certainly from something bigger than a bear, even a great bear like the rest of them had told her what was here.

Soon after this roar, they heard a great lumbering noise slowly get louder. Barely audible under it was the sound of someone running, and soon Matthew came into view. Soon after Matthew reached the mouth of the cave, a large fleshy appendage swung forth, slamming into him and launching him into a tree next to Natalia. As he struck the tree, it split and bent downwards, falling to his side.

She stared at him, 'No, not him. This world can't take him, not yet.' She ran over to him, shouting his name, but before she reached him he raised his arm towards her.

He let out a grunt as he waved her forward, "I'm fine, don't worry about me. Focus on the Abomination." His words were strained, but more like he had the wind knocked out of him than he was majorly hurt. She hesitated, but followed his request upon hearing the monstrosity let out another gurgling roar.

Oliver was the first to regain his senses, charging towards the beast to draw its attention away from anyone else who was not wearing plate mail armor. He narrowly dodged a downward swing by the creature, leaving a crater where he had been standing.

Silvia followed, letting forth an arrow towards the creature's arm that was outstretched from the cave entrance, its full form still not yet visible. As the arrow sunk into its limb, it made little reaction. Natalia stared at disbelief of this creature, it was beyond what she had prepared herself for.

Seemingly sensing her panic, Matthew spoke to her. "I understand it looks horrifying, but we must defeat it. If that thing was able to kill what you and your friends were worried about, then we must deal with it now." He was laying against the tree he slammed into, a grimace on his face as he clutched his side.

His words resonated with her, and she found a great will to fight from seeing him like that, though she couldn't quite tell why. She turned around, and prepared herself. 'Lets see, it seems to be an Abomination style monster like Matthew said. That means it resonates with growth magic, and its weakness would be decay, but I don't have any spells of the decay type. I suppose I will have to settle on attacks that are not ineffective instead of highly effective ones.'

As she rejoined the fight, Grutrod managed to smash his hammer into the grotesque limb of the gigantic monstrosity, causing it to let out a gurgling wail of pain. It was then that they saw a glimpse of the rest of it, as three more limbs reached out and grabbed the edges of the mouth of the cave. From the darkness emerged a horrid mass of flesh and spines, a strange mouth made of a collection of jaws seeming to be its head.

The others recoiled, but Natalia saw this as a chance. She performed her fastest incantation she could while calling out to the others, "Hold it in the entrance, I have an idea!"

Grutrod shouted over his shoulder, "Sounds a lot easier said than done lass, but if yeh say so!" He charged forward with a great cry, swatting the disturbing head of the Abomination with his war hammer as it snapped at him.

Natalia focused, trying her best to make this spell as potent as possible. Just as she was nearing completion, the monster swung one of its arms, catching onto Silvia past the other two. 'This is it, right now. If you wait, she is gunna die. You can't fail them like the last ones.' Natalia let loose her spell, a great bolt of light flying forth just past the creature, and causing a great explosion. She could only hope that the cave would fall down upon it like she planned.