As warning clicks swell through Ashmore, Odessa Cross and Cathlin sprint for the inn amid screams and snarls. A limping gray-haired food vendor tries to reach safety but is targeted by a bariwolf; Odessa distracts the monster with a whistle so the woman can be pulled inside while Cathlin drives Odessa toward the tavern. Odessa is cornered by two bariwolves when the Guardian slams into one and slices the other’s muzzle off, ordering Odessa to run.

While Cathlin and Odessa pound on the tavern door, the Guardian duels the one-eyed bariwolf, but seven more emerge, surrounding him. A massive bariwolf stalks onto the tavern porch as the women are finally pulled inside and the door is barred by a curvy blonde. The pack ravages the town; one bariwolf waits just outside the tavern. Odessa arms herself with a wall-mounted crossbow, but a different bariwolf crashes through a side window, mauls the blonde, and hurls her aside. Odessa shoots and wounds it; she and Cathlin escape through a back hallway to the apartment upstairs.

From the apartment window, Odessa sees five bariwolves already dead while the Guardian, bleeding heavily from head, arm, and side, fights three more. Realizing he is flagging, Odessa climbs onto a flimsy balcony with the crossbow and shoots one bariwolf in the hind leg, allowing the Guardian to behead it. She misses her next shot. The one-eyed bariwolf snarls and then abruptly flees, leaving one remaining opponent.

The Guardian maims the final bariwolf by severing its forelegs and then drives his sword through its heart. At that moment the deteriorating balcony collapses; Odessa dangles, drops to the porch, and staggers up just as the wounded bariwolf from inside charges back toward her through the tavern. The Guardian hurls his sword, splitting the monster’s skull and knocking Odessa into the dirt as the corpse falls where she had stood.

Spattered in the monsters’ putrid green blood, Odessa processes her near-death while the Guardian, also smeared with green, seizes her arm in fury. With her finger still on the crossbow trigger and the bolt pressing into his vest, he dares her to shoot—“Do it”—but she cannot. He forces her to meet his eyes; Odessa sees not the taunting man she knows but something monstrous. Cathlin bursts out of the tavern, and by the time she reaches Odessa, the Guardian has vanished.