The shimagu. Even Ranthia’s International Studies course in the Ranger Academy had largely glossed over them, beyond parroting the same propaganda-sounding bullshit that criers called out across Ariminum every so often. An inhuman species of bodyjackers that kidnapped humans (and ogres, per International Studies) and used their bodies like puppets. Nothing in her chaotic knowledge backed the claims up, so she had always ignored them. The most likely explanation was that it was some anti-Imperial rebel force that had—somehow—formed beyond Remus’ borders. After all, the simplest explanation was usually the right one, and the fact that humans were involved in fighting against Remus made it very easy to explain. Granted, the reason(s) why the dwarves or the elves were involved was a question Ranthia lacked the information to answer, but the propaganda was obvious bullshit.

  Until, quite suddenly, it wasn’t.

  Which was why Ranthia was putting a mirror image next to every civilian that was still on their feet, blades held ready. She had been fooled once, but if anyone else was a shimagu, she’d do everything she could to make sure they died—twice—before they could harm anyone.

  The guards were descending on the twice-over-corpse once Ranthia confirmed the kill was made. Runners were also sent for [Healers] to help those that were affected by the cloud of Miasma, though it was too late for several.

  Pyra’s emergency signal wasn’t technically a skill, just [Inferno Conjuration] used to create an effect not unlike a fountain—thus her nickname for it, the flare fountain. She was desperately burning through her mana, wide-eyed and clearly shellshocked; though the others were bound to have noticed by then.

  Ranthia, on the other hand, was pacing in her true body as she watched the survivors closely and tried to work through her new revelation. The shimagu were real. The body theft thing was seemingly true. If she had known… Well, that was the kicker; she wasn’t sure it changed a damned thing. The man had been oddly dressed and was fidgety in Pallos’ slowest line—hardly damning evidence. [Divine-Touched Identify] hadn’t seen anything unusual either; he was a dual-classed [Mage], yes, but he was only level 128. Plus, he was coming in with a caravan, so Ranthia had assumed he was a hired guard—maybe even an Adventurer.

  Yet Hylla’s dead body sure as hell made it feel like she had done something horribly wrong. And none of her current vigilance changed a damn thing about it.

  By the time the others arrived with the Ranger wagon, Ranthia still had images next to every reasonably intact civilian that was present, while her true body stayed around the [Healers] that fought to save the two that got dosed with Miasma but hadn’t died yet. Three others, plus Hylla, were dead.

  The city had conjured two decently leveled [Healers] for the crisis, at least. Which was why Ranthia was ready to cut down anyone that even vaguely gestured toward the [Healers]. Not even their patients were immune to her scrutiny.

  Wisely, even the most self-important people under her supervision held their tongues. She was furious, she was a Ranger, and she was higher level than anyone else present.

  Green erupted from the wagon in a burst of speed and knelt next to Hylla’s body.

  “Report.” She commanded in a tone that was even colder than the one she had used when Hylla was kidnapped.

  “We were in line and everything was perfectly normal. Level 128 dual-classed [Mage], Earth and Gravity, was ahead of us, he was oddly dressed but wasn’t suspicious enough to warrant further attention. At least until he suddenly put a rock through Hylla’s skull.

  “I killed him immediately, received the kill notification as expected. Yet his body continued to attack, using an element he didn’t possess—Miasma. I pressed the attack, finally got a second kill notification—level 487 Ooze, level 419 Miasma. Based on everything, I can confidently say it was a shimagu.

  “After that I ordered Pyra to use her signal, since I didn’t have my bow or quiver on hand. I’ve also been watching the others that may have arrived with the shimagu spy, just in case.” Ranthia replied, not moving from her current vigil.

  Green nodded and fell silent for a moment, even as the other members of Ranger Team 6 gathered.

  “Ranger Team 6, take over guarding the civilians until they can be cleared. Ranthia, supply and draw from the arcanite, then I need you to scout out into the wilderness and along the roads. Make as thorough of a search as you can. There’s a chance the shimagu might have had a spotter further out, watching what happened. You’re fast and can cover a wider area than I can solo. Go!”

  Ranthia nodded and dropped her mirror images, before she ran for the wagon. She restocked her knives, then stuck her leg against her draw stone for the arcanite and pulled from it while she prepped her bow and quiver. The entire process took only so many moments, yet every moment was time that a possible second shimagu agent could use to escape.

