The broken shell hit the ground as the rest of the brine creature lost its form and turned into a puddle. A moment later, an essence emerged from it, spun once on its axis, and split in two, each copy zipping in the opposite direction.

  But nobody even cared about these essences.

  The party hurried – carefully through the corrosive brine – to finally reunite with Dusk, relief palpable on their faces.

  Weirdly enough, the twins wanted nothing more than to hug each other right now, despite how strange the thought was.

  Then Tepp noticed the distinct lack of her own twin.

  “Where is Minn?!” she howled, wrathful eyes boring into Dusk.

  He flinched, put away the messed-up essence – a Legendary! – and motioned everyone to follow, forgetting the plan of self-hugging.

  “This way! I didn’t want her to get caught up in this!”

  “So you left her alone?!”

  “No! I made a new skill too! They are guarding her!”

  “They? Oh.”

  The party arrived, took in the sight of the three serpentine figures made of colored glass, then noticed the wolfkin moaning as her eyes fluttered open.

  “Minn!”

  Her sister made a beeline for her along with Dusk, who had already readied [Hallowed Embrace] again. Dawn whipped out her [Heartseeker] and tossed it his way. He caught it, activated his own skill, combined the two, and then knelt down to use them both on Minn.

  The skills turned into a swirl of pink and golden light – vaguely shaped like a catkin’s head, Dawn noted – and seeped into Minn’s glassified arm.

  At the same time, the three messed-up essences from earlier materialized in front of Dawn, startling her. They each split in two and half of them flew to Dusk.

  He reached out to grab them without even turning his head.

  “The hell…? Never mind.” Oulo shook his head, clearly deciding to focus on more important matters.

  Through the light, the twins could see the glass softening and clearing away. They relaxed, letting the light work its magic.

  Slowly but surely, the glow faded.

  But the glass elbow remained.

  Their stomachs dropped.

  The light had only made it seem like it had been healed because of glare.

  “Why?! Why didn’t it work?!” Tepp screamed, her tone filled with despair.

  The twins felt cold inside. Once again, they remembered that [Hallowed Embrace] got stronger the more they cared about their target due to ◆Compassion◆.

  And yet, even when combined with [Heartseeker], it didn’t work.

  “Shit,” the kobold swore under his breath.

  “The curse is too strong,” Dusk lied, his words feeling like ashes on his tongue. “We need an anti-curse.”

  “Dammit! And I assume you don’t have that?” Leejay asked.

  “...No.”

  “What do we do then?!”

  “We have to escape the rift,” Oulo reasoned. “We’re not gonna get any anti-curse here.”

  “You think it’s better outside?!” Tepp screamed at him. “I bet the whole city is overrun at this point!”

  “Then what the hell is your plan?!” the kobold shouted back, clearly very much done with today.

  “I don’t know! We gotta find a better healer!” The twins grimaced, but couldn’t refute the perceived slight to their skills. “Someone who can save Minn!”

  “And you think we’re gonna find someone inside the rift?!”

  “Calm down, you two!” Leejay finally interjected while putting a hand on each of his teammates’ shoulders.

  The wolfkin and the kobold kept glaring at each other but didn’t continue their argument.

  “We’re in a terrible situation, yes. But we can’t let our tempers get the best of us if we want to live through this.”

  Tepp grimaced and looked away while Oulo huffed and crossed his arms.

  “For the record, I agree with Oulo – this rift is extremely dangerous and we should get out as soon as possible.”

  “But Minn–” Tepp started but the avian leader raised his hand to stop her.

  “We’re not leaving her behind. But if Dusk and Dawn’s skills aren’t enough to heal her, then we need to find someone who can… and won’t be busy trying to survive a violent rift spill.” He shook his head. “Because, let’s be honest, there’s no way that isn’t happening right now.”

  The twins hadn’t even thought about that – hard to, with how preoccupied they had been in the last few hours – but they couldn’t help but agree. The behemoth city had probably already been overrun by monsters by now. Their only bet was to get out of the rift and then out of the city as soon as they could.

  There was a moment of silence – only broken by distant rumbles and the sound of breaking glass – before Tepp spoke again.

  “But… it’s still spreading…” Her voice trembled as she looked down at her sister.

  “We’ll keep healing her,” Dusk declared.

