The enemy’s helmet turned just a few degrees, as if he were looking past me. It would’ve been a shame to fall for some cheap trick, especially since my senses weren’t signalling any danger behind me. Still, they only reacted to active qi.

  Risking a stone cannonball to the face, I looked in the same direction, the centre of the ptform where he had started the fight, where fake marble tiles now bristled like raised scales, and the floor was dotted with pits where the opponent had torn up the stone. Even so, the jetboards still waited for their riders. They floated above the ground, so the demon’s technique had barely affected them. The shifting terrain had caused the boards to drift a little from their original positions, but they had stabilised and appeared entirely undamaged.

  The difference now was that I stood closer to them than Levinson did.

  I turned back to the enemy and noticed him coiling for a leap, just like the time he nearly caught me with that liquid stone.

  I jumped back before I even realized, he wasn’t aiming at me, but closer to the boards.

  The floor unched Levinson into the air, and I fired a couple of Hooks at him, sparing no energy from my reserve. One way or another, the fight would be over soon.

  The distorted technique did what it could, but both silver bdes curved wide of the moving target by several metres. My accuracy with this new upgrade clearly needed some calibration.

  Levinson nded just a step away from the boards.

  The reactive roar of Mendoza’s approach was growing louder, but the demons had undoubtedly pnned their escape route. If he dove into some obscure maintenance niche now, we’d never find him.

  I needed precision, or at least coverage: Chain Punch!

  I rushed, but the technique came off almost fwlessly. Only one of the eight projections formed a silver bde. Still, it struck directly at Levinson’s back and his defensive formations, which effortlessly blocked my projectiles.

  But one projection did arc around the demon and struck the nose of the jetboard he was stepping onto.

  These boards were built for cultivators, designed to be used in combat, so this mosquito bite of an attack couldn’t possibly damage it. But it did jolt the board. Instead of nding at the centre, the demon’s foot came down on the edge with just the tip of his toe.

  Physics and automatic stabilisers did the rest.

  The board tipped sideways, the demon’s foot slid further off and hit the floor, and the board twisted, recoiled, and drifted away, bumping and pushing the other boards like bowling pins.

  The demon growled in frustration. The foot that had missed digged into the stone, scooping up a chunk, which he hurled at me in a spinning motion.

  While I dodged, he managed to mount the board and point its nose toward the tunnel leading away from the workstations. He paused just long enough to flip me the middle finger, then surged forward.

  Had he not wasted that moment, he might’ve made it.

  The board’s jets fred with a brighter, concentrated blue fme, screamed, and the demon shot toward the mouth of the tunnel that led away from the central stations, the continuation of the very same tunnel Mendoza was approaching from. And the roar of her advance was already drowning out the whine of the board.

  He had almost slipped away! But then, faster than a bullet, a gleaming fireball streaked over the rails past the ptform, shooting from one tunnel arch to the other.

  For a split second, everything lit up.

  The demon was smmed into the wall beside the tunnel entrance with the same force he’d been flinging stones at me. His armour was driven halfway into the stone without the aid of any Earth techniques. The board was hurled down onto the rails, ricocheted off them into the walls, up into the ceiling, and finally crashed back down onto the ptform engines torn, fmes gouting from either side.

  One of the fme jets burned stronger than the other, and the board spun wildly across the floor like a top.

  I stood frozen for a second and a half, staring at the spinning firewheel. Hearing the heavy thud of my own heartbeat louder than anything else.

  It felt like the fight was finally over.

  If not for the fact that Mendoza had missed the ptform.

  Then, chasing her out of the tunnel, came a dull, angry cng, like someone had smashed an empty tank with all their might.

  A moment ter, a hurricane followed. A wall of hostile air swept across the ptform, from the tunnel to the opposite side, shoving drones aside and flinging boards onto the rails on the far end. My ears popped, my chest tightened so hard I instinctively exhaled, and my legs went numb for half a second.

  Did she just break the sound barrier?

  “…Jake!” Mendoza’s voice finally broke through.

  I knew it wasn’t supposed to be heard in my ears but in my mind, but with my hearing knocked out, it somehow didn’t register.

  “Huh?”

  “You alright?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “You missed the ptform a bit.”

  “Think it’s easy to manoeuvre at supersonic speed in a confined space?” she snapped. “I’m turning back now. What about the demon?”

  “He’s stuck to the wall. Like a fly on a windscreen.”

  “Alive?”

  “No idea…” My interface was still showing his name, so, “Probably. Can I not check?”

  “You may,” Mendoza replied cheerfully, then immediately sobered. “I’d honestly rather stash you somewhere. I’ve already got more than enough to expin.”

  “I could catch the next train out. It’s coming now,” I said, listening to the rumble in the tunnel.

  That engine roar I’d heard earlier was no longer coming from Mendoza’s direction. They both emerged at the same time, the train and her.

  Mendoza swerved straight onto the ptform to make space, hovering near the demon, eyeing me as she did. She wasn’t using a board. Her red-and-yellow armour cked the typical fire-cultivator exhausts. Instead, thick and short mechanical wing-tubes rose from her back, with short, stubby jets of fme in pce of feathers.

