Jace wouldn’t have long. Where usually it took minutes to compress his Aes into foundation pillars, he only had seconds. The scavenger-Wielder was approaching, and he’d finish Jace off.

  That’s it, Jace though. No more options. All three pillars at once?

  He’d never finish it in time otherwise. Pressure made diamonds, but it’d also make foundation pillars if he had anything to say about it.

  He locked onto the feeling, the exertion he’d applied when he had formed his perfect-grade pillar. There was no time to prepare, like he had before, or clear his mind, but now, all he could do was flush all the excess thoughts out.

  Besides, what was there to think about? He was gone from his home, and no more of his stresses and worries from there could bother him. It was only this new world, but he didn’t know enough about it to fill his mind with deep thoughts.

  There was only keeping himself and his friends alive and safe.

  He exhaled, concentrated his will, then condensed three individual packets of extracted Aes down to the size of a marble each. There was only room in his core ring for one more pillar, as it was. Five was natural. Five was common.

  But he was going to do better than five.

  As he compressed the Aes down, drawing on the pure will to protect, he pushed the two extra pillars into the ring, expanding it ever so slightly. They popped into place, glueing together.

  But the harder he pushed, the more they cracked. Filaments of darkness crept in front the edges, and the pillars quivered. A shard of darkness speared across the half-formed spheres, blasting through all three. Was…was he going to end up with three…what, common-grade pillars?

  The thought made his heart beat faster. And how could he explain that? He’d pushed himself, thinking he could get seven pillars—the hubris. But it’d resulted in him stunting his ability to use powerful cards?

  No. He wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t hubris if he could back it up.

  Nothing less than mythic. Nothing less than mythic.

  Still, the cores were painfully indifferent to his renewed surge of will. It just wasn’t good enough.

  He was a hunter, not a tank. But he was acting like he had to protect them, and it made enough sense with his build. High Resistance, high Vital. His heart told him otherwise. His class had been possible with the help of a soul-inclination. But he was aiming for the job of a tank? To soak up damage and resist hits while his friends did all the work?

  No. He’d protect them by hunting down their enemies, by destroying them before they could destroy his friends.

  With one last renewed surge, he poured willpower through the last of the pillars, smoothing over the cracks and mending them, like he was packing a mound of clay together. He’d just poured water on dry mud, and the cracks filled in.

  Three perfectly smooth pillars joined the ring, then solidified and strengthened, becoming part of him. A wave of force rolled off his flesh, and a shockwave emanated from his core as the pillars became a permanent part of his body.

  Jace opened his eyes. The shockwave made the scavenger Wielder stagger back. He opened his mouth.

  Such an advancement didn’t really do Jace much good without any extra cards to socket, but if he understood correctly, advancements meant his Aes was of a higher quality—higher purity.

  That meant his cards should work slightly better. Better yet, the Expulsion was off-cooldown.

  The scavenger-Wielder manifested another technique card above the palm of his hand, but before he could activate it, Jace ripped a nail out of the wall and used the Wanderer’s Expulsion one last time, reset and empowered by the passive buff his reset had granted him.

  The nail flashed through the air, skewering the card and moving faster than Jace’s eyes could track, then pierced through a regular [Level 10 Scavenger] and stabbed into the wall of the supply store—embedded three feet into the concrete wall. The Wielder’s technique card was mangled, and it hadn’t gone off.

  The Wielder glanced back at the trail of carnage the nail had left, then back at Jace, his mouth gaping.

  “Yeah,” Jace said. “You wanna rethink this?”

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  He had no time to check his status, but he had not be around level thirty, and those pillars looked the exact same in his mental perception as the previous mythic-grade pillar.

  But in truth, it was a bluff. He had no more technique cards ready, and still about a minute until the hyperdash came off cooldown. His siphon card was all but ruined, not that it would’ve done much in a fight anyway.

  The Wielder scoffed. “You’ll pay for this, boy. What sect do you belong to? Some inner core sect?”

  “Yeah? So you’re okay with pissing them off?”

  “How’d you even get through the torpedo net?”

  “I’ll tell you if you win?”

  The Wielder snarled and threw a set of punches, his scrap-gauntleted hands slicing through the air fast enough to create currents of wind, even when Jace backed away and dodged. A fist collided with the building on the side of the alleyway, taking a chunk out from its corner and sending a scatter of concrete and pebbles out onto the main walkway.

  Civilians scattered, keeping their heads down while picking up their pace and running to the edges of the street, or crossing other walkways and running inside buildings. They were eerily silent.

