*This is Liutenant Rake of Silver Wolves! Rising Sun, do you copy? Rising Sun!*

  Svena glared at the lush foliage all around her, wiping the humidity off her faceplate.

  “Fucking hell, Bennett. Flying swarms of giant insects that would be a nightmare for anyone not wearing powered armor are bad enough! We also got giant spiders filling entire forest with sticky webbing that would have made for a Very Bad Day, were it not for our guns.” She glared at the thick foliage while giving a fond pat of her her T-III Hyperion Sniper Rifle, enhanced synaptic links allowing her to process and discard dozens of possible threat scenarios in just fractions of a second.

  Fortunately, the handful of mosquitoes, lesser spiders shooting sticky strands, and highly aggressive seven-foot-long wasps all popped rather satisfyingly with each squeeze of her finger against the trigger of her pristine and now magically bound weapon that was forever hers. The air erupted in shockingly violent streams of radiation that obliterated her targets without issue.

  Bennett flashed his lover a tolerant smile. “So what you’re saying is, that after the most glorious cakewalk of our lives we’ve enjoyed these past three days, strengthening our foundations in ways very few ever get the opportunity to, you’re now too proud to actually earn your keep today?”

  Elly chuckled throatily, brilliant emerald green eyes twinkling. “Captain’s got you there, beautiful. We’ve each raked in an incredible seventy-two points with the half-dozen delves we’ve been permitted to clear alongside our employees prodigy, blessed as we are with electromana gear that actually works in any delve. So what if we actually have to work for our pay for a day or two? If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be clearing another delve, and this one will net us a full fifteen attribute points or furhter condense our cores, depending on how we choose to evolve.”

  “Core all the way,” Naje said with a pleased smile before lighting up a giant rhino beetle with a deadly stream of plasma fire. “Your boyfriend gave us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, retroactively forging us all pristine foundations, and I’m going to do everything in my power to get my core as condensed as I possibly can.”

  Elly’s cheeks flushed prettily. “He’s not really my…” She sighed. “We had a wonderful night and he’s still lost in the dream of a Contender’s Forging. I know it’s nothing more than that, and we’re both adults and he gave me a beautiful gift. So I feel nothing but gratitude.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, but I’ve known you for decades, Lilly.” Svena said on a private chat. “If you want to talk, I’m here. I can tell how much you like that boy.”

  “It’s been three days. He could have left me a message,” the elf huffed under her breath before flushing at the looks this earned.

  Myl shrugged, eyes glaring at the thick canopy of ferns and white flower-studded vines growing overhead, all knotted together in countless strands of monstrous spider silk. “Don’t stress it, Elly. He’s a good kid. But if you’ve been paying attention to the politics in Freetown at all, you know that happened in the former Black Zone pissed off a certain powerful Silver that’s now gone missing… and has put our former employer in hot water with some very hard people who are clearly playing for an opposing team.”

  Captain Bennett’s eyes flashed. “Ware your words, Myl. Those people are never to be underestimated or taken lightly. Not under any circumstances.”

  Myl stiffened. “I… yes. You’re right, Captain.”

  Bennett nodded. “You all know our stance. Ernest was a former employer who treated us right as his employees, paid his tab in full, and we haven’t heard from him since the end of our contract. Now Naje, can you clarify that signal? Crimson Wolves is doing recon with us and they were supposed to get back to us a quarter glass ago.”

  Naje frowned but dipped his head, pulling out a sophisticated device radiating pulses and hums that made Elly and Svena both exchanging pained grimaces.

  “My poor freekin’ ears. I think I see why you want to retire, Elly,” Svena said with a chuckle.

  Elly winced. “It’s just… yeah.” She gave a rueful shake of her helmed head. “Ernest gave me the greatest gift I could ever ask for, and I’ll always be grateful from the bottom of my heart, but…”

  “I know. What used to provide relief now gives you pain.” Svena’s eyes filled with sympathy. “It actually hurts you to wear that armor now, doesn’t it?”

  Much to Svena’s surprise, Elly actually chuckled. “That’s the beauty of our transformed prizes, Svena. It now runs on pure magic, and doesn’t hurt at all to use! But were I not using both armor and blaster bound to me, magical artifacts that only resemble high-tech treasures, then yes. The pain would be unbearable.”