  Still, proper preparation was important. As soon as Ranthia was done, she took off at top speed. Hunting had taught her the basics of running a search pattern, so she put it to good use. She was able to run for a time, then stop and see if she could find any sound or sign of others having passed through recently. Then she moved to the next point. When there was sufficient visibility, she sent out mirror images and used them to widen her search. She continued, slowly expanding her search deeper into the wilderness and further afield.

  In the end, well after night had fallen, Ranthia made her way back to Port Salona with nothing to show for her efforts.

  The funeral pyre for Hylla and the four civilians that died—the healers had been unable to save one of the men, a somber guard still stationed near the embers informed her—had already burnt down to smouldering remnants in the time Ranthia was gone. She stopped and prayed to Xaoc on the behalf of Hylla and the others that fell—something she should have done while she was searching. Though now her mana was far more expendable, and she begged Xaoc to take everything He needed and give Hylla the best fate Samsara had to offer her. She had been far too pure and far too young to have died like this…

  Once Ranthia was finally done with her prayers, she submitted to a very thorough [Healer] screening before she made her way into town. The guards shut the gates after her. The men and women of the guard looked desperately weary, yet they had waited for her. Not that she had any words for them, but they seemed to appreciate the salute that she offered them.

  Ranthia actually had no idea which tavern her team was staying in, but the first one she tried—the one near the guard station—turned out to be correct. All seven of her team were gathered around a table with cold food and neglected drinks.

  “Find anything?” Green asked the instant Ranthia entered.

  “Nothing except wildlife. A few scattered small dinosaurs.” Ranthia replied, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  Gods and goddesses, she wished she’d found another shimagu. It felt like yet another failure, since finding nothing either meant there was nothing to find or that Ranthia hadn’t been good enough—for the second time—and they got away.

  Green beckoned her over. Ranthia approached, but… it was hard to miss that Pyra still looked like she was deep in a spiral of terrible thoughts. Worse, Ranthia had to wince when she noticed part of the younger woman’s ear was missing—she must have been clipped by the attack that killed Hylla.

  Ranthia swallowed her weird anti-touch feelings and paused to put her hands on the young woman’s shoulders.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. This was on me, I had overwatch.” Ranthia assured her.

  Ranthia stiffened when Pyra suddenly turned around and pulled her into a tight hug, the younger woman’s face buried against her stomach. But she forced herself to relax and returned the hug as best she could while standing. She could accept this, Pyra needed it.

  “It’s okay. Nobody will ever blame you.” Ranthia whispered.

  Eventually, Pyra let go and slumped against Juvenae. The moody woman ran her fingers affectionately, soothingly, through Pyra’s hair. Ranthia covertly wiped off the tears and snot that Pyra had left on the laminar vest of her armor, then finally sank wearily into the seat that was left for her. Almost immediately, a woman from the tavern brought her a large bowl of rabbit stew and a generous chunk of fresh bread.

  She really appreciated the thought behind it, but it took an effort to make herself idly eat some of the food. She sure didn’t feel like she had much of an appetite.

  “Flower, I hate to ask, but you’re certain it was a shimagu?” Green asked. It was hard to miss that her usual affectations were back, now that things had calmed down.

  Ranthia closed her eyes beneath her blindfold and sighed. It was a fair question, she reminded herself.

  “The man attacked Hylla out of nowhere. I didn’t ask questions; I killed him immediately. Knife through the top of his head. Got the kill notification. His classes were both at 128, [Chosen Spy – Earth] and [Bringer of Despair – Gravity]. After he died, his body erupted in a cloud of Miasma. Used a mirror image to fight my way into the cloud after I got Pyra clear. Kept cutting him with Void over and over. Finally, a blow to the back of his neck got a second kill notification. [Whisper in his Ear – Ooze], level 487 and [Dreadful Undercover Killer – Miasma], level 419.” She reported.

  She reopened her eyes and watched Art and the other women blanch, though Green looked pensive. For a time they were all silent as Ranthia picked at her food and tried to eat. It was… probably good? It felt so hard to appreciate the food, in light of her failures. Hylla was gone. Pyra was hurt and was obviously refusing to be healed. And all Ranthia had accomplished was wasting half the day for no reason.

