Thirty minutes in, Jeff was covered in cuts. Some were shallow enough to ignore, but the one across his chest had shattered his armor—and his ribs. He lay on the wall, breathing shallow breaths as Sophia poured her healing into the injury.

  “I’m…I’m ignoring everything else,” Sophia mumbled. “Not enough Mana for it all.”

  “And not enough time,” Jeff said. He nodded, waited thirty seconds for his ribs to be together and the bleeding to stop, and then pushed himself to his feet. If Kade was here, he’d have handled the A-Rank Brass Juggernauts just fine. But Ellen…

  Ellen was built to kill lots of enemies. Her entire build was centered around area of effect damage, and Raul had barely hit B-Rank. Without Kade, the team just didn’t have the concentrated firepower to deal with the Brass Juggernauts—and Jeff didn’t have the A-Rank toughness to go toe-to-toe with them.

  The 303 Wall shook under him. He readied his sword and shield, preparing for another wave of—

  He paused.

  The 303 Wall was shaking. Jeff couldn’t remember anything shaking the Wall before.

  He looked down. Then he started running—not for the elevator, but sideways, along the wall’s length. “Everybody get out! It’s coming down!”

  The rest of the team fell in behind him, and they ran, ignoring the monsters cresting the wall like a wave all around them. Scripts and Bindings popped and overloaded as the 303 Wall fought back against its assailant. Barriers that made Jeff’s Split-Second Shield look pathetic warped into existence, only to shatter in moments. The energy of hundreds of dungeon boss cores vaporized in seconds.

  And as the S-Ranked Citysplitter started to hammer its triangular ram into the concrete and portal metal, the 303 Wall slowly shattered.

  There were more centipedes.

  Most of them were the black-carapaced, armored ones. After the first couple, we killed them efficiently—Fighter and I would work with Archer to kill one while Tank, Healer, and Support occupied the others, then we’d rinse and repeat. By the time we’d fought a dozen, we were a smooth, well-oiled machine of death.

  The five GC delvers had already been that good—I’d been the one holding their teamwork back. I was impressed; not one of them was over C-Rank outside of the portal, while I sat at A-Rank now, but I didn’t know if the Desert Wind’s best team could keep up with them. I wanted to ask them how they were so good, but only Tank ever said anything, and only the bare minimum.

  We fought our way down the tunnel and past more rooms filled with eggs that Fighter destroyed. And, with every step, a sense of foreboding filled me. Not rage or fury. Not the battle trance. Dread. I needed to get through this—to end it.

  Support raised their hand, and Tank spoke. “We’ll stop here. Five minutes.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said. Nimbus Edge was in my hand, and there were enemies up ahead. The sooner I fought them, the sooner I’d be able to help my friends. They were out there, fighting who knew what kinds of constructs, and they needed my help. “We need to keep moving.”

  “You’re shaking,” Tank said. “We’ll stop until you’re done.”

  I glared at them, Nimbus Edge held out straight ahead of me. “I’m going to—“

  “Look at your sword, Delver.”

  I did. And then I stopped and sat down on a relatively slime-free spot. “I see.”

  Fencers’ swords seldom stayed perfectly still in a fight. They were always moving, searching for a tiny advantage or gap in their opponents’ defenses. But this…my arm shook the blade almost eight inches in either direction.

  “Lie down. This is normal for unattuned delvers in this portal. A decision and vision are coming your way.”

  I did. Then I tried to sit up. Skittering legs echoed from the cavernous room’s ceiling and walls—I had to get ready for a fight. But Tank’s hand pressed into my chest. “This is normal,” they repeated.

  “So, what do I do?” I asked. The shaking wouldn’t stop. It only grew more intense.

  “Whatever you deem necessary. We will keep you safe.”

  Before I could ask what they meant, my eyes closed—and they opened in a new, yet familiar, place.

  Phoenix burned.

  I watched from high above the Fallen Delvers Courtyard—so high that when I looked down, the Governing Council building was a shattered square instead of a towering skyscraper. Far to the west, the fields around the Wickenberg Portal drowned, and to the north and south, gashes a hundred yards wide sprawled across the city for miles until they met near the courtyard. Something had hammered through the gates.

  But the worst of it was to the east.

