As an old witch in a young girl's body, Gwen saw the Abjurer's avarice a mile away.

There was an old aphorism in her alter-world. When profit exceeds the single-digit percentage in a bull market, traders are willing to take inordinate risks. When the advantage exceeds double-digit figures, individuals are willing to flout the law. When the margin of profit surpasses even that, financiers will voluntarily risk the market economy and others' lives.

Unsurprisingly, her Divination Sigil pinged her spine, affirming the immediate danger of her future, unpleasant encounter. Forcing herself to calm, she weighed the boons and banes of resistance.

If she relented, she could arguably score another Creature Core. There was, after all, another one of the creatures, if not more. Secondly, she would also have to fight five Mages at once, which placed her at an extreme disadvantage. Thirdly, her Void spells were too costly for AOEs, and her Lightning did not fare well against Earthen Mages. She also had no idea who they were or what family connections her foes possessed. Even if she "won" by crushing them in a pyrrhic victory, she may lose out in other ways.

Conversely, if she "won", her reward for victory was a single Creature Core.

Gwen made her choice.

She would pay them back ten-fold in the future— if and when another opportunity presented itself. Revenge, as they say, was a dish best served cold.

Now considered and cool-headed, she put up her hands and walked backwards, commanding Caliban to likewise back off, dropping the frog-Core at its feet.

The Abjurer proceeded until he was within the range, then retrieved it with a Mage Hand.

"Good girl." He smiled at her, eyeing her appreciatively.

Gwen read his following thoughts and felt no desire to linger.

She would find her team first, and then these fucks would know her wrath. She wasn't sure whether Hengsha's Adjudicators would intervene, but she'd be damned if she let them leave the Dungeon in one piece.

Caliban picked her up with a swift sweep of its forelegs; then they were away.

"Hey!" Hu hollered behind her.

Gwen silently incanted her favourite disruption spell, then fled as fast as Caliban's legs could carry her.
"Smart girl..." Hu lifted the crystal shard she had left behind with another Mage Hand. "Now, what is this—"

Strangely, where Gwen had expected at least a token pursuit, there was none.

She moved in the opposite direction, no longer caring for the splashing of mud as Caliban roved across the landscape, devouring whatever unfortunate creature that crossed its path.

The occasional Magical Beast provided a moderate challenge, though she managed by pairing Caliban's attacks with Dark Tentacles and the occasional Lightning Bolt. The Dungeons' lower-tier monsters became easy prey for her Void fiend between the snare and the paralysis.

Though Gwen was no zoologist, she noted that two predominant colours, scarlet and ultramarine, seemed to afflict the Magical Creatures of this region. Furthermore, it appeared that the fauna's offensive mainstay was poison, which would explain the vivid hues. Thankfully, Caliban, who wasn't even in possession of organs, cared little for the toxic protein. Nonetheless, looking at the fetid salt-swamp and its grey-expanse, Gwen couldn't help but wonder why the creatures were all so similar. Whatever happened to coastal biodiversity?

By dusk, there was a noticeable increase in the activity of the alien amphibians. When at last Caliban finished a round of combat but failed to replenish the vitality it had spent, she acknowledged that she had better find a place to put herself up. Despite being vitalised by Caliban's harvest of flesh, her mana pool wasn't nearly as sustainable.

The fact that she had not seen anyone even as final hours of daylight fell furthermore stimulated her growing anxiety, causing her to jump at every shadow. Didn't Petra say they should be close? Surely she had travelled at least eight or ten kilometres at this stage. Just how unlucky was she?

She tried her Message device out of curiosity, but it was dead beyond a limited distance without a Divination Tower. Perhaps one day, when she had mastered the School of Divination, she could offer herself as the team's communications relay. Until then, she was silent and cut off.

In the distance, Gwen spotted yet another peat-covered isle held together by a profusion of gangly mangroves. Caliban made swift progress as it waded up to its waist toward the island, dragging itself onto its banks, a slimy, crimson catfish arrested in its maw.

Arriving at its centre, Gwen sent Caliban to scout the perimeter while she summoned Ariel to keep watch. The little marten jealously eyed her spider-thing as it stalked off, then dashed about here and there mischievously.

Next, she materialised the Portable Habitat and slotted an HDM into its "battery" compartment. With a thrum, the device initiated. When Gwen deposited the instrument a few feet distance away, a portal appeared atop the model of the tiny bungalow.

Gwen then channelled a good portion of her Lightning charged mana and began to manifest a Faithful Hound, an invisible guardian that would keep watch while she rested within the portal.

"Um… excuse me, Miss Song?"

Ariel zipped toward the source of the uninvited presence, becoming a white streak of furry thunderbolt ready to visit terrible, paralytic reckoning.

"Ariel, down!"

Gwen recognised the voice.

"Fei?" Her brow furrowed.

Fei emerged from the Camouflage illusion, his clothes worse for wear for spending hours pursuing Gwen.

"I am sorry to disturb you," the effeminate-faced young man begged. "Do you think… I could borrow a bit of your Habitat's space?"

Fei looked like he'd been through hell and high water, the very picture of pity. In the distance, Caliban came skittering, a scarecrow spider stalking on obsidian swords.

"PLEASE DON'T EAT ME!" Fei bowed deeply, offering the equivalent of a dog showing its belly. "And please help me!"

Gwen felt her irritation turn to compassion as the young man shivered in the dying light of dusk. Not far from him, Caliban's faceless head glinted with the sickly glow of the declining sun.

Despite her earlier encounter, she felt sorry for the boy.

"It's fine, just don't do it again." She gave the poor Acolyte a reassuring sigh, her eyes scanning the dishevelled young Mage from head to toe. The young man was pungently odious after his marshland adventure.

She thought of the events of this morning, at which point a welcoming realisation came to mind.

"Fei..." Gwen inquired sweetly, looking at the young man in a new light. "Did you distract those assholes from earlier? Was that why they didn't chase me?"

Fei's face flushed, stammering that he thought it best if they didn't follow her and that he'd left an illusion of her escaping in the opposite direction. At that moment, the quiet, unassuming young man reminded her a little of Percy.

"Alright." Gwen withheld an urge to hug the smelly man. "Do you know how to cook?"

Fei Lin rarely cooked, but as a non-inheriting disciple without a cadre of NoM servants, he knew how to make a tasty meal from simple ingredients.

When Gwen produced bottled sauces, pasta, frozen mince, bacon, mushroom and bread, he felt hurt by the imbalance of resources.

Just how spacious was this girl's Storage Ring?!

"Carbonara with mushroom and chicken," she commanded him.

Thankfully, the packet instructions were in Chinese. As the pasta boiled, Gwen queried Fei in regards to her earlier dilemma.

"So, not engaging those guys was the right choice?"

"Undoubtedly so," Fei replied, his hands carefully slicing and dicing. "I don't know who the others are, but the Abjurer is the inheriting son of the Clan of Xiao, a dynastic family. They're a millennia-old clan that's survived the transition of epochs and revolutions. Very much old money and old magic. If you had killed or maimed one of these guys, I honestly don't know what would have happened."

"What about the Adjudicators? Wouldn't they cut in?"

"Well, unless you intend to kidnap them or torture them, the modus of the Adjudicators are to 'not' intervene. Usually, for a Dungeon of this size, there'd be a dozen of them at most. Localised conflicts like duels and robbery are expectant encounters in a Dungeon. If you can look at it another way, this is all training for us. If someone dies, their job is to verify the conditions surrounding an Acolyte's death, not to save the individual."

"That's... brutal." Gwen frowned. Magister Paris had seemed so friendly in marketing the Dungeon as a grand adventure.

"This is my second Dungeon dive," Fei said. "During my first, I saw an entire team get swallowed up by a worm creature that they had foolishly challenged. When the Adjudicators put it down and opened up its stomach..."

"Pasta's boiling..." Gwen stopped him right there.

Fei shook the vision from his head. "One guy survived. That's the Abjurer you almost fought."

"How do the Lins compare to, say, the Xiao?" Gwen pivoted the topic, having no desire to know about half-digested teenagers.

"Shouldn't you know?" Fei added the packet sauce. "Our families know each other. The Songs and the Lins are all new Houses that emerged after the Revolution in the 40s, coming to prominence in the decades since the CCP took power. The Clans or 'Clanners' see us as upstarts."

"What about Mina's family, the Wangs?" Gwen inquired.

Fei regarded her strangely.

"The Wang family is a mercantile family. No notable bloodlines, but they've been trading with tier 1 and Frontier cities for generations. I'd say if you were to put the wealthiest individuals in Shanghai into a list, a double-digit ranking for the Clan of Wang wouldn't be out of the question."

So Mina is humbler than she put on, Gwen considered this new information, Tao as well— so they're the kids of a billionaire?

When they sat down to share the meal, Fei couldn't help but satiate his curiosity with a few questions of his own.

"Are you really from a Frontier City?" Fei had found that particular knowledge the most surprising of all. "With your talent, shouldn't you be the heiress of some archaic household? Also, what kind of Acolyte casually carries a Portable Habitat? This thing costs a single HDM per activation, half the weekly wage of a low-level Fabricator Mage! This particular model must be worth hundreds or thousands of HDMs!"

While Fei ranted, Gwen engaged the creamy pasta with the voracity of Caliban's 'Onslaught'.

After dinner, Fei offered to do the washing up and the cleaning.

After that, Gwen showered, dressed, then rested well, leaving a wide-eyed Fei sleeping in the room opposite, the young man's mind a jumble of repressed desires and outlandish what-ifs.

They set out at first light after Fei had made breakfast.

Gwen sauntered forward while her temporary companion followed with Water Walking, keeping a safe distance from Caliban.

"Shaa!" Caliban stopped abruptly after an hour's travel.

Frustrated with the lack of progress yesterday, Gwen was determined to find her missing companions.

By mid-morning, a sizeable peat-bog plateau, more significant than any of the ones they'd seen before, loomed through the foggy swamp-gas. Surrounded by thickly built mangroves, its midst sprouted a tree that towered into the smoggy fog. From afar, the outcrop looked just like the one where they'd encountered the red frog-men, but on a much larger scale.

There was the sound of combat coming from within the emerald thicket.

With a "Giddy-up!" Master, spider, and lackey rushed through rows of the stunted mangroves until they reached the battlefield. Amid this particular clearing was the largest Banyan-like tree yet, its size so grand as to disappear into the low clouds. Underneath its bowers, there laid a field of corpses both skeletal and in the process of decay. Above, long tendrils hung from the branches, digging into the flesh of the dead, rooted upon the bones.

Presently, several Mages were engaged in a deadly contest with blue frog-men almost twice the size of the red ones Gwen had seen prior.

These were far more impressive than their crimson cousins; their hides consisting of interlocking plates of thick skin that resembled mail. Rather than fingers tipped with claws, their massive barrel sized fists had twin protrusions which they wore like bladed gauntlets. To Gwen, the beasts resembled battling toads from the Nintendo game of the same name.

