Two days later, Ellen, Jeff, and the rest of our team stood outside of a red, B-Rank portal, waiting. We'd gotten there second, and that made us the backup team. The initial team had done something we'd never thought about, though, and it was brilliant. They'd sent a member out after confirming that it wasn't a trap to tell the GC what type of portal they were up against. That meant we knew what to expect, more or less. And what to expect was a Lithic world.

It was such a basic move, and I'd never even considered it. Thirty seconds to a minute of time, in return for more effective backup and break defense.

We'd experienced a Lithic world before, of course. The three of us had raced through one in an attempt to beat Carter's team to the boss. We'd succeeded, and then turned around to save them. So we knew what Lithic portals were like at E-Rank. B-Rank? Not so much.

Ellen was skimming through the guides, trying to get a grasp on what we'd be up against, when a familiar face walked into the cafe patio. I squinted, trying to place the man, but it took an uncomfortably long time to figure it out.

Then it hit me. I didn't recognize him because the last time I'd seen him, he'd been wearing a fur coat over his armor and trying to convince a GC rep that Zeke and I had gone crazy and killed his teammate. Never mind that he and his team had been trying to kill us. I tore my eyes off the axe-wielding fighter. He shouldn't have been out of prison yet. His trial shouldn't have started yet. Why was he out? And why was he C-Rank?

It didn't make sense. I focused on Ellen's voice instead. "So, Lithic world. Expect heat, magma and rock elementals, and for the whole place to be constantly changing—sorry, metamorphosing—at higher ranks. Not traps so much as the whole thing is in a state of flux. That being said, most reports show Lithics as being some of the most straightforward portals."

"Yeah," Jeff snorted, "Unless they ambush you."

"Right. Unless they ambush you," Ellen agreed.

I kept forcing Andrew's presence out of my mind. Right now, I needed to focus on the red gate in front of us—and on getting ready to clear this portal if our name got called.

My sword flickered to life in my hand.

It had changed with my rank-up.

Stormsong B-Rank Summonable, Core-Bound, God-Touched

The portal metal part of the blade was thinner and a good six inches longer than Tallas's Dueling Blade had been. It was so long that, if it had been heavier, it would have been an estoc or a two-hander. But it was also light as a feather. When I held it, it felt like an extension of my hand. And when I pushed Mana into it, the lightning blade hummed to life along both edges, but in a golden glow that reminded me of the lightning-gold holding my core together. It crackled and hissed quietly in the light rain that had settled in over the portal.

That was the B-Rank Stormsteel Core upgrade. A better sword. And with it in my hand, my aura felt almost redundant.

Aura Learned: Negative Space

A zone of negatively-charged energy accelerates your movements and spells, increasing the damage your lightning-based spells and attacks do to nearby enemies. The closer you hold the aura, the more potent the damage increase.

I didn't feel like I needed more speed or more damage. But it was the aura I'd gotten, and I was definitely going to use it. Leaning into strengths wasn't the same as patching up weaknesses, and Dad wouldn't have approved, but right now, it was my best move.

"Five hours. Jeffery Carlton, your team's up," the GC rep said from the depths of her poncho.

I set aside my thoughts about the aura, Andrew the murderous delver, his quick release from prison, and my weapon. Two of those questions had easy answers, and the portal in front of us was where I'd find them.

Five minutes later, we jogged down a wide open tunnel, past circular chambers with floors that looked half-molten and that bore the scars of battle. The team that had gone in before us had definitely been effective early on. There were no enemies. Not even a Basalt Trilith or a similar ambush monster.

There were plenty of half-melted corpses, though—and not all of them had melted themselves or succumbed to the portal's heat. Some had been fried in combat, judging from their wounds.

Jeff took the lead. He led us on a weaving path through black pinnacles and stalagmites so tall they touched the ceiling high overhead. About halfway down the gigantic tunnel, we found our first enemy.

Feldspar Titan: B-Rank Monster

It stood almost twenty feet tall, with a bulky body on six pillar-like legs that moved its white, stony frame through the tunnel faster than should have been possible. Jeff braced himself. Ellen started casting, then stopped as I glanced at her. "I want to test this aura out," I said.

Jeff rolled his eyes and stepped aside, and I strode toward the Feldspar Titan. The ground shook incessantly as it strode down the tunnel. Then it spotted me, and its mouth opened. Magma dripped out of it, hissing as it splattered on the ground.