  A gigantic, V-shaped gap had been punched through the 303 Wall. Rubble lay strewn all across the eastern parts of the city. Bodies were everywhere; I recognized some of them as low-ranking Delvers who’d been at the Desert Wind Guild’s party tonight. Brass-and-silk monsters poured in through the gap by the hundreds. A-Rankers. S-Rankers. And so many B-Rankers that even the Light of Dawn couldn’t hold them back.

  Here and there, knots of delvers formed, trying to stem the tide. But it was hopeless; without the 303 Wall, the city was doomed.

  Unless.

  My vision swam, zooming in on one of those knots. A blonde shadow mage, bloodied and panicked. A tank whose shield and armor had both been rent open and shattered. A healer, out of Mana and collapsed on the ground. A fighter, trying to hold off a pair of A-Rank monsters far beyond his power. And a support with no pages left in her Script-book.

  They were going to die. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The thought made me sick, but I had no body to vomit with. My friends were going to die, and Phoenix was going to die with them.

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  “Untrue.”

  I whirled. The voice carried all the weight of the God of Thunder’s, or the Crone’s, but none of the personality of either. It was almost cold, almost mechanical. Even so, I recognized it. A powerful Paragon was present here.

  “You have the power to change their fate.”

  “How?”

  Instead of answering, the voice went silent, and the battle continued below me. The A-Rank monsters overran Raul as he tried to defend himself, then crushed Sophia beneath their metal legs. Jeff struggled to his feet, broken shield ready, but it didn’t matter at all. Blades punched into his body over and over, and he died screaming. Ellen tried to cast. Shadow Shapes rippled across the two monsters, but they ignored the flailing tendrils of darkness, pressed in, and shoved their bladed arms into Ellen’s stomach. They lifted her off the ground like a bird with a worm impaled on its beak, and she squirmed and screamed.

  And I couldn’t do anything about it.

  All I could do was watch as she died slowly, agony across her face and tears of blood pouring down her cheeks. I couldn’t do it. My eyes squeezed closed. When I opened them, I was over the Fallen Delvers Memorial again.

  And below me, Phoenix burned.

  “This does not have to be their fate.”

  Below me, the battle played out the same. The gouges in the earth. The shattered wall. The knots of delvers fighting hopeless battles. Death and destruction and the burning hot flame had come to Phoenix, and I still couldn’t do anything to change it.

  But, as I struggled to find a way forward, something changed.

  Shadows.

  They poured from the windows of burning buildings. Surged from the underpasses and bridges criss-crossing the city. Every place of darkness in Phoenix was stripped of its shadow, and they surged across the streets in a wave, leaving behind surfaces that looked like high noon no matter which direction I watched them from.

  Then I looked to the east.

  A vortex of black nothingness, a thousand feet high, tore at the world. It rose from near the gap in the wall, silent and furious—a melding of the storm and shadow. Unlike my shadow-touched lightning, though, this was the storm dominated by the shadow.

  It kept growing, the shadow cyclone, until it dwarfed everything.

  And then it exploded outward. The shadows lashed out, ripping silk from brass and tearing every monster they could find into pieces as they snapped back to their proper locations in the world. One moment, Jeff, Sophia, and Raul were about to die. The next, the rubble they fought in was scoured clean.

  “Their fates are unsealed. You, Paragon of the Stormsteel Path, may change them. Accept this gift on behalf of your friend and bring it to her, and seal her fate yourself.”

  I wanted to. God, I wanted to. Ellen’s magic poured over the city. Everywhere it went, monsters died. It was a culmination—an S-Rank power, at the least. It made Shadow Shapes look like a party trick, and Angelo Lawrence look weak and ineffectual.

  And it would save her life.

  Because one thing I was absolutely sure of was that this vision was real. What was happening in it either was happening right now or would happen soon if I didn’t change it. And I had the power, right here, to change it.

  But this was a Paragon. A powerful one. And Paragons as powerful as this one wouldn’t offer strength like the kind it had offered Ellen unless it stood to gain even more—or to protect itself from losing more.

  That meant there was more to take from it.

  So, the question was simple. Did I believe that my friends were strong enough to survive what was coming? Could I count on them to hold, and to survive?

  Did I trust them?

  My eyes opened.

