“Incoming,” Rory announced, grimacing as he did. Their short reprieve from the first stage had ended, as Rory could make out the shifting of trees in the distance. With each passing second, the movement grew closer and closer.

  Large creatures?

  Rory saw Apostolos manning the ballista, a javelin already prepared and aimed. For his part, Rory drew back his bowstring, waiting patiently.t

  So, what will it be? Boss, or more minions.

  As the rustling grew nearer, the trees finally parted as something huge burst through.

  Well, fuck me running. That already looks like bad news.

  Appearing was a crocodile—if crocodiles normally grew over thirty feet long and stood atop long galloping legs. Emerging from the top of its skull were what looked like the horns of a water bison. Decorating its greenish-colored hide—of all things—were brilliantly vibrant feathers, the colors of sunlight refracted through a prism.

  Gator of the Feathered Depths

  Level: 56*

  A powerful beast that lurks deep within the depths of endless riverbanks. This specimen has grown stronger and more dangerous by basking in the light of the heavens, empowered by dreams of a divine feathered beast.

  “We’ve got an Alpha Variant!” Rory shouted. While not quite a Territory Alpha, Alpha Variants were some of the most powerful monsters you could find amongst their level, with all the prerequisites to become a Territory Alpha potentially.

  And the worst part? It wasn’t alone. Seated between the crest of its horns was a golden bird, far stockier than the deadly quick hummingbird from earlier and larger than the average human man.

  Golden Shoebill

  Level: 54*

  Absorbing the power of the heavenly light, this bird has traded the endless freedom of the open sky for a life spent battling amongst the foliage of the forest floor. Has formed a symbiotic relationship with another deadly predator, the two working in near-perfect tandem.

  “Shit,” Rory cursed. Not one, but two Alpha Variant monsters. The only silver lining was the Golden Shoebill, specifically its level. It was a mere fifty-four instead of level fifty-six like its giant crocodile partner.

  “What’s the plan?” Apostolos shouted, a hint of apprehension causing his voice to crack.

  Good damn question.

  Usually, it was easy to piece together what a monster specialized in. There were speed types like the hummingbird, tank types like the weird hippo-beetles, and berserker types like the pygmy bear. Alpha Variants were different; they were almost always strong in every category.

  “You aim the Shoebill. I’ll try to deal with the Gator.”

  Releasing a 15% Blood Legacy shot, the arrow flew like a red laser, only to plink off the armor of the gator.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. It’s tougher than those hippo monsters from a few waves ago.

  Firing the first shot, the battle had begun as the monster croc tore forward with impressive speed for a monster so large. Rory fired yet another arrow; this one charged up to 25%, and still, it plinked straight off the croc. Wincing mentally, Rory braced as the monster barreled into their wall, the entire thing quaking from the massive impact.

  Shit!

  A moment after impact, a javelin flew toward the shoebill. Unlike the gator, it didn’t simply ignore the projectile. Instead, it swept its mighty wings together, a gust of wind altering the projectile's path.

  The good news is that it doesn’t seem to want to eat shots like its tank friend. Bad news, it’s damn powerful as well.

  The shoebill wasn’t his priority, so Rory could only hope Apostolos was coming to a similar assessment.

  Bigger fish to fry.

  Grasping a new arrow, it raced through the air before exploding in front of the gator, a writhing mass of ghostly vines ensnaring the monster and its bird friend.

  Rory's hope for the entrapping arrow was banished within moments as the shoebill swept its wings forward, the wind it summoned slicing through the ghostly vines.

  “Magic user!” Rory shouted for Apostolos to hear. Not that he’d likely missed it, but it was worth sharing on the off chance.

  Next up!

  Another arrow was released, slamming into the gator even faster than the earlier 25% Blood Legacy arrow, now amplified to a headache-inducing 30%. The instant the arrow slammed into the gator, it exploded with crimson flames, an explosive blood essence arrow.

  Holding out hope, the dust parted to reveal the gator, irritated yet otherwise no worse for wear aside from perhaps a small scratch in its impressive armor. A deep, reverberating bellow escaped between its massive jaws as it brought its two front legs forward, slashing into his wall. With horror, Rory saw the savage talons tearing huge chunks straight from the wall.

