My failings as an author

So full disclosure everyone, I love reading. But I am no bibliophile. I am more of a casual reader of whatever happens to fall in my line of sight that captures my attention on the first few pages (it's how I ended up reading 'There's a boy in the girl's bathroom', which turned into a fabulous read).

That being said, reading fantasy has always irked me for a few reasons. And the reason for it is the balance of power within them. I believe the proper term for this is powercreep. It's where a character becomes more powerful to match the current antagonist by gaining new skills, learn new magic, etc etc. The problem is that often, this powercreep makes the other characters or soldiers less effective as a result.

It's one of the main problems I have with anime. One character becomes the chosen or the prophecy focus and every other character must be rescued by said character. I understand that this is the focus of fantasy epics, and it makes the reader feel powerful and engaged, but it's never sat right with me.

So now I myself have a dilemna. In my fantasy series, due to certain things that occur in the plot, the main characters find themselves against creatures that our much more powerful than they are currently. The reason for this is to set up for a sequel. The problem is, there needs to be a way for them to logically survive all this and also not jeapordize my stor