The fight escalated.

The two hulking giants at the rear finally pushed their way into the fray, their massive bodies displacing lesser beasts as they lumbered forward with a force that shook the ground.

Unlike the rest, these monsters weren't merely dangerous, but they were also durable nightmares, hide layered with dense plates, muscles coiled so tightly that even Bastet's heat warped only the surface.

Every swing they made carried enough mass that even a glancing hit felt like being struck by a speeding train. And when the first giant finally got a clean angle on Calypso, it brought a club-like arm down with a booming echo that sent a shockwave across the ravine.

She managed to brace with her axe, redirecting most of the blow, but the force still crushed through her guard and slammed into her chest hard enough to make her boots skid trenches into the dirt. Blood sprayed from her lips, and for a heartbeat her body shook from the impact - right before her grin widened into something wild, unrestrained, and gleefully feral.

"Darling, I'm so happy I left that dungeon and met you!" she shouted, laughing even as bruising bloomed across her red skin and she spat a mouthful of blood. "This is amazing! My blood is boiling!"

"Focus and stop taking unneeded damage, you damned masochist!" Luna snapped from just beside her, breath sharp as she blurred away from another incoming strike.

The smaller stalker-beasts lunged from low angles while the giant's shadow threatened to flatten her from above, forcing her to weave between them with inches to spare.

Her boots scraped stone as she twisted beneath the descending arm, lightning flaring around her in an arc that gave her just enough acceleration to avoid becoming paste. She retaliated with a powerful two-handed swing of her stormblade, making lightning run across the monster's hide with a noise like shattering air, yet despite the sheer force behind it, the massive brute barely staggered, if at all.

Kaiden struggled to keep the giants from collapsing the line altogether. Wrath surged inside him like a furnace roar, his greatsword delivering sweeping arcs that could flatten lesser creatures in a single blow, but the pressure was relentless. The other beasts harried his legs and sides, trying to disrupt his stance so the giants could crush him, and several managed to graze his armor with snapping jaws or clawed limbs.

He countered with devastating strikes, but even with Wrath's empowerment, maintaining a stable perimeter was getting harder by the minute.

Meanwhile, the monsters further back began shifting their attention, trying to overwhelm the rear guard.

A wave of sinewy stalkers broke from the main skirmish and surged toward Aria and Bastet, using the chaos of the giants' advance as cover.

Nyx moved instantly, her stance lowering as rings of distorted space shimmered around her. She erected a barrier, slowing the charging beasts long enough for Aria to unleash a barrage of crescent shots. The lunar volleys detonated against the slowed monsters, carving through several of them. But more pushed past the fallen, forcing Nyx to redirect her daggers and collapse the shield early so she could intercept a lunging brute before it barreled into Bastet.

Bastet responded with a snap of her fingers, summoning a searing blast from under the beast's torso, flipping it over in a burst of shimmering heat.

Yet even with her blistering power and Aria's precise spellwork, the tide didn't stop. More creatures kept slipping past Kaiden's front line and crashing against Nyx's mid-zone, forcing her to stretch her defenses thinner and thinner. For every monster she held down, another slipped wide. For every burst Aria landed, two more appeared behind it. Their enemies were pressing on all fronts, and slowly, inch by inch, the group began to lose space.

Nyx gritted her teeth as a stalker forced her to pivot away from her ideal position. "We're getting pushed! At this rate, we'll have to either call for Kai or Luna to help, or we'll have to create distance between the three of them!" she shouted, even as her next dagger construct embedded itself into a creature's skull.

Stepping more and more back as they retreated to create space between them and the incoming monsters was not something they wanted to do, as then the monsters might just attack their frontline from behind as well.

But at the same time, asking for help from either Luna or Kaiden so soon into the battle would've made the trio feel horrible, especially as it meant Calypso would need to take even more hurt for their lacking competence.

Not that the demoness seemed to mind… but it was the principle.

Their formation was created with the option of either Kaiden or Luna running to their aid at a moment's notice, yes, but the girls in the backline did not want to call for them every damned monster encounter.

Nyx braced herself as another monster lunged, claws scraping across stone with a shriek that vibrated through her body.

She dropped into a grounded stance as the barrier returned at her call. The monster crashed into her shield with bone-jarring force, and Nyx met it head-on, shoulder braced, core locked. The impact rattled her bones, but she held firm. Then, calling upon her next spell, space itself snapped outward like a rupturing sphere, launching the beast backwards in a wild arc that sent it tumbling across the battlefield.

But she didn't get a single second to breathe.

Another brute slammed into her from the opposite side, its claws smashing into her barrier with enough pressure to make the shield fracture at the edges. Two more piled on after it, jaws gnashing as they forced their way into her crumbling zone of control. The barrier buckled with cracks shooting across before collapsing entirely.

Nyx immediately called upon her next spell, blasting them apart, but the next monster was already in mid-pounce, aiming to tear through her armor.

Aria pivoted, trying to get a clean shot to help her friend. But then, a monster attacked her as well.

"I can't, they're on me too!" Bastet hissed, turning sharply as a beast nearly clipped her throat. The two of them couldn't simply tank a direct hit; the slightest mistake here would leave them broken and dying before Kaiden could even reach them.

The two squishiest fighters were suddenly at the center of a spiraling mess, forced to defend themselves instead of supporting Nyx, retreating step by step as the monsters crowded their space. Every second, the distance shrank, and with it, their control over the battlefield.

And Nyx felt the walls closing in.

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