  Oh, holy fuck, that is bad news.

  Against an Alpha Variant of such standing, his walls would hold only a few minutes even if he fully maximized the defensive inscriptions within.

  Rory had fully expected whatever appeared to be dangerous, but this was even more than what he’d anticipated.

  Think, think, think!

  If the monstrous gator got through their walls, they’d be in for a shit sandwich with nowhere to flee.

  Is it time for Big Bertha already?

  Rory shook his head. As dangerous as the monster was, it was still a tier five. It was beatable; he just had to be creative.

  But.

  But not like this. Mind racing with desperate ideas, Rory suddenly latched upon one. Turning his head toward Apostolos, he shouted.

  “Keep the Shoebill here, I don’t care how! It shouldn’t be able to break through the walls easily, and I don’t think it can fly!”

  “Master!?”

  Apostolos stared at Rory, a look of fear flickering through his eyes as he suddenly connected the dots to what Rory was about to do.

  Really fucking stupid.

  Not giving Apostolos a chance to say anything else, Rory grasped the edge of the wall before leaping off and over the monster croc, landing halfway through the clearing between their camp and the surrounding forest.

  Rory whipped around and released an arrow, another explosion bearing down on the back of its skull.

  “Let’s dance, you overgrown tadpole!” Rory shouted. For a moment, the gator seemed to glance between his camp and Rory, unsure which to pursue.

  C’mon!

  Thinking for only another moment, a deep basso escaped it as the shoebill dropped from its head, landing on the ground in front of the wall as the gator turned to face Rory.

  “Now for the fun part,” Rory muttered, a somewhat crazed look in his eyes. “Run like a bitch!”

  Turning tail, Rory began fleeing for all he was worth, pumping his arms and legs like he was back in his youth, racing down the track.

  Except, there usually wasn’t an oversized monster crocodile in hot pursuit, tearing through the forest and simply bouldering over any trees too small to withstand the force of its charge.

  Running for everything he was worth, the gator pursued, seconds turning to minutes, all thoughts of what was happening back at the camp gone from his mind.

  There wasn’t a reason for the desperate run; he didn’t have any goal location in mind that he was running toward. Rather, he needed the gator to focus entirely on pursuing him and not think of turning back around. Another advantage of the desperate run for his life was that it gave Rory time to think. An Earthly human was limited to a singular train of thought, but Rory had invested heavily in cognition. Ever since the cognition investment from tier five, Rory had discovered he could have two trains of thought running independently as long as one was relatively simple.

  Thus, Rory planned as he ran, his body on near autopilot. His secondary thoughts kept him alive as he swerved, dodged, and leaped over forest foliage and the occasional oversized lizard maw.

  Hmmm. Yeah, that could work.

  While Rory hadn’t explored much of the area, only a few miles in any given direction, there was one location he’d discovered that had stood out to him. There wasn’t anything special about it, no unique resources or even interesting magical landmarks.

  Nope, it was perhaps one of the most basic things you could find in nature, even back on Earth.

  C’mon, it shouldn’t be much further!

  With the memory of the land flashing through his mind, Rory adjusted his path, burning through the essence within his blood weave at a moderate but constant rate.

  “Come on, you soon-to-be-pair-of-boots!” Rory shouted, huffing the wind from his lungs.

  Another… mile, maybe two?

  Rory was already confident his plan was stupid as hell, but he’d given up the advantage of a defensive position when he’d lured the monster croc away. Without specific planning or the advantage of combat skills, Rory was nothing more than a ball of attributes, and the Croc had him beaten by a landslide in that category.

  Still running with all his might, at last, Rory saw the sign of it, the tiniest trickling creek one could ever find. Veering toward it, Rory re-doubled his speed.

  Eight hundred… Six hundred… four hundred…. Two hundred!

  Reminded of his old race, the two-hundred-meter dash, Rory imagined the finish line only a bit ahead. The trees began to thin out, and the Alpha Gator was almost upon him without the obstacles.

  Three.

  Rory reached behind his back, hand snatching the arm of his bow.

