Jace stood still in the center of the room, bent over, hands on his knees. He panted, lungs heaving for breath. He faintly registered Perril using a technique on him, sealing up the new scrapes and slashes he’d earned, but it faded away when he was half-healed. Rallemnon was dead for good, and he had no more Vitality to drain and transfer.

  A sheet of golden dust appeared in front of him: [Quest complete: Kill General Rallemnon. Reward: Three hundred (300) standard Aes Units]

  A plume of Aes shot into his chest, but he barely felt it beneath the rushing in his ears, the pounding of his heart, and the pumping of his lungs.

  On the other side of the room, Ash cut down the last of the Watchmen. He pulled the Wielder in with a tractor-beam technique, then slashed through the man’s waist and cleaved him in half.

  “So…that’s it?” Jace asked, glancing around, just in case any other threat jumped out of the wall and approached the center of the room. The dungeon’s core still blazed. It sent spears of light lancing out through the smoke, but the clouds were dissipating, leaving only a burning ball of light in their center.

  “That is it,” Kinfild said, approaching Jace from behind. “You defeated him.”

  “Thanks for the help.” He pulled himself upright, ignoring the sting of his half-healed injuries, and turned to face the others. “I couldn’t have done it without the support.”

  “You’re alright?” Lessa asked, bounding over. She’d freed her arm from the damaged exo suit strut, but she wasn’t hurt, and the exo-suit arm just dangled behind her, clinking and clattering.

  “I’m mostly good.” It didn’t change the fact that he still had a pretty big scar down the right side if his face, or a couple smaller wounds from his battle, but nothing was going to kill him any time soon. “Ash!” he shouted. “Are you okay?”

  “I am unharmed!” Ash called back.

  Aside from a few minor scrapes, that was—even Jace could see that. A cut across his forehead trickled blood down his face, and his cloak and robes were torn. Small cuts probably didn’t count as horrible damage among Wielders, though.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Lessa said. “But what does it mean when you say…‘O.K.’? Is it…like alright?”

  “You…you guys don’t say okay here?” Jace tilted his head. “I thought…well, in this context, it’s like ‘alright.’ ” It definitely wasn’t uncommon to say back home, especially in English speaking countries. But then again, he did remember something from high school about it being a relatively modern alteration to the language.

  “Huh…” Lessa said. “Neat.”

  “Interesting,” Jace said. He tucked his Whistling Blade back into its sheath and faced Kinfild and Perril again. “Did you hear what Rallemnon said? That the Generous Hand was a Worldjumper?”

  “I did,” Kinfild said. “And I am still processing that.”

  “He said what?” Ash exclaimed. “And we should believe him?”

  “Why would he lie?” Perril asked. “The previous four Worldjumpers went missing, right? About a hundred years ago?”

  Kinfild swallowed. “Assumed dead.”

  “Perhaps not,” Ash said. “The Split summoned them here, thinking that they could save us, but whatever the prophecy was…was false. But Jace, there is something you must know: your summoning was not a natural summoning. It was a ritual. The First Attendant summoned the Seven Grand Guilds to Kinath-Aertes, and allowed them to use the citadel tower for their summoning ritual. Four more Worldjumpers will come, but it was not the Split’s will. Not directly. The Split’s main chosen champions…they advanced, they grew in strength, and the galaxy fed them our best.”

  “What happened to them?” Jace asked.

  “They went beyond the Wall to seek out the Enemy and destroy him. They never returned.” Ash shook his head. “We assumed they failed, and we despaired, but the First Attendant of the time assured everyone that it was the will of the Split, and more would be summoned.”

  “The prophecy morphed,” Kinfild said. “Elder Stenol noticed a change, and…he found a way to look into Fate. He saw that once the next Worldjumpers began arriving, they would herald the end of days—or a final confrontation between the people of the galaxy and the Enemy.”

  “So…these seven guids,” Jace said. “They forced the prophecy?”

  “That would be my understanding,” Ash replied. “Presumably acting under the influence of the Generous Hand.”

  “And the Generous Hand is under the influence of the Enemy?” Lessa asked.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Kinfild held up a finger. “Not necessarily. You heard what Stenol pitched to the Alliance on Roteac. It was to reforge the galaxy and resist the Enemy.”

  “Then forcing the prophecy was a way to seize power,” Jace said. “Or, he could’ve been lying. Manipulating them.”

  “As long as the Wall stands, we will resist the Enemy,” Ash said. “Our duty must be to make sure it stays standing.”

  Jace walked over to the open coffin, where the Halcyon Spear lay exposed. “This weapon has to be one of the keys to bring down the Wall. If this Generous Hand wasn’t an agent of the Enemy, then why would he want to bring down the Wall?”

  The others were silent.

