The sharp voice cut through my spiral like a blade. The tone carried irritation, but underneath it was genuine concern. I looked up to see the tall, Viking-looking guy—Cassie's brother Erik—standing at the far end of the hallway. He was wearing red satin pajamas complete with a monogrammed "EW" stitched over the breast pocket, and honest-to-god matching slippers.

  Under different circumstances, it would have been hilarious.

  I scrambled to my feet, forcing myself to think clearly. I'd been through enough emergency situations to know that panic got people killed. Clear, concise information mattered now.

  "There are at least thirty Carapaxes outside, maybe more. No one's waking up, and all the doors are locked." I gestured frantically toward the front of the building. "There's some kind of blue mist with them."

  Erik raised an eyebrow, processing the information with impressive calm for someone who'd just been woken up by a screaming lunatic. "Show me."

  I nodded, getting to my feet and leading him back through the eerily quiet common room toward whatever was waiting outside.

  Erik opened the door and leaned out with the casual air of someone checking the weather. He grunted in mild disdain, like he'd found a package left on the wrong doorstep, then backed inside and closed the door behind him.

  That's when I noticed his entire right arm was now encased in black plate armor up to the shoulder—and a massive Carapax dangled from it, its claw locked around the metal.

  Erik examined the creature hanging from his arm with clinical detachment, then grabbed it with his bare left hand. The sickening crack of shell filled the room as he simply pulled the crab off, leaving its severed claw and most of one arm still wrapped around his plated forearm.

  The Carapax thrashed wildly in his grip, legs scrambling desperately at empty air, but Erik's hold was unyielding. Without even blinking, he grasped the creature's top shell with his armored hand and ripped it clean off with a grotesque tearing sound.

  The Carapax let out a high-pitched squeal. I winced hard, but Erik remained completely unfazed as he tossed the empty shell aside like garbage. He buried his hand deep in the creature's exposed innards, rooting around with the methodical efficiency of someone gutting fish, until he pulled out a small, perfectly round blue pearl that flickered with light.

  I stared, wide-eyed and slightly nauseous, as he tossed the now-lifeless crab carcass onto a table in the common room with a wet thud.

  "Here. Mana pearl," he said, flicking it toward me like a coin.

  I had absolutely no idea what a mana pearl was, but I caught it reflexively and shoved it into my pants pocket alongside the now-dim lantern orb. The thing felt warm against my palm, pulsing faintly like a tiny heartbeat.

  "Let's sound the alarm," Erik said, walking up a set of stairs with purpose and banging hard on a large set of double doors. A hand-painted sign hung crookedly from them: "Doreen's Room, fuck off."

  He paused, rolling his eyes at the sign with obvious exasperation before pounding on the doors repeatedly. The sound echoed through the hallway like gunshots, but no response came from within.

  Erik grunted in frustration. "I'm breaking it down."

  He placed his palm flat against the door, as if trying to sense something through the wood. After a moment, his expression hardened with grim determination. His slipper suddenly became encased in the same dark plate armor as his arm, and with one swift, devastating kick, he sent the door exploding inward. The impact echoed through the entire building.

  We rushed into the room, eyes scanning frantically. Doreen lay sprawled on the floor in an awkward heap, like she'd tried to get up and simply collapsed mid-motion. Her wild brown fur was matted, and she looked smaller somehow, vulnerable in a way that didn't fit the woman who'd casually knocked out a grown man with a pickle jar.

  Erik knelt beside her, shaking her shoulder with surprising gentleness. "Doreen, wake up."

  She stirred just enough for her eyes to crack open, muttered a groggy "Fuck off," and immediately drifted back into unconsciousness.

  Erik cursed under his breath. "Shit. She's not waking up."

  That sweet, cloying scent hit me again—stronger now, more concentrated. Poppies. There it was again, unmistakable now that I was paying attention. "I've smelled poppies since I woke up. Is this sleep magic or something?"

  Erik seemed briefly intrigued, his head tilting slightly. "I smell nothing..." He frowned, processing the information. "These things can't do that kind of magic. They're Class-F monsters. But something is definitely putting everyone to sleep. I can feel my Seal actively resisting something."

  With careful movements, he lifted Doreen and placed her on a high shelf, positioning her as if he were protecting her from whatever might crawl around on the floor.

