“Alex!” Lenna’s voice cut through the low murmur inside my head, urging me to eat more at all costs. I hadn’t even noticed it. Once I did, I stomped on it with all my might.

  I jerked my claws back from the carcass, and growled.

  Lenna, Asceto, and Sile stood several feet away, closer to the exit than to me, and not moving any closer. Asceto held his hands up like I was some wild animal.

  I growled again, shaking my head.

  He smelled like them. Acidic and slightly chocolate.

  More!

  I leaped in his direction.

  Asceto held no weapon, just stood there staring at me as I flew closer, waiting for me to hit. His eyes closed as he swallowed, accepting whatever happened.

  “Alex!”

  This wasn’t me.

  Again, I mentally slammed on the thoughts urging me to eat more.

  With a roar, I reached down and dug my claws into the stone floor, and crashed into the ground after rolling a bit, away from the portal and closer to the only available exit.

  I somehow stopped before I touched him, then stared up at him.

  Blink.

  He stared at me, mouth open, panting like he’d done something hard.

  [Asceto, Level 155, Prey, Unknown.]

  He crumbled to the ground beside me as another notification dinged.

  I couldn’t deal with any of that right now.

  My stomach growled, squeezing painfully tight, and I almost bit my tongue. I ran it carefully along my teeth, discovering a second set had formed behind the first. Then I shoved a handful of meat from my inventory into my mouth. I swallowed it whole. Followed by another, and another. That kept up for longer than I would have thought possible. Each bit only helped a little, unlike before.

  And it used up most of the meat left in my inventory. I’d had a lot of meat in my inventory. Not anymore.

  Energy rushed through me from my chest, and my wrist.

  I held up my hand as the crystal knuckles around my wrist crumbled into dust. The energy was cut off, yet my chest still felt warm.

  Seconds ticked by before what had just happened actually made sense.

  Panic rose in me as I frantically ripped the necklace hidden under my shirt, the one with all of my most prized crystal tools, off my neck. As soon as I let it go, the warmth faded as my stomach clenched again.

  “Alpha,” chirped Strange from somewhere in my shadow. “Safe.”

  Mentally, he had curled up in my shadow, and his form felt wrong, broken still. Like he’d been run over by a car or something.

  The urge to help him overrode everything else. Our bond said I should take care of him, no matter what. He was my buddy. Hunting wouldn’t help him, a healer might.

  My heart rate slowed down, and a sort of calm descended on me.

  He needed a healer. That was my goal. I had to find a healer. A hunter wouldn’t help with that.

  The dark armor pulled back, slowly vanishing from my skin as coldness rippled in its place. A violent shiver went through my body.

  “You okay?” whispered Asceto.

  “Maybe…” I lied. I wasn’t okay, and Strange was hurt badly. I needed to focus on that.

  Within seconds, he dozed off again contained within my shadow.

  He wasn’t dead. Thank whatever existed in the System, he wasn’t dead. But something still felt wrong with him. Big time.

  Asceto still sat on the ground near me, with drooping shoulders and the look of one reading several system messages.

  I slowly climbed to my feet, intentionally not glancing at the others. Lenna moved closer to me, then wrapped me in a hug before I said anything. Everyone else gathered near the gate, which someone opened, and a few stood near the still-active portal. Everyone moved with purpose, and a heavy tension hung in the air.

  People stared at the portal, weapons drawn.

  “You’re still you,” she whispered, pulling back and studying my face. She held my crystals in her other hand. “You did it.”

  “Still breathing,” I mumbled, still feeling the echo of the second set of teeth in my mouth. “Strange needs help.”

  That’s what mattered. Not whatever had just happened to me. That I could figure out later.

  My notifications waited for me, but first I studied my hand. The armor was gone, but I could still feel the slightly thicker layer hiding underneath my skin, protecting me.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I tightened my hand into a fist, and it appeared like something floating to the surface of a pond. Various tiny chips that flexed as I tightened my hand, or as close as I could without stabbing myself in the palm with my new claws.

  They did not come out of my knuckles, and instead replaced my fingertips. Holding anything with them would be hard.

  My stomach rumbled and I relaxed. The armor sank beneath my skin again.

  The armor had covered me everywhere. I swallowed, wondering about the picture I’d made before opening my notifications. I had to figure out what had happened.

  “Alex, we need to go,” whispered Lenna, before I could read anything. “Asceto, come.”

  She yanked on my wrist, and I didn’t even glance at the notifications, muting them again.

  Asceto followed. “Yeah, before they destroy the portal.”

  “Alex, we need to go…” said Lenna. Her eyes flickered into pure silver just for a split second, then her face went pale. “Hurry, Forgers are trying to flee this wayl”

  “We can’t hold this point for much longer,” yelled Sile, near the massive doors. “Everyone, down the stairs! Kel, reinforce the door, fast!”

  Everyone else leaped into action, closing the main doors to the portal room. Several Azurafolk appeared on the other side, joining us just before they slammed the door shut and the bar went down.

  Multiple Forgers crept closer on the other side, blazing a bright orange on my radar. The ping of them getting close enough to bump my stats made my body almost hum.

