Two weeks crawled by, though it felt far, far longer than that to Marisol.

  Bright and early in the morning. Same old light drizzle that’d never gone away. She stood perched on the dome of an old prayer building, the tip of her glaives threatening to stab through the already cracked glass. With strands of cooked crab legs in her hands, she was having her light breakfast all the way up here as usual. The texture had turned rubbery from being overcooked the night before, but it didn’t matter. Food was food.

  She gnawed at the legs, forcing the faint bitterness down as she surveyed the chaos below.

  The streets swarmed with movement. Multiple Giant-Class crustaceans, armours glinting like polished bronze in the sunlight, crawled and tore their way out of wormholes every passing second. Pincers snapped at the air, echoing like iron traps slamming shut. Occasionally—though not frequent as of yet—a Mutant-Class would also rip out of its wormhole to join its weaker brethren.

  One of them, a hulking human-shaped crab with serrated claws, emerged from a distant wormhole about two hundred metres in front of her. She felt its aura. She saw it with her own eyes. Its carapace gleamed with algae-green streaks, and barnacles encrusted its back like trophies. The thing turned, crushing an abandoned market stall beneath its massive legs, and Marisol was about to move when she spotted Reina dashing into the air before driving her scorpion tail through the Mutant’s chest.

  The Mutant fell, and the tiny Imperators and Guards that’d been assigned to deal with it jumped out of the way before it could crush them flat.

  Tch.

  Beat me to it.

  Marisol continued chewing idly, her gaze wandering over to other wormholes. It was pointless to keep count of how many wormholes had opened the past two weeks. A few hundred? A few thousand? At least five hundred Giant-Classes had already poured through the wormholes the past two weeks, and their rate of emergence was increasing rapidly by the day. Soon, even the Mutant-Classes would be popping out more frequently, and they’d be just as numerous as the Giant-Classes.

  Were the Imperators and Guards prepared for the Mutant-Classes?

  Her gaze shifted to the defensive outposts dotting the city. Hastily constructed, barely adequate, but fiercely defended nevertheless. Dozens of cannons lined giant metal barricades surrounding each known Mutant-Class wormhole, stacks of gunpowder barrels blackened with soot. Spike traps and makeshift walls turned entire streets into narrow kill zones. Smoke billowed from a trench near one of the wormholes, where Guards had set something on fire. A Mutant-Class, most likely. But there were only three hundred Imperators and a thousand five hundred Guards to hold the entire city, and there were over three hundred Mutant-Classes still trapped in their wormholes.

  She didn’t need to do the math to know they didn’t have enough manpower. Each Imperator had been paired with three Guards, forming teams responsible for looking after specific wormholes. Divide and conquer. Or maybe just divide and die slower.

  Her jaw tightened as she remembered what Victor said two weeks ago: they weren’t going to get any help from the outside world.

  This fight for the Whirlpool City would be theirs, and theirs alone.

  …

  Her eyes drifted to the Insect God wormholes. Three of them, scattered across the city like colossal, malignant tumors. They hadn’t even shown any signs of wobbling or collapsing yet, but the ground around them pulsed and trembled as though the Insect Gods were just about to claw their way out. For that reason alone, most of the Imperators and Guards were stationed around them, and their fortified outposts were much better equipped than the ones surrounding the Giant-Class and Mutant-Class wormholes. There were thirty Imperators and a hundred Guards stationed by the Insect Gods at all times.

  Frankly, Marisol didn’t think those numbers were even close to enough.

  F-Rank Barnacle God, Rhizocapala, anti-army specialist.

  E-Rank Water Scorpion God, Eurypteria, anti-personnel specialist

  And D-Rank Remipede God, Kalakos, anti-city specialist.

