Mendoza’s call came through instantly, not a second of dey.

  I raised my index finger in the air, as if politely cutting off the demon before he could respond.

  Not that he was about to say anything. My little ‘surprise’ still needed time to settle. A supposed victim had just killed the st member of the hunting squad. And I was supposed to be unarmoured, one hundred percent.

  I pointedly tapped the glowing holographic button to accept the call.

  “Location, status?!” Mendoza asked.

  Her voice was calm, composed, and battle-ready.

  I answered the way I figured a demon would, if he had, metaphorically speaking, the higher ground: arrogantly and zily.

  “Some kind of maintenance ptform past the final station,” I said, giving the stranger another once-over. A few jetboards were humming softly near the floor next to him, along with some packed equipment bags. “They were pnning to fly me out of here on boards. I guess the idea was I’d be unconscious, or something like that.” I chuckled.

  I heard quick footsteps and a crackle of static. Mendoza was already on the move.

  “Why does your tone surprise me?” she asked.

  “Well…” I paused for effect, keeping my tone deliberately cocky while giving Mendoza as much intel as I could. “Is one prisoner enough? Because I might’ve gone a bit overboard, three of the bastards that boxed me in the train car are already dead.”

  My opponent didn’t even flinch. If he had any mental techniques for analysis, they were probably firing on all cylinders now, risking to fry his brain.

  Then again, after what I’d just said, the same could be said for Mendoza.

  “Are you safe?” she asked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I replied honestly, but still cockily. “More like the opposite.”

  “Five to seven minutes!” she said. “Keep him occupied for as long as you can.”

  Sounded like this time I wasn’t getting cavalry support. This time, heavy artillery was on call.

  I’d already seen what a Stage Five cultivator could do. Novak had split a spaceship in half with his fists.

  Hopefully that wouldn’t happen here. Way too much destructive power for such a small space. I'd be blown to bits right along with it.

  “Copy that,” I said. “Hey, shit-for-brains, how about we don’t make this harder than it has to be? You might have illusions about me, but you really don’t want to meet Patel, do you?” I said. “And he’ll be here in literally one minute.”

  I deliberately shortened the time and swapped out the name of my rescue. Mendoza was meant to be the brains, not the brawn. I tried to spook the demon. Didn’t work.

  He saw through the bluff.

  “Patel’s on the other end of campus right now. The only way he makes that distance in a minute is if he’s figured out teleportation.”

  Oh, crap!

  The carriage doors behind me smmed shut and the train began to move.

  The enemy attacked.

  The floor shuddered.

  With a sharp stomp, he smmed his foot down on the fake marble underfoot, not out of anger, demons are angry by default, but to unleash energy. A heavy qi rippled through the floor like a wave, lifting tiles like scales on a lizard’s back.

  An Earth cultivator — slow, heavy, and unbreakable.

  After the Earth Garden and that polite administrator, it was hard to associate this bastard with those barefoot monks. He had none of their calm, just a lot of deep, simmering rage.

  Levinson roared like an angry bear, stepped onto the first raised sb, and kicked forward. A chunk of stone clung to his sole, tore free from the floor, and shot at me like a cannonball.

  There was nothing slow about it!

  I barely had time to Monkey-dodge aside, and the sb smashed through the train window — the same one I’d nearly cracked my skull on earlier.

  Levinson stomped again, and three stone ptes in front of him jumped half a metre into the air. He shoved two with his palms, kicked the third. All three came flying at me in quick succession.

  Blocking wasn’t even an option. He hit with so much force I didn’t trust my amulet to take it. It was already long past new. Who knew how much juice that shield had left?

  So I dodged. That’s what the Monkey was made for.

  The sbs smmed into the train behind me. Fresh gss sprayed everywhere, and wherever stone struck metal, it sent splinters of rock flying. The train itself rocked dangerously, like it was about to derail, but held. Just barely. Only to be pummelled again by another wave of projectiles, because the bastard demon wasn’t done!

  The stone hail battered the train, making the whole steel serpent tremble. The st carriage was shaking so violently, it looked ready to jump onto the ptform. I was sure at least some wheels were lifting off the rails.

  I twisted and flipped like a snake on a frying pan. Despite the cultivation gap, he couldn’t nd a hit. I figured the stimunts and the distance helped. And compared to the sword bitch, he really was slower.

  But the stone floor was an endless ammo supply for him, and those projectiles just kept coming. So why the hell was I staying grounded?

  They don’t teach Air here!

  Surprise!

  I unched myself into the air, and after a few zig-zagging jumps, I was right above him, lining up the most generous Hook of my life. I could even feel my reserves dip.

  At the st moment, my second stream of thought kicked in, remembering it was supposed to monitor things. And I caught a glimpse. The way the qi burst out of the channels into the trench, flowing free and straight, especially through the fists. But that was all. I didn’t have time to comprehend it, let alone control it.

  So instead of a proper downward fist projection, following the arc of my strike, my right hand released a massive silver bde.

  The bde, however, didn’t strike the enemy, it hit a stone wall the demon had conjured as a shield. It cracked the rock, and the detonation blew the remnants apart.

