“Every enemy has a weakness, Kade. Even me,” Roger Gerald said to his son. They held training sabers, and the boy was on the ground in the backyard, next to the boarded-up pool. Again.
Kade glared up at him, and Roger had to resist rolling his eyes. The boy was letting his anger get the better of him; tears of rage flooded down his face. “You don’t. You’re too fast. Too strong. I can’t beat you.”
“Not with your sword, you can’t. Think about other weaknesses. Not every fight is a battle of muscle and steel. Now, let’s try again.” He reached out and offered a hand. Kade took it, then pulled, and Roger found himself on the ground, with a training saber slicing down at his head.
He blocked it with his arm, laughing as the dull steel bounced off his wrist bone. “Well done, Kade. You’ve found my weakness!”
Last Week
Kade shrugged as he made a beeline for the food stands. He’d just gotten lucky, and Ellen knew it. Rob should have won that fight. She reached out and grabbed his hand, but he didn’t stop walking or talking. “I mean, this was the plan. Improvise, find windows, exploit them. I figured out one of Rob’s possible weaknesses and exploited it.”
“And which one was that?” Ellen asked. She let herself get pulled along.
“His build doesn’t have enough Mana regeneration.”
?▼?
Mana: 264/590
When it happened, it happened fast.
We’d done a great job of trashing the sparring room—burn marks from my strongest blows covered both Deborah’s armor and the garden’s charred plants, and the stone below the moss had cracked in dozens of places from her missed attacks. Blows rained down as we parried and blocked and danced around each other. Deborah was tougher than me, and I was…slightly faster than she was, if I used my Forms’ skills. It was close, though. With both of us at A-Rank, there was no real balancing going on. The portal felt like it was letting us both go all-out.
When Deborah paused, my first instinct was to Mistform instantly. I almost did, but something felt wrong. Different.
Instead, I used Storm Dance, consuming a precious Lightning Charge and disappearing in a barrage of lightning. I reappeared on the far side of the room, behind Deborah. She closed the gap. For a moment, I thought she’d say something. But no. Nothing. Instead, she paused again.
I didn’t move.
Her plan was pretty transparent. She was trying to bait the Mistform, just like I’d thought. I’d managed to avoid two of her instant-kill attacks so far, and the longer the fight went, the more comfortable I was getting with them. Deborah wasn’t stupid. She’d know that—and she’d adjust and try something new.
I was a step ahead of her, though.
Half of my mind focused on her body, trying to sense the exact moment she used her instant-kill for real. The other half was busy trying to parry her attacks and keep my footing on the slippery moss as she shoved me around the room. My feet moved in familiar patterns. I’d done this dance before, against Dad. But in every fight against him, I’d been secure in knowing he’d pull his blows.
Deborah wouldn’t. If she could kill me, she would. I knew it. I’d known it for a long time.
Mana: 299/590
In a few seconds, it wouldn’t matter. I’d be at 305 Mana, and the balance of the fight would shift again.
Deborah’s shield rocketed toward my face. I brought up Nimbus Edge to block. The wall of steel froze in front of me, and this time, I used Mistform.
If she was baiting me, that was fine. I only needed to last a couple of seconds for the rest of my Mana. 300. 301.
Deborah’s sword flashed through my neck. She had been baiting—but her timing had been off. A cut squirted blood down my back, but it wasn’t lethal, wasn’t even close. I whirled. Nimbus Edge caught her follow-up inches from my stomach.
“Game over, Deborah,” I said.
Stance shift. Cyclone Forms. Polarity Shift. Rolling Thunder. Avatar of Lightning. Rolling Thunder again. Darkness on me. Brendan’s Stormfire Lance.
A lot happened as my Mana bottomed out.
A storm clone—a sparking, crackling avatar my size but built like Tallas or the God of Thunder’s knight form—appeared behind Deborah. Polarity Shift poured its stacked, repeated power into it, and clouds formed around it. I vanished in a cloud of Darkness. A second storm clone arrived, and another Polarity Shift surged into that one. Then a spear of lightning—ten feet long and filled with enough power to make Zeus jealous—formed in my off-hand, and a third storm clone shimmered into existence on Deborah’s left side, hemming her in.
Then—and only then—did Deborah speak.
“No, Kade Noelstra. The game is just beginning.”
?▼?
Deborah Callahan had been treading water for years.
She wasn’t just the second in command for the Roadrunners. Before she’d hit A-Rank, Deborah had been one of the fastest-growing delvers in Phoenix’s history. She’d been…maybe not a prodigy, but a hard-working talent. Countless hours in the sparring rooms, first against human opponents, then against training dummies when she started hurting people too frequently. Every time she ranked up, a new batch of human opponents would line up against her, but within a few weeks, they’d change their tunes, and it’d be back to the robots.
Then A-Rank had happened, and she’d found her forward progress almost halted.
