With one step, Legion appeared beside Sade, answering the summons. He left Silva, the bandaged one, with Zod to devour him—but the creature only stared, unmoving. It preferred its food alive, the screams of fear and pain its true sustenance.

  Sade turned away from the scene, creating a force shield around Miko, who wailed on the ground after the bones had ripped through the back of her legs. She wasn’t going anywhere, but her constant cries grated against his focus. He needed silence to concentrate. What he planned to do to Saeda was so grotesque that he had to laugh to himself.

  Legion’s many voices echoed in eerie unison. “What are you laughing at?”

  Saeda had just smashed away the last pieces of rock binding her feet when she froze. The deep, overlapping voices came from ahead. Her eyes lifted to see both Legion and Sade watching her from a distance.

  Sade’s face hardened. Without a word, he lifted one pale hand. Through sorcery, Saeda’s necklace—the one she thought held a diamond—slipped from her neck, drawn through the air like a telekinetic thread. She reached for it, but it slid past her fingers.

  Legion caught the black gem mid-air. Sade brushed his silver hair aside, eyes narrowing with intrigue as they examined their prize.

  Legion clenched his fist around the stone. Black smoke seeped from his hand, hissing between his fingers.

  “You really are a silent devil, aren’t you?” he murmured.

  The dark energy writhed before he released it, letting the black vapor unravel into the air. The diamond that had been its prison fell from his hand, hollow and colorless.

  Sade raised both hands toward Saeda. Red glowing symbols began to appear beneath her feet, forming a perfect triangle that trapped her where she stood. She had broken free of the rock, but again she could not move. The ritual had begun.

  The dark force that Legion had unleashed streamed toward her, surging into her body through her nostrils, mouth, and ears. Her eyes went black, sclera and all. The red symbols crawled upward from the triangle beneath her feet, spiraling up her legs and across her skin until her entire body was cloaked in glowing sigils.

  Saeda couldn’t see anymore. She felt something crawling beneath her skin, slithering through her veins. Then came the final surge—a shockwave of raw agony that ripped a scream from her throat.

  Kie dragged himself from a trench, barely conscious after the massive ax had thrown him. His eyes were bloodshot, red from the blood trickling down his face. Every inch of him trembled. He was seconds away from slipping into deep sleep when that scream—familiar, agonized—jerked him awake.

  He lifted his head. The fragment glowed bright red, embedded in the titan’s head. The creature’s four arms were gone—only its enormous head and upper body remained. Below it, Lilith stood, her long sword gleaming faintly in the light.

  With a single lash, she unleashed a wind slash so sharp it cut through the titan, breaking its massive body apart. Kie’s heart sank. How were they supposed to win? Her power alone dwarfed them all. His own ability—mere mind-linking—felt pitiful.

  Still, he refused to get outed uselessly. Kie flung two swords that spun through the air like razor discs, aimed straight for Lilith’s head, before charging her with blades in both hands.

  Lilith tilted her head left, then right, the discs slicing harmlessly past. She sensed his approach before he reached her and conjured another sword, a blade of pure darkness, in her free hand.

  The moment he lunged, she turned and met him blade-to-blade. The clash sent a burst of sparks between them. With a single overpowering swing, she sent him flying backward—the fire along her sword scorching a long, searing wound across his chest. Steam hissed off his skin as he rolled and crashed along the ground.

  Once that the rodent was dealt with, she turned back toward the true prize. But Kie, gasping and half-blind, rolled aside just as seven blades rained down where he had fallen. They struck the ground in his place, quivering upright.

  No rest. The air around him thickened with snarls—the ash rising from the broken earth was forming into beasts, Lilith’s summoned hounds. Their glowing eyes surrounded him.

  With his last ounce of strength, Kie summoned two more swords. He refused to give in.

  Lilith didn’t even glance back. He wasn’t worth her time.

  Sade, meanwhile, knew Tee wasn’t dead. He hadn’t crushed her completely. He could still feel her life flickering below.

  Inside the compacted earth, Tee’s panic rose. The darkness pressed on her chest. If she stayed trapped any longer, she’d go mad. She drove her elbows and knees into the dirt, clawing upward until she found air.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  She erupted from the ground covered in dust and blood, gasping for breath. But her first gulp of air was cut short. She had to jerk her arm up to avoid a pair of jaws snapping for her limb.

  It was the bandaged one, the creature Legion had left behind. It lunged for her again, snarling. Furious, Tee slammed her elbow down on its skull, but the beast tackled her sideways to the ground.

  They weren’t getting that fragment. Not after everything.

  Gritting her teeth, Tee summoned the last of her strength. As the creature lunged for her face, she screamed, clenching her fist and throwing a punch.

  Her hand collided with something impossibly hard—then, a burst of black energy exploded from her fist. The bandaged one was hurled backward, ripping a trench through the earth as it flew.

