The dust where Carson had crashed didn’t settle; it ripped apart. A single swipe of his cracked blade carved the cloud open, clearing the area. His silhouette stepped through the remaining dust, battered but still standing, mouth opening to spit out whatever smug bullshit he thought he had time for.

  I didn’t give him the chance. I slashed. Sending four Searing Scars at him. Four arcs of burning light tore across the hall, each one slamming into him before the last had even faded. The wooden doors behind him exploded outward as Carson was blasted through them, vanishing into the courtyard beyond. “I’ll deal with you in a second!” I roared after him.

  I turned back to the others and summoned the potions from my inventory. The glasses clinked together in my hands. Marcilla’s mouth was hanging open, and Alice was looking at me as if she had never seen me before.

  I knelt beside Balt and pressed them into his palms. “Here, take these. I haven’t had to use any.” Balt blinked, exhausted, blood drying on his robes. “Riven… are you sure? That’s all you’ve got left; you might need them.” “I’m sure.” I closed his fingers around the bottles. “Take the mana and one healing potion. I smiled at him, “You look like shit.”

  I took in Marcilla’s bloody appearance. “Give the other healing potion to Marcilla.” He hesitated, trying to push them back to me. “You need these more than…” “I need to concentrate on this fight,” I cut in, meeting his eyes. “And I need you to keep them safe, my friend.”

  I looked around meaningfully. “There are still soldiers running around in here.” Balt’s tired smile returned, faint but steady. “Go get ’em.” I rose, sapphire fire rolling off my armor. “Gladly.” My helm snapped into place with a metallic hiss, silver light flooding my vision.

  Tucker made to join me, but I held up my hand. “Stay here boy, Balt is hurt and I need your strength here.”

  Tucker quickly padded up to me, and I gave him a pat on the head. “See you soon bud.”

  I burst through the doorway. The courtyard outside was a wreck of splintered wood and drifting dust, and dead Faction members that had stood in my way on the ramparts.

  He was waiting. His cracked sword was no more. Instead, shards of aura?metal floated around his hands like a jagged halo, each piece trembling with lethal intent. He flicked his wrist, and the shards launched toward me in a storm of green lightning. “Die!” he shouted.

  I didn’t think. I felt. Foresight surged, half instinct, half vision, showing me the angles before they existed. Ember moved with me, our motions blurring together as I batted the shards aside one after another.

  Each deflection rang like a bell, sparks bursting in the air. The shards I battered back weren’t destroyed; whatever that metal was, it was too strong. But I still turned them back the way they came.

  They slammed into the stone behind Carson, punching deep craters into the wall as dust poured down in thick sheets. Carson’s eyes widened. He jerked his hands up, trying to summon the shards back to him.

  Too slow. I was already beside him. My foot drove into his chest with all the momentum of my sprint behind it. A perfect, brutal Sparta kick. Carson’s breath exploded out of him as he rocketed backward, smashing into the wall hard enough to crack it from floor to ceiling. He slid down the stone, coughing, aura flickering.

  I could not Identify him the first time we met. But this time it went off without a hitch. Identify.

  So he’s over level 140. Well, good for him. I stepped forward, Ember humming in my grip, ready to finish what he started. Carson’s aura flickered once, then burst. A sickly green light erupted from his body, washing over the courtyard like a wave of poison.

  He pushed himself upright, armor cracking and peeling away in jagged plates. “I see now…” His voice rasped, warped by whatever power he’d just tapped into. “My father was right. You Outliers really are walking calamities.”

  The last of his armor split apart with a metallic shriek forming two massive swords. The swords were each five feet long and forged from the same aura?metal as his shards, rose into the air in front of him, humming with lethal intent.

  He swung his right arm. The sword mirrored the motion, cleaving through the wall behind him as if it were wet clay. He swung his left arm. The second blade carved a matching wound in the opposite wall, sending rubble crashing to the floor. “Let’s take this up a level,” he growled. He exploded forward, a blur of green light and steel. The twin greatswords came down in a crossing arc meant to bisect me. I brought Ember up to parry, but the blade I aimed for shifted, the aura?metal sliding out of the path of my strike as if it were alive.

  My sword hit nothing but air. “Cute trick,” I thought. Then I pushed. “Times two.” My stats surged, doubling in less than a heartbeat. The world stretched, slowed, and bent around me.

