The cavern echoed with the sounds of combat. Grunts of rage and the clang of metal reverberated from the walls, matching the flickering shadows. Those shadows cast by the lantern were distracting to the normal vision of his right eye, where the monsters they faced seemed to blend with their own shadows.

However, a bolt of black mana was easy to track with his Heavenly Eye, and he was ready for it. He flicked out his hand to place a barrier between Sam and the caster before exploding forward to close the distance. Mid-dash, he swapped his wand for his sword and flew toward the Crescent Warlock.

He had only covered half the distance when he spotted the bolt in his peripheral vision. Horror gripped him as he watched it pass straight through his barrier spell as if it weren’t there.

Digging his feet into the ground, he stopped abruptly, turned back to his healer, and pushed off with all his available Strength. Even as he did so, he could tell that he wasn’t going to make it there in time.

“Sam!”

The younger man turned his head just before the sickly black bolt slammed into his chest. Sam’s face contorted into pain and fear as he clutched at his chest and dropped his staff. Wood clattered on stone, and somehow the sound was louder in Alex’s ears than the surrounding combat. An inky skull of magic appeared over Sam’s head and looked to be laughing as Sam turned to run in panic.

Before Alex had covered half the distance, a bloom of verdant green light exploded from Sam. Flecks of nature attuned mana from his skill settled like leaves on the wind before a second burst came, and a bulb appeared over his head. As the bulb bloomed, it covered and shattered the skull imagery.

Sam turned with calm and clear eyes. He scanned his current position before using his movement skill to reclaim his staff. When Alex landed next to him, the healer raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“I— but you…” Alex stuttered before letting out an explosive breath of relief. “My bad. Great use of your new skill.” He shook his head at his foolishness before turning back to the Night’s Apostle with a wicked grin. For the first time since entering the Rift, he felt himself push aside his concern for his friends.

The final shape of a plan formed in his mind as Alex fell into his normal rhythm. He created space from the caster and threw bolts at it while dropping his leather-bound notebook into his left hand from the bracer.

Val, I’m going to make a ritual over his head. Use your new [Mana Breath] through it when I distract him.

A loud screech could be heard over the cries of the other creature, and Alex quickly formed a spell circle to throw a bolt of lightning. His mana was getting low, and he knew he’d have just enough to create and power the ritual. Lightning lashed forward and struck the creature again, causing it to tense and shake momentarily.

In that window, he formed a ritual circle over the beast’s head and dropped his wand into the ring, while removing a small pouch of ash and flint.

The ritual formed, and he found it easy compared to all the spell circle work he’d been doing lately. He altered the base component for the ritual on the fly, adjusting the three triangles that directed energy outward. Instead, he used a square base within the circle to contain the energy, as he did with the gust ritual that altered mana bolts that passed through it.

He dismissed the window and threw the pouch. Weighed down with a mana stone as it was, the pouch sailed through the air easily. His bond reacted, swooping down from his elevated position in the cavern to stop just over the circle and open his mouth wide.

Gouts of flame washed down over the caster’s head and illuminated the room in a glow that was altogether different from the lantern light. Alex’s eyes widened as he watched the acolyte become consumed by the fire and begin screaming.

Alex saw all of his friends staring wide-eyed next to their recent kill while the spiders hunched and skittered back, creating distance from the heat of the roiling flames.

Even as Valtherion stopped breathing fire down onto the creature of the Night, the flames continued to burn. His team wandered over, keeping their distance from the dying caster more out of fear of the fire than its flailing staff.

“Holy crap,” Mark said. “What in the world did you feed the little guy?”

Val returned to the group, absolutely preening at his accomplishment.

They retreated to the nearby tunnel with the mana spinners, wanting to avoid the stench and boiling, tar-like substance that emanated from the creature’s body. One of the spiders was limping badly on a leg that was bent sideways, and Sam knelt by it to take a look.

“Way to go, Val,” Sarah said through gasps.

“They must be weak to fire. That was an even bigger reaction than I expected.”

“That makes sense. The opposite of something called ‘the Night’ has to be fire or light, right?”

“It’s the sun!” he said to himself while retrieving the notebook from his bracer again. He flipped rapidly to the more recent pages and looked at his drawings from the cavern near the spinner queen. It showed the two forces clashing against one another on a long battlefield. “The Night’s counter is the Sun.”

“Does that mean the Night can help us fight the sun elves?” Mark asked while watching Sam heal the spiders of minor injuries.

Alex sucked in a breath. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it does. We need to catch up to Olivia and see what she’s learned, but this might be worth taking to the Hunters and letting them know if they don’t already.”