  She froze, gasping at the swirling black smoke still clinging to her hand. “Not again…”

  She shook her hand wildly, trying to rid herself of the dark energy. But when she looked up, her jaw dropped. The bandaged creature lay deep within the furrow, smoking from the blow.

  She hadn’t punched it—she had blasted it. And the aura around her fist wasn’t the blue of Ultramana. It was dark mana.

  Her dark Sadee was taking over.

  Screw teamwork. She was done playing by the book. Keeping her injured hand clenched, Tee stormed toward the fallen creature. It twitched weakly, smoke still pouring from its body.

  She planted her feet on either side of it and began punching—again and again—until the ground shook. Her final strike pierced through its open mouth just as it snapped its jaws shut, trapping her fist inside.

  “Crap! Crap! Crap!”

  White-hot pain shot up her arm. She tugged desperately, blood spraying as the creature refused to release her. Her face went pale, teeth grinding from agony. She struck it again with her free hand, but the acidic blood burned her skin like fire.

  A scream ripped from her throat as her muscles gave out. The skin and sinew in her trapped arm tore away completely, leaving a ragged stump. She collapsed backward, clutching the wound.

  The bandaged one spat the chunk of her arm out and lunged again—but Tee’s reflexes saved her. She kicked upward with her spiked boot, the blow twisting its neck backward and launching it high into the air.

  The relief brought tears to her eyes. She dropped her head back and screamed into the dust, consumed by pain. Desperate for release, she turned onto her side, trying to suffocate herself—to force herself into deep sleep.

  Her eyes drifted toward Sade and Legion in the distance. Saeda was kneeling before them.

  “It has been done,” Legion’s voice echoed.

  A shadow erupted from Saeda’s back. Dark tendrils burst outward, coiling around her body. Tee’s eyes widened in horror.

  “What the—”

  The pain in her own body vanished, replaced by dread. The darkness spreading over Saeda’s skin resembled a Xenogene mutation.

  Was Saeda a covert Xeno-victim too?

  If so… she was turning into a MegaSapian—a creature capable of wiping out entire civilizations.

  “Saeda!” Tee screamed.

  The effort was too much. Her energy collapsed. Her eyes flickered orange, flames dancing within them before her body fell limp—entering a healing state.

  Miko couldn’t hear Tee’s scream—still trapped within Sade’s noise-canceling barrier. Zod lay unconscious.

  Kie, having just finished slaughtering Lilith’s beasts, collapsed to his knees. He could’ve sworn he heard Tee’s voice cry out Saeda’s name. Confused, he lifted his gaze. Through blurred vision, he saw it—the tentacle-like appendages erupting from Saeda’s back, wrapping around her until she was gone.

  Lilith approached calmly, her long sword scraping the ground, the fragment clutched in her other hand. The rock titan was gone—reduced to a swirling vortex of sand.

  She tossed the fragment to Sade, who caught it and continued breaking the Seal Bond. The glowing sand stilled instantly. Riven descended onto her shoulder, and a red vortex opened before her.

  Without a glance toward Sade and Legion’s “creation,” Lilith stepped through the portal and vanished. Sade followed, leaving Legion alone.

  He gazed at his new pet—what used to be Saeda—then looked toward his fallen soulmate, the bandaged one, still smoldering on the ground. He sighed.

  “Poor Silva. All she wanted was something to eat.”

  The bandaged one dissolved into black smoke and drifted into Legion’s back, merging with him. He lifted a hand toward the creature that had been Saeda. Four metal chains shot out from his palm, coiling tightly around her.

  He hunched to fit through the vortex, the chains dragging his captive behind him until both disappeared.

  Kie watched helplessly. Like Tee, he concluded what had happened. Saeda had been a covert Xeno-victim all along, hiding her crest. Her mutation was complete.

  The realization broke him. His eyes flickered blue before he collapsed face-first, entering a healing state.

  With Sade gone, the force shield around Miko shattered. She gasped at the sight of the multi-leveled maze world collapsing, the inverted terrain crumbling above her. None of her teammates were standing.

  The fragment’s interference had faded, allowing the Elders at Primus to see everything. The Guardians had failed. It was time for extraction.

  But two GPS signals vanished before retrieval—one from Tee’s severed arm, and the other from Saeda, taken by the Harbingers.

  When they awoke in the infirmary, there was no debrief. Silence hung over the room. Zod broke it first.

  “Don’t bother telling me where Saeda is,” he said, standing stiffly. “She must’ve already left. I’m going to have to speak to her about her manners.”

  But when he met Miko’s trembling eyes, the smile drained from his face.

  Kie finally spoke, his voice barely steady.

  “Saeda’s not here. The Harbingers took her—” his lips quivered, disbelief shattering his composure, “—right after she mutated into a monster.”