  “But you still can’t cast spells.”

  “Not while wearing this armor or wielding this weapon. Not while embracing this class,” Elly admitted with a sigh.

  Svena nodded. “And now that you’re healed… you’re thinking of a class change.”

  Her friend froze, Sylvan cheeks flushing prettily through her faceplate. “Is it that obvious?”

  “It is to someone who knows you like a sister, Elly.” She inhaled to say something more before Naje’s anxious voice snapped them all back into focus.

  “Captain! I got the Crimson Wolf signal, but its breaking up. I can barely even ping them!” His gaze filled with concern. “Something’s interfering with the signal. Hell, even the booster’s acting up. It’s almost like…”

  Elly froze, eyes widening. “Shit!” She traded glances with Svena. “You don’t think…”

  Svena glared. “No way in hell. The odds of us getting caught in this twice is… Elly! You know protocol!” She snapped.

  But Elly paid no mind, unlatching her face plate and breathing deep of the air. For a heartbeat, her graceful features eased into a serene, blissful smile. “It smells of spice and so much sweet power. Wild things. Growing things. Blooming things.” Then she froze, eyes snapping wide open. “Captain! This territory’s actually ascending! It’s about to go into Black!”

  Her words toward the end were drowned in by the staticky hiss of the popping booster that erupted with an awful screech and panicked words.

  “This is Liutenant Rake of Crimson Wolves! Rising Sun, do you copy? Rising Sun!”

  “Copy, Liutenant Rake! This is Captain Bennet of Rising Sun. Report your status!”

  “Oh, thank the gods! We’re in trouble, Captain. Our equipment is malfunctioning! Half our armor’s servos have stopped working and we’re detecting mantis swarms agitated by a sharp spike in Mana, and they’re closing in on us! Assuming your armor and weapons are fully functional, Captain Lee would be grateful for you immediate assistance. I’m sending you our coordinates now!”

  ***

  “Eric, I see it just ahead!” Bunbun’s words were instantly transmitted by their party link, Battletime in full effect as they blitzed through the air at Mach I.5, racing above the trees fast enough that even Eric was gasping as an oddly distorted scream tore through the hyper-pitched comms frequency, the actual sound of the scream a burst of sound they crashed into as he spotted his target.

  In chilling contrast to the monstrous arthropods they had battled up til now, this mantis radiated such pulses of shockingly dense Bronze-Tier potency was far smaller than its brethren and its shape was the last thing Eric would have expect.

  “Fuck! That thing looks almost… It’s a Trekkian human mantis hybird, and it just cleaved off that poor bastard’s head!”

  Eric’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the desperately backpedaling mercenary in a full suit of powered armor lurching back through the lush canopy as a sinuously moving humanoid shape covered in glossy armor with two scythe-like appendages for hands slowly stalked him. Moving with deadly coordinated grace, smelling the air with a shockingly human nose, its compound eyes were a twisted contrast to all too human cheekbones, pale skin, and rosebud lips.

  It even had hair. Long, glossy, flowing black hair and when it smiled… it did so with human teeth.

  Eric felt an odd sense of disorientation. Heart pounding, instincts screaming, realizing only with the weave and juke of all too familiar hips and body proportions what he was seeing when the mercenary gave a panicked scream and filled the growing twilight with the blazing flash of plasma, cutting down a dozens oak-sized ferns that crashed to the jungle floor.

  And completely missing his target, the chittin-covered being dodging the plasma fire with supernatural grace and shocking speed. If Eric weren’t using Battletime, he would have thought that the creature had disappeared when it cut through the air so fast that the mercenary was still obliviously firing into forest when his doom appeared behind him.

  “Look out!” Eric so desperately wanted to scream. But words served so poorly at those monstrous speeds when the scythes flashed, parting through exotic composite alloyed armor like it was rice paper as the Bronze-tier mercenary’s head was sent tumbling through the air. Cleaved free of a power-armored suit suddenly stiffened with a dozen blaring red lights and buzzing alarms ringing through the forest as it spurted blood like a geyser before slowly tumbling to the ground.

