The outpost was on fire and the scent of burning wood and cooking meat filled the air.

I sprinted closer, head tilting up to track a fireball the size of a house lifting out of the treeline, trailed by a curling plume of smoke. The fire moved slowly like a rocket taking flight, but gained speed after reaching the apex of its arc and even changing direction to drift toward the outpost. Jets of water rushed up to meet the fireball and steam erupted on impact, the force of the impact driving the fire to the side enough that it veered off and barely missed the back wall. It landed with a heavy boom and a rush of heat that hit me, even from this distance.

Tamrin was on the wall, his skin covered in soot and his clothes singed. He had sprayed the water, but I doubted he could keep that up forever.

I could hear the shouting and clatter of combat from inside the outpost, but I knew those fireballs were a problem. One landing directly in the courtyard could kill dozens by itself. I gave one last look toward the outpost, then changed direction and ran straight toward the still-visible trail of smoke that had risen from the trees. I needed to deal with whoever was making those things.

I'd only made it a few steps when the ground shook again, and this time, it wasn't the impact of a fireball. It was that massive beast in the distance, still coming closer by the minute.

I darted through trees, jumped over bushes and fallen logs, and eventually skidded to a stop when I saw a pair of nobles in black uniforms. Each was speckled with various pieces of what seemed to be high level gear of the cloth variety. Mages, probably?

One of them was a girl with braided blonde hair. She was gesturing as fire gathered between her hands, reminding me a lot of the magic I'd seen Elora use before her death, only larger and apparently far more potent.

I didn't have much mana left. I had spent almost everything fighting Rake, and now I was seriously wishing I'd found a way to be more conservative. But none of this was supposed to happen. Not so quickly.

I needed mana if I was going to be any help, so I formed a quick, potentially risky plan.

I approached the girl and the other noble, doing my best to fake a heavy limp as waited for them to notice. The girl's face turned away from the growing ball of fire, features bathed in red and orange as she scowled at me.

"Isn't that—" the man beside her started.

"Hey," I said, speaking as casually as I could while I kept getting closer. "Kalcus asked me to come speak with you two."

"Gods," the girl whispered. "What is wrong with him?"

I remembered my muscles were swollen still and my clothes were bloody, but there was nothing to be done about that. If anything, it might add enough confusion to let me get close.

"I know him," the man said. He was thin and athletic with wavy hair and thick eyebrows. They almost looked like siblings. Both blonde-haired and green-eyed. "He's the one Kalcus wants dead. Helmet."

As I came closer, I could see tendrils of heat traveling from the boy to the girl. Some kind of enhancement magic, maybe?

"What?" I asked. Just a few more steps and I'd be close. "Kalcus wants me dead? Since when?"

"Hey! Back the fuck up," the guy said, cutting off his magic and moving to put himself between the fire mage and myself.

I showed both hands. "I'm unarmed. Everybody can—" I pretended to trip at the last second, planting one hand on the guy's shoulder and then stumbling through him to place my other hand on the girl's shoulder. And then I infected them both with Touch of Sapphire.

"Shit, sorry," I said, backing up and raising my hands in innocence.

The guy summoned a long spear from his slip space and it burst into flames. He gave it a skillful flourish and took a step toward me.

I kept backing away. "Look. You two wait here, I'll go find Kalcus and come back with him. He'll explain everything. Okay?"

The guy was clearly on the edge of calling me on my bullshit, but the tip of his spear drifted downward. He glanced back at the girl, and it seemed like he was mostly worried about helping her make more big fireballs.

"Come back without Kalcus and I'll kill you," he said finally, dismissing the spear and turning his attention back to the girl.

I gave a quick salute, ran a few feet, and then ducked behind a tree. I drew my Silver Scream Bow, produced two arrows, and filled both with Hungry Dark from a vial in my slip space.

I slowly moved into view, arrow drawn as I summoned a Forge Echo of my bow with some of the precious little mana I had remaining. But I knew this needed to be quick. If I gave them too much time to react, they'd simply pull the arrows out of each other.

My Forge Echo materialized, arrow drawn, and then drifted to the side.

I did my best to mentally communicate, counting down in my mind. Three… Two…

Thwack.

Both arrows hit at nearly the same time. Mine catching the girl in the center of her back. My Forge Echo's arrow hit the guy in his lower back.

And then I rushed in while they were wincing and kneeling, trying to figure out what the hell had just hit them.

"Your back," the guy was saying as he reached to help the girl with the arrow, which was already spreading black magic over her body.

