I stopped moving, observing this interaction between Dara and the Demon for a moment in surprise.

The first time I had died, I remembered that Bari and Dara were killed in an instant, and the demons did not seem interested in anything other than killing us. What had caused this unexpected change?

They had survived longer when they followed me, but did that cause the demons to see us in a new light since we had suddenly changed our usual position in the last hour? Did I want to think that someone or something was observing us before this attack?

I don’t know why this scared me more than it should. It seemed I wanted this to be a disaster, more like a storm than something consciously orchestrated.

Dara’s face was wet with tears and her breath was coming in the short bursts, but for someone that was so scared, her Threadwork was up, even though the lattice was thin and uneven in a way I had never seen from her, as the weave were dropping at the corners and being rebuilt and dropping again as her concentration shattered and recovered and shattered again.

"Dara," I said.

She did not look at me; her eyes stayed on the demon. My voice made the demon turn towards me, and then it froze like a statue, and I hated how this also scared me, as it was just so unnatural to freeze yourself like that.

"It killed Senna," Dara suddenly said with a flat tone, even though her eyes did not leave the frozen demon. "Mage Senna. She was right there, and then she was... she was an Adept, Elric, she was ranked sixty-one, how does something kill a rank sixty-one Adept like she was...like she was..."

"Dara." I put myself between her and the demon. "Step back three meters."

"I’m not leaving," she said immediately, even though I could hear the fear in her voice.

"I am not asking you to leave," I said. "Three meters. Give me room for us to work together."

The cold spot at my waist flared at the same moment the cold spot at my heart did, Death-Touched showing me the demon in front of us had updated its targeting from Dara to me, consolidating on the closer and more immediate threat, and I could feel in the quality of those cold points that it was about to move, and the instant I felt this, it moved.

I cast Spark before it cleared the first metre, aimed at the jaw cluster, and the discharge was cleaner than I expected from fifteen percent, Death-Touched apparently doing something to my targeting precision because I could feel where the cold spots on my skin were and the jaw cluster was the origin point of the demon’s targeting sense and the two things were connected, I was sure of it, I was feeling the demon’s intent through my own skin and aiming at the source of that intent.

Auxiliary Skill Gained:

Marksman [Uncommon] 0 > 12 (Initiate)

The Spark hit clean, and the demon locked midstride, collapsing on the ground as its body dragged for four more meters due to its momentum.

The cold spots at my waist and heart went dark simultaneously, both targeting points extinguished in the same instant the paralysis took hold, and in the four seconds of stillness, Dara stopped crying, and her Threadwork snapped from the thin defensive weave into something tighter, a binding configuration I had not seen from her before.

She pushed her staff forward, and the glowing net of light fell on the demon that was still frozen.

I looked at her in shock and a bit of awe as the weave she was making compressed inward on itself with a focused pressure that the demon, when the paralysis ended, immediately began fighting.

I kept the count in my head, and it held for seven seconds, and this was enough time for Bari to cross the distance and hit the demon’s jaw cluster with a Surge burst of pure force, which was the basic utility of Surge for an Acolyte.

Bari had greater Anima Depth and enough desperation to spend it freely, and the demon was slammed six inches into the ground, a spreading crater around it.

I steadied myself and sent another Spark at the demon, causing it to freeze again, since everything that Bari threw at it just made it pissed off and seemed not to do any damage.

It made a high-pitched sound before it wrenched free and retreated sideways into the camp wreckage.

The cold spots at my waist and heart came back as it retreated, fainter now, the targeting deprioritised rather than eliminated, and two new cold spots appeared, these at my right shoulder and left knee, which told me two more demons had registered me while I had been occupied with the third, and no doubt there must be more focused on Bari and Dara.

I had knocked the first demon down, and with my friends, we had driven the second one off, but this was nothing to celebrate as my Anima Depth was at eight percent and falling.

The three of us stood in the red pulsing light of the pyramid and breathed. I could see the light coming back to the eyes of my friends, but I did not have the heart to tell them that I could now feel more than ten demons focused on me... we did not have long.

Bari seemed to have just discovered the cut on his face as he was grimacing as he attempted to clean the blood that had nearly sealed one of his eyes shut. I nearly told him not to bother, but I kept my mouth shut.

Dara was still against the supply crate, knuckles white around her staff, face wet, eyes on me with the assessment that had been building since the equipment distribution, and had just received an enormous amount of new material. I did not have the time for all the questions; I could feel death approaching.

"North," I said. "Commander Rel’s position. Now."

"Elric..." Dara started.

"I will explain," I said. "North first."

She pushed off the crate and straightened and wiped her face in one precise movement and nodded, which was so entirely Dara, putting the feeling away to deal with later, dealing with the immediate problem first, and the familiarity of it landed somewhere uncomfortable in my chest... was I not doing the same?