The Black Hellions didn’t believe in having a fair fight. That wasn’t what they were about. They wanted control, they wanted money, and they wanted power. Raf handled about two dozen prospective climbers around Floor 0, and Jorn delivered beatdowns to them when necessary.

  Fighting a rank 0 wasn’t exactly exhilarating, but Jorn hadn’t taken the job because he was looking for a challenge. He was comfortable with his life, with a decent suite of boost soulprints to make him stronger, faster, and tougher than any little shit that thought they could get away with disobeying the gang.

  This guy was a bit outside what Jorn normally did, but there wasn’t much difference between a rank 0 and a fresh rank 2. He couldn’t have had any time to grow his soulprints, and he definitely didn’t have the money to just buy new rank E prints.

  But at the same time, Jorn wasn’t stupid. It was almost suicidally overconfident to come out and hunt nightmare bats solo, especially in the dark. Using himself as bait was even worse, but damn if it wasn’t effective. The guy had a whole pile of bodies there. It was too bad he hadn’t had much luck in finding big ones, or they might have been worth something.

  He’d done his job and tried to recruit the guy—maybe not all that hard, but he had tried. He’d also made it clear what would happen if Sorin-who-came-out-of-nowhere refused. Now, Jorn got to do the part he liked: step on people too weak to fight back.

  He stepped into his full speed in less time than it took to blink, disappearing from where he’d been standing to rush past his most recent victim and smash his mace down on the guy’s head. That exact same move, the simple step into a blind spot followed by an anima empowered strike, had killed dozens of threats to the Black Hellions. It never failed, and Jorn always used it to end a fight against any target Raf and Eldart had deemed too dangerous to play with.

  What the hell? I missed?!

  The head of the mace whipped through empty air to strike the ground. His intended victim had sidestepped at precisely the right moment, weirdly starting to move before Jorn had even swung his weapon. He got lucky, that’s all. If I’d realized he was going to move, I’d have adjusted my aim.

  Sorin wasn’t fast enough to react to Jorn’s speed, not with a soulprint like Acceleration giving him those quick bursts every few seconds. It was an anima hog, but that didn’t matter if the fight ended in a matter of seconds. But Jorn wanted to leave enough to make sure he escaped the area safely, too, so he couldn’t waste it all killing this guy.

  More than enough juice left to squeeze.

  “Nice job,” Jorn said. “Didn’t think—Whoa!”

  Ice appeared out of nowhere right in front of his face, two sharp, glistening icicles honed to a needle point. They were perfectly lined up with his eyes, and it was only desperate reflex that got his lids clamped closed quickly enough to avoid being skewered. Maybe the ice would have bounced off his irises, but then again, maybe not. Jorn did not want to find out if Bulwark was up to the task of protecting him from that kind of injury.

  Blindly, Jorn whipped the mace around in front of him. He hit nothing and felt the sting of sharpened steel scrape across his arm. Without looking, he knew it was a shallow laceration, but that wasn’t the point. This little rank 2 hurt me. He can’t do that! He’s too weak.

  Ice shattered against his face, stinging his eyelids and making him blink furiously to see through the little flakes crusting his eyelashes. He’d expected Sorin to be running. The guy had gotten the lucky dodge and the lucky cheap shot in there. If he was smart, he’d know when to cut and run. A combo like that was a life-saver, and not something anyone could reasonably expect to happen twice.

  Jorn thought he’d have to chase the guy down, not something he was looking forward to in the dark, but sometimes the job wasn’t fun. He was delighted to find he was wrong. Not only had Sorin not run away, he was actively in the middle of bringing his sword down in a two-handed overhead chop.

  Bulwark would have deflected almost all of that even if he’d stood there and did nothing, but that was a waste of anima, so Jorn’s hand snapped up and smacked against the side of the blade, throwing it to the side and causing Sorin to lose his footing. It was surprising the man had held onto the weapon at all, considering how hard Jorn had smacked it.

  No wonder they wanted him recruited or dead. This little shit is fucking dangerous. I mean, dangerous for a rank 2. Nip him in the bud now before he climbs any higher.

  It wasn’t even that the Hellions cared about him so much as that he was ruining their asset. Rue had been a bit of a gamble, giving her such an expensive soulprint. Raf had blown a lot of his credit with the gang taking that risk, and he’d made it exceedingly clear that under no circumstances was she to escape the Hellions’ control. Sorin threatened that, so he had to die.

  But Jorn was having an unexpectedly bad time of it. He’d been looking forward to kicking Sorin around for a few minutes when he’d first tracked the guy down—or rather when Eldart had pointed out the way for him—but he was rapidly revising that plan now. No games. Just kill the bastard before he surprises me with any other tricks.

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  Sorin was already off balance, trying to recover from almost losing his sword. Jorn accelerated again, stepping around Sorin and into an upward swing that would crush his victim’s jaw at minimum. If the guy didn’t have some sort of body enhancing soulprint yet, it might tear his whole head off.

  Instead, he somehow missed. Again.

  What the fuck is going on here? Jorn thought. Sorin’s sword slammed into the side of his neck, a beheading strike stopped only because Bulwark flared to life. Another large bite of his anima vanished in exchange for saving him.

  Snarling, he whipped his mace in a circle. Jorn wasn’t entirely sure where Sorin was at, but it didn’t matter. All he had to do was swing wide and fast. He’d hit the little bastard sooner or later. The mace whistled through the air as Jorn spun a complete circuit, but it hit nothing at all. He must have finally smartened up and run!

