Jesse crouched behind a wide tree as the boys fought.

  Green scales rippled in the dim light as the monster attacked, it was like watching a wave—each strike was lethal and unforgiving.

  Jesse began to understand the fear and dread that people spoke about with the Blade demon.

  The serpent was versatile with its spear and could turn in any direction instantly and was patient even through its anger.

  It understood and managed its threats using its tail to control and force the weaker boys away.

  It should have killed them all by now, but it couldn't spare to look away from the real threat.

  Jesse felt a warm pride rise in her chest. Jackson's a beast.

  Jackson was fast and seemingly untouchable—the brown-skinned boy sidestepped the swift strikes of the spear and deflected heavy blows like nothing.

  When the blue blade and the grey spear met, the air rang with harrowing force. Jackson clenched his teeth, turning the spear aside.

  The other boys attacked with pikes and tried to throw vine nets over the beast, but the green beast slipped away from their traps.

  The only reason it couldn't turn and kill the boys was that Jackson could move quickly, crossing vast distances in powerful strides.

  Of course the beast couldn't overwhelm Jackson because his comrades forced it to keep moving and watch its back.

  They had organised quickly. Keith who had joined the fight, organised them to force the creature away, making it more impatient.

  Jesse cringed at her inability to help them without slowing them down, it was just the injured boy, her and Luke behind the tree as they weren't drilled on the exploratory teams tactics.

  She looked at the two-tailed monkey in her hands.

  It had dispelled its stone gloves and watched the fight attentively. Luke turned to her "Can't it join them to help fight?"

  Jesse stared at him like he was mad. "You want him to die?"

  Luke spread his arms "I mean, we're kind of useless here, if you could instruct him on how to help…"

  She turned to the small creature in her hands. It turned back to her, tilting its head inquisitively.

  She gulped and asked, "Can you help?"

  It paused for a second before jumping out of her hands and running away. She stretched out her hand, "Wait!"

  Jesse's eyes began to water as she took sharp breaths to stop herself from crying.

  Jesse lowered her head and hugged herself as she cursed and whispered, "i'm sorry."

  Luke laid a hand on her shoulder, eyes downcast. "Hey don't cry, that was my fault, I'm sorry."

  She struggled to control herself as the frustration built up, she stood sharply and ran.

  Luke screamed for her to stop but she continued circling the fierce battle returning to camp.

  Jesse remembered what Jackson had said. Fire wards most beasts away.

  She got back to camp and began to bundle sticks and tying them together, she was about to use the small camp fire to light them when a light chirp called her attention

  Her friend had returned but not alone.

  The grey monkey brought many of its masked brothers, it crawled over standing and looking at her. Jesse was happy he hadn't abandoned her but didn't know what to do.

  She saw a bundle of grapes near a bag and smiled as an idea struck her.

  —

  Jackson was losing, it wasn't hard to see yet his comrades seemed to think he was on par with the monstrous serpent man.

  He was fast and agile, sidestepping had become incredibly easier for him when he got to level two.

  He had nothing to compare the experience of moving like this against, but he had trained with his parents everyday to set himself up to one day be an olympic sprinter.

  Right now all metrics of his speed have grown greatly.

  Reaction time, accel rate and even my power output feels noticeably better. Even shit like stride, form–my general biomechanics feel way better. Nothing has changed. I didn't train for months upon months but I'm…. Just better

  It was a euphoric feeling, everytime the grey wooden spear flashed forward he was already dodging.

  The distance of the side step was amazing, he could then accelerate from that position in an instant.

  He closed the distance each step a blur, the serpent once again tried to counter by sweeping the spear.

  Jackson could block and deflect it as he strangely had gotten better at it, probably a skill absorbed from the Blade demon.

  Instead he timed his steps and vaulted over the spear before pushing harder once his feet touched the ground.

  He zipped towards the green monster and slashed at its hand.

  The monster was stunned by his jump but managed to move it's hand.

  It raised the spear after blocking the blow and swung hard at Jackson, who rolled away and stood grimacing.