  They were quiet for a moment with their own thoughts before Green looked to Ranthia.

  “The guards froze the body of the man with the help of Ice [Mages]. I wasn’t even aware of this, but there was a protocol in place. No one else seemed to be infected, and yes [Healers] can detect and destroy the shimagu with ease. They cleared everyone else that was there—including us and the guards. We stood vigil for sweet Hylla, then came here.” The older woman explained. Her years seemed to weigh on her far more ponderously than usual.

  Ranthia nodded and eyed her stew. Normally she would be elated to have it, but currently…

  “Eat, everyone. That’s an order.” Green commanded.

  Ranthia forced herself to eat, alongside everyone else.

  Sleep came slowly for Ranthia that night, but carrying guilt was a familiar burden for her. In time, she knew that she would be able to accept what happened. It was an all-too-familiar process by that point in her life: she would face some horrible setback or failure, suffer for a time, and eventually she would be able to properly work through what she could have—should have—done better. The problem was that the process always took time. In spite of her dark thoughts, she got a little sleep, at least. There were nightmares, of course, but she somehow doubted that Pyra slept at all. She knew the expression of someone that was haunted far too well, but all she could do was hope the bright young girl could move past it.

  Green was already manning the Ranger table set up next to the wagon by the time Ranthia emerged from the tavern the next morning. It was early enough that no one else seemed to be up and about, yet there Green was, with her cosmetics in place and the only things that suggested anything was amiss was that her eyes didn’t match her usual relaxed expression and the fact that she was already there—significantly too early in the morning.

  “I’m not used to losing blooms under my care, you know. But almost every time that it has happened, it happened exactly like that. A situation that should have been safe; then a sudden tragedy that occurred before anyone could react. I want you to know that I don’t blame you, Flower. None of us do.” Green assured her.

  Ranthia simply nodded, at first. At least until her mouth ran away from her.

  “I had pegged him as strange though. I should have kept an eye on him.” She confessed.

  “And what? Murdered a man because he turned to look at someone that started shouting behind him? Because he was ‘strange’? I’ve known enough Rangers that would have done something like that, true enough. At the risk of speaking ill of the lost: the Artemises among our number. I, for one, am grateful that you are not that sort of person. What happened was an unpredictable tragedy, nothing more. Do not become the sort of Ranger that would readily deal out tragedies to others—those we are expected to protect—all too easily, just to, perhaps, avoid experiencing another tragedy yourself.” Green answered.

  Ranthia knew that she would need to weigh those words. She had no answer to them yet.

  Ranthia and Green both wrote detailed reports to send to Ranger Command (a terrible curse of her writing proficiency). Then Green wrote a scroll to Hylla’s parents, detailing what happened. Each of them took a turn writing memories of their journey with the young [Healer], adding them to the scroll (a wonderful benefit of her writing proficiency). Ranthia could only hope the warmth of their memories offered some cold comfort to her family, eventually. The scrolls were entrusted to a reliable courier. In the end, nothing else happened in the city. No other shimagu materialized. There wasn’t anything else for the Rangers to do either. Green did what she could to reassure the locals, which seemed to be the primary reason anyone visited their table during their stay.

  In that time, many of the guards that had been on duty surrendered themselves to the governor; apparently they had allowed the [Healer] that was supposed to be on duty to foist it off on an under-leveled apprentice that should never have been assigned to the gate alone. Yet the [Healer] in question clearly felt no remorse—gate duty was “beneath him” and stepping away had “probably saved his life.”

  Things were… while not wrapped up, they were out of the Rangers’ hands, and so it was time to leave Port Salona behind. So much had happened, yet they were still on schedule. It felt wrong, somehow.

  Pyra continued to refuse to allow any [Healer] to restore her ear. She insisted that she wanted to keep the scar to remember Hylla by, at least for the time being. Ranthia was just grateful that Juvenae was staying close to the grieving younger woman, had Pyra lacked someone to be there for her Ranthia knew that she would have felt obligated to try to do more.