  "We need to get to the tower. They'll have equipment to deal with this, and more hunters to push back whatever's happening." He gestured toward my weapon. "Stay behind me and... bring your little hammer."

  I looked down at the sledgehammer in my hands, hefting its considerable weight.

  "Hey, it's not the size of the tool that matters—" I started, but Erik's completely deadpan expression stopped me cold. He sighed deeply and walked out of the room.

  I followed but ducked quickly into the hallway, grabbing several more lantern orbs and stuffing them into my now-bulging pockets. An idea was forming.

  "Give me a minute," I called to Erik as he positioned himself at the front door. The sound of clicking and clacking on stone was clearly audible now, along with the sharp crash of breaking glass and splintering wood as the crabs apparently trashed everything in sight.

  "Make it quick," Erik said, hand poised on the door handle.

  I renewed my grip on the Bravery spell, feeling that familiar confidence surge through my system, and placed a lantern orb in a ceramic bowl on the nearest table. Having made a light turn infrared before, could I do it again, but bigger?

  I stared at the orb's glow, visualizing the runic representation of light that had somehow embedded itself in my mind. Manipulating it without direct contact was slow and difficult—definitely not something I had time to experiment with now. Instead, I grabbed the orb directly and poured everything I understood about light into it.

  The runic symbol overlaid perfectly with the pattern in my head, like puzzle pieces clicking into place. I felt a surge of completion, and the orb began vibrating with barely contained power. Mana flowed from my hand into the device, and it lit up with impossible brightness.

  I dropped the orb back into the bowl and rushed toward Erik, immediately feeling a strange pull from the device—static electricity running through my entire body toward it. The sensation wasn't exactly painful, but it was uncomfortably close. The red glow intensified and sizzled ominously inside the ceramic bowl.

  Then it burst.

  Orange sparks showered the ceiling and scattered across the common room, singeing tables and upholstery. The bowl disintegrated completely, and the wooden table beneath it had a charred hole in the middle of it.

  "That'll do," Erik said with what looked suspiciously like approval. "I'll let you explain the property damage to Doreen, though."

  We stepped outside into pure mayhem.

  Crabs were everywhere—smashing glass storefronts, clawing through doors into seemingly empty buildings, creating a symphony of destruction that echoed off the stone walls. The building directly across from Doreen's was apparently some kind of butcher shop, because a cluster of Carapaxes were literally killing each other to get at the meat displayed in a shattered window case, their claws ripping through shell and flesh with savage efficiency.

  My danger sense flared just as something moved in my peripheral vision. I dodged, but Erik was already there, his gauntleted fist slamming into an attacking Carapax like my sledgehammer.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He was now clad in full dark plate armor that transformed him from "large Viking" to "harbinger of doom." The metal gleamed dully in the lantern light, all sharp angles and intimidating bulk. If not for his blonde hair and bright blue eyes visible through the helmet's visor, he was every inch a Dark Knight pulled from medieval nightmares.

  Could he just summon armor at will? Could I learn that?

  "Move!" Erik barked, and we took off running toward the tower.

  The crabs gave chase immediately, their claws clicking against stone in a rhythm that sounded like an approaching army. Erik moved with fluid grace despite the heavy armor, vaulting over overturned carts and scattered barrels like they weren't even there. It was parkour made even more impressive because he was doing it while wearing what had to be thirty kilograms of plate mail.

  I tried desperately to keep up, but I was still only wearing what were basically pajama pants. My bare feet struggled for traction on the smooth stone street, and while we were moving faster than I'd thought humanly possible, the sound of pursuing claws was getting closer with every step.

  My danger sense screamed like a fire alarm, and I whipped my head left just in time to see claws reaching for my face.

  I grabbed a fishing net from a splintered barrel, spinning desperately to catch the advancing Carapax. I was a split second too slow—those razor-sharp legs punched through my ribs like needles, sending lightning bolts of agony racing through my chest. But I wrapped the net around the bastard and swung it in a wide arc, hurling it into the pursuing swarm with a satisfying crack of shell on shell.

  Without thinking, I pulled another lantern orb from my pocket and forced light into it again, pushing it hard toward infrared. The glass scalded my palm like a branding iron as I hurled it at the cluster of crabs. My aim was completely off thanks to the pain, but it didn't matter.

