Hearing Nyx confess what she saw in the sky blurred my vision, threatening Void Seer's connection as I faintly felt my heartbeat racing miles away.

  "It said we must survive the night and gain XP through combat," Nyx said.

  "Handler, are your wits intact?" Whitcomb asked. "If there was a message written in the sky, all of us fuckin' would've seen it on our hike over those godforsaken hills."

  Khaled leaned in closer, the bonfire's flames reflecting in his eyes. "I didn't see it either."

  "I'm well aware, that's why I didn't mention it before now."

  "What's XP?" Khaled asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Don't make shit up. Just admit this is your fuck up, not ours." Whitcomb rubbed his gloved hands together. "This is your fault for injecting your mana into that cursed key."

  "Consider your next words carefully," Nyx snarled. "My mana wasn't the only catalyst."

  "What do you mean? He was in manabound shackles. Unless, you're accusing me?" Whitcomb pulled his face wrap down, curling his lips in disgust. "I didn't bleed buckets for Soul Viper to endure this disrespect."

  Khaled's hand subtly moved toward the bandolier of needles at his side.

  "Hold your tongue, I'm implying nothing of the sort. It was Cyprus. I saw logic itself falter before my very eyes." She shuddered. "Between a single heartbeat, his shadow spread monstrous arms and reached for the key. I heard it humming, then our reality tore open."

  Bullshit.

  The only shadows I had manipulated were the ones on the ceiling I used for cutting through the chain's anchor points. Plus, I had zero interest in the key.

  Something's off. Too many have noticed for it to be a coincidence.

  It's nothing. You're stressed. Tired. Focus on what matters.

  As the voices went back and forth in my head, the clear picture of the assassins flickered in and out until I eased my thoughts and everything returned to high definition.

  "Is that why you had us rush away from the teleportation site instead of intercepting Cyprus?" Khaled asked. "Handler, has our mission changed?"

  With a cold stare, she nodded. "Yes. Our new objective is to return to Ingcaster and report to the assembly."

  "Senior said he'd gut us if we failed. I don't see him forgiving us regardless of circumstance. We saw Cyprus fall out of the sky. Our best odds of dealing with him were on impact." Whitcomb peeled the bloodied bandage from his face, revealing shredded and swollen tissue, exposing the sides of his gums and crooked teeth.

  "He'll freeze to death," Khaled said. "We're almost freezing to death, and we've got clothes."

  Actually, I'm quite toasty.

  "No—he won't." Whitcomb laughed. "I promise he's out there."

  "Whitcomb's assessment is correct," Nyx said. "We must avoid him at all costs and report our findings."

  "You speak like we're still in Aclana."

  Voyeuristic as it was, watching Whitcomb wince as he changed his bandage was like chicken soup for a sociopath's soul. The bastard deserved every bit of his suffering and more.

  "If we survive the night we'll be returned."

  "How are you certain?" Whitcomb asked.

  "Master told me a story passed down from the ancients. How the realm's strongest warriors and renowned dungeon raiders banded together to face a sacred challenge."

  "Everyone knows the legend of God's Tear," Whitcomb snapped. "How Galdir promised unimaginable rewards for those willing to face challenges beyond the realm. Are you forgetting how the legend ends? Generation after generation of those considered the strongest entered the God Tear. None of them ever came back..."

  Khaled picked up where his comrade left off, voice despondent, "Eventually humanity ignored the calling and Galdir ceased issuing the contest."

  "That's what you think this is?" Whitcomb finished applying his new bandage and sank his head into his hands.

  "The tear rippled, unbound by time or form, dissolving the surroundings into its dream," Khaled recited with clinical detachment.

  The fire crackled as Whitcomb threw another log on.

  "And what's that 'sposed to mean?"

  "I read it in Thandoril's 'Knowing the Unknowns.' It's a quote Thandoril reprinted from an antiquated tome describing the God Tear."

  "Excellent." Whitcomb clapped. "I love this fucking job. If what you say is true, I doubt generations of the realm's most renowned warriors failed to return because it was too chilly and they died camping."

  "Silence," Nyx hissed. "Speak out of turn again and I'll have Khaled stick you with a paralytic and toss you on the fire. Even should the stars fall, we rely on our training."

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  Suddenly, Khaled stood up, lowering his scarf and sniffed the air. "Something's coming. A terrible scent—goblin adjacent."

  "Sludgecrawlers?" Whitcomb asked.

  "No, it's a ripe musk."

  Rather than linger in ear shot any longer, I floated back up over the tree line, and scanned the surrounding frozen tundra. Karma's Gaze displayed four statuses belonging to a group of frost orcs in the distance, trudging down a hill, a little over a mile from the forest Soul Viper was occupying.

  My vision soared through the night, momentarily melting until I ended up a dozen feet over their heads, tracking them like a hawk.

  They wore the same style of heavy fur coats as the one I had stolen earlier. The group consisted of two level eights, a level nine, and a ten.

  Target: Urzok

  Level: 10

  Karma: -5,685

  Additional Data: Frost orc leader of the Glacier Operatives 1st String Probationary Warband. Responsible for ?Δ7x??∴Vn0...

  Once again the data came in partially scrambled, but I chalked it up to the orcs being from a different realm. He led the pack downhill, gradually approaching the woods. The level nine, Gizzord, stuck close to his side, carrying a wooden staff with a yellow tipped gem adhered on both ends, while the level eights had massive scimitars sheathed at their sides.

  "Spazmoor's signal is late," Gizzord said, his voice scratchy and deep.