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  Ranthia threw herself into her training more than ever. She had gotten a class level for [She who Dances with Chaos] out of the shimagu kill, but she knew that greater proficiency with the full capabilities of her Mirror class would offer more security for her teammates. Which meant that she needed to master using more of her mirror images to their full potential at the same time. She even ignored her 24th birthday—it passed without incident, and her team remained wholly ignorant of it. The only thing she did to acknowledge the day was that she used her watch shift during the night to create a new image for [Image Recall] for her twenty-four-year-old self—the same as she did every year.

  Improvement came slowly, but every step mattered.

  The round had to continue, though the energy and enthusiasm behind Ranger Team 6 had become far more muted. The first aggressive dinosaur that they handled went smoothly, though Art received a minor wound—just a scratch really, but it was an uncomfortable reminder of what—who—they had lost. Green treated it with a salve she made from her garden, and they pressed forward.

  Towns passed by as they stayed on schedule. They handled more dinosaurs and monsters. Other minor incidents (a corrupt guard, another thief caught, etc.) were handled. A few killers and other blights on society were captured or ended. In every town they visited, people were helped. Green aside, the rest of them had become far more proactive about wanting to do a bit of good where they could. Smiles and gratitude eased the burdens they carried in their hearts. Abillo was the first to return to normal. Lysia recovered next, which pulled Art out of his funk rapidly. Tertia had recovered and was trying to gently help Ranthia. Pyra remained muted, however, no matter how many half-made smiles she developed when they helped others. She still refused to let anyone heal her ear, and her mood kept Juvenae distracted.

  Their biggest success on that leg of the journey was when they resolved a kidnapping ring that targeted children. …Though they literally resolved it just by showing up in town. One of the guards was squirming oddly when they arrived, which drew their attention. Under their gaze, the man broke and threw himself at their mercy while he confessed to his role—being bribed to keep patrols out of areas on certain days—and gave them lists of names and locations. Multiple other men involved had confessed as well, as soon as the Rangers approached them. There was almost no need for even a cursory investigation since those that surrendered had given them so much. Seriously, what did they expect to happen, Rangers to just never show up in their town again? Many of those that surrendered claimed to do so out of a sense of guilt but… honestly, how hard would it have been to just not kidnap children in the first place? The city was planning a grand festival to celebrate the mass execution of the criminals when Ranger Team 6 moved on.

  Then they arrived in Aquiliea. A group of protesters—not massive, there were less than a hundred men and women—had gathered outside the town. According to Green, it was the site of an incident where an aggressive rebellion had been put down years prior.

  Nerves were high in Aquiliea, but the protestors remained in their encampment and stayed peaceful. All they did was shout slogans and sing some poorly structured song about corruption. Ranthia kept her distance from the group though, the Rangers were booed and called “agents of the emperor” if any of the protestors saw their armor or badges.

  Green had Art investigate them in a simple tunic—which Ranthia thought was reckless, but she held her tongue—and he returned two days later, drunk and all too happy to report that there didn’t seem to be anything bad building up. The group wasn’t monolithic, nor were they all angry about the same things; they had just come together to protest. Some were angry about women’s rights, others didn’t want an emperor dictating policy over the senate, one guy was just really mad about the tax rates of fresh crops differing from that of preserved foods. Overall, they were angry about society and wanted to voice it, but there were no calls to attack anyone or do anything stupid.

  Nothing came of it, so in the end Green made the call for them to keep moving when their time in the city came to an end. Ranthia wasn’t sure what to think about the situation though. It really seemed like societal acceptance of their emperor and all that came with being an empire was on the decline. …That or it had something to do with a second major war on the heels of their victory over the formorians.

  Oh well, at least no one had tried to arrest her that time around.

  Of course, life couldn’t possibly let things stay quiet. They were barely half a day past where the protestors were encamped when Art—stuck driving the wagon—suddenly screamed the word that everyone in Remus most feared:

  “Ornithocheirus!”

  Ranthia was deep inside a bamboo thicket, but she still heard the shout. Immediately she ran—desperately—for the wagon. The bamboo blocked too much of her view, she had no idea where the creatures were, but she knew that the bamboo wouldn’t be enough of a deterrent.

  Even if it were, there was no way that she’d never be able to hide there, not knowing if her team was safe.

  At last—she had never felt so slow before—Ranthia erupted from the bamboo, covered in leaves and goo from smashing through the plants out of desperation. The scene was… a lot to take in, but there were a few things that were far more important than the rest.