  Two.

  Yanking it forward, Rory prepared himself, bow in one hand, arrow in the other.

  One!

  In an instant, the space ahead of them cleared as his vision swam. It was disorienting, but Rory already knew what to expect.

  Here goes nothing!

  Racing forward with one final desperate kick of effort, Rory leaped-

  Oh god, that is a long drop!

  -straight off a cliff overlooking the massive sea of trees that sprawled as far as the eye could see.

  Mid-air, Rory forced his body to whirl around, facing the cliff he’d just leaped from. The monster crocodile hadn’t had the time to distinguish between the cliff and the rest of the forest; the endless sea of orange trees made a confusing perspective from above. With its own momentum and distorted perspective working against it, the crocodile bellowed out in confusion and rage as it charged straight off the cliff.

  Got you fucker!

  Snarling with vicious satisfaction, Rory released the arrow. Blood Legacy amped to fifty percent, the projectile ripped through the air, blurring so that it appeared almost like a laser. Faster than even Rory could keep track of, the arrow lanced forward, straight into the monster croc's open jaw and stomach. Only a moment later, the crocodile’s entire body rippled as the arrow exploded from within, the sudden force tossing the already freefalling crocodile to slam against the side of the cliff, rebounding before slamming again and again and again.

  Eat lead, fucker! Or, well, more accurately, eat Crimson Steel!

  Had he not been mid-free fall, Rory would have felt embarrassed at the rather terrible attempt at a one-liner.

  Except Rory was mid-free fall.

  Flailing wildly, Rory fell. His only company was the now extensively wounded monster crocodile. Between the internal damage of his exploding arrow and the repeated impacts against the cliffside, the gator had lost several legs, and its jaw was split in half. It was a miracle the monster wasn’t technically dead yet, but that was soon to change. The ground, an entire mile beneath them at the start of their fall, was quickly nearing.

  Because all things that fall must land at some point, Rory had purposely withheld from using a fully released Blood Legacy, only having opted to use a 50% Blood Legacy against the monstrous crocodile. It was imperative he not pass out; something more than likely to happen if he released an arrow with everything he had.

  There was also the possibility even a fully charged Blood Legacy arrow wouldn’t instantly kill the monster, even from within. While a possibility, Rory hadn’t wanted to consider it, if only for the implications of just how monstrously durable that would make the Gator of the Feathered Depths.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Not wanting to consider the thought and not planning for it were two very different things. Between the internal damage, the damage from crashing into the cliffsides repeatedly, and the looming fall damage, the gator was already dead in Rory’s mind.

  But so, too, would he be dead if he didn’t figure out the dilemma of landing without also dying.

  The trees below were rapidly increasing in size, leaving Rory only a few seconds before impact. Steadying himself, Rory took another deep breath and readied a new arrow.

  This is going to hurt like a bitch, but I should probably live. Probably.

  Arrow knocked back; Rory channeled what remained of his energy, using everything left for a final Blood Legacy-empowered arrow as he aimed it directly beneath him.

  Well, it works in movies.

  Gritting his teeth, Rory released the arrow as it flashed forward, and the tree beneath him exploded in a shower of force, shrapnel, and leaves.

  The good news was that Rory didn’t crash straight into the ground after falling a mile straight.

  The bad news was that his fall was arrested by the shockwave of the explosion created by his Blood Legacy-enabled arrow and the cloud of debris it created.

  The rest is up to you, Apostolos.

  Then everything went dark.

  Several minutes earlier, Base Camp

  “Keep the Shoebill here, I don’t care how! By itself, it shouldn’t be able to break through the walls easily, and I don’t think it can fly!”

  “Master!?” Apostolos shouted as he saw his master fling himself over their wall, directly past the giant lizard monster. Apostolos watched him land, turning mid-air and firing back with one of his explosive arrows. Besides a short-lived rattling of its skull, the giant monster seemed more annoyed than hurt.

  “Let’s dance, you overgrown tadpole!”

  Apostolos stared, stupefied, as his master taunted the monster. The taunt wasn’t without purpose, the monster looking back between the camp and his master before finally deciding his master was the priority. Apostolos swore he saw his master mutter something before he turned and ran, sprinting off through the woods.

