I laughed.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “I know. He’s going to kill me at some point, probably either S-Rank or just beyond it,” I said. “He’s told me that at some point, we’ll be enemies. Don’t worry. I’ve told him the same thing—that at some point soon, I’ll kill him.”

  Tallas stared at me. Then he shook his head. “You know about that?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, Eugene’s been pretty up front about it.” I paused. “You weren’t going to tell me, though, were you?”

  “I didn’t even know about it until you told me. Or I didn’t remember. I’m not sure, everything’s a blur until the moment we fought. Then I start remembering things in my past.” Tallas paused for a moment. “That isn’t true. I remember before, but only the broad sweeps.”

  “If you’re not warning me about the God of Thunder’s murder streak, then what are you warning me about?” I asked.

  “Right. The God of Thunder needs you to fail, but wants you to succeed. He knows something about your final opponent in the tournament, but he can’t tell you anything about her. An agreement with the Crone forbids him from doing so.”

  “Deborah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me guess. The Crone’s been empowering Deborah in the same way that I’ve been getting power from the God of Thunder? She needs her to win the tournament so she can get her hands on whatever’s inside the portal world? Something like that?”

  Tallas’s jaw dropped. He shook his head again, this time as if trying to clear it. “You already know that, too?”

  “Not the details.” I stood up. “Anything you can tell me?”

  “Yes.” Tallas stood as well. “I don’t know which Paragon is empowering her, but it’s not the Crone. That monster is strictly neutral.”

  I snorted. She hadn’t felt neutral to me. She’d felt like a threat. I could definitely see her playing with pieces on Earth. But what Tallas had said confirmed what I’d thought since we’d watched Deborah fight Ophelia and then talked to the Lonely Mage in their fight’s aftermath. Deborah was…not cheating, but taking advantage of powers beyond any on Earth to get a power boost that no one could match.

  Well, almost anyone.

  “Thanks, Tallas,” I said. Then I focused on the Law.

  Law Learned: Last Law of Stormsteel

  Stormsteel Core: Rank B to Rank A

  Destruction is violence. Rage. Fury. An animalistic anger. The storm within you pulses with emotion. But that destruction is more than an unchained beast. As you have forged a harness around it—not to contain it, but to guide it—you have taken responsibility for the maelstrom, the anvil cloud, and the webs of lighting that light up the night sky. Those powers are your weapon—and your shield. By completing the storm’s reins, Kade Noelstra, you have taken a step down the Stormsteel Path: the storm destroys, and the storm protects.

  When I opened my eyes, I was still seated in the gatehouse. Ellen was still looking out the door down the stairs, and Ulia had just collapsed against the outer wall. She looked exhausted. So did the rest of the C-Rankers.

  Ellen stared out at the stairs for a few seconds until I stood up. “All done?”

  “Yes. And I learned something interesting. Actually, it’s confirmation of something I’d guessed from Ophelia’s fight and report. But it tells me that we’re on the right track with pushing me to A-Rank.”

  “And how’s your core feeling?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your core. You’ve been pushing hard. I’m not too far behind you, and I haven’t gotten any warnings or anything, but there’s a little bit of strain starting to build up. I can only imagine it’ll get worse when I start pushing skills to A-Rank, and I also imagine you’re feeling it, too.”

  I wasn’t. That was strange, because Ellen was right. I hadn’t slowed down at all since reforging my core. If anything, I’d pushed even harder. The fights on the wall, the portal clears, and the tournament fights had all added up—and now I was trying even harder to accelerate my progress. I closed my eyes and examined my core more closely, looking for any sign of strain.

  Nothing.

  When I shook my head, Ellen’s face shifted from concern to relief. “Oh, good. I’ve been through too much to lose you to a second core break, Kade Noelstra.” Then she hugged me, quickly pulled away, and turned toward the others.

  I understood the question she hadn’t asked, and nodded. “We’ll take five here, then push for the portal boss.”

  None of the C-Rankers said anything, but by the way they slumped even further, I could feel their relief. They were going to be okay. Kicking and screaming, we were going to drag them through this—and they were all here for it.

  Ten minutes later, we were moving, weapons at the ready. The tank—whose name I still hadn’t caught, and who I’d mentally decided was Tank Girl—was in escort position, covering Ulia and the other C-Rankers. Ellen hung back. She was a mage and a soft target, but she was also powerful enough to beat any monster in here and smart enough to see any ambushes coming from behind.