  “The Generous Hand controls the central guilds,” Jace said. “That has to be clear by now. But he also controls the Watchmen. He’s manipulating this war to seize power, and once he has it, he’ll doom us. He’ll be able to hunt for the rest of the weapons he needs to bring down the wall, if he doesn’t already have some of them. And then the Enemy wins.”

  The four others all stared on with mystified, somewhat terrified expressions. He probably looked the same. “We can’t let that happen,” Jace said. “I got a second chance. I got to be something more because of this place, and I’m not just going to let it burn down around me. Whatever happens next…I’m going after the Generous Hand.”

  The others stayed quiet.

  “I can’t ask any more of you guys,” Jace said. “You’ve been a great help. But if you want to come, I would really appreciate the extra hands.”

  “I’m with you,” Lessa blurted out. “All the way.”

  “I have come this far,” Kinfild added. “I wouldn’t back down now.”

  Ash was quiet for a few seconds, before finally, he added, “It may be time for me to stop slinking in the shadows and hiding my power. If you would have me, I will join you.”

  Glancing at Ash, Perril put her hands on her hips, then looked down. “Ah, what the hell. I’ve got nothing better to be doing, and I can’t exactly go and hide, can’t live a peaceful life in the far reaches of the galaxy if there is no more galaxy.”

  “But we’ve still gotta get out of here, right?” Lessa asked, looking up at the dungeon core. “You wouldn’t know how to destroy that, would you?”

  If it was anything like the kobold Queen-Core, they needed to hit it with an advantageous element. Shields were a subset of Earth, so if what Kinfild had explained to Jace was right, Fire was advantageous over it.

  “Kinfild,” Jace said, “Can you blast it with flame?”

  “I could try, though I doubt my attacks are strong enough.”

  “The spear,” Ash said. “Imbue it with a little flame, and the spear’s power will enhance it enough to destroy the core.”

  Jace bent down, then cautiously, wrapped his fingers around the center of the Halcyon Spear. He half expected it to shock him or strike his hands with some technique, or maybe burn them, but it was just…a bar of permanently-forged shield Aes with a pointed tip on each side. Up close, he could see a hexagonal pattern running all along its form, from its tip to its very tail, and in its core was a solid wire of glowing blue Aes.

  At the very center, tucked in between all the layers of forged shield-Aes, was a shimmering technique card. It was much longer than it was wide, and more like a bookmark. It wrapped around the core wire over and over.

  Whatever technique it was, it had been baked into the weapon as some special function. He could figure that out later.

  He held the spear out to Kinfild, and Kinfild lit the base of the spear with his Flame Snap card. The arcane fire travelled along the spear in a spiralling pattern, slowly winding up to the tip. As it travelled, the strength of the spear imbued the flame with greater and greater strength.

  “Uh…Kinfild,” Jace warned. “Are you gonna take the spear? It’s gonna get pretty hot on my fingers soon.”

  “I do not think I could withstand its strength,” Kinfild said. “You have taken the spear. It is yours to experiment with now.”

  “My hand…”

  “Boy, we gave you a metal hand,” Perril snapped. “Don’t let my efforts go to waste, aye? Or I’ll come over there and take it from you.”

  “R—right.” Jace cleared his throat, then switched the spear into his mechanical hand. When the flame spiralled up to the tip, it beaded, like it was about to fall off. It was ready to use.

  Jace hadn’t wielded a spear before, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want it as a permanent weapon, but he would see what he could do with its materials. Eventually. For today, though, they just had to get out of here.

  He thrust his arm up, and the flame rolled off. It surged upward and bit into the bottom of the dungeon’s core.

  The beam of flame Aes pierced the core’s bottom and sliced straight through, before smashing harmlessly into the ceiling.

  Shaking, the core destabilized. One half of it fell one way, and the other half fell the other way.

  “Get down!” Ash shouted. They all dropped to their stomachs and covered their heads.

  The core burst apart. With a boom that sounded like really, really deep windchimes, the core’s Aes radiated in waves across the larger spherical level’s equator. Rune-lines that Jace hadn’t even seen before simmered along the floor, and everything shone blue for a few seconds.

  Then it faded slightly. At least, it wasn’t trying to burn his eyes out of their sockets. He slowly rose to his feet, brushing dust and blue sparks off his shoulders. “Well…that did it.”

  The core was no more. There wasn’t even a trace of it, except for the streaks it’d seared into Jace’s vision.

  He began, “I think we should—”

  Before he could finish, the floor rumbled and shuddered. Dust fell from the ceiling, and there was a distant whir, almost the same sound as the Luna Wrath made when it closed its boarding ramp.

  “Oh shit…” Jace breathed. “Those causeways…they weren’t doors. They were boarding ramps.”

  The floor thrummed beneath them, then lurched up. He fell flat to his stomach once more, but not on purpose.

  “This thing is a spaceship.”

  And they’d just made it take off.