“Bingo.” With Tether Slide, I shot to the top of the hill. My team followed, simply flying through the water-laden air.

  The item I’d spotted glowing with so much mana was a sword with a fancy, gilded pommel and a cruciform crossguard of twisted gold stuck point-first into the sand. Only about 4 inches of the blade was visible above the sand, though. Identify triggered as I landed next to the blade.

  “The Echoing Blade. Unique. Echoes of Calamity quest relic 3 of 10.”

  “Imbued with the entire will of a mighty people in their most desperate hour as they fought an unstoppable fate with unbreakable resolve. That legendary willpower was not enough to save their empire, but it might help you avoid a similar fate.”

  “What have we got here?” Andy whistled in appreciation as everyone gathered around.

  “Another relic in that quest I told you about.”

  “So you’ll see another vision when you pick it up?” Ruby asked.

  “We can all see it if we touch it together.”

  “I don’t want to watch a city get destroyed,” Lana said with a grimace, backing up a step.

  “I do,” Steve said. She gave him a disapproving look but he shrugged. “What? They’re already dead. If we can learn something to help us not die too, then their deaths can serve a purpose.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not a monster,” Steve chided.

  “I am curious, though,” Andy said.

  “Together then.” I dropped to a knee beside the ornate sword.

  Ruby settled to the sand on my right, while the others ranged around the blade. As one, we reached out and touched the pommel. A familiar jolt of power rippled up my arm and cast the world away, replacing it by another vision.

  This time I hovered above the huge military castle. In the distance, magical explosions still lit up the sky around the palace, but the Science Academy was dark, the ground a seething mass of demons rolling into the compound over the still walls and through the shattered gate. So the mighty old magitek lady had indeed fallen.

  The thought made me strangely sad. I didn’t know her. She’d fought bravely to save her world, though, just as I needed to save mine.

  My view was dragged down to the castle. It too was under siege, its walls manned by hundreds of well-armed and disciplined soldiers wielding bladed weapons, magic, and laser rifles. They mowed down endless hordes of demons, these far bigger than the ones attacking the Science Academy. Was this later during the siege, after the initial cannon fodder had all died and the demon shock troops arrived to finish the job?

  A knot of grizzled veterans stood together in an open courtyard in the center of the castle. One broad-shouldered man with a grim face and hard eyes held the same ceremonial sword across his gauntleted palms, except his sword was still pristine.

  He carried himself like a general. One by one, the other warriors stepped forward and gripped the blade. They said something, but I couldn’t hear the words. Pure white light blazed around each person for a moment and I could see their mana and life and all their power get sucked into the blade. Their bodies withered to dust as they sacrificed everything they were to empower the blade. In moments, only the general remained.

  He took the sword in hand and it glowed with a bright, blue light. With a flex of his legs, he vaulted into the air and soared out over the castle walls. His forces took up a cheer, shaking the air with their cries.

  He slammed to the ground among the huge demons and a blast of blue lightning erupted out of him, vaporizing them by the hundreds, leaving him alone on a field stripped to the stones. There, he held the sword aloft and a beam of pure white light erupted into the air, parting the stygian rain and drawing a single beam of bright sunlight to illuminate the field where he stood.

  Time skipped, and suddenly the same gigantic demon in the blood-soaked, black armor stood facing the general. The demon king’s armor was rent, his nightmare face bore a fresh wound, and one of his horns was missing, but he still radiated intense, raw power.

  Had the old woman left him with those scars? She’d fought bravely and might have come close, but in the end she’d failed. If she’d been able to meet up with the general, together they might have stood a better chance.

  The general saluted with his blade and the towering demon king saluted with his many-tailed flail. Then magic swelled around them both and the general shot toward the demon like a meteor, sword blazing like a white-hot sun.

  The demon met the attack with a pommel strike from his flail and the explosion of raw power leveled buildings in every direction, shattering part of the castle’s wall, and killing dozens of the watching soldiers. When the tornado of crimson and white magic subsided, the demon stood on unsteady feet, a terrible gash in his side gushing black blood.

  But the general had fallen to one knee, his left arm clearly broken as he stared in disbelief at the sword. Its glow was gone, the blade broken halfway down.

  With a malicious grin, the demon king took a single step forward and lashed out with the flail.

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  I returned to myself, rocking back from the abrupt transition, but handling it better than last time. Ruby fell against me with a cry, while Tomas and Jane clutched each other. Steve just fell over backward, while Andy leaped to his feet, swords out, swearing mightily.

  “He should have had that thing!” Andy finished, face flushed with anger, arms shaking with the need to kill.

  “I’ve never imagined anything like that,” Steve said softly.

  I helped Ruby to her feet and she met my gaze, her expression worried. “Do you think we’ll have to face that demon?”

  “How?” Jane asked. “It makes Queen Marisara look like a preschooler. We’re only on stage 3, remember?”

  Ruby nodded, visibly relaxing. “Right. That vision just rattled me, made me think we were all banjaxed.”

  I smiled at the Irish slang. “I think Jane’s right, but there has to be a reason we have this quest and we’re seeing these visions.”

  “They’ve got to be clues to help us defeat the final stage boss,” Tomas said with a frown. “What if it’s a lesser demon?”

  “Then why focus on that demon king?” Andy demanded as Lana wrapped her arms around his waist.

  I shrugged. “No idea yet. Maybe we’ll know once we find the rest of the artifacts.”

  “We need to explore that castle,” Andy said.

  Tomas said, “Definitely, and sooner rather than later if every artifact tears off another floor from all the buildings down in Echo City.”

