Luke studied the spellweave anchoring the barrier, but his threads couldn’t reach through. The spell was woven on the other side. Hannah’s shadows probed and slithered as well, even reaching around, but the barrier was a perfect circle.

  Below, goblins clashed in brutal chaos. They weren’t skilled. Every attack left them wide open, with no defense at all, and it turned the battlefield into a meat grinder. Luke’s attention snapped upward when a fresh shaft of light speared down from the sky, striking the body of the Integrated Hiroki had felled earlier, Zaoyu.

  Luke pointed, shouting, “He’s getting up again!”

  Hiroki cursed under his breath and lurched away, ready to resume the fight.

  “That bastard keeps resurrecting them,” Hannah growled. “Maybe you should help Curtis with that warrior healer person.”

  “What about her?” Luke asked, nodding toward the mage, who studied them from behind her barrier.

  “Leave her to me,” Hannah said. Her grin was sharp and wicked.

  “Be careful,” Luke warned. Then he dropped off the parapet into the carnage below.

  Pain jolted through his legs and back when he landed, but it was dulled by the strength and agility he kept forgetting he possessed. A fall like that would have crippled him once. Now it was little more than a sting. He sprinted toward Curtis, who was locked in combat at the center of the encampment, smashing through walls and sending roofs tumbling.

  Movement cut across the battlefield. The Integrated female he’d knocked from the wall, Zelaui. She stormed through the crowd of goblins, murder in her eyes. Luke summoned his staff, bracing for round three.

  She didn’t come straight on this time. One heartbeat, she was charging, the next she vanished between steps, reappearing at his side. A fist hammered his neck, white-hot pain exploding through his skull as his spine snapped. Luke stumbled, blinded, healing himself on instinct, swinging his staff in desperate arcs. His sight cleared just in time to take a knee to the ribs. Pain flared hot and sickening in his liver. He doubled over, vomit spilling from his mouth, and then another knee came for his face.

  Weavestep saved him again. He blinked aside, gasping, clamping threads around his own nerve bundles like a crude quack. Not precise. Dangerous. His whole body went numb, but his neck realigned with a flash of agony, despite having dulled the pain. The pain from his liver was manageable, but he healed that too, and reset his stance, staff ready.

  “Melaren,” she sneered, her expression dripping with contempt. He didn’t understand her language, but the derision was clear enough.

  Luke spat blood onto the grass. Around them, goblins fought and died, but none dared enter the space around the Integrated.

  The time she’d wasted talking gave him a chance to mend. He released his pain-numbing, restoring full command of his body. Zelaui swayed like a predator about to pounce, afterimages forming as claw-like weapons appeared on her hands, five hooked blades on each hand, like sharp extensions to her fingers.

  Luke’s gut churned. He was no fighter, but he’d killed enough to know hesitation would only get him buried. To act as prey was to invite death. Another blow like that to his neck and he'd be a goner. With all other options gone, this time, he’d be the predator.

  Sprinting forward, he hurled the staff rather than swinging. She flinched, forced to slice the wooden weapon apart. In the brief glimmer of distraction, Luke slammed into her with his shoulder. It was like ramming a boulder. He rebounded, but used the momentum to sidestep left, whipping threads around her arm. Yanking himself clear of her claws, Luke struck into her armpit with Needle of Life and cut mana channels and nerves in one strike, then pushed off, attempting to roll behind her.

  The attack should have crippled her. Instead, she spun with terrifying speed, her limp arm slamming into him like a club. Claws ripped through his chest, gouging deep grooves across his flesh. Luke screamed. He couldn’t stop. This was his only chance, and he rammed Needle of Life straight through Zelaui's skull. Her eyes rolled back, and she crumpled to the ground. Weaver’s Eye showed life still flickering, heart pumping, lungs filling with air. Zelaui's health bar read zero. Still, she lived. Snarling, Luke pierced her heart, shredded her lungs, and severed her spine. Still, she clung to existence. Blood gushed across the ground, but her body refused to die.

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  Collapsing to his knees, panting, Luke's vision swam. Forced to heal his own ravaged chest and spend mana he couldn't spare, he drank a mana potion to get back to around half his maximum. Then that healing light fell again. A beam from the heavens struck Zelaui's unmoving, ravaged body, and her health bar refilled, and her body began knitting itself back together.

