As the infuriating man turned away, Sadie seethed. When she felt ethera start to swirl, she embraced Consecrated Shield. It was an upgrade of the basic Warrior ability, Bulwark, but it was far more powerful.

Consecrated Shield

Summon a shield of ethera to protect allies. When it breaks, it releases a wave of healing. In addition, that wave will damage unholy creatures.

When she’d upgraded it, she’d only had two options, and the other choice was a much sturdier shield that was nearly impossible to break – at least under normal circumstances. But Sadie had never lacked for defensive measures, so she’d chosen the option that would allow her to better protect her allies as well as combat the unliving monstrosities that had overrun Hong Kong.

Ever since leaving Hong Kong, though, she’d begun to rethink her decision. Against hordes of undead and demonic creatures, Consecrated Shield was a great boon – especially when she was fighting alongside less powerful allies. However, traveling alone in the wider world, it wasn’t all that more useful than its predecessor, Bulwark. Yet, she hoped it would be enough against whatever spell the Druid was casting.

The spell completed after a couple of seconds, and the results were shocking. He didn’t direct some deadly ability her way. Instead, he transformed, his body morphing into a winged, reptilian creature with bright, multi-colored scales. That monster launched itself into the air and flew away.

“Dragon,” she muttered.

“More of a wyvern, bro,” Dat said. She glanced over to see that her companion was staring at the sky – or rather, the rapidly disappearing shape of the winged monster. “Dragons have four legs. Wyverns are more like birds. Might be an amphiptere, though. Maybe a lindworm. But not a dragon.”

“What difference does it make?” Sadie asked, letting her own ability fall away. She hadn’t completed the cast, so it wouldn’t take much ethera or stamina. That was the problem with her Ardent Crusader class. It was a hybrid, and as such, many of her abilities used a combination of ethera and stamina, which meant that her attribute points were more spread out than typical melee combatants.

Even so, she wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Without those abilities – regardless of the cost – they would have already lost Hong Kong to the undead. For years, she’d been fighting tooth and nail against those disgusting creatures, and yet, they’d made no real progress. The best they could do was hold the line, and even that stretched her abilities. Without help, she knew that the creatures pouring out of the Primal Realm would overrun the strongholds Sadie and her family – her clan – had built.

“Well, dragons are kind of a big deal, bro,” answered Dat. “Elder race, just like the angels. I don’t think we want to start calling wyverns dragons. Seems like it might be offensive.”

Sadie’s face remained impassive, but her heart skipped a beat. She knew good and well just how powerful the elder races were. The angel Gabriel had revealed that much, as well as the reality that Earth was under the watchful eye of many powerful entities. Was it unrealistic to think that a true dragon was watching? That they might take offense to her mischaracterization of what she had just seen?

“You’re right.”

“I know, bro. What do you think of him?” Dat asked. “Never seen a shapeshifter before.”

“It might be an item,” Sadie suggested.

“Nah. That’s a spell. Called Shape of the Sky.”

Sadie shook her head. With a Ranger archetype, Dat was a capable fighter, but he truly excelled in information gathering. He’d saved thousands of lives – and on more than one occasion – by predicting their enemies’ movements. Without him, the defense of Hong Kong would have been doomed before it had even started.

“You used Eye of the Chosen?” she asked. That particular ability allowed Dat to identify a spell, so long as he saw it being cast. It gave him information on the spell’s strengths and weaknesses, but at the cost of a relatively long cooldown.

After nodding, he said, “Shape of the sky. Transforms the caster into an airborne hunter. Not great for combat, but good for travel.”

“Interesting,” Sadie said. She still didn’t like it. If he could transform into a non-combat form that looked like that, it was possible that he could become something much more terrifying.

“What do you want to do, bro?” Dat asked.

“We should head into town,” she answered, finally sheathing her sword. As she buckled the strap that held the scabbard on her back, she thought back to their first visit to Argos. It had only been a week before, but it stuck with her, largely because of how normal the city was. The people there were thriving, and as far as she could tell, they hadn’t had to resort to tyranny to do it. Based on her travels, that was something of a rarity. Most of the leaders she’d met weren’t overtly evil, but in such a dangerous world, personal freedoms were easily sacrificed in the name of security.

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Argos hadn’t gone down that road. And what’s more, the stain of sin didn’t pervade the town, much as it had nearly everywhere else.

Sense of Sin

A passive enhancement that allows the Crusader to sense misdeeds.

In many ways, the presence of that ability – which she couldn’t just turn off – was the source of her biggest regret. If she’d known that was what awaited her for choosing the Ardent Crusader class, she might have picked something else. It had caused so many problems, and it made being around groups of people especially difficult. After all, who was without sin? Who hadn’t committed some misdeed?

It was one thing to know that no person was without sin. Something else entirely to have it shoved in her face every time she met someone new. Normally, it only manifested as a slightly noxious odor, but in some cases, there was a visual component as well. With Elijah Hart, it looked like he was walking around cloaked in a cloud of smog.

The only reason she hadn’t immediately attacked him was because the enhancement – or curse, as she sometimes thought of it – wasn’t foolproof. Just because it said that Hart was guilty of murder, that didn’t mean he actually was. All it meant was that he was a killer. And it made no determination as to whether or not he was justified, which made it fundamentally useless, as far as she was concerned. The world wasn’t black and white. Rather, it was composed of shades of gray, whether the ability wanted to acknowledge it or not.

