The swift, deadly strength of the golem took the snakemen off guard. The snakeman on the right—a tall, reptilian-faced monstrosity with glowing eyes and a long muzzle full of sharp teeth—stabbed at the golem with its trident and tried to foul the golem’s feet with its net, but the stone armor repelled the blade, and the golem hit the snakeman on the side of the chest with a crushing blow from its stone club.

At the same time, Saul led the charge on the leftmost snakeman. This monster turned to face him, the weighted net hissing in the air as it swung round, ready to strike. Saul pushed forward, slashing the monster’s exposed wrist and severing the claw-like hand from the arm. The net dropped to the ground as green, acidic blood spurted out, splattering Saul’s face and neck before he could dodge out of the way.

He cried out in pain and anger as the caustic fluid stuck to his skin and burned him, but a moment later he felt a wash of pleasant warmth across his burned skin as Zorea’s Healing Flame spell flickered over him, neutralizing the poison. In the same moment, the snakeman thrust forward with his trident, and Saul’s instincts kicked in, bringing his Gladesword up, catching the edge of the weapon and defending against the blow.

As he had feared, the Air enchantment that was still applied to his Gladesword created a powerful effect when combined with the fire enchantment on the snakeman. The Air magic collided with the Fire enchantment on the trident, sending a huge flash of sparks and a whoosh of flame up from the clashing weapons.

Saul was blinded for a moment, but so was the snakeman.

In that instant, Brand ducked forward and barged into the snakeman Saul was fighting with one shoulder, throwing the enemy backward. As the snakeman toppled, Brand recovered his balance and thrust his sword through his falling enemy’s eye.

The flame enchantment on Brand’s sword and the fire enchantment on the snakeman combined, and fire swept up from the corpse of the monster. Beyond, the stone-armored mud golem was smashing his snakeman to a pulp with his club, and now there was one snakeman left.

The last monster glanced at Saul, and then at the mud golem and chose to try to tackle both. It flung its net at the mud golem’s back, and the net hissed through the air and descended on the golem, tangling the golem up in its meshes as flames rippled across the stone armor.

The snakeman grabbed his trident with both hands and lunged straight for Saul.

Zorea and Brand were both too far away to intervene, and Saul caught a glimpse of their startled expressions as he faced his enemy’s wild charge.

Step back, step left, step forward, he used the same sequence of footwork he’d demonstrated to Zorea that very morning. The snakeman’s own momentum carried him past Saul, and Saul brought the Gladesword up to meet his opponent’s neck.

Only, this time, he didn’t pull the stroke. He followed through, the razor edge of the summoned weapon shearing through bone, muscle, and flesh as easily as a knife through butter. Saul leaped away from the snakeman as the monster’s green blood fountained upward. Even though Zorea might be able to heal him, he had no desire to feel that poison on his skin again.

As the last snakeman toppled to the ground, Saul turned to face the ambassador of Keljek. He had one spell left to use, and he could Overcast it. He better make it count.

“We need to finish the ambassador quickly, while we have the chance,” Saul said. “I’m going to Overcast our Squad Specialism spell to double down on our fire abilities. Brand, you’re with me. Zorea, get ready to heal us, and, Brand, don’t be afraid to use healing potions.”

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The others both immediately nodded their agreement to him. They were ready for action. Brand fell in beside Saul and Zorea circled off to the right, her spells at the ready.

Saul played his card. He called up the options for the Squad.

Squad Active: Fire Squad

Squad Focus: School of Fire

Select: Specialize

As he selected the Specialize option, he pulled in the Overcast ability that he had used previously to super-charge his own spells. At the same time as that, he drew in the School of Stone combination and layered that onto the Specialize spell as well.

There was a moment where he felt something almost like doubt coming from the System, as if there was a question over whether the Overcast ability and the elemental combinations could be used in this way. After all, Overcast wasn’t a traditional combat spell.

But a moment later, the sense of hesitancy was replaced by a satisfying sensation like the pieces of a puzzle clicking together, and the spell thundered outward from Saul to encompass Brand and Zorea.

They had used the Squad Specialism only once before in combat, and it had been a heady sensation for all of them. This time, the power was almost intoxicating. Brand roared a wordless battle cry, and Zorea laughed wildly. Saul grinned, excitement surging in his chest as he charged forward.

With an uncertain step, the ambassador moved backward. He fiddled with the thing in his left hand, but nothing happened. As they approached, Saul saw that it was a device strapped to the wrist of the ambassador’s golden gauntlet—a small thing that looked like a disc of stone set on a strap of leather.

A light glowed from the surface of the disc, and Saul had no doubt that it was a Sigil implanted onto the stone, allowing the ambassador to do magic without a channeler.

The ambassador gave a cry half of anger and half of disgust at his device not working, then raised both hands toward Saul and Brand as they approached.

Saul and the Fire Squad advanced on the ambassador of Keljek. Saul’s sword blazed and crackled with the dangerous combination of Fire, Air, and Glade, and Brand blasted his Firebrand spell—a jet of blazing hot flames, three times as hot as normal—in the ambassador’s general direction but missed him by a good six feet.

“Whoa!” Brand shouted as his spell scored the ground in front of him. The force of it made it hard to control, and he staggered backward, the flames roaring up as suddenly as hot as oil on a bonfire.

Saul laughed. Brand still needed to work on his aim.

The ambassador retreated from the fire, but then he lunged forward, and blue lightning crackled from his hands!

A rolling boom like thunder shook the ground, and the lightning arched through the air toward Brand and Saul. Too quick for them to avoid it, the bolts caught them in their chests.

At the same instant, there was a blazing flash of blue flames, and Zorea’s Healing Flame shot from her hands. Previously, it had manifested as a fireball, but now it came out as two jets of blazing blue flame, one from each hand. She wrapped Saul in one jet of Healing Flame and Brand in the other.

Her face was set, and her hair was blown back as she advanced step by step, her features illuminated with weird shadows by the unearthly blue light of her spell.

Saul saw the ambassador check himself and retreat a few steps. The Sigil device on his left wrist flashed brightly, and the ambassador gave a cry of satisfaction. He stopped blasting lighting at Saul and raised the device.

Saul took his moment to strike. He dashed forward and, at the same time, Brand rushed toward the ambassador from the other side, his hands spewing fire, cutting off the ambassador’s retreat to the portal.

This time, Brand’s aim was better. Flames swept across the ambassador’s robes and the skeletal skull screamed in agony and fear as the golden armor suddenly melted into liquid on one side.

With a single two-handed slash, Saul hewed at the ambassador’s outstretched left arm. The Gladesword scored through the softened metal and cracked the bone beneath, and the ambassador stumbled away, flames consuming him and his handless stump waving in the air.

The stump was spouting red blood. That much of the ambassador was human, at least. Blood splattered the ground and the portal stones as the ambassador of Keljek, a screaming, blazing ball of blood and scorching flame and melting metal, dived headlong through the portal.

His scream was cut short as the red portal devoured him, then the portal closed with a loud bang, the red light dying and vanishing as it swallowed the ambassador.

He was gone.