Tunde picked up the last core from the large Corespawns as their bodies shriveled, desiccating rapidly. Something about their physiology broke down upon death.

  Either way, it was to his benefit, the cores adding to his growing collection within his void ring.

  The call of the distant rift drew his attention, reminding him with urgency that another revenant could already be making their way through its entrance.

  He had no illusions.

  In a real fight, he was no match for an adept, not in the slightest. He could still feel the bile-inducing nature of the undeath Ethra that had poured from the one he'd faced. That power had been overwhelming to behold.

  His only saving grace had been the rift energy flooding his system, temporarily boosting him to the peak of disciple rank.

  That, and the element of surprise.

  The adept had clearly not been prepared to face another ranker within the rift space, certainly not one with a relic weapon that cut through almost anything like a hot knife through butter.

  Still, Tunde knew he wouldn't be so fortunate again. The surprise he had used when the adept fled into that gut-wrenching, horrific place, the place Tunde had barely escaped, was spent.

  Whatever that realm had been, it had terrified him to his core. He wasn't sure he had ever felt such fear, not even standing at the threshold of death.

  It spoke to the vile nature of those who practiced the Ethra of undeath, a plague in all but name. It also left him with complicated feelings about Thorne.

  But he had a mission to complete. Saying a silent, hollow prayer to the hegemons for Isolde and Draven's protection, Tunde hoped Elder Moros would take pity on them in his absence. After all, it was him, not the others, that Moros had any real issue with.

  He came upon another rift entrance, which puzzled him. As far as he knew, rifts didn't simply appear anywhere.

  They could, but usually only where the density of Ethra was unusually high, like in the forests where the clan bred monsters. This place had only an average Ethra density.

  Whatever method had been used to summon them, likely tied to the inscriptions etched into the stone walls earlier, it was clear the Corespawns and revenants were working together.

  The sooner he closed these rifts, the better for both the clan and himself.

  "I get a rift core or I die," he thought grimly as he burst into another room, Ethra sight blazing. Oddly, the thought was comforting.

  Three towering rock-like Corespawns guarded the rift's entrance, its surface swirling with blue and green light.

  They fell to the ground within seconds, bodies collapsing into dust as Tunde gathered their cores. Without hesitation, he dashed toward the rift and dove through its gelatinous surface, landing in another crystal-lined passageway.

  He spotted the rift core immediately, perched on a pedestal of glowing crystals.

  He made a mad dash and snatched it just as another revenant came through the distant rift. Both froze, locked in mutual surprise.

  The revenant, a peak disciple, snorted in frustration. Tunde felt the relic drinking in rift energy, the boost surging through him once again.

  Snarling, the revenant charged. His Ethra sight revealed her weaknesses immediately, and Tunde struck with a speed that surprised even himself.

  A jab to the throat disrupted her Ethra flow. A powerful blow to her chest sent her crashing to the ground, disturbing a cluster of crystalline creatures.

  Her hand morphed into a grotesque, wet blade, but Tunde severed it with one clean stroke before taking her head in a single fluid motion.

  The entire encounter had lasted less than twenty seconds.

  Panting, his body covered in rapidly healing gashes, he realized just how close he had come to death. Another figure appeared in the distant rift, and Tunde's grip tightened on the revenant's decaying skull before he tossed it aside.

  He recognized the adept. Rage burned in the man's eyes as he roared, but Tunde had already rolled clear of the collapsing rift just in time.

  The world blurred as he landed. Shuddering from the raw aura pouring off the adept, Tunde watched in relief as the rift sealed shut behind him, cutting off the furious roar.

  The relief lasted a moment before he registered the presence of another Corespawn.

  This one dwarfed the others. Standing over seven feet tall and encased in rock armor, the Corespawn removed its helm to reveal an ashen face with glowing brown eyes.

  Peak tier 2. Tunde winced, still healing from the revenant's earlier attacks.

  "You'll pay for that," the Corespawn rumbled, the vibrations resonating through the very ground beneath them.

  "You're on Verdan clan lands," Tunde said, pushing his doubts aside.