  It's faster, better with its weapon and worst of all seems to have more stamina than me, if Darwin, Keith and the others weren't distracting it I would be dead.

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  Jackson was about to order a retreat telling them to take the injured boy and leave them to slow it down. Then he heard a chorus of chirping.

  It was the Stone mask monkey, but it was with about thirty of his friends and they all had flaming torches.

  "What in the actual hell?" Jackson blurted out.

  The monkeys had dispelled their masks and instead had stone gloves to prevent themselves from being burnt.

  The air smelt acrid as they approached smoke filling the air. They jumped from tree to tree before descending on the Snake man like a storm of fireflies.

  The monster tried to keep up with them but if it was a little fast the monkeys were cartoonishly quick.

  They brushed their fires on the snakes bodies, the green scales didn't catch fire but they blacken and the monster was panicking.

  Jackson had to fight the urge to burst out laughing, it was so comical that he was ready to give up only to be saved by monkeys.

  He grinned widely before crouching and breaking into his fastest sprint, he curled around the beast holding his sword in a reverse grip.

  He dropped his knees and jumped, it was the most satisfying jump he had ever taken–like he was flying.

  He landed on the creature's back and drove his sword between its ribcage with horrifying accuracy.

  The snake man bucked and hissed in agony as it tried to throw him off, a monkey managed to stab it's flaming branch into the beast's eyes setting them on fire.

  The snake man dropped its spear in agony and slapped its hands on its face.

  Jackson focused on keeping his balance, and drove the sword in and dragged it through the ribcage to devastate the internal organs.

  Cold blood poured on his hands and face making him close his eyes, skin tore with a disgusting squelching sound–he gasped mostly from the effort but also because of the feeling.

  Keith and the others now able to get close threw a vine net over the beast's face and powerful arms, blinded and restrained the snake man became erratic throwing it's body about.

  Jackson jumped off as he was almost crushed under the heavy beast, he too couldn't see all too well so when arms wrapped around him pulling him away he fought back till he heard Darwin yell, "chill man it's us!"

  He dismissed his sword and immediately started summoning it again, the snake man was bleeding profusely and trying to escape only to be harassed by the monkeys.

  The humans began chasing, stabbing the monster till it fell letting out ragged breaths.

  Jackson then drove Blue trick into its head, he squirmed a bit before pulling it out frowning in disgust. He signed, "That was horrible"

  —-

  When Matthew woke up maybe an hour later, Jane was thankfully gone but he looked around, finding her among other girls talking.

  He immediately waved over Petyr who had been playing cards with Jamie and the others. He walked over eyes a bit dark and moody.

  Matthew prefaced the conversation saying, "Really sorry about that, i couldn't go myself and i didn't—"

  "Can it, I actually did hear something interesting," Petyr interrupted.

  Matthew tilted his head but said nothing, he was prepared to get nothing and had already been planning on using Adelina to gather information on what Thomas had done when he returned to the temple.

  "One of the girls in Gordon's group told me that she saw Thomas sacrifice a piece of paper to the fountain." Petyr explained, "it disappeared like a wish coin but didn't start the light show, but she's sure she saw it dissolve into this blue light. Then Thomas looked at nothing for a second and smiled."

  Matthew frowned,forehead creasing as he began to examine the details, he would have liked to question the girl but he got the general gist.

  Sacrificing a piece of paper got him a useful response from the status screen. It probably told him something important as he went out immediately to test this.

  He began thanking Petyr apologising for making him help out so much but the boy refused to see it as a hassle.

  Petyr stared at him carefully, asking "What are you planning?"

  Playing in his face and pretending to not have a plan would offend him. He thought about it before answering, "Thomas is a wild card, he'll throw us under the bus if we aren't wary of him."

  He presented these as facts and let Petyr come to conclusions on what he meant.

  They talked a little about Jane but he was determined not to give Petyr any information that would make him wary of her.

  When Petyr left Matthew alone, he pulled out a notebook and began writing things down, a list of things he needed to look into and a person he thought would be helpful for this.

  First on the list was 'Figure out alternative sacrifices that can be done with the altar' beside this he wrote a name. Adelina.