I looked at Matt. “You look like an idiot.”

  He gave me a big grin. “And you look like your eyes are hurting. Dry, maybe? Worn out from the light?”

  To this, I lacked a retort. After all, I did turn away from the sea of flames Ann was bringing to bear. Somehow, she made it rain fire, and made the ground floor with fire, and made the air light on fire, too. The brightness was horrible, and it felt like the moisture was sucked right out of my eyes.

  Which didn’t make the dumb goggles Matt was wearing any less ridiculous. They had metal frames with a rubber seal that closed nicely around his face, kinda like swimming glasses. And then, they also had extremely dark lenses.

  The worst part was that, somehow, he still looked like he could be a model with them on! Like he was halfway through cosplaying some kinda steampunk cultivator! I snorted. “Brass Qi aspect looking fricker.”

  He laughed. “I brought a second pair.”

  “Give them to me.”

  I let him have his stupid grin as he handed over the goggles. They went over my eyes, and the world felt a little more bearable. Okay, fine, much more bearable. Maybe I should have told Matt to wipe the smirk off his face, but it was fine.

  This way, it was easier to look at Ann again. Her face was illuminated by the light, her shadow dancing as the flames shifted to her will. The world in front of her was lit on fire.

  Dozens of the dinosaurs had already died, some just from getting a little too close and breathing in. The superheated air scorched their insides, messing with their dragon breath, making them dissolve themselves.

  “Oh!” she called. “A treasure! Dragosuar Scale Shield.” With a smile, she tossed it to Emilia, who caught it deftly.

  “Ohhhh, that feels nice,” our warrior said. “I’ll definitely keep it, thank you.”

  And on the extermination went. Our human flamethrower covered the world in a sea of prismatic flames. When she was close to running out, she even asked me to manifest her full power for a few moments. And, of course, I obliged.

  It was enough to fill her core all the way up again, and she simply pressed on.

  Not that it was all that easy, of course. Eventually, there were more usurpers. Dinosaurs that had mutated, mammoths whose thick fur didn’t want to burn at all, and small, burrowing critters, who could shapeshift to expand and become gigantic.

  When they began to show up more frequently, we all moved to protect Ann, of course. Emilia collapsed little tunnels, crushing anything underground. Marie sniped dozens of creatures out of the air when giant birds started approaching.

  Matt Reya and Liam scouted for any ranged enemies, making sure we weren’t hit by any sort of projectile. Me and Matt remained close to Ann, keeping anything at bay that came charging through the fire.

  It was remarkable how long a mammoth would keep moving even when its fur burned. Some of it was an outer coat that kind of shielded them from the flames, apparently. Not that it stopped me from bringing them down with my spear.

  But it was noticeable that the gate was fourth category. More than once I needed to use my gateway and go full power to annihilate some of the creatures inside here. They were unbelievably tough, and could have probably shrugged off most modern weaponry without a hitch.

  Not that it mattered. My spears fell like ballistic missiles, the blades of Qi carving apart flesh and bone. One by one, bit by bit, we walked through the gate, diving deeper into the plains, until it happened.

  We all felt it, that faint shaking of the world. Liam first, of course. He was scouting ahead a little, and when the boss entered his Qi sense, the way the world warped was obvious. It had always been on the horizon, after all.

  At first, we’d assumed it was just a regular hill. A bit of the landscape. But when we approached, when the seven of us were close enough for it to notice us.

  The hill stood up.

  It was humongous. A tortoise the size of an island. “That’s big,” Matt said. “Always wanted to see about fighting a living mountain.”

  And he was right. Now that it stood, it was even larger. When it took a step towards us, we could feel the ground shake a few seconds later. Well, when we were standing on the ground, at any rate.

  “Can you analyze it from here, Ann?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I need to be a little closer.”

  “Well, hopefully not too close,” Marie said. “I wouldn’t wanna engage before knowing at least a little more.”

  Then, the boss suddenly shrunk. No, it didn’t shrink, it… sunk. It sunk into the ground.

  I held my breath, and a second passed, then another. Emilia moved before me - I was largely blind underground, after all, and she was far from it. I could see her eyes widen, and a second later a torrent of stone flowed around her, streaming up like a bizarre, spiralling vine.

  It budded like a flower, turning into a dome. Layers upon layers of dense stone.