  "Surrender, and I'll spare you."

  The Corespawn laughed, deep and booming. It hefted a large metal axe, and for a brief moment Tunde found himself wondering why every ranker he'd encountered favored such brutal weapons.

  Whatever happened to straight-up brawling?

  "Surrender?" the Corespawn growled.

  "Not here. Not while we stand on the precipice of a new age for the beast kin."

  "Beast kin?" Tunde asked, as they began to circle each other, Vengeance settling over his arms.

  "You empire dogs call us Corespawns, abominations," the Corespawn spat.

  "But we are at one with nature. A perfect union of the wildness of Adamath and the strength of humanity, something you refuse to acknowledge. No more."

  His instincts fired before his mind caught up. The distortions in his Ethra sight and the vibrations passing through the ground told him a projection technique was building beneath his feet.

  He leaped clear, eyes widening as the axe swung in the same moment, glowing with rock Ethra that carried the sharp, lethal edge of destruction rather than Draven's unyielding strength.

  Vengeance, wreathed in resonance, clashed with the axe. The two disciples forced their strength against each other, and Tunde was the first to give way, the impact slamming him into the ground.

  He rolled clear as rock spikes erupted from the earth to skewer him, sliding across the floor before recovering his footing.

  He frowned at the scratched surface of Vengeance, then raised his gaze back to the Corespawn. The creature seemed to be growing, its rock armor expanding, adding mass to an already enormous frame.

  Towering over him now, Kurl Rock Scale roared. His single large horn glowed with deep yellow light. Before Tunde could react, an unseen force slammed him into the wall, his Ethra sight catching only a ripple in the air, like a stone dropped into still water. He shook his head and rolled aside as Kurl crashed into the wall behind him, shaking the mine to its foundations.

  "RETREAT?!" Kurl roared. "I, KURL ROCK SCALE, WOULD NEVER RETREAT!"

  Tunde was launched into the air as resonance hummed within him, almost as though it was trying to communicate something.

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  He crossed Vengeance in front of him to absorb the next blow, but the impact hammered him into the ground anyway.

  He screamed in pain as a rib cracked. Despite the rift energy fueling him, the blow had nearly brought the mine down on both of them, cracks webbing across the reinforced wooden walls.

  He got to his feet, rage burning through him alongside the pain in his bones. Resonance, that sweet, familiar hum of destructive power, rang within him as Kurl came again.

  His Ethra sight flared, and he followed the resonance as it jumped from one arm to the other, building with each passing second. He cocked his fist as he faced down the massive Corespawn.

  He had trained under Elder Joran. He had survived the forest of monsters. He had stared down death and killed early-tier disciple rankers from the wastelands. He was not going to die to some Corespawn from wherever the hegemons had dredged him up.

  Resonance painted Vengeance a starry midnight color. Wisps of aura drifted from Tunde's body as he crashed into Kurl's massive fist. A terrible explosion tore the room apart.

  When the dust settled, Tunde stared at the bloodied form of Kurl, the Corespawn's rock armor cracking and shattering in heaps as his body shrank back to its original size. Kurl had lost a hand.

  ****

  Elder Moros paused at the mine entrance, eyes wide as he sensed the aura from within. What kind of creature had escaped from the rift?

  Gathering his steel circle blades, Ethra churning within him, he stepped into the tunnel just as it began to collapse. He retreated hastily, scowling at the blocked entrance.

  It was bad enough that Joran's disciple had likely gotten himself killed. Now Moros couldn't even retrieve the body to confirm it.

  Snarling to himself, he made a mental note to warn Jashed and Thalas, just in case Joran came looking for someone to blame. He paused.

  Perhaps he'd need to watch himself as well. One could never be entirely sure.

  ****

  Kurl gripped his missing shoulder, blood spurting from the charred stump. He popped pills into his mouth desperately, but his breathing was ragged and his eyes burned with hatred as they fixed on Tunde.

  Tunde stared back at him.

  Dark wisps of power drifted from his body, his aura stirring again. He found himself with the vague urge to rip Kurl apart limb from limb and couldn't quite trace where the thought had come from.

