The late afternoon air was beginning to turn cold. Nyran stared at Tassi, her eyes glinting with a mixture of disdain and a hint of pity under the faint starlight. Her voice, when it echoed in the clearing, was soft, but sharp as steel.

  "I'm sorry, Tassi," she said, and the weight of that false compassion seemed to echo through the forest. "But sooner or later, the Quilombo would fall. You are weak. And in this world, the strong overpower the weak. It's the oldest law and the only one that matters."

  Beside her, a tall, dark-skinned man, blind in one eye, ground his teeth. The long iron chain he carried dragged on the ground, and at its end, a broad, cruel blade swung with a heavy, metallic sound.

  "Save the chatter for later, Nyran," the man growled, his voice a low roar. "Words don't kill anyone."

  Before Tassi could retort, the man swung the chain over his head with a powerful arm. The whistle of metal cut the wind an instant before the sword was launched like a projectile straight towards Carlos.

  Tassi didn't even look at Nyran. Every fiber of her being was concentrated on the imminent danger. Her right foot stomped hard on the ground, and with a muffled roar, the earth responded. A thick wall of earth, roots, and stones rose from the ground, hurling away the concrete blocks of the roadway as it blocked the blade's path with a dry thud that vibrated through the bones of everyone present.

  On the other side of Nyran, a thin man carrying a staff adorned with small metal bells sprang into action. He jumped to the side with feline agility, swinging the staff in a precise arc. Immediately, a wave of visible sound—a distortion in the air that made light shimmer—projected towards Tassi and Carlos. The earthen wall was irrelevant; the sound wave simply passed through it as if it didn't exist.

  The noise was sharp and penetrating, a deafening buzz that seemed to vibrate inside the skull. Tassi, who was still holding the revolver, instinctively brought her hands to her ears, her face contorting into a mask of pain.

  Shit, a sound gem adept! I hate dealing with them! she thought, teeth clenched as a throbbing pain spread through her head.

  Seizing the opening, Nyran charged. The wind gems embedded in the soles of her boots shimmered with an opaline light, and she leaped over the earthen wall with supernatural grace. In mid-air, her body twisted, and she opened her mouth. The air around her lips began to shimmer with the intense heat emanating from her throat.

  But upon landing, her eyes, adjusted to the dim light, found no targets. The spot where Carlos and Tassi had been moments before was empty.

  She didn't hesitate. In mid-air, she seemed to take a firm step on nothing, performing a backflip with impressive agility.

  "Look out!" she shouted to her companions.

  The warning, however, came too late. A bullet erupted from a point on the ground, followed by the muffled report of a gunshot. The bullet hit the chain-man's leg with a wet, sickening impact. A scream of agony and rage echoed through the clearing as he staggered, his hand pressing the wound gushing hot, dark blood.

  "You damn bastard!" he snarled, grabbing his chain with renewed fury. The iron gem embedded in it shone with a metallic light, and the broad sword, still stuck in the earthen wall, dislodged itself and flew like a steel demon towards the point where the shot had originated.

  Under the road, inside a stuffy pocket Tassi had created by breaking the concrete beneath, Tassi breathed heavily. The air was heavy, full of the smell of ore and the world's own viscera. Cold sweat trickled down her temples. Every muscle ached; she had used too much mana to break through the concrete layer.

  Carlos, beside her in the tight darkness, saw her pained expression in the faint glow provided by his minimal light magic.

  "Tassi, you need to stop, you don't have enough mana left…" he whispered, his voice laden with a concern that was almost a physical weight.

  She didn't let him finish. With a tired, abrupt gesture, she raised the layer of earth they were on, but without emerging to the surface, as if they were on an elevator platform, narrowly escaping the sword strike that buried itself deep into the soil with a sound of churned earth. No sooner had her feet touched firm ground than she was moving again, stomping firmly once more and sliding both of them to the left with the earth moving under their feet like a solid tide.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the vibrations in the earth beneath the concrete – the feverish agitation of the wounded man, the light, quick steps of the sound adept. Nyran's presence, however, was elusive, a feather-light touch on the concrete before disappearing, propelled by her wind gems. She swallowed her frustration and focused on what she could hit.

  Another shot echoed, this time tearing off the chain-man's ear. He screamed, a hoarse sound of fury and despair, and the iron sword, responding to his blind rage, flew towards them like lightning, passing dangerously between Carlos and Tassi with a deadly whistle that cut the air.

  Tassi felt her legs weaken. Her mana reserve was draining, a painful void opening in her core. She had no choice left.

  "It's now or never!" she grunted, and with one last effort, she broke the concrete beneath them once more, bringing them both back to the surface.

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  As soon as they emerged, her hand was already armed. She aimed and shot at the chain-man, who was still trying to get up, holding what remained of his ear. The shot was accurate, hitting his skull. He fell heavily, a sudden, sinister silence taking his place.

  She immediately turned, searching for Nyran, but it was already too late. The woman was already there, mouth open, blowing a spear of live, crackling fire directly at them. Tassi reacted on instinct, shooting Nyran in the foot. The woman's cry of pain was followed by a thud, and Nyran fell to her knees on the ground. Immediately, Tassi channeled the last vestige of her energy, and vines sprouted from a crack in the concrete, coiling tightly around Nyran's injured foot.

  "FUCK, TASSI!" Nyran screamed, struggling against the plants holding her, her hands trying to burn the stems without burning herself. "I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU! THE TARGET IS CARLOS! STEP AWAY FROM HIM AND YOU WILL LIVE! IT'S A DIRECT ORDER!"

