The world shuddered, and Chelsea Callahan struggled to keep her feet as everything was thrown into upheaval. In the distance, thousands of dead giants carpeted the ground, but as disturbing as that was, she was far more concerned with the battle only a couple of miles away.

As she lowered the binoculars, someone asked, “How long they been goin’ at it?”

She turned to see Leonard’s paler-than-normal face beneath a mop of shaggy red hair. Looking past him, she couldn’t ignore the fearful expressions everyone else wore. They’d come to the Primal Realm with certain expectations, and every single person there had embarked on the quest with some degree of confidence. They were powerful in their own right, each one having spent months grinding and gaining levels so that they might stand a chance of success.

But the battle raging in the distance was far beyond them, and they all – each and every one – knew it.

“Hours,” she answered.

“Did they really kill all these giants at once?” asked another of her people. Rhea, an Explorer. The short, dark-skinned woman gestured at the carpet of dead giants. Each body was discolored, with their flesh having turned mushy. Chelsea had seen them fall. She’d watched as an endless swarm of flies had descended upon them like a Biblical plague, delivering who-knew-what sort of afflictions.

The only solace amidst the horror was that the flies ignored Chelsea and her people. She had no doubts that if they hadn’t, none of them would have survived. Even with a handful of healers, the damage would have been too great.

With her stomach twisting into knots, she wondered what would happen if such a plague fell upon Leicester. Her home played host to nearly fifty thousand people, but many of them were fairly low-level, and with non-combat classes to boot. It wasn’t an exaggeration to assume that such a spell – and that was what had conjured those flies, she was certain – would be capable of killing every last one of them.

And if that army of giants, many of whom had reached or exceeded the point of ascension, had failed to stop it, there was nothing someone like Chelsea could do.

“Yes,” she said. “You all saw it.”

“Which one did it?” asked Leonard. “One of the dogs?”

She shook her head. “I believe we all know who was responsible for that,” she answered. “Elijah Hart. There’s a reason he was at the top of the power rankings.”

They all shifted uncomfortably, but none more so than Eleanor. She and her team were the only ones who’d met the man before the Primal Realm, and that meeting had left her shaken. He hadn’t hurt them. In fact, he’d healed their wounds like they were nothing, and he’d been kind to them while doing so.

But seeing what they now saw – and knowing what they all now knew about the man – the meeting had given the woman nightmares about how badly things could have gone. That it had all turned out well was a matter of luck. If he’d wanted to kill them all, he could have, and without breaking a sweat.

The dogs and the wild man who led them were equally terrifying, though in an entirely different way. Ever since coming to Bogotá, Chelsea had heard stories about Oscar Ramirez and his odd pack – how they often disappeared into the wilds, leaving devastation in their wake.

An explosion of fire and rock broke Chelsea out of her reverie, the sound rippling through her bones and twisting her stomach into knots. A moment later, she saw one of the floating mountains break into a million pieces, which then descended upon the battlefield.

At the same time, a hurricane of wind blades ripped through the air, and with enough force to slice those boulders to even smaller rocks. The rain of earth hit the ground with a localized earthquake, sending a shockwave in every direction. Waves of dirt and rock swept out from the point of impact, dissipating only slightly before passing Chelsea’s and her group’s position.

A few people fell to their hands and knees, but most possessed enough dexterity to keep their feet.

When the dust settled, Chelsea was unsurprised to see that Elijah – in the form of some sort of lizard-plant monstrosity – had weathered the storm and gone on the attack. If she hadn’t seen the man transform, and with her own two eyes, she never would have considered the possibility that that creature was truly him.

He leaped upon the water giant – a creature known as Aqanius, she knew – and a storm of vines exploded from the ground and Elijah’s back. They wrapped around the giant, squeezing him tight and binding him.

A moment later, the creature turned to pure water, spraying in every direction before collecting into the giant form a few dozen feet away. Elijah wasn’t deterred, because he forced the thing to use the same escape ability four more times over the next thirty seconds.