I dropped into a dueling stance—an aggressive one. One-handed, but in my off-hand, I summoned five Ariette's Zephyrs. There had to be a B-Rank spell that replaced them, and I'd learn it soon, but I didn't want to tax my core too much, too quickly.

The Feldspar Titan roared and crashed toward me, and I shoved my aura out to meet it.

Static filled the air. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and my cloak crackled with energy. Tiny sparks arced across the space between my teammates and me, connecting us all with strings of electricity too small to do more than tickle. Another of those strings touched the monster the second it crossed into my aura.

The Titan didn't react. Instead, its front two feet rose into the air, higher than my head. Then they crashed down on me. Two massive impacts slammed into the stone where I'd just been. Rock shattered, and magma bubbled up to fill the broken footprints. A brute, then. A strong, powerful brute, but a brute nonetheless. This would be a good test of my Negative Space aura, and of Stormsong.

I stood next to the monster's front legs. Then I lashed out. My one-handed cut ripped through the stone monster's leg, cutting into the rocky hide even though I hadn't found a weak spot. Electricity sparked along the string-thin bands of static tying my weapon to the Titan; when it touched the monster, shards of stone exploded out in blasts of shrapnel.

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The monster roared. Its feet slammed down again, one after another. I stepped aside and toward the Feldspar Titan. Not away. Toward. The storm was aggressive, and aggression begets protection. As I did, Negative Space activated, and I slid through the negatively-charged space around the monster, my own positive charge carrying me further than I expected.

That saved my life, or at least saved Sophia some Mana to fix me up.

Six feet crashed into the ground in rapid-fire. Stormsong slashed across them, searching for tendons to sever but finding only rock. The impacts all around me knocked me off-balance, then caught my off-arm as one leg lifted into the air again and magma welled around me. I side-stepped as five Zephyrs slammed into the monster uselessly.

Then the sword stuck in a thin spot, and I smiled.

My first time in a Lithic portal, I'd fought a Golemite. The Stormsteel rapier had sunk into the monster's body, and with the only way out blocked, the lightning had forced its own escape path out of the monster's back.

Something similar happened here.

But bigger. As Stormsong slipped into the monster's calf and magma welled around the puncture, power built up along the razor-thin blade. It built and built until my hair stood on end.

Then it erupted outward. Rock and magma and superheated, ionized air ripped out of the monster's front leg's calf. They slammed into its middle leg, breaking stone and adding more lava to the mix. The Feldspar Titan screamed. Not roared. Screamed.

My next two thrusts sank deep into its legs, blowing more chunks of stone across the wide cavern. The monster toppled, jaws still dripping magma, and I slammed the blade into its neck, then held it there until one last explosion ripped its head from its shoulders. I stepped back, replaying the fight quickly in my mind. A few things stood out.

First, Stormsong was more powerful than Tallas's Dueling Blade. It was a definite upgrade, and I was sure the God of Thunder would approve, even though I hadn't heard from him since my B-Rank trial. The reach was better, the blade was quicker, and its damage was significantly higher; each of the Feldspar Titan's legs was a good three or four feet thick, and Stormsong had taken them apart once I'd found weak spots.

Second, Negative Space required aggression. That should have been obvious, but it wasn't until I'd committed to the most dangerous—but most effective—line of attack that it had stood out. There was potential for some interesting maneuvers with the strings that connected me to my allies when they were in range, though, and I'd have to test that out. In a GC sparring room. With the damage turned down. Against Jeff or Ellen.

I couldn't risk hurting my teammates to test that out in a portal.

And third, something about Negative Space felt like it wanted to interact with Stormbreak. I set that aside, too. Using Stormbreak early was a recipe for disaster, and we had a long way to go.

Thrust. Step under the Anthracite Burner's guard and around its back. Avoid the monster's armor-breaker and oversized greatsword. Lightning Chain along an aura string. Pull myself through the air into the Negative Space. Explosion. Done.

With the Feldspar Titan finished, the rest of the team was piling in. Raul and Jeff had established themselves as a duo, pulling the two tasks of fighting enemies and keeping them off our back line. Ellen was focused on wiping out anything C-Rank or lower, then assisting with higher-Ranked enemies. Her spell suite was built to annihilate swarms of enemies, and she was damn good at it.

And as for me, I was looking for the biggest, toughest-looking monsters I could find.

I hadn't switched off of Thunderbolt Forms yet. If I'd chosen to fight defensively for even a few seconds, I could have used Rain-Slicked Blade. It would have sped things up a bit. But I wanted to test Stormsong and Negative Space, so instead of using my armor-breaking attack against the heavily-armored, Lithic world enemies, I was keeping Thunderblade up constantly and overwhelming them with attacks while supplementing my swordplay with Slicing Bolts and Lightning Chains.

