Just like that, a part of seven shrunk into a lonely one.

Amber flipped through her medic handbook for spells she knew wouldn't appear. The bloody bodies on the ground were past saving. She'd have to go back twenty thousand years to find the last healer who could bring back the dead. Her efforts were better spent on current events, such as the Minotaur in front of her, separated by only fifty meters of open field.

The Minotaur roared and the wind howled in fear slapping her with blood-drenched gusts. The stench was unbearable and brought her back to her childhood, watching helplessly as a house once home burned to the ground, with her family inside. The active imagination of a five-year-old wouldn't allow her to forget the sight of those charred bodies she called family. The bodies at her feet were less gruesome than those of a decade past, but the anger burned just as intensely.

She was tired of it. Death. Healing. Being a medic. All of it. She lacked the offensive talent to fight, so she joined the medical field, hoping it would fill the hole inside her with noble acts. If she healed people, she could be happy again, like she was before that day.

But that wasn't the case. She hated healing and helping others. Her skin crawled when she brought them back from the brink of death, and they thanked her with a smile. She resented only saving people she didn't care for and never being useful to the ones she did.

The Minotaur took a step forward, tested the elasticity of the damp ground, and torpedoed toward her. A devilish thought crept to her as she watched. She should just die here. Everyone else had, so why not stand her ground and fight? She lacked offensive talent, but her understanding of medicine was second only to Daniella's. Her hands glowed that familiar amber and green, the colors twisting into spirals as they did before every medical operation.

Another roar and another torrent of wind pelted her as she extended the base of her legs and thrust one palm toward the speeding monster, still halfway away.

The wind at this point was earth quaking, and she stood in a field of chaos, the only stationary being amongst groaning oak trees and flippant grass. All smells were gone, just a burning sting as the echoes of fierce wind stole her hearing, reducing the world to a faint buzz. The creature was within its striking distance now, and pulled back an arm of pure muscle to attack.

A heartbeat pounded for an escape as she focused on the Minotaurs neck.

It swung.

She dodged left quick enough to avoid death. Splashes of blood and tattered clothing entered her peripheral as the buzz of the wind intensified.

The neck. Her eyes stayed locked on that neck.

There's a reason humans flinch at the thought of being strangled or having their necks sliced open, even more so than head injuries. It may be the most critical and vulnerable part of the body. The brain keeps animals on high alert to anticipate any threats that may arise, no matter how unlikely.

In that narrow pillar, the carotid arteries, responsible for blood flow to the brain, coexist alongside the origin of the spine: the C7 vertebrae, thyroids, the jugular, so many essential but small parts in tight packaging.

One doesn't need much power to cause permanent damage if they have access to the neck.

Amber didn't blink in that small eternity. She condensed every ounce of magic she had into a shape no bigger than a coin in her palm and struct the Minotaur just to the left of the adam's apple. The snap of cartilage and arteries popped under the force, and the Minotaur flew by her.

It stood there and faced her. She stood there, mouth open and full of her hair, unable to consider her next attack. The creature took five steps her way, whined, and crumpled to the ground.

She'd never killed anything before, on purpose at least. It felt vile, and her hand shook with a sense of defilement. She stared at them as if they leaked black sludge. One by one, she curled her fingers and stared. Her hands appeared further from her than they had before. Her whole body felt different.

And she liked it.

She looted the bodies of her fallen comrades, unable to do anything to help them, and ventured to the east, opposite the way back to the Flowa Kingdom. The place no longer interested her.

She'd avenged her party, her new family, already. Now, she desired to avenge her old family.