Opposite the creatures and fighting desperately were four Mages, or more accurately— a singular Mage and three hangers-on. One of the combatants writhed on the floor, holding a gash in her gut. Another, a sorceress, sobbed paralytically over the first. Yet another one, a young man, was meditating desperately, trying to recover enough mana to continue the fight.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"That's Yuan! one of my teammates!" Fei announced with agitation and worry. His eyes pleaded with her desperately. "Gwen, can we help them?"

It wasn't as if Gwen could say no. The final Mage that held the defence line was none other than her prideful cousin, Petra of Moscow.

At once, her cousin spotted her across the clearing.

"Gwen! Standby!" Petra's Message bloomed next to her ear. "I can hold them down for a while yet! Is there a healer nearby?"

There were three of the blue bastards wailing away on her crystalline Shield. With one hand, Petra held a Spell Cube, maintaining the semi-dome barrier with a look of intense concentration.

"Fei," Gwen commanded the Illusionist. "That's your cue. See what you can do."

Fei nodded and threw his hands into the air, Tapping into his Sigils, the young Mage gestured toward the sky.

"Flare!"

A Sigil escaped the mangroves and burst into a flare ten meters wide, glowing with the intensity of a small sun.

"I'll rally the help!" Fei announced. "What about you?"

"I got to help Petra," Gwen answered, her eyes taking on a blue glow as Lightning charged mana circulated her conduits. "It's going to be dangerous, and I won't be able to protect you. Go!"

Fei appeared to hesitate but then made haste with Expeditious Retreat.

"Ariel!" Gwen materialised her marten. It instantly transformed into a mid-sized Mongoose bristling with electricity. "Take the one on the right."

"EEEeee!"

"Caliban!" Gwen fed her Familiar a nauseating chunk of vitality, watching its purple flesh pulse and its carapace bristle as it accelerated. "Take the one on the left!"

"Shaa! Shaa!"

Further observing the battle's outlook, Gwen bit her lips and incanted another Void spell, followed by another Lightning Bolt to the creatures' backs. The brilliant blasts of manifesting electricity caught the frog trio's immediate attention. Without hesitation, they ceased dashing themselves senselessly against Petra's Crystalline Wall.

"You idiot!" Her cousin's muffled howl was audible even from a distance. "These blue bastards are magic resistant! RUN!"

Her warning came too late, for the frogs had locked on to the solitary sorceress who stood without an Abjurer to shield her.

As they leapt and bound toward Gwen, the frog-men split in three, demonstrating a low cunning capable of executing pack tactics.

Gwen readied herself for a world of pain. "Ariel!"

Her mongoose was the first to engage.

On Gwen's right, the marten fired off a blast of Lightning Needles that struck the unsuspecting, hulking frog in the face, sending it skittering into a howling madness. The mongoose then launched itself with a thunderclap toward its disorientated prey, transforming itself into a blur of crackling energy that bit, slashed, and mauled the creature mercilessly.

"Caliban! Onslaught!"

On the left, Caliban met the battle-toad tail first, piercing its carapace at the thigh and halting its movements instantly. The momentum of the giant creature, however, proved too much for either of the combatants. As the frog-thing struck out against Caliban, it tore the ligaments of Caliban's tail, sending the netherworld scorpioid into a furious fit. However, the frog's careless assault also crippled its leg, resulting in a torso-sized chunk of flesh dislocating from its thigh.

Monster and monster then fell upon one another as a blur of tooth and nail, carapace and vivisecting flesh.

The final creature made it within thirty feet of Gwen when it ran face-first into a nest of hidden tentacles.

Dark Tentacles composed of Void-matter ate into the creature's hide, ignoring its armour and lashing it into the ground, pinning it helplessly as the boundless hunger tore at its life force.

With a grunt of supreme, supernatural force, the creature made it another two meters, using its magical resistance to negate Gwen's life-draining side effect. Unfortunately, it charged right into the second blossom of hysterical, lightning-charged tentacles.

The Lighting and the Void Tentacles' combined force created a crisscrossed network of white and blue, lifting their victim bodily into the air. As a candid moment, the horrific and the comical came to astounding matrimony as her yin-yang octopi tugged an ogre-sized frog back and forth between them, helplessly suspended mid-air. Unfortunately, both spells proved insufficient in killing her foe.

From behind her crystal barrier, Petra's blue eyes grew brilliant with amazement.

Gwen, however, had no time to laugh at the unexpected froggy-in-the-middle.

To the dismay of her gallery, she began to run towards the trapped frog.

"What the fuck are you doing!" Petra cried out. "Don't be an idiot! It'll gut you with one swipe!"

Gwen approached within melee distance of the floating terror-toad. A hypothesis had been floating in her head since her uncle Jun mentioned their amulet's function, and the Core she had earlier gained provided further evidence that needed affirmation.

With a sudden burst of rapturous strength, the creature lunged for her out of pure malice.

"Dimension Door!" Gwen disappeared and appeared behind the thing. Her tentacles retrieved the monstrous frog and held it within their suspended embrace.

"Blast Bolt!"

Once again, the boon of the Lightning Element showed its true wrath. An element gifted by the Gods to hunt monsters, the dozen or so bolts of electrical discharge ravaged the innards of the frog and cooked it inside out. Even near death, Gwen could feel the creature's chaotic flesh trying to repel her magic, but by now, it was too weak to sustain its elemental resistance.

As it expired, Gwen felt its "Essence" suffuse the Kirin amulet.

She then made for Caliban's prey before her Familiar consumed it entirely.

"Oh my God! You stupid bychit!" Petra's voice held more frustration than anger now. Having no more enemies to fight, she lowered her Crystalline Wall and watched her Spell-Cube disperse into mineral dust. She had to protect the wounded Mages, but Gwen could see Petra also wanted to make sure that her idiotic cousin didn't get herself killed.

On Petra's left, Ariel was losing ground against the hulking blue frog. Her Familiar's problem was that it couldn't inflict significant damage to the armour-plated creature. Meanwhile, even thrashing wildly without any attempt at strategic combat, the battle-toad managed to land a hit on Ariel, each time sending the wounded mongoose through the air like a struck ball.

Inevitably, the monster scored a home run, and Ariel went skittering across the bog and into the mess of bones that decorated the tree's undergrowth.

The frog then leapt for Ariel's Master.

Her cousin swore.

"Dimension Door!" The Enchanter expended her life-saving crystal and appeared just behind the creature.

Without warning, Petra's eyes blazed with the dull gold of flaring Enchantment.

"Hold Monster!"

The frog-spawn stopped in its tracks. With a grunt of supreme effort, Petra forced the frog to kneel.

"FINISH IT!" Her cousin called out to her. "It's resistant! You got thirty seconds!"

"Dimension Door!"

Nearer their left flank, Caliban and the frog-beast traded wounds, with the spider's pseudo-physiology negating injury. Meanwhile, suffering blood loss and evisceration, the battle-toad grew weaker and weaker until it fell to grievous wounds.

Gwen materialised from thin air with a blast of electrical discharge and shot a Lightning Bolt right into the frog's open maw, watching its eyes burst with brilliant cobalt.

Another warm trickle suffused the Kirin amulet.

She then turned to the final creature.

"HURRY!" Petra gritted her teeth. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Caliban! Ariel!"

Both of her pets closed on the held creature, a blur of tenebrous blades and whirling lightning. With a final Dimension Door, she zipped behind the thing and channelled the rest of her mana into Ariel's elementally charged fur, turning the frog into a pincushion.

"Lightning Bolt!"

Her Kirin amulet gorged upon the essence of the last frog.

"What the hell was that?" Petra snarled, her eyes flashing with anger. "Why would you try to melee these things? Who the hell trained you?"

"There's a reason for this. You'll have to trust me." Gwen put up her hands in a gesture of genuflection. "I am serious."

Her cousin's accusing eyes were steel, but looking upon the carnage created by Gwen, her expression visibly softened.

"How are you feeling? That was a lot of spells," Petra inquired with exasperation, exhaling with effort. "Risky moves, Gwen."

As if on cue, Gwen stumbled where she stood, forcing Petra to brace her by the shoulder.

"I am not out of mana yet," Gwen's face regained some of its pinkness. "I am just a little woozy from the drain's all."

Fei quickly followed into the clearing.

"Who's that? An ally?" Petra pointed to the skinny Mage; another Spell Cube materialised in her casting hand.

Fei's surveyed the clearing, evidently trying to hold back his disgust.

"That's Fei Lin, from the House of Lin. He's a teammate of that Mage over there." Gwen pointed to the survivors.

Seeing that his name was mention, Yuan, the one who'd been trying to recover his mana, came jogging toward the pair of cousins.

Behind him, the girls were still in shock. One of them was still mortally wounded. Besides her, the kneeling girl-Mage cradling her companion turned her face toward Gwen, her eyes full of desperation and pleading hope.

"Please! Please help Lily, she..."

"I got Healing Potions." Gwen materialised two injectors.

"No, she needs more than that." Petra sighed. "She's infected by a magical phage."

Assisting Gwen by the arm, the group approached the wounded girl.

"You should forfeit," Petra said coldly after observing a red rash that was even now spreading across the girl's body.

"Please, if there's anything you can do," Lily's companion begged, her contorted face a mess of melted makeup.

The wounded sorceress gasped and coughed up blood. The rash spread yet again. Now it was making its way down her thighs. Gwen couldn't help notice that the welts looked curiously similar to the red frogs' leathery complexion.

"Petra?" Gwen wondered why her cousin was staring so intently at the girl. "Could you..."

Sighing, Petra materialised a Spell Cube.

"Restoration!"

Positive energy suffused the afflicted Lily. In a moment, her breathing returned to normal, and her diseased skin ceased its advancement.

"You—!" Lily's shell-shocked companion turned to Petra angrily. "You said you didn't have any healing!"

Petra's eyes held a dangerous, frigid intensity.

Gwen read the situation and moved to intervene. Unfortunately, her ailing constitution provided no opportunity for her to come between the two.

"You bitch!" the Mage continued. "Lily could have-"

SLAP!

Petra backhanded the sorceress across the face so hard that her neck cracked.

"Petra!" Gwen could have swallowed an egg whole.

"Ungrateful scum," Petra spat. "Get the fuck out of here— or I will end you."

Gwen didn't know what to say.

Was Petra in the wrong?
Hardly.

She saved their lives. She risked her life to defend them against those monsters. She had continued to do so when she could have escaped anytime. What gave these foolish children the privilege to question her motives? They owed Petra their lives.

The girl Mage picked herself up from the ground and began to sob.

Lily, now recovered and standing, bowed deeply before Petra and apologised profusely.

"Don't talk to me. Just go." Petra commanded.

The party didn't move. The girls were too afraid to move. What if more of the frog things were waiting in the waters beyond?

Beside them, Fei conversed quietly with Yuan, watching the spectacle unfold.

After a minute, Caliban returned, having consumed the carcasses.

Gwen sensed some of her vitality returning and turned toward the stalking spider expectantly.

"Well?" She crossed both sets of fingers. "Got anything for me, Cali?"

"Shaa- Blurgh!"

Caliban vomited forth a mass of viscera.

Yuan turned away. Fei was better, having become accustomed to Caliban after a day and a half of witnessing the Void fiend at its finest.

