What Wyatt knew of the future already deviated.

  “Time until breach, four minutes and thirty seconds…”

  An incursion? At the school? Unheard of. Nothing of the sort had ever happened before, but now? Somehow, someway, the ward relay that stopped this type of incident had been sabotaged. Wyatt had a good idea how that came to be. There were Devils hidden within Demer. The question of why it never happened in his first life buzzed in his mind, and two answers came to mind.

  Cameron had possibly stopped it last time. Though that begged the question of what reason would they have to target the school? Wyatt had only been an incomplete vessel for Gabriel then, yet Cameron being set to watch over him at all made him think that was the case. Otherwise, the school hadn’t been worth targeting before and Wyatt, accompanied by the completed Gabriel, possibly drew the Devil’s attention to the school in a way that hadn’t happened before.

  Very little was known about incursions, how their locations were chosen, or what types of monsters came through. But Wyatt’s experience in his first life taught him that those two things weren’t as random as it might initially seem. Devils appeared either in high population areas with little means to resist them and caused as much death and carnage as they could before those who could put a stop to them, like Demiurge, or in places that had high strategic value. Beast type incursions often appeared near woodlands or farms. To most, it seemed random.

  Wyatt knew for a fact it wasn’t. After defeating Wyrin’s native Dungeon Region a hundred times and cleansing the World Tree’s roots she guarded, he had claimed the Region Core. A lot of insight had been gleaned from that. He’d been able to target locations on this side of the dimensional divide to send all kinds of legendary beasts and elves, blessed with the vitality of the World Tree, through incursion. Not that he ever had wielded that power. There was even the option to wage war against other Dungeon Regions all across Riacore or to provide specific, incredibly detailed objectives to the forces of his incursion.

  It was incredibly curious to see, while also being incredibly alarming to learn that incursions weren’t as random chance as people thought. And he doubted that those who delved Riacore seriously didn’t also know, since the Dungeon Region he’d chosen to take was well off the beaten path and legendary-rank.

  Some of the commons only needed you to beat them a few times, not that he’d ever seen a reason to. Slay the forces or dominate them, obliterate the Guardian of the Region with overwhelming might a few times, clear enough of the satellite dungeons, then you have your own Region to yourself.

  All of that to say Wyatt had a good feeling his augmented holy cards would be putting in a lot of work in the near future. Not only that, Devil incursions weren’t anything to scoff at. Demiurge thrived off fighting Devils and were specialized at doing exactly that, but most people weren’t the legends of Demiurge. A lot of people were now incredibly endangered. Whether it was due to Cameron sacrificing himself for Gabriel or Wyatt coming back in time and not immediately leaving the campus, it didn’t matter.

  Demer had been dragged into a longstanding sibling feud, and it was probably Wyatt’s fault.

  All of that flashed through his mind in the few short moments it took for Annabeth to come over to him. She didn’t say anything and did as he did, watching Instructor Monaya issue commands left and right.

  “Get the Ambrosia vault open, now! Everyone, grab an Ambrosia pack, get it filled, and then split into teams of five.” While they moved, she rushed out of the simulation chamber and into the hall, disappearing around the corner.

  Now that she wasn’t watching over all of the students, Wyatt looked around. Chaos churned through the students. He heard snippets of conversation and clenched his teeth.

  “I don’t wanna die, Mick! We can leave the campus and wait for this to clear up, right? Let’s just leave while we can.” The girl looked like one wrong sound would cause her to bolt from the chamber, out the door, and down the mountain.

  “Breathe,” one girl said to another who curled up on the floor, her head between her knees. “We’ll be alright. Demer has strong staff, and we all train for stuff like this. It’s probably just a common incursion anyway.” She didn’t believe her own words, but Wyatt respected her for keeping her calm. Sabyth, if he recalled correctly. “Lyra, you’ve got to get up.”

  As NaviSys blared the countdown at three minutes, the hubbub became too loud as individual conversations blurred together. Instead of worrying about the class, he turned to Annabeth. “So what’ll it be?”

  An uncharacteristic fear flashed through her eyes. She whispered her question, “Did this happen before?” A slight shake of his head caused her to grip her deck holder tightly, like it would be able to shield her from what was to come. “You know what’s coming.”

