I swung Silent Fang, slicing through the closest goblin, pushing toward him with everything I had. The Shaman turned his gaze toward me. And brought the staff down.
The blast hit like a shockwave. The world went white.
For a moment, I felt weightless, suspended in the chaos. Then, gravity kicked in with a violent jolt as I hit the ground hard, the cold tile knocking the breath from me. Silent Fang was no longer in my hand. I scrambled to find it, but when my eyes locked on the shattered pieces of the blade, my stomach dropped. The sound of its brake cut through the noise louder than any scream.
I stared at the broken fragments in my hand, too stunned to react. A piece of me, shattered and useless, clattered to the ground.
Above me, the altar pulsed with an eerie, unholy light, casting shadows over the battlefield. The Shaman grinned, his face twisted in grotesque delight, his power surging like a tidal wave through the air. His staff still glowed with an otherworldly energy, and the very air around him seemed to crackle with dark magic.
The goblins, emboldened by their leader's strength, pressed harder. They were relentless, flooding in from every direction, cutting us off from any hope of retreat. The ground beneath me was slick with blood, a grim reminder of how quickly this had turned into a fight for survival.
I pushed myself to my feet, the world still spinning from the blast. Silent Fang lay in two pieces before me, the blade that had seen me through every mission, every shadowed kill, every escape from death itself. It wasn't just steel; it was the last relic of Medusa, of the woman who had survived The Nest, that cursed island where The Pit sent its children to slaughter each other for a place among the living. I had left that life behind, buried it under years of silence and dirt, but part of me always thought this blade would survive with me—that in this broken new world, it would still be proof that I had made it out. Now, as the fragments gleamed dully in the Shaman's green light, I felt that illusion die. A piece of my past. A piece of me. Gone.
I didn't have time to mourn it. The goblins were already on me. I kicked one back and reached for a fallen spear, spinning it in my hand out of reflex, but the wood cracked after the first swing. I tossed it aside and grabbed a rusted sword from a corpse; it shattered against a goblin's armor like glass. Every weapon I touched turned worthless in my grip, as if the world itself wanted me unarmed.
Fine.
I dropped what was left of the blade and met the next goblin barehanded. My body moved before my mind could catch up: elbow to the throat, palm strike to the jaw, heel to the chest. Bones cracked under my fists, green blood spraying across the floor. It wasn't elegance anymore. It was survival.
Every punch burned, every breath came with the taste of iron. I was fighting on instinct, not technique; a predator cornered. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard the ghosts of the old me, the assassin I'd tried to bury. She wasn't gone. She just didn't have a weapon anymore. I wasn't sure if I was still Jasmine or if Medusa had come back just to survive one more day.
I look and see the faces of my team flickering around me. Nicole stood with her back to me, her gun raised, taking shots at the goblins that rushed in. Devan and Jesse fought side by side, their bodies moving with deadly precision, but their exhaustion was beginning to show. Even Lian, despite her fear, was holding her own barely.
And then I saw Liz.
Josh had been holding the rear with Devan and Jesse, keeping the goblins from circling back on us. He'd been steady, focused, the kind of man who tried his best for his friends and his family, Liz. I caught a glimpse of him shouting something, raising his weapon to cover their retreat, when a shriek tore through the air. A goblin, smaller than the rest, hefted a jagged chunk of stone that fell from the mall's wall.
Before I could warn him, it hurled the rock.
The impact was sickening. A dull, wet crack echoed across the food court as the stone struck the side of Josh's head. His body went limp instantly, legs folding beneath him like a puppet with its strings cut. He didn't even make a sound, just collapsed into the blood-soaked tiles.
Liz was on him before anyone else. She slid to her knees, hands glowing faintly as she pressed them to his chest. Her voice was shaking, desperate.
"Stay with me, Josh. Please. You're fine, you're fine—just breathe."
But the light of her spell faltered. Blood ran down the side of his face, pooling beneath his head, staining her hands and clothes. His eyes were open, glassy, fixed on nothing. She kept casting anyway, her voice cracking with every word.
"Come on, damn it! Don't do this, Josh! Don't you leave me!"
Her tears mixed with his blood, streaking her cheeks crimson. Around her, the battle raged: screams, gunfire, the clang of steel, but all she and I could see was him. Devan tried to pull her away, shouting over the chaos, but she fought him, pounding on Josh's chest as if she could will his heart to start again.
The sound of her sobbing cut through the chaos like a wound made of sound itself. And I couldn't stop. None of us could.