The Moonlight Knight was sent flying, spiralling through the air. They hit the ground in a heap, and at the bottom of their vision could see that the Leadbeater Possum was straightening up again.

  In accidental unison, they forced the Armour back to their feet, Mikayla absently noting how Nya used her (their?) tail to help with that.

  "It can get by without a heart? Seriously?" she groaned.

  "We have magic rocks that turn into weapons and armour. I suppose it's only fair," Nya groused. "How does all this work, exactly? I can clearly still use my Techniques. But I cannot change size. We're stuck at maximum,"

  "We can't?" Mikayla blinked. "Mana Assistance, size five,"

  Nothing happened.

  "Damn. Good to know. Well, this form is the result of the Blessing of Teamwork. Right there in the name. We need to work together," Mikayla clarified.

  "I know that was the goal of this excursion, but this was not what I had in mind," Nya muttered. "Can we fix the weapon?"

  "Don't know. Probably, it's just a projection,"

  "I am unimpressed by your lacking understanding of your own trump card!"

  "Shut up, it's only my third time!" Mikayla focused, peering at her Gauntlet and poking her Sword Core. The Blessing of Teamwork was doing strange things to her Mana. It was like Mana Assistance, but smoother. Perfected. It was looping through all of her Cores and beyond, networking them together into something greater. So she focused on channeling extra Mana into the Sword Core, amplifying its role in the pattern.

  "It is working! Continue doing whatever you are doing!" Nya sounded relieved, and Mikayla looked up to see their spear weapon was regenerating its blade.

  There was a sudden crashing noise, and the Moonlight Knight stumbled, its muted pain receptors warning them of an impact between their legs. "What was that?!" Another strike landed, hitting their back.

  Mikayla refocused, seeing that the Leadbeater Possum had its claws raised, and metal pillars were erupting from the ground in waves around it, pumping up and down like pistons. "It is generating a hostile terrain effect," Nya contributed. "This one seems quite weak compared to some that I've read about. Finish repairing the weapon, I shall handle dodging!"

  "Can do," Mikayla looked back down at her Core Controller, focusing on smoothing out and strengthening the pattern, feeling more than seeing that the Sword was repairing itself. She felt the massive hardlight limbs attached to her body twist and flex, the Moonlight Knight bouncing around and contorting to avoid the field of pistons and close the distance with the Possum.

  "Why aren't you using the artillery?" Mikayla suddenly asked, not so blind to the world that she would miss the fact that Nya was ignoring her ranged options.

  "Yevgenia does not wield guns, it is outside of The Template. It would be blasphemy," was Nya's answer.

  "Oh, screw that noise," Mikayla couldn't help but roll her eyes a bit. Keeping one hand on her Core Controller, her left arm squeezed the joystick and aimed the Cannon at their enemy. "Brace, this thing's got recoil,"

  "What? Uh - ugh, fine!" Nya put the Moonlight Knight into a crouch, driving the butt of their mostly-repaired spear into the ground, and Mikayla opened fire, targeting centre mass. The cannonball flew from its barrel and crashed into the Possum's guts. It was knocked from its feet, crashing to the ground, its metal pillars parting around it and momentarily going still.

  "There! Sword's ready! Go! Heel Propulsion!" A chunk of their combined Mana bar vanished, and Nya let out a yelp as the Moonlight Knight was flung forward. Seemingly on instinct, wheels extended from their feet, bouncing as they hit the ground and skated forwards, closing the distance in seconds.

  "My turn," Nya hissed, and the chain extended once more, sending the sword blade flying into the air. It twisted and deformed, circling around Moonlight Knight. "Waxing Moon Style: Execution!"

  The chain retracted, the loops she'd spread it into causing the blade to whip around in circles as it was sucked back towards its handle. A streak of silver, like a crescent moon, trailed after the blade as it bit into the Possum's chest three times in. As many seconds, before snapping back into place just in time to bring the blade down on the beast's throat.

  Using the recoil from the strike, Nya flipped over and landed hard enough to form a crater beneath Moonlight Knight's feet, slamming the butt of their weapon into the ground and raising their other arm.

  ". . What are you doing?" Mikayla checked.

  "Striking a pose of victory," Nya immediately asserted.

  Now where had Mikayla heard that before? Oh yeah, from a certain old ghost of a battle maniac. "Was that in The Template?"

  "Indeed. Yevgenia would often strike poses like this as a ritual of celebration. Naturally, we preserved the tradition,"

  Mikayla just groaned, mumbling, "Don't care what you say, Nocty, that girl had it bad for you if she aped your stupid poses,"

  She paused. "Wait, why haven't we gotten a kill notification?" The brunette was already bringing Moonlight Rose around to make sure the Possum wasn't getting back up, readying their shield.

  "Just let it bleed out, surely not even a Tier 10 could survive -"

  Suddenly it was raining rods of metal.

  The projectiles bounced off the Moonlight Knight's helmet and shoulders, scattering across the ground around them. Mikayla covered their visor with her shield, and felt its Attractive property kick in, pulling the stream of attacks towards it. They could see that the Leadbeater Possum was ripping chunks of ore from the earth beneath, shaping them into crude spears, and throwing them in an endless stream.

  "We need to find cover!" Nya was already gesturing towards the massive tree they'd hidden atop earlier.

  Mikayla didn't disagree. "Heel Propulsion!" Another chunk of Mana vanished, and they vanished behind the massive tree. For a few seconds, the barrage continued, but the cacophony of thumps died down when the Possum realised its attacks weren't hitting. "What does it take to kill this thing? Even the damn Roc wasn't this tenacious!"

  "That was my best finisher at this level. I don't have the Stamina to use it again," Nya sighed.