Once Sam checked on everyone, Alex returned to the cavern and searched both creatures for Mana Stones. Even though the work was gruesome, made all the worse by the foul stench of burning flesh and sticky black ichor, he came away with another D rank Mana Stone for his collection.

His companion chirped happily around his head, completely oblivious to the horror of the entire scene, and when Alex’s arm came out covered in black goo and holding a magical stone, he was incessant. “That is mine. That is mine. That is mine.” He repeated the phrase multiple times while trying to nuzzle the small purple stone from Alex’s hand.

Laughing, he pushed the creature away while putting the stone into his ring before removing one of the other stones from his bracer. “Here, you little glutton. I’ll look at the other stone later. Don’t want it to be contaminated or something.”

Chomping happily on the stone, the group made their way back to the spinner colony at a reduced pace. Both spinners bowed deeply to Alex and Valtherion before splitting off from their group after reaching the colony. Once they were returned to their cavern, the group flopped on the ground and took a bit to relax and debrief.

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Alex had insisted that they wait until they got back to talk about the fight, instead pushing everyone to train and stay alert as they traveled.

“I got a level!” Mark said, clearly having struggled to keep it in over the last two hours.

“Me too,” Sarah said. “Plus, I finally got the passive I was trying to get!”

This got everyone’s attention, and she shared the skill window with the group.

If Alex had a drink in his mouth, he’d have spit it out. “What the hell? That’s so strong. Even just passively reducing the cooldown for movement skills is amazing, but being able to have your crowd-control breaking skill come off of cooldown faster than others? That’s insane.”

Everyone congratulated her, and Alex handed over a fresh notebook and pen. “Start taking notes on everything you can remember. Think about the mana pattern you used in your body, what your thoughts were, and what you were trying to direct the System to give you. The intent is important.”

She nodded and accepted the book from him.

“If the entire team can get that passive, I’d feel even better about you guys being in fights above your level.”

Sam playfully punched his shoulder. “Come on, have a little faith. You don’t always need to come rushing over.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Fair enough. I was really impressed with your reaction time. You guys all handled that fight really well. That monster was well above Mark and Sarah’s level, and it was good to see you didn’t need me at all.”

“Well, we did have some help from the spinners,” Mark said sheepishly.

“Still. Great job, guys.” The mood lightened, and they talked about what they could improve on from the fight. Afterward, they split from the circle and dove back into their training. Alex decided to let them all skip the physical training for the day, focusing instead on their skills.

He smiled at them as they dispersed and created another mirage. It began practicing mana shaping exercises once again while he began to study the sun elf ritual with focus for the first time.

Over the next three days, the rhythm of training became routine. They had morning training drills that turned into afternoon hunts with the spinners. When they returned in the evenings, Mark led them through recovery drills, and they ate a quick meal. Sarah’s aim with the bow improved drastically, Mark’s movements and positioning grew sharper, and Sam’s control over his healing and decision making improved by leaps and bounds.

Alex watched them with a certain amount of pride and unease. Their growth had been fast, and they were all adapting extremely well. But that was part of his concern…

On the fourth day, the pattern finally broke when he decided to voice his fears. “Look,” he said while rubbing his temples from a minor case of mana fatigue, “I’m only worried because Eura specifically made a big deal about me waiting for around a year before going into D rank. So even by that advice, I advanced too fast. You guys are moving through E rank even faster. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I understand, and I know you had a lot of faith in Eura, but you said Maelis encouraged us to advance, right? He’s seen more than one integration, right? I feel like that gives him a better understanding of advancing than Eura,” Mark countered.

Alex rubbed his forehead, causing the hat on his head to slide back. “Yes, I get that. It makes sense, too. That if we were in a world that already had the System, things should be spaced out and paced, but since we’re in the integration, it has to go fast, or else you won’t survive. I— I just don’t want either of you to ruin your future potential by rushing things. Eura stressed the ‘foundation’ a lot.”

They’d gone back and forth on this topic more than once in the last two days, and Alex was frustrated and felt like there wasn’t really another option. “I don’t know why I didn’t take this into account before bringing you guys here. I knew you’d advance fast, but you’re only a level or two away from D Rank now, and that makes me nervous.”

“I don’t even see a way for us to stop at this point,” Sarah said, raising her hands. “Just killing monsters with you will push us to the next few levels. We’ve only been in the Rift for two weeks now. Do you want us to avoid fighting anything or helping you for the next couple of months?”

A scenario flashed through his mind of the two of them staying behind in the Hunter camp and practicing for the rest of the Rift rotation.

