Consciousness was like a fleeting dream before Ozzy, he could only just barely manage to grasp. Only managing to stay present by sheer force of will as his body’s systems began to fail him. His eyes forced themselves closed, his legs gave out beneath him, even his mind started to slow, the thoughts that up until now had come as second nature slowing and all but stopping entirely.

  He could only just barely feel as hands pulled him from the enhancement circle and back down to the deck of the top platform. Outside of the enhancement circle he felt like the very world itself was pressing down on him. Like he had been shoved down into the Marianas Trench back on Earth and it was doing its due diligence to slowly crush him.

  Relief came slowly, pain easing its way to discomfort as someone pressed a vial of something to his lips. He drank, feeling a cool numbness make its way through his body. It allowed him to open his eyes, and he spotted Emil and Liza kneeling beside him, Emil propping him up as Liza administered what Ozzy could now recognize as some sort of potion.

  “Welcome back!” Emil said, smiling down at him and propping him up further so that he could watch the carnage unfold.

  The slight man who had given him some sort of buff was currently in the process of beating the absolute breaks off of the hyrdra, and outside of his anger Ozzy was able to recognize the man as one of the elite hunters.

  Despite appearing to have the upper hand the elite hunter was only one man, and he had to contend with the hydra’s three remaining heads. They snapped, bashed, and shot streams of concentrated gas at him as he flew around dodging. It was close albeit manageable for the hunter, at least until the monster began to regenerate.

  The hydra’s fourth head, rose up out of the water like an avenging angel, striking the elite hunter and sending him flying nearly a hundred yards back tumbling through the air until he managed to regain control.

  Around them the three other elite hunters were busy once again purging the area around the convoy, and slowly the unending tide of monsters petered out, returning to the initial manageable onslaught they’d started with.

  Ozzy was still just about as out of it as you could get, but he’d just gotten a new recovery option. Pushing mana into the ability Ozzy felt himself not transmute, but simply pop into a much smaller, and much more vulnerable feeling form.

  Liza yelped, and Emil nearly tossed him as he landed in his rat form squarely on his friend’s hand. It was strange, in the kind of way walking on stilts or swimming with flippers felt unnatural. Except that feeling was everywhere. His senses felt like they’d been enhanced twofold, and while he wasn’t sure that was normal for every rat he would in no way be complaining about it. Everyone around did look very scary though.

  The most uncomfortable part of the transformation had nothing to do with his new form, but with the way everyone was looking at him. Everyone around him, mostly Emil, Liza, and Norman bent down. Invading what would have counted as his personal space in human form but hardly amounted to more than a few of his current body lengths.

  “He’s kind of cute!” Emil said and raised Ozzy up as he stood to his full height, holding him out for Liza to look at who yelped in surprise.

  “I don’t want to hold him!” Liza said, backing up and pulling her arms tight against herself.

  “No one is going to hold me, put me down!” Ozzy shouted, though his voice came out notably higher and squeakier than he expected.

  “Okay I’ll give it to you that was cute.” Liza said, lowering her hands as she spoke to Emil.

  “Hey! Isn’t there a battle going on or something?” Ozzy shouted at them.

  “Well yeah, but it’s calmed down. It’s not even our turn yet.

  Emil held him up so that he could just make out the third and second segments and he was right, things were progressively getting back to normal. Though from his tone Ozzy wasn’t convinced he’d seen much of that had gone down on the first segment, or even what had happened to Colber. It would have been hard to from the walkways where he and Liza had been.

  As the elite hunters gradually made more and more space around the still advancing swamp train, they were able to move from crowd control to assisting the sole elite hunter fighting the hydra, which once facing multiple equally strengthed opponents quickly began to lose ground.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Together the elite hunters beat the hydra down. Their main asset was a hunter who specialized in brawling combat and he was literally fist fighting the hydra’s different heads, keeping them occupied and allowing his allies the space they needed to cast spell after spell.

  By the time the fourth and final elite hunter arrived to finish off the hydra the battle was already all but won. The hydra was down to a single functioning head, the others having either been burned to the stump, beaten into mangled flesh, or just having been cut off entirely. Everywhere on the hydra was covered in wounds, all save for a singular location just below its necks.

  As it lay dying the hunters departed, leaving the slight man from before to give the beast its final rights. The slight man floated slowly down to the water, just before the still torso of the monster. With a wave of his hand chunks of flesh fell from the monster, and he moved closer to peer inside of it.

