The noise was deafening.

Hundreds of metal creatures, all clanking together as they chased Elijah away from the facility, created a cacophony of sound that Sadie would never forget. It was overwhelming, especially when she knew what it represented. If he made one simple mistake, if he tripped or had overestimated his own speed, they would devour him.

Which was why she’d argued so vehemently against the plan. It was too dangerous. Too many things could go wrong. And yet, she’d lost the argument based on one, simple and inescapable fact – they had no other choice.

Certainly, they could retreat. They could spend the next month grinding away on wraiths or the local wildlife. But even if the each managed to gain five or ten levels – a near impossibility in such a short time frame, regardless of how many monsters they exterminated – they would’ve still found themselves at a distinct disadvantage against such a monumental force.

The volume of the pursuit continued to mount until, at last, it was time, as announced by Dat. “It’s clear,” he said. “We don’t have much of an opening.”

Even though Sadie harbored extreme reservations about the plan, she and the others were already committed. The moment Elijah had gotten the horde’s attention, the group’s path was set. Now, they were obligated to do their part, lest his efforts become wasted.

So, Sadie, Dat, Kurik, Benedict, and Ron set out from the shallow depression in which they’d been hiding and raced down the slope of the trash mountain. Without their inflated attributes, they would’ve been forced to take it slow. The terrain was too uneven, the incline too steep, and the footing too treacherous for even experienced climbers to quickly traverse. Yet, because of their physical abilities, they managed it at a sprint, reaching the mountain’s nadir after only a few seconds.

During that time, the cacophonous noise of the robots’ pursuit of Elijah had faded somewhat as the Druid led them away.

“He got them all, that crazy bastard,” Ron breathed as the facility came into full view. Indeed, the compound looked deserted. There were still a few scattered fireflies on the far side, but their point of ingress was entirely clear. Importantly, so were the skies, though Sadie could see the enormous wasps in the distance, firing one pillar of flame after another as they attempted to fry the Druid who’d gotten their attention. The fact that they didn’t stop was a good sign for his survival. If he’d made it so far, perhaps he really would make it the rest of the way.

But Sadie remembered how devastating those beams of fire were. They hadn’t just burned in a physical sense. No – they were mixed with ethera, and they had scorched her very soul. If it hadn’t been for the use of her Miracle, none of them would have survived. And even if they’d managed to endure the flames, it would have left them all crippled.

But now, even a week later, she wondered if she had made the right choice. Miracles were not like other abilities, with distinct parameters and effects. She had no idea when she’d be able to use it again, and it was only through experience that she knew what it did. Even as she dashed across the clearing and leaped over the fence, Sadie remembered its description:

Eruption of Faith

Call upon your angelic heritage and enact a Miracle. Cooldown based on accumulation of Faith.

Faith, she’d been told by Gabriel – the angel who’d granted her core – was a more ephemeral form of power than ethera, and it was entirely unquantifiable. It wouldn’t be found on any status readout, and there were no numbers associated with it. However, she could feel it at all times, and though she couldn’t tell how much of it she had accumulated, she knew when there was enough to fuel the miracle.

As far as she could tell, that accumulation was based on her deeds, though she’d been completely unable to work out which actions were the most beneficial. For instance, she’d gained more Faith from giving food to a starving child than she’d gotten for saving hundreds during battle.

For someone as analytically-minded as Sadie, it was frustratingly inexact, though the two times she had used Eruption of Faith, it had made the difference between life and death. Not just for her, but for her companions as well. So, she was grateful for it, even if she found the mechanics a little irritating.

But she didn’t have time to think about that, aside from acknowledging that she didn’t have a Miracle to save them if something went wrong. So, she focused on the task at hand, and as she sprinted across the courtyard, that attention was the only thing that saved her life.

She ducked, falling into a slide that allowed her to narrowly avoid a sweeping claw. As she skidded across the muddy ground, it felt like the world had slowed. She could see her attacker so clearly, could feel the subtle wind generated by the claw as it passed only inches from her face. Then, she sprang to her feet and swept the Sword of the Morning in a backhanded attack that found nothing but air.

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The bipedal beetle had already sprung away, flipping backwards to avoid the gleaming sword. It landed in a mud puddle, sending a splash of disgusting water to hit Sadie’s breastplate. She took a guard position and let out a wordless shout that carried with it the Call of the Crusader. The robotic monster didn’t hesitate before it initiated its second attack, falling upon Sadie with the skill of an expert martial artist, though one armed with supernatural strength, inhuman dexterity, and claws that could surely cut through good steel.

Sadie ducked, avoiding one attack, but she took a front kick to the stomach that sent her staggering backward. She recovered quickly enough to avoid the monster’s follow-up round kick, then thrust her sword forward. She hadn’t meant for it to connect. Instead, it was an exploratory attack to establish range and force the creature to react.

It didn’t work out like that, though.

Instead, the robotic monster took the attack on its black and corroded carapace, and as the blade skittered off, barely leaving a scratch, it dove forward and latched its claws around Sadie’s head.

Or that was what it tried to do. Instead, it only caught the ethereal shield of Bulwark of the Faithful, but to Sadie’s horror, the sturdy barrier popped only a second after the beetle flexed its claws. Fortunately, that came with an influx of power as her attributes shot up. Knowing it wouldn’t last, she used that surge of strength to shove the beetle away. Then, with an overhand slash that her jianshu tutors would have called a barbaric hack, she sheered through the monster’s left elbow joint. Before she could follow up on that, she felt something pierce through her armor and impale her through the stomach.

