“Shit!” Dawn cursed, suddenly forced to, once again, focus on navigating both of her bodies to survive two separate dangers.

  Dawn tail-smacked another glass maid, causing its side to shatter even as Dusk and Minn below continued to frantically fall over their feet trying to get away from the Elite.

  As the hectic warzone upstairs progressed, the remaining hunters – credit to their tenacity – had become more and more organized, eventually falling into a complex formation capable of fighting off the hordes.

  After what felt like forever of fighting for her life – and her party members’ lives – Dawn finally began to think that maybe they could make it out alive, after all.

  At the same time, she noticed something odd. In the whirlwind of bodies and skills being thrown around, she’d had no time to contemplate the oddities, but now that the mega formation had given her more leeway to think, she couldn’t take her mind off of it.

  These monsters didn’t make sense.

  Even ignoring the sheer number of them, they felt off. Different from the sludge and the maid duo they’d had to fight before. Broken or perhaps incomplete.

  This glass maid had a salt leg; that Brine sludge was bigger but way more sluggish than the one they’d fought; those identical-looking Shattered Sirens each kept using the same attack over and over instead of using their entire repertoire.

  As if someone tried to create these monsters, but made mistakes while doing it. Or rather, since the shepherd was supposedly dead, these monsters seemed to be churned out without a rhyme of reason.

  Leejay landed next to her, gasping for breath. The others weren’t doing much better.

  “We–haah–need to get out of here!”

  Dawn found it hard to disagree. They’d never been supposed to fight in the big leagues, just take care of the straddlers. It was a pure miracle they hadn’t gotten squished by one of the big monsters yet.

  “Not without Minn!” Tepp snapped at her leader.

  “How are these two doing anyway?”

  “...Running from an Elite,” Dawn replied in a clipped tone.

  Wide eyes snapped to her.

  “What?!”

  “They’re fighting an Elite?!”

  “Running. They can defend. Can’t fight back much.”

  Tepp clenched her staff as she fired another firebolt at an approaching sludge.

  “We are going down there to help them!”

  Leejay hesitated. Oulo grimaced.

  “We’ll just die together with them!” the kobold argued. “We should get out while we can!”

  “Fuck that, you prick!” Tepp bit out.

  “He’s right, Tepp! This is suicide! Come on, Dawn! Don’t tell me you’re planning on throwing your life away too!” Leejay looked at Dawn, pleading with his eyes.

  “I…”

  “The way is open! Get out while you can!” a hunter shouted in the distance.

  Dawn’s eyes flicked to the side and sure enough, the others had managed to carve out a path to the Gate. If they left now, they might be able to survive.

  “I… I can’t.”

  After all, they’d promised to themselves that they wouldn’t try to find out what would happen if one of the bodies died.

  Dawn turned away from the Gate. Her eyes met Tepp’s and they both nodded before going deeper into the rift rather than toward safety.

  “Dammit, you stupid girls!” Oulo swore, but rather than forcing them to turn around, he ran in front of them to continue his job as the vanguard.

  Leejay hesitated for one more moment before following the others with a grimace as well.

  “We’ll have to find a way down though. That won’t be easy,” Dawn said as she let loose another [Tricky Trail].

  “Then we’ll search the whole rift if we have to! Let’s go!”

  As soon as they left the immediate area where they’d holed up since being spat out by the slime, essences popped out of the monsters they had defeated and flew to them.

  Dawn grabbed them and instinctively glanced at them. Despite still focusing most of her attention on having her other body avoid death, she couldn’t help but pause.

  All three of the cards glowed– no, flickered with a dark blue or purple color, matching their rarity. But more importantly, the content of the cards themselves flickered as well.

  One moment, a card claimed to be ◆Membrane◆ with the art of–

  It shifted to ◆Brine◆, the picture showing–

  ◆Osmosis◆, it–

  ◆Viscosity◆, ◆Corrosion◆, ◆Brine◆ again–

  The other two cards similarly flickered and shifted between different essences.

  “What in the world is wrong with these cards?!” Dawn blurted out, baffled by what she was seeing.

  “Corrupted?!”

  No. Corrupted cards looked different. Or was this another kind of corruption? Perhaps this was completely normal for rifts that had their shepherd killed off – not that a situation like that could in any way be called normal.