  Disappearing completely from view Ozzy watched on in concern as the seconds ticked by before the slight man rose up out of the carcass carrying what looked like nothing more than any other of the chunks of flesh they’d torn from the monster. Rather than heading back to his post he flew towards the train, touching down and dropping what Ozzy could now recognize as a carcass at their feet.

  No one bothered to question him, this was a tier four warrior. A person so high above them he might as well have not been human.

  The man looked around in confusion. “Where is the one who I told you to pull from the enhancement emplacement?” His voice rang out, neither harsh nor reprimanded, but commanding like the voice of a loving prophet.

  Emil stretched his arm out, showing Ozzy in his rat form to the elite hunter. Promptly using a bit of mana to come out of the rat form Ozzy landed gingerly on the platform where the elite hunter raised his eyebrows in slight surprise at him.

  No longer in his rat form Ozzy took a moment to appraise the corpse in front of them, he knew in an instant who it was and had to bite back anger as he glared at the elite hunter.

  “I have brought back your friend.” He said, his voice the same gentle tone from earlier, an oddity considering his position over Colber’s corpse.

  “I can see that.” Ozzy said, not knowing how else in the world to respond to the elite hunter who was apparently Myreluck’s friendlies sociopath.

  “I may yet bring him back.” The man stated simply, his tone not wavering as he watched Ozzy.

  Ozzy gave the hunter a confused look, “Then why haven’t you?”

  The elite hunter gave him a sad look. “Times were that I would have, but these are strange times. A price is levied where a price may be paid, and my master has whispered to me of you.”

  “What does that even mean?” Ozzy asked, frustration entering his voice as he listened to the man speak like a moron over the corpse of his friend.

  “The goddess of light seeks a favor.” He said.

  “What kind of favor.” Ozzy growled.

  The slight man smiled at him, “She seeks to be heard, and understood.”

  “I’ll hear her out just help him!” Ozzy began, only to be interrupted as the man held a silencing hand up.

  “To hear is to act and to understand is to follow.” He continued.

  “I already have a god, I can’t.” Ozzy said.

  “She knows, she has been speaking with The Machinist. He is slow to listen. So, she sent me to the source of her curiosity.” He continued.

  “A favor for a favor.” Ozzy said desperately, as unwilling to abandon Fauga as he was to abandon Colber.

  The man looked up at the sky, a questioning look on his face before he once more turned back to look at Ozzy and back at the swamp. “You’re running out of time to choose.” He said, watching as defenders on the third segment beat back monsters.

  “Two favors, and I’ll hear her out, I won’t follow but I will listen to what she has to say.” Ozzy pleaded.

  Looking back up at the sky for a second time he seemed to converse with someone, several seconds passing before he looked back at Ozzy with a smile. “The Goddess is ever merciful in her ways.” He said and knelt down to lean over Colber.

  Muttering phrases Ozzy couldn’t make out under his breath the elite hunter closed his eyes, clasping his hands together as he began to recite a prayer. He began to sway, moving with the winds of some unfelt breeze and pushing golden lines of power out over Colber.

  The mutterings became chanting, and slowly rose to shouts, the space around the air around the elite hunter burning with brilliant power as he continued his chant. The prayer reaching a crescendo as he released his tightly held hands and pressed them into the still bloody corpse. Pushing his hands deeper and deeper till they sank beneath the broken skin and fractured bones.

  He screamed, shouting a final phrase out to his goddess as the golden power left him and struck Colber like an explosive ray of sunlight. It seared into him, igniting the cold dead flesh but where the flames left pink, living flesh followed. It was a baptism of fire, breathing new life into Colber.

  As the flames left Colber was once again whole, though noticeably leaner. Ozzy could tell however that there was no life in him, Colber was as dead as he had arrived, and when Ozzy was just about ready to turn on the elite hunter. To resummon his rifle and see whether or not this piece of shit who’d forced him to enter into another God’s sphere of influence was tough enough to spit the lead back at him a light descended.

  A pillar of light, no thicker than his finger reached downward, landing precisely between Colber’s eyes before moving to his heart. Then it simply vanished, and Colber drew in a heaving, coughing, wide eyed, breath.

  It was a miracle, and all eyes were on Colber save for two. Ozzy was staring at the slight man who bore a look of satisfaction on his face. Not the kind of satisfaction you see on someone's face after they do something good like donating to charity or helping out at a soup kitchen but the kind you see on someone's face after they pull something off. For the first time the veneer of loving holy man slipped, and Ozzy watched a smirk broke through the mans mask. One aimed directly at him, and Ozzy couldn't help but wonder, had he just been duped?