Mark spoke up. “Don’t even think about it. Look, waiting doesn’t make sense. I totally agree with Maelis. We need to push ourselves more now than ever. The message from the Overseer said that limiters have been lifted, and the Rift spawn rate is increased. If Maelis says there’s a need for rapid progression in an integration, then that’s gotta doubly apply for our situation!”

The debate was interrupted as a mana spinner entered the cave and quickly approached their group. It extended a mana tendril.

As soon as they connected, a bolt of excitement ran through him, and he instantly perked up. “They found Olivia’s trail. A fresh battle? He wants to show us where it is. I think he’s saying they still haven’t found her, but they’re close.”

“That’s great news!” Sarah said.

“It is,” Alex said. His mind flashed rapidly through their options, and he asked the spinner a few more questions before making his decision. “All right, let’s pack up and prepare to join them on their next trip out.”

The group agreed with him, eager to catch up with Olivia.

This moved rapidly, and less than an hour later, two mana spinners led the team through the tunnels and toward the last sighting of Olivia. The closer that they got to the surface, the more Alex had to still his nerves and resist the urge to run ahead.

As he looked at his friends, all using skills and increased stats to keep up with the spinners, he couldn’t help but think of the last time he left the colony. It had been a desperate flight to escape the Firstborn’s wrath, and the fights on the surface had been a constant trapping and tricking of his targets. He needed to be careful and smart to only pick the fights he was sure he could win.

In contrast, this time, they were heading to the surface, intending to push further into the Night’s territory and were prepared to fight the monsters head-on to rescue a friend in need.

It lifted a weight from his shoulders to see his friends’ growth.

When they reached the surface, the tunnel emerged from beneath a dead and fallen tree. The air was warm and thick. Not at all what he’d expected when thinking of returning to the surface. The group fanned out and took up positions as they exited the tunnel and surveyed the surroundings.

The spinners expressed a duty to follow through on their promise to find Olivia, so they emerged from the tunnels and spread out with the team. One spinner took the lead while the other moved to the far rear, allowing Alex and his friends to take up their normal formation and follow behind the first.

They covered ground quickly, and the spinners seemed to have a sixth sense for when to change direction to avoid roaming monsters. In the light of day, he took in the surroundings again, noting how the once gray trees carried streaks of black and how they still appeared as pillars of space devoid of mana to his left eye.

Most of the terrain was a dried-up swamp with hardly any underbrush. Though what plants were seen were a mix of brown, green, and black. The petals of some plants seemed to drip with ooze, like they were weeping tears of black blood.

The most noticeable change was the silence of the forest. Even though it had been a place of nightmares before, there had always been a mix of wildlife surviving despite the harsh environment. Now, only the creatures of the Night remained.

Thanks to the spinner’s guidance, they avoided combat on their way to the site. His anticipation had been steadily building, but when they reached the actual area of the battle, his heart sank.

“Woah,” Mark muttered.

They stood atop a small rise overlooking a copse of trees. Their trunks and the surrounding area were covered in black ichor. It reminded Alex of painters flinging buckets of paint across a blank canvas.

There were several dead bodies spread around the area, two leaning against trees, with another that seemed to be torn in half.

“What the hell…” Alex murmured as he walked down the hill. He came to his senses and called out to the team. “Spread out and stay alert.”

The team moved, and as Alex walked into the middle of where the fight had been, he felt his stomach twist into a knot. Dried red blood stood out from the rest, dark but noticeably different.

He crouched and stared at the blood for a long moment before standing again and urgently rechecking every one of the bodies. Even after double-checking the clearing, there was no sign of Olivia or Nox besides the large amount of red blood.

The team reconnected and the spiders ranged the surrounding area silently.

“Those are some nasty-looking creatures.” Mark pointed to a scorpion-like beast with its tail torn off and thrown several feet away.

“I’m more worried about the blood,” Sam said as his eyes flicked to Alex.

He clenched his jaw. “She’s made it this far. I’ve got to assume she’s still holding her own. But we do need to catch up to her quickly. I can’t imagine she’s doing well if she or Nox has an injury that bad.” Looking again at the blood, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, we’ll have to keep moving.”

“No need to apologize,” Sarah said, touching his shoulder. “We understand. We’re in this together.”

There was a round of nods and agreement before they fell in beside him, reconnected with the spinners, and took off at a faster pace than before. His chest tightened with every step away from the trees. It was a chilling realization that he could follow Olivia’s trail without the mana spinners’ help at this point.

There was a clear line of spattered blood on the ground that showed exactly where she’d gone.