  “Maybe the visions are hints at where we can find stronger spells,” Steve suggested as he climbed to his feet and pulled the sword from the sand. Just like in the vision, the blade was broken off halfway.

  Ruy grimaced. “Seeing the sword makes the vision feel more real.”

  “Those poor people,” Jane whispered.

  “We can’t save them, but we can save Earth. Let’s not let the mind games distract us,” I reminded them. “Steve, stow that thing. I don’t see any more loot on this island, which means we need to look somewhere else.” I headed for the distant water. “Come on. Let’s see what we find in King Corvath’s lair.”

  I read a scroll of Water Flight as I dove into the lake. I’d always been a good swimmer, and I loved that weightless feeling in the water, especially while Scuba diving. It was the closest thing to free-falling without actually jumping out of a plane.

  When the spell took effect, I laughed, exulting in the rush. I swooped around through the water, doing a few barrel rolls, and totally enjoying the feeling of pure flight.

  Tether Slide was awesome and Shadow Walk was incredible, but they weren’t true flight. Even long, gliding descents on Switchblade didn’t quite match the absolute thrill of flight. Of course, I was just flying through water, but close enough.

  “It’s almost too distracting, right?” Ruby asked as she flew up beside me, her words sounding a bit muffled underwater.

  “Magic is just fun sometimes,” I agreed.

  The others joined us and I scanned the area. No sign of the merfolk or monster fish who had fled the surface. I’d half expected them to launch a counter-attack now that we’d descended into their world, but their panicked flight hadn’t been faked. Still, I remained alert as we descended.

  Water Flight lasted for 5 minutes, but I had a bunch more scrolls if I needed them. With Iron Lung up to level 6, I could breathe underwater for up to an hour, so I wouldn’t need my Water Breathing scrolls.

  With the light so dim up on the surface, I’d worried my team might have trouble seeing far underwater, but that turned out to be a moot point. The sides of the island fell away steeply to a flat area about 50 feet down, and the rocky landscape was covered in bright, glowing underwater plants.

  Some looked like fan coral, while others honestly reminded me of the glowing plants in the movie Avatar. We descended, keeping our distance from the plants, in case they turned out to be hostile, but I couldn’t quite make myself worry too much. The scene was simply stunning.

  While we flew downward, I zipped over to Tomas and he quickly fixed my broken Wolverine claw.

  “You’re a good guy to have around.”

  He grinned. “Any time you set me up to win so many levels, I’m always good for 1 free weapon repair.”

  When I checked his level, I blinked. He’d jumped 10 entire levels from the short fight. Even though the flying fish and merfolk were all much higher leveled, that still seemed insane. I scanned the others, and they each got similar gains. Even Lana, who had been falling behind, had hit level 49. She’d evolve her class soon.

  Good. They needed to get stronger. The were already among the strongest tier-0 people, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to get over that level-75 milestone at least before we attempted stage 4. Higher would be better. Still, we’d made great strides. Hopefully Tony and Burns and their teams would have as much success when they raided the clockwork insects later.

  As we neared the wide, flat shelf of hard-packed stone, I spotted a gaping cave mouth in the steep slope of the island. The opening punched back into the rock beneath the island, and bright blue light streamed out. I led the way inside, ready for an ambush, but again, the area was empty.

  The cave opened into a huge cavern, covered in thick bunches of grasses that turned out to be the source of the bright glow. They waved softly back and forth, as if in a gentle current, even though the water was totally still. In the center of the cavern, on a bed of soft sand rested a gleaming pearl the size of a large house.

  Somehow Ruby whistled underwater. Eyes huge with wonder, she spread her arms and laughed. “Now, that’s what I call a pearl!”

  “I hate to break your happy bubble,” Steve interjected. “But even with your stats, no way you could wear that thing on a chain around your neck.”

  Together, we headed for the pearl. The rest of the cavern appeared empty except for the grass. This had to be Corvath’s lair, but what did he do, sit on the pearl all day? Seemed uncomfortable. Then Identify triggered.

  “Portable inner sanctum. Epic. This tier-3 lair of the fallen King Corvath came with him from his homeworld to prove to the multiverse that he was a king to be revered.”

  “So its like his Base Camp?” Ruby exclaimed when I shared the description.

  “Something like that.”

  Jane reached the giant pearl first and reached out to touch the gleaming smooth shell. The entire pearl flashed and a doorway in the front slid open. She smiled, sliding her hands along the smooth surface.

  “This is incredible. I got a notification that with no owner, all the defenses are dormant.”

  “Glad we don’t have to blast our way in,” Lana said before zipping inside first. The rest of us followed, but we all paused inside to stare. Sometimes magic was just so cool.

  The inside of the huge pearl had to be 20 times larger than the outside. The space distortion was even more than my castle or regular Base Camp tents. We’d entered a huge, vaulted chamber that was easily larger than the entire cavern outside. Like a flooded fantasy throne room, it definitely felt like the lair of a king.

  Gilded, ornate columns marched down either side of the huge room, while breathtaking paintings of an alien world covered the arched ceiling. Tapestries depicting underwater cities hung from the walls, and the floor glittered, as if it was paved in crushed pearls. On the far side of the room sat a large chair on a raised dais. It seemed more a comfortable lounging chair than an official throne, suggesting Corvath wasn’t an idiot. Most thrones looked miserable to sit in for long.

  Glowing blue crystals set in fancy sconces on every pillar flooded the space with warm light. Other divans and overstuffed sofas and chairs lined the hall in front of the throne. Apparently the entire court liked to lounge in comfort. What material were they made of to handle being submerged constantly?

  The throne room was beautiful, but otherwise empty. No loyal guard ready to make a last stand. And no treasure.

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