  As she acted, I released the hold on the power. The gateway within me tore open, and our selves grew inexplicably synced with those on the other side. More power streamed forth, and the world turned to liquid.

  Rather than flowing, the stone flooded. Emilia was encased in the middle of it, drawing on manipulation more heavily than I had ever seen her do before. In a blink, the landscape had changed. Hills were reduced to holes, and the dome of earth grew denser.

  Seconds ticked by, and I saw the earth buckle, bend, shift. A war was waged, and I could barely even see it, but I sure felt it. Roaring torrents of Qi, clashing into one another. Sensory talents that told me of a war raging underneath the ground. A clash with the force to shatter mountains.

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  Then, all at once, it exploded.

  Stone cracked, then shattered, bursting upward. A mountain rose from the ground, a tortoise shell caked in minerals and rock. Emerging from the ground like a meteor in reverse.

  As the titanic shell hurtled towards me, I felt the monster for the first time. It was at the same realm as us, but it was enormous. Full of Echo, a strange, reverberating power. And then, another feeling trickled into me.

  My affinity, my Qi was glass and gold. Reality and metal. Well, this kinda stuff was a lot less absolute than one might think. Liam’s was shadow, but I was pretty sure he’d do just as well with darkness. Matt manifested his “sword” affinity as plum blossoms, but he could also use wind. So on and so forth.

  As for myself? I very much so accepted the dual nature of my wellspring, the way it seemed to sit at the edge of worlds, was flowing gold and shiny steel and glistening glass. Now, though, that metal aspect sang to me.

  The mountain, crashing towards me, was dense with it. The stone hardened by crystals formed from my preferred aspect, vibrating with Echo. In the split second when the world ended, I sent out a bit of Qi, wrestling for control, and feeling the Echo vibrate my teeth.

  When it reached that metal, it resonated and broke down at the same time. My Qi felt like it vibrated back and forth in time, making my control wobbly as it dissipated. It was a bizarre feeling and it took me a moment to shake off.

  When I stepped back, I triggered the Wanderer’s Key, my belt carrying me away from the rising meteor of flesh and stone. Then, I superimposed myself on the other reality, where I had stood far further back. In a blink, I found myself next to Ann, shards of stone bouncing against a magical barrier.

  There was no time to talk. My Qi flowed forth in a raging torrent, enveloping me. Instantly, I ran forward, creating footholds for myself mid-air. A buff flowed through me moments later, Divinity intertwining with my muscles, turning them stronger. Barriers appeared on my skin, made from Mana.

  Despite the horrible foe in front of me, I smiled. Matt was next to me, Emilia rose from the ground, and Liam from the shadows. A ballista bolt flew by my cheek, slamming into the living mountain, sinking into the rock with an explosive roar.

  The air shook, wind tearing at me. I grinned. Liquid gold spilled out of me in a torrent, strands of it weaving around Astraeus. The spirit in my spear resonated with my power, growing and shifting to accept every drop.

  My weapon glowed gold, soon growing so enormous I could not hold onto the spear anymore. That was fine, though. I did not need to hold him at all, after all. My mastery of the weapon was great enough to reach (Inevitability).

  Controlled by only my mind, Astraeus moved as if held by a giant, slashing forward at the same time as Matt swung his sword.

  A storm of pink enveloped the golden spear, and it descended in a violent, beautifully unstoppable arc.

  When my attack collided with the mountainous shell a moment later, the world itself rang as though struck with a gong. I’d known this from my gateway. Gates, like this one… their insides weren’t as “real” as Neamhan or Eden. They were temporary pockets, and could be destabilized.

  This one was category four, and an attack on the upper limit of what it could handle rained down on the tortoise.

  The living mountain roared. Stone spun upwards, interlaced with minerals to stop the blow. Titanic walls rose and shattered in the wake of Astraeus, the weapon’s intent for destruction severing any of the Echo in those defenses.

  Stone and metal broke, over and over, as my Qi and Matt’s carved through the shell. The keratin underneath broke, and within seconds, a gigantic gouge was carved into its side. Blood poured out like a waterfall, the creature so titanic it instantly painted large swaths of the ground red.

  It roared in indignation, the Echo lashing out, making my teeth vibrating, wearing away at the Qi I’d woven around Astraeus. But by then, I was no longer there. My other self stood beneath it, with Liam and Emilia.