  Tassi, with heavy, mechanical movements, ejected the used cartridges from the revolver and began to reload, her fingers trembling slightly from exhaustion.

  "Without him," she panted, each word costing her a breath, "the Quilombo will die slowly, consumed by hyenas like you. And I… I will die defending the Quilombo, whether today or tomorrow. There's no difference."

  Nyran strained, flames issuing from her palms to char the vines, but new ones sprouted, fed by the last spark of Tassi's mana.

  "The Quilombo will die anyway!" she insisted, her voice mixing anger and a strange, almost desperate, plea. "Abandon this futile fight! Our king… he discarded us! Remember Rio das Almas? He didn't pay the ransom! He left us to rot in that prison! All our loyalty, all the blood we shed… it was useless! There is no kingdom, no cause worth our lives! Please, Tassi, open your eyes! Abandon these stupid ideals and just LIVE!"

  Tassi opened her mouth to respond, Nyran's words echoing in her exhausted mind like a cracked bell. But before any sound could come out, the deafening, familiar clanging of the bells filled the air again. A wave of pure sonic force, denser and more violent than the last, hit her and Carlos like an invisible war hammer.

  The pain was excruciating, a knife of mental agony. Tassi felt something warm and wet trickle from her ears. Her eardrums had burst. The combination of the physical shock and the total depletion of her mana was the final blow. Her vision darkened, black spots dancing before her. Her legs gave way and she fainted, her body plummeting like a rag doll, the revolver falling from her inert hand with a metallic clatter on the ground.

  Carlos, also stunned and with his own ears bleeding, managed to stay upright by sheer force of will. He grabbed Tassi's body before she fell heavily, quickly checking her neck with trembling fingers. A pulse was there, weak and rapid, but persistent. He carefully laid her against a root and picked up the heavy revolver. His expression, once worried, hardened into a mask of fierce determination. He scanned the area with his eyes, looking for Nyran, the source of all this evil.

  He raised the weapon, aiming at the figure of the woman who was still struggling against the vines. But his attention was so focused on her that he didn't notice the sound adept, who had moved as silently as a ghost. The thin man appeared beside Tassi's unconscious body, a long, dark knife made of a decay gem glowing with a sickly greenish light in his hand. The blade descended, ready to plunge into the woman's unprotected chest.

  "STOP!" The shout came from Nyran, shrill and laden with an unexpected command.

  In an impulse that seemed to cost her immense effort, the gems in her boots shone at full strength, and she propelled herself forward, dragging the vines that held her. She placed her own arm in the path of the blade. The knife struck her forearm with a horrible, wet sound, and immediately a sweet, nauseating smell of rotting flesh filled the air. The skin around the wound darkened, turned black, and began to disintegrate like wet paper.

  "The plan is to kill only Carlos!" Nyran shouted at the man, sweat streaming down her pale face from the unbearable pain. "Without him, she will have no reason to fight anymore! She will give up! She's more useful alive!"

  The sound adept looked at Nyran with fury and confusion, his lips twisting to utter an insult.

  "Both are targets! I don't care if you know this wom-"

  But the word never came out. Carlos, recovered from the initial shock, acted. He pulled the trigger at point-blank range. The report was a thunderclap in the relative quiet. The man's head jerked violently, and a dense red mist exploded behind him before his body fell heavily to the ground, inert.

  Nyran jumped back, the gunshot pain muted by adrenaline as she tore the last vines, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock, anger, and lancinating pain in her arm. Carlos, driven by an impulse of vengeance, kept shooting. Each shot was an orange flash that briefly illuminated the twilight. Nyran, however, was a notoriously difficult target. She jumped and spun, the wind gems propelling her from side to side in unpredictable zigzags, causing each shot to graze past or miss completely, chipping tree bark and kicking up clods of earth.

  "Shit! What damned weapon is this that you invented?" she yelled, dodging another projectile that tore through the foliage behind her. "No wonder you wiped out the governor's army!"

  Carlos ignored her words, focusing on reloading. He quickly shoved his hand into the pockets of Tassi's dress, his fingers frantically searching for more cartridges. It was the moment of distraction Nyran was waiting for. With a powerful leap, she flew over Carlos, positioning herself above him like a vulture, her mouth opening once more, the intense heat distorting the air in front of her to release the jet of fire that would end the fight once and for all.

  But, out of nowhere, two figures surged between them with impressive speed. Sombra, with his dark brown eyes that looked almost black, materialized from a patch of deep shadow beside a tree. And, at his flank, Amadi raised his hands with a cry of effort. A translucent white shield erupted from the air, absorbing the fire breath with a loud hiss and a dazzling flash. The intense heat made the air shimmer around the shield, but it held firm.

  Nyran landed with a snarl of frustration, clutching her injured arm which now emitted a fetid steam.

  "So it seems," she spat, panting, "your reinforcements have arrived."

  Before Amadi or Sombra could respond or counter-attack, a bird with feathers as red and bright as living embers landed softly beside Nyran. The instant its claws touched the ground, the bird's form distorted and grew, transforming into a huge serpent of dancing fire—a Boitatá. The creature hissed, its scales spitting sparks that burned the air, and a radiant heat emanated from it. From the other side of the clearing, emerging from the darkness between the houses, a thin, dark-furred dog appeared with a low growl. Its body twisted and stretched in a spectacle of bones rearranging and muscles expanding, transforming into a muscular werewolf with eyes burning with hatred. It raised its head and let out a long, threatening howl to the night sky, a sound that promised blood and carnage.

  "But mine," Nyran finished, a cruel, pained smile spreading across her face, smudged with soot and blood, "have arrived too."