The skinny fellow with loose clothing groaned, holding his sides where he'd been kicked. "Who the fuck woke me up?"

"These two." The Gladiator pointed to Meera and Dirik.

"W-What?" Dirik raised his hands. "No, we didn't."

"Did to. We all saw it."

"You're lying," Meera added. The other Wardens didn't back her up.

A rage set behind the Colossus' eyes as he stood. "Brison, give us a world."

"Sure." Brison moved to grab a book. "What would you like? Rocky, forest, urban, mountains—"

"City," Colossus replied through gritted teeth.

"Oh, he really wants to let loose now," the swordsman grinned. "This'll be fun to watch."

"Melas, try not to kill them, brother," the Guardian said, stepping close to him, but he stepped back once Colossus' eyes fell on him. "Sorry, do as you will. You always do."

Meera looked between the mustached giant that was the Guardian and the short and skinny Melas, and there were no similarities between them that would denote them as brothers. So, she figured it was just a manner of speaking.

"City, here you go," Brison said as he wrote with his finger in the book. Once again, no writing showed up, but once he finished writing, a door opened in the middle of the room. The Wardens hollered and jumped in without hesitation.

Only Melas stayed behind. "After the sheep."

Dirik looked to Meera. "No going back now." He walked in through the shimmering door.

Meera scanned Melas again, and like last time, it didn't show his level. He didn't carry any weapons or any that Meera could see, which could be a good thing, for there was nothing that her chakrams couldn't cut.

She walked into the door and found herself in practically the same room, except it was empty. Outside the window, the city looked much the same, but it lacked the characteristic blue and white of Neelees. In its place were wooden houses with slanted roofs; other than that, the two cities could have been made by the same architect.

"The rules are simple," Brison said. "The fight ends when you either make Melas yield or he kills you."

"How did you create such a replica of Nelees?" Meera asked.

"Hmm…" He surveyed the city. "What do you know? It is a replica of Nelees." He moved his finger on the page in his book and moved some buildings around.

Dirik stared wide-eyed. "How did you do that?"

"I can do just about everything in this world."

Melas stepped through the shimmering door, grunting. "You two have two minutes. Go hide and prepare to die."

Meera didn't waste any time and jumped out the window. Dirik was close behind. While they ran, Melas got all the information he needed from Brison. Since Brison had seen her fight with Garas, he knew most of her skills and tactics.

"This is not good," Meera said, more to herself.

"He's only level 276."

Meera's legs faltered, and she nearly tumbled down the street. "And he had the lowest level of them all?"

"Yes, the Stormweaver woman was almost at level 300."

Meera was stumped. These people were the strongest people she had ever seen. Then, a thought occurred to her. "I assume you've met Narikas. What was his level?"

"I don't know. Last I saw him, I couldn't see his level, but then my Identify wasn't as high as it is today."

"How did you get it up that high? Mine seems to struggle along at a snail's pace."

"Oh, it's simple. You just need to Identify every single person you come across. Walk around a city for a day or two, and you can easily get past level twenty. At our level, that's enough to see the levels of most people. Uh, what are we going to do about the angry Warden?"

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"Quick, let's get in this house." She led the way into this average-looking home with a flat roof. She closed the door behind her. She huffed as she put her back against the door. "What kind of skills do you have?"

"Mostly reconnaissance skills along with hiding in plain sight," Dirik said. "I have some shadow-manipulating skills and can also create weapons with shadows."

"That's it?" Meera frowned. "The way that giant was salivating at seeing you, I thought you were unstoppable."

He chuckled lightly. "We Shades are expert spies. There's no one better than us in this world, maybe in all the worlds. I can do a whole lot with darkness, but…"

"But unfortunately, it's day," Meera finished for him.

"Here I come, you sleep-disturbing bastards!" Meera heard Melas's roar, and by the way, Dirik flinched, he heard it too.

"Okay, the plan is simple," Meera said. "You provide cover with your shadows while I do most of the attacking."

Dirik nodded, eyes on the door, expecting it to blow up.

Meera listened for the Colossus' footsteps but didn't hear them. All she heard were explosions—loud, earth-shaking booms. Meera glanced at Dirik, who had nearly turned white as a bone.

