Vayra and Glade sprinted down the hallway, running parallel to the open cavern and the imprisoned contestants. Pillars whipped past on one side, turning into a white blur.
There had to be at least ten contestants imprisoned below—probably taken by surprise and captured for…whatever purpose the God-heirs had for them.
“Phasoné, what are those crystal weapons they used on Nathariel?” Vayra whispered as they ran. If it was strong enough to work on Nathariel, it’d work on less powerful God-heirs as well.
‘Some sort of rapid-Moulding Arcara,’ Phasoné said. ‘It’s not a true gemstone; our scythe could cut through it.’
“But mortals can use it?”
‘It was pre-packaged,’ Phasoné replied. ‘Someone made a bunch of them with a premade trigger.’
“What Godly Authority controls crystals and minerals?”
‘God of Stone, but even then, they cannot control gemstones.’
“They looked more like salt crystals than gemstones,” she said. The hallway came abruptly to a stairway, and they sprinted down it two steps at a time. There was no sense in veiling herself; the other God-heirs wouldn’t have strong enough senses and they wouldn’t notice her presence as anything more than a buzz—which the others would already provide. “Does your Stone God control salt?”
‘If it came from underground, then yes,’ Phasoné provided. ‘It is likely he is providing whatever aid he can to Karmion. Why wouldn’t he?’
“Of course…” Vayra muttered. “How strong were the weapons?”
‘I didn’t get a good read on it, but at least Admiral-grade.’
At the end of the staircase, they reached another hallway. It spread out side-to-side ahead of them, one branch leading off into the earth and the other branch leading toward the atrium.
A single guard, a Third Lieutenant with a lantern in-hand, patrolled the hallway. Glade pounced on him, wrapping an arm around his neck to hold him still while dragging him back toward the wall.
Vayra tugged her pistol out of her belt and, with her mechanical arm, clubbed the heir across the head with the hilt of the pistol. Her arm managed the strength for her, allowing her to hurt the God-heir even despite his tough enhanced body.
He collapsed. The lantern fell out of his hands, and Glade caught it, then hung it over the swordwrym’s hilt, giving them a constant source of light. She flipped the pistol over in her hand and prepared to fire a beam of starlight-Arcara out through it.
There were no more guards in the hallway, and they kept running. When they reached the end, they found a set of tall wooden doors. Vayra peered through the crack between them. The atrium was just beyond.
A new presence erupted in her senses, and a different tingle breached the back of her neck. Another…Admiral? Too fresh, too unstable, to be Nathariel.
As if someone had just boosted themselves with a treasure. Vayra pressed her face tighter against the doors. Through the crack, she watched the atrium closely, hunting for any sign of the new God-heir.
‘Chances are, it’s Larra,’ Phasoné commented.
“Has to be,” Vayra whispered. “But what’s she doing?”
‘Well, watch and find out!’
Glade crouched down and peered through the crack below her, so they could both see.
A tall, broad woman strode through the atrium, winding between the God-heirs and the tables. Her dark coat fluttered behind her. She spoke softly with one of the surgeons, then grabbed the scalpel and turned to the table beside her, where a young half-elf God-heir struggled and strained.
The woman casually plucked the hat off her head and set it down on the table, then leaned over the man and whispered something to him. He thrashed harder.
It was Larra, for sure.
“Can you use internal warding reliably?” Glade whispered.
“We’re about to find out,” Vayra shot back.
With a frustrated grunt, Larra slashed a line down the half-elf’s bare arm with her scalpel. He gritted his teeth and spat at her.
Larra held her hand above the wound. She clenched her fingers, and she cycled her Essence so fast it exerted a pressure on all the nearby mortals. They backed away, and a few of them held up a hand toward her, as if she had suddenly turned into a star.
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The man’s leaking blood bubbled and popped, then boiled. A single tendril of it reached up, then another, and another, like some crimson cat spiking its fur.
Then the blood exploded outward, shredding the man’s arm and muscle like grapeshot. He shouted, and Larra leapt back. Snarling, she shook her head and moved to the side, ready to try again on someone else.
“She’s going to kill them,” Vayra breathed.
Next, Larra stepped over to a lapin woman who, having seen the predicament of the half-elf, was now thrashing as hard as she could and shouting obscenities in a foreign language. Her rabbit ears pressed flat against the back of her head and she hissed.
“I…I know her,” Glade whispered.
“What? Larra? Of course—”
“No, the lapin woman,” he said. “We met before, on Harvest Sanctuary! She was advancing, too, but I did not think we would see her here.”
Vayra nodded. “Then she knows you? Were you friendly?”
“She was…friendly enough.”
“I’ll cover you.”
He nodded. “I will break her out. Hopefully, she helps us.”
