Whatever the hell was in that square, it had an enormous amount of anima. Rue had spoken with climbers as high as rank 10, and even they didn’t have the raw strength of that monster. Her, Sorin, and the other three climbers together had maybe a quarter of its reserves, and that was with Sorin having his own monstrous anima supply now at rank 2 and feeling closer to rank 4.

  If she’d been by herself, she’d have stayed far, far away from this fight. Against some of the rodents infesting the ruin, she was confident in her odds of victory. Even those monkeys weren’t actually difficult to kill, not with her Aura Sense soulprint picking them out. The only annoying part of fighting them was actually getting to where they liked to perch on rooftops, and Sorin was easily handling that.

  Rue followed him as he led her around the outskirts of the square to find an access point, all the while wondering if she’d lost her damn mind. If it was anyone else, I’d tell him to fuck off. But Sorin thinks we can help, so here we are…

  They turned down a side street and back toward the fighting, giving Rue her first glimpse of the monster. It looked like a house-sized tortoise with mottled gray and black skin, except with a metallic shell and a jaw full of enormous, dull teeth. She could easily imagine losing an arm to that maw, the meat and bones ground to paste in a matter of seconds.

  “How the hell do you hurt something like that?” she gasped out. Even without anima reinforcing its body, the shell alone looked impervious to anything she could do to it.

  The big climber with the two enormous swords was squarely in front of the monster, working desperately to keep it back while it tried to brush him aside to get to the skinnier one, who was pelting it with what looked like stone spearheads that he conjured out of nothing. Those were doing an excellent job of pissing the monster off, but if they actually hurt it, she couldn’t tell.

  “It’ll be most vulnerable around the neck and where the legs come out of the shell,” Sorin told her. “See where Heldigar is trying to get those ridiculous swords stabbed into? It’s thrashing to keep him away.”

  It was a rhetorical question! I wasn’t expecting you to actually answer.

  But now that he’d pointed it out, Rue could see what looked like partially scabbed-over cuts around the base of its neck. Thin black lines, too straight to be natural, were carved into its hide. There were even smaller dots—puncture wounds, she guessed—in the same area, and where its legs met its shell.

  “Don’t get under its bulk unless you want to be crushed. Quick in, bleed it, and out again. Time your attacks for when it’s distracted by someone else. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Things that size will drop you in a single hit if you don’t have the build to withstand the damage,” Sorin said.

  “Wait, wha—”

  And then he was gone, sprinting at top speed while pelting the tortoise’s face with shards of ice. God damn, he’s fast! Was he always that quick? And how the hell is he throwing so much ice at the same time?

  Rue shook herself out of her trance and hurried after Sorin, only to change her mind and cut to the left the instant she realized the monster’s bulk was shifting in his direction. Heldigar was chasing after its head, his swords hacking somewhat ineffectually against its skin, and the skinny one with the stone spear spell was trying to reposition himself to get a few more shots off now that the tortoise had changed its target.

  An enormous leg, taller and thicker than she was, swept across the square. Paving stones flew in every direction as its foot scraped the ground, forcing Rue to dodge away just to keep from being pelted in the face. She darted in behind the wave of rubble and slashed both her blades across the thing’s leg, only for both blades to skip off flesh without leaving more than a crease.

  Undaunted, Rue danced away from the limb before it could kick her and sheathed one of her swords. She took up the other in both hands, dove back in, and rammed it point first into the tortoise’s leg. With the power of her Pierce soulprint backing her up, the blade punctured the thick hide and sank all the way to the hilt. Inky purple blood spurted out in slow gouts, another burst every few seconds.

  That got the monster’s attention like nothing else had. Its leg convulsed back, taking her sword with it and leaving Rue to scramble as the tortoise shifted its bulk to come down on her. “Get back!” Sorin yelled at her, like she hadn’t already figured that out for herself. By the time its belly hit the street, Rue was already thirty feet away. The impact was still strong enough to almost throw her off her feet.

  Sorin and the big, dopey looking one quickly recaptured the monster’s attention, but the whole battle had shifted a hundred degrees to the right. Rue had been able to move with it, but the arrogant leader of the other climbing team hadn’t compensated and was now cussing up a storm while he scrambled to get an open firing lane.

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  “What are you doing here?” he yelled at Sorin. “No one asked for your help!”

  “Ignore him,” Heldigar said. He grunted in pain as the tortoise swung its head and slammed him in the chest, but he somehow held his footing. That has to be some kind of soulprint. No way anyone’s that strong naturally, even if they are seven feet tall.

  “Just need to break the ruin’s seed so we can get out of here,” Sorin said. “We’re not looking to fight with you over the loot.”

  “See that you don’t,” the skinny one sneered. “This is our ruin.”

  “What a dick,” Rue muttered, but she was far enough away that no one else heard her.

