When Caiyeri had advanced to gold rank only hours earlier, she had reveled in the experience of it. It had been long enough since either of them had achieved a rank-up that they had both almost forgotten what it felt like to reach such a milestone.

  It was like being reborn. Will had never tried any drugs, but he imagined this must have been something like what they felt like. A deep sense of crystal clarity and surging euphoria infused his senses, his aura stretching out with a fresh strength that seemed to make the air itself shake.

  [Power] advanced from Silver 5 to Gold 2.

  [Speed] advanced from Silver 10 to Gold 4.

  [Affinity] advanced from Gold 7 to Gold 10.

  [Soul] advanced from Silver 10 to Gold 4.

  [Resistance] advanced from Silver 10 to Gold 4.

  [Perception] advanced from Silver 10 to Gold 2.

  All silver-rank skills have increased to gold.

  Impurities purged. Soul adjusted.

  If Will had been an unstoppable reaper before, he was a force of nature now. Throughout the city, he sensed soldiers who had just sensed one of their leaders die stop short, consider fighting, and bear witness to a hunger phantasm that spread an aura that had already seemed gold-rank before and now simply appeared monstrous.

  Skill: [Hunger Aura]

  - Aura (sigil).

  - Cost: none.

  - Cooldown: none.

  Gold

  Your aura changes, gaining elements of Kadael, the Hunger.

  [Insatiable] - Enemies within the aura passively lose stamina and mana. You and your allies restore stamina and mana proportional to the amount drained. This amount can be increased with application of mana. Excess stamina and mana is discarded.

  [Devouring Embrace] (silver) - Enemies within the aura also passively lose health. You and your allies within the aura gain health proportional to the amount drained. Excess health is discarded.

  [Truth of the Flesh] (gold) - Enemies within the aura also passively lose soul protections. While an enemy is within range of your aura, you may attempt to attack their soul.

  Before his rank up, the cruel god’s aura had already been one of Will’s strongest weapons. The hunger it was infused with had been as effective a suppressant as the draining effects of the skill. Now, though, that hunger roiled with a dark malice that made the lower-rank soldiers question if striking back was really worth their lives.

  A pained groan brought him back into reality, though nothing short of death would come close to bringing him down from this high.

  Right. Though Will had saved Nynn’s life by absorbing and redirecting the incredible amount of corruption the former Dread Executor’s plausibility violation had infected him with, Nynn had still taken a great deal of both soul and body damage in the moments he’d been corrupted.

  Will did not have a true healing ability. Throughout his time in this apocalypse, he and most of his allies had relied on evasion, self-healing skills, and health potions to keep them going. All of those had their downsides, all of which were now visible and unfortunately relevant. Nynn couldn’t evade an effect he’d taken on himself. His self-healing abilities, like Will’s, relied on doing damage. Health potions had cooldowns, and even the finest health potion they had wasn’t strong enough to repair him in one go.

  On the other hand, Will had just unlocked an entire arsenal of new tools.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to be thoroughly pissed if you die now.”

  Over the course of the past few months, Will had gone throughout the world putting down threats and clearing out dungeons. At silver rank, only the superdungeons had been any threat to him. Will doubted that any dungeon could kill him now, but that was a different story. The point was that he had obtained a great deal of mediocre treasure that he’d slapped into a bunch of containers before inventorying them.

  He popped out a supply crate almost as tall as he was. Instead of opening it regularly, he wasted no time in slashing out with his slayer sword, targeting the most prominent line of death on the box. It collapsed from that one cut, pouring out health potions by the dozens.

  Individually, each one would do little to heal Nynn. Will wasn’t going to feed them to him, though. Instead, he activated Destructive Synthesis.

  Skill: [Destructive Synthesis]

  - Spell (consumption).

  - Cost: variable.

  - Cooldown: none.

  Gold

  Activate this skill to consume an item. Consuming an item grants mana restoration proportional to the power of the item.

  Consuming an item grants a temporary skill reflecting and magnifying the item’s use for a variable time depending on the item’s rarity and power.

  [Effect Transference] (silver) - You can also shift the temporary skill to another item. All skills transferred, whether to an item or yourself, will be upgraded one rank to a maximum of the rank this skill is at.

  [Limit Break] (gold) - Cooldowns and other limitations from consumed items no longer apply. All randomized damage or healing from a consumed item is now maximized.

  Thanks to his rank-up, Will’s mana had already been full, but the other benefits came into play as he consumed every single health potion in the crate.

  You have gained the [Heal] skill at bronze rank for [1 minute] with [1] charge.

  You have gained the [Heal] skill at gold rank for [1 minute] with [3] charges.

  You have gained the [Heal] skill at silver rank for [1 minute] with [1] charge.