  Oh, Eon above!

  Apostolos would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little relieved to see the main threat of the wave chasing after his master. As long as it was pursuing his master, it wasn’t tearing apart their wall.

  Still, it doesn’t mean I’m out of danger.

  The secondary boss of the wave, the Golden Shoebill, had remained behind. It was apparently just as surprised as Rory was to see the oversized lizard chasing after his master, a moment reprieved as neither attacked the other.

  Letting only a split-second pass like that, Apostolos focused, orienting the ballistae directly on the shoebill before releasing the crank of the war machine.

  With a tremendous twang, the spear flew forward, striking the shoebill.

  Or it would have, had the shoebill not reacted, swiping its wings and knocking the javelin aside.

  Shoot.

  The ballistae was his best bet at injuring the monster. A mid-tier-five Alpha would absolutely laugh aside anything he could fire from his bow. Without higher attributes, a potent Akashic Record, or a combat skill, he was barely a threat with his bow.

  Turning to face Apostolos with a beady-eyed glare, the shoebill swept its wings forward as bladed jets of wind sliced through the air. Thanks to a rather significant investment in his condition attribute, Apostolos had the reaction time to spare, ducking behind the wall as the air blades slashed into the wall, far less effective than the claws of the actual wave boss.

  What do I do? What do I do!?

  Apostolos was very quickly beginning to regret his attitude toward pushing the waves. His master hadn’t been kidding about how much of a ramp-up the waves could become. Sure, the monsters of the earlier waves could have torn him apart if they caught him outside their walls, but they’d been manageable. Now, he was facing a monster that seemed entirely out of his league.

  Because it is.

  How dangerous a monster was- when looking at tier and level alone- was something like a full rank higher than their tier suggested, or so his master had explained. A tier four monster was a danger to a tier four ascender but manageable by a tier five. A tier five monster was dangerous to a tier five ascender but manageable by a tier six.

  At best, Apostolos was pushing two tiers above his punching weight, ignoring that the shoebill was also an Alpha variant.

  What do I do?

  Apostolos had thought the ballista was his answer; the sheer power the javelins fired from it could demonstrate was far beyond what Apostolos himself could, comparable to a Blood Legacy charged arrow from his master.

  And yet, the shoebill was knocking them aside without concern.

  Apostolos reloaded as fast as he could, doing the only thing he could in the current circumstances: continue blasting with the oversized crossbow, ducking out of the way whenever the shoebill turned its focus toward him.

  The good news was that the shoebill barely paid him any attention, retaliating with the wind blades with a lazy sense of non-urgency.

  The bad news was that while Apostolos wasn’t being targeted, their walls were. Their walls were strong, and they’d hold for a while, but ‘awhile’ may only be a few minutes, a dozen at best. A dozen minutes would have been far longer than he would have survived had the wave boss still been here to aid the shoebill, but it was still far less than what Apostolos felt he needed.

  What do I do?

  At times like these, he was sure his master would devise the perfect plan. The stories he’d told Apostolos of his first year surviving on Aelia alone was one long gauntlet of overcoming such challenges. Even after Apostolos had awoken one day in the middle of his camp, his master had taken it in stride, taking care of Apostolos and teaching him along the way.

  The thing was, Apostolos wasn’t his master. He’d never been forced into the fire like this, never had to overcome against all odds. He could try to hold out until his master returned, but who knew how long that would be. He didn’t have it in himself to see his master losing, even to the giant wave boss, but that didn’t mean he could end up out of commission for some time.

  I have to treat this like I’m on my own!

  Gritting his teeth, Apostolos popped his head back out and fired the ballista at the shoebill, doing his best to calm himself and take stock of the situation, just like his master had taught him.

  Observe, think, assess.

  Again, the shoebill defended itself impeccably, a wind blade slicing through the ballista. For a moment, though, it was almost like the light played tricks on his eyes. Its feathers seemed to twinkle like fireflies in the night before fading a heartbeat later.

  No, don’t assume, observe.