  Carson’s massive blades carved through empty space instead of my chest as I slipped past them, my body moving on instinct and Foresight’s whisper. I appeared right in Carson’s face. The look of surprise that came over his face was almost comical. “You’re not the only one that can take it to another level,” I said.

  Ember twin blades ignited in my hands as I filled them with aura. “Eclipse Strike!” My blades slammed into Carson’s ribs.

  But instead of bisecting him. The impact detonated through him, launching him so violently, the already weakened stone wall burst open, chunks of masonry flying like shrapnel.

  Carson’s body shot through the breach and out into the field beyond.

  I blurred after him.

  He hit the ground hard, skidding across the dirt. The impact carved a trench through the earth, soil erupting in waves as his body plowed forward like a thrown siege stone. He finally ground to a halt in a cloud of dust, half-buried in the scar he’d carved with his own body.

  Before I could reach the trench, the air cracked.

  A massive blade of green aura-metal slammed flat beneath Carson’s back and hurled him skyward. He shot up into the night like a comet, one of the massive swords stabilizing under his feet as he rose higher… and higher… until he stood suspended above the battlefield.

  Wind whipped around him. “So you’ve grown stronger!” he yelled, voice echoing across the field. “Let’s see how you deal with this!”

  I gave him the bring it gesture. “Show me what you got!” I shouted back.

  His Anchor flared. A massive bottle appeared in his hand, and he bit the cork out with his teeth. The glass glowed the same toxic green as his aura. He tilted it back and drank greedily, potion spilling down his chin and neck in luminous streams as he devoured every drop.

  His body convulsed.

  His anchor began to flash repeatedly.

  The sky was soon filled. Hundreds of weapons erupted into existence behind him: greatswords, spears, axes, shattered blades, broken fragments, an entire armory suspended in the heavens, all gripped in the coils of his green aura.

  They hovered.

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  They trembled.

  They pointed downward.

  Carson extended both arms.

  “Sovereign’s Cataclysm: Armory of Ruin!”

  The sky fell.

  The weapons screamed downward in a storm of green light, a descending execution meant to erase everything beneath it.

  I exhaled slowly.

  “Spread the power evenly through your legs.”

  “Don’t spike it. Balance it.”

  My aura flared white-hot around me. I let Ember go back to its normal state, the twin blades merging cleanly in my grip.

  “Times Four.”

  The world bent. I leaned into my Foresight. Paths unfolded in silver threads, angles, trajectories, and I put my trust in my talent.

  Absolute Trigger’s gauge was getting low, but I had more than enough for this.

  Aura detonated outward.

  I vanished.

  The storm of weapons tore through the space where I had stood, detonating against the earth in a chain of concussive impacts.

  But I wasn’t there.

  I appeared above him.

  Higher than Carson.

  For a heartbeat, he didn’t understand. He was still directing the weapons downward where he thought I was. I spiked my aura hard.

  Then his head tilted upwards.

  His eyes widened.

  “This is for my sister!” I roared.

  Ember expanded in my grip, metal stretching, thickening, devouring aura as sapphire fire erupted along its length. The blade grew massive, blazing like a falling star.

  “Sunder!”

  I brought it down.

  The strike cleaved through Carson’s aura like it wasn't even there.

  His scream ripped from his throat as the force drove him downward. “NOOOOO…!”

  My sword connected with a sickening crunch. He became a comet of green and sapphire light as he shot back to the ground.

  The impact folded the field inward. The earth caved in beneath him, stone splitting in jagged lines as a pressure wave rolled outward and flattened the treeline.

  Every weapon he had summoned flickered.

  Then went inert as they fell limply from the sky.

  And silence followed.

  The shockwave faded.

  Weapons rained down around me in dull, lifeless thuds.

  I used my aura to make platforms as I descended. I touched down lightly in the ruined field, boots crushing shattered stone.

  Dust rolled thick across the ground.

  I lifted Ember and swept it in a wide arc.

  Sapphire fire tore outward, clearing the haze in a spiraling gust.

  And I saw him.

  Carson.

  Broken.

  Crawling.

  His armor hung in shattered pieces. Blood streaked the trench behind him. One hand clawed at the dirt while the other fumbled with something metallic, a sphere the size of an apple, smooth and silver, a plunger embedded in its top.

  He slammed his palm toward it.

  I was there before he could press down.

  My boot crushed his wrist into the dirt.

  Bone cracked and he let out a pained screamed.

  I bent and ripped the device from his hand.

  Identify.

  Of course it was soulbound. "So that's how you been opening portals left and right."