  Only other scavengers turned to look on, confused expressions on their faces. From Jace’s brief glimpse, he didn’t identify any other Wielders, but he didn’t exactly have time to survey the crowd perfectly.

  Jace jumped out onto the main street, landing on the walkway, and the Wielder followed a moment later. He held up his hand and said, “This one’s mine! Advancement or not, boy, you’re dead. Stay where you are, no more teleporting around, no more popping up wherever you please! Fight me!”

  His scrap fortification technique sputtered out, and the metal chips and filings tumbled to the ground, but immediately, before Jace could even feel a surge of hope, he activated a second copy of the card. The scrap immediately leapt up and swirled around his fist once more.

  Jace dodged one more punch, then slashed at the other with his Whistling Blade. It was hot plasma, it should have cut through, but it was also Aes. It pushed up against the light gray metal-aspect Aes of the scavenger’s fortification technique, the veins beneath the metal, and ate through at a much slower rate.

  He really needed to enhance the sword.

  But not now. He just needed to hit the scavenger somewhere where he wasn’t fortifying his body.

  Trying to duck down and cut the Wielder across the stomach, he took an uppercut straight to the chest. A rib cracked, and his entire upper body screamed out in blazing pain, but had it not been for his Vital enhancements, he’d be dead.

  Still, he hadn’t widened his stance or concentrated his Resistance, and he flew off his feet, skidding along the walkway. He coughed, half expecting blood, but none came. At least, not yet.

  He couldn’t even land another hit on this scavenger, let alone kill him.

  Hit what he isn’t protecting. A hunter didn’t always approach prey straight on, and certainly didn’t just charge in.

  He shut his eyes and concentrated on his pillars. The four pillars hosting his cards were usually just spheres of light, but now, they were translucent. A technique card hovered in all three of them.

  It had to be the new spiritual senses afforded by the Soul-Circle Opening phase. He’d need to improve his ability to see and sense, but it was a first step.

  He observed the cards as they sat in their storage pillars. The runes of the Expulsion and the Cleanse were both glowing hot. They were still on cooldown after extensive use. The Extract Aes card had melted completely, and its runes and wires were severed. He’d have to get them out later, but it’d done its job.

  The hyperdash, however, had cooled down. No hot runes, no glowing wires, just a plastic sheet with metal lines. It was ready to use again.

  He widened his stance, then triggered the card. This time, he aimed above the Wielder’s head. The man would be ready to turn around as soon as he recognized Jace triggering a technique card, but he didn’t know Jace could choose whatever direction he wanted. If he just thought it was a teleportation technique, and if Jace had only used it from a point on the ground to another point on the ground…

  A hunter had to catch his prey by surprise.

  Jace launched himself in a line upward, passing through the air and emerging a foot above the Wielder’s head. With all his strength, he drove the Whistling Blade downward as fast as he could, with as much strength as he could muster.

  The tip pierced through the man’s skull, slipping in a few inches, before Jace’s weight and momentum dragged them both to the ground. He rammed the blade in farther, to make sure the scavenger was done for, then ripped it out and ducked down behind a set of wooden crates to hide from the inevitable barrage of plasmafire.

  Five shots thudded into the crate, searing through one side of the box and sending charred wood chips flying. They collided with the contents and let out a burst of steam. Something started hissing, like a kettle, and Jace’s eyes widened. He dove and rolled back into the alleyway, toward the scavengers.

  The crate exploded, high-pressure cannisters of something bursting into a column of flame behind him.

  The closest scavengers charged him with their whirring, vibrating bayonets, while the groups behind them pulled their bolts back and readied another volley.

  Jace didn’t have much time. With a sweeping strike, he cut two bayonets off, then slashed back the other direction and dispatched two scavengers. The third charged him, aiming for his wounded shoulder, and though he turned to face the man, he wouldn’t be fast enough. Wincing, he braced for impact.

  A plasma blast seared through the scavenger’s head, and the man crumpled at Jace’s feet.

  He turned in the direction of the blast.

  Lessa stood farther down the alley, tucked into an alcove. A few scavengers lay dead around her. Jace had drawn enough of them off, and she’d dealt with the rest.

  Then in turn, leant him a hand. He nodded at her, and she nodded back, before tossing aside her rifle, picking up another one, and firing it at the nearest scavenger. He collapsed as he turned toward her.

  Jace sprinted forward, and before the last scavenger could fire, he impaled the man through the chest, then jumped over to the alley wall and pressed his back against it.

  More scavengers approached from the main walkways, drawing weapons. Jace glanced at Lessa. “No sense fighting them all. We’ve gotta run.”