  And the head was still sending off desperate panicked hypersonic signals conveyed by a doomed brain sensing its own demise with the panicked desperation of a Bronze that had endured hardship for centuries… only to witness its own decapitation, it’s death as inevitable as the all-too-human smile curving across his opponent’s lips.

  Eric took a shuddering breath, tearing his mind free of insectoid comparisons that had flashed through his mind in the tiny fraction of a second the battle had taken only to realize that what he now faced was, in fact, a human. No matter how altered by arcana, accident, mad scientist, or other background tragedy. Whatever had formed her, the look of euphoric ecstasy on her features was that of a woman very much aware of what she was doing. A woman who might be covered in glossy black armor that looked eerily similar to the glossy, resilient chittin claimed by so many of this territory’s denizens, but the compound eyes… the glossy skullcap… both were just another layer of armor, and served as disorienting camouflage as well.

  And the way her head snapped up to meet Eric’s horrified gaze, lips stretching in a too-wide smile… his heart began to pound, filled with a sense of gut-twisting dismay… and exhilaration.

  Even as a part of his psyche screamed, he knew what was to come.

  His curved lips matched his would-be executioner’s as he allowed his momentum to send him crashing to the ground, knees effortlessly absorbing the impact. As if he had leaped or catapulted and not raced through the air at all.

  Keeping his cards close as he faced a shockingly deadly speedster gazing at him with serrated halfmoon blades that weren’t scythes at all… but swords wielded in expert grips, hands protected by reinforced gauntlets of glossy armor as thick and reinforced as any shield. So easy to mistake for scythe-like insectoid forelimbs as she held her deadly blades radiating exquisite sharpness in a mid-high guard.

  Only peripherally did Eric sense the surviving pair of power-armored mercenaries screaming hyper-sonic messages through their comms. Both were disarmed, literally, their limbs cleaved free. Both alive only thanks to Bronze-tier techniques and abilities Eric could only guess at. And both were fading fast, examples of a predator gleefully playing with its food or perhaps… eager to draw in new prey.

  Of Elly… he saw no sign.

  Then why had he heard her scream?

  The monster radiating such a heady killing aura smiled once more, revealing a perfect set of pearl-white teeth. “Such a rich spicy scent from a fellow Contender!” She tilted her head as Eric lowered his balance, shifted his feet, and allowed his right hand to gently caress the hilt of his mithril blade.

  The air rang with her odd tittering giggle. She bounced on her feet in seeming excitement as Eric focused with every last iota of his concentration onto the puzzle before him.

  A puzzle that his screaming Danger Sense made absolutely clear was more than capable of killing him, if he dared to play the cocky fool here and now.

  So he didn’t.

  No matter how his guts roiled with an unexpected and quite unwelcome sense of dread.

  “Have you come to play with me? Oh yes… of course you have. Of course you have! Why else would you have invaded Furiosa’s territory? Broken her sweet things? Disturbed her games?”

  Her smile grew, sensual lips such a sharp contrast to her blood-spattered chitin armor. “But that’s alright.” She gazed with cool disdain at the pair of dying mercenaries groaning as they writhed in muddy pools of soil, crushed ferns, and their own blood. “You would think these alien warriors covered in such deliciously exquisite looking armor would have proven worthy. But no such luck. They’re so slow. So pathetic!” Her eyes flashed with sudden heat. “So PREDICTABLE! And they would dare to call themselves Bronze? To think themselves worthy of ascension?”

  Her eyes flashed with barely controlled fury. “I know the bitter cost of ascension! The sacrifices that must be paid. The darkness that must be embraced if one is to achieve TRUE power! But these pathetic COWARDS embraced NO change at all! They merely covered themselves in pretty lights and brittle plastic and thought they were worthy of my time? My interest? My challenge? Ha!”

  Bunbun whistled. “Ooh… someone went the hardcore body-enhancement route with her Class evolutions, that’s for sure!”

  Misty’s beatific smile turned sharp and cold. “But you, boy. You taste of wild lands, sweetest peril, and death’s promise!” Her blades flashed as she wove deadly moulinets through the air. “You’re everything I hoped you would be!”