Petra stared at Gwen in incomprehension.

Lily fainted once more. The rude one with the swollen cheeks abruptly vomited through her nose.

Gwen gingerly reached into the steaming pile and picked out an object.

"Ta-da!" She presented the bloody thing before Petra, whose irises contracted.

A Creature Core!

Their eyes met; an understanding passed between two women of competence.

"I see," Petra said. "I apologise for doubting you. Good work."

"Thanks," Gwen affirmed Petra's acknowledgement.

Feeling her mana pool running on fumes, Gwen called Ariel and Caliban toward her. Caliban's form was missing two of its limbs, with a third hanging limpidly, though her Familiar didn't seem to care at all. Ariel, on the other hand, was battered and bloody and in significant pain.

"EE-EE!" Gwen injected the marten with a healing potion, then unsummoned both.

The Core disappeared into Gwen's ring. She would trade it for CCs when they were out of the Dungeon.

The survivors gathered up. Gwen greeted them all once more, then produced blankets, the decanter, and an assortment of canned foodstuffs so that they could all partake in the joy of having survived an ugly encounter.

"Thank you." The young Mages bowed toward the big sister sorceress and gingerly accepted her food, water, and cleansing. Gwen passed over a Mana injector to Petra, and the two girls stabbed the short-fire needles into their thighs.

Once their mana recovered, Petra took the opportunity to extract from her cowed victims her saviour's tax.

"Shield."
"Fireball."
"Mage Armour."
"Haste."
"Flame Skin."

The Enchanter crafted a dozen cubes, one every few minutes, as they rested. She had expended many of her Spell Cubes, and now she needed replenishment. From Gwen, Petra extracted an assortment of Lightning spells, as Gwen was now too weak to sustain more Void Magic than necessary.

"Thank God you've got Dimension Door." Petra waited until Gwen recovered, then made another two copies.

"Have you seen the others?" Gwen had to inject another Mana potion, burning her alchemical cooldowns for the next twelve hours.

"No, and for a good reason. We need to stay here." Petra leaned in close to Gwen's ear, where she could feel her soft breath on her lobes. "There's a boon for us up on that tree. I've been eyeing it, but now that you're here, we can do it. To avoid complication, we need to do this as soon as possible."

"Oh?" Gwen felt Petra's ticklish breath.

"We need privacy if we want to hold on to our prize," Petra whispered. "We need these hangers-on to fuck off."

"...oh?" Gwen may have had experience fighting Monsters and duelling Mages, but she had never been in a situation where she had to tell a peer to "fuck off and survive the wolf-infested woods on your own".

When Gwen neither affirmed nor rejected her recommendation, Petra's expression grew ambivalent.

"Are you recovered?" Petra moved away from the intimacy they had momentarily shared.

Gwen examined her condition with a quick meditation.

Her health was manageable. Caliban had replenished a significant portion of it, though a jolt of Positive Energy would do well in mending her fatigue. Her mana pool had been topped up by the injectors as well, so she was ready for action, though far from peak performance.

"Yeah, I am good to go."

"Alright then." Petra evil-eyed the folks around them. "Regardless of your choice, let's do it."

Not far from Gwen and Petra, Fei sat with Yuan, watching the two girls recover their mana.

The dual-element sorceress had a sickly beauty about her that made one's heart sore, while the Mineral Mage, Petra, possessed a frigid kind of attraction that fascinated the observer. Presently, the two sorceresses appeared to be planning a way to ascend the tree.

"There is a fruit up there—" Yuan announced quietly to his companion, then hissed. "— Don't look up!"

Fei forced himself to remain unaffected.

"Do you think anyone saw your signal?"

"We didn't see anyone on our way here," Fei said quietly. "It was just Gwen and me."

"That's good and bad." Yuan looked over at their companions, Lily and Wenshi. The girls cowed by Petra would be of no use in an insurrection. "Alright, so I found something up that tree. A magical fruit or perhaps a precious herb— but unless we can fight those girls off, we'll be looking at kissing 20 to 50 CCs goodbye."

"You can't fight Gwen!" Fei shook his head. "She's too strong. If you've seen what I've seen, you wouldn't even dream of it."

Yuan glanced again at their opponents. The Conjurer sorceress was now upright, resting her weight on her back foot, her swan's neck craned and looking upward. Beside her, the Mineral Mage quickly noticed him looking, forcing him to turn back to Fei Lin.

The girls were undoubtedly dangerous.
But the rewards were also great.
If he could come top 10 in this competition, the recognition he would gain from his Clan was immeasurable.

"Listen," Yuan gripped his friend's arm tightly, afraid that the enthralled Illusionist might turn on him. "I have a way of contacting a Diviner I know..."

A discrete distance away, Gwen and Petra were ready to proceed. Petra pointed out that Caliban was probably their best bet in scaling the tree, to which Gwen summoned the spider horror once again.

When Caliban emerged once more from the veil between two worlds, Gwen noticed its body was once more "whole". She measured her summoning's exactitude and acknowledged that Caliban's most recent emergence had cost her a little more vitality than she was used to, though thankfully, still within range of Almudj's buffer.

The outcome made sense. Caliban was, after all, a shapeless thing of the hungering dark, a resident of the Void. It was her contract that gave Caliban its fair proportion and sent it ambling into the Prime Material.

Gwen straddled the first segment of Caliban's thorax, while Petra took up near the tail, entirely at ease with the eldritch appearance of the aberrant arachnid.

"You're not disgusted by Caliban?" Gwen asked Petra curiously as they made slow progress up the trunk of the skyward tree.

Petra balanced herself on Caliban's body, shifting her weight as it stabbed its bladed limbs into the timber with trained ease.

"It's beautiful." To Gwen's surprise, Petra patted Caliban's tail, which wagged here and there excitedly. "I'd love to have a powerhouse Familiar like this one. Who'd think that it could near-solo a Blue Gila?"

"A Blue Gila?" Gwen noticed that her "Comprehend Language" Stone couldn't quite translate the last part of Petra's speech.

"A Gila," Petra repeated.

"The bestiary we have in the Frontier is very limited," Gwen explained helpfully, hoping for clarification.

Her cousin was happy to help. "The Gila is a race of creatures that roam the space between planes, drifting from the Astral into the Prime Material. No one knows where they are from, only that they are creatures of chaos. The weakest ones are the Reds, who are cunning like goblins but about as strong as a Soldier-class Magical Beast, and the blue ones we fought are a little stronger. They can get pretty huge, with the den mother reaching six or seven meters and approaching the risk tier of a Gargantuan. There's also rumours of Emerald Gilas that uses magic."

Petra paused.

"And the red rash? That's a phage that turns the victim into a Gila."

"Wha? Wait— that's... horrible!" Gwen was starting to understand why the 'friend' of Lily was so desperate.

Petra said nothing else. Instead, she pointed upward.

Gwen tilted her head and spotted their prize.

A pod about the size of an adult hung from the top branch.

It resembled a jackfruit or a durian, and it gave off a scent that suggested the fruit was ripe for the picking. To Gwen's Almudj-enhanced olfactory senses, the aroma was a cornucopia of flavours.

Her mind turned to the piles of animal carcasses laid out as nutrients for the tree's roots. There was something deeply suspicious there. Had the Gila creatures been feeding the trees, awaiting this day? Or was it that something else was the tree's caretaker.

"Do you think the tree has a guardian?" Gwen asked Petra, whose eyes were likewise focused intently on the fruit.

"Most certainly," Petra said to her. "That's why we left bait below."

"Bait—?" Gwen's eyes widened as details clicked into place. No wonder Petra was so compliant in leaving the others alone. No wonder she didn't disperse them by force!

"Petra!" Gwen's cry of horror rang out among the trees. "You did not!"


Petra returned her accusation with a passion that surprised Gwen.

"Did I not tell you we should have dispersed them?" Her cousin studied her with critical eyes. "They're not your allies, Gwen. They're our competitors. Did you know that before you arrived, that Yuan fellow was the one chased by the Blue Gila? That he fled toward me? Had I been a lesser Mage, I would have died down there, and he would have fled."

Gwen deflated. Well, now she understood.

But it wasn't just Yuan down there. There were the girls as well, not to mention Fei, who had done a bang-up job cooking and cleaning after her. She still owed him one for diverting the Mages from the house of Xiao.

She glanced downward; they were now too far up the canopy to see any details below. On that note, the height of the tree was physically implausible. Gwen was sure that Caliban had been making slow but steady progress for at least ten minutes. Even going at their snail's pace, it put the tree at about 250-300 meters. In fact, from the marshland, the tree seemed barely over 30. In her mind, she knew that the Eiffel Tower was 300 meters, the tallest tree in Gwen's world was Hyperion, which stood at 115. If so, what the hell was she climbing?

Then again, Gwen reminded herself. Rhino-sharks swam through solid rock in this world. What's so strange about a tree with an internal pocket space?

"At any rate," Petra observed the fruit. "The objective is ours. That's what matters."

Her cousin then produced the Spell Cube with Gwen's Void Bolt.

"I've been saving this," She allowed the cube to levitate into the air before activating it with a flourish. In a second, the spell manifested, forcing Petra to let loose a low, breathless moan.

Soundlessly, the Void Bolt cut the fruit at the stem, causing it to titter as the final few fibres broke under the tension.

"The feedback is stronger than I anticipated." Petra met her eyes, her face pale with exertion. "So that's what it's like to use the Void. To think you've suffered this every time— I am impressed."

Gwen's mind remained upon the people below, specifically, the innocent Fei, who had followed her into certain doom.

"It's falling! Catch it!" Petra commanded her. "No, not with your hand! Use your Storage Ring!"

Gwen snapped back to reality as the fruit fell. A burst of aroma erupted from the durian-thing, a sickly-sweet scent that clouded the senses with odious delirium. Gwen reached out with one hand and tried to calculate the trajectory of the falling fruit.

She waited until it was almost overhead, then willed her Storage Ring to work its spatial magic.

It was just as well that she had an "improved" mana pool. Lesser Mages with a ring of equal spatial generosity would not have been able to "catch" an item of such size and volume so effortlessly, at least not without exceeding magical limitations.

With a sound of displaced air, the fruit disappeared.

"Quick!" Petra directed spider and Master. "We need to stow it properly to retain its properties. Get Caliban to set us down on that branch!"

Gwen shifted her spider Familiar until they descended upon the broad-branch Petra had pointed out.

"Shape Wood!"

Petra burned a utility cube, magically flattening the branch into a rectangular platform that comfortably held the both of them.

"The fruit!"

Gwen retrieved the durian with a thud.

Petra materialised a dagger in one hand and stabbed into the bulbous, spiky exterior of the durian. The blade penetrated easily, after which Petra worked the edge until it reached the shell's nadir. She then dug her fingers into the open fold and pulled, splitting the giant durian in twain.

If the scent from earlier had been intense, it was now so redolent that Gwen felt as though she was tasting the fruit. Like the durian of her old world, it was deliciously foul, the fragrance so potent and offensive as to set their eyes to water.