  Retrieving her lost weapon became high priority, not in the least because Rue was afraid that if the creature died in the wrong position, it wouldn’t be possible to dig it back out. Her whole fighting style revolved around having two weapons, and she hated having to use just one. If not for the fact that she needed both arms to split the tortoise’s skin, even with her soulprint helping, she wouldn’t have lost the blade in the first place.

  She darted past one of its legs, dodging its predictable kick and reaching the limb that was holding her sword hostage. With a grunt, she braced both hands on the hilt and started working it back and forth to loosen it up. “Come… on… you bastard… Let it go!”

  Anima surged through the monster’s body and down into the leg she was standing next to. That instant’s warning probably saved Rue’s life as black, metallic spikes erupted out of the leg at the same time she let go of her sword and threw herself backward. Holy crap! That was close.

  She’d survived, but now she was on the ground and its leg was kicking in her direction. Rue rolled, practically throwing herself off the stone as she twisted her whole body to get her feet back under her. The spikes still clipped her, drawing several hot lines of pain across her trailing arm and back, but then she was out of its range again.

  And I still don’t have my sword back, she thought with a scowl. This isn’t working! None of us can really even hurt this thing, but it can smack buildings and knock them over. How are we supposed to kill it?

  A brief plan of somehow luring it to a sinkhole and trapping it underground came to her, but there were so many problems with that idea that she didn’t even know where to start going about making it work. Damn it, I don’t know how to kill this monster. You guys better come up with something!

  * * *

  The worst part of killing the ruin guardian was watching Rue recklessly throw herself into danger over and over again. She wasn’t ready for a fight like this, but Sorin didn’t have time to prepare her properly. Twice he’d had to burn anima to distract the monster when her darting around its legs annoyed it enough to do something about her.

  Despite having what was probably the best perception soulprint of any climber involved in this battle, Rue had absolutely no awareness of what everyone else was doing, let alone the first clue how to fit herself into a cohesive impromptu strategy. Rue was only thinking about her next move.

  Heldigar, surprisingly, was easy to work with. The two of them fell into a natural rhythm pulling the monster’s attention back and forth, keeping it from fully committing to an attack on one of them lest it leave itself vulnerable to being blindsided by the other. It was a slow process, but they were carving through the layers of armor on its neck. They were even working together to keep it held in place every time it tried to shift its attention to Rue.

  In her defense, she’d dealt a deep wound to its leg, one that was making it easier for them to keep it facing the right direction, but her stubborn insistence on reclaiming that sword mid-combat was going to get her killed. His heart nearly stopped when it cast that spike spell, but her reflexes saved her. She might not know how to work with the rest of the group, but she was quick on her feet.

  It was good experience for her, but hopefully she’d tackle her next ruin guardian with a team she understood how to work with. Until then, it was time to finish killing this thing. Sorin’s advancement to rank 2 combined with his soulprints all ranking up turned him into a powerhouse, at least compared to everyone else involved in the fight.

  His sword slammed down into leathery flesh and sliced through it. Blood splashed out, hot and wet. Before the monster could pinch the blade in its neck muscles, he pulled back and pushed a shard of ice into the open wound. Heldigar slashed both blades into the tortoise’s face to knock its head off to the side, and Yoru shot a stone bullet into its eye.

  They batted the monster back and forth for another three minutes, aided by Yoru taking shots at it whenever he’d recovered enough anima to do so. Their healer was about as useful as Odric when it came to fighting, but he was at least keeping himself out of the way and watching for any other monsters that might join the fight.

  This thing just won’t go down. It’s got to have some sort of regeneration ability keeping it going, and of course that’s paired with a ruin guardian’s massive anima pool. Fuck, this is going to take forever. Rue, just keep yourself from getting hurt.

  In his old life, he had soulprints for draining anima reserves directly, but he was probably forty floors away from regaining that particular ability. Right now, all he had was magically-enhanced arm strength and razor-edged blades of ice, neither were going to do more than chip at the problem.

  Or will they? My big problem here is that I can’t get through this monster’s skin. I need a heavier weapon. Ice Blade isn’t really at an elemental manipulation stage, but…

  Bending the pattern to make something new was an advanced technique, but Sorin was more than capable. It was more of a question of whether his soulspace could handle the strain. It was already crowded in there with all those E-ranked soulprints. There wasn’t a lot of space left, but he thought he could make it work.

  “Hold it steady for a second,” Sorin said.

  “My pleasure,” Heldigar grinned. He brought both blades around in a wild swing, slamming them in a heavy one-two combo that knocked the tortoise’s face into the street.

  At the same time, Sorin lifted his own sword overhead with both hands and coated it in thirty pounds of razor-edged ice. With a somewhat maniacal laugh, he brought the massive magical blade down on the monster’s neck.