  The Corespawn had thought himself Tunde's equal. Something about that felt like an offense that had no right to exist.

  But how was that any different from those who called him a wastelander?

  The thought came unbidden. Tunde shook his head, and the aura vanished, leaving him alone in the dark tunnel, glowing eyes fixed on the deathly pale Corespawn.

  "You're no ordinary ranker," Kurl said, swaying where he stood.

  "Please, stop this," Tunde said quietly.

  "Please?" Kurl chuckled, the sound wet.

  "Your kind will beg when Jath brings down the wrath of the Corespawns. Our numbers are growing. Your lands will be washed clean in blood."

  "You're dying. Surrender, and I'll get you help," Tunde offered.

  The thought of peace felt impossible even as he said it. The Corespawns had spilled innocent blood. They both knew where this ended.

  "Before I die, tell me what you are," Kurl asked, the ground trembling as he prepared one final technique.

  "A ranker," Tunde whispered, as resonance began to swirl around his limbs, drawing from the last of the rift energy within him.

  "You are no ranker. You are something else, something I must end here, for the good of all Corespawns," Kurl roared and launched his attack.

  Sharp rock spikes erupted from the ground, hovering in formation around him. Earth and rock Ethra saturated the air, the most powerful of the natural elements pressing in to crush the life from Tunde. His fist shot forward, resonance coiling like a spring before releasing in a single, devastating wave.

  The explosion was catastrophic.

  When the dust settled, nothing remained of Kurl but his lower half. The waist and legs of the Corespawn collapsed into the ruins as a large golden core rolled slowly toward Tunde. He picked it up and let his void ring swallow it in silence.

  "I have no idea," he muttered, turning from the wreckage and walking deeper into the mine.

  ****

  Jath felt the death of Kurl, an unexplainable ache settling into his chest.

  He had been closer to the rock scale than to Uslog, and judging from the absence of any signal from the king of the skies, he had no doubt that Uslog had fallen to the clan's adept as well.

  What puzzled him was the nature of it. No human adept would sneak through tunnels to make their kills. Their egos wouldn't allow it, as he had said himself.

  Rankers loved to display their strength, especially adepts and above, wearing their blood-soaked hands like badges of honor.

  Tail lashing wildly, Jath turned to stare at the rift beacon that lit the skies above the remains of the stronghold.

  Pieces of rock continued to levitate, held together by a grotesque, fleshy substance, forming a slow adhesive reconstruction of the old structure.

  The revenants were coming. The building's grotesque regeneration was proof of that. But Jath raged at how long it had taken them. He had lost two of his kin, two lieutenants as close as brothers, with nothing to show for it.

  His mission had been to secure a foothold for those fleeing the wasteland king, to find a place where their kind could rest.

  All he had now was the ashes of his kin. Jath Black Claw was no fool. He had slain a shadow panther as an early disciple and carried the cunning instincts of that beast fused into his every thought.

  The revenants had offered them a means to grow stronger quickly. Nothing had ever been said about a permanent alliance, not after their other allies, the dust bandits, had been eradicated by the same Verdan clan whose mines Jath had just razed.

  Perhaps that was why the cult had insisted this stronghold serve as the launch point for their invasion of the empire.

  A foolish cause, in his opinion.

  Even through all his rage, Jath knew it was suicidal to take on the combined might of Clan Talahan and the Heralds.

  Between them, the monsters masquerading as rankers could crush any opposing force. Still, the undeath cult had its pariahs, rankers who had fallen to the allure of eternal decay dressed up as immortality. Whatever their plans, the revenants wouldn't move without thorough calculations.

  The rift pulsed, drawing his attention as a figure stepped through. A thin, lithe man with white hair and dark grey-green eyes appeared, his belt of interlocking bones cinching his robes at the waist.

  Jath dropped to one knee, though every instinct in him screamed at the indignity. He was a shadow panther. Royalty. And royalty knelt to no one. But Jath was smart enough to understand that even royalty bowed to an emperor, and while this adept wasn't quite that, he was far above Jath's rank, at least for now.

