I saw the monster first.

  Invisible creatures were supposed to be... well, invisible, but something had forced it to show itself.

  I wouldn’t have noticed it unaided. What broke the illusion was impact. Some spell seemed to have been shot at the creature, and the thing’s silhouette was outlined in hard aetheric light. The glow was silvery cold and bright enough to cling to the creature for seconds, highlighting something tall and asymmetrical, tracing edges that should not have been edges. It was roughly humanoid in the loosest sense: upright, with a central mass and several protrusions that might once have been limbs, if one were being charitable. But its proportions were wrong. The torso elongated too far down, tapering instead of widening. One side bore a cluster of jointed appendages that bent at inconsistent angles, like arms assembled by committee. The other side dragged a denser and heavier limb that left shallow grooves in the stone when it staggered back.

  Its head—if that was what the upper convergence was—had no clear front. The aetheric outline showed a ring of nodal points where a face might have been, rotating slowly around a hollow center.

  This looked like a monster I would not want to mess with.

  Metal shuddered toward it. I could see that clearly now: nails trembled in beams, loose rivets crawled, and a discarded buckle skidded an inch at a time across the stone before lifting outright and smming into the creature’s mass with a sound like teeth clicking together. Twisted iron tore free next, rising in a loose, orbiting halo before snapping inward as if cimed by gravity that had learned a new direction.

  I slowly approached, and the street ahead opened into a shallow, bowl-like widening where the old trade road had once broadened to accommodate caravans before narrowing again toward the outer approach.

  Its outline glowed again as another attack struck it. I could not see the attacker, who had been obscure from behind the colpsed fa?ades of the street.

  I did not draw my sword.

  Instead, I checked the numbers.

  [Boon: New Active Skill — Static Surge (Lv.1)]

  Cost: 5 AP

  Cooldown: 30 seconds

  With all the extra APs I got from the Huskweave and the trinket, I had the generous reserve to use it... three times. Which meant there would be no test run. The first activation would be real, against a High Tier II anomaly in an urban environment, with unknown conductive feedback and a nonzero chance my own armor would decide it wanted to participate.

  That was not a pn. Stealth was equally off the table. The armor was heavy and jointed. So I did the only thing that remained.

  I went around.

  First, the detector had to go.

  I hesitated, fingers lingering on the casing, then set it carefully against the wall and covered it with some cotton rag I’d found to muffle the sound. Abandoning equipment felt wrong, like leaving a limb behind, but noise was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I would come back to retrieve it ter, providing nobody had stolen it.

  Keeping to the shadowed side streets, I skirted the bowl-shaped widening and looped behind the line of engagement, using colpsed walls and abandoned carts as visual cover rather than auditory. I stayed far enough back that the monster’s magneto-resonant pull didn’t start arguing with my buckles, and close enough that I could still track the aetheric afterimage of each strike.

  The attacker still didn’t reveal themselves. That was fine. I wasn’t here to help them. I was here for Anabeth. If she was anywhere near this, she’d pass through the periphery, and I would drag her away from the danger like the responsible protector of the people I was—

  Then I saw the attacker’s back as I rounded the corner.

  White robe, leaf-worked embroidery along the hem and sleeves, silver hair braided tight down her back... that was Anabeth. From her outstretched hand poured a stream of white incandescence that looked like fire and could only be described as fire because my brain cked a better category, apart from the fact that I couldn’t feel any heat in the air. Yet upon impact, it made the invisible creature shriek and bze ever brighter each time it was driven back.

  It had no smoke, no roar, yet the stream burned white and almost solid, as if heat had been stripped of everything but its intent.

  The thing shrieked in answer, a sound like metal being torn out of stone, and lurched forward, dragging half the metallic junk along the street with it.

  Anabeth fired another—no, she never stopped firing. The incandescence didn’t come in pulses or discrete shots, but a relentless outpouring that only narrowed or thickened as she adjusted her stance. The white stream condensed with her control, compressing when the creature surged, easing only enough to keep it pinned and visible.

