Colt rammed his sword through the dark elf’s chest until it burst from his back in a shower of blood. In the flickering light of the camp’s fire, the viscera was dark – almost black – as it sprayed against the side of the cavern. He yanked his blade free and spun into a backhanded attack that sliced right through the figure’s slim neck. His head tumbled free, and Colt ducked just in time to avoid getting a spear through the back of his neck.

Without hesitation, he turned that duck into a roll that took him out of the path of a descending blade which struck the ground with enough force to cleave the rock. If he’d been standing, the resulting shockwave would have caused a stumble. His roll terminated with a spring to his feet, and with Blade Sense, he could feel the impending arrival of yet another attack. He couldn’t avoid it, so he raised his prosthetic – it was made of high-grade metal and actually counted as a piece of equipment – to block. The oncoming sword, powered by a slightly stockier dark elf, clanged against the fake hand, but Colt didn’t feel its momentum. He still remembered the hand’s description:

Hand of Might

Overall Grade: Complex (Mid)

Enchantment Grade: Complex (Low)

Attribute Bonus: 5 Strength, 5 Dexterity

Trait: Immovable

The attribute bonuses were incredible, but the real value was in its durability and the Immovable Trait:

Immovable

When used to block incoming attacks, absorbs momentum.

Colt had tested it extensively, but he’d yet to find any limits. Regardless of how much force was used, if an attack hit the Hand of Might, it stopped, and Colt wouldn’t feel the repercussions. He expected that the only thing that could overcome that Trait was if the attack was strong enough to destroy the prosthetic altogether.

The dark elves were a long way from managing that.

As the sound of the blade meeting the Hand of Might echoed across the cavern, Colt responded with a vicious thrust that took the surprised elf in the gut. The blade wasn’t really meant for thrusting, but with how much force Colt could bring to bear, it was good enough. And when he ripped the weapon free, dragging it to the side just a little, the single edge sliced a gaping wound in the elf’s stomach. A second later, he was disemboweled.

In Colt’s experience, when it came to being gutted, it didn’t matter whether the enemy was an experienced combatant. Once their intestines started hitting the ground, they panicked. Such was the case with this particular enemy, and as the elf tried to gather the slimy bits, Colt decapitated him.

That gave him just a second to look around, and he was happy to find that Gwenivere, with her axe, had already taken one of the elves out and was well on her way to dispatching another. That left two more, both of which were racing toward Colt. Just as one reached him, he used Perfect Parry to deal with her attack. With that ability powering his own blade, he had no issue slapping the elf’s blade strike away, and he countered with Light of the Crescent Moon. An ethereal white blade extended from his sweeping strike, bisecting the elf at the waist.

Then, Colt used Wind of the Winged Serpent, hastening his steps so he could avoid the final elf’s attack. It brushed past him, missing only by inches before Colt used Storm of the Sword Saint. A thousand attacks hit the elf, all at once. To his credit, he blocked a couple of them, but he could do nothing but try to endure the rest.

His Constitution was not up to the task.

He was shredded, and when he fell, he did so in meaty and unrecognizable chunks. That was the power of the evolved version of Blade Storm. The path he’d chosen sacrificed breadth for concentration. Before he’d evolved the ability, he could have filled the tunnel with invisible blades, though they were considerably weaker. Now, Storm of the Sword Saint could only affect a singular target, but with incredible potency.

He wondered if even someone like Elijah in his guardian form could stand against it.

A question he hoped to never have answered.

Just as Colt stepped up to help Gwenivere with the final enemy, she dispatched it with a powerful overhand strike that took the dark elf by surprise. But she didn’t kill him. Instead, she opted to sever his arm at the shoulder. The shock of dismemberment opened him up to a brutal kick in the knee, followed by Gwenivere hitting him with a shoulder-charge that sent him to the ground.

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He cried out in pain, but the woman didn’t let that affect her. Instead, she wore an expression of grim determination as she raised her blood-covered axe.

“Wait,” Colt drawled.

To her credit, she did just that, and her hesitation raised her status in Colt’s eyes. He knew that many fighters lost themselves to battle lust, and while he didn’t deride anyone who opted for that route, he had difficulty respecting it. To him, a warrior should be cold. Calculated. Precise. Rage didn’t lend itself to those things. And he was glad to see that Gwenivere remained in control.

“What?” she asked.

“Need to interrogate ‘im,” he said, sauntering forward. As he did so, he checked to ensure that the others were dead. He’d gotten some experience already, but in the heat of battle, it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between sources. So, not wanting to fall prey to an elf with a powerful regenerative ability, he opted for a manual inspection.

But they were all dead, and as Colt slid his sword into each chest, he crossed the room. When he reached the fallen elf, he knelt down, saying, “Can fix that for ya. You won’t grow the arm back, but we could keep ya alive. But we’re gonna need somethin’ in return, hoss. Tell us where you came from, how many others there are, and why you’re kidnappin’ miners, and I’ll make sure you live through this.”

“I will tell you nothing, human,” the elf spat.

“Well, damn.”

Colt didn’t hesitate before whipping his sword toward the elf’s neck and decapitating him.

“What? You killed him?” Gwenivere half-shouted. “He was a prisoner and –”

“Ain’t no Geneva Convention down here,” Colt said. “He wasn’t gonna tell us anything, and we don’t have the ability to take prisoners.”

“He still might have told us something.”

“You and I both know that ain’t true. You saw it in his eyes, same as me. We could’ve tortured him for a month, and we wouldn’t have gotten a damn thing out of him.”