  The cavern swam all around me as plain gray walls shifted back to the round, dirt tunnels and slime of the centipede nest. I sucked in a breath of stale air, then another tinted with acid and bile. The GC party stood around me, weapons out, as blurry centipedes lunged toward them. They didn’t miss a beat. Even as I pushed myself to my feet, monsters died all around me.

  By the time I’d recovered, the fighting was over.

  “There’s a Paragon here!” I said, breathing hard. My head swam from the vision and the chaotic fight, and Nimbus Edge hung limp in my hand.

  Tank nodded. “Don’t talk about it. It’ll make it worse.”

  “But it showed me—“

  “Exactly what it wanted you to see. The truth—with a few adjustments. You only need to answer one question for me.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Tank pointed. “Do we go on, or go back?”

  I rubbed my eyes. It wasn’t the same offer the Paragon had made—not quite. But it was close. Tank wasn’t asking if I’d give Ellen the power to change her fate. They were asking if I wanted to go back and help her or keep pushing into the portal world. But in the end, the question was the same. The white-robed delver and the Paragon both needed to know if I trusted my partner.

  And, after a moment, I nodded. “We go on.”

  Eugene had a guest over.

  “Sorry, Magda. Like I said last time, it wasn’t you. My apprentice was doing something interesting, and I wanted to see it,” he said.

  The A-Ranked Paragon hovered mid-air, an eel a tenth the size of his massive, draconic body. She seemed to swim in the air, almost lethargic in her movement, but every twitch of her finned tail released power—enough power that Eugene was almost tempted to kill her and devour her core.

  But no. No, Magda wasn’t a part of the Stormsteel Path. She was associated with it, but the Sliding Surge wasn’t part of the God of Thunder’s domain. Magda belonged to a rival—a rival who certainly knew she was here. She was an incredibly enjoyable consort, though.

  “No trouble,” Magda said. Her voice was soft and quiet. The Sliding Surge Path wasn’t one for ostentatious displays of power. She shifted into a vaguely fish-like woman, then sat, cross-legged, on the God of Thunder’s floor. Eugene joined her in his armored form. “I am curious about your apprentice, though. Who is he, and what makes him so interesting?”

  “Now, Magda, you know it’s rude to share information about other Paragons, right?” Eugene asked.

  Electricity arced between the two Paragons, and after a moment, Magda bowed her head. “As you say, God of Thunder. As you say. But even so, my master is interested in him as well.”

  Eugene stiffened, and Magda shifted her body into his as she continued. “As a weapon against you, lord, not as a possible pupil. The Paragon of the Stillwave Path has no interest in the storm, but every interest in hurting you.”

  “And what about you, Miss Sliding Surge?”

  Magda laughed quietly. “I also want to hurt you. It’s my duty as my master’s servant.”

  The God of Thunder’s own laughter boomed out across his space. “Good answer, Magda, dear. Honesty is the best policy.” He wrapped his lightning-formed arms around her and held her close.

  But even as the God of Thunder and Magda forged a connection between storm and surge, Eugene’s mind was on the Sliding Surge’s master. Magda was a fun Paragon and one of the few who both understood the God of Thunder and wasn’t intimidated by him. He could tell by how she led the two as their cores connected. Very few Paragons would dare to do that.

  But her master…the Placid King…

  He wanted Earth. He’d said so himself, and his explanation for the world’s importance in the Stillwave Paragon’s ascension made complete sense. The world was unique among all the worlds in the universe—it was completely intact. There had never been a portal world carved from it.

  The Placid King wasn’t close enough to ascension to make it any time soon. And he was patient, but he wasn’t that patient. But there was a way to generate a massive amount of power quickly. If he could sever a portal world from Earth, the Placid King could ascend tomorrow. It would only work, though, up until the moment a delver passed the border from S-Rank to SS-Rank. After that, they would take that power for themselves—and if it was Kade, he’d take it for the God of Thunder as well.

  Kade Noelstra, in other words, was the last lock on the door binding both the Placid King and the God of Thunder to this universe.

  So, as enjoyable as core-bonding with Magda the Sliding Surge was, Eugene had a second objective, and it took up most of his thoughts.

  How could he counter the Placid King’s ascension? And how could he keep Kade from dying in the process? The answer to both questions was the same, but Eugene didn’t know what it was—and it was harder when, for the first time in a long, long time, he couldn’t see his pupil no matter how hard he looked.

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