  Every single consumed potion came with an accompanying message.

  “This looks like game chat after the jungler ints,” Will muttered, pouring his accumulated Heal spells into Nynn.

  The obsidian-skinned User gasped as Will patched up what he could. It wasn’t going to be a full heal—soul damage wasn’t something that a healing potion or the Heal skill it granted would be able to easily repair—but within moments, he was far from the precipice of death that he’d been at.

  “We’re going to have to talk about this,” Will warned. “How are you?”

  “Alive, thanks to you,” Nynn said. “Congratulations on ranking up.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare try that again,” Will said. “I prefer it when my friends don’t die. Especially if them dying means the possibility of losing the Beyond in this solar system.”

  “I had not thought about that,” Nynn admitted. “It was imperative that you survive. Even without it, I am sure you would manage.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Will said. “We’re going to have to fight whoever those dickheads were, right?”

  “Almost certainly,” Nynn said. “We should contact the others.”

  “Good point.”

  Will: Hey y’all. Xie-ren captured. Fan Laozi down. Nynn almost got himself killed.

  Nynn: That last part is irrelevant. Everyone almost gets themselves killed in half the fights they take. More importantly, there are more enemies coming.

  Nathan: I don’t suppose they had anything to do with that blast just now.

  Will: Oh, it’s definitely them.

  Liam: Well, shit. This has been fun, but if they can do that, I’m pretty sure this fight’s above my paygrade.

  Hua: It might be beyond mine as well. I think I’ll sit this one out, unless you need me.

  Will: That makes things easier. I don’t want us all grouped up in one spot for them to take us all out, especially when I’m pretty sure they’re aiming for me.

  Hua: Take care. Haoyu told me to make sure you stayed alive half an hour before that demon got him. Don’t disappoint him.

  Will: I won’t. The same goes for you. We need as many good people as we can get.

  Yui: Wisteria is going to take them out. She can’t fast-travel the way I can, but she can raise speeds enough to be well out of range by the time anyone gets here.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Will: Can you take Nynn as well?

  Nynn: I can still fight.

  Will glared at Nynn. “Look at yourself. There’s no way you’ve got any gas in the tank.”

  Nynn held out a hand, and a small, dark token manifested in it.

  Will recognized it immediately. He had one that looked exactly the same in his inventory still. It hadn’t awakened since the trial of the champion, though to be fair there hadn’t been a reason for it to be active since then. It had triggered when Ataraxis and his corruption cult had seen fit to interfere.

  An Executor Token.

  “I swore an oath,” Nynn said, letting the item disappear back into his inventory.

  “To who?” Will asked. “Last I checked, the whole point of Dread Executors is that you’re not bound to the system organization.”

  “Myself.” Nynn got to his feet, aura blazing. Though it was noticeably weaker than it had been earlier today, it still burned strong. “This is my fight as much as it is yours. This isn’t your choice to make.”

  “I’m staying,” Nathan said as the otherworlder landed back atop the now-ruined meeting room atop the titan’s hand. “This isn’t going to be very pretty.”

  Yui: By my count, that makes Caiyeri, Nynn, Nathan, myself, and Will.

  Will: And Jessie. Don’t leave Jessie out.

  Yui: And the gestalt. Yes.

  Caiyeri: Will, I just checked the party tab. I feel like you missed out on something pretty significant when you were explaining the situation.

  Will: Oh, yeah. Right. I hit gold.

  Yui: Ah.

  Caiyeri: Hahahahaha okay never mind. I was worried for nothing. Whoever’s coming is FUCKED.

  #

  Will detected the three gold-rankers long after they spotted him out. At least, he assumed that was the case based on the information he got from that brief glimpse. They had destroyed Sen’s eyes almost as quickly as Will had seen through them, but during that time, Will caught sight of multiple lines of death moving from them to him, likely indicating skills.

  That moment, however, had been enough to activate one skill.

  You have marked [Iridium, Speaker of the Soul] for death.

  You have marked [Osmium, Speaker of the Flesh] for death.

  You have marked [Rhodium, Speaker of the Mind] for death.

  Skill: [Mark for Death]

  - Spell (affliction).

  - Cost: moderate mana.

  - Cooldown: 1 hour.

  Gold

  Target any creature you can see or sense and mark them for death. During the next hour, the effectiveness of attacks and afflictions against the creature are increased, and you can track the creature through your minimap and through walls. This skill’s cooldown resets if the targeted creature dies.

  When using this skill, you can target any number of creatures that you can see. You must kill all of them to trigger this skill’s cooldown automatic reset.

  [Soul Link] (bronze) - A fraction of all damage dealt to the marked creature is converted to healing for you.

  [Inevitable Fate] (gold) - You see the skills of a marked creature as well as its weaknesses. Marked creatures have a disadvantage against resisting your skills. You have an advantage against resisting the skills of a marked creature.