  I let it vanish into my anchor.

  Carson’s breathing turned ragged.

  “All that talk,” I whispered. “All you’ve done. And you’re trying to run?”

  He tried to drag himself forward. "Here let me help you." I grabbed him by the throat and hauled him upright.

  His eyes were unfocused. Blood ran from his mouth.

  I drove my forehead into his face.

  Cartilage crunched. Then I slammed him into the ground. He let out a pained cry and I dismissed my helm. I wanted my face to be the last thing he saw in this world.

  And I started hitting him. This wasn’t about winning any longer. That part was decided already. His lackeys had beaten my sister bloody, he would get the same treatment before I let sent him to hell.

  I lifted him by the collar and slammed my fist into his jaw.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Each strike snapped his head sideways. Teeth broke. Blood sprayed.

  He tried to form words. “I yie…yield…

  They came out wet and broken, and I headbutted him. “There is no yielding.” I gritted out.

  Eventually, he stopped moving. Stopped trying to talk.

  I stood and flung the blood from my hand. Resummoned Ember and began to fill the blade with aura.

  “I guess that’s all you had to give, all you could take” I muttered. “Turns out you’re just an overleveled piece of shit.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “All that power, and nothing underneath it. Hell, my party member puts up better fights during our spars than you did.”

  I tilted my head as he gurgled.

  “What did you say when you threatened my niece? That she’d just be a system memory?”

  Carson made a low, unintelligent sound.

  I smiled grimly.

  “You need to understand something.”

  I raised the blade.

  “You won’t even be that.”

  The sky split along a jagged seam of green light.

  Not a small portal.

  Not a doorway.

  A wound.

  The largest I had ever seen.

  Space peeled back in a swirling vortex of green and black light.

  Over twenty figures flew through. Landing roughly thirty yards away.

  Each one radiated an impressive aura. Each one stronger than Carson, if I had to guess.

  And then a single man stepped forward. He looked older, sharper.

  Carson’s face aged twenty years and carved into something colder.

  “Stay your hand, Outlier.”

  I lowered Ember’s tip until it pressed against Carson’s throat.

  Identify.

  No data returned.

  I looked at him and smirked. “I’m guessing you’re this piece of shit’s father.”

  He sneered at my words and took a step forward. But I pressed the blade deeper, drawing a line of blood. Which caused the sneer to fall away and his advance to stop.

  He nodded once. “I am Robert. Leader of the Shattered Blades. And yes. That is my son.”

  I spat in the dirt.

  Behind him, the twenty elites drew their weapons in unison.

  I grinned wider.

  “Well, come on then. I’ll take you all on. I was planning on paying you all a visit soon anyway.”

  I pressed the blade harder into Carson’s skin. “But he dies first. Whether you back off or not. No matter what happens next. He dies.”

  Their auras surged together, layering, building.

  I felt the pressure spike.

  And smiled.

  The crushing force slid off me like water off a duck’s back. With my Defiant Flame Title. Suppression would no longer work on me.

  Several of them stiffened.

  Robert’s eyes sharpened.

  He raised one hand.

  The combined aura receded.

  “Think carefully,” he said calmly. “You give him to me, and I will spare your family. Your companion. The guide. They will walk free. Only you have to die.”

  His gaze didn’t waver.

  “You kill him… and even if you could fight us off, which you cannot, I have left instructions for you all to be hunted. You will know not a moments piece in this world."

  “Face it Outlier. You are utterly alone in this world. That has been the downfall of all your predecessors. It will be yours as well.”

  I braced ready to kill Carson then kill everyone in front of me when a portal flared open behind me.

  I half-turned. Ready for more enemies trying to surround me when instead of an enemy, Mack stepped through.

  Behind him the woman I had seen on the crystal projector… Vex.

  And twenty more elites filed out quickly, all of them wearing Turtle cloud cloaks in gleaming green armor.

  Their aura was just as monstrous.

  Robert’s formation shifted instantly.

  “Vex,” he snapped. “What is the meaning of this?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She simply stepped aside and gave a small bow.

  Another figure walked through the portal.

  Time seemed to stop for me then.

  She looked older.

  Her hair was darker than I remembered.

  But her eyes… blue.

  The same blue.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She died in a car wreck twenty years ago.

  I stared.

  Wide-eyed.

  She met my gaze and smiled. “He is not alone.”

  “Mom?” I asked incredulously.

  She winked back at me. “Grandmother, actually.”