Petra dug into the white membranes and pulled out a piece of flesh that resembled a block of wobbly cream-coloured jade with the clarity of cloudy sap.

"We eat first!" she ordered Gwen. "I can only seal so many so quickly. Wildland fruits are most potent when eaten fresh."

"Doesn't our Storage Rings have stasis?" Gwen inquired carefully, wondering why Petra was so agitated with the need for haste.

"Only for mundane produce." Petra dragged out a piece of flesh and flash froze it in a Crystalline Cube. "Alchemists and professional herbalists have especially enchanted Storage Rings and Stasis containers. As for this specific fruit, I read about it in the university's Dungeon archives. Unless I am wrong, this is a Fructum Vitae. From the moment it is removed from the mother tree, we have a limited window to either consume it or stow it."

"What happens—"

"Shut up and eat!"

Gwen obediently took up the white flesh and placed it in her mouth. Instantly, where she bit into the flesh, the peachy fibres melted into a creamy stream of indescribable flavour that cascaded down her throat and permeated her torso. Visibly, her hair grew a little longer; even her nails seemed to lengthen.

"Oh, my." Gwen couldn't help but let out a slight moan. Within her body, motes of Almudj's mana began to glow magnificently with renewal and vitality, as though each were tiny seeds that had tasted the spring rain.

She reached out for another slice.

"No!" Petra slapped her hand away, then returned to her meditation. "You'll explode!"

"I can handle it," Gwen insisted. She wasn't about to let an opportunity to restore or temper Almudj's mana pass her by. The more of the serpent's life-force Gwen nurtured, the more likely she was capable of surviving higher tiers of the Void's volatile feedback. Who knows, if she gathered enough of the vital force, maybe she could reconnect with Almudj, awaken it from slumber, even.

Not to mention, she still owed the rainbow Mythic her life.

Silently, she admitted there was selfishness as well, a lingering, wish-fulfilling fantasy that maybe, just maybe, if she were ever again in a pinch, there would be a mythical serpent dropping down from the heavens to save her.

"Fine. If you wish to be the python that thought it could swallow an elephant, be my guest." Petra turned away and focused on her work. Her cousin had finished her piece and was now creating crystalline cubes to preserve the other petals of flesh.

Gwen proceeded without heeding Petra's warning.
The second piece went down her throat like a bag of razors, forcing her to kneel over in a fit of agony. The vital force that permeated her body seemed to stretch every inch of her physical form, feeling as though someone had forcible inflated her lungs until she was on the verge of bursting.

Besides Gwen, Petra had finished her third cube. She was about to begin on the fourth when Gwen's moanful utterance became such that she could no longer ignore it.

"Lesser Restoration!" Petra expanded yet another one of her limited supply of utility cubes.

Gwen had been bearing her baptism as a woman dunked in smouldering lime when unexpectedly, a cold wave of healing energy repaired her pain-wracked body and restored her mind to clarity.

Now lucid, her Almudj's Essence hungrily lapped up the primal vitality.

Over the next minute, the pent-up pressure of raging effervescence within her body deflated. Though she had to wipe away a trickle of blood from below her nose, she felt more hale than ever.

Did she dare she risk a third?

"You're insane. It's too reckless!" Petra snapped, watching her cousin gazing forlornly at the white-jade flesh. "Gwen, don't be an idiot. I don't have another Lesser Restoration."

"Sorry..." Gwen apologised for her greed. Her Divination had fired up as soon as she touched the third piece, indicating a significant life-or-death trial ahead.

Petra finished off her sixth cube.

"Okay, we need to go," she announced abruptly, abandoning the pile of lychee-flesh spilling from the giant durian. "NOW. The flesh is about to turn."

The two girls quickly mounted Caliban, who began to make headway below.

Above them, a sudden change came over the juicy flesh. Where the fruit had radiated Positive Energy, the crystal-jelly tissue abruptly turned necrotic with deathly malignancy. The wooden platform abruptly shrivelled into withered wood, the branch becoming blackened and rotten as though it had decayed decades ago.

At the same time, the tree itself seemed to lose all vitality. A shower of leaves began to surrender to the uncertain space below, falling over the girls and catching in their hair and on Caliban's nooks and crannies.

"Good God!" Gwen observed as they descended, making it just past the enervating circumference range, awed by the magnitude of the tree's destruction.

"Duality in all things," Petra parroted their babulya. "Where there is life, there is death. That is the reason we had to hurry."

"Right..." Thinking now of death, Gwen's thoughts flittered toward those they had abandoned below. Were they still okay?

To Gwen's immense relief, no guardian had made its presence known thus far. Unfortunately, the young men and women below were NOT as they had left them.

Instead, to her spine-tingling, scalp-numbing distress, she and Petra were now surrounded.

"Greetings, O' sorceress from the Song Clan!" The young man now cheerfully greeting them from below had a face hateful to Gwen.

It was the Abjurer from the Clan Xiao, the very bastard who had robbed her of her Creature Core the previous day.

His team was spread out strategically in a semi-circle, presumably within the range of his Shielding abilities. The two girls Petra had saved stood to one side, an impassive gallery, with Fei and Yuan occupying the adjacent space.

Fei looked to have been roughed up; his shirt was torn, and his face was swollen on one side. The Mage Yuan, however, had a smug expression that Gwen knew all too well.

Petra shot her an "I told you so", smiling when Gwen's eyes grew as hard as peach pits.

Mindful of her cousin's smugness, Gwen considered their present condition. Her mana had recovered, and her vitality brimmed. If this had to be a fight, then she would give them a bloody good one. This time, she would not retreat. This time, with her newfound confidence in Caliban, she would make sure these bastards knew the cost of messing with her not once but twice.

"What a pair you make," the Abjurer smirked with undisguised intent. "Are you sisters?"

Gwen had to do a double-take. It was true that some Asians were face-blind when it came to Westerners. She and Petra did not look remotely alike, but the horny prick was probably too preoccupied to see even that.

"Anyway." the Abjurer rubbed his jaws. "You may call me Xiao Huyi, or Young Master Huyi, of the Hubei Clan of Xiao. These are my companions: Lei, Jingwen, Fuhui, and Pan, fellow disciples in all, and all Xiao by name."

"From my understanding, you are Gwen Song, and you, my dear." Huyi turned his eyes on Petra. "You're the prodigy from Fudan, right? The Mineral Enchanter? I've heard of you. My brother's a Second Year at Fudan too."

"And what does Young Master Xiao want from commoners like us?" Petra stepped in front of Gwen protectively; her posture suggested her patience was running on fumes. Unfortunately, with Petra's looks, this only seemed to incite their opponents.

"A commoner? Hardly! You're Magister Wen's belle of the ball! Her darling protègè, and who could fault that?" Huyi's incriminating gaze did not suggest to Gwen that he was privileging Petra's magical talents. "If the two of you are willing to forfeit your acquisitions, I wouldn't mind sparing you some CCs by the Dungeon's end. You get to keep 'face', and we get to part ways on friendly terms. How's that?"

"Shut your mouth," Petra stated coldly. "Your breath turns my stomach."

"Why make it harder on yourself?" Huyi appeared to control the simmering rage boiling beneath his amiable exterior, but his Chestershire smile failed to reach his eyes. "Had your Master not taught you to partake the offer of respect than force down the bitter cup? Or is that too philosophical for you gweilo girls?"

"You're walking a dangerous path," Gwen interjected suddenly; her eyes grew cobalt with electricity as she revved up a mighty Flashbang. If they were going to fight, she would have the first strike. There was no point letting these asses stroke their egos while talking down to them.

As the parties stared down, a chilling breeze stole all warmth from the peat bog.

Then, as if on cue, a misty shower descended.

Motes of water sizzled as they splashed against Gwen's skin-suit, sending azure discharges of static to arc from her body.

"Well, the first item on the agenda, how about sharing some of that fruit—" Huyi's patience proved as pathetic as his threats.

"Flashbang—!"

"Dispel Magic!"

In a split second, the mana she had conjured rushed back into Gwen's conduits. Her head grew instantly swollen, her brain felt like Fuyi had taken a mallet to her temple.

It took Gwen a split-second to realise she had been Counterspelled. The likelihood of such a thing was impossible on the Frontier, for Alesia had said that the ability to counter a spell as it manifested was a rare occurrence: Affinity, experience, talent and split-second judgement; all of the above was needed for a Counterspell to succeed. It was a key but rare duelling skill, one only made possible when the spellcraft knowledge gap between duelists grew significant enough for one party to be entirely predictable.

"Ha!" Huyi mocked her as Gwen's face paled. "Fredrick Lin was right. You do open with that specific spell, every time!"

"Gwen, take us up!" Without waiting, Petra made the call and activated her Crystalline Shell. With a sound of crinkling stone, the sheltering barrier moulded itself around Caliban, protecting the Void spider as it began an upward retreat.

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

Though Gwen felt drunk with disorientation, her cousin's decree was sufficient enough to will Caliban into a rapid ascent.

"Oh no, you don't!" Huyi materialised what appeared to be a bamboo scroll from his storage ring. "You four! Cover me!"

"Fireball!"
"Shatter!"
"Scorching Ray—!"

Their opponents consisted of two Evokers, both Fire, an Air Transmuter, and a Diviner. The Diviner hid in the support line, scanning their surroundings for Gwen's allies.

A blanket fire of spells washed over Petra's crystalline Shielding, blinding the pair and setting the tree to shudder and shake from the explosions, furthermore triggering a violent shower of leaves that fell about them like an emerald waterfall. A section of the wood caught fire, further making Caliban's purchase precarious and risky for the girls.

Below Gwen and her cousin, Huyi read aloud the bamboo scroll, activating its ancient sorcery.

"Nine-Jia-Zhi-YI Seal!" Gwen's translation stone was utterly incapable of keeping up with the Daoist incantations, spamming her mind with gobbledygook.

The spell hit.

Caliban paused. Something terrible struck Gwen's spine as her Divination screamed, then unbidden, her Familiar's physical manifestation in the material world imploded.

"Petra—"

Gwen suddenly stepped into thin air, her legs straddling nothing. She fell about half a meter before landing on the bottom of Petra's crystalline wall. Petra likewise fell the same distance and landed beside Gwen, though with more grace and control. With a gesture, her cousin willed a crystalline partition to bite into the tree's trunk, violently digging into the timber.

"Ariel!" Gwen called for her other Familiar.

The marten, now significantly restored, appeared next to its Master.

When Gwen tried to summon Caliban again, she found the netherworld creature was absent from its pocket dimension. Where had it gone?

"I'll prepare a few Conjured Flashbangs, then open up with a Void Blast," Gwen shouted under the ding of spells pinging off Petra's Shielding.

"No," Petra stopped her. "Too risky."

"What do you suggest?"

Petra reinforced her Shielding; A Mineral Mages' advantage lay in their walls, barriers and shields, which possessed high efficacy against physical and elemental damage.

"We break through the middle. You and I, we Dimension Door first: me, right; you, left. Then, we DD pincer where they least expect it. We go for their leader. With both of our Lightning bursts at close range, we should be able to stun the fucker. As soon as we're both in range, you encase us with a Void Shield, and I'll Hold Monster the prick. With Xiao as our hostage. We can force the others to forfeit. That or we Void his limbs, one at a time."