  The walls continued to be battered down on, the rhythmic thump of blades of air crashing into the wall, a dull, repetitive reminder of the potential death awaiting.

  Reloading as fast as he could while staying out of the immediate danger zone, Apostolos again popped out, swiveling the ballista and firing at the bird monster. Again, for the briefest moment when the beast defended itself, there was a slight twinkle in its feathers. Yet, for whatever reason, the twinkle only appeared when defending itself, not attacking.

  Something’s relevant about that.

  Ducking his head behind the wall as a wind blade whipped past, Apostolos ground his teeth, trying to think as quickly as possible.

  Golden Shoebill. The description refers to how it absorbed ‘heavenly light’ to grow more powerful… Does that mean sunlight? So why does it sparkle only when defending itself?

  There was definitely something there to work with, yet Apostolos couldn’t make sense of it.

  Sunlight. Maybe if I block out the sun?

  That wasn't easy, given that he couldn’t just turn off a star, much less the two stars that hung overhead.

  What do I do? What would Master do? Surely, he would have some gadget made or-

  Thoughts halting, Apostolos suddenly realized what he was doing wrong.

  I’m not my Master. Why am I trying to pretend like I am?

  He had learned much from his master; he owed his education and much of who he was to him, but Apostolos wasn’t Rory.

  For starters, Pneuma.

  Taking a deep breath, Apostolos grabbed the hilt of the javelin loaded into the ballista, closing his eyes as he did.

  His master had often told him how using magic was difficult for him. As he had described, a mental ‘divide’ made magic unnatural to him, a concentrated effort of will to overcome.

  Apostolos had no such problem. Magic had always been a part of his life; there was nothing ‘special’ about it for him; it simply was. He’d oft forgo even attempting magic, so used to following in the footsteps of his master, who rarely used magic in such a fashion, using it as a simple tool rather than a weapon in itself.

  Yet Apostolos wasn’t his master. He wasn’t limited to conjuring a tiny sparking ember to ignite a greater blaze.

  Thus, holding onto the javelin, Apostolos began to tie together a spell, forming a web of intent through the Pneuma flowing from his mind into reality, infusing the javelin. Magic in such a fashion was antithetical to their specialty of creation, of permanence; what he was doing was a work of the ephemeral.

  But that was all he needed, to capitalize on a small window in time in the now rather than form a construct that would last well beyond tomorrow.

  Popping back out from hiding, Apostolos swiveled the ballistae so that it was aimed behind the shoebill before firing. Splitting through the air in an instant, the missile crashed into the earth, throwing up an explosive of dirt and debris like a cloud cover. Nothing happened momentarily; the shoebill almost seemed confused about why Apostolos had seemingly purposely missed.

  That was, until the second of nothing happening dragged on, the smokescreen of dirt holding in the air without falling.

  It worked!

  Making something float with Pneuma wasn’t easy, but it was far more manageable when all you were holding in place was dirt particles in the air, obscuring sunlight from streaming down. Grabbing another javelin, Apostolos repeated the process. The shoebill didn’t seem willing to let Apostolos do as he pleased, though, sweeping its wings out to prevent the spear from smashing into the earth and blowing up more dirt and debris. Yet in doing so, the monster left itself vulnerable for a split second, a second which Apostolos took advantage of by simply hurling a javelin at the beast.

  His aim, heightened by a well-invested cognition attribute, proved true. The spear sailed forward, clipping the wing of the shoebill. It wasn’t enough to inflict severe damage, but inflict damage it did. Golden ichor began to spill from the monster’s wing as its beady eyes snapped forward to focus on Apostolos as if noticing him for the first time.

  Mentally pumping his fist, Apostolos was already ducking behind the wall as a sudden barrage of wind blades ripped through where his head had been a moment before.

  The good news is I hurt it. The bad news is, I hurt it. Now, it's going to put more effort into trying to kill me. The silver lining is that every attack aimed at me is one less attack on the walls.

  Apostolos tended to err toward optimism, unlike his master, who preferred to take an ‘eyes wide open’ view, good or bad, cynical or hopeful. The status quo had been shaken, and a shakeup was exactly what Apostolos needed.