  And in her hand was a particur type of cylinder I recognised.

  “Son of a bitch!” she said, staring at me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not you. Your master. He didn’t tell me he gave you a pocket!

  “You’re not going to cim you came here to have tea with me in full combat gear, are you?”

  “I won’t,” I agreed. “But I’d like to take it off and get out of here on that train,” I added, pointing to a nearby carriage already being attended by cleaning drones.

  “I’m generally down for that, but I need to think it through. Let it do a full round first. I hope the demons hacked the system…”

  I looked at the mess across the ptform: complete chaos, debris everywhere. The drones were hauling bodies up onto the ptform like it was just ordinary rubbish.

  Definitely hacked!

  “…but if someone from the Order shows up early, I don’t want it to look like you’re running. And keep the armour on for now.”

  Mendoza turned back toward the demon.

  Her wings looked a bit ridiculous, to be honest, like a plucked chicken’s.

  “Speaking of the Order…” I said, hinting at Master Chen’s disciple.

  “Another reason you’re better off staying close to me,” Mendoza replied, touching down on the ground.

  The fmes from her wings lost pressure, turned yellow, and for a split second burst outward in a broad fan, forming proper wings of fire like those of a fearsome angel. The effect was so sudden and so fleeting. As soon as the fire died, the wings folded into a compact backpack.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered again, then turned to me and shook the cylinder. “This thing’s already full. Looks like I caught someone on the way.”

  “I think it was him,” I said, pointing at the cadet with the sliced-open gut. “He was still alive st time I checked.”

  An idea struck me.

  “That thing only holds one soul?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve only filled one?”

  “These things aren’t easy to make. We can’t just leave them lying around.”

  I shook my head. Idiot suffered for nothing. Waited all that time for the trap to arrive. This was a very bck day for the demons. Literally everything that could’ve gone wrong, did.

  Not that I’m compining! I thank Lady Luck for every bit of it!

  Mendoza gave me another look, then.

  “Ah, screw it, you’re already in the loop anyway.”

  She lifted the cylinder, and it vanished. Another appeared in her hand. She set it down on the floor, and then a scanner appeared in her grip. She started scanning Levinson.

  “Not good…” she muttered, touching his neck.

  That small movement was enough to shift the delicate bance that had been holding his body in pce, it slipped and tumbled to the floor.

  “Shit!” Mendoza swore, then sighed and stashed the cylinder back into her spatial pocket.

  “He dead?”

  “Neck was broken. But while he stayed still… ugh!” She waved her hand and moved on to scan the other bodies.

  The train, now packed with drones, closed its doors and began its loop around. Mendoza scanned the second-years first, then moved to the trio, including the one with a sword embedded in her forehead.

  “Not good…” the master repeated, turning her head toward me. “I was hoping it was just a mask.”

  So the demon hadn’t been impersonating Zhou. The demon was Zhou Xiangyun—Master Chen’s disciple.

  First Tao… now Zhou… Chen was drawing in all kinds of shit like a magnet. Is this his karma, or was his virtuous reputation just for show? What exactly ties him to demons, coincidence or intent?

  Mendoza crossed her arms and fell into thought. And she stayed quiet for a long while. The train completed its loop and returned to the opposite ptform, releasing more drones.

  “Should I go?” I asked.

  “No,” Mendoza decided. “We’re staying.”

  That had the tone of a direct order. No room for discussion. And it reeked of trouble.

  She began tapping through menus and scrolling through her interface.

  “Get here and bring the Fortress with you,” she said aloud. “Take the train, no need for theatrics. If anything goes wrong, there are still boards here.”

  She ended the call with a tap, then resumed scrolling, clearly calling someone else. This one wasn’t a subordinate, judging by the shift in her tone.

  “Hey, Ben. You heard about the incident yet?” she asked, waiting for a reply. “No? Four corpses right next to me and you’ve heard nothing? What about a train wrecked in the metro? No reports yet?

  “Don’t you yell at me, pal, I’m not your subordinate!” she raised her voice. “And don’t go shouting about this just yet. It’s in your best interest. I’m sending you my coordinates. Get here ASAP. Without Chen.

  “Seriously, no Chen. Unless you want the whole metro to grind to a halt,” she barked again. “No, not the grandson. The disciple.

  “Bloody hell, Ben! Just get here already!”

  I didn’t know who Ben was, but he was clearly someone high up.

  Was I really supposed to be here for this? Big politics were about to kick off, and with big politics came big ambitions, big egos, and big guns.

  I felt like I was standing between that spaceship and Novak’s fist projection right before he smashed it.

  Mendoza — Fifth Stage.

  Chen — Fifth Stage.

  Ben? I’d bet a hundred he was Fifth too.

  There were only a few hundred of them in a popution of billions. And here I was, meeting them one after another.

  Somewhere deep in the tunnel, the sound of another train began to rise. And I really, really didn’t want it to come any closer.

  More than anything in the world, I just wanted to go home.

  MaksymPachesiuk