The Thunderfawn had been surprising. The Clone Kobolds had been annoying. But whatever this thing was in front of him was the most confusing.

  It looked like a huge lion, fifteen feet tall at its shoulder. It had large feathered wings and a head that looked like an orc with blue skin. Its head was the size of a refrigerator. It stalked along a wide corridor of cleared grasslands in between two lush forests. Luke guessed that it had created the grasslands because as he watched, the monster uprooted a sapling and flung it away.

  Perhaps the strangest part was that it kept disappearing and reappearing somewhere else. It wasn’t teleporting because there was a gap between disappearing and reappearing. He was reminded of the time slime, but that wasn’t right either because it kept moving forward. Luke would have assumed it could turn invisible, but the grasses were untouched when it disappeared.

  If he had the mana, Luke would have sent a runic tank in to fight it. But the reason he was walking in the first place was that he was low. He had twelve points of mana, which wasn’t enough to summon and maintain it.

  He turned and whispered to Jinx, “This is too weird. I don’t want to take on a titan whose magic I don’t understand. Let’s wait somewhere else to regenerate mana and just fly over this section.”

  “I’ll allow it,” Jinx said and started slinking back. “Something about this monster feels wrong.”

  She stealthily snuck away with Luke right behind her. He stepped where she stepped and tried to keep quiet. He didn’t have much stealth practice, since he had usually been wearing a mech. He did his best to keep quiet, but it wasn’t enough.

  Before they got far the titan suddenly turned and started racing towards them. Its orc head roared like a lion. Jinx and Luke took off running.

  Knowing that he couldn’t possibly outrun the huge monster, Luke pointed and shouted, “Over there, where the trees are tight.”

  Jinx turned and the both of them raced for a thicket of spiny bushes and grasping trees. They slipped through the trunks and kept running deeper into the forest. The monster crashed through the forest behind them until the sound suddenly cut out.

  Luke turned to see that the monster was gone. He spun around in circles, unsure where it would reappear. A few seconds later, the titan popped into existence right in front of him. The monster’s front paw was already high and swiped down at him. It had completely skipped the row of trees, despite them being too tight for it to bypass.

  Having expected the monster to pull some bullshit like that, Luke already had a Blink Ball ready. He threw it at the monster’s center mass. Since they were so close, Luke expected the spell to hit and send the titan away. Instead, the monster disappeared and the ball sailed through the empty space and hit a tree.

  Luke was teleported instantly to that spot and fell five feet to the ground. As he fell, he flexed his Acuity and tried to come up with a plan during the bullet time. The fact that his spell traveled through the empty space where the monster had just been confirmed the fact the titan didn’t have an invisibility skill. It wasn’t a teleport skill either. It had to be like Jinx’s phase spell, it could turn insubstantial and walk around on a different plane of existence before popping back into this one.

  Escape was no longer an option. He would have to turn and fight.

  With all that in mind, the best attack avenue would be to use Variable Ammunition to throw phantom shots at the titan. If his guess was correct, the shots could hit the monster even if he couldn’t see it.

  All of this planning happened in the half second it took for him to fall five feet. He brought up his stun baton and fired off a phantom shot. The insubstantial projectile streaked through the air and impacted something Luke couldn’t see.

  The Orc Lion reappeared and shrieked in pain, flapping up into the sky. It had probably been a long time since it had gotten hurt. Luke smiled and fired up at it. It flickered out of existence right before the shot hit, but that did it no good. The phantom shot was able to hit it regardless of whether it was in this plane or the next.

  Luke fired off two more shots before it figured that out. The titan shrieked and landed in front of him. It had decided to take him on directly. He held off from firing another phantom shot. The Orc Lion seemed half dead, but Luke only had two points of mana left. He had one spell left in him, and then he was out.

  The titan stalked forward slowly, ready to pounce if Luke ran.

  He shoved his hand into his bag, hoping to come up with a weapon he had forgotten about. There was nothing new. His potions were used up and throwing a book at the monster wouldn’t help.

  An angry hiss sounded behind the titan and Jinx leapt through a tree with her claws extended. Her extended claws left traceries in the air as the swiped down on the Orc Lion’s back paw. It sliced the monster’s tendon and made it stumble.

  The titan roared in pain and lashed out with its other rear leg. Jinx phased through the attack, but it still connected. The cat was hit and knocked through a few trees to land out of sight.