"Freeze," I said. "I was on my way to get Kalcus and I saw one of those mongrel army guys with a bow out there. I recognized him."

Both nobles looked up at me, confused and clearly not sure if they believed me. But crucially, they weren't pulling the arrows out, either. Every second brought them closer to Silver Scream detonation, which I doubted we even needed. The arrows were pumping plenty of Hungry Dark into them by the second, and I could see it starting to slip around their bodies, preparing to encase them fully in a cocoon that would render them immobile.

It was actually pretty easy to break the spell off of an ally, I'd found. It was also pretty easy to roll around on the ground and break up the strands of magic before they could gather and thicken, essentially preventing the spell from taking hold.

In other words, it was borderline useless if the target knew what to do, but so far, none of them had.

The guy, who had been temporarily distracted by me coming back, turned his attention back to the arrow and reached like he was about to pull it out.

"I wouldn't do that…" I said.

He hesitated again as more black spread over their bodies.

"Pull it out and it explodes. It'll be ten times worse. Come on, I can take you to Kalcus."

"Take us to Kalcus?" the girl asked. "What is your fucking obsession with—" she paused, looking down as writhing black liquid had now spread over her chest and was working its way down her torso and creeping across her biceps.

The guy drew his spear again, deciding I was probably the real threat. He made it a few steps before the Hungry Dark fully spread across his body, all the threads connected, and then they began to swell, encasing him in a cocoon-like shell. He tipped backward, looking more like a giant black alien egg than a human, and lay motionless on the ground.

The girl joined him a few seconds later and the fireball winked out of existence the moment the cocoon of Hungry Dark solidified.

I let out a sigh of relief, then produced some rope I had stored in my slip space and tied both cocoons up. Thankfully, my Rage Blood potion was pumping itself out of my system and my hands were dextrous enough now to tie the knots. The fading potion also meant I could actually try to meditate and regain a little mana as I worked.

I wrapped the ropes connected to the cocoons around my waist and began dragging them toward the outpost as I ran as fast as I could. With the enhanced muscles in my legs draining back to their normal size, I wasn't quite as fast with the extra weight, but reaching Silver and gaining all the levels I'd gained so far meant I was still making good time.

I just hoped this diversion had been worth it, but I thought it was. I'd stopped the fireballs and picked up two noble mana batteries in the process. In a few seconds, I'd drain the mana blood from them and infect them again, healing any damage necessary to prevent them from going into stasis and getting pulled up to the airships too soon.

My egg-friends slammed into trees, bounced off roots, and generally seemed to have a very bad time as I ran as fast as I could through dense forest with no regard for their safety. I was pretty sure they didn't feel much of it in their cocoons, but I also didn't necessarily care one way or another at the moment.

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As soon as I broke free of the trees, I spotted a large group of grommets huddling together outside the outpost wall. Timbo and Grimbo were with them, along with several battle-painted grommets from Coil with their guinea pigs. They held the pigs under their arms in bundles. All the grommets looked a little shell-shocked, almost like they didn't know what to do.

I ran up to them, kneeling low to meet their eyes. "Grimbo," I hissed. "Go send the message to Vitus. Tell him to forget the other plan. We need him to get his ass here as fast as he can with any allies he still has. Some of you had better go with Grimbo," I added. I could see the fear on all their faces. "He'll need protection."

Timbo and the Thrask grommets seemed to swell with pride at the new purpose.

Grimbo leaned to the side, looking at my two black cocoons. "This one is feeling… curiosity. Are humans laying eggs? Are these your children?"

"No," I said. "They are mana batteries."

Grimbo frowned. "Hmm. Battery. This one is not knowing what that is."

"Don't worry about it. But you guys have to go. Something big is coming and we probably don't even have half an hour before it gets here."

Grimbo nodded and waddled off with the Thrask Gromville, but Timbo lingered.

He looked up at me from beneath his white and red hood. "You are needing… a hero?" he asked.

"I am," I said. "But I need the hero to make sure Grimbo gets my message to Vitus. And then I need you to protect them and make sure they get here safely."

Timbo's eyes narrowed as he stroked his graying chin hairs with one hand. Then he nodded. "Wisdom. Yes." He said, hurrying off to follow Grimbo without further argument.

"Scarbo," I said, recognizing the leader of the Coil Gromville. "Those big pigs you've mentioned. Can they be ridden by people our size?"

Scarbo scratched the area below his mouth, which was dyed a bright red. "This one is thinking… yes."

"How many big pigs are there?'

"Many."