Gwen's heart pounded in her seated ribs.

"Right." She nodded affirmatively, trusting her cousin to be the more experienced tactician.

"Gwen." Petra arrested her wrist.

"Petra?" Gwen gulped.

"No more mercy."

Gwen felt her lips parch as she met Petra's eyes, two crystallines, pale blue orbs surrounding the loci of her dark pupils. She fought down the screaming compunction inside her head. Voices of the past, both recent and distant, protested against maiming and murder. At the same time, Gunther's lesson reared its head like Almudj's rainbow from the mindscape of her memory.

"Did you think this was going to end amicably?"
"They were dead the moment you appeared in their lives!"
"DO IT!"

Petra's barrier rocked. Fissures appeared like living spider webs, turning the transparent crystal opaque with refracted light, illuminating their faces with flaming, marigold shards.

"Right," Gwen affirmed her cousin's sentiments. "No more mercy."

With a suppressed groan, she allowed the Void to fill her mana channels, feeling Almudj's vital force fighting to keep her body intact. Her electric eyes dimmed until they became two swirling orbs of consuming darkness.

Beside her, Petra's own eyes lost their colour and became two crystal pools of water, so pale there was barely a hint of blue.

"Crystal Skin"
"Void Skin."

A thick membrane of bark-like texture covered Gwen's body, encasing her in midnight.

Petra became encased in scintillating crystal.

They were ready.

Gwen took a deep breath. She wasn't at all confident that she could control the burst of the Void matter when her Dimension Door manifested, but that would be no one's fault but Huyi's own.

Perhaps she should effect a suitable warcry? The situation seemed ripe and ready for a good rallying.

"YOU BASTARDS—" She began.

"—Arrrrgh!"
"Shit!"
"—CAO! THERE'S SOMETHING—"
"HELP—"

The assault upon their Shield ceased. The girls met one another's eyes in confusion.

"A trick?" Gwen asked.

"Like I would know." Petra shook her head. "Hold the DD just in case."

It was absolute foolishness for their opponents to stop their attack now. Gwen was the kind of Mage who could quickly turn the tables if one was negligent in a sustained offence.

Paranoid, the girls waited another minute, suspended upon the tree trunk where the crystalline structure had bit into the wood. They awaited the moment when the final spell hit, and in that split second, they would set upon their foes as two tigresses unleashed.

Yuan couldn't breathe.

The Abjurer had never thought that he would be in a position where death was preferable. When trapped within the watery bubble, the first minute had brought a significant opportunity for philosophical contemplation as eighteen years of life flashed before his eyes.

After that, the next ten seconds elapsed like years.

Yet, just when he'd thought his life was forfeit, a bubble of sweet air met his lips.

But half a minute later, he was out of breath again. The feeling of impending asphyxiation was like a dirk stabbing into his brain, demanding release so that his gnashing organs could find liberation from their misery.

Just as he wondered if he should swallow the marsh water and end his life with dignity, there came another bubble, another breath.

That was when Yuan realised the horrible reality of his and his team's present condition.

Whoever captured them wasn't trying to kill them.

They were in it for the sport.

But how was it that he came to be in this dilemma again?

It all began an hour ago when Yuan had contacted the Diviner from the Clan of Xiao, who had promised a fair split of credits if any of the dozen or so lackeys he had contracted delivered a source of CCs.

Being from a small Clan, Yuan had no reason to watch his chances at gathering CCs float away, just the same as him having no desire to see two stuck-up princesses exit the Dungeon with a trove of treasures.

His compatriot, another nobody from the Lin's, Fei, seemed to know the girls, but Yuan had forced the weak-willed fool into obedience with both threats of telling his uncle and a few well-placed punches to the gut.

As the stupid, sentimental idiot grovelled in the dirt, Yuan received a reply from his collaborator.

They would be there within twenty-odd minutes!

For good measure, he socked Fei again in the diaphragm.

"I know we're supposed to be teammates," Yuan said to his erstwhile companion. "But we're just a PUG group, right? So no hard feelings."

Fei whimpered on the floor, coiled like a cooked prawn.

"I suggest you stay put," Yuan gave the poor Illusionist another swift kick to the chest.

He then turned his attention to the girls. The short one was Lily, and the taller one was Wenshi.

"You girls want payback?"

Lily's eyes grew wild with fear.

Wenshi wasn't such a coward. The girl nodded.

"Good. Stick with me. We'll fleece those bitches yet."

Wenshi placed a hand on her swollen cheek.

"Let that be your strength," Yuan advised happily. "You can slap them around all you like later, although I have a feeling the Young Master would love a go himself, ha!"

The unassuming girl grew crimson with anticipation. Yuan tsked. What a vengeful little harlot. Was it so easy to forget that the "bitch" saved her earlier? It was women like this that he hated the most.

After that, Clan Xiao's five-person team arrived. Yuan had shaken hands with their leader, Huyi, and then they laid out the ambush.

"You have done very, very well." Huyi patted Yuan approvingly on the shoulder. "If your account of their abilities is correct, then I'll give you extra 10 CCs as a reward."

"Thank you, Master Xiao." Yuan was confident that calling the Xiao Clan was the best decision he had ever made.

Usually, Yuan loved the company of beautiful girls. But this time, the two girls made him feel self-conscious. They were so gifted, perfect, and came from good families that gave them tremendous support and resources. They had everything that fate denied Yuan. To watch them humbled, taken off their pedestal and stepped on would give him the most longed-for, sadistic pleasure.

Yuan recalled shivering from the cold. He could hardly wait.

When the girls eventually descended, and the ambush had been carried out precisely as they had planned.

It was raining in the marsh, but Yuan didn't care that he became bedraggled. As soon as they cracked that crystalline barrier, he would see the two girls dragged by their hair before the Young Master of the Clan of Xiao. They would be stripped of their possessions, humiliated and made to quit the Dungeon.

Or that was the plan, at least.

So what had happened?

Yuan still wasn't sure.

Above them, the twin-Evoker's spells had pounded the Crystal Shielding, cracking the surface and sending bits and pieces of it to fragment and fail.

Overjoyed, Yuan had turned to the others to make a quip but couldn't find his friend.

The Diviner, Jan, was gone.

Jan? Yuan recalled his confusion.

He recalled hearing the sound of sucking water; then the man evaporated!

"Oi! Oi!" he shouted out to the others. "Something just took your Diviner!"

"Wha—"

Then one of the Evokers was gone too!

Yuan felt his balls shrink. Suddenly, he loathed the chaos of combat. There were exploding spells above, loud incantations below, tumbling leaves throughout, and bits of crystals that fell, conjoined by the soft archery of rain soaking their bodies.

"Where did Lei go?" Fuhui, the other Fire Evoker, demanded of the party.

"I don't know!" Yuan felt his spine turn to jelly as his mind reeled. What in Mao's name is going on?

Then the remaining three Mages were simultaneously swallowed by the sodden earth. This time, Yuan saw the source of their sudden abduction.

It was the peat bog! There was something under the slough!

"Run for the tree!" Yuan shouted to the girls, who were wide-eyed with terror. "Ru—"

Then he too became an inmate of the waters below.

The rain that had drenched them all had suddenly expanded from their clothes as if gaining sentience. There was the sensation of a terrific pull, after which they rested in their watery tombs.

Above Yuan, the vegetation closed like a pair of smirking lips.

Below, there was only cold, dark, smelly water.

The last thing he heard was a soft, amiable voice.

"Welcome to Motel Lea, my friends. You can check out anytime you like, but you WILL forfeit your rings' contents and the competition. Otherwise, you can enjoy an Undine's full-body service for the next thirty-six hours."

The girls stared at the smiling face waving below them, welcoming them home.

The party of Mages who had attacked them were gone.

Replacing the self-satisfied faces of their assailants was a man close to Gwen's fluttering heart.

"Richard!" Gwen dispelled her Void armaments; then, she Feather Fell gently toward Richard's open arms, her face livid with disbelief.

"EE-EE!" Ariel scampered down the tree and ran around Richard in circles.

"Petra!" Petra glanced below and saw Tao likewise with his arms open. The Illusionist's mouth opened to reveal neglected teeth; his face was full of smugness.

Gwen wrapped herself around Richard like an octopus. "Oh my god! Richard! Thank God! Thank God you're here! HOW?"

"Arrgh—!"

Petra landed heel first on Tao's face, balancing herself as he crumpled, stepping down gracefully via Tao's body.

"Mina!" Gwen greeted her other cousin.

Mina waited for her to detach from Richard, then they too embraced. Gwen squeezed her cousin tight, unable to help herself after the tension dissolved from her body. Despite her initial hesitation, Mina reciprocated her over-affectionate gesture.

"What happened?" Gwen scanned her surroundings. "Where are the others? Where's that Huyi guy? Where's Fei?"

"I've got them right here," Richard chuckled. "Lea, bring up one of our guests!"

A portion of the peat bog below their feet opened to reveal an aperture, within which entombed the silhouette of a feebly struggling Mage. Gwen recognised the face as one of Huyi's lackeys, specifically the Diviner.

A sleeve of green water encased the young Mage, giving him the comical likeness of a human-size edamame bean. Lea levitated the parcel of water above them, then with a pop, Richard released the Mage so that he fell to the floor gasping and gagging.

"Well, what do you think of my proposal?"

"I yield!" the Diviner emptied the contents of his Storage Ring. A few strange-looking crystals, assorted potions and random adventuring necessities poured out."Take it! Take it all! I give up! Let me go! I want out!"

"Good choice, my man!" Richard nodded approvingly. "Master Hao, are you there?"

A silvery mandala materialised beside the group.

With a thump of displaced air, a wizened, middle-aged man with an impressive Confucian moustache appeared.

"Xiao Pan is forfeiting the match," the Mage said without expression. "I will now transport you to a medical facility. Do you wish to proceed?"

The Diviner gazed upon Richard with absolute gut-wrenching hatred, snot and ejecta running down his handsome face.

"Lea—." Richard smiled with teeth.

"I forfeit! Take me now!"

"Very well."

A flash of Conjuration later, the boy was gone.

The Adjudicator turned his eyes upon the rest of them.

"Will you let the rest out?" he asked Richard seriously, his brows knitted. "If you intend to murder them in cold blood while they are helpless, that is your choice, but I will have to make a report."

Richard shrugged. "They tried to bully Gwen. They can wait."

"Richard… What happened? What did you do?" Gwen felt her rational world turned upside down by the sudden turn of events. Just as a minute ago, she had just set her mind to murder mode, now she was being treated to a grotesque comedy.

More pockets of the waterlogged bog opened around them. Gwen saw half a dozen pods of encased Mages writhing in their watery pouches in a radius centred around Richard. One by one, their victims rose from below the peat bog, suspended in the air.

"Well," Richard's eyes regarded his cargo of captured CCs lovingly. "I should thank you two for the distraction, but it's a long story…"

"Fei!" Gwen pointed to a skinny Mage suspended and barely conscious. "Dick, can you let this one go?"