  “Jinx!” Luke shouted and ran forward.

  His heart pounded loudly in his ears. If she died, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

  The Orc Lion turned its attention back to Luke and swiped at him. Luke surprised it by jumping forward instead of back and leaping over the monster’s huge paw. He didn’t really have a plan, he was running on adrenaline and desperation.

  Then his Memory gave him an insane idea. He was reminded of the first day he visited Kalibutan. Before he walked through the portal for the first time, he helped Vanessa out with a hover truck accident.

  He reached into the over the shoulder bag and pulled out the smallest monster core he could quickly find. He idly noticed it was a tier three core. He was already on top of the monster now. It didn’t bother trying to phase out, instead it chomped down with its enormous head.

  With his left hand he threw the core down the monster’s gullet and fired off a Variable Ammunition with the stun baton in his right hand. Instead of a phantom shot, he selected a fracture spell instead. The spell hit the core dead on and cracked it just before it disappeared into the monster’s gullet.

  Luke pushed his Acuity and Dexterity to the limit and dodged out of the way of the monster's huge mouth. He didn't make it all of the way and the huge teeth scraped his right arm and leg. Desperation gave him the strength to yank them out of its teeth. Blood spattered as he turned and started running away.

  He didn’t get far.

  The titan slammed down its left paw, pinning him to the ground on his back. He tried to push the huge paw up and wiggle out, but it was too strong and held him fast. It smiled and slowly lowered its head for a bite.

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  It stopped halfway with a strange expression on its face. Then it flickered out of phase and then back in phase. In, out, in, out.

  When Luke drove up to the site of a hover truck crash forever ago, Vanessa’s main worry was the cracked monster core. The normally stable ball of concentrated mana could explode if the conditions were right. Luke created those conditions today.

  The titan exploded in a spray of blood and guts.

  It seemed like most of the gore landed right on top of Luke. He sputtered and coughed as he pushed the shreds of muscle and fur off of him. He got to his feet and hurried away. He needed to check on Jinx.

  He ran past the trees to see Jinx laying motionless on top of a grasping ferns. He hurried over to her and pressed his hand to her neck.

  “Do not press too hard, Luke. I am hurt,” Jinx said softly.

  “Oh thank god. I thought you died,” Luke said and lifted his hands up. “I was so worried.”

  “I will live. My life is pain right now, but I’ll be better in the morning.” Jinx opened an eye “Did we get it?”

  “We did. I exploded it all over the clearing.”

  “You smell too much of blood. Wash yourself off and then bring me some of its meat.”

  “Sure thing, Jinx. Sure thing,” Luke said.

  ???

  “How can you tell when it’s done? Do you need to dig into it first?”

  “It just appears on top of the corpse. It won’t be inside. It shouldn’t be long now, maybe an hour or two,” Luke replied.

  He had decided to make camp near the body so he wouldn’t have to move Jinx. She enjoyed both the raw and cooked version of titan meat. She had been seriously injured but her health points had mostly healed her by now.

  Normally, he would have moved on by now, worried about elvish trackers finding him in the forest. But they had killed a titan, and it had been long enough that an artifact should appear soon. If that artifact worked as a weapon, Luke would feel a lot better about making his way through the wilderness.

  Last night he had collected a tier nine core off the body, so he knew it was a powerful monster. It should grant him a powerful artifact too, if they were patient enough.

  Jinx flicked her whiskers and lay back down. If it wasn’t food, she could be patient. She had found a spot of sunshine and was happy to take another nap while they waited.

  Luke was briefly distracted by a notice.

  That was his second level up for Armor Repair since he entered the forest. The first one had really surprised him. He wasn’t wearing armor, but his skill considered his prosthetic leg armor for his stump, or something. It had slowly been changing as the passive skill worked on it. Streaks of stronger metal ran from knee to heel. The movement runes had deepened and the agility runes had thickened. It was a small change, but his leg was certainly more durable.

  About twenty minutes later, there was a soft flash of light. Atop the monster’s spine sat a large bottle of oil. It had a stopper and a pourable spout. It was a fourth full of black oil with an iridescent sheen. Luke walked over and picked it up. He tilted it back and forth, but it just looked like a bottle of oil. He popped it open and dripped a little on a nearby leaf. It smelled like motor oil, but did nothing to the leaf.