"Are they fast?"

Scarbo grinned widely. "The big pigs… their speed is quite… surprising."

"Okay, great. Vitus and his people are probably not very close. I want you to get as many big pigs as you can manage and bring them to Vitus. They'll need the speed."

"Heh, heh, heh…" Scarbo stood, hoisted his guinea pigs, and waddled off with a team of Coil grommets to the nearest tunnel entrance.

With the grommets all dispersed, I rushed to get into the courtyard and figure out just how bad things were. My first view as I rounded the corner and stepped through the main gate with my eggs in tow was a view of pure chaos.

Magic and abilities flashed every few seconds from elemental magic to gravity spells and a man who flickered in and out of view as he moved faster than my eyes could track.

At a glance, it looked like about twenty mongrels against six nobles. A quick inspection confirmed every single noble was Iron Rank, too, which made the odds far worse.

And it was also clear that several mongrels had already paid with their lives. There was blood everywhere, and already a few bodies lying motionless.

"Brynn! Oh thank fuck," Tamrin shouted from the upper wall as I came in through the front gate. It looked like he was part of a team trying to keep a pair of nobles from getting up the stairs to the upper wall.

More voices shouted in recognition as I entered, but everybody was locked in combat. They all needed me at the same fucking time.

I tried to make sense of the situation in the courtyard as fast as I could. I needed to decide where I was needed most, but even as I surveyed the scene, I reached out and used Devour Mana to heal allies and the Wound Block evolution on enemies I could feel who had wounds. I didn't know if any of them could heal, but it was easy enough to make it harder for them.

There were three skirmishes taking place. One was to my left, one in front, and one was up high on the walls where Zahra, Ramzi, Thorn, and Sylara tried to hold back a pair of nobles who were trying to get to Tamrin and a girl beside him who had a crossbow.

To my left, Lyria, Portus, and Naia fought fiercely, taking on a pair of nobles who were using earth magic and lightning in a flurry that was too fast to follow. I saw Lyria take a stab wound to the side even as I came in, but a jet of pressurized air from her Venting Wounds passive fired out of the wound, sending one man flying away.

She was doing a damn good job from the looks of it, using her Spear of Torment to keep the other noble at bay along with flashes of wind magic that deflected attacks and protected her allies. I knew her mana pool wouldn't last long, but I also knew she had her Survivor passive that would buy some time if the worst happened.

I shifted my attention to the middle group, which seemed to be faring the worst.

I quickly untied the ropes holding my cocooned nobles, knowing I could reach out at any moment and reclaim the blood I'd turned to mana, but also knowing the longer I waited, the more mana I'd get.

A noble from the center skirmish spotted me and broke off from the fighting. She had short black hair, and she took one step before a wave of water appeared under her feet, suddenly increasing her speed so she was on top of me before I knew it.

I barely dodged, ducking a sword slash that whistled over my head and clanged against one of the horns on my helmet.

All the nobles I'd fought were good. Their magic wasn't necessarily stronger, but they all seemed to have extensive combat and weapons training. From the looks of bits and pieces of magic gear, boots, cloaks, and armor I could see, Kalcus' nobles had also unlocked a lot of their expensive equipment, too.

I rolled to one knee and aimed my palm, blasting a jet of Acidbloom toward her that I tried to link to her chest, back, and right leg. The goal was to make sure at least one stream connected, and—

She swiped one arm and the sound of rushing water drowned out the chaos of shouting and screaming all around for a moment. Blue water exploded from thin air, flowing sideways and blocking my spell as it wrapped around her in a temporary, protective bubble that blurred her shape into a chaos of colors.

I ran straight through the wall of water, hoping to surprise her as I summoned my polearm from my slipspace and aimed an overhead strike for the top of her head.

Cold water splashed against me, washing away some of the crusted blood from my Rage Blood potion. I saw a momentary flash of surprise in her eyes as I came flying through the bubble, polearm already slashing down toward the crown of her head. I braced for the impact with her skull, expecting the stasis to trigger and rebound my weapon away.

But it didn't come.

The center of her body turned wavy and blue, letting my weapon pass through with almost no resistance as her flesh reformed just above the strike, completely unharmed.

Shit. She's good.

I was trying to conserve as much mana as I could, but I might not have the option to hold back, even against some random noble in Kalcus' squad. Even the nobles I'd never heard of were almost as good as Rake.

I ducked another attack but caught a jet of water to the stomach that took the wind from me. I parried, dodged, and then finally managed to slip close enough to land a Touch of Sapphire on her hip, but it cost me.

