Master Reggie shouted at me, reaching out. His hand froze midair, inches from my arm.

  “Grind!”

  The Wrath stirred, rolling up in mounds, before crashing down ontop of us.

  I ducked, then struck out, blocking a series of sharpened pipes.

  It swung around, sprouting ribbons of rubber and coiling them taut. The elastic snapped, exploding against my blade.

  {Grind}

  [(-1000) 1000 Hp]

  Crapshoveler was a glittering speck in the distance.

  No time to think.

  I rolled to the side, grabbing on a rock for support as I swung around, ducking underneath a rumbling mass of shredded wood. The Wrath rolled over itself, sprouting new legs and arms that rooted into the earth.

  It was moving faster now, pitching up and down as it snapped at me.

  “Reggie?” I asked. “How strong do you think this is?”

  “Strong enough to hold two third area monsters,” Master Reggie stated. “And far more than a copper can handle!”

  The Wrath reared up, sprouting looping metal, like bands of twisted lampposts. It rose higher and higher.

  I clenched my jaw, mentally pushing outward in every direction.

  {NOTICE}

  [Your aura has been successfully weaponized.]

  The Wrath crashed down, splitting apart on impact. I had gained an immense metaphysical weight, equivalent to several tons.

  But there was just so much mass built around the Wrath. Worse, the broken wood pulled itself together, forming back into the front.

  It was creating a shield around itself, hoping to digest my party before I broke through its center.

  “No you don’t,” I hissed.

  An impact rocked the desert, cleaving outward in a cone of dust, up from the Wrath’s center.

  I threw another punch, splintering metal bars, shattering planks of wood larger than most cars. Before it rebuilt, I was striking again with my bare hands, pulverizing the husk.

  Though the Wrath wasn’t taking damage, it certainly felt my impacts, staggering backward as its center of gravity was blown apart.

  It almost seemed surprised.

  I raised my fists, motioning it forward.

  The Wrath hesitated.

  A rumble echoed up from the desert.

  New supports and crossbeams exploded outward in every direction, crackling with intricate bracings and wires. These snapped back into each other, forming a dense web of beaming.

  “This won’t work,” Master Reggie said, hands clasped behind his back. “The Wrath is just going to get angrier and stronger while it beats you to a pulp. It was too strong to start with, and now that it's feeding off two third area monsters this fight has become utterly unwinnable. You know that. I know that.”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “Leaving?”

  The Wrath bubbled up, simmering with heat. That was Sern’s stolen power, no doubt.

  Red hot metal, like forked lightning tore from the husk. They hit the ground, fanning outward in a wave that crashed against my hands, snapping up and around to pierce through my face. I gritted my teeth and wrenched the soft metal into a knot.

  The weaponized aura couldn’t target just one statistic. Meaning, while I was stronger, I was also much heavier. Furthermore, strength seemed less potent than in the first area, a difference that only exaggerated with higher stats.

  I was moving too slow.

  The metal melded around, reverting into thinner strands that flaked off, snapping at my skin.

  So I dropped the weaponized aura.

  “REGGIE!” I shouted, grabbing him and sprinting away. “You had a plan, didn’t you? Before the Wrath ate Sern and Axel?”

  “I-It’s not something you can do anymore,” Reggie said. “You need more power than your opponent—”

  Master Reggie exploded into dust, flattened by a mound of twisting metal.

  The Wrath groaned, scrabbling in the dirt for any experience. When it couldn’t find anything—since that was just a copy—wooden frills exploded outward, catching fire and crumbling apart.

  I ducked around, moving behind the Wrath with my hands at the ready.

  Master Reggie reappeared beside me. “The Wrath doesn’t have a blind spot, you nimrod.”

  Sure enough, what I considered its back split at the seams, shooting out heated wires, nicking my arms and shoulder. One caught me in the face, plowing my forehead into the earth.

  {Grind}

  [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp]

  [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp] [(-500) 1000 Hp]

  [(-500) 1000 Hp]

  It was getting faster. And stronger.

  Pain buzzed in my side, and I could tell my shoulder was dislocated.

  I wiped the blood from my lips.

  Fine.

  Now that the Wrath had expended a lot of energy on an attack, and since I was so weak in comparison to it, the Wrath considered me dead.

  “Grind?” Master Reggie asked. “What’re you doing?”

  My good hand rose higher into the air, palm extended.

  “This Wrath’s got to have a limit, right?” I whispered.

  The sand trembled as my aura weaponized.

  First, there was a glint of gold.

  Then distant dunes tore apart, pushing back as Crapshoveler blasted toward us. He embedded into the husk, crushing metal folds.

  That was only part one.

