I desperately dived to the side to avoid the inevitable blast from Adam’s shotgun. I’d seen what that thing could do at even medium range and I had no desire to be hit by one of its heavy plasma slugs.

The shot never came, however, as a plasma blast struck Adam’s hands from the side. He stumbled with a curse before turning and glaring at where Linnea crouched behind a pile of rocks.

While I hadn't needed to avoid Adam's shot, the dive had saved me from a volley of fire produced by the four mercenaries at the back. While their aim wasn’t great at this range, the amount of fire they were putting out was concerning.

Even after I dodged most of it, I still had to activate Skin Hardening to absorb several shots.

Instead of coming to my feet, I continued into a roll forward, trying to keep myself a small, moving target. As I came up, I saw Elana’s drone fly past overhead toward the four mercs.

At first, I thought it would only be a distraction that might save me from some fire, however, that all changed when two missiles burst from its lower chassis. They shot forward, each striking a mercenary and blowing them backward.

They landed in crumpled heaps and didn’t get up, leaving just two mercenaries on the back line. Both of them shifted their fire to the drone, leaving me free of fire for the first time in the fight.

I scrambled to my feet just in time to see the armored Psion charging toward me. She was fast, far faster than I was, and the only thing I could do was to brace myself and activate Skin Hardening again.

Her first shot toward my chest, flickering with purple lightning. It blew straight through my guard and overwhelmed my defense ability, sending me flying back with the breath blown from my lungs.

I tumbled over backward as I felt the lighting dance through my body and all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball until it ended. I knew that would just lead to death, however, so I looked up at my enemy and forced myself to focus.

She was striding toward me casually as if she didn’t have a care in the world. That changed when ghostly roots sprung up from the ground and entangled her legs. She stumbled for a second before turning her attention to the roots.

I doubted they would last long with her strength, however, it would be enough to get myself together. That had been the single hardest hit I’d ever taken, even exceeding the Yeti strike that had broken my ribs.

Since then, however, my defenses had increased significantly. Not only had I added the nano-weave armor shirt and my Skin Hardening ability, but my toughness had jumped up by a significant degree.

With a few seconds to gather myself, I was able to pull myself up, gather my breath and shake the last of the tingling from my limbs.

Even in just that time, the Psion had nearly broken free with the bulk of the roots having vanished as they were destroyed. However, she was still trapped, so I took full advantage of the situation by drawing my pistol and empowering a shot.

It flew forward and burst across her chest in a massive explosion that rocked her backward and left a deep scar across the breastplate of her armor. Unfortunately, it also blew away the last of the roots, freeing her in the process.

I cursed under my breath as I focused on targeting her with the roots again. It wasn’t a cheap ability, however, there also wasn’t any kind of limitation on how often I could use it. As long as I still had Psi energy, I could keep her trapped.

This time she tried to dodge sideways as the roots formed, showing a level of reflexes that astonished me. While it got her out from the bulk of the roots, her left leg was still trapped in the rapid growth.

I followed up the entrapment with a volley of normal shots. While an empowered shot would have done more damage, the normal shots were cheaper and wouldn’t damage the roots. My face fell, however, as they simply splashed across her armor, leaving only small scorch marks.

Rather than trying to break the roots again, as I had expected, she brought her hands together to make an empty sphere in front of her chest. A purple spark formed there for a moment, before launching toward me at an insane speed.

It struck me in the shoulder before I could even react and detonated in a furious blast. I screamed in pain as it seared through my armor, knocking me back in the progress.

A glance down showed that my left shoulder had a hideous burn on it, even as my armor reformed over the damage. While the pain was agonizing, I was very used to pushing myself through pain in fights.

With my ever-increasing stats, I could take a lot more damage than a normal human, and my mental stats allowed me to continue to function even through extreme pain.

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Turning back to the woman, I saw her once again smashing the roots, and I took advantage of that to empower another shot. While I would have preferred to avoid destroying my own ability, normal shots just didn’t seem to have the power to breach her armor.

My purple blast shot forward, striking her in the same area as the last. The blast knocked her back again, rattling her armor and blowing away my roots. The woman stumbled as she tried to regain her balance before she shot forward in another charge.

I targeted her again with Ethereal Roots, though I winced as the expenditure took me below fifty percent Psi energy. Things got even worse as this time she lept as the roots formed, performing a full mid-air somersault that took her completely clear of my ability.

Thinking quickly, I focused again immediately, banking that she wouldn’t expect a second follow-up so soon. This time it worked, trapping her legs as she rolled to her feet and lunged for me.

