Rain trickled through the shattered ceiling, cold droplets splattering against the warped wood of the long conference table. The sound was a steady pitter-patter, almost hypnotic, but Marisol had been getting good sleep recently. Exhausting themselves to the brink of death every single day would do that to anyone, but she’d had good sleep recently. It was the reason why even now, seated at the far end of the long table in Lighthouse Seven, she didn’t feel like dozing off mid-meeting.

  It’d been a whole two weeks since the siege began, and the room at the top of Lighthouse Seven still stood broken. It wasn’t that big a deal to not have a roof, though. Victor, standing next to the Imperatrix, certainly didn’t seem to care. Neither did the Lighthouse Imperators seated along the sides of the table, nor the lower-rank Imperators standing along the walls. All of them were simply listening attentively as the Imperatrix rattled off numbers at the other end of the table.

  “... Good job, everyone,” Andres concluded, nodding sternly at every Imperator in the room as he placed his fists against the table. “The past two weeks have been very productive. All seven thousand two hundred and forty-four Giant-Class wormholes across the city have finally collapsed, and we have slain all of the crustaceans that crawled out of them.” His one-eyed gaze lingered on Marisol and Reina for a moment longer. “With the Giant-Class wormholes dealt with, there is only the matter of the one hundred and thirteen Mutant-Class wormholes and the three Insect God wormholes remaining.”

  Andres cleared his throat, his tone shifting into the dry cadence of a final report. Numbers. Kills. Losses. Progress. Marisol tried to focus, but her mind wandered, her gaze drifting to the little roll of Symbiosteel in her hand. She’d woken up just ten minutes ago to come to this emergency strategic meeting, so she hadn’t had the time to put on the water boatmen bandages she’d picked out last night in Maria’s Symbiosteel factory.

  She’d put them on after this, though. She wanted to know just how many attribute levels she could get if she wrapped herself head to toe in them.

  she mumbled,

  A sharp sound pulled her attention back to the room. Andres slapped a map hard against the table, fixing it in place with one hand. Marisol blinked, sitting up straighter as everyone leaned in to appraise the map.

  It showed the Whirlpool City in damp detail, with three glaring red circles marking specific points. Andres tapped each one in turn.

  “These are our next major fronts,” he said. “I will confirm their locations once again: F-Rank Barnacle God, Rhizocapala, is sealed in a wormhole near the Symbiosteel factories in the northern production sector. E-Rank Water Scorpion God, Eurypteria, is sealed in a wormhole dead centre in the middle of the eastern residential sector. D-Rank Remipede God, Kalakos, is sealed in a wormhole in the southern harbour sector. They’re as far away from each other as they can be—and I’m sure the Worm God separated them deliberately, knowing their strength would multiply tenfold if they’re allowed to fight as a team, disjointed as they may be.”

  “Now, we don’t know when they’ll emerge,” Victor continued, stepping forward and tapping his cane on Rhizocapala’s wormhole in the northern sector, “but the Worm God talked about it, like, briefly before he fucked off down to the whirlpool: the stronger the bugs are, the longer it’ll take them to stagger out of their wormhole. In that order, then, we should be seeing Rhizocapala’s ugly head first, and then Eurypteria, and then Kalakos. Probably two or three days between each emergence, and we’ll see Rhizocapala in about… two weeks or so.”

  “Which means,” Andres finished, “each of the Insect God wormholes will require dedicated forces to hold the line and secure the area. I will now assign the teams accordingly.” He turned to the right, facing Maria and Claudia. “Lighthouse Two and Lighthouse Four will be responsible for Rhizocapala with fifty Imperators on standby.” Then he turned to the left, facing Hugo and Reina. “Lighthouse Three and Lighthouse Five will be responsible for Eurypteria with a hundred Imperators on standby, while Victor and I will be responsible for Kalakos with the remaining hundred and fifty Imperators. Since Rhizocapala be emerging first, the moment he does, the rest of us around Rhizocapala will observe our two wormholes for at least an hour longer. If we decide Eurypteria or Kalakos won’t be emerging anytime soon, we’ll immediately rush over to gang up on Rhizocapala at the same time.”

  The gazes of the Imperators standing along the walls darted between the faces around the table. For the most part, they didn’t seem too uneasy about being assigned to the Insect God frontlines—probably for the best—but was uneased.

  After all, her name hadn’t come up.

  She cleared her throat. “And me?”

  Andres’ gaze fixed on her, sharp and unyielding. “You’ll have a different job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “You will lead a strike team of your own,” he said. “Your task will be to deal with the hundred and thirteen Mutant-Classes that will be emerging across the city the next two weeks or so, while the rest of us will be stationed at the Insect God wormholes.”

  She frowned, the weight of his words settling heavily on her shoulders. “But I wanna fight the Insect Gods, too—”

  “We need you elsewhere,” Victor chimed in. “The Lighthouse Imperators stationed at the Insect God wormholes ain’t gonna be able to leave their posts. They be leaving their posts. The rest of the city needs someone who can adapt and move quickly to respond to the emerging Mutant-Classes, and I heard you’re quite fast, right?”

  The Archive’s voice hummed softly in her mind.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Marisol sighed. There was reason to be understood, and to be frank, Marisol didn’t quite hate the idea of getting even stronger, still.

  “Alright,” she muttered. “But am I supposed to do this alone? Against… how many Mutant-Classes? A hundred and thirteen?”

  “It’ll be more than that,” Victor said. “Many of the wormholes sucked in multiple Mutant-Classes, so you’re looking at around a hundred and fifty, maybe even two hundred.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah.”