  I jumped forward, hand still extended. Crapshoveler twisted around within the shell, splitting weaker pipes and chains. Wood exploded apart under the shifting forces. Then I jumped back, flicking my wrist, and Crapshover responded.

  The Wrath groaned, stumbling into the path of my raised knee. Entire hunks of busted furniture ripped from the husk, shattering on the rock. I grabbed a beam and spun mid-air, blowing another layer from its armor.

  And then the whole thing doubled in size.

  “It feeds off its own agitation,” Master Reggie sighed. “And this one is old enough to be extremely dangerous.”

  I looked him in the eyes. “How do I kill it?”

  “You can’t—”

  I watched him.

  He frowned. “Use a command on a living being. A Wrath has some of the weakest willpower in the area. But even that requires you to be roughly the same level of power. But this is two orders of magnitude stronger!”

  “If I want something bad enough, can’t I make it happen?”

  I looked at the broken rock. Little pains of mental energy fire off in my mind as the rock melted in the sunlight, excreting acid gas. These gases liquified, clinging to the Wrath.

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  As long as I completely destroyed the shell, the Wrath wouldn’t—

  It doubled in size once more, sprouting fresh supports.

  “A Wrath is killed through overwhelming mental force. But the key is not to let it get emotional!” Reggie shouted. “Go! Get out of here!”

  All through this battle, my chest had been tightening. Now, it visibly hurt, throbbing under the vow I took.

  “See?” Master Reggie huffed. “You’re just not strong enough to—”

  “If I disobeyed, would this vow eventually kill me?” I asked.

  “Of course!” Master Reggie snapped. His eyes widened.

  I grit my teeth. “That would be pretty bad for you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Are you seriously using my own vow to blackmail me?” He grumbled.

  We watched each other.

  Blood dribbled down my chin.

  He squinted.

  “FINE!” Master Reggie brushed the sand from his suit. “Ugh, I’ve taught you too well.”

  My chest relaxed, and I breathed suddenly easily. “Thank you.”

  “We’re going to have a talk when this is over?” Master Reggie grumbled. “Are those kids seriously still alive?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “Ridiculous.” He chuckled under his breath. “Alright. I’ll buy you some time.”

  The Wrath shifted, slowly approaching the two of us.

  “Go get ‘em!”

  I dove, narrowly avoiding sharpened metal and twisting gears as I rolled sharply to the side, then back, before clenching my fist, driving Crapshoveler, and by extension, the Wrath onto the ground, planted against my feet.

  I kicked upward, obliterating hunks of tubing from the Wrath’s lower components. Crapshoveler fell into my hands, de-summoned safely to my inventory.

  As I rose, my hand brushed against a foot, hanging limp from the ceiling.

  “Sern?” I whispered, glancing up.

  Metal tubing wrapped around the rest of her body, hiding her from view.

  I could do this.

  With my hands pressed against the Wrath, I spoke a single word.

  “Relax.”

  The mental equivalent of a landslide piled over my consciousness. I held it for a moment, before my vision blurred and the landslide crashed through. It grew hotter and hotter, burning into my mind. I pushed back, but the Wrath pushed effortlessly harder, and I screamed between clenched teeth.

  Suddenly I was on the ground, convulsing.

  No. I wasn’t done yet.

  The Wrath dropped, body slamming me through a yard of rock. Bones fractured but I kept conscious.

  Focus.

  {Grind}

  [(-10,000) 1000 Hp]

  In another moment, Master Reggie was beside me.

  My body was suddenly healed.

  “We’re not a half bad team,” he stated, trying to act normal, though even the simple reconstruction of a body had taken a lot of his mental energy. He wouldn’t do much this far from his real self. “How much health you got left?”

  “About a hundred thousand,” I groaned, rubbing my neck and shoulders. In order to heal, my bones and muscles were snapped back to place, which really, really, hurt. But the pain was starting to feel distant. I was slipping a little, though not so bad as to be worried. “Has it lost any Hp?”

  Master Reggie glanced up, into the metal piping. “I…don’t think so.”

  Another moment later, and the piping turned to needle-tipped wires, shooting down by the thousands.

  I rammed my hands on the earth, doing a handstand. But the earth was the sky and the sky was the earth, so I was crawling out of it, dropping to the ground, which was now underground, with a thin pocket of air.

  As I moved, I commanded the rock to be air, like the air before it, creating a tunnel around ourselves.

  “I was close,” I whispered. “At the very least, I know where Sern is. We can get her.”

  Master Reggie nodded. “And I’ll play bait. Quick tip, Wraths can be seen anywhere, in any direction, one place at a time. It has eyes everywhere, but with only one being watching. There’s a limit to how much it can process.” He flashed a grin. “Allow me to demonstrate."

