The moment Jess’ words reached Leo's ears, everything fell into place with an almost deafening certainty. His mind went from plotting out who he would strike first in his attempt to flee, to immediately screeching to a halt. Shaking his head, Leo could only laugh.

  “I’m sorry, what? Is that what they said I did?!”

  “Please, Leo, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” Mao begged, holding a dagger in front of her that shook slightly as her hand trembled. “I’m sure you thought you had a good reason for doing what you did, but something like that… it’s unforgivable.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Leo frowned, turning to look at each one of them in turn. “It’s why I can never forgive the Planar Lords for what they’ve done. They killed everyone I ever knew! My friends! My father! My…” Leo paused for a moment, struggling to even put into words what Francy had been to him after all these years. “...They’re all dead! Just to try and keep their own pathetic asses in their thrones over in the Nexus where they can lord over all the poor people who have no idea that they’re going to be left for dead when the Nexus collapses!”

  He received three shocked gasps for his rant, and for the briefest of moments, Leo’s heart reached out, hoping beyond hope that they believed him and would fall in with his cause. But one look at the horror in their eyes, and he realized that wasn’t the case at all.

  “Dear Lords… he’s going to go after the Nexus next,” Chance muttered, only hearing what he wanted to hear from Leo’s explanation. “Why?!”

  “Don’t bother, he’s anti-Nexus. You can’t reason with these people,” Jess snarled, cracking her knuckles as she took a step forward. “The Planar Lords’ agents said if we found him it was critical they take him in alive. But that doesn’t mean he still needs the use of all his limbs.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Leo grinned, finally lowering his body into a fighting stance as he waited for Jess to reveal her skills. It was obvious that none of them were actually listening to what he had to say, and he couldn’t exactly blame them. Still, that didn’t mean he was just going to give up without a fight. “I’d hate to kill you, but the entire planarverse is relying on me. I’ll just have to get over it.”

  Without warning, Jess darted forward, keeping her own center of gravity low as she rushed him. She had to know rushing headfirst into a spear-holder was a pretty stupid idea, so Leo waited with bated breath for her to reveal her first skill. Jess didn’t disappoint, as right before she reached him, she pointed at his spear with an outstretched finger. The moment she did, the branch he’d painstakingly whittled down to become the shaft of his spear snapped in half, and Leo started as the top half of his spear fell to the ground. He’d been prepared for her to launch some sort of attack, but he hadn’t expected her to disarm him with nothing more than a flick of her finger.

  Splinter. Grade 3 skill, most commonly taken from bark beetles. Requires extremely close range and only works on untreated wood.

  At the same moment, Chance charged him from the side, shouting as he raised his short sword over his head without any sort of technique or form. Leo wasn’t confident in even taking Jess on with half a spear shaft, let alone the two of them, and he cursed as he was forced to show his own hand.

  Triggering Dash, he shot out of the way of his two assailants, looking up to find that Mao had already backed off and placed herself at the mouth of the tunnel he’d originally come from. With his path blocked and without a weapon, Leo changed his plan on the fly. Running over to the stockpile of weapons, he kicked aside a pickaxe, grabbing a loose longsword hidden underneath all the tools. He could only thank Jess’ old habits she’d picked up as a former magical beast hunter for keeping her team so well prepared. With how varied magical beasts were, it wasn’t at all uncommon to keep a handful of backup weapons in case any got damaged.

  “Dash, huh?” Jess called out, directing Chance to go run over and block the only other exit from the cavern. “I suppose that makes sense. You didn’t come from the plane we travel through to get here, and the poison wasteland is a death trap. That forest with the arrow-hawks is the only other place you could have traveled through to get here.”

  “Last chance, Jess,” Leo warned, checking the weight of his new sword and shifting his stance from that of a spearman to a swordsman. “I feel slightly worse about killing you now that I know you’ve just fallen for the Planar Lords’ lies, but not so much worse that I’ll let you doom the whole planarverse!”

  “Don’t bother!” Jess shouted, charging at him once again. Leo briefly debated using Dash to charge toward Mao and try to run past her, but he didn’t like the idea for two reasons. For one, he still didn’t have any idea what skills Mao had. And more importantly, while he’d figured out one of Jess’ skills, she almost certainly had more she was hiding. Not to mention she’d learned he had Dash, which meant she had the upper hand. If he tried to sprint away and she had some sort of ranged skill…

  He might very well save her the trouble by tripping and cracking his head open on the hard cavern floor.

  With only one good option left to him, Leo lowered his sword, narrowing his eyes as he met Jess head on. He opened with a powerful slash, which was swiftly countered by Jess’ left hand, the skin on her hand taking on a glimmering sheen as though her entire fist had become solid metal. Knocking the blade aside and sending sparks flying, she stepped forward, throwing a powerful right hook aimed straight for his gut.

  Leo turned his body out of the way at the last second, attempting to smash the pommel of his sword into Jess’ temple now that she’d gotten so close. Rather than even bothering to dodge, Jess’ forehead turned metallic just like her hand had, and she took the hit without even blinking. As the metallic gong of metal-on-metal rang out, Leo realized he’d made a grave mistake just before Jess’ fist collided with the side of his head.

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  Leo stumbled away from her, his head ringing as he tried to shake the stars out of his eyes. Thankfully, no doubt due to the Planar Lords’ orders that he be taken alive, she hadn’t turned her fist into metal before punching him in the head. A blow like that probably would have knocked him senseless, or maybe even cracked his skull right open. Even so, Jess hadn't exactly held back all that much with her regular punch, and Leo tried to ignore how the world slowly spun around him as he struggled to get his sword up between them.