It was Angelo Lawrence’s fault—Angelo Lawrence, the Governing Council, and the system itself. It all conspired against her, and she found herself stuck. Whether it was Angelo’s idiotic fucking trials, the Governing Council’s lack of interest in fighting anything outside of its territory, or the system’s inability to show her the path forward, Deborah had treaded water for a long time.
The Placid King had shown her the path to power—a way to S-Rank, and to the respect and strength she deserved. It wouldn’t be easy. But it was a clear way forward.
And, more than that, he’d given her hope.
Hope that she could make it.
She’d thrown herself into his teachings. Changed her build around and merged skills that shouldn’t have been mergeable to make room for new ones. Spent her every waking hour either fighting on the Wall, bodyguarding Angelo, or training with the Placid King. She was tired. So tired. Every night, she went to sleep drenched in her own cool sweat. Every morning, she woke up drowning. Words were too much effort when every point of Stamina and Mana, every ounce of energy, had to go into improving herself in the Placid King’s image.
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But it had been worth it. She had a new trick up her sleeve.
Kade Noelstra wasn’t the only one who’d broken through and gotten stronger.
?▼?
Sarah Cullman recognized it immediately.
“Match!” she yelled, knowing it wouldn’t matter.
The rules for the Fallen Delvers Tournament were clear. All delvers between C-Rank and A-Rank could take part. There were three reasons to keep the S-Rankers out of it—and they were all important.
First, and most obviously, the Wall needed its strongest defenders.
Second, Sarah was confident she could handle any A-Ranker in the tournament, and she wasn’t alone. There were three other GC delvers in the portal, acting as security against the variable monsters within, and they’d arrive in seconds to help if she called them.
But she wouldn’t need to. The Fallen Delvers portal had another unique property.
The first was that it reduced all delvers’ power to E-Rank—but only for E to A-Rankers. S-Rankers were immune. That gave her a massive power advantage she could leverage against Deborah Callahan under any normal circumstance.
The second was something only the Inner Council of the GC knew.
If there were too many S-Rankers in the portal, that first property stopped working altogether, and everyone’s power reset to normal. The portal’s inner depths also vanished completely—but no one had bothered checking that. Deborah Callahan was A-Rank. She was the strongest delver in the tournament. And Sarah was the only S-Ranker in the portal.
But if she wasn’t…
A wall of boiling water erupted around Kade and Deborah, trapping them both in a dome thirty feet wide and half as tall. Steam poured off of it, and Sarah skidded to a halt at its edge. Her jaw dropped as she stared at Deborah’s wavering shape inside.
“What did you do?”
?▼?
Deborah moved, and I barely got Nimbus Edge in time. My storm clones summoned Stormfire Lances, their swords vanishing as they rushed into battle around the Roadrunner’s tank. Sword and shield blocked, and lances thrust. The clones shifted around her, leaving afterimages and ozone so thick I could see it.
It took a moment to re-evaluate.
Something had shifted. It took me a moment to figure out what, though.
The answer was simple. Zeke had done it. So had Angelo Lawrence—and Ellen, too. They’d moderated their power down to a lower rank. Zeke was better at it than the others, while Angelo didn’t think of it as ranks but as percentages of power.
Deborah had been doing it, too. She was S-Rank. She had been for a while, now.
And I was screwed.
Flashes of bright blue light flashed across the watery ceiling overhead. The storm clones were fighting—and they were dying. This was supposed to have been my moment of triumph. I’d done the setup to lock down Deborah’s Mana completely. The storm clones, working together, could have reduced her pool to nothing and kept it that way while we whittled her down until she gave up or the fight got called.
But the fight had just been called, and Deborah wasn’t listening. A second clone died in front of me, and the third landed a blow that—hopefully—would bottom Deborah’s Mana out. I threw my own lance. It exploded across her, and I added Windfall. I had to slow her down.
My heart pounded in my chest. Adrenaline poured through my body. Deborah stabbed the last clone, and it vanished.
“Not talking, Kade?” Deborah asked. She sounded exhausted, triumphant—and full of hate. “You were running your mouth earlier. Speak up!”
I cast Darkness. The moment I did, I knew it was a mistake. My best play was to make it back around and try a chopped-down version of the combo I’d just used. If I could keep her Mana low, maybe I could eke out a win here. No. Winning wasn’t the goal anymore. I needed to survive.
Stamina: 198/460, Mana: 12/590
The Darkness bought me a second to breathe, though—to breathe the steamy, sticky air and try to recenter. I’d been here before. Yalerox. The trap portal. Tallas. Tanthrix. And the centipede monsters I’d used Stormbreak on to save Jessie after Dad died. I’d won all of those fights, except the sparring ones with Dad, and they’d set me up for victory in the ones that truly mattered. Some of them had all but killed me. And they’d been just as bad odds as this.
Deborah couldn’t have been S-Rank for much longer than I’d been A-Rank. And she was just as out of Mana as I was. I’d been attacking her biggest weakness this entire time. But attacking her weakness wasn’t how I’d win this fight.