“Phas, any idea how to get rid of the crystals quickly?” Vayra whispered. She leaned to the side, eyeing one of the guards. The lapin woman shrieked, and Vayra winced. She didn’t want to see what Larra had done.
‘Bash it until it breaks,’ Phasoné said. ‘That’s all I can think of. It’s not a gemstone; it’s salt-like. It’ll snap like hard candy if you hit it hard enough.’
“Hard enough being…with the strength of an Admiral?”
‘It’s weak around the joints. Look at it in your spiritual sight, and strike it where the Moulded Arcara is weakest,’ Phasoné said. Vayra relayed the same information to Glade, then held up her fingers.
They needed to work together. She leaned against one half of the doorway with her mechanical arm, and Glade placed both his hands on the other door. On a count of three, they both pushed, driving the door open. Vayra pointed her pistol at Larra and launched a beam of Starlight Arcara.
It caught the woman in the chest and flung her back across the room. Glade sprinted over to the lapin woman, and Vayra turned to face the guards.
The horde of ocean-Path God-heirs converged on her, swinging sabers hard and fast. A blade whistled past the tip of her nose. She Warded her cloak and spun, blocking a volley of musketfire, then Moulded her scythe and set to work. She ducked under a swipe, then slashed up through the man’s chest. Another man launched a wall of water at her, but she scattered it with a Starlight Palm.
She whirled between them, hacking and striking and dodging. There was no spirit water to draw from, but she had started with a full core of mana. She activated the Astral Shroud when she had depleted a quarter of her mana, and used it to flash between the lower-stage God-heirs, slashing them or knocking them aside, rendering them useless.
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Glade sprinted over to Ameena. He remembered her clearly, helping pull him from the temporal rift before it shut him in.
Time to return the favour.
“Keep Larra busy!” he called to the swordwyrm.
Larra skidded along the floor, flung by Vayra’s attack, but it wouldn’t leave any lasting damage—just a smouldering burn. The swordwyrm, however, could keep her busy. It chittered and bobbed, then screeched, “For sword-friend!” and leapt to action. It darted at Larra and slashed at her, leaving faint cuts and occupying her focus.
Glade skittered to a halt beside the table with Ameena. Like the half-elf man, Larra had made a gash down her arm, then had tried manipulating the blood. This time, though, the blood hadn’t exploded—it had formed into needles. A few stuck out of Ameena’s flank, slowly disintegrating as Larra’s Reach technique faded.
But Ameena was a healer. She could fix it.
Once she got free and stopped thrashing around.
He reached for the first clump of crystal, but a mortal worker charged at him, wielding a surgeon’s scalpel. He flung the man across the room with a swat. The wall cracked with the impact. Another rushed in from behind him, but he whirled around and hacked the man in half with a sword swipe.
He turned back to Ameena and used his spiritual sight. The first clump of crystal had a weak patch near the table. He bludgeoned it with the hilt of his sword until it shattered into a puff of salt. A few chunks rolled off the table.
Ameena threw her arm up in panic, but Glade grabbed her hand. “It’s alright. We are here to help.”
She stopped thrashing, then squinted. Wait…you’re the Order Disciple! The one from Harvest Sanctuary!”
“Indeed.” He ran around the other side of the table. A Master-stage God-heir had broken out of Vayra’s distraction and charged toward him, but he flung a blast of metal filings out at the man. It shredded through a Ward of water and ripped apart his shoulder. As he reeled, Glade drove his sword through the man’s chest.
“You made it to Captain?” Ameena panted, pushing herself up with one arm.
“I did.” Glade bashed the other chunk of crystal with the hilt of his sword until it broke free, setting her injured arm loose. He pulled off his coat and tossed it to her—she could bind her arm with it.
“Huh. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
As she wound the coat tight around her arm, Glade ran to the tip of the table and smashed her feet loose. “You were pretty far off from Captain yourself,” he told her.
“I found some good elixirs once the greenhouse’s central wall fell.” She pulled her feet back, then staggered up. “I’m not gonna be on my feet much longer, by my judgement,” she whispered. “Running low on mana and took some serous hits.” Already, blood was dripping down her side and pooling at her feet.
“Can you heal yourself?” Glade asked.
“Not enough mana left,” she whispered. “But I can help break the others free.”
By now, Vayra had finished off one wave of guards on the side of the atrium that they’d entered from, but another wave charged over from the other side. She sprinted across the atrium to Glade.
“We’ve got trouble,” she said.
Amidst the second wave, Larra prowled forward. She finally unveiled her three-part staff and swatted the swordwyrm out of the air, then kicked it along the ground toward them.
“We will deal with them,” Glade said to Ameena. “Get as many of the others free as you can.”
“I see you got my invitation!” Larra shouted. “Finally, a proper test subject! Well, then, let’s have it!”