  The orb exploded like a fragmentation grenade, molten sparks spraying in all directions. Several crabs caught the blast directly, pieces of their shells melting and smoking as they tumbled backward with ear-piercing screeches.

  I kept running, trying to catch up to Erik, but the pain in my chest and arm was getting worse with every step. Two more Carapaxes lunged at me from opposite sides, and I smashed them both with wild swings of my sledgehammer, though it took every ounce of strength I had left. One of them had clamped down on the handle mid-swing, leaving me holding nothing but a sharp wooden stake with the hammerhead hanging by splinters.

  Rounding the corner, I found Erik standing in what used to be a street, now transformed into a crater of destruction. Dead crabs littered the ground around him. In his hands was a weapon that made my broken sledgehammer look like a toy—a massive two-handed war hammer with a shaft thick as a fence post and a head carved from dark stone. Runes glowed along his armored arms like veins of molten silver, and the entire weapon vibrated with barely contained power.

  Standing between us and the tower was the reason for all this carnage.

  A Carapax the size of a city bus crouched in the middle of the street, its shell carved with intricate blue runes that pulsed like a heartbeat. Thick blue mist seeped from its body like blood from a wound, and the moment it hit my nostrils, my vision swam and narrowed. The sickly sweet scent of poppies crashed over me from all sides, so concentrated it felt like drowning in perfume.

  Erik's gaze snapped to me, like he'd suddenly remembered I was following him and wasn't equipped to handle what we were looking at.

  "Ben, get to the—"

  The massive crab cut him off mid-sentence, backhanding him with a fiddler claw the size of a compact car. Erik went flying sideways into a stone building with an impact that sounded like a controlled demolition.

  Chunks of masonry exploded outward from the point of impact. Bravery kicked into overdrive, and I found myself twisting away from a jagged piece of brick that would have taken my head off, my body moving with reflexes I didn't know I possessed. I watched the debris fly past in what felt like slow motion, still moving to dodge, when the crab turned its attention to me.

  One of its spear-like legs shot out like a piston. I could feel it coming through my aura like a bullet tearing through Jello—I knew exactly where it was going to hit, but there was absolutely no way my body could move fast enough to avoid it.

  Turned out I didn't need to.

  A war hammer slammed into the side of the massive crustacean with the force of a wrecking ball, creating a shockwave that sent me stumbling backward. The creature reeled away from the impact, and Erik was suddenly standing in front of me like he hadn't just been launched through a building, casually rolling his plated shoulders.

  "That fucking hurt. A lot." His voice carried a grim satisfaction, like he was looking forward to returning the favor. "Brine Tyrant, Class-D, Ben. And this one's huge. I'll draw its attention—you get to the tower. We need a lot of fucking Monster Hunters."

  Adrenaline flooded my system, making everything crystal clear and terrifyingly sharp.

  Like that giant otter thing in the jungle that carried a panther off like a house cat.

  I fucking ran.

  Not away from the crab—that would just get me killed in the open. I sprinted to the side, up the street toward the tower I'd walked through just hours earlier. I could get help, bring back actual professionals, and then hopefully survive long enough to get the hell out of this world.

  A sweeping leg barely missed me as the Tyrant attempted to fall on me like a building. Erik seized the opening, his hammer connecting with one of its other legs with a sound like breaking concrete. The creature spun around and crashed into another building, sending a cascade of stone debris my way.

  I dodged desperately, vaulting over a pile of rubble with moves that some deep part of my brain recognized as impossible for the person I'd been yesterday. When had I learned to move like this?

  And then the crab was on me, moving faster than anything that size had any right to move.

  "Hey!" Erik's voice boomed through the air with supernatural resonance, like he was speaking through a megaphone. He materialized between us again, hammer raised. "I am your opponent, asshole."

  A silvery aura exploded outward from his armor, and a feeling of pure, unshakeable resilience washed over me. It wasn't nearly as overwhelming as Chas's had been, but it was effective. The sensation resonated with Bravery, creating that familiar calming effect that let me think clearly even while nearly dying to neon goblin things—Glids or whatever.

  The Brine Tyrant reared back with its massive fiddler claw and swung with a screech that sounded like tearing metal. Erik caught the attack dead-on with his hammer, steel meeting shell in an impact that created a shockwave like someone had detonated a bomb in the street.

