As the C-Rank core cracked, I had a moment to wonder why Energy Font and Brendan's Hymnal hadn't pushed to C-Rank. They were both on the cusp of it, their energy thrumming with anticipation, and there was no Law-learning process to slow them down. They'd ranked up from E to D-Rank with no pause, and I didn't really understand why the C-Rank push might be different.

Then the moment stopped, and I found myself face-to-face with not two, but four skills.

Energy Font had to be first. It represented too much consistency, too much sustain, and I needed to maintain a solid base for the rest of the skill merge to feed off of. But after that…

Well, there was no prescribed pattern for this skill merge. Ellen and I had no idea what we were doing, or what might come out of combining Brendan's Hymnal, Energy Font, Energy Transfer, and Dash. I had a feeling it'd be fast and aggressive, which fit what I wanted. But I didn't know. It could have more to do with Mana use, abandoning the speed element completely. The possibilities were endless.

The storm built underneath me. Lightning crackled across the nonexistent floor, weaving with shadow and darkness. In the past, I'd ignored the shadow, tried to focus in on the storm. But this time, I wanted that darkness at the core of what we were building. I reached out, embracing it. Behind me, Ellen did the same.

And the synergizing began.

She'd started with Energy Transfer. Where my Energy Font poured lightning into the merging, her skill spread it evenly with the shadow, forming a grid of pulsing squares of white-hot electricity and shadow that reminded me of her Shadow Boxing.

And of Dad's chessboard.

As the chessboard expanded around us, I stared at it. Then I nodded. Behind me, Ellen did the same thing. The sheer speed with which we'd built the foundation was incredible. But I had no idea what was next.

Neither did Ellen. The shadows that had grown around us wavered as she questioned our next move. I closed my eyes. We couldn't slow down. We were already committed, and the last thing we both needed was to botch the merge while our regeneration skills were on the line.

We had to keep pushing forward.

I took a breath and poured lightning into the shadow squares as I took Brendan's Hymnal apart, piece by piece.

And that's when my core popped.

Eugene watched intently. He couldn't interfere.

No. That wasn't true. He could interfere at any time. Kade Noelstra could be ripped from the skill merge. The God of Thunder was strong enough to keep his core intact, even after the amount of damage removing him would do to it. If it wouldn't completely shatter his core, Eugene could handle it.

But it would take the kid time to recover. Eugene could heal his body, but his core would be all but worthless. And as for the spare? The shadow mage?

He could do nothing for her. Rescuing Kade would utterly destroy her core. Even though the Dual Skill Progression ritual had only just begun, their cores were already bound together. Any failure to complete their ritual would result in core breaks for both of them. Eugene was willing to intervene for Kade---or to let his core break and help him with the aftermath. But for the shadow mage? No. He wouldn't. Any attempt to interfere would only hurt her, and unlike Kade Noelstra, she didn't have a Path—or a god to watch over her.

Eugene made a mental calculation; there were plenty of gods associated with shadow who might be tempted, but that would open up a chink in his armor and allow a different Paragon close access to his best pupil. And even if he were willing to risk that—which he was not—the fact was that even he couldn't contact a Paragon of Shadow and form a bond with the shadow mage in the time he had.

Besides, he was confident in Kade. The kid was strong. And he was resilient. If anyone could handle what he had to do, it was him.

And if Kade had faith that the shadow mage could handle it, then who was the literal God of Thunder to say otherwise?

The chessboard wasn't solid enough.

Not yet.

Ellen knew about Kade's Stormsteel Core. Knew that it was aggressive and that it'd interfere with any skill merge he attempted. It had before, for every single one of them. And as her shadows solidified in rough squares of darkness that contrasted with Kade's lightning ones, it started to be obvious what the interference would be.

She'd seen Kade's chessboard in his room, after all.

So, when it came time to add her final skill to the mix of skills and trigger the second part of the merge, Ellen didn't hesitate.

Dash was a speed effect. But it was also defensive. It helped her keep out of harm's way, helped her hold the line against more powerful monsters than she'd ever imagined fighting when she was just starting out. If it could hold the line for her, it could hold the lines of the chessboard.

She aimed the skill into the grid and then pushed it forward with all her being.

And the grid straightened. It locked into place, sixty-four perfectly straight squares, checkerboarded around Kade and Ellen as they sat in the center four. Kade's Energy Font formed the board's base, while her Energy Transfer had ripped the power of the storm away from the base and created squares of darkness. He'd layered Brendan's Hymnal onto that, the electricity scorching white squares onto the board. And then she'd locked it all in with Dash.

The board was ready. The skill merge was almost ready.