  “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go!” Tepp insisted.

  Nobody argued, even if the guys in the party clearly wanted to.

  “The exit is that way, kids!” a hunter called to them, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Someone fell! We’re saving them!” Tepp replied without even glancing in his direction.

  For whatever reason, that seemed to enrage him.

  “Screw that! They’re dead! Just get out of here!”

  “Fuck you!”

  Dawn tensed, seeing the hunter glare in their direction, thinking they would have to fight him as well.

  Luckily, another hunter put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. The man scoffed and spat in their direction.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Your funeral,” he shouted before turning and sprinting toward the exit with his comrades.

  Tepp gnashed her teeth at his attitude, but Dawn ignored it, too focused on both bodies.

  “Dawn! How are they doing?” the wolfkin demanded.

  “They are hiding now.” She paused. “It’s not attacking when they’re out of line of sight.”

  Tepp narrowed her eyes.

  “Good. They just have to stay where they are until we can–“

  “There! This is one of the staircases!” Leejay interrupted.

  Dawn’s attention snapped to where he pointed and sure enough, under that mound of salt, she could see a way down. But could they even fit through with all that debris?

  “Okay. I think I can help clean it up,” Oulo declared as he moved closer. “Step aside. Let me–”

  Crash.

  Dawn’s gaze snapped up and she froze.

  Despite all the other hunters doing a good job at cleaning up the broken rift – even the small tears in space seemed to be gone somehow – that didn’t stop more monsters from spawning. And just like how the limit on the number of Elites seemed to be gone, the same seemed to apply to–

  Two giant knights in murky glass armor, wielding a sword and a shield each, entered the scene. Their helmet grew spiky at the top, resembling a crown; and they even had a glittering glassy cape that somehow flailed in the wind despite its material makeup.

  “It’s the Boss! Two of them!” Slime Queen’s multiplied voice echoed, panic audible despite the fragmentation of it. “Run!”

  The slimes converged and fused together, slowly building into the familiar colossus. A man jumped on top of the slimy abomination and fired his longbow. A bright creature of purple light emerged from it, speeding toward the Bosses with its scythe-like arms drawn back, ready to slash them open.

  A flash of purple tore through the ruined fortress, blinding Dawn for a brief second. After it subsided, a chill went down Dawn’s spine when she saw that the two Bosses hadn’t even used their shields to tank the S-class hunter’s attack. Not a scratch on them.

  One of the Bosses then raised its sword–

  Tepp hastily drew a card and tossed it at the ground between them and the Boss. The card exploded into a jagged barrier of rocks vaguely shaped like a surprised face.

  A beat passed.

  Then it shattered into pieces.

  Everything else around them followed suit.

  * * *

  They held their breath, hoping it wouldn’t notice them behind the murky glass panes.

  The Crystalline Warden strode through the hallway, its glass shovel scraping against the floor, boots scrunching on the salt.

  Minn had been doubtful, but seeing the irregularities of the monsters above, Dusk knew this copy of an Elite would have its quirks as well. After all, unlike the Crystalline Warden he’d heard about, this one didn’t cotinuously spread its glassy corruption everywhere, only when it attacked. And on top of that, it had only attacked when the two of them had entered its line of sight. So the logical step had been to hide.

  But figuring this little quirk out didn’t mean they could relax – much the opposite. The moment the monster spotted them again, it would continue its mad pursuit, and Dusk wasn’t sure whether they could find a spot to hide again.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  The footsteps got closer. Neither the geckin nor the wolfkin dared to move, much less take a peek at their foe.

  Dusk wished he had his sister’s camouflage skill instead of an invisible shawl. If only–

  He sucked in a breath as the aforementioned sister suddenly lost consciousness in the wake of the Boss’s attack. Color drained from his face. Minn’s wide eyes flicked to him in alarm.

  An instant later, a distant crash swept through the corridor, making them both tense up.

  Minn’s panicked expression begged for an explanation, but Dusk couldn’t risk his voice attracting the copied Elite.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  It was getting closer. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the rest of the party and their potential fate.

  Every muscle in his body tensed and he forced himself to focus on not letting this body get killed.