  "The second string is dead. Eyes burn in the back of my neck," Urzok growled with enough bass in his voice to rupture a car speaker.

  "I sense three faint traces of mana coming from within the woods. Gruk'thar's instructions were clearly written in the sky, kill the four humans before dawn. The grand elder decreed trials with the human realms are among the easiest. Second string or not, four mere humans could never threaten them."

  "Something is buzzing like a horse fly." Urzok stopped and glanced up.

  I wasn't sure if our gazes met or if he was just staring through me looking at the vacant black sky. Regardless, I remained steady in my creepy, watchful staring.

  What are you going to do, orc? I'm three miles away.

  "You don't hear it?"

  "Uh, no. Can we stay moving? Everyone's hungry for human. Krohmohn even brought pepper tar sauce in preparation. Right, Kroh?"

  "Krohmohn starve!" Kroh barked.

  Urzok shrugged and they continued their downhill hike toward the woods. As enlightening as my outer body experience with Void Seer had been, I couldn't let the frost orcs kill the Soul Viper trio, at least not all of them.

  I severed the connection and snapped back to my body in an instant. The sudden return of all five senses threw me off kilter as I climbed down the tree with shaky arms and an upside down stomach.

  I hit the ground running, finding zero joy in my haphazardly strapped together clown shoes, and the weird lingering nausea. Half of me wanted to let them die, while the other half wanted the satisfaction of doing the deed myself.

  Motivated more by revenge than a desire for experience, I picked up speed in anticipation of the impending bloodshed.

  ***

  Embraced by the pitch black night, a surprising calm washed over me. The more ground I covered, the more it felt like I was becoming one with the darkness, dissolving away until I found myself over the hills and through the woods, standing on the edge of the bonfire's glow, only a 100 feet away.

  The assassins were nowhere to be seen, but I assumed they were nearby, preparing for the impending arrival of the frost orcs. Not wanting to be the first to show up to the party, I found a ditch beside a row of bushes and sat down in it.

  "Void Seer," I whispered, ejecting from my body.

  I saw myself, head craned back as I rose into the canopy, wondering if I'd ever get used to such a strange sight.

  Karma's Gaze exposed the assassins, hiding in the trees, holding fast on the branches. Snow crunched beneath heavy boots nearby. I watched the pained shock in the assassin's eyes when they saw what was hunting them.

  The frost orcs fanned out, quickly sweeping through the camp. One of the level eight's approached the bonfire, and held his gloved hands out toward the flames.

  "A strong perfume is masking their scents. They couldn't have gone far. Kroh, search the perimeter. I'll take the tree tops," Ozrul bellowed.

  As the orc finished speaking a cloth pouch fell from above and landed in the center of the fire. A boom shook the snow from the trees as the pouch exploded. Flames wicked out, engulfing the unlucky level eight. The orc's shrieks echoed through the woods, stopping Kroh in his tracks.

  Wasting no time, despite his comrade burning alive beside him, Ozrul jumped into the air, unsheathing his scimitar. The blade unleashed a high-pitched whistle, slicing through a tree top, causing an avalanche of snow and branches.

  Escaping out from underneath the collapsing canopy, Nyx kicked off the trunk, twirling through the air toward Ozrul like a missile. The orc grabbed a branch, steadying himself in the air as he prepared to intercept the assassin.

  A series of needles pierced Ozrul's hand causing him to drop his sword as Khaled revealed himself in the neighboring tree. Nyx collided with the orc, and drove a dagger into his neck before reeling herself away with a thread attached to her waist.

  Ozrul smashed into branches beneath him, taking a hard landing to the face. Meanwhile, Gizzord shouted a garbled spell and an orb of fire appeared overhead. It started out as the size of a pebble then rapidly expanded, sweeping through the canopy with raging flames.

  The sudden burst of light threatened my sight, changing the landscape of shadows. I shifted my vision lower, affixing myself to an unwavering patch of darkness on the ground.

  Snow shifted, and Whitcomb shot out of the ground, armed with a wooden club wrapped with strips of metal. He swung the club down, catching Krohmohn in the back of his knees.

  The orc stumbled into Gizzord, both of whom were caught off guard. Whitcomb unleashed a quick follow-up strike, cracking Kroh across the back of the head, sending him face first into the snow.

  For a second, I thought the bandits had the upper hand. One orc was laying in the snow covered in third degree burns, Ozrul was grounded and possibly poisoned, and Krohmohn was suffering head trauma. As Nyx and Khaled dropped from the treetop, avoiding the inferno still burning overhead, an ear shattering roar boomed from Ozrul's mouth. He blasted the war cry and pushed himself off the ground, turning towards them.

  The sheer loudness shook the assassin's, forcing them to protect their ears and retreat. However, the orcs moved swiftly. Gizzord bludgeoned Whitcomb in the side with the end of his staff, dropping him in one strike. At the same time, Ozrul leapt through the raging bonfire with his right arm hanging at his side. The orc backhanded Nyx, knocking her clean from her feet. She crashed into the snowy brush, white ash raining down from above. Blood trickled from the gash in her forehead as she tried standing, only to stumble back down onto her hands.

  Khaled snatched three more poisoned needles from his leather bandolier, but by the time he turned back, Ozrul was towering over him. The orc drove his fist into the assassin's gut and Khaled fell over, gasping.

  The entire skirmish only lasted two minutes before the frost orcs claimed victory. Unfortunately, for everyone involved, I was all out of popcorn. I severed Void Seer's connection, and climbed out of the ditch, shaking off the dizziness as I prepared to get my hands dirty.