Richard released the Water Tomb without question.

Fei choked and gagged on the floor, then turned over onto his stomach, vomiting forth a torrent of swamp water.

"Oh Mao, Gwen, thank Mao, you're okay," he choked. "Horrible. So horrible. I thought for sure I died. So many times."

"MMMMmmph! Mmmph! Mm!" One of the Mages, the one called Yuan, began to beat his tomb's walls. From what Gwen could see, his face was turning deathly pale with asphyxiation.

"It was him! He was the one who called the Xiao Clan!" Fei pointed out.

"Fei?" Tao recognised the haggard Illusionist. "Is that you?"

"Tao?" Fei feebly offered a greeting. "Yeah... it's me..."

"EE-ee?" Ariel yipped cutely.

With a wave of his hand, Richard injected a bubble of air into the sleeves. The inhabitants of Richard's watery worlds greedily gulped the air. Still, the momentary respite was worse than actual drowning, for their desperate salvation lasted no more than half a minute before they again begged for sweet release.

Gwen knelt beside the shivering Fei and made sure he was okay.

"Anyway." Richard turned to Gwen with eyes that were soft and mirthful. "Storytime! So, I landed pretty close to Tao and Mina. We ran into some others while looking for you two. Helped people out and made some gains. We were just headed down south when we saw an SOS sigil..."

Gwen stared numbly at the pile of trinkets, crystals, and Dungeon loot that lay in a knee-high heap beside them.

Richard told her that using Tao's Illusions and Lea's control over the water; they managed to spread Lea "like butter" over the opposing Mages without them suspecting. They then used a tunnel system in which Richard took advantage of the peat-bog to ambush the unsuspecting assailants.

"Anyway, what's it going to be, rat face?" Richard freed Huyi, the last Xiao left, from the watery tomb.

Besides them, the Adjudicator rolled his eyes. "You know, I've seen people get robbed in the dungeons, but he had never seen Clan disciples farmed like sheared sheep. You're a brave man, Mister Huang."

"What did you do to my Caliban?" Gwen interjected before Huyi could answer. "Release my familiar at once!"

The vomiting Huyi, however, had no interest in answering her. As soon as the Clanner finished hurling, he turned onto the Adjudicator. "YOU! Are you just going to let this happen? Who's your Registrar? I am going to file an official complaint! What's happened here is the negligence of your duty! He was torturing us! I was fucking tortured, do you understand me!"

"My Caliban..." Gwen tried to regain the boy's attention to no avail.

The Adjudicator stared at Huyi without a single hint of emotion. Once Huyi exhausted himself, the Magus turned to Richard. "You killing him?"

"Nope," Richard replied. "Happy, Huyi? You get to go home now."

"In your fucking dreams! You upstart dog!" the Abjurer swore at Richard, though he backed off as the words escaped his mouth, giving his threat a hint of the comical. "Do you know who I am?"

"You want to go back in there?" Richard knitted his dark brows. Lea's exquisitely beautiful face giggled beside the Conjurer and blew Huyi a kiss.

Huyi turned again to the Adjudicator. "Did you hear that? Arrest him now! He's trying to torture me! This behaviour is against the protocol of a Dungeon dive!"

The Adjudicator turned to Gwen and her companions as though Huyi was no more than flatulence.

"I hear a distress call," the Adjudicator said suddenly. "It sounds urgent."

"I do too," Richard agreed. "Very urgent."
"Yes, clearly audible," Petra added in.
"What distress call?" Tao chimed in, wondering if his companions were having hearing issues.
"If he doesn't tell me where Cali's gone," Gwen said quietly. "I am going to Void him..."

The gathered turned to stare at Gwen.

"You guys, for the love of Mao," Mina moaned, feeling a headache coming on.

"Yes, I better get going." The Adjudicator did not wait to dissipate into a cloud of silver.

Huyi regarded Gwen and her group with watery eyes. "Er... You wouldn't dare!"

"Richard, cover me," Petra faced the Abjurer with a look of pure malice, then produced a spell Cube. "I am trained in this sort of thing."

Unlike Gwen, Petra hadn't dispelled her Crystal Skin. "Now, I am going to ask questions, and you're going to—"

Gwen stepped in before Petra could begin her "trained" regime. Extending an exquisitely shapely leg ahead as though she was taking a step into the air, Gwen stomped Huyi in the chest and sent the sod skittering before he slammed into the ground, winded and wheezing.

"WHERE IS CALIBAN?!" she screeched. "Give me back my Cali!"

Just the very thought of Summoning Caliban and feeling his empty pocket dimension was making her see red. Being untrained in the art of interrogation, she did the only thing she could think of, which was to stomp on Huyi until the answers flowed out of his guts.

"Where is my Familiar?!" She stepped on Huyi's Mage Armour.

Watching her boot lay into the Young Master over and over again, the corner of Richard's mouth twitched.

"Gwen," he advised with great deliberation. "The way you're gingerly stomping him with those delicate stalks of yours, he'd likely develop a fetish."

Then Petra joined in, shattering the Abjurer's protective armour with a body blow before gutter-stomping his face.

Richard looked away. Gwen's cousin had no chill. Also, the girl was not joking when she said that she was "trained for this."

It took only a minute for Huyi to cough up the Core he had received from Gwen and "release" Caliban from his Clanner sorcery. With his forfeiture, Huyi gained the opportunity to be immediately transported to a medical facility.

Then, there was one more account to settle.
The comatose Yuan.

"You first or me first?" Petra asked Gwen, her eyes alive with excitement. "Me?"

Some distance away, Peaches split from the party and looked towards the uncertain, misty horizon, his eyes focused upon the middle distance. Behind him, Yuan begged for mercy. He confessed to all his crimes, his double-dealings. With a mere hint of Petra's hovering fist, he admitted to being a sexual pervert. In Tao's hand, the Illusionist held a recording device. Richard had advised they collect some 'precious memories; Tao felt as though he had become a snuff-vid director.

"Mack-Daddy, Little-dog, where are you guys?" Tao's eyes filled with misty remembrance of the old days when they'd flee from every danger in the Dungeon. "I miss you, dudes, so much."


With Yuan forfeiting after being taught a hard lesson in ethics, Gwen and her companions formed a huddle to discuss their next course of action.

Besides the party of five, Caliban, Ariel and Lea played about tagging one another, skittering back and forth across the soggy bog. Caliban resumed its serpentine form and slithered between the peat layers, while Lea cheated by diving into the marsh itself. Ariel, as a result, was left fuming and frustrated, chittering with frustration.

"Oh yes, your shares of the fruit." Petra threw three cubes toward Richard, Mina, and Tao consecutively. "Vitae Fruit, good for the skin. Eat it or trade it, up to you."

"How many CCs?" Richard asked.

"No idea." Petra materialised three more. She had six in total. "One for babulya, one for my Master, and one we can trade away. I'll pay for my Master's one with my portion of the CCs."

"Can I purchase the last one? I have a use for it." Gwen raised her hand. She had great use for the fruit, either to nourish Almudj's mana or to gift away for favours in the future.

The others did not mind her offer. Mina and Tao's father was still young, while Richard was in dire need of his CCs.

"All yours," Petra nodded.

Richard allowed the Stasis Cube to rest between his fingers, watching the white-jade flesh glisten like a work of art.

"I'll trade it for CCs," he said after some thought. "Gwen, can I keep it with you? You're welcome to trade me for it if you like."

"Sure," Gwen affirmed the offer. Perhaps, with babulya's help, she could consume two more pieces of flesh without incident.

"I'll eat it now," Mina announced. "Tao, you eat it too. Mao knows if you'll be able to hold onto it."

Tao gave Mina a mean look, but his heart wasn't in it. Everyone knew Mina was speaking from experience.

Petra dispelled the stasis Cube, and the pair of siblings partook of the wondrous gifts bestowed by the Fructum Vitae.

When sufficiently imbued with life, Mina asked Tao to conjure a mirror so she could examine herself. As with Gwen and Petra, her skin appeared more tender than before, her eyes a little brighter. The best part of it was her figure, which stood fuller.

"How do I look?" She turned to Richard, her smiling, luminous eyes forming two half-moons. The ability to talk with one's eyes was a talent neither Gwen nor Petra possessed but which Mina executed to perfection.

"Wonderful, Mina, as always." Richard retained that slight smile he always wore. "You too, Tao, you're looking rather buffed yourself."

Tao turned the mirror toward himself. Having absorbed the Fructum Vitae, his posture appeared more statuesque, his body more toned and masculine. The timidness that seemed to underly his exterior machismo became less pronounced.

"So, back to the Guardian?" Gwen packed away the spare Fructum Vita.

"Ah yes, the Guardian." Richard tapped his chin. "I think I know where it went."

Five pairs of eyes turned to the grinning Conjurer.

"There's a hollowed-out section beneath us. If there's going to be a guardian, I would suppose it's there. Lea, tell them." Richard called forth his Undine, who materialised from the waters beneath his feet.

"There is a cavern below, very big!" Lea fluttered her impossibly long lashes and illustrated what she had detected with her hands. "Big Salamander with many eggs."

"Those worth anything?" Richard turned to Petra.

"Gila Eggs?" Petra allowed the protective crystalline shell to fall from her body, fading into motes of mana as the fragments lost their enchantment. "That can't be right. Gila don't breed like that. They implant phages or tumorous tissue into their victims, and then the victim slowly turns into a Gila."

"What if the Gila found a host that's able to mutate?" Richard inquired. "Unless chaos follows specific biological pathways?"

"Life… finds a way?" Gwen intoned sagely.

Petra considered Gwen's words. Does life find a way? It certainly sounded philosophically aligned with the nature of chaos.

"And there's always the Gila core," Gwen added. "How big did you say this thing is?"

"Lea, give us a look at this thing."

Lea summoned water from between the sodden peat. She roughly constructed a salamander about the size of a semi-trailer.

"That's a huuuge bitch!" Tao blurted loudly.

"That's a huuuge Magic Resistance," Petra observed thoughtfully.

The group fell silent.

"We can probably overpower it with Lightning and Void," Gwen suggested. "From what I could attest with the large Blue Gila, enough damage should make it through."

"It's underground, though." Petra raised an arched brow. "I don't fancy our chances fighting it underwater."

"How about this?" Gwen continued. "We can lure it with something - like the Vitae fruit, and then we can alpha strike it to cut off its mobility."

"That's a bit optimistic," Petra pointed out. "The older the Gila, the smarter. Reds have low cunning like Goblins. When we start seeing Blue ones, you're looking at Hobgoblins. At Green, we're looking at something like Humans. Once we start getting to super rare breeds like Grey or Black Gila, we're looking at ancient intelligence like Elves or Dragons. I doubt an angry, ancient Gila is going to be a dumb animal."

"Think it can use magic?" Mina pointed out. "The green ones can do magic."

"Lea says it's Red," Richard assured her. "We're looking at a mighty bruiser, maybe a tier 6 or so in strength, but tier 8 in anti-magic defence. Let's assume it's intelligent, but not too intelligent. That means we need some serious damage. Gwen? Petra?"