  “I-I can move. I-I’m gonna b-be fine. L-Let’s just go,” Minn managed to say.

  One look at her told everyone how little they believed her. But nobody wanted to sit around doing nothing either.

  “But what if it gets worse? What if–”

  “Then just… c-cut it off,” Minn interrupted her sister.

  “What?! No! We can’t…!”

  “Just cut it off!” she repeated with a yell as tears finally began to streak down her face. “A-And heal the stump! Or something! I just want to g-get out of here!”

  Silence.

  A crash in the distance.

  “Alright,” the party tank declared, prompting a glare from Tepp. He returned it. “Look. What else are we supposed to do?! If she’s fine with it, then let’s just do it! At the very least, it should stop the curse!”

  Tepp clenched her fists but the expected argument never came.

  “Do it,” Minn repeated, this time looking determined, despite the tears.

  The twins gulped as their healing skills re-sparked, prompting them to palm the cards in preparation.

  “…Do it,” Tepp finally relented, her voice much more subdued.

  The boys nodded and Leejay pulled out a card reading [Obsidian Rain]. He furrowed his brows as it glowed and shifted, and then threw it on the ground. It transformed into a single one of the forearm-sized obsidian needles and clacked to the floor. The skill re-sparked almost immediately.

  The twins knew about this trick, of course. They had used the dud version of [Tricky Trail] plenty of times for their street performances. The skill ended up being smaller and less dangerous in exchange for re-sparking way faster – meaning they could use it again during the same performance.

  Oulo grabbed the needle matching his skin – he had yet to deactivate the skill that turned his body black and shiny – and pulled it out.

  “Is that thing really sharp enough?” Dawn idly asked, thinking that needles were more for stabbing than cutting.

  “No problem. I have a skill for this,” the kobold declared before locking eyes with Minn to ask the wordless question.

  Minn replied by raising her glassified arm to the side for a cleaner cut – or at least she would have, if her elbow could still bend and her shoulder wasn’t shaking.

  Gritting her teeth, Tepp marched over to her sister and knelt down by her to grab her right hand – the one unaffected by the glass curse. The twins wordlessly positioned themselves on the other side. Dawn grabbed the affected arm and lifted it. Minn screwed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth.

  Before anyone could hesitate, the kobold rushed forward and swung the needle in an overhead swing, slicing right through–

  A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the broken halls of the underground cathedral. It completely muffled the subsequent squelch of a severed limb hitting the floor.

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  The twins wasted no time in combining their heal skills again and used it on Minn’s stump. The light enveloped her again, and when it faded, it left behind… a stump, but no longer bleeding, not afflicted by the glass curse.

  Minn was pale and breathing hard, but very much alive and conscious. As she tried standing up, her sister supported her by taking Minn’s remaining arm and pulling it around her own shoulders.

  “I’m here,” she assured.

  Leejay took a shaky breath and then finally tore his eyes away from his crippled teammate.

  “Alright… Let’s get out of here,” he declared with the air of finality.

  “Where to, though? The city is screwed. No doubt about it,” Oulo asked with a grimace.

  The party thought about it.

  “Estra Dolla,” the avian declared after a moment. “It’s the biggest hub for hunters. Surely, we’ll find good healers there.”

  The others frowned.

  “That’s pretty far,” Tepp muttered.

  “All the better. Let’s get as far away from here as possible,” the kobold argued.

  Eyes turned to the geckin twins.

  “What do you two think?”

  They shuffled in place, uncomfortable with abandoning Anxia after everything… But if the city had truly been overrun, there wasn’t much they could do, was there?

  “I mean, surely they’ll send more S-ranks to contain this place, right? Maybe we could return at some point?”

  “N-No, thank you,” Minn bit out.

  Right.

  “I guess it’s a plan,” Dawn conceded. “Better safe than sorry after everything.”

  “Alright, Estra Dolla it is.”

  As one, the party nodded, satisfied with the decision. Leejay then opened his mouth when, right on cue, the wall far behind them exploded.

  The party whirled around and quickly fell into their formation, protecting the injured wolfkin in their midst while eyeing the threat up ahead.

  It was the damn rogue guy again, still battling the half-melted stumbling mess of glass with dozens of daggers sticking out of it.

  “You again,” Dawn growled in frustration as that stupid human retreated in their direction, drawing the threat with him.