  Dawn was unconscious, not dead yet.

  There was a pause as the copied Elite stopped by the spot where they’d left the glowing harmonica to serve as a distraction. Irrationally, Dusk’s gut clenched at the thought of the monster deciding to destroy the harmonica, even if it saved their lives.

  He pushed that feeling aside on account of… more important issues.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  Minn let out a shaky breath as the Warden passed them, leaving the harmonica untouched, and strode off into a side hallway.

  The two still waited several minutes until daring to even stick out their heads. When they did, the hallway was empty.

  They let out a shaky sigh of relief. Dusk then paused, feeling strange and quickly figured out why.

  He had only sighed with one body.

  “What’s wrong?” Minn asked, seeing him panicked again despite just dodging certain death.

  “They got hit by the Boss’s attack.”

  Minn’s eyes went wide.

  “Dawn is unconscious. No idea about the rest.”

  The wolfkin stared at him for one long moment, before dropping her gaze to the salt-filled glass floor.

  “N-No… Y-You’re lying. They can’t be…”

  “I said I don’t know. They could still be alive. It’s going to be fine,” Dusk declared, trying to convince both Minn and himself.

  “...Okay.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  To be fair, he didn’t believe it either. But they had to keep going. They couldn’t lose hope.

  They’d been through worse.

  With fists clenched, Dusk made his way over to his glowing harmonica, crouched down, and gingerly picked it up with his hand wrapped with his shawl again. Its light had gotten noticably weaker, same as the heat it gave off. They might have to inscribe another essence into it… assuming the old thing could withstand it.

  “What do we do? We don’t even know which way to go,” Minn murmured, looking out into the darkness.

  Dusk pursed his lips, mind churning.

  It was a strange thing to be one again. Even stranger, though, it felt like while Dawn was out for the count, his thoughts moved at twice the pace. Not faster, but in two directions at once.

  “We could upgrade our decks. Do you have any essences to work with?”

  Minn looked at him like he’d gone crazy. After all, the pamphlet clearly said not to craft anything inside rifts.

  “What? No! That’s illegal!”

  “Better arrested than dead.”

  Minn paused.

  “And we’ve already done it before. In the other rift.”

  “...Right. Sorry. Stupid to worry about this.”

  “So?”

  “Um… I don’t have much on me. We sold most of the ones from last time. And I didn’t get any on this expedition.”

  Dusk pursed his lips and took stock of his own essences.

  He blinked.

  He didn’t have any of those messed up essences Dawn had gotten.

  Why hadn’t [Soul Split] duplicated them? Was it because they were messed up? Or because they were too far apart? Either way, that sucked.

  Well, not like crafting with these things seemed like a good idea, but still.

  Anyway, what else did he have?

  “◆Snipe◆, ◆Corrosion◆, ◆Stomp◆, ◆Command◆…”

  The lifeless eyes of the coilborn they had failed to save flashed in his mind as he glanced over the last one.

  He swallowed, telling himself that the coilborn would have been glad if their essence helped him survive this.

  Dusk mentally shook his head, getting back on track. He did have one more active slot, so he could make something. But none of these seemed useful for getting out of an underground dungeon alive.

  “◆Command◆, ◆Stomp◆, and, ◆Stone◆, maybe?”

  In a regular underground dungeon, the result of that might have been useful, but in one made out of salt and glass? Dusk wasn’t as sure.

  He glanced at Minn to gauge her opinion. He froze as he spotted something past her. The parody of the Crystalline Warden just strode back into the hallway from a side passage.

  Without a word, he grabbed Minn’s arm, tossed the harmonica back to the ground, and hurried back to their hiding spot.

  “Wha–”

  “Shh!”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the chilling crunching of salt under boots returned.

  Dusk gritted his teeth and, without letting himself hesitate any longer, combined the three cards.

  ◆Command◆ as the base, ◆Stomp◆ and ◆Stone◆ to modify it.

  The headache hit immediately and even jumped to Dawn, jostling her into half-consciousness.

  Even through the delirium, Dusk could hear the fake Elite’s stomping getting faster and closer to them.

  Without even contemplating what his new skill did, he used it.

  Dusk stomped.

  The ground moved, heeding his command.