In the meantime, Oscar and his pack of dogs attacked the other giants. However, it was clear that their efforts were only marginally effective. The demon chihuahua – Chelsea had heard stories about that monster – peppered the giants with fireballs while the two rottweiler-mixes took the brunt of the attacks. Two other mutts attacked using hit-and-run tactics while two other animals remained in the back, ethera swirling all around them.

Chelsea had no idea what they were doing, but it was obvious that the dogs could cast spells. A terrifying realization if ever there was one.

None of it seemed effective, though.

Sure, they damaged the giants, but the four possessed more than enough abilities to counter the resultant wounds. Meanwhile, Elijah and the pack were just as clearly exhausted. There were no flashy spells. No big hitting abilities she knew they must have possessed.

They were losing.

The only reason they hadn’t died already was because of their high levels and the fact that the giants were impatient.

“We should let them batter one another, then jump in and kill them all,” said one of her other lieutenants. Maisie. She’d been with Chelsea since the very beginning. Once a nice girl with a bright future, she had developed a hard and pragmatic edge. She’d also grown far too accustomed to death. Desensitization to violence was a real issue among those with combat classes.

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They had become the world’s hammers, and as such, every problem had begun to look like nails to them.

“And if we fail?” asked Chelsea, not looking back at Maisie.

“We won’t.”

“Even worse – what if we succeeded?” she asked, finally looking at the woman. She looked precisely like what she was – a war-worn fighter who’d been through far too much it too short a time. Whatever evidence of the easy life she’d once possessed were gone, and all that was left was stringy muscle and grit. She’d hacked her blonde hair short, and she had eschewed even the most basic of skincare regimens.

She didn’t care about her looks. Not anymore. She lived only for the next fight. The next level-up notification. The next new ability and the next fallen enemy. It was a sad but not uncommon state, and when Chelsea gave it some thought, she couldn’t help but worry about what it meant for humanity’s future.

Not that long ago, young people like Maisie had been obsessed with social media and finishing university so they could get a good job. But now? Those concerns had become relics of the past. Safety wasn’t a guarantee, and constant danger had pushed the world in a wholly new direction.

“You understand who those two are, right?” Chelsea went on. “They are the two most powerful people in the world.” The statement was punctuated by another distant explosion. “Humanity needs them.”

“We don’t,” Maisie insisted. “With the experience we’d gain, we would –”

“There are multiple unconquered Primal Realms out there. We can’t survive if we prey upon one another.”

Eleanor spoke up. “If you attack him, me and my team will stop you,” she announced.

“You’ll try, you mean,” growled Maisie, turning to face the other woman. She bore a grim expression upon her face – one that promised violence. “And you’ll fail. Step back where you belong.”

“Enough,” spat Giancarlo. He wasn’t in charge, but he was big, imposing, and powerful enough to keep people in line. Chelsea had used him like a sergeant to bully the other raiders into maintaining the peace. If they’d all belonged to her guild, the League of Ancients, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But there were multiple other guilds represented, so keeping them in line required a firm hand. Giancarlo was just that. The big man went on, “This is not a democracy. You all agreed to abide by Callahan’s orders. If you regret that choice…then too bad. We’re here. If you can’t follow orders, then we’ll deal with you the same way we deal with every other problem.”

That shut everyone up. Giancarlo was an enforcer, and he was also the second-strongest combatant in the entire group. He might’ve been in the world’s top twenty-five, had the list still existed.

Chelsea glanced up at the still-raging battle, then amended that assessment. If those two were at the top, then others were probably close. Her people – including Giancarlo – were strong. Just not that strong.

Before she could give another order, the giants came together into a tight group. A shield of fire and earth sprang up all around them. Elijah, Oscar, and the dogs battered against it, but to no avail.

“Might not need to make a choice one way or the other,” remarked Leonard. “This looks like a last-ditch defensive effort.”

“You don’t feel it?” asked Eleanor.