  And I took point as we pushed up the street. Half-timber buildings lined both sides of the cobblestone road, and in every open space, a siege engine or barricades faced the outer wall. The entire citadel looked like it was built for war, with an absolutely unreasonable number of weapons for such a small space.

  Stormsong lashed out. Cutting Storm went off, filling the air with wind blades that sparked with lightning as they hit their targets. D-Rank Trooper monsters fell like wheat, their screams echoing up the street as I pushed us forward. We’d only been moving for about four minutes, but in that time, we’d covered well over half the distance to the single-towered keep at the citadel’s center. It was a short, square fortress, its blue shingled roof barely breaking the skyline, but if the citadel’s boss was anywhere, it was there.

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  I wasn’t really focused on killing monsters, though.

  Most of my focus was still on the Last Law of Stormsteel—and on Tallas’s armor. Not his words, but his armor. Nothing he’d said had been a revelation. A-Rank in Stormsteel Core was.

  A second gauntlet appeared, covering my off-hand arm from the knuckles to the elbow in swirling maelstrom and gunmetal grey portal metal. Greaves—I didn’t want metal shoes, but the leg protection seemed wise—and cuisses that covered half my thigh formed next, protecting my legs. And, when I checked, I still had plenty of Mana flow.

  Tallas’s pauldron had offered his sword-side extra protection without restricting his casting hand, or putting too much weight on his sword-arm. I built one that looked almost identical as I parried a Trooper’s spear thrust, then drove Stormsong into his chest.

  The sword would get an upgrade soon, but the last thing I wanted was to throw my weapon’s balance off mid-portal.

  By the time we stopped outside of the keep’s closed but unbarred gate, I wore a set of Stormsteel armor that matched the breastplate, but covered my arms, legs, and sword-arm shoulder with a layer of angry storm-cloud and whirling wind.

  “What did you…” Ulia trailed off, then shrugged. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  She did, though. I could tell, because she kept looking at me. I cleared my throat. “Okay, everyone, I pushed one of my skills to A-Rank. That’s a pretty significant power increase, and it should be tough for anything in this portal to hurt me now, but that doesn’t mean this boss will be easy. Anyone who wants to sit it out can wait here.”

  None of them backed down. I grinned a little—they might be tired, at their emotional limits, and mentally overwhelmed, but they were good people. I made a mental note to get Jessie in touch with Ulia as soon as I could—if we were going to expand as a guild, these were the kinds of people we wanted.

  Then I stepped into the boss’s room.

  It was a throne room. Much like the cathedral’s stone floor and high, arched ceiling, this place felt like it was meant to feel wide open. But the fire pit stretching from ten feet into the room all the way to the edge of the throne’s dais, with only fifteen feet on either side to maneuver in, took away a lot of that open feeling. The barricades of wooden spikes and scrap metal dividing the room into even smaller sections made it feel even more claustrophobic.

  And then there were the monsters. D-Rank troopers behind the barricades—all with shields and spears pointing toward the door. A half-dozen C-Rank Knights of the Lion Brigade, full plate armor and greatswords. E-Rankers with crossbows and leather armor that looked worn and half-rotten. And a single monster in plate armor that obscured every inch of their shape and filled the area in front of the throne.

  The Lion Commander: C-Rank

  The boss’s armor was massive, and they were missing an arm—in its place was a prosthetic ending in a long, spiked blade. Their other arm held a long spear with a flag on the end. They waved it in the air, and Mana surged outward. Not an aura—the Lion Commander wasn’t a B-Rank monster, and it couldn’t have one. But a buff.

  The effect wasn’t a Script—or if it was, the long spear applied it to every monster in the room. A golden glow settled on each of them, and even the tattered leather armor took on a new sense of strength.

  “Swarm fight,” I said.

  Ellen nodded. “I’ll carve a path for you. You take out the boss. Everyone else, follow Kade, keep the monsters off him, and keep your distance once they start fighting!”

  We moved before the C-Rankers could even nod in agreement.

  Shadow Shapes slammed down on the monsters to the left of the fire pit. Tendrils of darkness shaped like inky black tentacles ripped into the closest Troopers, then searched for more enemies as crossbows clacked and bolts clattered off the wall around us. Two shots slammed into my shoulder and chest, but the Stormsteel armor shredded the E-Rankers’ attacks before they even slowed me down.