  The monster shrieked again and again, each attempt to close the distance ending the same way, only to be smmed back by that impossible heatless fme.

  I stared at her, momentarily forgetting my own calcutions.

  How much AP did she even have?

  Sustained output at that intensity meant either absurd reserves, ruthless efficiency, or a willingness to burn herself hollow and deal with the consequences ter. And she was fighting a High Tier 2 creature.

  [Magnetic Eidolon – Level 19]

  NOTE: All attributes locked. Creature is too high-level. Unlock Skill: Appraisal to see more attributes.

  For the first time since I’d seen her, she chanted, rhythmically and utterly calm,

  “What is bound will hold its shape.

  What burns without heat will know its why.”

  The choker at her throat answered. What I had taken for a simple band of pale crystal fractured soundlessly, separating into a consteltion of narrow, razor-edged shards that lifted into the air around her neck, they rotated forward, took in the white incandescence and refracted it, feeding it back into the stream rather than away from it.

  Anabeth extended her hand a fraction more. The shards fused with the stream. The white stream compressed through the crystal array until it was no longer a flow but a blinding line. Then those shards struck the creature. Her eyes glowed like a lighthouse.

  She decred, “Foul creature. Your death will be instructional.”

  The monster shrieked.

  The sound tore across the street, then cut off as if suddenly severed. Every levitated object dropped at once, cttering to the stones like a metallic shower.

  Silence followed.

  I couldn’t tell if the creature had fled or been annihited outright. I only knew one thing with absolute certainty.

  It wasn’t there anymore.

  Anabeth stepped forward, eyes down as if confirming the street still existed, and when she spread her fingers the crystal shards scattered across the stones lifted at once. They slid through the air to reassemble themselves at her throat, where they sealed seamlessly back into a simple, pale choker.

  What was that magic? What element was that white ‘heat’? How could she break apart her choker and turn them into a range weapon at will like that? These were so high-level I’d never even witnessed them in my life.

  She gnced up as they settled, and for a heartbeat I caught her eyes fully: doll-like no longer, but instead cold and absolute, like the first time I’d seen her. Those were the eyes born to vanquish, to conquer, to to decide what was allowed to exist.

  [Skill Detected: Commanding Gaze – Lv. 8]Only two levels below me, and she didn’t need any divine stones dropping on her head.

  A chill ran straight down my spine as the thought surfaced, uninvited.

  Maybe she was just hiding her effortless poise this whole time. Maybe this was who she really was, not a needlessly airheaded schor, but an all-powerful, reality-bending—

  She hummed to herself, pleased. “Your death will be instructional, huh... Ooohhhh. I sounded so cool back there. That’s absolutely what Sir Knight would say.”

  Never mind. This was who she really was: an airhead. Just a very powerful one.

  She rubbed the back of her neck and muttered, “I can’t tell him it took me a whole two minutes to deal with a magnetic eidolon. He’d ugh at me and then—” she frowned, “—and then probably never respect me again. Oh, right,” She murmured to herself, “Sir Knight’s going to leave if I take too long. He is surely the type to never wait on people, and I’ve... had enough time to compose myself. That was so humiliating. I will not bleed in front of Sir Knight again. Surely, I am composed now. Ah, but he had seen it... I need him to forget about it and see me in a different light.” She nodded decisively, as if agreeing with an argument only she had been having. “Oooh... I knew just the thing to do. Yes. That will work. He will not see it coming at all. Hehehe...” Then she took off in the opposite direction.

  That sounded rather ominous, but I didn’t have the time to think about whatever sinister scheme she was plotting.

  Before those eyes could nd on me again and ask inconvenient questions, I did the sensible thing and retreated. I slipped back through the side streets toward the tavern as my armors protested in offended little clicks. I prayed she didn’t hear it.

  Halfway there, Ceralis called me.

  [Task Completed: Where the Hollow Calls]

  Boon Acquired: Path of the Earthen Aegis — Foundational Boon Unlocked

  The text burned itself into my vision.

  Please choose one of the following options.