  Eric stiffened at those words. How the hell did she know he would be—

  His instincts screamed sudden warning, Eric realizing in that horrifying moment as his opponent’s winsome eyes lightened with unholy glee that he would never be getting the answer as to how she knew he would be there, who the hell she was, or any questions at all.

  Because this was no deluded amateur. He was facing a Bronze-Tier killer who had been eyeing him just as intently as he had been eyeing her. Needing only a moments distraction—a moment’s startlement—to go in for the kill.

  “Eric!”

  And of course that was the moment that Elly, along with the rest of the Rising Sun crew, burst out of the nearby foliage into the clearing of blood, slaughter, and dire peril. The woman now gazing at his desperately backpedaling form with stupidly beautiful eyes from a face plate that should have been fucking LOWERED! The winsome elf he had dared to claim in this post Silver Phoenix timeline, with eyes holding the wisdom of centuries and her heart a fragile thing that begged not to be broken. So much he had sensed in the fierce passionate impulse and desperate hunger and need that had rocked through them both on top of their ACV, Eric having so conveniently forgotten just how fiercely and quickly elves pair-bonded… and that he was half elf himself.

  And it didn’t even matter in that perilous moment as death closed with Quickness that was shockingly close to his own.

  How?!?

  The last question he might ever ask as he gazed into eyes wide and glittering with the promise of unspeakable death… and the mocking smile of Malificent Bane revealing a final bitter gift for his wayward son as the air itself seemed to scream and bleed from the pair of wickedly curved kukri infused with the essence of Sharpness itself.

  A weapon that could part through his soul-linked mithril armor like paper, as the air filled with laughter that was the gurgling wheeze of a twisted horror that refused to die alone.

  “Eric!”

  Bunbun’s desperate mental scream. Unable even to summon lightning. For there just was no time.

  No time for anything but to embrace an art he had striven to master, or at least train, from the very beginning. When his Quickness had been less than a hundredth of what it was now.

  Iado Skillcheck attempted at -10 Penalty!

  Yet his goal wasn’t even to cut down his shockingly fast opponent who had read him so well, in the handful of seconds she had had to measure him.

  It was merely to impose his blade between the pair of killing kukri that were moving far, far to fast for the Quickness he thought he had measured.

  Skill check: SUCCESS! You have managed to counter DEATH!

  Your sword has saved versus destruction!

  You have suffered one Serious wound!

  Blood Mastery skillecheck successfully keeps your blood and organs in place!

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Furiosa’s eyes lit up with unholy glee when the air flashed crimson from the spray of blood from a chest wound that had ripped open his left flank, Blood Mastery instinctively clenching tight to his blood and organs as Eric was forced to endure the agony of forcing his blade to weave and dance against his shockingly fast opponent who had come so close to slicing him open and ending this fight with a single deadly exchange.

  Insight check made! Your opponent’s enhanced understanding of the Essence of Sharpness allows her to cut through Space-Time itself! Which means she is JUST as fast as you!

  You have parried Death-Flurry!

  Your mithril blade has SAVED versus destruction as you deflect multiple blows!

  Time froze to a crawl as Eric’s entire world became the gaily laughing monster before him, shivering as she tasted the crimson splatter of Eric’s blood as he desperate fought to weave a barrier of mithril between them, deflecting a ruthless barrage of cleaving blows as his foe had utterly and completely seized the Vor, claimed the initiative, and she clearly had no intention of surrendering it.

  It wasn’t until that very moment, with his sword in jeopardy of shattering in his hands as he desperately angled his blade to deflect her impossibly sharp weapons without destroying his own, that he fully appreciated the awful weakness he had stupidly allowed to fester. A weakness that was absolutely unforgivable in any Contender daring to pit his life against any and all opposition eager to claim this world as their own.

  Because once you stripped away the pretty veneer of civility, decorum, economic prosperity, and the most subtle of transformations one wouldn’t even call conquest… that’s truly what it boiled down to. Fighting for the right to shape the fate of an entire world.

  He was daring to pit his life in the most perilous of games, and he had been so STUPID as to allow his enemies to set terms.

  Hindering him with fear of persecution so severe that he had dared to compromise on so many issues. And he had allowed far too many crucial abilities to stagnate.