  Our rogue was clad in darkness. Shadows had wrapped around him, manifested three dimensionally like a suit, turning him into a 16-foot tall murder monster, all claws and teeth. Already, he was wrapped in a stone suit, shining with tenebrous darkness.

  Adjusting to the sudden shift of perspective in moments, I poured out another torrent of Qi, reinforcing those claws. Another part of my mind wove invisible spears out of only my intent, hovering around him like a storm of blades.

  The rogue turned shadow-monster dashed forward so fast he almost disappeared. A streak of darkness and violence crashed into the monster, racing up its leg leaving countless blood gashes. My intent held steady, even as the Echo vibrated inside my head.

  Another roar came from the monster, and the ground around us became unstable. Dozens of needles suddenly rose, trying to pierce my skin, but the moment they poked out of the ground, they changed course, slamming into Emilia’s shield, where they flowed into the rocky coating, reinforcing it instead.

  The Echo in the air grew denser, making my bones rattle under my skin. It was a strange feeling, my Qi seeming to vibrate under the touch of the strange energy, but the tortoise clearly was not very skilled at using it. Being so large, it had an almost unending supply, but it could not bring it all to bear at once, especially against so many of us.

  Liam danced on its surface, my will and his grinding the monster’s defenses to bits. Matt’s petals found its wounds, ravaging swaths of flesh under its cracked shell. Marie sunk titanic arrows into the softer parts of its skin, and Ann brought down a raging inferno on its head.

  It was terrifying. Fighting something so many times taller than me, knowing that physically, it could, probably, break me. But at the same time… in a moment like this, I felt my talent resonate. [Precipitous Wings].

  Within my wellspring, my Qi surged. I thought of new ways to apply it, to bend reality, to forge it into what I desired.

  Emilia stepped forward, and didn’t even need to ask. She stepped on Astraeus, the tip of the spear placed on the ground, and we moved in sync.

  All at once, the earth shifted, pushing her violently into the sky, and I aided with every shred of muscle I had, adding more and more force. Emilia was wrapped up into the shell of a stone giant.

  She crashed into the underside of the tortoise like a meteor, cracking its shell with a horrible noise. Her weapon intent wasn’t sharp like that of Matt, Liam or me. It was blunt and vicious, and every strike of hers was infused with it, slamming into the monster, sounding more like thunderclaps.

  Wings fuelled my Qi. I vanished again, superimposed on a reality where I stood within the tortoise’s mouth.

  It was part dragon, too. I felt the building torrent within its mouth - something akin to a torrid, kinetic barrage. It would slam into the world and leave a crater. My eyes were closed, but my spear showed the way. The monster was struggling already, bleeding so much.

  Echo vibrated within it, disrupting my Qi, but it didn’t matter. Wings spread behind my back. Liquid gold forming jagged fragments. They were shaped like tiny spears, microscopic edges, but I recognized them for what they were.

  With a brutal rotation, they flicked forward. Each one was wrapped in my will, each on the core of an invisible spear many times larger. They stormed around me like a whirlwind, stabbing in each direction, turning the tortoise’s head into a pincushion from the inside.

  Its Echo raged against my Qi, trying to disrupt my hold. But my intent was different from its. This mountain had only ever experienced what it was like to be on top. At the top of the food chain, fed resources, groomed to be powerful.

  Nothing like what had tempered my will. It hadn’t crawled across a cave floor with broke legs for days. It hadn’t fought in a frozen monastery, having its guts spilled out. It had never faced two assassination attempts in as many days, never breathed with a hole through one lung, never gotten back up from a stopped heart. Never fought on when loved ones died.

  My will shattered its like a sledgehammer through a display window. Spears of liquid gold twisted, turned, and tore its flesh. A moment passed, and simmering heat brushed against my skin, against the barriers of Mana Ann had placed on top of it.

  The thing’s life winked out, my wings completing a circle around its neck, decapitating the thing. Matt’s blades drove into its heart, Marie’s arrows pierced its eyes, Liam and Emilia shattered its shell. I emerged from the dying inferno of rainbow fire with bladed wings behind me.

  [Weapon Unification has reached (High).]

  The living mountain died with a whimper, and the gate snapped shut.