It caught her just in time, leaving her only a few feet away with a purple, glowing fist. While I couldn’t see her face behind the full helmet, I could almost feel her glare as the purple sparks dissipated.

While she had made me waste an ability, I had done the same to her while trapping her once more. Instead of firing at her again, I sprinted around to the right, eager to avoid her ranged attack.

Even as I moved, I saw her hands again move toward her chest and I put on every bit of speed I could. Just as I was coming around her side, a glowing purple flash shot past my back, almost close enough to touch me.

This close, I could hear her curse as she bent down to break the roots once more. An idea struck me as I stared at her open back and I swapped my pistol to my left hand and flashed my Psi blade into my hand with Item Attunement.

With my blade in hand, I focused on empowering its already impressive edge as I lunged for the Psion’s back. With her focus on frantically breaking the roots as fast as possible, I struck true, driving my blade deep into the middle of her back.

I’d aimed just to the right of her spine and as she bolted up with a scream of pain, I held on and tried to drag my dagger across to sever it. Unfortunately, the armor proved more resistant to cutting than piercing, stopping my attempt.

Then a glowing purple elbow struck my already wounded shoulder as she lashed out backward. The force of the blow was insane, and I was thrown back with a sickening crack.

I landed on my ass with a groan as the lightning rampaged through my system again. Worse, my left arm hung limply by my side, ignoring my attempts to move it. Shuddering from the electrocution, I pulled myself up with my good arm and summed my dagger again from where it was still lodged in the Psion’s back.

She’d returned to smashing the roots with lightening empowered fists and had almost freed herself. I wasn’t sure if even my prodigious pain resistance was enough to let me focus on another Ethereal Roots in this condition, so instead, I simply charged forward again.

My Item Attunement was a far more instinctive ability by this point, allowing me to empower the edge of my blade even with my vision blurry from the pain. I lunged again as I reached her, my blade striking true in her upper back.

Instead of trying to cut across or even pull the dagger free, I let go and drew back my hand. A quick summon returned the blade to my hand for another strike, then a third and a fourth.

By the fifth bloody rent on her back, the Psion had slumped to the ground. Gasping, I turned to the rest of the battle, ready to help.

I first turned toward the mercenaries to see that another of them was on the ground, though Elana’s drone was smoking as it wobbled in the air. I fired a shot at the last man, taking him in the side.

He spun to face me, then simply turned tail and sprinted away. I could only imagine that he’d seen me standing over the Psion and had cut his losses. I was incredibly thankful that Elana had kept the bulk of the group off us, I wasn’t sure I would have won otherwise.

The missiles at the start had been an extremely welcome surprise, as well as a stark reminder that my companions were improving in their own ways. I hadn’t seen Elana for months, and yet I still had the same image of her combat ability as before.

With the immediate area safe, I stumbled into a rough jog toward Linnea’s rock pile. The area there was ominously quiet, and I advanced with my heart in my throat.

I came around the corner to find Adam’s large body lying still against the rocks, his front covered in plasma burns. Further past him, I could see Linnea slumped against a boulder.

Her armor was covered in burns I recognized as the scattershot mode of Adam’s shotgun. Worse was her hands clasped over her side, where I could just see the edges of a massive hole in her armor.

I rushed forward, only to sigh in relief as I found she was still breathing. While she could respawn, of course, I didn’t want to put her through the death penalty for my sake. Not to mention how awkward it would be for her to explain the death away to the authorities and the Mercenary guild.

It wasn’t like she would have just died from some monsters in the wild. This was a serious attack from another group of humans and it would have to lead to some kind of investigation. Even if we hid her corpse, trying to explain where she’d gone would have been tough.

Instead of having to deal with that, I was able to carefully peel her hands away examining her wounds. Most of them were significant, though not life-threatening, while the large one on her chest was terrifying.

I didn’t know what Adam had done to cause it, however, I knew that only the points she’d invested in Toughness would have left her alive.

By the time I had finished awkwardly cutting away the remains of Linnea’s armor with my single arm, Elana had rushed over to join me. She was untouched, having hidden while her drone did the fighting, and quickly began helping me.

Between the two of us, we were able to slather Linnea’s wounds with burn cream and bandage her up before turning our attention to my own wounds. My left shoulder was definitely broken, as well as severely burned.

Luckily, that was the worst of the damage I had taken. While her initial strike to my chest had hurt, I got away with only a large bruise. The lightning I’d taken multiple times still hurt as well, however, it felt like my Toughness had prevented serious damage there.

With all of us treated, I pulled up my watch to make a call. As much as I just wanted to lie here and rest, the Duchess needed to be informed about this.