  HE should have an army at his back the size of Napoleon’s forces! He should have blitzed through EVERY easy-to-clear Orange AND White and claimed all their juicy potential before hunting bigger game, and most of all, without question, he should have been seeking to master his Transcendent Higher Order attacks, the essence of a Phoenix’s ascension, his ascension, every damned day! Trained it, regardless of his enemies’ protestations and threats. Because they were his ENEMIES! Of course he would be in conflict with them! OF course they would seek to hinder, via lawfare and every other means at their disposal, every step forward that he dared to take! And of course they would eventually come for him in the end, every concession just making it easy for them to claim his head with their final stroke, which meant that he need TO BE READY!

  So ready that he could SUMMON FORTH his Ice Fire Phoenix Strike not in seconds, but in the blink of an eye!

  OR he’d end up facing opponents crafted off-world by psychotic Silver-Tier monstrosities who were permitted to break all the rules, it seemed, and were no doubt slamming down every last card of fate they had with their dying breath to SEE ERIC DEAD! Using tools of bitter fruit that, no matter how warped or twisted they might be, at least had the common sense to harness their deadliest attacks so that they could summon their own Essence of Sharpness in an INSTANT!

  “This is all you’re capable of? Ha! I was told you would be a worthy challenge. I took tinctures that set my own life-force ablaze, because I was told that this would be a fight to REMEMBER!” The girl trembled with eerie intensity. “This was fight that was supposed to MAKE ME FEEL ALIVE! FEEL REAL! More than worth all the years I’m surrendering. But all you are is a pathetic joke!”

  The air filled with the mocking laughter of his foe, tearing off her helmet as if desperate to savor his final moments with her very elven, very brilliant, jewel-green eyes.

  And Eric realized he was STILL playing the fool.

  This wasn’t some cute sanctioned battle he had agreed to any specific terms with, or sought to please his ultimate mistress with the perfect mastery of a given technique or form.

  Hell no.

  This was survival itself!

  And his foe had just revealed her nature, the only nature she could be, which meant… which meant that he already KNEW whose blood flowed through her veins.

  Fucking hell… he knew!

  And it made no difference as the air filled with this psychopathic bitch’s laughter.

  No difference at all as he finally slammed down all the cards in his own deck. Because no matter what happened here, he was determined to live to fight another day.

  No matter how much of a bitter screaming nightmare his dreams became.

  Furiosa’s glare turned strangely pitying. “You look so adorable with your red hair. I’m almost sorry that I have to kill you.”

  “You don’t actually have to—”

  Her blades flashed, now glooming with a darkness that made it damned clear that Rank 1 Sharpness hadn’t been the extent of her abilities. It had been a feint, a tease, a taunt.

  A test, to see if he was even worthy.

  And by the look in her eyes, and the nicks in his now battered mithril dachi that he had had to manipulate so damned fast to parry her blows that he had been able to channel absolutely nothing through it at all… he had failed to impress her utterly.

  Fatally.

  “Time to die, brother!”

  “FRAGOR!”

  It was a word that caused a terrified Elly to collapse with bulging eyes alongside her teammates, her heart seizing in her chest.

  It was a word that caused the monstrous Contender to freeze before him, her left eye exploding out of its socket.

  It was a word that caused his own ears to bleed with repeated use.

  Furiosa opened her mouth as if to speak, but Eric was already racing forward, a silent scream of hate and fury and bitter regret ringing through the ether as he lashed out with everything he had.

  The girl, even with a single eye and a dazed look, effortlessly crossed her essence-infused kukri, ready to hook and sweep aside his blade with the left and lunge forward to tear out his throat with the right blade, the very instant she halted the momentum of his strike.

  Eric, every bit the tactician she was, could sense that truth just as well as she could in that eyeblink of time it took for the air to erupt with a shockingly brilliant corona of blazing cold caressing Eric’s once more pristine mithril blade as it completed its arc, shattering the indestructible kukri before him like brittle glass before passing right through his opponent’s body as if his lost sister were no more real than a figment of dream.