  “You’re out of your league, kid,” Jess said, cracking her knuckles as she leisurely closed the distance between them. “You move well, but you clearly lack actual combat experience. Maybe in a month or two you would have been a threat, but as you are now, this is like taking candy from a baby. I’m not used to holding back when I fight, and I’d really rather not risk accidentally killing you and turning the Planar Lords’ ire on myself instead of you. Why don’t you put the sword down and surrender? Didn’t your parents teach you better than this?”

  The world finally stopped spinning, and Leo grit his teeth as he got his bearings once more. Now that he knew her other skill, a Grade 5 Metallic Sheen by the looks of it, he was safe to use Dash to get away. This plane was only tier 8, which meant even if she had other skills within her soul, they were currently dampened and unavailable to her.

  Leo could come up with all sorts of excuses for why he didn’t turn tail and run now that he had his opening. For one, Jess might chase after him if he tried to run, following him into the next plane and hunting him down like a wild boar. For another, Mao’s skill was still unknown to him, which meant attempting to Dash past her and retreat to the forest was still a dangerous risk. He could probably come up with a few other fairly rational reasons if he really tried hard enough, but honestly…

  He was just pissed off.

  “Everyone I ever knew is dead!” he roared, surprising himself just as much as Jess as he used Dash toward her, covering the short distance in the blink of an eye as he thrust forward with his sword. The more experienced fighter barely managed to deflect the slash with a metallic hand, but Leo didn’t care. Letting his sword get knocked to the side, he didn’t even try to keep a grip on it. Taking a page out of the gonkies’ book, he threw caution to the wind as he launched himself at his opponent with reckless abandon. Switching to an unarmed combat style, he drilled his knee into her stomach and tackled her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her as he landed on her.

  Jess may have been an experienced magical beast hunter, but that didn’t mean she knew how to fight against an intelligent opponent with no regard for their own safety. Ignoring the pain of her fist slamming into his side as his ribs cracked, Leo reached into his pocket and yanked out the glow-shards he’d grabbed while fleeing the collapse of his home. Recalling the demonstration his mother had given him of exactly what not to do with the shards, he crushed them in his hand before squeezing his eyes shut and throwing the blinding powder directly into Jess’ face. For a split second, the large, dark cavern was illuminated as though it were day as the steady power contained within the glow-shards used to light their lanterns for a full year was released all at once. Even Mao and Chance shouted in pain from their distant positions as they were blinded, but that was nothing compared to Jess’ scream as her eyes were seared from the intense light exploding in her face.

  “The Planar Lords killed them!” Leo continued shouting as he rained blows down onto Jess’ face, his own eyes somehow watering from the flash of light despite having been scrunched up tight. Even blinded, Jess managed to utilize her skill and turn her face metallic, but Leo simply switched targets, wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing with everything he had.

  “They’re all dead, and I couldn’t do anything!” he continued, the tears now flowing freely down his face as he tried to choke someone he’d only just met a few hours ago to death. “I didn’t want any of this! I just wanted to explore the planarverse! To be free, and live as a Cartographer! Maybe find a nice plane to settle down in, to show Francy…”

  Leo shook as that little box in the back of his mind he’d been shoving all those pesky emotions into over the past week finally shattered, and he let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, squeezing his fingers around Jess’ neck all the tighter.

  “I couldn’t do anything for them… I couldn’t save a single one…” he whispered to Jess, his eyes still scrunched shut as he ignored her metallic fist weakly punching him in the side again and again. The pain from his fractured ribs and bruised flesh couldn’t hold a candle to the pain he’d experienced losing the very world he’d grown up in and everyone in it, and he shook his head as he finally came to terms with what had happened.

  “The Planar Lords took them from me,” Leo said slowly, something igniting within him as he realized the naked truth behind his words. “I thought I was doing this because my dad asked me to… because I want to save people… but that’s not the only reason.

  “I want to see the Planar Lords suffer for what they did.”

  “Get off her!” Chance shouted, and Leo opened his eyes just in time to see the short sword swinging directly at his face. Finally releasing Jess from his grip, he narrowly managed to keep his head on his shoulders as he threw himself off her, scrambling back to his feet as he stared down a panting Chance who must have sprinted from across the cavern.

  “You’re insane!” Chance shouted, his chest heaving as he spared a glance down at Jess’ unmoving form. His face went pale and his sword wavered, but before he could say anything more, Mao shouted from across the cavern.

  “The Planar Lords’ agents!” she called out, jumping and waving to get Chance’s attention. “They’re here!”

  Leo needed no more encouragement than that. Snatching his sword from where it had fallen, he ignored Chance completely as he used Dash to run across the cavern. But if the Planar Lords’ agents were coming from the same tunnel that led to the plane with the forest, that meant Leo only had one option available to him.

  Rushing through the opening Chance had been guarding, Leo ran as fast as he could, not willing to rely on Dash in such a cramped tunnel with so many twists and turns. It wasn’t long before he could hear voices ringing out behind him, and he put his head down and pumped his arms, focusing on nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other as quickly as he could. Thankfully, it seemed that unlike the one leading to the rift he’d come from, this tunnel didn’t fork off or have any confusing branching paths to lose oneself down. It was a simple footrace from start to finish, and while Leo may have had a head start, that didn’t mean anything considering the myriad of skills the Planar Lords’ agents might have.

  “Stop!” he heard voices shouting behind him, but Leo ignored them, panting as his lungs burned from the effort of staying ahead of his captors. Just as he thought his legs would give out, he reached it.

  A thin crack in the fabric of reality, hovering motionless at the end of the long tunnel.

  Without so much as a single thought spared for where the rift led or his own safety, Leo leapt for it as the voices grew louder behind him. Shoving his hand into the rift, he ran straight through the slim opening stretching between worlds.

  To a plane of poison and death.

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