Ellen braced herself. Something was coming. But she didn't know what. She only knew that it wasn't over. Not yet.

Kade tensed. A moment later, Ellen saw the message.

The Stormsteel Core Awakens. Prepare yourselves.

The Stormsteel Core Awakens. Prepare yourselves.

I was already prepared.

My core hadn't popped like an overfull balloon. It felt more like gaining elevation quickly and having my ears pop as the pressure equalized. Unsettling. Uncomfortable. A sign that my core wasn't really ready for this.

But not an emergency. A warning, but not a real danger. I could keep going. So I did.

As the chessboard activated, shadow swirled around Ellen and lightning crackled around me. We ripped apart from each other as the four center squares went gray. Not white, not black, but a colorless gray void. Pieces formed on either side of the board—Ellen's glowing white and electric, mine so dark I could barely make them out.

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The name of the game was simple. I had to win.

I started moving pieces. A pawn forward one—staying out of the gray in the center. A knight across toward the middle to lock down the angles around it. After each of my moves, Ellen made one of her own.

And it was obvious that she had no idea what she was doing—and that her threat assessment was incredibly off. By her fourth move, she'd dumped a pawn into the gray squares in the center, and given up control of both flanks. I almost wondered if I could have tried the most basic gambit and wrapped this thing up.

But as that pawn hit the gray, it fell straight through, onto the board's structure beneath it. It melted into what looked like liquid lightning. And then it spread across the bottom of the squares.

And the square it had moved from went gray.

I ignored that for now, but three moves later, I went to take Ellen's right-side knight with a bishop. As my piece moved across the gray, it disappeared, and black goop dripped into the mix of liquid lightning.

The square the bishop had started on grayed out, too. Right in the middle of my formation.

Ellen didn't smile. She didn't react. But she did keep moving her pieces—keeping the gray squares between hers and mine. I closed my eyes and tried to maneuver.

It took three more pieces—two of hers and one of mine—before I realized what she was doing. She was building a wall. A wall of gray. She wasn't playing to win; she was playing to force a stalemate.

I tried to press my attack. To shove harder around the right side, where she hadn't been pushing. But as soon as she realized what I was doing, she sacrificed three pieces to the gray squares in four turns and turned that side of the board into a minefield.

I glared at her across the board. Didn't she understand? One of us had to win. That was the nature of chess. The nature of combat. There were no draws, no stalemates. Not in real fights.

No.

She didn't understand. Ellen was trying not to lose. She didn't care if she won. And even though I saw what she was doing, I couldn't believe it. No one I'd played had ever started a game of chess with the goal of fighting to a draw.

I had to change strategies.

Knights. They'd work. I moved my knight up to the edge of the wall of gray, then left it there for two turns while I drew Ellen's attention back to the left flank with my queen and remaining bishop. She threw herself into sealing the barrier there, flooding white pieces into the chessboard's base.

And when I was confident she was out of position, I moved my knight across the wall.

It didn't disappear, didn't fade into black goop and mix with the off-gray sludge below the board. Instead, it landed on Ellen's gray-pocked side of the board. Her remaining pieces were out of position and cut off, and my knight had her bishop and rook in a fork. She'd sacrificed too much to build her barrier. She couldn't stop me.

Nothing could stop me.

Ellen didn't say anything. Instead, she moved the bishop into the nearest gray square. What was she doing? It didn't make any sense. She needed to be dealing with my knight, not sacrificing what was left of her pieces. Her strategy didn't make—

Wait.

I was an idiot.

Ellen's strategy didn't make any sense to me, because Dad had trained me to win. And I was close to winning. Another move or three, and Ellen's position would be hopeless. She wasn't doing anything to defend herself, either.

Because her goal wasn't to win, and mine shouldn't have been, either.

My goal was to merge Energy Font, Energy Transfer, Dash, and Brendan's Hymnal.

My goal was to lay the groundwork for Dual Skill Advancement with Ellen.

My goal was to keep progressing, to follow the vague instructions the God of Thunder had left for me, and to grow stronger. I couldn't do that through ranking up—even if I'd been progressing fast enough, my core wouldn't take the strain. But I could do it with Dual Skill Advancement and this merge.

And I was throwing it away.

I needed to throw my pieces away instead. So, instead of taking Ellen's exposed, free rook, I moved my queen forward to the edge of the last gap between the gray squares in the center.

Then I watched to see what Ellen would do.

Would she save her rook? Or try to maneuver now that I'd made a mistake? No. Her last bishop plunged into the gray, disappearing.

And I followed up by sacrificing my queen.