  The revenant, his neatly styled hair coiled in a bun and secured by a black pin carved with a symbol, stared down at Jath.

  "Adept Kenji," Jath said, his feline inflection evident.

  "I bid you welcome to—"

  "Disgraceful," Kenji interrupted, his voice cold.

  "I beg your pardon?" Jath growled, struggling to keep his aura leashed.

  "Were you so useless as to allow a single disciple to tear apart your plans?" Kenji continued, his tone drenched in contempt.

  "Disciple? No. You're mistaken," Jath said firmly.

  "Oh?" The revenant's tone was mockery at its most refined.

  Jath's claws ached to unsheathe, to find the adept's throat. But the cold light in Kenji's eyes warned him otherwise.

  "The Verdan clan sent an adept. He's rampaging through the—" Jath began, but Kenji's laugh cut him off.

  "Adept? That child of the seekers?" Kenji sneered.

  "You call him an adept?"

  Jath's mind raced. He had no idea what a seeker was, but it seemed impossible for a disciple to have taken down his lieutenants so cleanly and so quickly.

  The terrible aura he had sensed earlier had felt like something belonging to an adept. No disciple should have been capable of exuding such an overwhelming presence.

  "No, you naive little feline," Kenji snarled.

  "Your people were killed by a single disciple, one who not only slaughtered them but took two entire rift cores we invested considerable resources in."

  Jath dropped fully to both knees, the hair along his neck rising as the adept's aura pressed down on him.

  It felt as though decay itself was laying its cold, rotting hand on his back. He gritted his teeth and rode out the crushing pressure until Kenji relented.

  "Retrieve the rift cores, Jath Black Claw," Kenji ordered with open scorn.

  "Or I promise you, the wrath of Clan Talahan and Clan Verdan will be the least of your concerns. This deal will be over."

  With that, Kenji stepped through the rift and vanished.

  The rift beacon, still pouring its column of energy into the sky, snapped shut. Jath roared with fury.

  A disciple. Kurl and Uslog had died at the hands of a single disciple.

  The thought nearly broke him with grief and rage. He vowed to tear that disciple apart piece by piece and feast on his heart while it still beat.

  A sudden weight near his feet drew his attention. A rift core had been left behind by the adept. The realization settled slowly over him.

  Another chance.

  He had been given another chance to prove himself, to advance to the next stage, to become a beast king.

  Grabbing the core, Jath crushed it and inhaled the power as his body began to morph. Madness unfurled at the edges of his mind, but he clung to sanity by a single thread, his hatred for the disciple the only anchor keeping him tethered.

  *****

  From the north, a fleet of Verdan clan ships raced toward the rift beacon, filled with disciples and initiates.

  The high rankers aboard stared grimly ahead at the distant glow of the rift incursion. Adepts prowled the decks, eager to be unleashed, while one figure sat alone in silence, meditating.

  Joran sensed the power in the wind, the hum of Ethra rippling through the air. He said nothing, staring into the distance, accepting the truth that gnawed at him.

  They were too late.

  He berated himself quietly, wondering whether he had overestimated Tunde. The boy hadn't been ready for a mission like this, and Joran may well have driven him to his death.

  Lord Alaric stood beside him, his presence alone keeping the adepts calm. Neither man spoke for a long while, both gazing into the distance.

  "I want you to know," Alaric said softly, "that the clan will honor whatever his dying wish was."

  "He fought well," Alaric continued.

  "I knew he would," Joran replied, just as softly.

  "And—" Alaric paused as the rift's glow sputtered and died.

  Joran sighed, a quiet smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. For just a moment, in the instant before the rift collapsed, he had sensed it. A faint, almost imperceptible resonance.

  "Then again," Joran said as Alaric turned to him in silence.

  "He could still be there, fighting to show you all why I chose him," Joran continued.

  "I will make the way for your arrival, if you would allow it."

  Alaric gave a slight nod, and Joran stepped off the deck into the open air. With a push of Ethra, he shot forward, racing toward his disciple.