  The wagon was off the road and being encased in thick, thorny vines. Green’s terrified—the woman didn’t do terrified, damnit!—expression was visible only through the gap she left in the vines. The ornithocheirus were already winding up to dive, but Green was hesitating.

  Ranthia was too far away. She knew it with absolute confidence, despite the lack of time to think.

  Ranthia flashed a single handsign: close it!

  Green looked as if she was in pain, but the vines sealed the gap, even as the creatures descended on the wagon. Ranger wagons were overbuilt and incredibly sturdy—when they weren’t being squeezed by a kraken—and with Green’s vines protecting them they’d be safe. Ranthia had to believe that.

  Because she had much larger things to worry about. Even as ornithocheirus committed suicide on the vines that protected the wagon—establishing an additional defensive layer of meat—she drew her knives. Others in the swarm had already seen her and were preparing to dive.

  Ordinarily she would have gone back into the bamboo and hoped the too-fragile plants would discourage the flock. But her damned mind just had to have realized that the ornithocheirus’ flight path had them bound straight for the protestors’ camp.

  If she let them give up and move on, she was consigning those people to death. Aquiliea would be fine—Remus’ cities knew how to protect themselves from the threat—but that camp was far too vulnerable, and the people were far too low level to escape.

  She had to hold the swarm, if she didn’t… She couldn’t cause so many deaths. Hylla would have done everything she could have to save them, and she was the reason Hylla was gone.

  The bulk of the swarm had focused on the wagon, but it wouldn’t hold their interest. Not for long.

  Her fear was absolute, but her guilt and her obligation kept her rooted in place.

  “By Xaoc, I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Ranthia whispered.

  “Hey, fuck you!” Ranthia roared at the beasts, with every last bit of volume her lungs could produce, even as terror hammered through her heart.

  One by one mirror images were created around her; the first two were thrown to [Submind], but Ranthia tried to control four others herself. Not that she stopped there, [Scattered Reflections] could do up to sixteen images and the more she had up, the better. There was no need to waste the effort on channeling, [Reflections of Reality] was tantamount to suicide—there was no safe place for her true body. Her only hope was to throw herself into a desperate dance of death alongside her mirror images and hope that she could do the impossible: eliminate enough of the stupid beasts that they were forced to retreat the way that they came—solo.

  By whatever small mercy, it was only a midsized flock. Her mind was spinning as she tried to partially process every relevant thought, yet she felt like there was no time to pray to Xaoc. Gods and goddesses, how she wished that she could. It was more likely than not that she was about to die, be consumed, and the flock would still go murder all of those people.

  And yet, she stayed. All System notifications except new class skills or skill upgrades were muted—she needed every edge she could get.

  The dance began, and the flock arrived.

  Her naked knives flashed through the air. [Void Edge] was pointless, she didn’t have enough knives to kill the entire swarm if she used it. And they were individually so frail that her strength and the iron’s edge were more than sufficient.

  Mirror images shattered, but she replaced them as they fell—trying desperately, vainly to keep all sixteen up.

  Bodies struck around her as the creatures descended, then a different crash sounded just behind her. She barely could afford an instant to look—her teammates had somehow wrenched free and launched an entire section of the wagon’s arcanite reserves out to her position. Ranthia fought her way back to it and put it at her back. She promised herself that she’d never forget that they tried to give her a real chance.

  Even if her mind continued to refer to the situation as her last stand—no matter how she tried to deny the pessimism of reality.

  Crested snouts snapped at her. Winged dinosaurs smashed into the ground around her. Honestly, divebombing to try to kill or cripple their food—usually killing or crippling themselves in the process—was a weird behavior. Somehow, she wasn’t sure she had ever appreciated how strange it was before that moment.

  Still, she endured, she danced, and she slashed. A solid blow from her knives would cripple or kill a beast, and any member of the flock that was badly injured was just food for the flock—same as her. Their claws scratched her. Their teeth brought pain. But those were manageable. So long as she avoided those that tried to divebomb her, she could endure mere pain. The kraken had inflicted far worse.

  [Combat Awareness]’s warnings and feedback alone were almost overwhelming—making sense of the information took far more concentration than she could spare. There was never a single instant where she wasn’t under attack, but the Skill was priceless since it allowed her to know which threats had to be evaded and which could be countered or ignored.