  She rolled their names over and over in her mind, tasting their weight. The Imperators apparently knew what Rhizocapala and Kalakos’ Swarmblood Arts were, but still, they had no idea what Eurypteria was truly capable of. They’d never seen her or any Mutant-Class water scorpion using their magic. It was the reason why Reina, with the Water Scorpion Class, couldn’t use her magic as well, given she didn’t know what magic the water scorpions had. Marisol had been told time and time again that she was an anomaly—she’d figured out the Water Strider Class’ magic with pure intuition alone, after all, and that simply wasn’t something Reina could do at the moment.

  What Marisol could do at the moment, though, was get as many points from the wormholes as possible.

  She wiped the crab grease from her fingers, tossing the empty chitinous shells into the narrow alley below, and slid off the edge of the roof. Her glaives sliced into the wall as she skated straight down, and she picked up speed, momentum—she skated ten metres down, and then she took off along the debris-strewn roads of the city’s eastern residential district.

  All Imperators and Guards who’d been stuck into teams had streets and districts assigned to them—they were responsible for all wormholes in that area—but Marisol was no Imperator. Nor was she a Guard. The Hasharana were always allowed to move independently, and owing to the extremely dire situation, the equal distribution had been lifted. She didn’t have to share any points she could obtain from bugs she slayed. She still did, of course—and she’d be sharing them to those who really needed to get stronger today as well—but she didn’t have to. Nobody could tell her what to do, so today, as usual, she was going to help out wherever she could.

  Her first stop was a narrow plaza where ten Guards and two Imperators were locked in a brutal, noisy fight against a group of four Giant-Class crabs. Their armours were cracked, their movements were sluggish. Out of water, they weren’t as nimble with their oversized weapons, and it was all the two Imperators could do just to keep the Guards from getting crushed by the giant crabs.

  Marisol didn’t hesitate. She surged forward, glaives carving sharp arcs against the cobbled stone. The nearest crab turned its eye stalks toward her just in time to see her twirl and leap—then she soared ten metres through the air, her glaive slicing straight down its head with a sickening crunch.

  The crab let out a keening wail, its massive claws spasming as it collapsed. She landed and spun, already zipping toward the second, third, and fourth crab. They lunged at her, claws snapping at her head, but they weren’t even close to reaching her. She ducked low, skating beneath their bulk, and drove her glaives upwards. She stabbed out the second crab’s abdomen. She severed the third crab’s legs. She bashed her knee into the fourth crab’s face, knocking it back into a building, and then she turned to check on the injured Guards.

  Only one of them was lying on the ground, clutching his side with blood seeping through his fingers, but he’d be fine. Probably. The others were already rushing to his aid, while the two Imperators gave her simple nods of acknowledgement.

  For her assistance, she ‘taxed’ two giant crab legs from them, and after sharing a meal cooked under the shade of a giant crab’s shell, she waved the men farewell so she could find more meals walking around.

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  The day wore on just like this, in blurs of blood and steel. For every battle against a Giant-Class she intruded upon, she’d partake in a small meal with the soldiers in question, taking just a small bite here and there before leaving the rest to the actual soldiers. She fought all things. Crabs, beetles, sluggish lobsters too big to even fit through some of the smaller alleyways. None of them posed a challenge—they were still only B and A-Rank Giant-Classes. It’d be a lot more difficult skating around just helping out wherever she could once the S-Rank Giant-Classes started pouring out in droves.

  Eventually, like most days, she lost count of how many Giant-Classes she’d killed. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the city was bathed in the warm, dusky glow of twilight, and all she knew was that her body ached. Her glaives were sticky with dried blood. Her ears buzzed with exhaustion, but she didn’t stop riding the winds until she found she’d unconsciously skated to the Harbour Guard Academy in the lower city.

  She blinked.

  She looked at her status screen, popping up next to her head.

  [Points: 675]

  Then she looked down at herself—at her bruises, dried cuts, tattered clothes—and figured she may as well go in now since she was already here.

  I brought myself here out of habit, huh?

  How many times have I visited the infirmary these two weeks?