  Mikayla checked their Stamina.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  [STAMINA:2483/5125]

  "Did you not look at our Stats? Our pools have merged. We absolutely have enough Stamina to do that again,"

  Nya's brow furrowed, and her eyes unfocused. Her partner couldn't help but relish the light that dawned in her eyes when she saw their Statistic scores. "We are Level 47?!"

  "I'm more surprised that you're a lower Level than me, to be honest,"

  "Skill is more important during the developmental phase than Levels for a Yevgenia," Nya responded on autopilot. "In that case, shall we try this again?"

  "Absolutely," Mikayla pressed down on her imaginary gas pedal, and the Moonlight Knight started to juke out into the open, only for Nya to arrest their momentum.

  "Wait!" she warned. "We're pinned down behind this tree. I have no doubt that the Possum is readying another assault for as soon as we show our faces. We cannot just walk out there,"

  "Right. We'll need a plan then," Mikayla frowned thoughtfully. She stared at the tree that was protecting them as though she could bore through it with her eyes and see what the Kaiju was doing.

  Wait. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea.

  <=====}—o

  There was a loud crash from behind the tree where the prey was hiding. The Possum didn't respond. It was too smart, too smart to fall for the tricks. Prey were not eaten by the Possum because they were weak, but because they were stupid. That was how it had grown fat and strong and solid.

  It hadn't seen the trick where two weak prey merged into one that wasn't as weak before. But it didn't matter. Prey was prey.

  Another loud crash. Was the prey trying to draw its attention?

  The shadows shifted. The branches up above rustled. What was going on? The Possum did not get distracted. It did not look up. It stayed focused on the spot where it knew its prey was.

  So it only noticed a bit too late that the tree was falling towards it.

  It scrambled, bouncing out of the way, but the tree came down on its tail before it could finish avoiding the felled log. It crashed into the ground, knowing it was trapped.

  Once again, it heard a shout. "Waxing Moon Style: Execution!"

  Lines of pain were etched into its being. It screamed in defiance, even as it felt its strength ebb. Slowly, painfully, everything went dark.

  <=====}—o

  [YOU HAVE EARNED XP FOR KILLING A LEADBEATER POSSUM!]

  [LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 25!]

  "Whew. I genuinely can't believe that worked," Mikayla stretched, groaning in relief. "Did you have to make the kill so brutal? I mean, I get that it's a Technique literally called 'execution', but, c'mon, we don't need to be sadistic about it,"

  "I just gained two Levels at once," Nya whispered breathlessly, barely paying attention to her.

  "You did? I only got the one," Mikayla grumbled. "Guess Asika patched the XP bug. Damn,"

  "I . . suppose . . how do we shut down this abomination?" Nya asked.

  "Oh, that's easy. Brace yourself," Mikayla focused and peeled apart the Blessing of Teamwork, and Moonlight Knight fell apart into its components. Weapon Cores collapsed into dust as Black Knight and Moonlight Rose fell apart

  "Well, that wasn't so bad, right?" She could feel her racing heart start to slow, the adrenaline fading from her system. She sat down with a thump, relishing the soft and dry moss that would serve as a momentary bed.

  Nya sat down nearby, eyes closed and rubbing the base of her horns. ". . You are a demigod,"

  "That's right,"

  "And that ability you have. You merged us together, you added our Levels and Statistics together. We were Level 47, on par with any full-fledged Guardsman. And you could do that with a Level 50? A Level 70? You could do that with Dean Wujing and reach the legendary heights of Level 120?!"

  "Huh? Well, yeah, I guess. Can't imagine what sort of circumstances would lead to that, though," Mikayla mused. "Feel like I'd need to get a whole lot stronger myself,"

  "Regardless! That is the most incredibly powerful ability I have ever heard of, even for a Demigod!"

  "Yeah, it's a pretty great trump card. But I can only use it so many times. I just used up one-sixteenth of my Faith Point stores to make it happen. Gonna take months to get those back," Mikayla sighed. "Even so. You get why I want to keep that little trick under wraps, yeah?"

  "Yes, of course. If someone killed you and processed your corpse to extract your Divinity, they could steal your credentials," Nya nodded to herself.

  "Asika warned me about that," Mikayla nodded. "So, promise you won't tell anyone about it?"

  Nya remained silent, her eyes closed.

  Not liking the silence, Mikayla sat up. "Nya?"

  "Do not be concerned. I know better than to alert less scrupulous individuals to this opportunity,"

  Mikayla quirked a suspicious eyebrow, fingers unconsciously tensing in preparation to call out her Sword. "I don't like the way you phrased that,"

  "Hm?" Nya was drawn out of her thoughts, dark green eyes meeting brown. "I won't deny that securing a route to apotheosis is a tempting prospect. But such matters are outside of The Template, so I must refrain. My eventual apotheosis is already secured so long as I live up to my potential as the Reborn Rose, the City of Roses will see to that. Hijacking your credentials would merely pollute my hallowed path,"

  Mikayla considered that, then relaxed. "I like your decision, but not your reasoning. There's more to life than just walking down the path that's been laid out for you,"

  "Are you suggesting that I should attempt to steal your demigod status?" Nya tilted her head skeptically.

  "Whoa, I'm just saying, there are options outside of 'stick to what you've been told' and 'murder your roommate for power'. I mean, don't do something as obviously terrible as that, but you need to branch out eventually. Otherwise, is it really your life at all?"

  "Such trite freedoms are beneath my hallowed station," Nya shook her head without even hesitating. "My destiny awaits me, and I must not fail to achieve it. Come. The day is yet young, and we must find another way back into the trees if we are to continue training,"

  Mikayla just sighed as Nya stood and made for the mouth of the valley. It had only been a couple of days. She had years to deprogram her roommate of the brainwashing. She had to be patient.