“That might be true, but –”

“Maybe you think it ain’t right. In a perfect world, we could’ve tied ‘im up and took him back to Ironshore. Locked him up for a good long while. Maybe given ‘im a trial. But that ain’t how this has to work, and you know it. You knew it when we came down here,” Colt said. While most western codes of honor would frown on the execution of prisoners, Bushido allowed for it in certain contexts. Colt felt certain that he’d acted within the bounds of his code.

Gwenivere clearly recognized that she wasn’t going to change his mind, so she asked, “What now?”

“Search the bodies,” Colt said. “Take anything valuable. See if there’s anything on ‘em that might tell us what’s goin’ on. These people had to come from somewhere, right? This ain’t like those orcs Ironshore fought way back when. These are people, just like us.”

“And they’re hostile, too. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken the miners,” Gwenivere pointed out as she knelt beside the prisoner. The girl showed a remarkable ability to simply move on, even if she disagreed with what had happened.

“I agree,” Colt said. “But we won’t know more ‘til we find where they came from.”

With that, they searched the bodies. They found a handful of items that Colt judged might be worth something – a couple of rings, a necklace, and one of the weapons – but otherwise, their equipment was no better than Simple-Grade. Not worth taking, considering their limited carrying capacity.

“Found something,” Gwenivere announced. She held up a roll of leather. She unfurled it, saying, “I think it’s a map of these tunnels.”

Colt frowned. From his experiences in the Silverado mine as well as his conversations with Carissa and Carmen, he knew that the world had been changed in more ways than were obvious from the surface. Carissa in particular had explained that her own home world had multiple subterranean levels containing entire biomes, and the underground portion was at least as expansive as the surface.

The deeper one got – or closer to the planet’s core – the more dangerous the wildlife. Sometimes, there were even towers or primal realms down there, though their presence was much rarer beneath ground level.

Those thoughts flashed through Colt’s mind as he looked at the map with Gwenivere, and after a few moments, he said, “This ain’t good at all. You seein’ what I see?”

“I am,” she said.

Indeed, the map confirmed Colt’s fears that the miners had tapped into one of these subterranean biomes. What’s more, the map seemed to suggest that the dark elves had a sizable settlement down there – perhaps one even larger than Ironshore – and they’d created multiple gates to guard the way.

“Drustwyn,” he said, staring at the settlement on the map.

“What do we do?” asked Gwenivere. “Should we go back and tell the mayor what we found?”

“We push on,” Colt said. “These dark elves took those miners. I guarantee it. You saw how they attacked the second we showed ourselves. They’d have taken us too if they could’ve. I think we can safely label them the enemy.”

And that meant that a conflict between them and Ironshore was inevitable. Perhaps if they hadn’t proven themselves so hostile, a truce – or even an alliance – might’ve been possible. But now?

“I think this is going to end badly,” Gwenivere said.

“You ain’t wrong,” Colt muttered. “We were hired to do a job, though, and I’m damn well gonna do it. Them miners need to be saved, and we’re gonna save ‘em.”

“And if they’re already dead?”

He shrugged. “Then we do the other thing.”

“Which is?”

“Can’t save ‘em, avenge ‘em,” he stated. “Can’t let ‘em get away with this.”

While Colt wholeheartedly supported that notion, he was no fool. He had no intention of simply charging in and hoping he could overcome an entire city’s worth of dark elves. Instead, he only wanted to scout things out and hopefully find the missing miners. Once they accomplished that goal, he intended to reassess the situation and, if rescue was possible, mount a mission to recover them. More likely, he and Gwenivere would retreat once they had all the pertinent information.

It was not a great plan, but the situation wasn’t ideal. So, without further ado, he and Gwenivere set off through the tunnels, following the map they’d so fortunately acquired. Along the way, they encountered a few more lycosects and other aggressive beasts, but with every mile they traveled, the wildlife grew sparser.

Then, they rounded a corner and saw their quarry.

The tunnel had narrowed to only a few dozen feet across, and it was barred by a giant gate that looked like it belonged to a fortress. It was lit by a series of smokeless torches and guarded by a dozen dark elves.

And those were just the ones Colt could see. Blade Sense only worked at a distance of about ten feet, so he had to rely on more mundane senses. But even those told Colt that rushing that gate was a bad idea.

Gwenivere confirmed that when she whispered, “Those two in front are the lowest level at sixty. The only other one I could inspect was sixty-three.”

“That’s the one with the fancy armor, right?” Colt asked, nodding toward the dark elf in question. His armor was silver trimmed in blood red, and he had a massive sword strapped to his back.

Gwenivere nodded.

Colt indicated that they should retreat, and they did so as quietly as they could manage. Once they were almost a mile away, they stopped, and he said, “This ain’t somethin’ we can handle alone.”

She let out a relieved sigh. “I was hoping you’d –”

Just then, a clatter echoed down the tunnel, emanating from the direction they’d just come. Only a moment later, the silver-armored dark elf rounded the corner and shouted, “Fiends!”

Colt considered running.

But he knew that would be impossible. The dark elves knew the tunnels far better than he or Gwenivere, and they seemed much more comfortable beneath the ground. With that in mind, there were only two options – a fighting retreat or a straight-ahead clash. Colt knew which one he preferred, but he wouldn’t put Gwenivere into such a situation.

“Run,” he said. “I’ll hold ‘em off.”

“What? No. Don’t be stupid. There’s only…ten of them. We got that.”

Colt was about to argue, but there was no time. So, he unsheathed his sword, shifted his feet, and prepared to meet the dark elf’s charge.