As Andrew gather blood around him, his heart was thumping. His body was visibly shaking and was only hidden by said blood surrounding him.

Having just clawed way back from death, His body felt like lead and his mana was nearing its limits. Having to use such an intricate technique on the brink of death drained him in every way possible.

His mouth tasted of iron, no doubt he had coughed up blood during that exchange.

Logan began walking closer, marveling at what he was witnessing. "I don’t know a lick about what’s going on, but I congratulate you for it."

Looking down, he sees his blades are near Andrew and his heart beats a bit faster than it already was. Of all things, he never assumed someone like himself would be getting fight or flight.

he already had a bunch of ice shards in multiple different parts of his body.

As the blood sloshed towards him

he was five years younger, not a thought of tomorrow in his mind as he cooled of in the lake nearby.

He sucked in a deep breath of air and stared at his weapons before clenching his fists.

Turning around, He took a step back. This wasn’t the life he was going to live, and this wasn’t how he wished to die.

Logan didn’t need those swords and he didn’t need anyone here. The days of careless were gone, one had to protect their own life.

He was done with the entire ordeal, and because Amanda would kill him if she found him Deserting, he was done with the whole group.

The moment Andrew Heard a step, He’d fired A blast, that hit nothing. Andrew quickly prepared to fire again, but was surprised to see that. He was leaving the battlefield.

As Andrew stood in confusion, he decided to conserve the little mana he had left.

he took a look around, seeing that most men were now either on the run, Heading into the treeline or were dead.

Tens of feet away from him, He saw Chase,

In a state that wasn’t good. He was battling a woman with a spear, swinging his curved blade with reckless abandon.

Another fighter was near them, his body was burned and ignored by those two. Chase was barely winning.

Eventually he brings his blade down on top of her, to which she blocks with her spear, unfortunately the blade engulfs in flame, cutting through it and herself as well.

Yet she takes both ends of her spear, stabbing him twice in her final moments.

While he was confident these people would live, one thing was certain. These were monsters in human skin, no doubt about it.

As Chase collapses to one knee, Jasmine comes over, Immense worry clouds her face.

Andrew slowly walked his way over, barely managing to move out of the way of a crater in the ground, failing to step over an arrow or a dead body.

As he was walking in that direction, a few men to his right were running away, quickly crushed by Damian jumping on top of them.

As he turned to look at Andrew, his expression was grim, But everyone was a bit on edge at the moment.

"How are you holding up?" He said weakly, his usual optimism and upbeat tone usually persisted in the worst of times, yet he was deathly serious now.

"I’m alive, and extremely grateful for it."

Andrew was considering getting a new staff, he needed some sort of walking stick or his legs would give out.

"Thank the gods."

As they reached Chase and Jasmine, she looked at Damian with an almost poisonous glare. Andrew looked back at her in confusion, but it seemed everyone realized it wasn’t the time.

As Chase stood back up, his thoughts were the same as anyone’s on this team.

"We need a spot to rest, Donny’s resting on a tree nearby."

Damian had a weak tone. "Let’s regroup there and...find out what to do next."

Donny had a rag covering the gash on his head that Jasmine had fished out of his pocket. He was currently resting, but he wasn’t doing so hot

As Chase took a close look, anger funneled into his chest. A scoul formed on his face as he honestly thought of the future of their situation.

"We are currently wanted, and we certainly will be after all that noise we just caused.

If we went back, we would be arrested, and one of our friends needs medical treatment.

Worse off, we don’t even know where our employer is."

Chase was two seconds from corrupting him and calling it a night.

"Honestly you should just do it, then we should get out of here." Andrew was thinking objectively, at least trying to having almost died.

"A shame, But we were just too weak."

Damian shook his head.

Jasmine couldn’t hold it any longer.

"No it was because you were too dumb."

Damian turned to her with a deadpan look.

She continued: "The first thing you do when you see conflict is to tone in down. You beat up someone with authority, causing us to be public enemy."

Damian said nothing. He knew she was right, and seeing the state of his friends, he felt that defending himself would be treating their injuries like they didn’t matter.

They barely clung to life because of the situation he put them in.

If it were any other scenario, he would never left her off the hook, but right now, he needed a moment.

To take in what he had done and never let this happen again.

Just then, more steps came from the treeline.

Everyone’s natural response was to get into combat stances, even with what little energy they had at the moment.

What popped out was a young boy, in his early adult age. With brown hair and a glint of innocence in his eye, he looked unassuming.

"Hi, I’m Marlo, and I think you’re the people Brianna hired to help us?"