Despite half the vines being blown away, more spine-covered limbs are already crawling toward me. At this rate, I’m going to be pnt food.

  “Crap.” I try to roll over onto my hands and knees—easier said than doh a giant shield strapped to your arm and a huge hole stabbed into your side. Instead, I mao colpse on top of the shield. I su a breath as the impact sends another shockwave of pain radiating from my side. With my free hand I feel for the severed viig out of me, and give it a halfhearted tug. I ch my mouth shut and scream inside of my head. The spines are lodged into my skin like hooks. This is not good.

  The shield perks up. Blood? More blood! It greedily es what I’ve spilled onto its surface, the drops vanishing with a hiss of smoke the sed they make tact with the shield.

  Great. At least one of us is happy.

  More. It still needs more.

  “Sounds like a great way to get me killed,” I pant, trying tle upright. “Which is already a pretty good possibility.”

  The Aegis is aghast. Die? That means losing! And it does not lose.

  “Yeah, well, might not have much of a choi that.”

  The Aegis broils with offense. No! It will win. It will destroy that monster. It will be easy. Trivial! All it needs is more blood. It’s so close!

  I grimace, staggering to my feet. The vine pulses in my side like an iion. It’s getting harder to breathe. Will it prevent my healing from kig in if it’s still stuck there? I ’t fight like this, not wheiny move digs those spines in deeper and sends a new wave of agony through me. I know you’re not supposed to pull a knife from a stab wound, but those rules might not apply when magic is involved.

  “Tell you what,” I gasp. I stagger a few steps from the vine and then pnt the shield in the ground, leaning against it like a crutch to keep me from colpsing back to the sand. “If you get this thing out of me, you have whatever blood es out as a result.”

  ACCEPTED! Offer accepted. It will use my mana to activate Devour ahe vine away.

  “Fine,” I say, struggling to focus on anything other than the agony that tio hrough me. “Do it.”

  [Devour activated.]

  The lines of light on the shield turn a darker shade of red—almost bck. More bands of magic appear, like the ohat’s strapped my arm to the shield, and these ones also lift off the surfad snap themselves around the vine in my side. I gasp as the spines in my flesh are jarred from the movement, but a momehe pnt begins to disie before my eyes. The edges turn bck, then dissolve like bits of burned paper in a breeze. The relief is immediate as the spines vanish from inside me. In a matter of seds, the vine is gone.

  [Mainguished.]

  And then, the iable happens. Blood begins p out the hole in my side. The shield’s magical bands don’t retreat, however; they snap around my wound, pstering to my skin like some sort of demonidaid. It stops the blood from spilling from my side, which might have been a good thing except I feel the shield greedily pping it all up, encing more of my blood to keep flowing toward it.

  “Stop,” I say, still leaning heavily on the shield. Maybe it’s my imagination or just the rush of the fight, but I already feel a little lightheaded. “Yoing to make me pass out.”

  Just a little more, the Aegis insists. It’s almost enough! Then we win.

  “her of us will win if I die from blood loss.” My knees buckle, and only the shield keeps me upright. This was a mistake.

  No! The shield swells in my mind, defiant aermined. Defeat is not an option. The Crimson Aegis never loses. It will not accept that. Almost… There!

  [Blood Ward activated,] Echo says.

  What? It do that? Hold up, I didn’t give it permission to activate an ability!

  The shield doesn’t pay me any mind: it doesn’t need my permission.

  It’s ag on its own. I don’t have trol over it. The thought chills me.

  The red magic that flows through the shield’s engravings bees thicker, viscous, more real. It’s blood, but it’s also sparking with energy. The eyes on the shield glow. A light appears between its teeth, and magic flicks around the edges like a serpent’s tongue.

  A vine reaches up for the shield, and Aegis reacts so fast, I barely see it.

  A line of blood lifts off the shield and snaps out like a whip, severing the vine as if its attack is made of metal, not blood. More lines of blood raise from the shield, each writhing like the feelers of a giant, horrifying bug. Anything that gets too close is skewered in an instant—then cut to ribbons if the skewering isn’t enough. The threads of blood move faster, spinning around us, hag and sshing everything within range.