Still, Sadie couldn’t help but be influenced by it, and because of her disgust, she had very nearly ruined her chances of getting help from the only person who’d actually agreed to assist her people. Her lapse in self-control was as maddening as it was humiliating. Her parents would have been appalled.

“What do you think of him?” she asked.

“He seems cool,” Dat answered with a shrug. “Won’t know anything else ‘til we get to know him. But I have a good feeling.”

“You always have a good feeling,” Sadie said. And it was true. Dat rarely met anyone he didn’t immediately like, and when he did find someone who drew his ire, the reasons were obvious. “Do you think he will help us? Do you think he can?”

“That depends on you, bro,” Dat responded. “He’s stronger than either of us. I’ve never even met a Druid before, and I think his class is a rare variant. Plus, his cultivation is advanced.”

That raised an eyebrow. “More than mine?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in Dat’s answer, but that didn’t tell the whole story. Dat’s abilities gave him some insight into a person’s cultivation, but it wasn’t as if a person’s entire status was laid bare.

“How is that possible?” was her next question. She’d thought her cultivation was more advanced than anyone else’s. After all, she’d had the benefit of living most of the past four years in close proximity to a Primal Realm, where ethera density was incredibly thick. “Do you think he has access to another Primal Realm? Maybe natural treasures?”

“Druids don’t use natural treasures like that.”

“And you’re an expert?”

“I’ve done research,” he answered. “Druids are a weird archetype. They’re rare, for one. And they don’t consume natural treasures. They protect them. Sure, they’ll cultivate around one if they find it in the wild, but they wouldn’t destroy one.”

“But that would only be marginally better than not using one at all.”

“I know, bro. It’s crazy. Druids are crazy. At least that’s what everybody out there thinks,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the sky. Clearly, he meant it to mean the multi-verse.

“So, you think he could beat us?”

Dat shrugged. “Maybe. Better to just not pick a fight for no reason,” he said. “That way we don’t have to find out.”

She didn’t respond, but her mind whirled as she tried to get her feelings under control. She hadn’t liked Elijah Hart from the very first moment she had met him, but that was likely due to Sense of Sin, rather than any reasonable judgement. And that disapproval had forced a negative reaction, which had spiraled. Then, he’d threatened her, the implications of which had rankled her pride.

But had he truly done anything to warrant her hatred?

No.

So, she pushed that feeling aside and focused on what was at stake. She couldn’t let her own weakness take over. She needed to be strong, or her people would be consumed by the undead menace that plagued Hong Kong.

That meant putting aside her personal feelings and working with the man, even if his very existence made her want to retch.

With that in mind, she and Dat broke their camp, packing everything away before heading toward the nearby town. The walk through the wilderness was oddly pleasant, and no wild beasts attacked them. That had been the case since they’d first arrived, though on the second day, Sadie had caught sight of the largest domestic cat she’d ever encountered. When it watched her, she got the feeling that it was at least part of the reason she hadn’t seen any other animal life in the area.

In any case, she and Dat soon reached Argos, but when they arrived, she was surprised to see that the odd temple situated atop a hill on the other side of the town had been lit up with ethereal light.

“I thought that was just another Greek temple,” she said to herself. Once, she’d visited the Parthenon in Athens, so she thought the building up ahead was a recreation of a similar temple. A tourist attraction like the statue of Heracles she’d seen in Argos’ main square. But now, she wasn’t so sure. The statue at the top – which depicted a victorious female warrior – glowed like a beacon.

After seeing that, she led Dat through the city, but the streets were far less populated than they had been before. Or at least that was the case until they reached the square at the base of the temple’s hill. There, Sadie saw a crowd of hundreds of people gathered at the base of the stairs.

And atop those stairs was a familiar figure.

“What is he doing?” she asked, taking note of localized rainstorm that extended almost twenty steps from the top of the stairs. To her senses, it glistened with ethera.

“Healing, bro,” Dat said. “I told you – Druids are weird. But they’re usually good guys.”

“Usually isn’t always.”

“They can sometimes go full eco-terrorist,” said Dat. “I read about one that killed every sapient creature on her planet because they kept killing guardians and stripping the world of natural treasures. So…yeah, bro. Not always, I guess.”

“Every sapient creature? How?”

“Plants, bro. Plants. They’re everywhere.”

Sadie felt a shudder of fear flow up her spine. She didn’t think Hart was powerful enough to do that, but it did highlight that, despite not being a full-fledged combat class, Druids were capable of doing a lot of damage.

“But he’s healing people. He can’t be all bad, right? Reminds me of Niko.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. Her brother spent every waking hour healing the people of Hong Kong. Part of that was due to necessity, but Niko’s personality played a big part as well. He’d always been selfless, and that trait had only grown stronger after the world had changed.

Channeling a bit of Niko’s personality, she started up the steps. She had to shoulder her way through the crowd, but being as how she was obviously powerful and wearing full armor, the gathering parted before her.

“Where are you going?” asked Dat as he tried to keep up.

“Niko’s not the only one who can heal,” she answered.