  With that, he vanished.

  I summoned Crapshoveler. One poke on the ceiling and it dissolved.

  “I’ve got to enchant you more often,” I muttered. Maybe once I got stronger. These enchantments were heavy.

  On the surface, thousands of Master Reggies wandered about, waving and chatting with the rather confused Wrath. As it moved to crush them, the Reggies fell apart, burst into piles of neon confetti.

  He wouldn’t keep up for long.

  The Wrath bristled. At the last moment, I was underneath it, fumbling beneath the wood and metal for any signs of life.

  And then there were sheets of glass, from windows and doors and cups and streetlamps. The Wrath exploded outward, shredding everything to dust.

  My hand slipped.

  I looked down. On a black puddle.

  My stomach turned, but I forced myself to look up. The foot was still limp, now covered in a network of black ribbons, dripping down onto the rock.

  I felt something unusual stir within my chest. It wasn’t quite anger, because I didn’t feel hot, or emotional.

  Actually, I felt quite cold. I was losing focus. I was losing emotion.

  I was slipping.

  But for a moment, I could focus on the monster without the least bit of issue.

  The metal flattened in my grip, alerting the Wrath.

  And I was facing it head on.

  Its mental force crashed up against me, billowing over my mind—

  Why was this so easy?

  My hands encompassed the Wrath, exerting pressure, over and over again.

  “Die,” I whispered.

  Wooden blackened around my touch, severing from the body. Metal eroded into piles of glitter.

  This is not a monster.

  This is a pipe, rubber, and rotten wood.

  It is not alive.

  So what am I supposed to fear?

  There was a sudden release of blood as pipes fell limp onto the earth. Axel was in bad shape. He had been using his body as a shield for Sern.

  She fell into my arms. If Sern didn’t get immediate medical attention, she was going to die.

  The Wrath staggered away, shedding and replacing the dead growth. At most, I’d dealt less than a fraction of a percent of its health, but I’d done so in a way that the Wrath couldn’t really defend against.

  “Heal,” I hissed. Sern’s body flushed, and the blood turned to ash. Her dress was shredded, so I fixed that as well, along with giving her a pair of shoes. She looked down at herself, blinking hard.

  Funny.

  I would have expected this to be more difficult. Could I really do anything?

  Was I even doing anything?

  The Wrath was full. “Release.”

  It split in half, spewing out metallic organs and splintered wood. A black mat of white hair dropped down. Sern ran forward, catching him before he struck the hard ground.

  The Wrath shuddered, backing away.

  I could do anything. I was invincible. I was unstoppable.

  I turned to Axel, uttering a command. “Heal.”

  His body was still, for a moment.

  And then a moment longer.

  And another.

  “HEAL.”

  A notification chimed, and I shoved it aside.

  “HEAL!” I screamed.

  The notification tinged deep red, flashing in my face. So I chucked it away, shouting at Axel’s body.

  Desert wind rustled his hair.

  His body turned black. Slowly at first, then faster. Sern started screaming, though no words could come from her throat.

  “HEAL!” I shouted.

  My head throbbed, followed by a torrent of fresh notifications, each so close to my face that I couldn’t help but see them.

  {NOTICE}

  [Party member : AXEL has been killed]

  [AXEL has not met the requirements for respawning. AXEL has been erased]

  {Limited time deal!} [Return to the AXEL’s slaver to receive 20% off on your next purchase!]

  He was totally, utterly gone.

  Fine. I could still salvage this life. But my knees gave out as my headache worsened.

  When I looked up, the Wrath had already attacked.

  Sern died in an instant.

  I cannot change stats with the system. She had virtually no health.

  There was another rule I quickly learned.

  I cannot revive an intelligent being with the system.

  {NOTICE}

  [Party member : Serenity (Sern for short) has been killed]

  [You have failed Quest : Lost and Found]

  [Serenity (Sern for short) has met the requirements for respawning. Return to Serenity’s slaver to try again.]

  I just watched the notification, hovering up and down. Up and down.

  And I slipped.

  When I looked up, there was a gash in the terrain. A canyon, half a mile wide and no less than three miles long, filled with boiling rubber and metal.

  {NOTICE}

  [You have slain {Wrath}]

  [Wrath meets the requirements for Reaper Merchant Hunter of Death.]

  [You have gained [112] new abilities]

  ~

  {NOTICE}

  [You have suffered (4059) instances of [Shock]]

  [Shock must be processed before continuing.]

  [Virtual Deterioration : Extremely Minor]

  I curled up like an infant, unable to bring myself to tears.

  // {Notice} //

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