  Even a cursory examination flooded him with information. These three were all Gold 10, and their classes seemed to be specialized. Although they were humanoid, they looked more like praying mantises had learned to follow a human’s way of living. Their skin was more chitin than flesh, and their antennae seemed to be the source of their auras.

  Will: Looks like we’re getting some cross-pollination from the other planet a bit early. I’m sharing their location and skills with you now. Does everyone see it?

  Caiyeri: Yep. Glad to see that the big attack isn’t going to be coming out again anytime soon.

  A wave of acknowledgments met him.

  With the understanding that their attackers were likely to have wide-range area of effect skills, they’d split up as a party. Each of them had sufficient movement to make it to someone else if they needed help—albeit at a delay

  Nynn: Prioritize the Speaker of the Mind. I recognize the class and some of those skills. They’re difficult to activate, but if someone gets caught out alone, there is the possibility of a permanent personality change.

  Will: So you’re saying the asshole’s got mind control. Name checks out.

  Nathan: Didn’t that one old sci-fi author have a book series with a title like this? Heinlein or whatever?

  Will: Orson Scott Card, Speaker of the Dead, and now is not the time, Nathan. Save it for when you need to annoy someone to death.

  Caiyeri: Never thought I’d live to see the day where Will’s the voice of reason. What’s the plan?

  Will: These are all high-level gold-rankers. I’m sure they can fight up a rank. How long do you think you can hold two of them off?

  Nynn: I faced a similar set of elite heritage class Users when we were all diamond. They’re tricky and powerful, but with our skillset, we should be able to buy at least a few minutes. At full power, I could probably take one on alone.

  Caiyeri: Knowing their skills helps a lot. I figure I can take one out, but it’s hard to call. Keeping them on their toes? That, I can do for a while.

  Nathan: This isn’t my first rodeo either. There were a bunch of elites on Selethnir too.

  Will: Fantastic. Let me explain this real quick.

  At the edge of the range of Sen’s eyes, Will sensed Lu Jie emerge from a portal sans his sister.

  Will: Lu Jie. Are you alright? Where is Xie-ren?

  Lu Jie: Safe. I returned because I sensed a great deal of magic that was neither yours nor Fan Laozi’s. I presumed it was your fault.

  Will: I’d say that’s unfair, but it’s true.

  Lu Jie: I owe you a life twice over. Should you need my assistance, I am willing to fight alongside you, young master.

  Will paused, then sent a message back to his party chat.

  Will: This is going to be easier than I thought.

  #

  Will and the opposing aliens knew each other’s location. They didn’t make a show out of pretending to be stealthy, at least. The three Hive came to a gliding stop about a mile above the city. From the Marked for Death infodump, Will knew that their flight was a buff that Iridium, Speaker of the Soul, had applied to all three of them. He briefly considered changing his first target, but Nynn’s words stuck in his mind.

  Anyone with the potential to brainwash one of their own was the first priority. Each of Will’s remaining squad were far too dangerous to risk them changing sides.

  Rhodium, Speaker of the Mind, cast an illusion skill that projected enlarged versions of their bodies out in the sky. When he spoke, his voice radiated down towards land. Thanks to the translation built into the system, Will and everyone else with him heard the words in their native tongues. The accent was strange—it was as if the voice was made up of a thousand buzzing bees instead of vocal chords.

  “Citizens of Sol-3,” the voice boomed. “We have no quarrel-dispute with your people. Execute or surrender corruption wielder and demon user William Li-Brown and we will depart peacefully.”

  “Hey,” Will shouted upwards. “Sorry if this is racist, but is there a way to tell you apart other than the aura? I have no idea which one is talking when.”

  A pause.

  “Corruption wielder. Come peacefully, and—“

  Will leapt forward.

  Skill: [Wind Walker]

  - Spell (stealth, movement).

  - Cost: very low mana.

  - Cooldown: none.

  Gold.

  Draw upon the power of the winds to lighten your step and increase your speed.

  [Zephyr’s Cloak] (bronze) - While this skill is active, you gain a slight blur effect, making you harder to see and target while moving.

  [Galeforce Dash] (silver) - While you are not touching the ground, you can spend mana to send yourself flying forward with wind-aided dashes. This also imbues you with storm power, increasing the amount of damage you deal to foes afflicted by [Charged].

  [Tempest Force] (gold) - You can chain dashes in the same direction to sharply increase your speed and form a miniature storm around you. Passing an enemy while in this state inflicts it with a level of [Charged].

  Will still couldn’t properly fly, not the way he’d been told a diamond-ranker could. So far, he’d been making up for that by falling great distances before turning the momentum into a glide. That had served him well, but with the new addition to Wind Walker, he could now truly move.