She caught me in the neck with a viscous knee, doubling me over as I healed the damage to my windpipe just in time to roll away from another slash of her sword.

I dodged the steel, but a pressurized arc of water followed the motion of her attack, slamming into me at the shoulder and extending down to my waist. It hit me so hard I flew backward, spinning through the air to slam hard on the ground.

I grunted, spending more precious mana to heal the wound. Apparently, I was at my best when I got to dictate the terms of the fight with these nobles. I had taken down two in less than a minute without breaking a sweat, and now a single noble was putting up enough of a fight that I couldn't afford to keep rationing my mana.

I pulled myself to my feet, determination solidifying. She had a small, self-satisfied smile on her face, and I very much wanted to wipe it away.

She thought she was winning while I was giving it everything, but I'd been holding back. Doing my best to save my strength for all the other threats coming. This was also taking too long, and I could feel the pressure to get this fight over with so I could help my allies. Every second this took was another chance for one of the mongrel army to pay with their lives, and I felt that weight on my shoulders.

Time to show this girl more of my toolkit, mana costs be damned.

I started by summoning a Forge Echo of my polearm behind her. She didn't feel it right away, but just as it drew back to stab her through with the spearpoint of the polearm, she spun, raising another wave of water to push away the Echo.

I was ready for that. I placed a precise Mana Shield to the side of my Forge Echo, blocking the water from catching it.

She flinched back in surprise, but the Forge Echo's attack still punched through water instead of flesh when it made contact. While her back was turned, I closed the distance, raising the hammer end and drawing back for a heavy attack to the side of her head. I swung as hard as I could, halfway expecting her to turn her body to water again, but her back was to me this time.

The hammer collided with the side of her head and she instantly flared blue. And then her body jerked upward toward the airship high above.

Annoyed, I watched her go, along with the mana I hadn't had a chance to reclaim from Touch of Sapphire. I dismissed my Forge Echo for now, saving as much mana as I could.

I was breathing hard as I looked around and healed another wave of fresh wounds on my allies and blocked some more in the surviving five nobles.

The ground shook again. Stronger this time. Much stronger.

Fuck. The beast was getting close, and fast.

Lyria and her team seemed to be holding their own for the moment. The middle skirmish was going poorly. Thorn and his people were holding the stairs well enough, but one of the nobles they fought had some kind of gravity magic that was ripping apart the outpost bit by bit as they advanced, sucking wood into a vortex of purple and black magic.

I needed everyone to group up so I could tell them the plan. The real plan. Now that the viewing portals were down, I didn't need to keep secrets or worry about what the outside might hear. But I needed to take care of these nobles, because there was no way they were going to let my allies leave this courtyard in one piece.

And I knew the beast was coming. If there was a world where we had a chance against it, it was one where I had as much mana as possible. As much as I wanted to dive into the fighting with all my focus, I had to do something else first.

I rushed forward, ducking magic aimed for my allies and dodging blades, hammers, and fists as I touched the nobles to the left, infecting them with Touch of Sapphire. I ignored her shouted words of confusion and then annoyance when she saw me sprinting away from their fight to the center group where Kalcus was single-handedly taking on more than half a dozen mongrels and apparently holding his ground.

I slid into the fight, dodging a huge two-handed flesh blade Kalcus swung for my head. I touched his leg, infected him, and then rolled, dashed, and dodged my way out of the carnage for the moment.

I ran for the stairs, heading for the final two nobles trying to make their way up the stairs to Thorn and the others.

Neither saw me coming, so touching them was easy. I flipped my polearm around once I'd infected both with Touch of Sapphire, then used the butt of the weapon to swipe their ankles out from under them.

One fell off the stairs, landing with a thud a few feet below. The other toppled backward, rolling to the bottom of the stairs.

The ball of gravity magic flickered and faded as the mage responsible for it lost his concentration. It was only a temporary reprieve for my allies, but it was at least something.

I gave a rushed salute to Thorn and the others, who were watching me with baffled expressions from the top of the stairs. "I'll be right back. Don't die."

I sprinted to the center of the courtyard, extended both hands, and reached into the five nobles still fighting and the two cocoons behind me.

Nobles flinched or gasped in every direction as rivers of blue flowed toward me.

Everybody stopped for a moment to watch the blue magic rush toward me like swarms of fireflies. My body glowed bright sapphire and I felt my mana surge with more than I could hold. I was bursting at the seams with magical energy.

I smiled within my helmet. No more holding back, fuckers.

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