"GAHH!"
If it weren't for the lightning surging into his limbs, amplifying his reaction time and speed, the serrated teeth clamped around Damien's arm would have been around his neck, and the talons driving into his side would have been in his heart.
Even so, golden-black blood poured freely from his wounds until his mind was a foggy maze.
He'd gone in with two advantages: the intelligence of a thinking creature, and the ability to sense the beasts' Particles before they struck. He thought the fight would be hard but manageable.
I was wrong. Damn it.
He gritted his teeth and swung his arm. The beast's teeth scraped through his flesh, tearing through the muscle, before it was flung into the air and slammed into a building. Still hooked to his side, the second beast clawed and snapped at his face.
Lightning surged to his neck… too slow.
He found himself between its jaws. The teeth sank deeper into his skull until he felt like his head was moments away from cracking.
His screams echoed off the roof of its mouth.
Pressure mounted.
Sensing that the first beast had recovered and that Luka still hadn't finished the third off, he opened his mouth wide.
And bit down.
Black blood rushed down his throat as he severed the beast's tongue clean through. It screeched, spat him out, and stumbled back, just in time for Damien to catch his footing before the other attacked again.
He dodged talon swipes and snapping beaks, his movements sloppier than before.
What was I thinking, taking the two on one? I'm really going to die.
His vision flickered. Body weak.
Then the beasts stopped.
Damien took the opportunity to put distance between them, his chest heaving. Thunder cracked behind him — less like thunder now, more like cries — with a faint crackling underneath it, hotter than the sun.
He didn't need to look. He already knew and was cursing the day he was born as he felt the horde screech back toward the shore.
"HAHAHAH, DIE!" Luka laughed maniacally, slashing the head off the third beast. The entire fight, Luka had fought with a savagery and bloodlust that Damien couldn't help but notice, even as he was getting eaten.
Then he hurled his Particle sword at the tongueless beast, but both monsters launched into the air and the blade stabbed through a building instead.
Damien fell to one knee, clutching his side where blood still poured.
Luka ran over to him.
"Damien..." He paused to look at the horde of monsters and the blazing cage of fire pushing them toward the square.
"We need to get out of here. By the looks of it, a Raider has taken control of the situation," Damien said through ragged breaths.
As Luka tried to sling him over his shoulder, Damien stumbled to his feet and found that blood no longer poured from his wounds. They were seared shut, the act costing him the last of his Particles.
Damien smiled weakly.
"Where did you learn to fight like that? You were a madman..." he said, a little jealous. Though if he'd been fighting only one beast, he'd have had an easier time too.
"I told you I'm amazing... and it's fun."
"Mister." The little girl with pigtails walked out of the alleyway, her eyes wide as she looked at the man who'd saved her life — barely standing, surrounded by a mountain of corpses.
Damien walked over and took her hand. "Don't worry, I'm right here. We need to leave now — will you follow me?"
She nodded. "What about daddy?"
Her words pierced his chest. After a moment of silence he said, "He has to stay here. I'm sorry."
"No! I'm not leaving without my dad! You said you'd help him! You're a mean man, let go!" She smacked his arm, trying to pull free, but he picked her up instead.
The horde's thunder grew closer.
The fire chasing them was hot enough to burn even him. A little girl with no Particles? She'd be ash in seconds.
He handed her to Luka. "Take her and run. I'll be slower, but I'll get out. That cage looks like it's forcing them toward the shore, so I should be fine."
Luka hesitated. "Alright. Just don't try to do too much."
A couple of seconds later he'd left with the bawling little girl.
Damien began walking east toward his apartment, clutching his side, not really knowing where else to go. But just before he exited the square, he heard a familiar drunk voice.
"What about me, you bastards!"
"You're really going to leave me here to die! Curse you, you sorry excuse for a Raider. You're just as bad as the blonde!"
Damien sighed and turned around.
Still lying behind the broken counter was the large man, a shard of wood lodged in his side, waving his fist in the air and sweating through his clothes — not even attempting to stand.
Damien moved as fast as he could back to the counter. There should be enough time to get him out. But damn you, you couldn't have tried to leave while we fought?
He groaned as the man's weight pressed against his serrated wounds. As he carried him across the square, the heat became scorching, and the man had gone quiet, struggling just to breathe.
The thunderous cries were now directly overhead.
Damien could barely breathe, and he was sure the drunk was moments from catching flame as his body temperature rapidly climbed. But he didn't dare stop, dragging one foot in front of the other like a man possessed.
Then the heat particles flickered...
"Fuck me."
Damien felt it before he looked up.
The cage had dissolved, and the beasts screeched down from the sky like a black storm of death. Two options flashed through his mind. He shook off the selfish one and picked up his pace, hauling the fat man forward.
I chose to do this. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I walked away?
In the end, he had overestimated himself.
Sealing his wounds with the beast's lightning had stopped the bleeding, but it hadn't restored what he'd already lost. His body gave out in an alley.
The beasts found him moments later.
Thunder roared. As their footsteps thudded closer — ten of them — he crawled over the fat man's body without thinking, shielding him.
"AHHHHHH."
White-hot pain erupted across his body.
Hundreds of serrated teeth nipped at his flesh.
Then his muscle.
Then his bone.
After a minute of this, he'd accepted it. He was going to die. It was strange what came to mind at the end. He'd always assumed he'd go of old age since he was rich and had the means to survive, but he was only twenty-one.
He didn't think of his life. His achievements. His dreams. Just regret. For living a selfish life, and not being able to help anyone when it mattered.
Then a voice cut through the dark, quietly terrifying.
"Not bad."
For a single second, Damien felt Particles so overwhelmingly strong that the Island of Baldia itself seemed small in comparison.
Then a sharp pressure on his neck.
Everything went black.