The barrier between our forces locked into place. Gray pieces formed in them from the sludge, liquid shadow melded with lightning. They surged out, quickly taking all of our remaining pieces and forcing us into checkmate at the same time. As our kings vanished and reformed in the center of the now-gray chessboard, Ellen and I both vanished.

We reappeared a moment later, breathing heavily enough that our backs bumped into each other.

Skill Merged: Shadowstorm Battery

The Stormsteel Core has altered this skill from Darktide Battery.

Dual Skill Progression has altered this skill from Limitless Font.

In darkness is light. In light is darkness. They surge into each other, the friction between shadow and the brightest light filling the air with potential. The Shadowstorm Battery allows its users to harness this potential energy and bring it to bear against their enemies and protect themselves.

Dual Skill Progression Effects: 1. The Shadowstorm Battery's effects strengthen when in concert with your progression partner. 2. The Shadowstom Battery allows you to redirect Mana between you and your progression partner and familiar.

Stormsteel Effects: 1. The Shadowstorm Battery gives you access to powerful lightning and shadow spells.

Upgrade Effects: 1. Each rank increases the speed at which you regenerate Mana while your core is near empty. 2. Each rank allows access to different lightning-based spells. 3. Each rank allows transfer of more resources between you and your familiar.

The next morning—Ellen and I were both beyond exhausted from the day and the merge, and had fallen asleep almost instantly—I set out to understand just what we'd accomplished.

User: Kade Noelstra C-Rank Stamina: 350/350, Mana: 445/460

Skills: 1. Stormsteel Core (C-02, Unique, Merged, God-Touched) 2. Thunderbolt Forms (C-03, Altered, Merged) 3. Mistwalk Forms (C-02, Altered, Merged) 4. Cyclone Forms (C-02, Altered, Merged) 5. Stormlight Bond (C-01, Altered, Merged) 6. Shadowstorm Battery (E-01, Altered, Merged, Dual) Open Skill Slots: 1

Path: Stormsteel Path Laws: First Law of the Stormcore, Law of the Shadowed Storm

Core Instability Alert

The first thing was the Shadowstorm Battery. It was Rank E-01—a basic, beginning skill. I'd hoped it would make it to D-Rank, at the very least, but no such luck. That meant I had a long way to go to get it caught up. It'd probably always be a bit behind.

But it was done. And whatever the hidden, unknown drawback of the extra power was, it hadn't manifested. Not yet, at least.

Ellen was still asleep—on my pillow again—when I left the tent and stepped out into the chaos of the camp. Delvers readied the trucks, adding extra straps made from leather and portal metal to them. The camp was almost completely torn down between the wall of trucks. Deborah yelled over the chaos, "Thirty minutes, then we make our run! Be ready! Top up your Mana and Stamina, get Scripted up, make sure you're good to go. And defensive options you have, use 'em on this."

I took a deep breath and went to wake up Ellen and the others. But before I could, a hand tightened on my shoulder.

"We need to talk, kid," Terrel Young said.

I nodded. "We do. I'm surprised you didn't track me down before. How's that miracle cure coming along?" Now wasn't the time to wake up my friends. If the Portal Tyrant wanted to talk business, then it'd be better to do that without prying ears.

"It's coming. Your sister's an enigma. I've been talking with the Spark of Life about her, and Sarah's completely stumped. She had no idea what to do with her when she was younger, and she certainly hasn't come up with any new ideas recently. Luckily, I've got a few people working with Jessica Gerald in therapy. Last I heard was two days ago. We're making progress, but it's slow."

"Slow is fine. Just don't forget."

Terrel snorted. "Believe me, if I'd been forgetting, watching you fight would have changed my mind. You don't fight like a C-Ranker. If you've got potential to make it to S, you'll be one of the scariest delvers in Phoenix."

His eyes flicked toward Angelo as he said that. The mage sat on top of a truck cab, legs crossed and arms out as a distorting haze spiraled around him. A shiver ran up Terrel's spine. He didn't bother hiding it. "Not as scary as him, though. That's Power Plant by itself. He's not even active right now."

"He's that bad?" I asked.

"Yes. And worse. There's a reason he's not permitted to fight above his B-Rank potential inside Phoenix's walls. And that's a voluntary condition, not one anyone can enforce on him."

"Alright. Twenty minutes! Get this crap ripped down!" Deborah yelled.

Terrel winked at me. "She's a totally different nightmare than Angelo, but she's right. We need to get moving. I just wanted to let you know we haven't forgotten, and we're trying."

"I appreciate it," I said. I stuck a hand out, and we shook—with me trying to ignore the sheer pressure of his hand on mine. Then I hurried to start collapsing the tent and waking up the rest of my team at the same time.

We had a four-hour run ahead of us, and the longer we waited, the longer it'd be before we were done.

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