  It was her greatest dance, yet she was reliant wholly on [She who Dances with Chaos] to survive. It integrated all she had learned and all of her training since her battle with the kraken roughly two years ago. Her [Diffuse Reflectance] class was busy with mirror images. Her mirror images could fight with Void energy, called upon by [Ideal Reflectance], because the images of her knives wouldn’t be consumed by the energy. It was a bizarre aspect of the skills that interplayed, but her mirror images were able to use their pale reflections of [Void Edge] while she couldn’t. It let even her mirror images potentially thin the flock.

  It was an odd—and somewhat distant—thought, but if she succeeded, she would truly become a living legend.

  Kill notifications poured through the System, unseen. She danced with grace; she danced with lethality. She continued to hurl obscenities and hate at the swarm until her screams became incoherent. For a time, everything went well.

  Until it didn’t.

  A larger ornithocheirus from the flock divebombed. She sensed it coming just in time with [Combat Awareness]. Due to its size she had to leap to the side to completely evade it. Yet she wasn't able to parse what her senses and Skills told her in the instant she had to react: a second divebombing murderbeast was right behind it. [Combat Awareness] screamed. But she had no way to dodge in mid-air.

  She could have, perhaps, summoned a mirror image right next to her and kicked off of it.

  The thought didn’t come in time.

  The dinosaur struck her shoulder.

  She was thrown backwards and nearly lost her feet, but she stayed upright, even as a crested snout snapped at her. Ranthia tried to slash it. …Yet nothing happened.

  Instead, the ornithocheirus’ sharp teeth tore a strip of flesh from her stomach—along with the laminar that was meant to protect it.

  She barely even noticed, because she was a bit distracted. All too distracted, really.

  Her left arm was gone.

  She screamed—either in agony or in terror, she wasn’t even sure which. Desperately, Ranthia struggled to fight on. But the rhythm of her dance had become clouded and difficult to grasp. Pain didn’t bother her as much as it should, no—but there was a massive difference in the mental impact between damage to an ephemeral form she knew was irrelevant and her own, true, body losing an arm. The wound felt more real.

  The tide of the battle turned against her. It became impossible to focus as well as she had to on her mirror images’ own efforts. Her dance deteriorated into a pale shade of what it had been moments before. And, most of all, with a single arm, a single knife, she couldn’t adequately defend herself.

  More wounds came. No longer just scratches, but bites and deep gouges through her flesh and armor. Every wound seemed to sap a bit more away from her ability to make proper use of her stats. She became a little slower. A little weaker. A little less precise. Less energetic.

  Her head was filled with one thought on echoing repeat: I’m dying.

  It was strange, but the thought seemed somewhat detached. There were no desperate pleas to Xaoc, just a cold acknowledgement of what was happening.

  Worse, her mind seemed to focus even less on the horror of what were sure to be her final moments. Instead, she thought of her teammates in the wagon. They had to have heard her scream, and she wished that she hadn’t made the sound. Had she had just kept her damned mouth shut they would have been able to hold onto hope until they found her gone. Then her mind helpfully reminded her of the protestors, those who would die next after she fell. At last, her mind turned to Hexara. The woman she loved and the warm joy and the silly smile on her face when they confessed their love for one another. Guilt weighed on Ranthia’s very soul as her dance descended from the last vestiges of the chaotic rhythm that she once wielded.

  Then came another divebomb she was far too slow to react to. Ranthia crashed back into the arcanite and lost her footing, her Skills irrelevant before her waning lifeforce. More wounds came in rapid succession, even as her vision grew fuzzy and grey.

  She was going to become yet another word on that accursed monument to despair. Even Hylla didn’t get that much, which was so unfair.

  Yet, a heartbeat away from the end… Ranthia’s resolve that had carried her through everything surged anew.

  One by one, she willed three new mirror images to take form, and she forced [Submind] to take them all—the fact that the skill hadn’t ever been able to do more than two was fucking irrelevant. She needed a three-point defense while her bloodied and tattered body curled up against the arcanite. While she, for the first time, channeled.

  A fourth mirror image was sent ahead of the trio, and she shifted into it.

  “I will not die, not to you!” Ranthia screamed at the flock, her head suddenly clear of the haze of weakness and agony.