  Her remaining eye widened in surprised disbelief the instant before her entire body froze solid, save for a single pristine transcendent line of impossible golden fire that had seared right through her… before the air rang with a supersonic shockwave of exploding shrapnel as the ice statue of the girl erupted like a bomb, absolutely obliterating the jungle Eric was now facing with the power of a hundred rounds of grapeshot.

  A strange halfmoon discharge that left the area before Eric free of any harm, for ice knew its master. Even if both of the dying mangled mangled mercenaries had paid the ultimate price, bodies perforated, frozen, and exsanguinated in the blink of an eye.

  PHOENIX STRIKE HAS CRITICALLY STRUCK YOUR OPPONENT!

  RANK 14 QUARTERNARY HARMONY BESTS RANK 4 ESSENCE OF SHARPNESS!

  ALL DEFENSES HAVE BEEN SHATTERED!

  YOUR OPPONENT HAS BEEN CLEAVED IN HALF!

  CONTENDER FIORA BANE HAS PERISHED.

  CONTENDER ERNEST ‘EDGELORD’ SLAUGHTER NOW RISES ASCENDANT!

  Bunbun eye’s widened. “You did it, Fearless Leader! We’re alive!” Her amber eyes then winced. “Ah shit, boss. Bad news. It no longer matters that we’re hiding in a spicy ascending territory. A couple of those lines were global broadcasts! The System’s basically bragging to the world about your kickass transcendent attacks! Administrators throughout the sector are now screaming for your head!”

  “Let them come. I’ll HAPPILY kill them all,” Eric snarled before focusing on the only thing that mattered right then.

  “Elly!”

  Eric had no time to morn the tragedy of a fight that had come so close to killing him, or what Furiosa’s final words had meant. Realizing that her removing her mask had been one more move to freeze him solid, facing a girl who had looked so much like his twin… that she could only have been exactly who and what she had claimed to be.

  He was desperate to make sure Elonia was alright, but wasn’t so stupid as to form any link between himself as Ernest and his twin… not with his enemies eager to instigate a Continent-wide manhunt for him.

  “Elly, I’m here, hold on!”

  Eric paid no mind to the rest of the Rising Sun crew, slumped over and dazed, but very much alive. In truth, Eric found their dazed state more than a bit surprising, since they were human, or… purple-eyed almost-humans. Certainly, they weren’t elves who were simultaneously so good at resisting the charms and hypnotic enticements of mental magics and illusions but so utterly vulnerable to Psionics, a force and field of reality clearly separate from the eighteen or so overlapping planes of magic that Eric was eager to explore at least the dozen he could access for himself in the very near future. But poor Elly was very much an elf, with all the beauty and wonder and vulnerability that such entailed.

  His heart welled up in his throat as he made full use of Quickness that was now truly beyond the pale to strip her of her armor before carefully, gently, placing her on the ground and massaging her heart with chest compressions, even as Blood Mastery sealed tight the catastrophic number of micro-tears he sensed in her cerebral vasculature.

  Normally, permission needed to be given for his exquisitely intimate invasion of her person, on a biological level at least. But it seemed that the mark of their bond was just as strong as it had been when last they had kissed so fiercely, so passionately, the girl now in his arms gasping to wakefulness before fluttering open eyes that were dazed, pupils uneven, but very much intact.

  “Ernest?”

  Eric forced a smile through his tears. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you! Now please, keep still, beautiful. Alright? I’m kind of busy with repairs.”

  Elly furrowed her pert brow. “Repairs? What are you talking about… you know there’s a giant mosquito above us and… ooh. Did your bunny just zap it down with sanguine lightning bolts? What an adorable little familiar you have.”

  Bunbun grinned. “Your girl has taste, Fearless Leader.”

  Elly blinked at that, before giving Eric an odd look. For some reason, he felt his cheeks flush.

  “If I were really his girl, you would think he would have at least messaged me.”

  “Um, sorry, sweety. Not when multiple assholes are trying to grief him,” Lilly quipped. “Maybe when things let up, Ernest can win your heart, because he certainly has the hots for you! But nowadays, discretion is most definitely the better part of valor.”

  Eric flashed a bleak smile. “Yeah, about that.” His smile turned cold. Cold enough that Elly actually flinched. “I think I might be making a drastic change of policy very soon.”