  So many of them.

  My mouth watered, and I grinned, but then mentally smacked myself. I couldn’t fight right now. I glanced at the portal, still pissed that Ivkar had made it through.

  Was he just waiting on the other side?

  I took a step in that direction as my second set of teeth descended.

  “You are not going through that,” Lenna said, suddenly tightening her fingers. She didn’t even flinch when my armor formed around my wrist.

  The teeth retracted as I pushed those thoughts away. Strange needed me here.

  “Not a chance,” I said. Though part of me felt slightly disappointed that I couldn’t hunt him down.

  “Good. Remember Strange.” She pulled me closer to the much smaller exit, but I pulled free of her hand.

  I pulled out the explosive crystals I’d saved. I held them up and pointed to the portal. “But I can help with these.”

  “Where did you get that?” asked Sile, suddenly closer than before.

  “Made them.”

  He gritted his teeth, then shook his head. “It’s not enough to blow it. Those Forgers are going to make it through that door. If we weren’t cut off from the Steadfast warriors, we’d easily take them, but they outnumber us. Three to one.”

  “They won’t blow it up but I bet they’ll make a mess on the other side.” Chaos at the very least. Maybe I could get Ivkar from a distance.

  “Alex, Havi can’t get to us in time.” He glared at me. “Do what you will, we are leaving.”

  It dawned on me how few people remained in the room, not to mention Kabi and Dengu weren’t with us.

  “At least try to blow it.” Asceto said, wobbling on his feet. “Without a way back, they are screwed.”

  A loud boom echoed from behind the massive entrance, and we all flinched.

  “I’m getting my people out.” Sile pointed to the door, then a rush of energy flickered through me at his glance. “You promised to show me the way to the Rune Challenge. I will hold you to that.”

  Suddenly, I could feel the promise weighing on my shoulders.

  Then he sprinted to the smaller door.

  Lenna nodded at me. “Do it, but don’t linger. There is so much…”

  “I got this.” A grin came over my face as I raced away from them to the portal. It was easy dodging the fallen on the floor.

  Lenna started running to the exist with Sile and the others, after grabbing Asceto’s hand.

  Time for some payback. For Strange.

  Yet, no one hung around waiting to see if I went through or not. Was I going to go into the bright light?

  Fuck no. I knew better. Anything could wait for me on the other side, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. Plus, Strange was contained within my shadow right now, and he needed help. Real help.

  I stuck two of the explosive crystals on either side of the base of the portal.

  Last time I’d blown one of these it hadn’t really been intentional, and I’d had more, bigger explosives.

  This time, I wasn’t sure if what I had would do it. But it was worth a try.

  I held the last of them in my hands and I dove inside the crystal. This time, as I touched the presence inside I gave it everything I could about wanting the portal to go boom. How people were invading from it, and taking people captive. How they were offenders. They were hurting people on this side, and I needed this crystal to stop them.

  It took seconds to communicate all of this to the presence inside, and a crack formed on the massive door keeping the horde of Forgers out during that time.

  I didn’t know who exactly was on the other side, but they were motivated.

  The Forgers wanted to leave. Too bad.

  I readied myself, then tossed the last crystal into the portal with all of my might. As soon as it left my hand, I sprinted to the small open door that the others had fled through. I wrapped my hand around the handle and closed it behind me, just as the explosion rocked the area.

  The metal door dented inward, and I almost stumbled down the stairs as everything shook, but I caught myself. Part of me longed to go back and find a way into the portal room, just to see what I’d done, but the door probably wouldn’t budge.

  Orange presences fled into the room, but didn’t vanish as I leaped down several steps at a time.

  Maybe it’d worked.

  Hopefully it’d worked, and those asshats were going to be around for a while for some hunting.

  I flew down the steps faster than ever before, and came upon the wreckage of the lab.

  No one waited for me, but that was okay.

  Someone had shattered all of the equipment into tiny pieces. Which was a good thing. The cabinets were all broken into, and glass covered the damp floor. An acidic smell lingered in the air, making my face itch.

  I kept going and the door into the metal tube room lay in the center of the floor. I couldn’t help myself, and glanced inside one of the tubes that Asceto had stabbed.

  It was empty.

  Same as the next and the next.

  Even the ones that had held copies of him held nothing, yet it didn’t appear to have been opened. The bodies inside were just gone.

  Maybe they turned into dust like the clones.

  Something shifted out of the corner of my eye, and I twisted out ready to fight, claws shooting out of my knuckles.

  Yet, no one stood there. Looking closely, I saw a gap. One of the metal tubes had vanished.

  I blinked twice as another vanished right in front of me.

  The back of my neck itched and I slowly backed to the staircase leading back the way we’d entered.

  Everything inside me screamed to run.

  I triggered my perception and runes flared to life everywhere. Each glowed in a bright white that made my head hurt, and I quickly dropped my perception.

  That wasn’t good.

  I scrambled up the stairs as fast as I could.

  We needed to get out of this place, right fucking now.

  That bright white light had come from one of the metal tubes disappearing into nothingness.

  What the actual fuck?