"M-mum, t-they're getting closer!" Little Thalia whisper-yelled to her mum as the latter pushed her legs to the limit.
"I know. Mummy won't let them catch up." Wyetta promised, her hopes rising by the second as the ladder to the surface was in sight.
Upon reaching where the ladder was, she hurriedly climbed up, the chirps of the rats being the biggest motivation to do her best.
Reaching the surface, she quickly put Thalia down and closed the trap door just in time, before even one rat could make its way into the room.
She sighed in relief, her chest heaving greatly from all that running earlier. But there was no time to waste.
"Let's go, baby girl," she put on a smile to reassure her daughter before carrying Thalia on one arm and scuttling out of the room, heading towards the living room.
On getting there, she saw her husband and Loyce engaged in a serious battle with several therianthropes- both short and tall. And, sporadically, more of this demon type would step out of a portal as soon as the two siblings killed a few. There was no end to them!
One of the demons noticed the mother and daughter and his eyes lit up. "Kill!" with excitement, he rushed at them.
Hunter, mid-fight, noticed this and asked Loyce to take them out of the home and into the woods. He would join them soon enough.
Wyetta, on seeing the crazed demon coming in her direction, accompanied by several more of his fellows, started to fall back quickly after descrying Loyce. The latter was busy gifting the therianthropes in her path the gift of paralysis or death with her brother's glowing sword in her hand.
When she felt she'd handled enough with the sword, she threw the sword without looking back, yelling, "Brother, catch!"
There was no response from him other than heavy punches he gave a pesky therianthrope who wanted to bite him. Soon though, the sweet slash of a sword was heard along with screams.
Loyce smiled and chanted some incantations, levitating from the floor.
From the look of things, it was to each their own. The demons had definitely come here with an order from their king to wipe out every soul in the witch clan, no matter if it was an infant or elderly person.
Loyce, rising higher in mid-air with her staff pointed forward, launched attacks of ice at the lot that was going after Thalia and Wyetta.
The ice froze the theriantropes in their tracks but not for long. They had broken through it after the passage of a few seconds.
However, that short time had given the mother and daughter crucial time to run past them.
"I and brother will clear a path, you two should get out of here. We'll meet in the woods, by that tree you did your last stunt with." Loyce said to Wyetta without even taking a glance at the latter. Her gaze was fixed on the 9 unfrozen demons, who had already made a pivot and headed her way.
"Okay. Be careful," Wyetta said before rushing ahead with her right hand on her child's head.
Her husband, on sighting her, had jumped high and landed not far from them, cutting down any demon that would hinder his family's escape. This set of theriantropes were a bit weak but there were so many of them. And that was the problem.
That giant demon male from before was already dead along with the two beasts.
"Loyce, I told you to go with them," Hunter scolded.
"Let me finish with these bastards first," Loyce stubbornly said, launching ice arrows from her staff towards the one-again frozen therianthropes.
"Do as I say!!" Hunter yelled, cutting a demon's head off and proceeding to the next.
"L-let's all leave together," Wyetta said anxiously.
Another portal had opened beside the one that had been opened all this while. This time a ginormous grey-and-black-scaled demon serpent came out, hissing like it was nobody's business. Its green eyes were glowing and so were its two red horns. Its scales looked hard to penetrate.
"Loyce, hurry!" Hunter yelled as he rushed towards his family.
He could see demon rats at the entrance. Although, they didn't cross the doorstep,
"Coming!" Loyce turned around in midair and flew towards the entrance. However, the giant snake tried to swallow her.
Hunter immediately threw his sword at it.
Hunter's sword didn't penetrate the scale of the snake, which was not a thing of surprise, but it did do the main purpose for which it was thrown. And that was, drawing its attention momentarily.
The behemothic snake saw that there were three tantalising prey at the entrance, one of which was a very delectable little girl.
Its eyes turned a glowing red and it charged at them.
Loyce knew her ice skills wouldn't do anything against this snake that her brother's sword couldn't hurt.