  It wasn’t a question. “I’m almost certain it’s exactly what you think it is.”

  “Shit.”

  “Apt.” He spoke his thought process aloud for her. “We’ve got our decks, and Demer is well-staffed.” But he knew Devils. If they were targeting Demer directly, it wasn’t a token force like with populated crowds, a hunt for the sake of bloodshed and terror. Then something occurred to him. “Instructor Plight… remembers Cameron, singled me out, but he was around Demer for the entire course last time.”

  She processed the implications at impressive speed. “You think he isn’t one of them? And if he remembers…”

  “He might be an ally. A very powerful one, especially if my guess is right,” Wyatt finished as he looked around at the rest of the class.

  Malcolm, ever-so noble, tried to raise morale and stymy the panicking. He offered organized purpose and hope where NaviSys’ alarms and constant countdown kept trying to steal it away. Together with Luka and some of the other more [fortuitous?] students, a functional system to enact Instructor Monaya’s order came to life. Those in the vault filled the packs and passed them off to the next student, and so on, ferrying filled packs of Ambrosia from the vault to the backs of nervous, waiting students.

  “As I see it, we have two options. We have—” Wyatt paused.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  And Navisys provided, “Time until breach, one minute and fifteen seconds…”

  “—to get to him.” He lifted a questioning brow when she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Not a lot of time to cross the campus.” He thumbed toward Malcolm’s smooth operating Ambrosia supply group. “Or we stick with a bunch of trainees and Instructor Monaya.”

  As he said her name, Instructor Monaya returned, her voice bellowing out. “Quiet, but keep moving!”

  She moved to the center of the room and stopped at a pack, pausing. Her lips trembled for a moment as her body sagged, as if wearied. But it was gone as fast as it had come, and she was all hard steel, hawking eyes, and confidence as she took the pack in hand. With more care than he’d seen her give anything, she shrugged into the pack and tightened the straps, making sure it sat high on her back.

  Wyatt grimaced. In Demer, he couldn’t think of a single person more worthy of the title hardass than Instructor Monaya, but he’d caught that moment of vulnerability and noticed she now carried a deck of her own on her hip. His envy spiked when he saw the reloader, which would recall expended cards after use. Invaluable in a situation where Ichor would flow like water, and cards were not so easy to collect.

  When she spoke again, she was nearly yelling to be heard over NaviSys’ blaring alarms and countdown. “I won’t sugarcoat the reality of what we’re facing. The warding relay has been sabotaged from the inside. We don’t have enough time to prepare for what’s coming.” She paused, letting that insidious message linger. “Demer is a prestigious probationary academy, and we take pride in creating dungeoneers. That being said, we are not prepared for war. This incursion… It’s a rare. We are on supply duty for the main opposition force, so everyone here must prioritize whatever means you have available to you to make sure you stay alive and show up where you need to be. Everyone in Demer is counting on us.”

  Rare incursion, likely Devils. This is a tragedy bound to happen. The gate Demiurge fought against before coming back was Epic… Demer isn’t ready for this. Anything from The Four Elemental Princes to the Nine Layer’s Princes could come through.

  The last minute groaned by, each second longer than the last. And when the ground shook under their feet again, they still hadn’t finished supplying everybody with a pack or finished splitting into teams. Nobody had their assigned locations for where they would supply.

  “Keep moving!” Instructor Monaya shouted. Nobody did. “Now!”

  Once things were progressing again, Wyatt turned his focus toward the door. It was the only entrance into the simulation chamber, which means it was their only way out, too. From within the Applications building, there was no telling where the incursion had appeared, which meant there was no way to know how far attackers would have to travel. It could be seconds, it could be minutes.

  One way or another, they needed to finish and get moving.

  A hand rested on his shoulder, and he turned to see who had approached in his moment of distraction. “Mr. Calloway.”

  “Instructor Monaya,” he said slowly, the weight of her presence focused on him. He suspected why she’d approached. She had sensed his summons, maybe even knew how powerful they were. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  She grimaced as she held out her other hand expectantly, the one on Wyatt’s shoulder gripping even tighter. “We both know the answer to that, Mr. Calloway.”