"Well, we got a spare Vitae fruit to act as the lure." Petra pointed out. "How well do you think the Lightning and Void spells work against the Gila?"

"I'd say half strength?" Gwen tried to quantify the resistance of the creatures she'd slain earlier, upscaled for size. "Void will eat away at its body regardless of the resistance, and Lightning can penetrate its slime."

"Right." Petra calculated some numbers in her head. "Okay, say I Spell Cube some of your attacks. We double down on Void while Mina keeps me topped up. Full pre-buff. Two Lightning Tentacles, two Void Tentacles. Double-sets of Warding Bolt and Conjure Storm. We'll potion up after initial buffs, then again at half-tank. I'll make combat platforms on the tree over yonder, well out of reach of that thing. You and Richard to the right, me and Mina to the left. What do you think?"

"We'll need to rest," Gwen advised.

"That works out well." Richard pointed at the watery model of the great beast. "You know, I think I figured out why our guardian didn't show."

"What do you know?" Mina eyed her relative with admiration.

"It's entirely obvious when you think about it." Richard laughed. "It's nocturnal!"

A look of epiphanic realisation washed over the other four companions. Gwen slapped her forehead. Of course, she should have thought of that. She's been to Taronga Zoo many times in her past life. She even did the night tour! Amphibians, particularly creatures of the dark like salamanders, were nocturnal hunters.

"How we gonna bring that huge bitch to the yard?" Tao proposed after a few seconds of contemplation.

"Well." Richard eyed their companion up and down. "You're going to bring it to us…"

“Oh.” Tao’s face turned ashen. “I… I am?”

"Indeed, Peaches." Richard patted the Illusionist on the back. "You too, Fei."

"Me too?" Unlike Tao's fearful consternation, Fei's expression was one of unexpected anticipation.

"Of course!" Richard smirked. "You two are the heart of our plan!"

With the extended time required in preparing Petra's Spell Cubes, the party settled in to rest their minds and bodies.

Gwen volunteered her Portable Habitat, much to Mina's delight, slotting an HDM into the magical device and laying it down at the tree's base.

Each member then found rooms to prepare for the night battle to come. Gwen meditated to recovered her mana, aided by Mina, stoking Almudj's life force to gift herself with a tolerance for Void. Petra carefully cubed Gwen's higher tier spells, reproducing her spell-list in both Lightning and Void.

Richard, meanwhile, sat in the living room, carefully explaining a plan involving Lea and the two Illusionists in their project to lure the Salamander.

When the late afternoon arrived, Lea reported that other Mages parties came to take shelter on the relative dryness of the peat-bog. Having ascertained who and what they were dealing with, Richard sent Gwen and Mina to negotiate with them.

Mina saluted like a good soldier and took Gwen by the hand.

"Come on. You've been cooped up in there cooking up Spell Cubes!" Mina dragged her from her room. "Let me show you how we've been harvesting loot the whole way here."

"Tao, if you please?" Richard was close behind them. "On myself as well. Don't forget to record."

"Invisibility!" Tao incanted the spell twice. It was his favourite spell for Dungeon dives, only now they were using it for Richard's nefarious purposes. If it had been their last dive, Tao would have found his friends, holed up somewhere safe, and refreshed Invisibility until the Dungeon ended.

"What are we doing?" Gwen looked at Richard. Even as an ally, all she saw was a vaguely humanoid distortion.

"We're doing the Lord's work." Richard's voice was secretive and expectant. "Out we go, let's see what we got. Lea, you good?"

"I am in place, Master." Lea's voice came from thin air.

"Let's go!" Mina pulled on Gwen. With a quick tug across the threshold, they were out of the portal and into the Dungeon once more.

"Wo Cao!" another voice, rougher and spoken far less delicately, answered the first. "Just because we're a PUG, don't think you can mess with us!"

"We were here first!" A haughty voice cut through the air. "This groove will shelter the House of Xu tonight, and we do not desire unwanted company, especially one of your foul presence."

Gwen caught the tail end of their conversation as she and Mina appeared from behind the tree, where a depression in the trunks hid the portal Gwen had set up. Pulled by her cousin, they stalked around the circumference of the giant Bayan and found themselves caught in between the two bickering groups.

"Fuck!" Now in range, Gwen's Ioun Stone translated the curse. "Where the hell did you two come from?"

The Mage who spoke was a fat woman with broad shoulders and barrel-waist. She had a voice like a loudspeaker and wore her pigtails like a younger girl, which made her look ridiculous. Behind her were four ragged-looking Mages, injured and exhausted looking, all young men of indistinct attire.

"Indeed, it would almost seem as though you appeared from nowhere." A soft, polite voice came from their left. The speaker was a young man with a sculpted face and bright, intelligent-looking eyes. He was wearing a one-piece mandarin robe that came straight out of 80s Jet Li films. The man's attire was entirely white: white-cloth shoes, white tunic, and white pants. His companions were three other males, likewise clad in white, and a girl who looked to be a PUG member, for she appeared carefully made-up, wearing a minidress that showed off her shapely calves.

"We're lost!" Mina announced with her cute, diminutive voice. "Can any of you help us? We need a safe place to meditate and restore our mana. We've been running from monsters since this morning and manage to shake them just an hour ago!"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mina's voice sent shivers up Gwen's spine. Her cousin must have foregone the auto-cleaning function of her Sunday dress somehow, for the fabric was a little torn and soiled at the hem. Furthermore, her Roman sandals trailed with wayward mud, marking her shoes with evidence of a panicked escape.

Beside the tragically pretty maiden, Gwen appeared stupefied. She was still wearing her skinsuit, which was charred and marked by their earlier combat. Despite a refreshing Prestidigitation, the suit would need repairs when they returned to Shanghai. Added to the fact that she'd been draining spells for the last four hours to feed Petra's Cubes, she appeared the very picture of a survivor.

The two groups regarded the girls.

"Play along," Richard's voice spoke next to Gwen.

Gwen looked around bewilderingly. Were they doing what she thought they're doing?

"Can… can we help them?" The comely PUG girl with the white-suited Mages reflexively asked her companions, her eyes filled with sympathy.

The leader, the one who spoke, looked toward Gwen doubtingly, narrowing his eyes.

"We'll shelter you!" the other Mage, the burly female, announced confidently, her face pudgy like a smiling Buddha. "Come here, quick!"

Mina took Gwen's hand and joined the pick-up group, tittering with 'panic' as they did so.

When they arrived, however, they were received by wanton and greedy eyes. An atmosphere of repressed mana filled the air, suggesting that these Mages were not the friendly kind that helped a maiden in distress.

"Show me the contents of your ring, and we'll protect you," the burly woman demanded once Gwen and Mina were out of range of the Mages in white. "Those guys over there, you can't trust them. I saw them rob a few juniors only a few hours ago."

"THAT'S BULLSHIT!" the minidress girl shouted across the bog. "They tried to rob me!"

"Ring. Contents. Now!" the barrel-waisted girl-Mage demanded quickly. "They're monsters hereabouts, and they'd take you under the bog sooner than you can say 'regret!'. If you want our protection, it's only natural that you purchase a little faith, hmm?"

"Are… are you robbing us?" Mina demanded angrily. "This isn't fair! As if we have anything to give!"

Gwen almost spat in the fat girl's face. Holy shit. She thought to herself.

"Don't make me shut you up." A gauntlet of stone materialised on the sorceress' forearm. "I'll snap you like a twig. I can see your Storage Rings. Hand them over."

"Never!" Mina snapped, her face full of anguish. "Gwen has a Large Storage Ring! It's priceless!"

The look of avarice on the stout sorceress' face was painfully obvious. Gwen tugged Mina's shirt, requesting that perhaps, she should dial down the charade.

"Won't somebody stop them!" Mina shouted towards the four Mages behind the fat one, who burst into laughter. "What's so funny?"

"What house you from, green-girl?" One of the Mages demanded.

"I've seen you around." Another PUG member licked his eyes over Gwen. "You're that Lightning Sorceress that was at M the other night, right?"

"How dare you take advantage of us when we're OOM!" Mina quickly retorted in case the Mages got cold feet.

Seriously?! Gwen pinched Mina, who shrugged it off and elbowed her in the gut, causing Gwen to keel over.

"She was?" The burly Transmuter-leader shifted her attention to Gwen. "I heard she won two thousand HDMs from the son of the Fung clan just the other night. How dare you lie to us! You said you had nothing!"

Over on the other side, the white-clad Mage began to move.

"Hey, you! Over there! You girls. You can seek shelter with us. We won't harm you nor ask for reparations. I swear it, by the name of the Xujiahui House of Xu."

"PEI!" The burly sorceress spat vehemently at the young man. "Fuck! Who do you think you are, huh? Local land Gods? Here isn't Xijaihui! These girls came to us first, and they're under our protection whether you like it or not!"

"I have no loot to give!" Mina wailed desperately, her eyes full of tearful desperation. "I mean, Gwen has a Creature Core! But we need it. If we come back with nothing, our Dad's will think we're useless!"

What an actress! Gwen applauded internally. What a terrifying girl! Perhaps Mina should focus on theatre. Tao can be the musician, Mina, the actress; they could be the dynamic "entertainment" duo of the Wang family.

The Transmuter's beady eyes lit up. It was a terrifying expression, like watching a lucky Buddha's lips opening to reveal pointed teeth.

"If you know what's good for you…" The greedy Mage was far more focused on the House of Xu's white-clad Mages than Gwen and Mina. Her companions, too, were readying attack spells by front-loading their mana and incantations.

"I… I am not giving you my core!" Gwen tried to follow Mina's suit. Her acting was so wooden, so unnatural, that the effect was immediately immersion breaking.

"You're testing my patience, princess," the Transmuter threatened her with a glare, thinking perhaps that the Dungeon had driven Gwen semi-insane with fright. "Empty your ring, now-"

Fsssuwurp—!

Gwen felt immense relief when bog finally opened up its maw and swallowed their assailant wholesale. The spontaneous charade was wreaking havoc on her nerves. The Transmuter's four companions, who'd been loading up spells, were likewise taken by the suck of the swamp.

An eerie silence overtook the clearing, then abruptly, four vibrant shields of different elements sprang into existence. The House of Xu was in combat formation, all except their leader, who took on an expression of disbelief.

"Praetor Huang? Is that you?" The leader of the House of Xu suddenly announced to the thin air.

"Yo!" Richard materialised a few meters away. "Now that you mention it, you do have a familiar face."

"Praetor! It IS you! It's me, Julian Xu. Do you remember me?" The Mage called Julian seemed far more excited to have met Richard than worry about their dubious circumstances. It was only when the two shook hands that the tension softened, and their Shields retracted.

"Julian! From Xiaoming Academy? Goodness, it's been two years! How've you been?"

"I am doing well, Senior!" Julian turned to his companions. "This is the man I've told you guys about— Senior Huang from Prince's! He was there at the exchange conference a few years back as the Praetor for Prince's Sydney team. No one got past them that year, remember? And Prince's London branch picked up the Inter-high Cup."

Two of the members mumbled that they did. Another one of Xu's mates worshipfully shook Richard's hand.