  Closer, the shield tells me. It o get closer to the creature’s main stalk. And quick! Before the blood runs out.

  I tear my eyes away from the shield’s horrifying dispy of slig and dig, and mao push myself upright. I grunt as I pull the shield from the sand—it feels heavier now than it did earlier—and I stagger forward. The Aegis is more than a little terrifying, but deg what to do with the murder shield is a problem to be solved when not faced with the possibility of beien by a murder cactus. Right now, w with it is my best move. Maybe my only move.

  I stumble toward the cactus’s tral stalk, gaining more fiden my footing with each step. The pain in my side is still throbbing, but the initial agony has dulled to a troubling numbness. I’ll bear it now and deal with the sequeer.

  The Aegis tio whip its of razor-sharp blood around us, shredding more of the cactus the clet. My vision begins to speckle with salt and pepper dots. I miss a step and go down to one knee—a viakes advantage of this opening and darts toward me, but Aegis shreds it before it get close. I push upward once more. Only a few more steps.

  My vision is tunneling inward when I finally make it. It’s like I’ve pushed an invisible force field into the monster. One moment it’s looming over me, and the , half of its trunk is missing, like an ice cream scoop carved a k of it away. Then it’s tipping toward me, falling downward—and it disies where it crashes over me. The lines of blood are like a blender, shredding the cactus so fine, all that reaches me is a cool, green-smelling mist.

  My vision goes bck, and I faintly feel myself fall to the side as Echo distantly says, [Carrion cactus defeated. EXP threshold met. Bloodloss Status Effeded. Level up! Health regeion rate increased by 5%.]

  Warmth washes over me, and all my aches and pains vanish in an instance. Even with my sight speg slowly bato view, I clearly read the following words imprinted over my vision.

  [Name: Nye]

  [Species: Dhampyr]

  [Css: Guardian]

  [Level: 15]

  [HP: 130/130]

  [Mana: 45/45]

  [Role: The Knight]

  I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m healed. Thank god.

  The Aegis beams with pride. And more importantly, we won!

  “Winning doesn’t matter if I end up dead,” I grumble, feeling my side where the hole had been just a moment before. There’s a tear in my clothes now, but the skih doesn’t have a mark on it, like I was never hurt at all.

  The Aegis somehow mao scoff in my mind. Winning is winning. Nothing else matters.

  “Yeah,” I groan, pig myself up and one-handedly dusting my clothes off as I survey the se. “If you say so.” Bits of severed cactus litter the field, but none of it is moving any longer. In fact, the only thing that stirs iire crater is Hans, still curled up ial position and whimpering miserably.

  “So, Echo,” I say, heading back over to Hans. “Know how I get this thing off of me?” All the shield’s magic has since flickered away, except for the bands of light that still have it strapped to my arm. “I’d really like to get the use of both arms back.”

  The magic squeezes tighter at my words. What?! How could I want to get rid of it? It’s so powerful! Anyone would want to use su amazing shield. Only a fool couldn’t see the value in it!

  I roll my eyes as Echo responds. [As a Pact has beeablished, the Crimson Aegis may summon or disperse its bands at will.]

  “So I have to wait for it to let go of me?” I ask, annoyed.

  [Affirmative,] Echo says. [Additionally, the user has access to one Iory slot. Any non-living items may be pced in the slot.]

  I tip my head. “An Iory?” I gnce down, as if expeg to find a bag at my waist or straps of a backpack around my shoulders I’d somehow missed before. “How does that work?”

  [Add the Crimson Aegis to Iory?] Echo asks.

  The shield notices this exge, but doesn’t seem to entirely uand what we’re talking about. It ’t be so easily discarded. It is the great Crimson Aegis! Nothing stop it. Nothing i. It is the eater ons. Destroyer of w—

  “Sure, add it to my Iory,” I say.

  The shield vanishes from my arm.

  [Crimson Aegis added to Iory.]

