I Only Summon Villainesses

Immediately, I saw it — and Nisha did too. We were already rowing with our hands, paddling desperately away from beneath them.

Kassie's leg slammed down. But that Inquisitor. He was too sharp-witted. He turned and did something — blocked, but briefly. It was more than a block. Wind moved aggressively in his direction, a burst of defensive force that bought him half a second before he and his wyvern went down under the crushing weight of Kassie's strike.

They both crashed into the river, sending water exploding everywhere and disturbing the current violently.

Both Nisha and I received a great deal of impact damage.

In a battle that was allegedly supposed to be ours, it seemed we were suffering as merely collateral.

It was difficult to keep up with the sheer large-scale destruction. It was annoying too. Incredibly annoying, actually. Here I was, the mastermind, the F-rank who'd brought a Calamity Tier summon to this fight — and I was getting tossed around like debris.

The wyvern flapped its wings in the water, trying to get its bearings. Kassie landed in the river too, standing between us and the thrashing summon. Water only came up to her thighs. Templar Light had disengaged from his mount and was struggling to recover from sinking into the churning current.

Kassie walked toward them. Her sword flew back with a spin, and she raised her hand, catching the blade casually — killing its momentum in her palm like it weighed nothing.

Then an idea hit me. Immediately, I gave her a mental command:

'Kassie… come back. We should prioritize escape over confrontation right now.'

She stopped and glanced back at me.

It wasn't hard to see that she was probably glaring at me with scorn. Even through that helmet, I could feel the judgment radiating off her. But she obeyed and retreated. Ignoring the Templar and his wyvern, I turned my focus to Kassie, passing her the next mental command.

Without a word, she grabbed me in one hand, holding me between her arm and armpit.

It smelled like a woman there!

'Not the time to be noticing that, Cade. Definitely not the time.'

She held Nisha in the other hand, then leaned forward with her upper body.

Templar Light, who was helping right his wyvern, paused. His gaze turned suspicious. Disturbed.

The water beneath us stirred. Everywhere, it did. It was as if the river itself was about to respond to something vast and terrible.

Then, like a flame igniting oil, crimson flooded outward — thick tides of smoky light blazing at Kassie's feet. The entire river trembled. Sizzled. The water itself seemed to boil where her aura touched it, steam rising in angry wisps.

I could feel the threatening rise in pressure myself. And also the genuinely confused look on Templar Light's face.

There was no doubt about it. He must've been told he was coming to deal with an F-rank.

'I'm not very sorry to disappoint you, pretty boy. I'm the strongest F-rank around. Don't play with me.'

Kassie charged forward. So did the water. So did everything — including Templar Light and his buddy who clearly couldn't swim. The wyvern probably should've taken swimming lessons more seriously.

Oh wait. They don't get to have one.

The river surged with a speed that was not its own, and everything advanced forward with the flood of Kassie's crimson aura. The water became a body of running rage. Kassie exploded through it with the might of an armored tank. The current parted before her, flinging away everything in its path.

Fish landed on the stone ground beside the riverbank, flopping desperately. Crabs were thrown out equally, skittering on their backs. And Templar Light and his wyvern—

Kassie slammed them aside with her shoulder, weight and force combined, shooting them out of the way like they were nothing. They rolled away together and crashed into the stone forest, breaking through the outgrown trees with a cacophony of snapping wood.

My Tyrant Empress surged away on the river, running like a mighty beast.

Kassie ran through most of the river, and soon, the waterway had spread vaster than we remembered it. Wider and deeper even.

When she eventually stopped, we were trapped in the middle of flowing water that was drifting forward with a current we couldn't fight.

All of us were now deep in the river. I held Kassie's shoulder tightly and gripped one of her helmet horns, clinging to her like a kid on their mother's back. Nisha was perfectly fine swimming beside us.

I stared around at the endless water.

"Are we really getting cooked by the river too?"

Nisha also looked around.

"There seems to be no way forward," she shouted back at me.

We tried swimming backward, but it was incredibly difficult to fight the current. I thought of asking Kassie to jump out, but there was no closer land she could reach. At least none in sight.

We continued to beat against the current, trying to delay our drift as much as possible.

Then we heard a distant, terrifying screech.

'Oh no… not that guy again.'

Just as I looked up, in the clear skies above, pretty boy and his wyvern were making their way toward us. The summon was beating its wings against the wind, but one of its four wings — the left rear one — was hanging loose.

Despite having been dealt that damage, Templar Light was still stubborn, drawing closer toward us by the second.

Nisha was also aware of this. She stared up darkly.

In the middle of an open river, we were targets painted in bright neon. Kassie was limited by the water. Pretty boy was certainly going to get one on us.

"Hey, C."

'C?'

Never heard anyone call me by the first letter of my name before. Even though it was in another language — which I automatically understood. I tried not to think about it and just focus on reality.

"Yes?"

Hopefully she has a plan.

'Wait — she did have a plan before all of this happened!'

Her tone was grim.

"We might have to ride the wave, not resist it."

I looked at her with a disappointed frown.

"Hell no… we don't know where it leads. Or what the height's like… we are not—"

Words died in my mouth as Kassie dove me low into the water, and the wyvern's talons met the surface right where my head had been, exploding the river upward. For a moment we sank deep into the dark, peaceful depths — sound vanishing, chaos fading to nothing but muffled pressure.

However, Kassie was quick to pull me back up. My senses went numb for a moment, water flooding every opening in my body — nose, mouth, ears.

I coughed profusely, hacking up river water.

"Cade!" Nisha shouted as she surfaced too.

The bastard wyvern was already circling for another attack.

'Ah shit.'