"If we keep this pace, we'll finish the surface works within a day." Dr. Veyla Arden said, pushing her glasses up with a knuckle and scanning the notes braced against her clipboard.

Even after Sevrak and Caprion's show of power and the stark reminder of how quickly life ends here, discipline drew them back to their duties. They kept the dig on track, intent on bringing it to readiness soon.

"Too bad we don't know when the main equipment will arrive," Isolde murmured, sighing as she looked over the hundreds of Velari still working across the half-dug site.

She was now wearing a one-piece dress like the Velari women wore, having changed out of her jeans and T-shirt; under the fading sun turning gold to gray, her sun-blond hair made her look fully Velari.

Vesha stood beside them, her brighter gold hair catching the last glare, her ice-blue eyes cool and alert.

There was also a middle-aged man with them, wearing the kingdom's ceremonial knight uniform, straight-backed and watchful.

While Vesha kept her silence, the knight spoke with courteous curiosity. "Regarding the equipment you mentioned, should we retrieve it for you?" Isolde hesitated at the polite offer, a pause no longer than a breath. "No need. Our friends should already be on their way with it."

She did not know when or how the equipment would arrive. She only knew they needed an Earthside Practitioner to transfer the crates from that side to Beyond, and that detail could not be shared openly, so her explanation stayed smooth and evasive at the surface.

The knight noticed her slight tension and evasive tone but did not press her. He turned his sharp eyes back to the surroundings, maintaining his duty of security.

Something thinner than breath slid where his gaze had just passed. A shadow loosened itself from the seam of two stones and unfurled across the ground, stretching toward the women with patient intent.

It moved in the manner of a snake disguising itself as a line until it touched Vesha's boots.

A pale hand rose from within that dark ribbon. It was the color of old milk and as quiet as frost. In the next moment, the hand became a wrist, the wrist a forearm, the forearm a sickly face with eyes bright from thrill, and then the body lunged for the kill.

BANG.

The boom echoed across the site as an unexpected strike landed before the figure's lunge finished.

The attacker's head snapped sideways, cartilage folding and bone giving as he flew backward and crashed onto the hardpan, where he lay facedown in a widening grit of dust.

"W-what?" Startled by the sudden sound and movement, the 3 women spun around in fear. They saw a black-clad figure facedown in the dust, limbs slack and unmoving.

Realizing someone had just tried to assassinate them, their gazes shifted to the knight at their side, who stood with a hard expression.

"So they really came, huh?"

As his words faded, the knight's hardened face began to change. The skin grew fairer, and his hair darkened with a few strands of white. His eyes cleared to a light green that caught every movement at the edge of sight.

"Lord Malrik?" Vesha yelped in shock, recognizing the face she had assumed belonged to an ordinary knight.

Malrik glanced from the dead Umbraen to the rock teeth where other shadows pooled. His voice gained more weight. "Go. Find the guards. Let them escort you to a safer place."

Veyla and Isolde froze at the sudden turn, but Vesha moved first and jolted them back to motion. She grabbed an elbow in each hand and pulled. "Hurry, we need to go," she said, steering them toward a nearby horse cart where more of the kingdom's knights stood on guard.

A shadow, surprised that a normal-looking knight was actually a Rank 2 Practitioner who had killed one of them with a single attack, refused to let the mission fail.

"You are not going anywhere." It burst from a fold of darkness and rushed at the women from behind.

"Neither are you." Before the shadow could reach its target, a powerful force slammed into its side and sent it flying.

Malrik glanced at the second corpse sprawled on the ground, dust settling over the black cloth and the slack angles of the limbs.

A faint heat breathed from his right hand, the lingering afterglow of the skill that had ended the Umbraen, as he murmured. "They look weak, but their numbers are a problem."

They were only Rank 1 Practitioners, badly underpowered even by Rank 1 standards, and the reason was obvious.

The Umbraen had already sent every promising Rank 1 to the Legacy Domain, and Adyr left none alive during the selection trials, so the kingdom was fighting with scraps that survived by slipping through cracks rather than by strength.

Even so, when Malrik studied the shadows still pooling and creeping closer along the rock faces, he counted at least 10 more.

Without another thought, he summoned the Frost Wyvern from his Sanctuary.

The blue wyvern dropped into the air with a low, rippling cry; its scales caught the light like chipped ice, vapor curled from its muzzle in thin white threads, and its wings beat once, twice, holding steady as it waited for the order.

"Go. Escort the girls. Do not let the shadows near them."

It answered with a sharp call, dipped, and skimmed away, ice-blue wings stirring sheets of dust as it glided toward the cart where the 3 women were fleeing.

Malrik didn't remain idle either. He cut into the dark himself, intent on thinning their ranks while they were fixed on Vesha and the researchers.

He used another Spark skill as weight seemed to drain from his bones until his

body felt built for air, and heat compacted in both fists, tight and volatile like charges on the edge of ignition.

He took 2 quick steps, leaped, and dropped onto a thickening patch of shadow.

BANG!

His fist met the ground and blew dust and smoke outward in a hard ring as a crack split the baked soil. The impact was clean, but his expression tightened;

he had missed.

He rose and saw the darkness re-form a few paces ahead, hardening into an Umbraen whose mouth bent into a thin, twisted grin. "Malrik Azven. I was not expecting to see you here."

Malrik recognized the face. "Nocthar, so you finally reached Rank 2 as well, huh?"

Hearing the word as mockery rather than praise, Nocthar's features pinched for a beat, since he was from the same generation as Malrik yet had taken longer to reach Rank 2, which was an insult in itself.

Soon his pale lips returned to a thin smile once again, and a long spear slid into

his hand, the haft dark and the point steady. "We came to kidnap 3 women, but

it seems we will also kill a Practitioner of Velari."

As his words thinned, 2 more figures pulled themselves out of the shadow behind him with weapons ready.

At the sight of them, Malrik's frown deepened, like he'd bitten into something sour.

"Fuck," he breathed, the curse slipping out as he realized there were now 3 Rank 2 Practitioners standing before him.

A/N: Yo. Only three hours left in the month and we're just 100 tickets short of the Top 10 in the Golden Ticket rankings. Maybe, just maybe... a miracle?