She was a Sorcerer by archetype, and as such, her sense for ethera was better than most.

Chelsea asked, “What?”

She needn’t have bothered, because she felt it a second later. A surge of ethera unlike anything she’d ever sensed. Even from miles away, it was blisteringly potent – so much so that she could feel the four forces classified as elemental attunements twisting together into a whole.

“This isn’t a last-ditch defensive ability. It’s an ultimate attack spell!” she hissed. “Quick, gather the pieces!”

As they’d earned the talismans that were intended to shield them from various elemental forces, which in turn would allow them to pass the trials, they’d also learned quite a bit about the Primal Realm. Or rather, the narrative surrounding it.

To the giants, the Elemental Maelstrom was a holy place that represented the last effort for one of their kind to ascend to the level of a titan. That figure’s success had created the storm and locked their method behind the powerfully destructive forces. To learn them was to pave the way for their own ascension.

Yet, that was only part of the story.

The giants were united in their desire for ascension, but that was where their similarities ended. On every other world, and in every other instance of crossed paths, they fought and killed one another. As such, they’d all created weapons meant to combat their most hated rivals.

The giants of the Cinderpeak clan built a weapon to kill the most powerful among the water giants. And the others did the same thing. Bane weapons, all.

Eleanor and her team of Explorers had stolen them.

That was when they’d discovered that, individually, they were very effective counters to specific giants. But when pieced together, those weapons – a pair of daggers, a staff, and a sword – became something related but wholly different.

The Spear of Sundered Elements was a hard counter to what Chelsea suspected was the final boss of the Primal Realm. It wouldn’t kill the thing, but it would weaken it to the point where they might stand a chance of defeating it.

According to some lore they’d found during their exploration of the city, fighting the titan without the Spear of Sundered Elements was, in a word, suicidal.

And yet, Oscar, Elijah, and the pack had managed it. That was evidence of their power.

But it also left Chelsea with a bane weapon against a creature who was already dead. Now, though – given the way everything twisted together, she expected they would get the chance to use it.

Over the next few seconds, Eleanor assembled the weapon. It wasn’t the first time they’d done so, and it wasn’t long before the Spear of Elements was whole. The staff formed the haft, while the sword made the spearhead, with the daggers extending like curved wings just below the blade.

The thing was sized for a giant, which meant that it was nearly four yards long, including the blade. But Chelsea hefted it with easy confidence, setting it on her shoulder like a javelin.

By that point, the ethera in the distance had begun to coalesce into a discernible shape with four arms. It rippled with so much energy that she knew precisely how powerful it would be.

She sprinted forward, her people flanking her.

With her attributes, she could cover a mile in less than sixty seconds, and she used every point to push herself to those limits. As she drew closer, she felt the air thicken with dense ethera. A miniature version of the Elemental Maelstrom had already manifested, and she could feel its power raging against her body. She ignored it, telling herself that the pain wasn’t real.

It was.

But it was easier to push past it when she didn’t acknowledge it.

The healers harnessed their own abilities, casting one heal after another. It was enough to keep everyone on their feet.

Finally, when she was only a hundred yards away, the summoned monster solidified into a thing of terrifying elemental power. Chelsea didn’t hesitate. Cocking her arm back, she used an ability:

The spear left her hand like a rocket, blistering the atmosphere as it cut through the elemental forces raging all around them. It flew, straight and true, until it hit the recently-conjured creature dead in the chest.

For a second, Chelsea didn’t think it had done anything. Her heart jumped into her throat as her stomach tightened. But then, the world exploded.

Fire, water, earth, and air erupted, ripping through the four-armed creature and digging a massive hole in its newly-formed torso. It dissipated into motes of ethera only a moment later, though not without created an enormous explosion that ripped across the landscape.

That was the last thing Chelsea saw before the shockwave hit her, sending her tumbling backward with such velocity that she quickly lost track of her surroundings. But at least she’d done her part.

Now, it was up to Elijah and Oscar to finish the conjurors.