Thatch spots them first. Sees them through the darkness with that ocular skill of his. I kinda wanna steal it, but I also know it doesn’t quite suit me. That thought gets discarded when he holds up a hand. “Someone’s approaching us,” he says.

  It can’t be the sumeen party. Paulino left us a while ago, taking their earth mage with him. They haven’t visited us, even once, and their debt to us is more than repaid. No, I’m pretty sure this is someone else.

  Gently, the orb at my side becomes a long needle. “How many?” I ask.

  He narrows his eyes some. “Hard to tell,” he says. “At this distance, the shapes blend into each other. Four at least, maybe six.”

  Something tells me they don’t mean well.

  Wait.

  Something tells me?

  Yeah right. I focus in on that sense, on that distant tingling. It’s on my skin, the same way my mana prickled when the blob of darkness snuck under my skin. The same way it tickled just before the arrow hit Inu. And I find something.

  Mana is prickling against my skin. Tiny bits of it, poking me. Giving me just a little bit of intel, a vague sense of foreboding. It’s unreliable. It’s janky. But it’s undeniably real.

  “Snow,” Sylves hisses.

  Right. Something to investigate, just not right now. I focus. “Yeah,” I say. “Bad news. I don’t think this is gonna be pleasant.”

  Thatch looks at me and nods. “Yeah, agreed.”

  “Wait,” Opal says. “How do you know?”

  “[Piercing Gaze] doesn’t say what I can and can’t pierce,” he says, then shrugs. “So, I pierced their intentions. They’re bad, for reference.”

  Norman snorts. “You’re all ridiculous,” he says.

  “Your skill made me forget you were there at all,” Richard notes. “Stealthy human.”

  Inu knocks against her armor, resonance ringing through it. “Focus,” she says. “What do we do?”

  I blink. “We kill them,” I say. It should be obvious, no?

  “What if they’re high level?” Norman asks.

  “... We kill them?” I suggest.

  Dar laughs at that, though I suppress the sound from a bellow to a quiet laugh. “Opal’s friend is right,” the wulven says. “We fight. We kill. That is all there is to it.”

  “We should set a trap,” Bay says.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I look at her, curious. “How?”

  She gives me a sheepish smile, then rummages around in a pack. “I got bombs.”

  At that, everyone goes quiet for a moment. I smile. How wonderful. “Let’s do it.”

  - - -

  Liam had been a bounty hunter for about three years. He was decent at his job, though not infallible. His skills were focused on tracking prey, on identifying tracks, new and old. He didn’t know why the church of Respitia was paying out so much to kill a rookie, and he frankly didn’t care.

  Knowing why wasn’t his job. He just brought the boys to the playing field. They snuck through the tunnels, making sure to be quiet. Rookies were usually easy targets, in that they barely knew what their skills did. Most would have gained their class just before ascending, if at all.

  That was why he felt comfortable taking the job. Hunting sapients was dangerous business, after all, with their unpredictable abilities, but rookies usually had just three. Maybe four, if they got lucky or creative.

  He held out a hand. “Stop,” he said.

  Something twinged at his wings. His [Sixth Sense] was going off, but he couldn’t see anything in the tunnel. Slowly, he turned to their scout. “See anything, Leah?”

  The woman squinted, looking at the tunnel ahead. Then, slowly, she shook her head. “Nuffin’”, she said, her wings relaxing slightly.

  Liam breathed. Slowly relaxing, looking at the traces on the ground. They’d been through the area a few times, but not recently. And yet… was it just him, or did it smell like wet dog?

  His [Sixth Sense] flared, but he ignored the skill. His attention slipped off it. What was he so worried about anyway? The alarm bells, usually so useful, quieted down to almost nothing, really just like the background noise of the caverns.

  He relaxed, and walked forward. Then the floor exploded and tore his foot off.

  - - -

  Dar releases his hold on [Inertia], and suddenly, gravity pulls on him again. His claws come undone from the ceiling of the cavern, and he crashes down on the attentive woman that had almost spotted him.

  Norman falls with the wolf, releasing a graceless screech. The man had been clinging to Dar with all he had, and the warrior was glad to finally be free again. But, he had to give credit where it was due. The woman lost her sight on them only because of [Unassuming].

  Now, she would pay.

  Opal blinks to his side, and in one smooth motion, they tear into the backline of the bounty hunters. Dar tackles the scouting woman to the ground, instantly tearing into her. She swings back, but her fist comes into a barrier of [Protection] and the bow on her back snaps as Dar’s claws rend her flesh.

  His blood-sibling slashes their sword, keeping another attacker at bay, and then, a silent wind descends in the cavern. Another explosion rocks it, but the noise is quieted by Sylves, and Dar is able to easily keep going. Amelie’s puppets join the fight, and the hunters are outnumbered.

  “No one told us there’d be so many of them!” one screams, finding only pain and grunts as a reply.

  A battlefield was no place to lazily speak, and Dar punishes the man for the mistake, tearing into his back in a moment of respite. The woman tries to rise from the ground, but Snow’s spell slams her right back down. One of the hunters raises her hands, and fire gathers, only for Richard to swallow it up.

  And then, all around, the hunters’ skills start failing.

  Dar smiles. It was time to bleed them.

  - - -

  I stand at the back of our group, at the far back with Sylves, managing the battlefield like I’m directing an orchestra. Skills fail, important attacks are weakened, a floating dagger of mana stabs someone’s leg… the usual.

  My friends all fight. It’s messy, it’s brutal, and they get in each other’s way, but that’s okay. They still manage. Richard focuses on a mage. Opal and Thatch take on a dagger wielder together. Inu helps Dar wail on a woman that looks like an archer. I break the tracker’s [Sixth Sense], just as Bay lobs another bomb at him. Jess freezes him in place before he can scramble away.

  Then, their rogue slips a dagger between my ribs.

  is 40 Chapters ahead!!!

  Check it for more fighting!