  Bunbun dropped an ear. “And that would be…”

  “Remember their own damned rules. Administrators are empowered to govern neutral or unclaimed territories. Once Earth has a clear winner, no need for unelected officials playing custodians just to line their own pockets and sell out our entire world to their fucking cronies. So the solution is fucking simple. I take over the entire world, and I cut down anyone and everyone who gets in my way.”

  “Ooh! The conquest route! How exciting!” Bunbun did a happy flip while Elly shivered, her intent gaze equal parts fear… and desire.

  “Are you serious, Ernest?”

  Ernest winked. “Right now, the only thing that matters is making sure that you and your friends are safe.” He looked around with a frown, before uttering words that caused Elly to pale, eyes widening with an odd mixture of dismay and acceptance.

  “Did you just do what I think you did, Ernest?”

  “If you think I just summoned seventy-five Lightning Mantises and a few score Terror Wasps to cut down the ferns, give us clear line of sight, and build a temporary shelter so that you and the rest of the Rising Sun gang can heal up in while I focus on my blinking interface messages and recoup some of my Mana and Qi Pools? Then yes. Yes I did.”

  Elly opened her mouth, looking at a loss for words. But when Eric gently pressed his lips against her own, she shivered with a sudden hungry growl, twisting him around and flipping him over with a Strength that made it clear that yes, she most definitely had a vital Bronze Core, no matter how much the winsome sensual elf she looked, and she was most definitely on the mend.

  “Why don’t you take that armor off, Ernest Slaughter?”

  Eric shuddered, all his soul-linked gear disappearing into his ES Space as Unified Restoration healed the last of the vicious cuts that Eric’s deadliest opponent (his sister! I killed my own sister!) finally healed.

  Thoughts whirled with desire, desperation, and bone-deep grief. When Elly gently stroked his cheek, he had to blink back crimson tears of sorrow and blood.

  “Ernest!”

  But Eric didn’t want to talk. More than anything else, he was desperate to escape, for a few precious moments at least, as a flood of dutiful revenants surrounded both Eric and Elly, and the rest of Rising Sun company separately.

  And perhaps Elly, veteran of countless battles herself, understood. For when he claimed her kiss, she wrapped her limbs around him, shifted her hips, and sheathed him in rapture as they embraced a union as old as time.

  Only then were long-delayed messages were given free reign to flash across his mind’s eye.

  Congratulations! You have successfully defeated Contender Fiora Bane in single combat!

  Eve approves of this righteous and most perilous battle!

  You are now a Level 53 Death’s Disciple / Four Seasons Cultivator!

  2nd Tier Core Saturation is now at 90.1 Percent!

  Crimson Contender in effect! You have torn free the sweet Crimson Bounty offered by your sacrifice! You have successfully claimed 7.5% of your opponent’s Primary Attributes!

  You have successfully claimed 22 points of Strength!

  You have successfully claimed 22 points of Vitality!

  You have successfully claimed 22 points of Finesse!

  You have successfully claimed 44 points of Quickness!

  You have successfully claimed 22 points of Perception!

  You have successfully claimed 8 points of Arcane Potential.

  You have successfully claimed 8 points of Spiritual Energy!

  You have successfully claimed 8 points of Soul Reserves.

  All boons have been FURTHER ENHANCED by your SIGNIFICANT Attribute Bonus Modifiers!

  You have supped upon the GLORIOUS BOUNTY before you, daring the forbidden fruit of devouring your OWN blood-kin!

  Note! You fought in self-defense. There was no way for you to survive without taking your sister’s life!

  Twisted-Fate Bane successfully AVOIDED!

  Path of Endless Bounty is now Rank 16!

  Swordsmanship is now Rank 36!

  Phoenix Strike is now Rank 13!

  Iado is now Rank 20! - Congratulations! You have successfully evolved your skill! You have multiple skill evolutions to choose—you have chosen to upgrade Doom Flurry to Doom Flurry II.

  Note! Terran Administrators have taken note of your UNORTHODOX alteration of sanctioned skill evolutions. Edicts have been passed that now FORBID you specifically from—YOU HAVE DECLARED WAR ON THE TERRAN COUNCIL!

  TERRAN STRICTURES NO LONGER APPLY!

  YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY FORCED Iado Skill evolution to incorporate Doom Flurry II!

  How do you wish to define this WARPING of reality?

  Doom Flurry II: ALL weapon feats, cultivation abilities, or System powers channeled through your Doom Flurries now cost HALF of what they otherwise would.

  NOTE! CONCEPTIO ACCEPTS YOUR WEAPON FEAT ALTERATION AND WILL NOW OFFER IT AS A STANDARD BOON TO THE VERY FEW WHO QUALIFY! (Further specialization will reduce costs to 1/3, ?, etc. Stepwise reduction.)

  GOLDEN PHOENIX ASCENDANCY DETECTED!

  YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DARED A SYSTEM-WIDE ALTERATION WITHOUT BEING OBLIVIATED!

  CONCEPTIO IS INTRIGUED BY YOUR CHOSEN PATH!

  2nd Tier Core saturation has been boosted to 95%!!!

  _______________________________________________________

  Eric Silver Level 49 GOLDEN PHOENIX (Adventurer)

  (2nd Tier Core Saturation at 95%!)

  Rank 53 DEATH’S DISCIPLE (Four Seasons Cultivator)

  Level 40 Master Necromancer

  Physical Characteristics

  Strength – 929 (You can easily shatter tanks with your fists!)

  Vitality – 946 (Your Vitality is beyond monstrous.)

  Finesse – 713 (You’re nearly as deadly as a Bronze-tier sniper. Even without all their perks!)

  Quickness – 1253 (You’re well over 60 times as fast as an Olympic Fencer. ABSURD!)

  Appearance – 36 (If this were pre-apocalypse, you would star in all your mother’s movies!)

  Mental Characteristics

  Scholarship – 35 (You’re still yourself, but your thoughts are clear and your memory is sharp!)

  Perception – 685 (A deadly marksman who always spots his prey.)

  Willpower – 126 (You were forged in fire, and it shows!)

  Charisma – 20 (No comment. This isn’t your path.)

  Potency Pools

  Arcane Potential – 586 (An Archmage would be proud to apprentice you.)

  (Mana Pool = 7036)

  Spiritual Energy – 485 (An elder sage would be pleased to have you as his disciple!)

  (Qi Pool = 5825)

  Psionic Potency – 165 (You’re almost worthy of a Psion Knight’s regard.)

  (Psion Pool = 1980)

  Soul Reserves – 516 (You could be a Master Necromancer... You ARE a Master Necromancer!)

  Stamina – 9463 Points

  Health – 11413 Points

  Resistances & Recovery

  Physical Resistance – 316 (Artillery Shells no longer hurt you! With Battletime? You’re ABSURD!)

  Physical Regeneration – 94.6 health per second (As if you even needed it!)

  Elemental Resistance – 134(201) (Hyperion Blazer = +50% Multiplier to Elemental Resistance as it applies to the electromana spectrum! (Heat, radiation, plasma, fire, cold, etc.)

  Qi Resistance – 152 (You’re unlikely to be harmed by cultivators below Bronze!)

  Mental Resistance – 142 (No faerie enchantments, persuasion, or illusions are effecting you!)

  Psionic Resistance – 114 (Dense Neurons mean squid-brains won’t find you easy prey at all!)

  Alex was willing to do whatever it took to beat the tumors overwhelming his body.

  Even if it meant being frozen alive.

  And if his cortex got uploaded into a digital universe filled with countless worlds to explore until a cure could be found for his cancer, all the better.

  The last thing he expected was to wake up naked and alone in the bowels of an ancient ship filled with raiders carrying enough poison to kill an entire city!

  The choices he makes from that moment on will have profound consequences not only for his own fate, but for an entire realm as he faces down bloodthirsty pirates, ruthless cultivators, and fearsome demigods while taking his first steps along a path of power that might one day forge him into a cultivator strong enough to challenge the very heavens themselves!

  Eager for a fast-paced Wuxia/LitRPG adventure filled with deadly adversaries, exotic adventures, and mighty cultivators fighting for the power to topple kingdoms?

  Book 1 is just 99c - The entire series is free to read on Kindle Unlimited! 2 Million+ Words!