  Then one of those fucking bats smacked into the back of his head. He could feel its teeth scrape against his scalp for just a moment before he reached up one hand to grab hold of it. The monster didn’t have near enough strength to hold on and was unceremoniously ripped away. Jorn spiked it directly into the ground and stomped his boot down on its skull.

  Anima tickled his soulspace, but from a Floor 2 monster, it was basically nothing. Other than serving as a confirmation that the bat was dead, he ignored it. The bats were a distraction, not a threat, and now he was just in a bad mood. This job hadn’t been fun to begin with. He’d finally gotten to the part he actually enjoyed, and it wasn’t going at all like he wanted it to.

  The crunch of a stick being broken underfoot came from behind him. Jorn didn’t hesitate this time. He accelerated into a swing that could drive the mace through any of the trees around them, toppling it in a single blow. All it had to do was even slightly connect, just the tip of one little spike, and the rank 2 would be dead.

  Sorin was there, the two pieces of a broken stick held in one hand where he’d snapped it with his thumb. He was already fading backward, having baited Jorn into the swing. But he’d underestimated his opponent’s speed, and this time, finally, Jorn had him! He could already see the mace on course to tear out Sorin’s guts.

  Sorin stepped to the side with the swing, giving himself the tiniest fraction of a second longer to get out of the way. It was impossible that it could be enough, that that movement could make a difference. The mace was moving. It was going to hit him. There was nothing he could do about it.

  Then it was past Sorin, the spike at the top of the ball having done nothing more than score a small line of broken threads in the man’s shirt. Jorn barely had enough time to realize that he’d somehow missed before three chunks of ice pelted him one after another. Bulwark deflected them, flaring once, then twice. The third piece of ice slipped in between the soulprint’s activations, striking him in the face and bloodying his cheek.

  Something struck him from the side and was again blocked by Bulwark. At almost the exact same moment, Jorn realized that Sorin had waded in behind the mace and was leading the way with an outstretched sword. Imposs—

  * * *

  Sorin retracted from his lunge, the blade sliding out of Jorn’s throat. That had been the only thing holding the man upright, and without Sorin there, he immediately collapsed into the dirt. It would be, at most, a matter of seconds before the man died.

  There was no rush of anima, of course. That, along with Jorn’s soulprints, were gone now, forfeited to the tower. Sorin hadn’t profited one single iota from killing the climber. Though ‘climber’ might have been ascribing too much credit to the man. He’d been a thug who’d probably been carried to his rank to better help him terrorize the rank 0s back down in the city.

  Huh, looks like this time it was somebody else’s problems that splashed onto me. I suppose it’s only fair to balance the scales, but he did show up at a damnably annoying time. I wonder if that giant bat is still in good shape.

  Sorin took a moment to rifle through the man’s pockets, but he didn’t have much of value on him. There was a small purse with twenty danirs in it, but it seemed all of Jorn’s wealth had been tied up in his soulprints. He’d truly been a disposable thug, one who probably wouldn’t be missed by anyone besides his immediate friends and family.

  Oh well. That mace will be worth a nice chunk of cash. The shirt is enchanted, too. Too big for me, unfortunately, but someone will buy it.

  Hopefully, Rue would have a good idea of how much trouble they were in. In the worst case, they’d need to abandon the portal hub and fort up somewhere in the wilderness. With Liminal Gateway at Sorin’s disposal, that was a feasible plan now, but it wouldn’t be comfortable for Rue. Then again, this particular nuisance originated from her, so he had a hard time mustering up sympathy for her plight.

  Sorin was considering what to do with the corpse when another bat swooped in. He killed it quickly and was delighted to find that, for the first time, he’d managed to lure in one of the size he wanted. The giant bat had been a backup option, and he fully intended to process its hide, but he’d been concerned about the thickness being too much for what he wanted.

  This bat, however, was perfect. If he could find even one more like that, he was sure he could salvage enough material to make the armor he wanted. Might even get a nice set of bracers to go with it. That’s assuming I don’t lose access to Lenn and Finn because of whatever this crap is.

  He shot a look at the body again, a sneer on his face. Jorn had been faster, stronger, and tougher than him, with a bigger well of anima to draw from, but he hadn’t known the first thing about how to actually fight. It was obvious in every movement, all wild swings and easily baited reactions. If everyone after Rue fought like that, Sorin wouldn’t worry.

  On the off chance that they weren’t all complete idiots relying on their rank to carry them, it was probably best for the team to start climbing again sooner rather than later.

  Sorin killed another two bats that tried to get him at the same time and kicked the bodies aside. It would have been convenient to wait for dawn to skin the bats he wanted to keep, but there was no telling when the tower would reclaim them. Harvesting what he wanted was a slow and often-interrupted process, but he eventually got it done.

  The big bat took longer, and he almost considered giving up on it, but he knew it was worth a good pile of danirs. No less than four bats at once tried to kill him while he was working, but Sorin was in the groove now. He dispatched two of them with ice blades and killed the other two with his sword. That proved to be the right move, as one of the decapitated heads had a soulprint in one of the ears.

  Some sort of auditory tracking ability. Makes sense.

  It was a good night, and when the sun came up, he finished up his work, created a new seven-tower sign, and walked the path through liminal space back to the portal hub.