  Hopping up the stairs to the front entrance, the foyer of the academy that’d been turned into a makeshift infirmary was dimly lit, its cots filled with wounded Guards and Imperators. Not as many as two weeks ago, when the leviathans first breached the whirlpool, but there were still enough injured around that the medics couldn’t really catch a break. She spotted Claudia treating a patient in the distance, and so did Claudia sense her presence, glancing around as she entered.

  “Ya look like hell,” Claudia said idly, motioning for Marisol to sit nearby. Marisol dropped onto one of the empty cots with a wince, leaning back as Claudia finished bandaging the other patient.

  “It ain’t too bad,” she muttered, hauling her glaives onto the bed as well. “You don’t gotta attend to me, anyways. Just let me… sit here for a while. Catch my breath. Rest my legs. I’ll be outta your hair in—”

  “Yer gettin’ hurt a lot more lately,” Claudia interrupted, her tone reproachful as she walked over and pressed a blood-soaked cloth to a jagged cut on Marisol’s arm. “How many did ya kill today?”

  Marisol tilted her head back, mulling about it. “About… fifty? Maybe sixty?”

  “Reina dropped by an hour ago. She said she killed seventy-one.”

  “Damn. I need to go back out, then—”

  “Ya don’t act like ya’ve got a mama waitin’ for ya back across the sea,” Claudia said quietly, pushing her back against the pillow as she tried getting up. “Look at me, Marisol. Eyes as wide ya can make ‘em.”

  Marisol stiffened, clenching her jaw as she fixed her gaze on Claudia’s ocean blue eyes.

  Claudia pursed her lips, scowling in a way that made her look like anything but a medic.

  “Ya’ve got bags under yer eyes, girl,” Claudia said, shaking her head as her expression morphed into a look of half-anger, half-heartache. “What are ya, five? If ya don’t sleep properly—at least six hours a day—ya ain’t replenishin’ nearly enough energy to be doin’ what ya’ve been doin’ these past two weeks.”

  “I know—”

  “It’ll all be for nothin’ if ya die here, Marisol,” Claudia said sternly. “Absolutely nothin’.”

  And for a long moment, Marisol didn’t respond. The only sounds were the soft crackles of hanging gas lamps and the murmuring groans of the injured in the infirmary.

  “... It was my vote,” Marisol said finally, her voice low. “I’m the reason we stayed to fight. I chose this for everyone, so I have to fight harder than anyone else.”

  Claudia’s hands and antennae stilled, her gaze searching Marisol’s face. The medic opened her mouth as though she had something to say, but… nothing. She simply resumed scrubbing Marisol’s body with her glowing blue antennae, her magic blood slowly knitting all wounds close, and for Marisol’s part? She was quite certain Claudia didn’t really feel like arguing with her, either.

  After all, Claudia had voted against them fighting for the Whirlpool City, and looking at the bedbound men around the infirmary, Marisol couldn’t say with one hundred percent confidence that she’d made the right choice for all of them.

  The moment she’d cast her vote, every death that’d occurred in this city the past two weeks was her doing. They could be on warships right now, sailing towards the mainland continent, but instead, they were mounting a terribly sparse defence against overwhelming numbers.

  Did she regret her decision already?

  She hadn’t had enough time to stew in the deaths yet, so she couldn’t say.

  But would she grow to regret her decision in the future?

  … She didn’t want to.

  So she had to fight harder than anyone else.

  Besides, a Sand-Dancer lived on the very edge of their feet. She’d rather exhaust herself and bleed herself dry, then drag herself into the infirmary every single day than to leave even an ounce of energy in her by the time she fell asleep—energy that could be used for slaying giant bugs.

  She had that much determination, at least.

  And Claudia knew it, too.

  “... Don’t fight for the rest of the night. At least take tonight off, and go visit Maria and her Symbiosteel factories on the west end of the city.” Claudia sighed, tying off the last of her forearm bandages and giving her shoulders a light pat. “Eating too much bug meat is giving ya food poisonin’, so lay off the crabs for a week. Or maybe even two. In the meantime, ya can still get stronger another way.”