  He didn’t travel straight up, of course. Presenting himself as an obvious, predictable target to three gold-rankers that he couldn’t immediately teleport to thanks to their judicious elimination of any part of the Thousand Eyes that got close to them? Flying a mile up with a skill that, though empowered, was not meant for true flight? That would be suicide.

  Still, he could get himself up to a very respectable speed, and he could still let gravity do a chunk of the work.

  Lu Jie did the rest.

  The last time Will had gone through one of the Chinese leaderboarder’s portals, it had been been during a failed assassination. They’d come a long way.

  This time, he emerged just over a mile above the ground, rocketing towards the trio of gold-rankers. Darkness exploded from his body as he passed them by.

  You have inflicted three level of gold-rank [Charged].

  Iridium sparked with power, dark energy of his own emerging and dispersing the hunger phantasm closest to the three of them.

  “Did your homework, huh?” Will said, redirecting his momentum with another air-dash. “Unlucky for you, though. Assignment’s out of date.”

  He snapped his fingers, and lightning struck from a clear sky.

  Critical hit!

  Critical hit!

  Critical hit!

  Skill: [Thunder Wraith’s Grasp]

  - Spell (augmentation, evocation).

  - Cost: low mana.

  - Cooldown: none.

  Gold

  Channels ghostly lightning into your fists or melee weapon, grasping an enemy to deliver successively greater amounts of lightning and necrotic damage.

  Inflicts stacking levels of [Charged].

  [Charged] - Target takes increased damage from lightning attacks. Target is easier to hit with lightning attacks.

  On a critical hit, all levels of [Charged] are expended, inflicting exponential amounts of lightning damage for each charge cleansed.

  Inflicting [Charged] causes a spark of lightning that chains to nearby enemies upon landing a strike on the target.

  [Poltergeist] (gold) - At distances up to 10 miles, you can attack an enemy with [Thunder Wraith’s Grasp] as long as they are afflicted with [Charged].

  Landing a crit was child’s play with the demonic eye, which made this upgrade utterly deadly.

  Even gold-rank lightning enhanced by the critical hit and Marked for Death wasn’t enough to kill or even severely wound any of them, but he had expected as much. They had gold-rank protection skills and equipment, after all.

  What he had needed it to do was distract them.

  Will activated Weapons Free.

  Skill: [Weapons Free]

  - Spell (movement, teleportation).

  - Cost: high mana (moderate mana).

  - Cooldown: 12 seconds (6 seconds).

  Gold

  Teleport any weapon within a 1200 foot radius to your hands (if you can carry it) or your inventory (if you cannot). If a target is holding the weapon, they can attempt to prevent this spell from succeeding.

  You can also teleport to any weapon within a 600 foot radius.

  [Warp Strike] (silver): When making an attack, you can use this skill to make your attack originate from any weapon within a 120 foot radius.

  Gold-rank addition: The range of this skill has been multiplied by 10.

  [Simultaneous Swap] (gold): When activating this skill, you can both teleport to a weapon and teleport a weapon to you. You may also instead attempt to swap the position of two weapons.

  The Speaker of the Flesh and Mind both carried weapons, though Iridium didn’t. Will chose the Speaker of the Mind to teleport to while attempting to swap both of their weapons with each other. With the lowered resistance against his own skills, it was harder for them to prevent the skill from going off, but they did, keeping ahold of their weapons as warp magic manifested around it.

  Swapping their weapons, of course, was never Will’s aim. They would be just as lethal with one gold-rank item as another.

  What he needed was, once again, a distraction.

  To their credit, all three reacted immediately when Will teleported onto the Speaker of the Mind’s back, but portals opened up around them and attacks from Will’s party flew in, forcing the Speaker of the Soul to throw up shields to defend them.

  That gave Will a window to grab onto his mark before he could start using mind-affecting skills.

  “Tag,” Will said with shit-eating grin number two. “You’re it.”

  You have inflicted a level of gold-rank [Corruption] on [Rhodium, Speaker of the Mind].

  You have consumed one level of [Purified] to negate the cast time of [Sanctuary].

  With his attention so fragmented, Rhodium was not able to resist as Will dragged him into the Beyond.

  Already knowing where his destination was, Will didn’t waste a single moment in the Beyond. Had it been any other person, he might have sat there and talked with them. Whether that would result in taunting or an actual productive conversation about exactly what the fuck was going on, Will would have enjoyed it.

  With a mind controller, though, there was no such thing as being too safe. Will had one adverse influence in his head already. He did not need another.

  The two of them emerged in the heart of the Yellowstone supervolcano.

  Will: Sorry to call on you like this, but we’ve got a job to do.

  Cinder: Leave it to me.