  [Void Edge] activated as she cleaved both knives through the air in broad arcs. Dozens of dinosaurs died in an instant. A heartbeat worth of breathing room, bought at the price of weaponry she had a very finite supply of.

  In that heartbeat, Ranthia joined her other images in the protection of whatever was left of her true body—she couldn’t bear to look. Two more images were created as she found moments. The six of them had to hold the line. Three images controlled by [Submind]. Two by her. And the one she inhabited. She knew that even the inactive images that she had used before had killed a few dinosaurs—only by virtue of being targets for divebombs—but there was no longer any room to spare in her head for them.

  Because she was channeling again, for the inevitable moment she had to shift again.

  She was trapped in a desperate, defensive battle.

  Realistically, knives were a fucking idiotic weapon to use against the ornithocheirus. When humans fought swarms—typically only when the damned nightmares attacked a city or there was no escape—they used spears. They kept range from the death that the monstrous dinosaur swarms represented.

  Only the stupidest of fools ever made a brief-lived effort to fight point blank against a flock. It was suicide.

  And it was her only chance. She was committed.

  There was no room to dance anymore, not while she protected what was left of… well, her. She and her five uninhabited mirror images fought side by side as a wall of suffering. When they broke, she replaced them instantly. When she took debilitating wounds, she shifted into one of the mirror images that she controlled, dismissed the wounded image, and replaced it while she began to channel again.

  Thank Xaoc—thank her team—for the arcanite. It was the only thing that allowed her to even try such a desperate gambit.

  She fought.

  She struggled.

  She bled.

  She suffered.

  More than once, she got hurt because she just had to check behind her to make sure her true body was still there. It was… haunting to see. It looked like the dead remains of a thing, hardly even human anymore. But it wouldn’t get any worse while she was out of it, she wouldn’t let it be shattered. It might look like a pile of raw meat, but it was still her.

  It had to be.

  When divebombs came, she and her mirror images had to take them. After all, if she dodged, the divebomb would just destroy her true body.

  Again and again, she broke. Flesh was torn. Bones were shattered. Her spine crushed.

  And then she shifted to another body, and the struggle continued.

  And continued.

  No skill evolutions or new skill offers that would turn the tide came. Life wasn’t a [Bard]’s song where the hero found some new strength to turn the tide in their moment of need.

  In her experience, she was often just in a shit place and had to struggle to hold on, deprived of everything—even hope. Just a desperate battle against black crow’s current avatar of destruction.

  She broke. She tore. She suffered. But, above all else, she cut.

  When her channel wasn’t ready, divebombs forced her to waste yet another of her dwindling supply of knives. [Void Edge] could erase or, at least, redirect some of the momentum.

  Anything to protect her true self. Assuming her true body would even survive.

  But she had no time to worry about its state.

  There was no dance, no grace. Just a final line that could not be allowed to fail. If her line even buckled a little at the wrong moment, she was done. Her true body would be destroyed, and she would face Xaoc again. With a [Covenant] that reflected her adherence to her pledge to Him at less than a third of the level it should have been.

  She wasn’t ready to face Him.

  Exhaustion crept deep into her being. Or, perhaps, it was the effects of the severe damage to her true body. Yet she fought on past exhaustion, past despair.

  Eventually, she made a slash and… missed? The concept confused her for an instant. The flock was so thick that missing should have been impossible.

  Dimly, she finally realized the flock had thinned.

  A brief slice of eternity later, and they were gone. The survivors, at last, were fleeing the way they had come.

  She lacked the strength to even look and see how much she had thinned their numbers. She just kind of stood there, among the blood, gore, and carnage.

  Other mirror images began to wink out of existence around her, as her focus collapsed, as her desperation faded.

  Then she heard her name, though it sounded like it came from far away. It required a level of effort that Herculix himself would have been proud of, but she managed to look in the direction the sound had come from.

  Her team.

  “You drove off a swarm by yourself! You’re incredible!”

  She wasn’t even sure who yelled that.

  “No.” Ranthia replied in a small voice.

  She pointed at what was behind the sheet of arcanite, what precious little was left, hidden from their view.

  With the last drops of her strength, she released her channel and allowed [Reflections of Reality] to return her to the ruined vessel that she was supposed to be in. And her consciousness was lost to darkness.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.