With a puff of displaced air, something came streaking out of the end of Warren’s gun. Alarm bells went off in Edge’s mind in that instant.

His instincts were screaming that he was dead if he was standing anywhere near where the spellshot landed. They were certain that shadow step wouldn’t protect him from the high-rank skill contained within the lump of crystal. After digesting the rare skill, he had learned that while transforming into shadow made him impervious to physical attacks, most spells could still harm him.

But it could still help him get away in time. Edge leapt and then immediately stepped. The world turned to smoke and mist as he soared into the air, landed, and leapt again—increasing his velocity several times over by executing the hasty combo.

He flew over the cracked earth at breakneck speed, heading away from where he thought the shot would land. Since the crystalized spell moved slower than a bullet, he was able to open fifty feet of space before it activated a heartbeat later. It was just enough distance to save his life, placing him in the periphery of the blast that ensued instead of dead center.

Sakura’s note had warned him that the first shot in the manslayer’s gun would be rank-five inferno. Edge learned two things in that moment. The first was that her information was good. The second was that the spell lived up to its name in every sense of the word.

The world around the point of impact was consumed by living flame. It wasn’t an explosion. Rather, the air itself had been replaced with fire, incinerating everything inside and catching the nearby grass ablaze. It looked like a star had landed on the plains, as molten conflagration the color of the rising sun erased everything within inferno’s radius.

If Edge hadn’t been incorporeal, airborne, and leaping in the opposite direction, he would have died on the spot. Even if he was further out, the spell would have seared the air in his lungs while consuming all the oxygen in the area.

But since he weighed next to nothing in his shadow form, the cushion of pressure that was formed as the hot air expanded shoved him along with it, carrying him another hundred feet over the next few seconds.

That was the extent of the good news. The burning mana seared his skin, eating away at his flesh and hair, scorching his armor and pack. His eyes were scalded, blinding him after his eyelids were consumed. He hit the ground hard, unable to see his surroundings, although he could tell that he had landed in the tall grass.

Holding his breath, Edge was forced to drop shadow step and activate regeneration. Blessed relief engulfed him as his burns began to vanish. The light of the world returned when his eyes were healed a few seconds later. Thankfully, the heat had only seared their surfaces and hadn’t been enough to destroy them.

As soon as he turned regeneration off, he activated conceal. He cast his senses into the world around him, praying that Warren’s drone hadn’t been able to find him due to the magical interference created by the powerful spell.

Edge had traded a fair chunk of his mana for one of Warren’s rounds. He wasn’t sure who had come out ahead in the exchange, but he didn’t have time to worry about it now. Either way, he was lucky to be alive.

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He needed to find the bounty hunter before the man found him. Edge turned off conceal and began crawling on his belly, heading for the border of the grass a few feet ahead. When he got there, his jaw dropped at the panorama of devastation that awaited his gaze.

By now, inferno had run its course, leaving only char and ruin behind.

Edge was fortunate that he had flown so far. A huge swath of the grasslands had caught ablaze, and the fire was spreading fast.

If Ord wasn’t a magical planet, the bounty hunter would have just sparked off a natural disaster, endangering the town and every living thing for miles around. But due to the seeker storms that occasionally swept across the region, the biome had a way of dealing with fires on the prairie.

Edge could sense the flow of magicytes in the region shift. Moisture began gathering in the air around the burning grass, as the plains’ magic acted to prevent the ecosystem from being destroyed. Steam billowed into the air as water met fire and contained the spread, clouding the area and obfuscating his view.

It made him wonder if the grass was able to use some manner of skill by working in concert. If each stalk had its own tiny reactor buried deep inside. Then he realized that oxygen deprivation was making him loopy. Since the fire was dying down and a cool wind was blowing, he took in a deep breath, trying not to cough as wisps of smoke entered his lungs.

That was when Edge caught sight of Warren’s drone for the first time.

It was a sky-blue sphere the size of a small bird, hovering in the air above where inferno had touched down. At the moment, it was swaying back and forth in the wind created by mingling bands of hot and cold air. It would have been impossible to spot if not for the smoke billowing into the air behind it. No wonder I never noticed it until now.

The drone took off a heartbeat later. It began sweeping the area, making progressively bigger circles as it went. Judging by its behavior, Edge was certain that the device could tell that he hadn’t been caught in the blast. That Warren was already hunting him again.

Since it would be a few minutes before the skill-summoned drone made it this far out, he dropped conceal to save mana. He started scanning the area for the bounty hunter as he fought to gain control over his racing heart. To collect the composure that had been shaken by his close brush with death.

Edge saw the man a few seconds later, creeping along the grass line, using the rising mist to obscure his form. His icy smile was gone, replaced by a frustrated grimace. Edge wasn’t sure if Warren was annoyed by his escape or by wasting the round, but he could tell that the manslayer was pissed.

I can’t afford to let him fire off any more spellshots. Inferno would have been the end of me if I didn’t know what was coming, and the next one sounds even worse. Past that point, I’ll have no idea what to expect and my odds of surviving the attack will fall somewhere between slim and none.

Instead of burning more mana with conceal, Edge worked his way deeper into the foliage, moving slowly so that he didn’t draw attention to himself. He covered his body with loose grass and dirt, freezing in place when he heard the drone go whizzing over his head.

For a second, he was terrified that the device had spotted him. But it kept right on going.

It just cleared this area. I need to make my move before it comes back. That was when Edge saw his chance. A big cloud of steam and smoke wafted over the manslayer’s position, causing him to cough while obscuring his view.

Edge didn’t hesitate. He shadow stepped and went charging in, streaking straight for Warren’s back like a bolt of black lightning. On the way, he reached behind his shoulder and freed his naginata from its harness, touching the section that made the shaft expand to its natural length.

Judging by his experience with the reavers, Warren would be able to see him coming, but Edge’s movements would be hard to track. With any luck, the bounty hunter wouldn’t be able to make out the polearm, especially if Edge’s advance had caught him by surprise.

However, he wasn’t counting on luck this time. Which wound up being the only thing that saved his life.

For a moment, it seemed that the manslayer had failed to notice Edge’s advance. But it was just a ruse. Before he could enter striking range, Warren spun around, drew his sword, and activated a skill.