  I flex the fingers of my newly freed arm and roll my shoulder. Whew! That’s a relief. Murder cactus: killed. Murder shield: stored. Now there’s just… literally everything else to deal with.

  “Hey, man,” I say, approag Hans. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if it’s anything half as weird as what I just went through, a little bit of freaking out is warranted.” I look around at the skeletons scattered around the crater. “That said, it looks like we’re in the middle of a graveyard, so maybe we should try to get out of here.”

  Hans looks up at me through squinted eyes, as if just trying to focus is painful. “This… Echo. Do you hear her too?”

  That might be the first coherent thing I’ve gotten out of him. “Yeah. Are you also from Earth?”

  “Earth?” He looks around. “We’re not oh?”

  Oh, boy. “Thought the murder cactus would have clued you in.”

  “Murder…” He frowns. “I was supposed to tame it. That’s what Echo said. My Role Requirement.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  His face turns pained again, and he clutches his head. “It hurt so bad. My Sanity. It’s better now, but what if it happens again?”

  I wish I had any idea what he was saying. “Let’s talk about it while we get out of here, alright?” I say. “Looks like we’re in this together.”

  And if both of us ended up here, then maybe my brother isn’t far. I’d felt him nearby in… whatever that pce was, after the o. He’d been there with me, I’m certain of it. Which hopefully means he ’t be far.

  Hans accepts my hand up, and I help him limp up the side of the crater. I tip my head as we walk. “Do you hear something?”

  Now that there’s not a ential crisis to process or moo fight, I’m being distantly aware of a faint sound. I ’t tell which way it’s ing from, but there’s distant, muted cries, mixed with rapid gs of metal. A smell is growing stronger as roach the top as well: something sweet and coppery which makes my mouth water and my stomach ch with hunger. I already have a sinking suspi of what might be the source.

  “Christ,” Hans says as we pause at the top. I slowly lower him to the ground so he give his injured leg a rest as we silently take in our surroundings.

  We’re in the middle of a desert; that was obvious enough from all the sand. Rocky arches and pilrs of sto the ndscape like fingers of a giant reag from the earth. But that might be the only normal thing about our surroundings.

  As the clouds shift, allowing the light of the two moons to illumihe nds, the battle bees apparent. There’s a cmber of fighting and the occasional fsh of half a mile away. Shadows dot the grouween there and here, which Echo unhelpfully bels as [Corpse]s when I focus on them; it isn’t hard to imagine what I’m smelling.

  One small blessing is that the fight isn’t right on top of us, but we’re defioo close for my fort. What if we get mistaken for one side or the other? I g Hans and the two crest moons carved into his chest pte. Looking down at myself, I note I’m wearing the same.

  Wait. What does that mean? Whose bodies are these?

  “We’re really not oh anymore,” Hans says, looking at the sky. “It’s night. Why I see everything so well?”

  “Uh, well, the world isn’t the only thing that’s ged,” I tell him, tapping my own pointed ears. His eyes widen as he touches his own. He’s probably going to need a minute.

  “Okay,” I say, surveying the ndscape. The battle is off in… well, I’ll just call that North. To the west are some roations, to the south is our crater and seemingly ope, and to the distant, dista appears to be some mountains or cliffs. The question is: which way is least likely to get us killed?

  As I’m w this, Echo’s presence reappears in my head.

  [Role Requirement,] she says, and a new symbol appears in the er of my vision. It’s an… arrow? It swivels around, then stops, pointing to my retive west.

  “What the hell is that?” I ask.

  [Role Requirement,] Echo repeats. [The Knight must protect the Pri all costs.]

  “Role Requirement?” I repeat, perplexed. “Prince?”

  Han’s head snaps in my dire, and he visibly pales. “What did you say?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “Echo’s saying something about…”

  [Role Requirement,] Echo repeats, and the arrow in the er of my visioo shimmer urgently. [The Knight must protect the Pri all costs.]

  Then, aat appears in my vision.

  “Oh no,” Hans says. “It’s happening to you, too.”

  “What’s happening?” I ask. “What happeo you? What are you worried about?” But the at ahat for me.

  [Sanity Level: 99%]