B-Rank was awesome. I felt like I hadn't felt since the moment I hit D-Rank—like I wasn't fighting up against enemies stronger than me, but really able to leverage my strength against equals or lessers.

The fighting slowed, then stopped as Jeff's shield and Raul's spear broke through one last Anthracite Burner's armor and killed it. Jeff pulled his glowing orange blade free, shook molten lava from it, and dropped to a knee, breathing hard. "Break time. I need a breather."

I did, too. Sure, I could keep going. With my aura boosting my firepower, I could do this kind of fighting all day. I'd been so wrong about not needing more firepower—I could always use more upgrades.

But the breather sounded good, too. "Ten minutes?" I asked.

Ellen nodded. "That'll be sufficient. I'm already recovering, and I think we're getting close to the first team. There are more monsters now. That's got to mean we're gaining on them, or that they're pushing faster and ignoring enemies they don't have to fight in favor of getting to the boss. They may be worried about a break, or about us stealing their core."

I took a knee and watched Jeff. He'd been pushing hard, and his face was red under his helmet. He looked my way, then dropped his gaze. "Told you."

"You did, but Jeff, I'm going to find a solution."

"There is no solution. I'm stuck at C-Rank, and you just hit B. This is fine. When you hit A-Rank, it won't be anymore." Jeff sighed. "Once we're a guild, I'm going to build a team for C-Rank and below. You and Ellen can take Sophia through A-Rank, but after that, you'll be on your own."

"Assuming we make it to S-Rank," I said quickly.

"Oh, you will, Kade. Ellen probably will, too." Jeff smiled. It looked forced and pained. "I'm happy for you, Kade."

Ezekiel Elwood hadn't forgotten about Kade Noelstra.

He'd played a fisherman when he was younger, in a high school play. And one line had stuck out to him: 'The one that kept getting away.'

In the play, he'd been an old man talking about a girl he'd courted as a young one. He'd married someone else, and she'd found a husband in another village far inland. But his character had never forgotten her, and he often talked about the one that got away. Then, in their old age, they'd met again, a widower and a widow. And before they could get married, she'd died.

The one that kept getting away. Every other character thought he'd been talking about a fish. Only he—and the audience—knew the truth.

Kade Noelstra was the one who kept getting away from Ezekiel. He'd been spending a lot of his free time reading the 'private' GC reports that Terrel Young got, and he knew that Kade had recovered from the unrecoverable. It was one more mark in the kid's favor. One more reason that the Portal Tyrants desperately needed him. A second S-Ranker—and probably one who, with time, could eclipse Angelo Lawrence—would push the Portal Tyrants over the top politically and in terms of raw strength. They were currently third, behind the Guardians and Roadrunners. But they could easily be number one.

That's why he—in disguise as a C-Rank support on a pick-up team, of course—was currently sixth in line for this Lithic portal. Never mind that he'd hit A-Rank two weeks ago. This was where he felt he needed to be—in a position to get Kade moving back into the fold if an opportunity arose. Not that sixth in line was likely to make it in, but it was the closest Ezekiel could get.

But there was another good reason for him to be here.

He never forgot a potential recruit's face. That was part of his job. And he'd recognized both Andrew and Henry. They were both supposed to be in prison. Why were they out?

Ezekiel wasn't in charge of the Portal Tyrants. He'd never be stupid enough to accept that. And he was a day or two behind any news that had to do with anyone but Kade and the other possible recruits. But he pulled his phone from his pocket and squeezed off a text message.

Ezekiel: Terrel, when you get this, I need files on prisoner releases. The kind I can't get myself. No rush.

He was about to put his phone in his pocket. Terrel couldn't be in a place where he could respond. But to his surprise, his phone went off almost immediately.

Terrel: What's going on? I'll get you what I can.

Ezekiel: Problems with Noelstra, and a little confusion about some would-be delver-killers getting out of jail. No big deal.

Terrel: Sounds like a big deal to me. Let's meet tomorrow and talk about it.

Ezekiel: Tomorrow?"

Terrel: Yes. We're coming back to Phoenix. Keep that to yourself for now. Things have not gone well in Carlsbad.

Ezekiel shivered slightly, then forced his body back under control. What had gone wrong if all the high-rankers in Carlsbad—plus Angelo, Terrel, and the Spark of Life—couldn't handle it?

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