  “Do something, Curtis!” Luke shouted. "Stop his healing!"

  The courtyard drowned in night. One heartbeat, it was daylight. Next, it was darker than the deepest cavern. Curtis vanished, but the healer-warrior Zaoyu kept chanting, arms raised. All around the encampment, Goblins screamed in terror. Several dropped their weapons and raised their hands into the air, mimicking the Integrated warrior like they thought he was attempting to appease some god of death.

  An unseen blow caved in the plate armor covering Zaoyu's back. The warrior healer toppled forward, and the spell fizzled, concentration broken. Still invisible, Curtis struck again and again. Armor dents appeared with each blow, streaks of shadow burning the steel-like material black.

  Luke forced himself upright, then pried the claw-weapons from his foe’s limp hands. If she rose again, he wouldn’t face her armed. His own chest was a ruin of scars, hastily closed, but survival mattered more than looking pretty later. Above, thrusts of force thudded against the dome of night, coming from up on the parapet. Zimeio, the mage, had to be her. Cracks formed in the darkness. Light shone through from outside. Soon, the darkness buckled like a shell about to split, before cracking like an egg, shattering the darkness.

  With the barrier gone, a shaft of healing light reached down and touched Zelaui. She stirred. Luke glanced around, found what he needed, and sprinted toward a cluster of goblins fighting nearby. A brief scuffle later, he returned, an axe in his hands, and raised it high.

  Weapon type axe not compatible with class: Lifeweaver.

  "Dammit!"

  Instead, he used Needle of Life to slice into her neck again and again, stabbing and cutting until the head came free. Panting and more than a little disgusted, both with himself and with what he'd done, Luke put the head into his inventory. At least this Integrated from another system wouldn't get back up to fight again.

  The warrior-healer bellowed and shrugged off Curtis’s frantic attacks, ignoring the many dents in his armor. Light streamed out from within the armor. Rather than press Curtis, the gargantuan fighter bore down on Luke with a roar that tasted of heartbreak and fury through the featureless helm. From the reaction, perhaps Zelaui, the Navigator, whose head now rested in Luke's inventory, was more than just a friend. Goblins scattered at Zaoyu's charge. Some were still trampled beneath his feet, crying out in pain as they were crushed. The sight of that huge Integrated bearing down made Luke’s knees go weak, but he didn’t have time to hesitate. Instead, he jumped and grabbed the edge of the parapet floor, heaving himself up. Once up, he ran along the wall. From that vantage, he saw how his friends were doing. Not well.

  Hannah lay on the floor, her skin rippling with shadows, a near-translucent barrier around her. She didn’t move, and her eyes were closed. She wasn't getting enough air. The Integrated warrior’s battle cry grew closer. Rather than give up the chase when Luke ran, he'd kept coming and now slammed into the wall, tearing through it between Luke and Hannah. Wood and splinters exploded in all directions, peppering Luke as he jumped the now-formed gap. It made him land wrong. Pain shot up his leg as he rolled, but he ignored it and sprang up to rip the mage's spellweave to pieces. The barrier around Hannah shattered. She was free.

  Luke was about to step forward and punch the mage when something wrapped around his leg. Shadows. They coiled around the limb and hauled him sideways. Before he could cry out, he was thrown through the air, tossed by his own party member, who by all accounts still looked unconscious. While she'd gotten to her feet, her body hung limp, head bowed, like a puppet, and it was hard to tell how much she perceived. The shadows fought for her, pressing the mage back, slamming at barriers until they cracked.

  The fall off the parapet ended with Luke landing on a goblin. It cushioned his fall, but the monster didn't survive, and he didn't bother checking the color of its armband. Instead, he pushed to his feet just in time to see the Integrated warrior, Zaoyu, charging back in through the open gate, weapon raised.

  “Curtis!” he shouted.

  “On it,” Curtis replied, running. Now, even his footprints left splotches of darkness. They looked like spilled, writhing crude oil. Even his sword was different at that point, having lost its long, straight shape, and it turned into concentrated darkness, reaching in all directions. The Reaver was getting serious now.