Meera placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and nodded. "I'm going to quickly check and then be back soon. If I'm not back in two minutes, head deeper into the city."

Meera stepped out and closed the door lightly. She shouldn't have bothered because the Colossus Warden was making so much noise. In the distance, she saw rubble flying high into the sky. She activated Shroud of Shadows, and it hardly did anything. She was translucent at best. She wished she had a skill that made her completely invisible always.

She left the skill on anyway and moved from shadow to shadow by tossing her chakram and using Mirror Step. Melas was getting closer by destroying every building. It was like he just wanted to rage for someone disturbing his nap.

Meera finally found him, and it was not Melas. He looked like Melas, but if he had put on two hundred pounds. He had grown two feet taller and stood about eight feet tall. His clothes fitted him perfectly now, though the arms of his shirt looked like they would rip any second.

He was punching a house into rubble. He didn't even realize that Meera was standing off to the side in the shadows, where she was mostly invisible, but if he turned, he should've been able to see her.

She intended to get as much information about him as possible so she could feed it to Ambush Tactics and figure out a plan of attack. As of now, all she knew was that he could triple in size and pulverize buildings with his fists.

He stopped punching, and Meera stilled. She didn't move. He slowly turned his head to her and squinted.

"Found you."

He jumped for her and cleared fifty feet in one lunge. Meera threw a chakram to the side and Stepped to it. Then she ran.

He roared and jumped for her again. She teleported out of the way. She turned a corner, hoping that the turn would slow him down, but he came flying through the building, leaving behind a crumbling building.

It's like I'm running away from the Hulk. Is this what they felt like in the movies?

She ran and teleported through the cityscape, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. When it finally looked like he would catch up to her, she saw the shadow of a building transform into an arrow pointing to the right.

Meera took the next right without hesitation. Then, an arrow pointed to another right turn. She followed through barely. She erected several Mirror Shields, hoping to slow down the mindless beast. But she might as well have put up cardboard barriers to stop a train.

In the next street, the shadows told her to take a left. She did, and her eyes widened immediately.

"Get out of the way!" Dirik roared.

She launched her chakram sky high and Stepped to it, then teleported behind Dirik. They were in the shadow of this large building, which gave Dirik his ammunition, so to speak. He had formed a giant mallet out of shadows, which must've stood ten feet tall and about as wide. When Melas came barreling into the street, Dirik hammered him down into the ground with such force that it left a massive crater. The buildings on both sides tilted inwards. But Dirik was not done.

He smashed the hammer down two more times until the buildings smashed against each other overhead.

"Dirik, we've got to go."

But the lad was out for blood. He smashed his hammer down a fourth time, and the buildings' foundations gave way. Meera gripped him by the collar and did something that she had only theorized so far and didn't know if it would actually work.

She activated Mirror Wing on her armor. Technically, it was made of mirrors, so if she could make other mirrors fly, why not the armor as a whole? The mirrors on her armor shivered. Overhead, rubble from the buildings rained on them.

She tried again and the back half of her armor ripped off from the front and flew back. A cool breeze chilled her sweat-soaked body. She stopped it right away. Her armor snapped back in place. She drew a few deep breaths. I must think of the armor as one complete thing.

She tried again only to be dragged back a few feet. She ran back to Dirik as she knew she could not win this fight without him. Chunks of the building fell on all sides of them. Nothing that would crush them to death, but enough to damage them severely.

Please work. Please work. Please work.

She put all her concentration into it, forgetting about the building raining on their heads. Then it did. She took to the air, tightened her grip on Dirik's shirt, and flew back as fast as possible. The two buildings crashed on the Colossus Warden.

The world shook, and dust blew into the air; Meera dropped Dirik on the ground and set herself down, huffing.

"I can't believe that worked," Meera said in regard to using Mirror Wing to fly herself, but Dirik took it differently.

"Right! I think I did it."

"You almost got yourself killed." Meera lashed out at the lad.

"Yes, well, I did something other than just run away."

"I fight differently. I don't try to bury myself in the hope that I beat a much stronger opponent."

"I fight—"

His voice got droned out by an earth-shaking roar. Then the pile of rubble exploded outwards as Melas jumped out and landed before them. The only damage he sustained from all that was a nosebleed and a few scrapes and bruises.

"Now, you've made me really angry."