  Maybe the extra few hours of waiting had been a waste. He made sure the stopper was on tight and tucked it away in his bag.

  “That didn’t look like a weapon,” Jinx said with a raised eyebrow.

  Luke grumbled. “Yeah, yeah. I knew it was a long shot, I just wanted to give it a go. Since we stopped here for a while so we could both heal, I’m all but positive they have an ambush set up for us at the mountain pass.”

  He pointed towards the distant mountains. With his runic heli, it would only take an hour to fly there. He wanted to avoid the pass, but that might not be a good idea. Flying up and over the mountains would leave them exposed to any long range attacks, like that one orc in the undercity that had sniped his runic heli the first time he summoned it.

  Running right into an ambush wouldn’t be any better though. Assuming people were still trying to kill him, they would have set up at the mountain pass hours ago.

  He looked up at the sky. The sun had set recently, and the world’s ring shone brightly, a band of light across the sky. It never really got very dark on Kalibutan, but since the moons weren’t up yet, now was as good as he was going to get.

  With a flicker of intent, Luke activated Apex Machine. When the skill completed, he tossed a Greater Machine Soul inside.

  Alpha, reporting for duty.

  Luke smiled at the voice only he could hear. Ever since he learned his souls could remember events, he had worked on giving them some personality. Or at least, the appearance of one. They still insisted they were something like a magic program running code. Not a real person.

  Jinx stretched and said, “Why do you always summon the uncomfortable one? Don’t you have other vehicles?”

  “I do. I bet the tank would be pretty comfortable for you. But the runic heli is more than twice as fast as the tank and lets us fly above the nastiest monsters. Wouldn’t you rather be safer and slightly uncomfortable, than comfortable and in constant danger?”

  She tilted her head to the side and said, “No. I would rather be comfortable.”

  Despite what she said, Jinx hopped into the runic heli and hunkered down so the canopy would close. Luke joined her and instructed Alpha to head out at speed. They rocketed across the countryside at a hundred and seventy miles an hour. The mountains in the distance soon became the mountains right in front of them.

  Luke mentally said, “Alpha, scan the pass there, I’m looking for an ambush from sentients. Do you see anything?”

  Acknowledged. Scanning.

  A few long moments later, a screen popped up in his mind’s eye. It showed a stand of trees with four glowing shapes behind it, like a thermal camera. They looked like three orcs and a dwarf, but they were fully covered by the foliage, so he couldn't tell for sure.

  Possible targets sighted. Four sentients in the east foothills and three on the west foothills. There are no sentients on the path through the mountains, but there is a large titan wandering along the road.

  Luke followed the mountain path up and saw what Alpha was talking about. There was a long legged titan, like a feathered elephant, stalking along the path. Both sets of people were well hidden, but they probably had a good view of the titan below.

  The trap was easy to identify with the info from the runic heli’s advanced sensors. They had lured the titan here and were waiting for him to engage the monster before they swooped in from both sides to pincer him.

  “Alright. Thanks. Bring us down right here. I want to be fully topped up on mana before we start this.”

  After they landed, he reabsorbed Alpha and dismissed the heli. Luke tapped his chin while he thought about what to do next. It was one thing to suspect an ambush, it was quite another to be sure of it.

  These people were going to a lot of trouble to find and kill him. It was a bit unnerving. Was the viscount really that angry at him? Even for a wastrel noble, this seemed like it was too much. Had the jerk been promoted to earl in the Shuffle? Maybe. That still wouldn't explain why he was spending so much money tracking down Luke.

  Did they think Luke was a spy or something? His two companions were a spy and a rebel, so that kind of made sense. But there was no way for them to know that. Had the viscount assumed he overheard some state secret before the Shuffle? Luke hadn’t heard anything important, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume he did.

  Still. This was a huge outlay of money and manpower all for a single guy. It didn’t make sense.

  His hand fell to his bag. Damnit. He did know something he shouldn’t. The book of combat runes. Maybe that runewright that sold him the book had ratted him out. He did specifically say something about losing glory, maybe he planned on betraying him from the start.

  Everything started to make more sense.

  Magic was the one thing that Kalibutan had on Earth. The book of runes in his bag would go a long way towards evening out that imbalance. No wonder they were throwing everything after him to make sure he didn’t get home. They didn’t want the people of Earth to be able to defend themselves.

  He looked towards the pass. They were going to regret going after him. But not for long.