  Said threat somehow managed to whip out a glass shovel from its melting body and toss it in the rogue’s direction.

  He turned into a shadow, letting the projectile pass through.

  Before the twins could curse, Oulo stood in front of the party, forming an X with his arms in front of his face. A moment before the shovel hit him, a small glowing barrier appeared before him and instantly shattered.

  Glass exploded all over the party, but by then, Dawn managed to stomp to create a thick barrier of glass with her [Branching Rampart] for everyone bar Oulo to hide behind.

  Dusk wasted no time in rushing forward as soon as the shower of glass shards ended and located their frontliner. Dawn fired [Heartseeker], Dusk caught it with his own healing skill, and used the combo heal on Oulo.

  Surprisingly, the kobold’s obsidian form seemed to have protected him from the glass curse, so this time, their combo heal fully worked and got the guy back up to his feet in seconds.

  While Dusk was busy healing, Dawn turned her attention to the Elite currently being impaled by daggers.

  “[Tricky Bale]!”

  The nasty green ball of energy spikes zipped forward, past Dusk and Oulo, past Jake, and toward the nearly dead Crystalline Warden facsimile.

  “What?! No! Not again!” the human shouted, briefly turning to shoot the party a wrathful glare, before refocusing on the copied Elite again.

  Dawn’s attack hit the threat head-on, melting it even further and blasting chunks of glass off of it. Meanwhile, Jake drew a card of his own and threw it. It turned into a shadowy dagger mid-air, and lodged itself into the pile of melted glass before promptly exploding into a corrosive cloud of smoke, enveloping the creature in its entirety.

  As Oulo recovered, the party readied itself for another round of fighting for their lives against an impossibly strong enemy, cards gripped, shoulders tense, eyes trained on–

  A card popped out of the pile of melted glass as the smoke dissipated and flew toward them.

  “No! Fuck you! It–” Or rather, toward Jake, who caught it. “Yes! Fuck you! Finally a Legendary! This–”

  He paused as he stared at the card. It only took a mere moment for the twins to understand what had gone wrong.

  They couldn’t see it very well, but just like the other cards they’d gotten in this place, it flickered with light.

  “...What is this shit?” the human murmured in a cold voice thick with fury. He whirled around to glare at the twins. “What the fuck did you do, you little cunts?!”

  Dawn almost flinched, but ended up standing her ground.

  “We didn’t do anything!”

  “We just helped you with the monster!”

  “You corrupted my Legendary drop!” he howled while waving around the flickering essence.

  “Calm down!” Oulo shouted, stepping between the rogue and the twins. “This is how every drop is in the rift right now! Didn’t you see the sun turning black?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?! You’re just fucking with me! Messing with my head! Trying to steal my loot from me again! Standing in the way of avenging Tanya!”

  Their surroundings shook as a muted crash resounded from up above.

  Everyone tensed even further, but kept their eyes on the opposition.

  “Please, let’s just calm down here,” Leejay attempted to placate the rogue. “This rift is collapsing and we need to get out if we want to live. If you could–”

  “It’s a skill, isn’t it?” Jake’s cold voice cut off Leejay. “Doubling essences. That’s a high-tier skill. You’re just pretending to be low-level nobodies.”

  “What…? We aren’t–”

  “But you’re just hiding what you really are. No, you aren’t even people! You’re monsters pretending to be people!”

  He stomped forward as his nostrils flared. Flakes of glass fell from the ceiling.

  Now that pissed them off. Layna mistaking them for monsters in the heat of the moment was one thing, but this was something else!

  But then again, could they really argue with that? With how [Soul Split] looked and how dissonant their existence had gotten, could they really call themselves people?

  “Look, you can keep the essences!” Dusk tried. “You can even have the ones from the other Elite! Look!”

  Dusk and Dawn pulled the messed up Legendary from the snail. The human paused, looking at the essences.

  For a tense moment, they thought he was going to accept the offer.

  Then he scoffed.

  “Trying to trick me into getting more of this corrupted bullshit, huh? You really are just monsters! I should have let you bite it back then!”

  Dawn bristled, ready to cuss back at him.

  Then a shadowy dagger whizzed through the air.

  She yelped as she narrowly sidestepped it.

  “What are you–?!”

  “Die!”

  The dagger exploded into a corrosive cloud of smoke.

  A hail of regular daggers followed.

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