  Annabeth being Annabeth stepped between Instructor Monaya and Wyatt, her glare scathing. “Absolutely not, instructor,” she said, her voice monotone, yet somehow scathing. She knew about Wyatt’s Double Awakening.

  But Instructor Monaya didn’t.

  “I will, of course, return them after we survive this crisis,” Instructor Monaya responded, her eyes steady and unyielding.

  “You aren’t even sure what they are,” Annabeth continued to argue. “They could be entirely useless to someone like you.”

  Instructor Monaya’s brows rose to the roof. “In what world are two legendary-rank cards not useful? Regardless, Mr. Calloway doesn’t have the Ichor to use such boons, and they could alone be the solution to change the tide of this crisis.”

  But that wasn’t true. “Instructor,” Wyatt sucked on his teeth as he considered his next words carefully, Instructor Monaya’s attention turning from Annabeth to him, “I would happily surrender my cards if what you said is true, but it’s not. I can wield them.”

  “Impossible,” she immediately dismissed. Yet her eyes glittered with hope.

  “It’s true. I… haven’t been forthcoming with my capabilities,” he said, taking a deep breath, and an idea began to form. He gestured toward the bag on her back. “I have reason to believe the incursion is spewing Devils across Demer as we speak.” He reached down and slid his nine cards from the holder, and it flashed red when emptied, handing them to Instructor Monaya to view. “I have nearly three hundred Ichor, and all of my cards are holy affinity. Both my legendaries are summons passed down through generations of an Order I joined not too long ago.” Not entirely true, but a few white lies to not have the instructor forcefully detain him and repossess his cards anyway wouldn’t hurt anybody. “Let me take Annabeth and two bags of Ambrosia, and I will do everything in my power to stop this crisis from becoming a tragedy.”

  Her steely eyes flashed with surprise and began calculating. Each bag held eight vials, and each vial would restore twenty-five Ichor and slowly push the cap of his Ichor Hold higher. More importantly, if he was bearing the cost of the cards, she would be free to move with more freedom and bring more of her own deck to bear.

  “What are their costs?” she asked.

  “A hundred to cast, twenty-five to sustain.” He could tell she instantly considered merging the merge cost and dismissed it as quick. “I have Quick Step for mobility, and Annabeth has a bunch of firepower to keep whatever attention we drag away from me.” Wyatt subtly gestured to the rest of the class. “The rest of them need you, instructor. Trust us with this.”

  She pinched the crook of her nose, clenching her eyes closed with one hand as she slung off the bag. When she opened her eyes again, there was respect there. “Don’t die, Mr. Calloway.” Within a moment, she had another bag of Ambrosia for Annabeth, who slung it over her shoulders. “Now go.”

  “Thank you,” Wyatt said, genuinely appreciating that she hadn’t taken his cards and had trusted them.

  “I should be the one thanking you, Mr. Calloway. What you’re doing, it’s why this academy exists.” With that, she turned away and began to organize resupply teams.

  “Let’s go, before she changes her mind,” Annabeth hissed, grabbing his arm and dragging him toward the door. Halfway there, Wyatt watched as a group of three imps floated in front of the door.

  Their crown of straight horns jutted backward as their gangly red-skinned limbs dangled idly at their sides. They more floated than flew through the air, despite their leathery wings being triple their height in length. Long, triangular tipped ears jutted from their sharp jaws, rivaling the height of their horns. Sharp talons longer than their fingers and toes. An armored tail with an equally lethal stinger at the end of the tail twice its height. Their bodies were made for killing, but these imps weren’t any old imps. Known as career enders, these were Dire Imps. And their infamy came from one thing: incredible destructive prowess in the form of fire magic.

  “Defend!” Wyatt shouted, already casting multiple cards when the imps turned, let out a horrific, ungodly shriek, and thrust their arms in the direction of the largest group of students.

  They smiled, showing their razor sharp teeth as they opened their eyes, flame erupting to cover their entire body. Fireballs the size of men melted everything in their path as they screamed forward.