  Thunderbolt stance—the two-handed kind. A Knight got in front of me. I lunged once, then twice, and Stormsong plowed through his greatsword’s guard, then into the magically reinforced armor below. Another blow. This one caught him in the armpit. The greatsword whirled. I pulled my body back, and the blow passed right through the space I’d been standing. It crashed into a barricade, and wood shattered and splintered. Chunks hit the fire pit. I ignored them.

  Two more thrusts, and the fight was over. Shadow Box rippled across two more knights. I stabbed into the weak spots Ellen had punched into their armor, and they, too, died. Lightning Charges. Enough to power Thunderblade. I went for it, and Stormsong turned into a blur.

  An arrow crashed into a Trooper to my left. Ulia was pitching in, and I took the time to nod as I sliced through the fourth of five knights on the left side. The right-side monsters were moving, coming around the pit to get in front and behind us at the same time. I laughed. Stormsong sang. The battle trance took over, and there was nothing but enemies, their weapons, and my sword.

  Swords and spears slammed into my armor. I ignored them and spun with Stormsong, thrusting into the closest monster and yelling something. I didn’t know what, but when I finished my spin and the body slid off my blade, another Shadow Shapes had dropped, and the path to the boss was clear.

  I didn’t waste any time.

  Cyclone stance. Lightning Strikes Twice. The full Polarity Shift combo. Black and green lightning poured from the sky into the Lion Commander’s armor. It crackled and arced across the boss’s plate even as its spear lunged out. I took the blow on my pauldron, spun, and fired a second Thunder Crash.

  Then, before the C-Rank boss could recover from all the lightning and their overcommitted spear attack, I excluded Tank Girl and the C-Rank fighter—they were too close, despite Ellen’s order not to close in—and used Stormbreak.

  Ten seconds later, the boss—and most of the monsters in the room—were dead.

  Portal Collapse In: 59:59

  Easy enough.

  Jessica Gerald had been busy.

  Ever since her first trip away from Earth, to the Crone’s world, she’d had this sinking feeling that Phoenix’s defenders weren’t going to win this fight. She’d been reading A Siegecraft Manual—she’d found it in the GC archives—and the text explained the rules for medieval sieges.

  A force inside a besieged fortress had a few options. They could wait it out and hope for help. They could shoot back at their besiegers. Or, they could try for a breakout.

  Waiting for help wasn’t an option. The steam cloud had cut off the outside world—Jessie’s group of online friends had dwindled from a few dozen hackers across the California coast cities and Texas down to Yreanne, User295, and…that was it. If she couldn’t communicate outside of the fortress, even on her secure, virtual networks and while trying to piggyback off the GC’s comm lines with her Outer Council credentials, she doubted the city could ask for help.

  And they’d been shooting back. They’d destroyed an unfathomable number of monsters. The Light of Dawn alone was responsible for at least thirty percent of the enemy’s casualties. But no matter how many the S-Rankers killed, they didn’t put a dent in the monsters—and worse, they were evolving.

  That left breaking out.

  Even if Phoenix had the A and S-Rank delvers to break out of the steam ring surrounding the city, and even if they could punch a hole in the monsters all around the 303 Wall, that wouldn’t be enough. All that would do was set up the remaining defenders to lose. Monsters—especially the ones outside of Phoenix—didn’t break and rout.

  But there were two other options.

  One was a quick, precision strike on the enemy’s leadership. Sieges sometimes ended in favor of the defenders if the attackers’ general died. The problem was that the general was inside Carlsbad’s S-Rank portal. No one had even made it to the portal’s entrance, much less seen the boss, so Jessie tabled that idea for now.

  That left her with a single option—the very first one, but modified.

  In medieval times, the hardest castles to besiege were those with an alternative way to enter. A castle up against the ocean, with a well-defended dock, could get food and water delivered by ship. A river could fill the same role and forced the defenders to cover more ground. The same was true of tunnels, hidden passes in the mountains, or any difficult-to-watch terrain. Granted, Phoenix was a little bigger than a medieval castle, but the principle was the same: open a supply line, relieve the time pressure, and wait the fighting out until the situation changed in the defenders’ favor.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out the strange, moonlight core. It was cool to the touch, and she stared at its faint glowing shape for a long time.

  “The Crone is the key,” she muttered as she sat in the dim library in the Desert Wind Guild’s building. “I need to reach out to her and come to an agreement soon. For Phoenix.”

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