  Marisol blinked, surprised by the suggestion.

  “Low-rank Symbiosteel,” Claudia finished, turning away to attend to a different patient. “Even if they ain’t made out of water strider parts, low-grade Symbiosteel won’t drain too much aura for ye, and they’ll give ya a few more attribute levels. I’m sure ya ain’t spendin’ any of yer points on raisin’ yer attributes right now, right?”

  Claudia was right.

  Her glaives scraped softly against the uneven ground as she skated through an abandoned western district, the street illuminated by moonlight spilling between jagged ruins. The air was cooler now, but the distant screeches and roars of bugs and cannons were still incessant well into the night. She’d considered spending her points on increasing her perception level many, many times the past two weeks—if not only because she wanted to be able to respond to cries for help quicker—but she’d held off each and every time, because she was so, so close to unlocking another tier five mutation, and she didn’t feel like getting branch mutations for either of her tier four chitin mutations right now.

  She wanted something new. A completely new ability that’d put her mind back in the right place. And by tomorrow morning, she should have enough points accumulated for a tier five… so maybe it was okay, as Claudia said, to take at least one night off.

  Her gaze wandered across the destruction as she headed to the far west. Crumbled buildings leaned against each other like weary soldiers, broken windows staring into the night like empty eyes. Streets once bustling with life were now graveyards of twisted steel and scattered debris. Her chest tightened as she slowed her pace, her eyes tracing the wreckages, worried she might stumble upon a corpse or two.

  I’ve got no idea where Maria’s factories actually are, though.

  Ahead, a collapsed watchtower loomed like a broken spine, casting long shadows across the ruins. A status screen popped up in the corner of her vision, attempting to display a map of the city, but she waved it away with a sharp thought.

  I don’t need your help, either.

  [Marisol—]

  Shut up.

  Her frustration grew as she skated deeper into the abandoned district. Every corner she turned seemed to lead her further into desolation. The silence was oppressive, but the worst of it was the emptiness—the absence of bugs and soldiers alike, as if the district itself had been forgotten. She knew she was close to the factories, but unless they started pumping columns of smoke through high chimneys, she’d have to be within a few blocks before she could hear the sounds of heavy machinery.

  She came to a halt at a wide intersection, where the ground had been scorched black and littered with jagged shards of chitin. She looked left, right, back, and forward. The buildings in the abandoned district all looked the same to her.

  “... And how, exactly, does a registered Hasharana get lost in the most mapped city on the entire continent?”

  A voice cut through the stillness like a knife, and she whirled around, scowling as her eyes darted upwards.

  On the edge of a half-collapsed rooftop, silhouetted against the moonlight, stood the old bandaged man in a feathered cap. His posture was casual, one hand resting lightly on the head of his walking cane.

  Her scowl deepened. “None of your business.”

  Victor tilted his head, the faintest smirk curling the bandages on the corner of his lips. “It is my business,” he said, “if my pupil is moping around because she’s too weak to carry the weight of the entire city.”

  Marisol opened her mouth to snap back, but her words died in her throat as Victor raised his other hand. Her muscles tensed. Her eyes twitched. Dangling from his grip was a ghost crab, its half-translucent carapace shimmering faintly in the moonlight.

  It wasn’t just any ghost crab, though.

  The crab’s size and distorted, grotesque human-like features marked it as a Mutant-Class. Judging by its killing pressure—even without the Archive telling her—she immediately figured it was D-Rank, maybe even bordering on C-Rank. Its spindly arms and legs flailed weakly, and its claws snapped uselessly in Victor’s iron grip. It just couldn’t decapitate Victor, but Marisol?

  Before she could skate back slowly and put some distance between her and the old man, he leaned forward and hurled the Mutant-Class crab at her.

  “Came across this little pest while I was on my way to my favourite sleeping alley,” he drawled, his tone almost bored. “Thought I’d let it kill you.”

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