  Still, it didn’t cause any real harm, and now I was the one dodging. He used the shards for a wide scatter-shot counterattack that nearly pinned me to the ceiling.

  Quick on the uptake. I’d forgotten — Fire cultivators here could fly. So he probably had loads of experience. Too much, if you factored in all the vessels.

  In any case, I couldn’t stay airborne for long. A few more Hooks like that and I’d be empty, nothing left to answer with. And only a minute of fighting had passed.

  I could try to run, but where to? Into the tunnel? Surrounded by more rock and earth?

  Better to fight on the ptform. At least there was room to manoeuvre. And that’s where backup was headed.

  “Five minutes!” Mendoza said, as if reading my mind.

  “We’ve already done this part!” I replied, diving under another chunk of flying stone.

  “No, it was five to seven!” she barked back.

  Something was roaring in the background on her end. No idea what. Even with two thought streams, it was hard to track mid-fight.

  “You’re right,” the demon said. “Let’s try something else.”

  He stopped throwing rocks.

  So I paused too, caught my breath, and offered, “So how about we call it here? Take a break. Answer a few questions…”

  The demon raised his index finger just like I had earlier.

  Was his boss calling too?

  No, he was distracting me.

  The ground surged under Levinson and unched him at me.

  I barely managed to react. Monkey-backward leap.

  He nded right where I’d just been and plunged his hand into the tiles as if they were water.

  I felt the danger, the Earth Qi rushed under my feet, and suddenly, instead of solid ground, my soles sank into the stone as if it were mud.

  My feet went in up to the ankles, even though they were wrapped in erupting Fist Qi. The stone mire interfered with the proper activation of my technique that should’ve unched me into the air. I barely managed to lift one foot. But with no support under the other, I had to lower it again.

  Now I was in up to the calves.

  It was sucking me in, pulling with a force that couldn’t be broken with a simple motion.

  “Got you!” Levinson shouted cheerfully.

  I realised I had a moment, just one, before he pulled his hands out of the stone. After that, I really would be caught.

  I threw my hands upward, grabbed the air, and yanked myself out. Feet off the ground and get the hell out of there!

  Hoo!

  When I get back to the Bck Lotus, I’m buying Rene the finest bottle I can get my hands on. Today, his teachings saved my life.

  Actually, no, not yet.

  My little stunt sent the demon into another fit of frenzy, and now high-calibre chunks of rock were flying at me again, right as an empty train pulled onto the ptform from the other end. Judging by a few smashed windows, it was the same one from earlier.

  The doors opened and drones poured out in perfect sync. Two of them were dragging bodies.

  That made the demon freeze, and I flipped him the finger and dove into the train.

  Of course, he jumped in after me.

  I jumped out.

  He jumped out.

  I jumped in — he jumped in.

  Eventually, we both froze: one foot each inside the train and one on the ptform. Like a scene out of a kids’ cartoon or an old comedy, except with my life on the line. Now and then, a rock the size of my head came flying from the ptform like a cannonball.

  “Stop running! You’re not getting away!” the demon decred.

  “I’m not trying to,” I replied. “I’m buying time.”

  “Patel’s too far away. No way he gets here anytime soon,” the demon said, tearing another chunk of stone from the ptform with his foot.

  I ducked back into the train, but instead of hurling it at me straight on, he tossed it up and batted it into the train with his right hand, then followed it up with a stone bst from the left.

  I had to leap out.

  And just as I moved, the train doors began to close.

  I jumped back into the train immediately. The demon followed, of course, but there was no way I was going to stay trapped in a carriage one-on-one with an armoured opponent of a higher stage. The doors were closing, and even if I tried to wedge them open, I wouldn’t have been able to hop in and out freely anymore. That meant death.

  I picked the ptform.

  Leapt out.

  The doors shut behind me and the train began to move.

  “Finally!” the demon roared.

  I took a step further onto the ptform, widening the gap between us, and between me and the moving train, for more manoeuvring room.

  Involuntarily, I gnced back at the train... and saw a shattered window slowly drifting past me.

  I flipped him off again and dove through it.

  I was ready to jump right back out, but the train rolled up to the demon and he dove into the same window.

  Thank god he didn’t have my grace, or leaping experience. He made it inside, sure, but flopped like a sack of shit and sprawled across the floor.

  I avoided colliding with him, jumped onto the seats, and vaulted back out the window onto the ptform.

  There was a hope, just a flicker of one, that he wouldn’t make it out in time. That he’d get caught between the window and the tunnel arch and be torn in half. But no, he tumbled out a split second before that could happen.

  The train’s tail was already well down the tunnel now, so I couldn’t pull the trick again. It had fully disappeared into the dark.

  The demon was sprawled across the ptform, smming his fists into the fake marble floor a few times in blind fury.

  Then he stood up and shook a fist at me.

  “No more fucking running!”

  “Almost there!” Mendoza’s voice rang in my ear.

  “Oh, thank God,” I exhaled.

  The demon didn’t understand me, but the sound of the departing train had shifted. It was being drowned out by a different hum now. A strange one.

  And it was getting closer.

  The demon froze.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re fu-u-cked! Should’ve run while you still had the chance.”

  MaksymPachesiuk