The two girls watched the exchange with some surprise, Gwen more so than Mina.

"Anyway, this is my team, Gan, Felix, Gui, and Taiyuan. The girl is a PUG member we picked up. Her name is Felicity Tang."

"I have a few more members with me as well. I'll introduce them later." Richard broke off from the group and told Gwen and Mina to come closer.

"This is Gwen Song, my cousin, and Mina Wang, from the Wang Enterprises."

"A pleasure!"
"It's good to meet you."
"Likewise."
"From the one in Huaihai Road?"
"The very same."

"Thank you for offering to help us earlier." Mina bowed slightly.

"I am glad you're both safe!" Felicity Tang quickly ingratiated herself with their noteworthy party. "Senior Richard, it's a pleasure to meet you. May I ask what happened to the other party?"

"You'll have your answer very soon, my dear," Richard quipped, his intelligent eyes glinting. A girl not in the know would have fancied the young man to be flirting with them, but Gwen knew Richard was probably thinking of the Crystals and the CCs. Taking the wrong hint, Felicity edged closer to Richard.

Mina snickered coldly and pushed Gwen toward Richard.

At six-foot-two, Gwen's hips started at the Asian girl's navel.

Felicity's face withered like a trodden orchid.

"It's always nice to meet good guys out here in the Dungeon," Mina said innocently. "Richard, think it's time?"

"Another minute," Richard answered nonchalantly. "So, how're you guys faring so far?"

"Passably," Julian began a tirade of their exploits since entering the Dungeon. Felicity made inane small talk with the girls, hoping to understand who they were. "Although, what do you intend to do with those Mages? Surely you're not thinking of killing them? Why so serious?"

"See for yourself." Richard motioned with a hand. "Lea, bring 'em up!"

The barrel-waisted Mage was in an extra-large satchel of brown liquid, her face blue with asphyxiation. When she landed on the soft peat in a burst of brown water, she let loose a gibbering, bestial torrent of salty gunk from her lips.

The small crowd of Mages regarded the arrogant Transmuter with sympathy. Transmuters could train to breathe in water, but the spell took both time to incant and time to manifest. To be stuck in a water prison and denied the air necessary to cast a life-saving incantation must make an exquisite dilemma.

"I… I forfeit!" the Mage uttered feebly. "Please, no more."

"Excellent choice, my good woman, the contents of your ring to the right—"

"STONE SPIRE!"

A burst of violent Earthen mana burst from the Transmuter's outstretched hand. The embittered Mage must have been holding the spell since her entrapment, for the usually second-long incantation for the tier 3 spell was completed in a split-second.

The sudden change, especially after a forfeiture, was entirely unexpected and had caught Gwen's party off-guard.

Lea was the first to react; her twitch-reflex as an attuned spirit was enough to form a Water-Shield half a meter away from Richard.

It was unfortunate then that the Water Abjurer's shields were weak against the Earth element's brute-force attacks. The stone projectile burst through the transparent barrier and shot toward Richard's surprised face.

It was a mistake made out of hubris. The gathered had thought the Mage a Transmuter only. No one had suspected that she would also be an Evoker or that Evocation may have been her primary school of magic.

"Shield of Faith!" Mina's training had drilled the reflexive reaction into her body. A blooming sheet of light, empowered by Positive energy and pure mana, moved to enveloped Richard.

Gwen, however, had never received formal Abjuration training. Seeing Richard in imminent danger of becoming enveloped in a world of jagged shards, she extended a hand toward the Mage and uttered the first thing that came to mind.

"Void Bolt!"

A sword of dark matter sliced through the air and pierced through the Transmuter's Stone Shield. The fat sorceress had been using every ounce of her focus to maintain her assault.

She knew she would get hurt, but no one expects to cop a Void Bolt to the face.

Without sound nor any form of spectacular display, the bolt of Void consumed the sorceress' head, leaving only two pigtails to flutter to the ground.

Above them, her attack fizzled into motes of indistinct mana.

The headless Mage remained unmoving on the ground for a moment more. A second later, from the horizontal cross-section of her neck stump came a gush of arterial blood that soaked the peat-bog, a stream of crimson ejaculating with each pulse of her failing heart.

Gwen stared at her handiwork, a spine-tingling chill working her way up her spine like silver of eldritch frost.

She's dead! Her mind screamed. I just murdered a woman in cold blood!

She felt numb with clarity, as though she'd stepped through a threshold. The Transmuter was not someone who had done her grave injury; she was merely someone she had met no more than five minutes ago! A careless bully and a greedy gut! Now she was a headless corpse bleeding out on the floor! Only a split-second ago, this was a cheating, conniving, scheming human being, fully capable of rationality, possessing the faculty to learn and change! Now she had taken all of that away from this woman, this girl-Mage. Now the girl was just a bag of dead flesh upon the floor! She hadn't just stolen this Mage's life! She'd taken all the potential that her humanity offered the world!

"Gwen!"
"Cousin!"

Voices calling out to Gwen seemed to pull her back from the abyss of her own making. Gwen turned to see her companions, who by now had spilt from the Portable Habitat, calling out to her.

"I am…" Gwen wanted to say that she was alright, but she was hardly that. She stumbled backwards and had to be caught by Petra, who hugged her close to her chest. Her heart was pounding like a rabbit in a bag; she wanted to vomit.

"It's fine; she deserved it," Petra praised her, her voice calm and collected. "Good job."

"Yeah, that bitch was asking for it, dawg. I got that shit on Vid-cast!" Tao added his piece, shaking his Lumen-recorder with confidence. "Stone cold! Capped that bitch like a dog!"

"Peaches, shut up! Gwen, please don't feel bad about doing what's necessary," Mina added her own. "Richard could have been injured."

Gwen felt her stomach churn.
Mina had already covered Richard.
They had a healer with them.
At worst, Richard would need some minor healing. If the pair had worked their way across the marsh shearing these men and women of sin, they would have indeed fought off at least a dozen that tried to ambush them by now.

"I… I am—" Gwen tried to catch her breath. She had killed a woman for no good reason. A Mage lost her life because she couldn't hold her horses.

Then a hand took her by the wrist and pulled her away from Petra.

Gwen turned to see Richard's dark eyes gazing upon her with benevolence.

"Richard, I didn't mean… I…" Her mind remained a chaotic jumble of emotions and unbidden horrors. She had only been in Shanghai for six days, and she was already a murderer.

Richard massaged her hands.

"I didn't mean—" She tried to pull away.

PA!

To the surprise of all, Richard slapped her across the face.

Gwen felt her anarchic thoughts cease at once. A flush of anger and confusion replaced the immensity of her remorse as her eyes flashed electric and emerald.

"Gwennie." Richard held both of her wrists so that she couldn't move. "Thank you for saving my life."

"But…"

"GWEN." Richard's voice was like a booming thunderclap; his vice-like grip bruised her tender, white wrists. "You saved my life."

Slowly, she felt the adrenaline drain away, and with it, the chemical hysteria of the blood.

Her eyes fell upon the corpse. From the enormous cadaver came the sighs and murmurings of escaping gases as organs lost their vitality and shed their cargo of liquids. From the stomach to the spleen, the woman's wrecked locomotive shut its valves for the final time, its meat settling into a quivering silence.

A flash of silvery Conjuration appeared not far from the group. Master Hao, the Adjudicator, appeared beside them.

"Mr Huang, I told you that trouble would find you if you persisted," the Senior Mage said.

"I'll take full responsibility," Richard intoned without any emotion of panic nor remorse. "Mr Wang has the whole thing on Vid-Cast. I do believe that we are well within our rights to defend ourselves."

"I'll be the judge of that!" The Adjudicator turned to Gwen. "A Void Mage. It's been a while. How long have they been hiding you?"

"That's on a need to know," Petra interjected before Gwen could answer. "Please take it up with my Grandmother, Director Klavdiya Song of the Second PLA Army Hospital."

"I would like to submit for the record that the House of Xu is in full support of Senior Huang and Ms Song." Julian stepped forward.

"My father is with Villeroy and Wu's," Mina added her piece. "If you want to question Richard or Gwen, I suggest a formal application through our Arbitrator-Solicitor."

The Adjudicator rolled his eyes.

He ignored the junior Mages' threats and chose instead to focus on doing his job. Producing a recording device that hovered over one hand, he took a copy from Tao's recording.

"Retaliation in defence. Unlawful assault after forfeiture by Baiming Shui, independent House from Lishui. Death by single spell decapitation, Void Bolt. Dead on arrival. Dated Sunday, 13th of April, 2003."

After jotting down the details, he turned to the child-Mages. "Goodbye. Try not to kill anyone else."

The Adjudicator was once more gone from their sight.

"Wait!" Richard watched the Senior Mage disappear. "There are four others!"

The Adjudicator did not return.

With Gwen still in her depressed state, the afternoon had lost its festive, relaxed atmosphere. Richard summoned the other four prisoners, took their crystals and their loot, then sent them packing into the distance.

With the current matter now resolved, Petra, Tao and Fei introduced themselves, then Richard accepted the offer of aid and cooperation proposed by Julian. Both parties confirmed the split of the potential loot from the giant Gila, and then members shook on the agreement.

Questioning the members of their new extended party, Petra requested that they submit spells to her cause. Stunned by her breathtaking grace, the men eagerly complied while their female companion, Felicity, sulked.

Gwen sat on a rock, glancing every once in a while toward the body. She became so distracted that Richard opted to just 'disappear' the corpse altogether.

As daylight began to lose its lustre, the group settled into their respective roles. Gwen provided the food, and the conjoined party made the most of the facilities offered by the Portable Habitat. With a helping hand from the girl, Felicity, an eleven-person serving of noodle and SPAM fed the party.

Gwen became surrounded by the sound of slurping and sipping as dinner commenced. Her eyes glanced at the spot where the Lishui Mage had died. Now, only a patch of dried blood remained.

The erstwhile Transmuter's Storage Ring had held a significant loot volume, ranging from exotic flora to small Creature Cores to alien metal. It was a testament to her avarice.

"It is a vile thing to die," Gwen mumbled to herself. "When folk are unprepared and look not for it."

She gazed at her dainty white hands and wondered if she would see the spots of blood. With Void, her's was an implement of murder that left no tales. Still, will all the perfumes of Arabia make her little hands sweet again?

Gwen closed her eyes to rest and saw Faceless' distorted, shapeless mien mocking her hypocrisy.

"I told you we were alike! I told you. Gwen Song. We would be together. One way. Or another."

Gwen suppressed the sickness that rose in her stomach. Her grandmother's words hung in the air.

"There will be no rest. No solace, not even when you're spent and bloody and desire nothing more than to sleep. With your talent, your blood, you will become like a beacon for the Rakshasa, a locus of envy, jealousy, wrath and lust. Can you understand that?"

"You will walk the Path of Violent Reckoning!"

Gwen closed her eyes again and banished the darkness. She circulated Amuldj's mana through her circuits and breathed in, inflating her lungs until they were on the point of bursting, then breathed out.

For now, her companions were waiting, and there was a Gila to be Purged.