I stepped out of the Darkness, Nimbus Edge in a one-handed Thunderbolt grip. There wasn’t anything to say—and even if there had been, I couldn’t have said it. The battle trance fell over me until there was only a sword, a shield, my body, and Deborah’s eyes. Nothing else mattered—not even the helmet that covered them.
That’d have to go first.
Lunge. Rain-Slicked Blade. Glazing blow to the side of her head. She jerked to the side. Blood spurted from the wound and turned to steam mid-air. Incoming shield. Duck. Stance-shift. Mistwalk Forms. Build Charges. Stay alive. Deborah’s sword thrust for my spine. Spin the body. It punched into my stomach above my kidney. Pain. Pour Stamina into the wound.
Windwalk. Nowhere to get airborne. The boiling water was too close. I moved across the ground. The moss shriveled below my feet, crackling as its dry body was crushed. Parry. Block. Dodge. Three Charges. Mistform. Stance shift. Thunderbolt again. Another Rain-Slicked Blade, then Thunderblade. Faster. Faster!
A massive shield erupted around Deborah. She still had tank skills, and I’d seen this one; she’d used it to protect the strike team from Angelo Lawrence’s all-out assault outside of Carlsbad. I couldn’t break through, and it filled half of the bubble. She moved with it just like Ophelia had.
I couldn’t break through. But I didn’t need to. Storm Dance. I landed inside the shield, Nimbus Edge already out in a lunge. Deborah’s portal metal armor took the hit. Didn’t matter. I was inside the shield. She’d have to drop it.
No.
She kept it going even as we traded blows. I grinned savagely, anger and rage building up inside of me.
Stamina: 105/460, Mana: 74/590
If she wanted to fight me, pinning me in like this was to her advantage. But I could work with this.
Lightning Chain. Pull. Lead with my feet. Impact—the collision drove us both backward. Nimbus Edge flashed across Deborah’s face. Thunderblade was still running; I followed up with three more. One of them hit something important. The helmet spun, and Deborah’s boot slammed into my chest.
Bone cracked. I coughed pink. But Deborah didn’t follow up. She ripped the helmet off her head; blood poured from her severed ear, and the great helm’s straps were tattered.
A weakness.
“Alright, Kade. Enough is fucking enough. Time to fuck off and die, like you should have at E-Rank.” Deborah spat. The saliva hissed on the blazing-hot stone under her; the moss was nothing but shriveled gunk now.
She threw her kite shield aside, and I dropped into Mistwalk stance. I had options now. I could Stormbreak and try resetting Deborah’s Mana again. It’d reset mine, too, though, and that’d just prolong the fight. Without her helmet, Deborah had a vulnerability. I could focus on it. But she’d ditched her shield. She wasn’t worried about it.
I needed to see what she was doing first.
The S-Ranker paused.
I used Mistform to dodge the blow.
The follow-up caught me in the chest.
Deborah had won.
Kade had taken the hit. It was the same hit that had carved through his bitch of a girlfriend’s neck—the same one that’d ended Harold the Herald’s tournament. That he’d gotten a single cast off as she’d cut into his chest didn’t matter.
He was finally dead. Or if not, he would be soon. Once the Darkness faded from the entire bubble, she’d kill him. Then she’d claim her prize—and no one would be able to stop her. Sarah would go along with her, because she wouldn’t have a choice. Phoenix needed stability. They needed a winner. The Spark of Life knew it, and so did the GC.
It had taken Deborah too long to make it happen. All the attempts to kill him in low-ranking portals with Carter’s teams. The convoy, and her deployments that put him and his team in the most possible danger. Then the moment she thought she’d won, when his core had shattered.
But after all of that, she had her revenge. No one told Deborah Callahan ‘no.’ No one. And now that she was S-Rank, that ‘no one’ included Angelo Lawrence. He’d be next.
“Hurry up and die, Kade,” she called into the darkness. “Let it take you.”
Nothing. No response. Deborah smiled, blood between her teeth. She wasn’t unhurt. He’d fought well—she could give him that much. But he’d never had a chance. Her sword stabbed down into the stony ground, searching for the fucking idiot. She’d get a hold of him, stab him once, and call the fight good. Easy.
The Darkness vanished.
Lightning surged in front of Deborah. Wind howled, and rain filled the air as a massive storm cloud rippled outward, filling the bubble of water and pushing against it, forcing it outward.
And, from the center of the storm, Kade’s voice echoed out, surprisingly strong. “I don’t think so. I’ve still got more to give.”
The storm parted, and Deborah stared at Kade—and at the rippling lightning body that surrounded him. For a moment, all she could do was breathe. Her chest burned from a stab wound through her lung, and from trying to catch up on air despite it. Half her ear was gone, and her stomach screamed with every move, no matter how much Stamina she pumped into the agonizing stab wound there. How was he unhurt? How hadn’t she killed him?
Then she scooped up her shield and raised her sword. It didn’t matter. She was S-Rank, and he was only A. She’d finish this now.
Kade laughed.
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