Looking down, Sadie saw a rusted and jagged blade extending from the beetle’s other arm and disappearing into her torso. It ripped it free, dragging a gaping gash in her stomach. She gasped, but she wouldn’t let the injury – which, in the back of her mind, she recognized as a mortal wound – keep her from doing her job. Even as she saw Kurik leaping through the air, his hatchets raised, she reached out and grabbed the beetle’s remaining arm.

That earned her another stab wound, but when the creature tried to respond to the arrival of the new threat, it was slowed by only an instant. That allowed Kurik to descend upon it with all the strength he could bring to the fight. His hatchets fell with inevitable weight, burying their blades in its shoulders and sending a wrenching sound of twisted metal to echo across the courtyard.

Then, Dat arrived, his new longsword glowing with red power as he slashed at its legs. The blade bit deep, severing what passed for connective tissue and fouling the joint. The beetle stumbled, but it managed to remain upright long enough to offer a reprisal. As it tossed Sadie aside and aimed a backhanded blow at the defenseless Dat, she used Consecrated Shield, enveloping him in a glowing white barrier of ethera.

The attack landed, and the shield shattered. However, when it did, a wave of destructive power swept over it, melting the bits of rubber and plastic – or whatever other magical material composed the more flexible parts on its body. In addition, that wave sent a jolt of vitality through her, which was likely the only reason she didn’t immediately bleed out.

Then, another wave of warmth washed over her as one of Ron’s heals landed. It wasn’t enough to mend the gaping wound in her stomach, but it did allow her to regain her feet just in time to see that the beetle had recovered from the shattering of Consecrated Shield.

She slapped a reaching claw aside, then dodged a leaping kick that would have sent her flying across the courtyard. Even one-legged and one-armed, the beetle was more agile than any foe she’d ever fought. It used that speed to launch a flurry of attacks that very nearly overwhelmed her. But Sadie was no novice to battle, and she’d fought powerful opponents before. So, she tapped into her experiences and stayed just ahead of the creature’s outburst of attacks. She wove in and out, and as she narrowly avoided most of the blows, another heal hit her, further mending her wounds.

She took the hits she couldn’t dodge, turning aside at the last moment so that her armor could do its job. It was clear that it wasn’t good enough to completely blunt the full weight of the monster’s power, so she focused less on blocking and more on parrying. And for a while, it worked.

A normal opponent would have found it frustrating, but the robotic creature seemed above that sort of emotion. So, even though Sadie struggled to stymie its efforts, it never forgot about Dat or Kurik, who’d retreated to pepper the thing with ranged attacks. Kurik’s were mostly useless, though he did manage to wedge a few of his arrows in the thing’s remaining joints. Dat’s efforts were more damaging to the monster, but even his powerful crossbow bolts usually just clanged off of its powerfully armored carapace.

Eventually, even Ron joined in, using his kinetic force spell to distract the monster. Benedict, mostly forgotten, swirled with ethera as he cast one spell after another, and though they were invisible, Sadie knew that those spells were likely responsible for weakening the monster enough that their attacks did anything at all.

Through it all, Sadie used Call of the Crusader as often as she could. If the monster was allowed to turn its full attention on the more vulnerable members of her party, they would be ripped to pieces. So, she focused most of her efforts on either keeping the beetle’s attention or planting herself between it and her group.

Gradually, they wore the thing down, one nick at a time, until at last, Sadie managed to hack through its remaining leg. It flopped to the ground, and for a second, she relaxed. That was when it used its lone arm to propel itself forward in an attack meant to take her head off. She dodged to the side, bringing the white blade of the Sword of Morning down on the thing’s back. It only scratched the bulging carapace, but the sheer weight of her attack buried it in the mud.

Sadie followed that up by attacking its remaining shoulder joint with a series of sledgehammer attacks that eventually dislodged its arm. But the thing still wasn’t dead.

In fact, it was still dangerous, as it proved when it nearly severed her foot by clamping down on her ankle with its oversized pincers. Thankfully, she narrowly managed to jerk her leg back before it could finish the last-ditch attack. Then, she and Dat took turns hacking at the monster’s neck until, at last, its head rolled free. Only then did Sadie feel a wave of experience announcing the creature’s death.

She looked down, her breath coming in ragged gasps as another heal settled onto her. Now that the battle was over, the influx of vitality could fully mend her wounds, though it would take some time before she was completely recovered. In any case, the fight – which hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes, despite how it had felt – had hammered home one, simple fact.

Even if they’d retreated to level a little before attacking the robots in the courtyard, there was absolutely no way they could have survived. One beetle had nearly killed them, so it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that the entire horde would have ripped them apart without issue.

“I hope they don’t catch him,” she said, gazing across the courtyard in the direction Elijah had led the rest of the robotic monsters. In the distance, she could see the flashing lights of descending pillars of fire, but the wasps themselves were hidden by one of the trash mountains.

“We can’t worry about that right now,” Ron said. “We have a job to do, right? Let’s do it.”

Sadie nodded, and then she led the group toward the door. Still, as it slid open, she fervently prayed for Elijah’s safety.