  New plan, new plan…. It needs sunlight, or it wouldn’t be so against my smokescreen. Wait, smokescreen!

  Taking advantage of the bombardment from the shoebill, Apostolos leaped down from his propped ladder, sprinting over to their storage shed. He grabbed a large bloodwood branch from within before sprinting to their campfire. Sticking one end in, he waited several seconds before it began to char and flare up with crimson blood-colored sparks.

  Good!

  Jogging back to the wall, Apostolos carefully climbed up the ladder, not moving too fast so the flame would die out. Listening to the continued wind-blade bombardment, Apostolos shook his head before leaning close to the flaming branch.

  Magic is significantly more difficult when you make something from nothing. That’s why master utilized a ghost vine arrow to ignite the Penghou rather than trying to throw a giant fireball at it directly.

  With that thought in mind, Apostolos began puffing a steady stream of air onto the ignited branch, channeling Pneuma through his breath as he did. Within moments, a large curtain of oily, rust-colored smoke began to billow away from the branch as it burned expeditiously. As it traveled overhead, it suddenly froze in space, captured within the same dirt curtain Apostolos held in place. The pounding barrage of wind blades suddenly lessened as the shoebill began to pay attention to the blanket of smoke billowing out and carpeting overhead.

  That, or it couldn’t continue blasting away with wind blades.

  Might as well take another risk.

  Popping his head over the wall, Apostolos quickly assessed the situation. The shoebill was staring overhead, confused and almost… annoyed. It attempted to sweep its wings toward the blanketed patch of sky, but the power within had greatly diminished.

  So, it IS drawing strength from the sunlight!

  Smiling viciously, Apostolos was forced to duck out of the way with a squeak that he was glad his master wasn’t around to hear as several feathers were launched out from the monster now that it couldn’t send its razor wind.

  It's still dangerous but more limited.

  Grabbing an arrow, Apostolos knocked his bow. His arrows were far less dangerous than his master, given his lower attributes and inability to use Blood Legacy, but he didn’t need this arrow to be directly harmful.

  After all, it was his master’s favorite trick arrow.

  Peeking out for a split second, Apostolos blind-fired the arrow in the relative direction of the monster before ducking out of the way again. Less than a heartbeat later, he heard the familiar pop as the ghost vine arrow exploded outward, the net of phantasmal vines hopefully having netted the shoebill.

  Go time!

  Grabbing a javelin, Apostolos rapidly loaded the ballista, the Golden Shoebill having been caught in the net of ghostly vines. Without the cutting power of its wind blades, it was forced to tear through the net physically, something that it was rapidly doing, but not instantly. All he needed was a few seconds to finish loading the war machine, turning it toward the monster, and firing.

  Ripping free of the netting, the shoebill had just enough time to turn toward Apostolos. Without the strength of its wind blades, it could only defend itself by sweeping its swings upward to shield itself as a javelin was launched toward the oversized bird. Tough as the monster was, the spear only managed to rip through a single wing before losing all momentum.

  But at the very least, in doing so, the monster’s wing flopped weakly to its side, incapable of movement.

  Got you!

  Feeling victorious, Apostolos went to grab a final javelin until…

  Until his hand found nothing, the pile had been reduced to nothing.

  Oh. That was the last one. How didn’t I realize that?

  His options had suddenly gotten dramatically worse. Apostolos was left with only his bow without the high-powered javelins, which had no chance of piercing the monster’s deceptively tough skin.

  Well, not quite.

  There was one other weapon he could use -not counting Big Bertha- that could damage the monster.

  His spear. Spring-loaded, it could lash out and cause wounds where his arrows couldn’t.

  “Meaning I’ve got to fight it up close,” Apostolos said with a gulp.

  Master would disapprove of this.

  But then, who had leaped from their walls' safety to battle with an Alpha Variant first? It wasn’t himself that much he knew.

  And when you think about it, I’ve already significantly weakened it.

  It was down a wing, unable to draw upon its full might now that a veiling blanket of dirt and smoke was overhead.

  Which is the other thing. I can’t hold this magic forever.