So with a nod from her brother, she created several ice walls. Hunter was out of the house with Wyetta closely behind him. His sword had flown back from where it had previously flumped on back to his hand and with that, he killed any stupid rat that dared to hinder him.
Wyetta kept telling Thalia not to scream, that everything would be alright.
Before long, Loyce had flown out of the house with the snake in pursuit. Although it seemed the latter was taking its time; it definitely considered them dead game already.
Hunter quickly took little Thalia from her mom and commanded his sister to grab his wife and flee. He would join them soon.
Although greatly unwilling, there was no time to delay.
"Be safe," Wyetta said, her face full of worry.
"Definitely, dear," he gave her a smile that would have reassured her on any other day.
Loyce was unable to fly while holding two persons. She also needed to fight any other demon that would attempt to stop their escape. And for Hunter, Thalia was much easier to escape from here with.
As the two women flew away, the snake let out a terrifying hiss, his foreboding presence had caused the rats to flee in another direction, probably looking for weaker and defenceless targets to consume.
"You let two of my food get away," Unexpectedly, this snake was capable of speech and if anything, that spelt in very bold letters to Hunter, that he would never in his dreams be able to defeat a demon of this calibre.
As for escape...
"Catch me if you can!" he said with a provoking smile, running in the direction that the rats had headed.
With a hiss, the snake went after father and daughter, ruining anything in his path, even liquidating fellow demons who were having their time killing unfortunate witch clam members.
Without so much as a glance behind him, Hunter ran the fastest he'd ever done in his entire years of existence. Thalia, in this frantic moment, forgot her mother's advice and started screaming in fright. The snake was so close and yet it was not even bothering to take the needed inch of a lunge to swallow them both.
It was like it was toying with them, wanting its prey to eventually tire out before having a meal.
"Thalia, close your eyes and count 1-100," Hunter instructed.
"Y-yes... Daddy. One..."
Hunter scaled above a short demon that had swung his long black claws at him, and then he stepped on the head of a demon archer, ignoring the accompanying curses from the hapless fellow.
"Three... Four..."
Up ahead, an uprooted but small tree had just fallen in their path and before Hunter could think of how to get past it, a small demon with a lean frame raised up the tree with his hair that had suddenly become long, brown-scaled snakes with golden orbs for sight.
It wanted to throw it as another demon that had killed the target he wanted to kill. This type of demon was a very jealous type and taking revenge was the ultimate deal, even if it meant killing their own parents.
The demon who'd stolen the prey and even snapped the luckless witch warrior in half was a therianthrope. Growling, he caught the tree and prepared to throw it back at the small demon with snakes for hair.
Ignoring their conflict, the father and daughter duo successfully got past them.
The snake demon was unhappy that these two demons were fighting over a dead prey. So, without a word, he grew bigger and gobbled them up, their screams of horror ringing in the air.
Other demons saw this and distanced themselves away from the snake, not wanting to have the same fate as those hard-lucked duo.
Hunter looked back for once and saw unsurprisingly that the snake which was even bigger than before was still after them.
As he ran, he saw other witch clan members outnumbered by the demons they were battling against. Whether they were the warrior type that fought on the ground or the ones that had magic staffs and fought in the air, they were all outnumbered and helpless.
He wished he was stronger, he could have helped them but... he had a daughter to take to safety and that was his determination. With an internal sigh, he focused his gaze ahead.
Suddenly, he saw a chubby man with a shaved bald head, running in his direction while being chased by demon spiders, some of which were already on his body, chewing some delicious flesh.
His screams were blood-curdling, and his sight was miserable.
Thalia had lost count and decided to restart the counting with a shaky voice that had reduced to a faint whisper, "One... Three... Two... F-four... Five..."
"Keep counting, my dear," her father encouraged as he searched his brain for any way to avoid these spiders.
He wouldn't mind being bitten by one but his daughter...
Suddenly, an idea came to him!