  “... And? You want me to deal with Mutant-Classes alone?” She clicked her tongue, shaking her head vigorously. “No way. No, no, no way. I have two to deal with two hundred Mutant-Classes? I don’t care how low-rank they are, because I’m sure as hell some of them are pretty high-rank, and let’s do the math—”

  “My Archive just did the math for me. No way. I’m always up for an impossible challenge, I really am, but—”

  Hugo’s chuckle broke the tension. “Chill. Of course you won’t be alone. Pick whoever you want from my initiates to form your little strike team. They’ll follow you around until you’ve dealt with all the Mutant-Classes.”

  Claudia leaned back in her chair, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Ye can ask for my Guards too, though I doubt they’ll be much help against Mutant-Classes.”

  Marisol blinked. Then her eyes immediately wandered around the room, skipping over familiar faces, lingering on others she’d fought briefly beside this past week. Names and battle memories filtered through her mind, but none of them stuck. Two hundred Mutant-Classes. she thought. Most of the Imperators here seemed solid, dependable even—but dependable wasn’t enough when the Mutant-Classes count tipped into triple digits.

  She needed people she could trust to handle the chaos.

  People she’d worked with closely before.

  … Then, her gaze stopped.

  Three Imperators stood behind Hugo, their white and blue-lined uniforms soaked from the rain, their expressions calm but alert.

  They struck her like a bolt of lightning.

  “All I need are the three of them,” she said suddenly, her voice cutting through the quiet room as she pointed at the three Imperators.

  Hugo raised a brow, glancing over his shoulder. Just them?” His tone was skeptical, but there was no malice in it. “I mean, they’ve sure grown stronger since the last time you worked with them, but still, they’re not exactly top-tier yet—”

  But before Hugo could continue further, Bruno, Aidan, and Helena stepped forward, pistol shrimp claws thumping over their chests.

  “We want to help,” Bruno said, his voice low but firm.

  “Marisol’s carried us before,” Aidan added, no less resolute. “It’s time we caught up.”

  “Besides, we’ve fought together before,” Helena said, grinning and waving slightly at Marisol. “We know how she works. We can somewhat keep up with her—and we’ll get stronger doing it.”

  Marisol’s lips twitched into a faint smile. She couldn’t help but admire their guts. She was also more than glad to see they were still doing fine and well—admittedly, she hadn’t had time to check up on them since the Depth Five reclamation mission—so Hugo, sensing the silent agreement already being made between the four of them, simply sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “If the three are all you want,” he muttered. “Just don’t get them killed. If you do, you might as well have taken ten more initiates with you.”

  “We’ll be fine,” all four of them replied at once. Then the three siblings stepped around the table to stand behind her chair, and Andres gave a curt nod, watching their quiet exchange.

  “That settles it, then,” he said, rapping the end of the table with his knuckle. “This meeting is adjourned. We all know our roles, so let’s get to it—if everything goes well, the next time we have another meeting, it’ll be we’ve killed Rhizocapala.”

  The chairs scraped against the wet floor as the Lighthouse Imperators began to rise. Marisol whirled around and stood as well, turning to face the Imperator siblings.

  “... Still alive, huh?” she said with a wry grin, her voice tinged with relief.

  “Barely,” Aidan replied with a smirk.

  Helena threw her arms around Marisol in a quick, exuberant hug, ignoring the rain soaking into their uniforms. “You look like crap,” Helena teased, pulling back with a laugh.

  “You’re the second person to tell me that in the past twelve hours,” Marisol shot back, grinning as she also shook hands with Aidan and Bruno, her grip firm. “On my way up here, I heard there’s a wormhole with two E-Rank Mutant-Classes about to stagger out. The three of you in?”

  Bruno shrugged. “Sounds like a good enough warm-up.”

  The four of them began to head towards the door alongside everyone else, but Reina’s tail shot out, catching Marisol’s wrist. The grip wasn’t harsh, but it was firm enough to stop her in her tracks.

  “Do… you need help?” Reina asked, her voice low but insistent.

  Marisol turned, surprised by the worry etched into Reina’s face. For a moment, she hesitated—unsure how to respond—but then she smiled, raising her fist.

  “We’ve got this,” Marisol said confidently. “I’m stronger now. You don’t need to protect us this time.”

  The Imperator siblings bowed as well, no doubt in response to when Reina had protected all of them from Rhizocapala down in Depth Three. It was certainly true that had Reina not been there back then, none of them would be standing here now… but that was back then, and Marisol was much stronger now.

  She wasn’t afraid.

  Push came to shove, she’d be the one to protect all of them this time.

  So Reina’s expression softened after a while, and she let out a small laugh. “Good,” she said, bumping her fist against Marisol’s. “Once you’re done with the Mutant-Classes, we’ll meet up again.”

  A flicker of warmth spread through Marisol’s chest as she looked back at the siblings, her own smile widening. “Try not to slow me down and make Reina worry, alright?” she teased.

  Helena laughed. “Slow you down? Please. We’re the ones who can’t let the newbie show us up.”

  Marisol’s smile turned into a full-blown smirk. She didn’t mind the idea of having even more rivals—not ones like these.

  The Archive paused as the four of them turned to leave the room, idle chatter filling the air between them.

  [Objective #68: Slay the Mutant-Classes across the Whirlpool City]

  [Time limit: 2 weeks]

  [Rewards: ??? points and stability across the Whirlpool City]

  [Failure: Death]

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