  I was thrown clean off my feet, landing hard on jagged rubble that sent a sharp crack through my ribs. The pain was immediate and nauseating, but I forced myself to stagger upright.

  Just in time to watch one of those spear-pointed legs catch Erik in the shoulder. It was only a glancing blow, but it tore through his armor like the metal was made of tinfoil, opening a gash that immediately began bleeding through the gaps in the plate.

  And then I saw the back of the crab.

  Well, partially soft-shell. The rear portion of its carapace looked almost leathery compared to the armored front sections. I guess it made sense—a crab that massive with a fully hardened shell would weigh several tons. Something that size needed to move.

  Was it my idea, or was the Bravery magic? At this point, was there even a difference? I really needed to learn more about how these influences worked, assuming I lived long enough to ask questions.

  Recalculating distance and time, I again looked toward the tower before abandoning any hope of finding help.

  This was my chance to prove I could handle this world, no matter how completely insane it got. I was bleeding profusely from multiple wounds, pretty sure I had at least one broken rib, but sure—why not take on a bus-sized monster crab? This was an adventure, right?

  I sprinted toward the Brine Tyrant's exposed back and launched myself onto it, driving the broken, splintered end of my sledgehammer handle deep into the soft shell. The creature's scream was so loud my ears immediately started ringing, a high-pitched whine that made my skull feel like it was cracking.

  The Tyrant bucked and thrashed, trying to shake me off like an angry bull, but I had just enough of a grip with my makeshift climbing pick to hang on. It would have to fall backward and crush itself to dislodge me, and it clearly wasn't suicidal.

  Blue mist erupted from the wounds I'd made, pouring out like steam from a broken pipe. Within seconds I could barely see anything through the thick, cloying fog. My lungs burned with each breath, and the sweet poppy scent was so concentrated it made my head spin.

  Using the hammer handle like a climbing pick, I worked my way higher up the thrashing creature, stabbing and tearing until I'd created a hole big enough to get both hands inside. I grabbed the edges of the torn shell and flesh and ripped, widening the opening. Runes all across the creature's body began flickering and winking out completely as I broke whatever magical circuit was powering them.

  Reaching into my pocket with one blood-slicked hand, I grabbed everything I had left—three lantern orbs and that blue mana pearl Erik had given me.

  I forced infrared light into all three orbs simultaneously, feeling my palms blister and burn as the glass grew white hot in my hands. Fighting through the searing pain, I dropped them one by one into the gaping hole in the creature's shell, and added the mana pearl for good measure. They sank into its fleshy interior with wet sizzling sounds and immediate popping noises, like bacon hitting a hot pan.

  Smoke and steam billowed out of the wound, and the Tyrant slammed itself against the nearest building in desperation, taking me with it. I felt my collarbone snap with a sound like breaking kindling, and I slid down the stone wall into a sitting position, vision swimming.

  Inside the creature, I could sense the orbs burning with the intensity of miniature suns. The mana pearl was feeding them power, amplifying the reaction, but it wasn't enough for what they were trying to do. They were drawing energy from somewhere else.

  From .

  The sensation was like having my life force siphoned out through a straw. Fast. Too much, too fast. Panic surged through my chest as I realized I wasn't sure how much more I could take. My entire body felt like it was being consumed from the inside out.

  It was like the orbs were ripping through my very essence to get at something deeper, something fundamental. The pain was immense, but my whole body already hurt so badly that this new agony felt almost distant. I watched in delirious fascination as the massive creature panicked and thrashed, steam escaping through every crack and joint in its shell.

  The adrenaline had me completely dissociated from reality. All I could think about was how delicious it smelled, like a giant seafood buffet.

  And then it exploded.

  Chunks of meat, fragments of shell, and thick blue ooze erupted outward in a geyser that defied physics. The sheer volume of gore seemed impossible—like the crab had been some kind of bigger-on-the-inside storage container filled with organic matter. I was instantly drenched in the viscous mess, and it stung every open wound like acid.

  Large pieces of shell spun through the air like shrapnel. One particularly jagged fragment sliced deep into my forearm, and I finally slid all the way to the ground, no longer able to support my own weight.

  Everything went silent except for the thunderous pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

  "This world sucks..." I managed to whisper through blood-slicked lips.

  My vision faded to black.