  Already, he was beginning to feel the strain of holding the smokescreen overhead. The more ‘mass’ it froze in place, the faster the stress piled upon him.

  “Only one choice, I guess,” Apostolos said, doing his best to channel the feelings he imagined his master had, the casual air of -if not confidence- indifference.

  With his resolve steeled, Apostolos took a page of inspiration from Rory as he leaped from the safety of their wall, landing a few feet past the shoebill, which whipped around awkwardly. Facing Apostolos -the pest that had harassed it from behind the relative safety of the imposing walls- its beak opened before slamming shut with a spine-shivering clack.

  In doing so, it also revealed a beak full of viper-like teeth, and another shiver ran down Apostolos’s back.

  Too late to undo what’s been done.

  Squaring off against the monster, Apostolos began shuffling around. The shoebill watched him for a moment before charging. It was fast, far faster than Apostolos. Still, between its awkward gait from its wounded wing and Apostolos’s heightened reaction time due to the cognition slant of his attributes, Apostolos barely dodged the beak, stabbing through the empty air where his chest had been a heartbeat earlier.

  It almost ended my heartbeat!

  Knowing no action should go without a reaction, something his master had taught him, Apostolos flicked his arm forward like a whip as the metal canister he held suddenly sprang forward like the striking stinger of an enraged scorpion.

  Having never seen the spear before, the shoebill was taken by surprise as it slashed a line through its already wounded wing; the wound began to weep even more golden ichor.

  “First blood,” Apostolos huffed out with an airy laugh. It was the first wound inflicted in direct contact with one another, something his master would have been proud of. Spinning the spear, Apostolos backed up as he took a two-handed stance and faced off against the monstrous landbird.

  It was another way he was different from his master. While he wouldn’t phrase it in such a way directly to his face, his master was, quite frankly, lousy as a fighter. His attributes were higher than Apostolos, and he had a knack for thinking outside the box, a mindset that had earned him his vocation as Architect of the Precursors, but that didn’t make him a real fighter.

  Apostolos wouldn’t claim he was some godly warrior, but at the very least, he had more talent for it than his master.

  Apostolos turned the spear tip forward, reacting as the bird charged him, batting its beak aside.

  Or he tried to bat its beak aside. In reality, the one batted aside was he, the bird far stronger than Apostolos, with greater mass to boot. Thrown to the side, Apostolos quickly came up in a roll.

  It was fortunate that he did, for had he not, he would have died instantly as the beak of the giant bird severed his spinal cord straight through his neck. His reward for not dying instantly?

  A massive gaping hole in his stomach, the shoebill’s beak currently piercing directly through his abdomen.

  There was something about a giant beak through the gut that could snap reality into a single focused moment, a moment that Apostolos found himself floating in as if it would never end.

  Am I dying?

  He’d thought he’d had a better chance at beating the monster than this, but even wounded and weakened, it had managed to land what was likely a lethal blow in only two attacks.

  No. Not yet.

  If he died here, the monster bird could potentially claim their camp.

  “Over…my…. dead…. body!”

  Strength surged through him, desperate, reckless adrenaline flooding his body as Apostolos lashed out with the spear. The monster, still beak-deep in Apostolos, had no way to escape as in a single fluid strike, the spring-loaded spear was driven directly through its eye socket and brain. Powerful as the Alpha Variant may be, it was still a tier five monster; it couldn’t simply ignore a strike to a vital organ, even from a lower tier such as Apostolos.

  Surprisingly anticlimactic, the great bird toppled over like a puppet with its strings cut. Apostolos took a moment to assess the situation, then stared down at his gut.

  Huh. That doesn’t look good.

  Still staring at his stomach, there was no missing the hole, large enough that you could wave to someone from the other side.

  I don’t think I’m supposed to see my organs or not feel any pain.

  With a giggle that felt entirely out of character, Apostolos began to laugh.

  Oh. I think I’m in shock.

  Wobbling over to the nearest tree, he sagged against it, slowly sliding down until he was on the ground, his body bent over as all the strength within him fled.

  Sorry, Master.

  Half a smile on his face, there was no time for reflection or even fear. His eyes closed as the light from Apostolos’s world went dark.