Rick did not answer her. He did not look at her. He lifted his head. He looked straight up into the dark, swirling yellow clouds covering the inner city. He smelled something on the wind. It did not smell like the normal city smoke. It did not smell like the toxic purple Reactor Rot. It did not smell like the heavy metallic Silver Blight. It smelled like boiling blood. It smelled like hot, rusted iron melting in a blazing fire. It smelled like pure, absolute, mindless rage. "Do you hear that?" Rick whispered. His voice was incredibly soft. Luna frowned. She listened to the air. She heard the loud cheers of the crowd. She heard the metal wheels of the wooden carts. She heard a baby crying far away. "I just hear the people, Rick," Luna said gently. "No," Rick murmured. His brown eyes widened in a sudden, freezing panic. "Not the people. The wind."Rick heard a whisper carried on the wind. It was not a human voice. It was the sound of the earth itself. The deep, magical energy of

"If you hit them with your green fire," Isaac explained rapidly, "if you try to push your healing light into their bodies, you will not heal them. The parasite will drink your magic. It will absorb your energy. And it will cause the host's body to literally detonate like a massive, highly explosive bomb. If you use your magic on them, Rick, they will explode and wipe out this entire crowd."Luna gasped. She looked at the thousands of happy, smiling scavengers hugging their children in the mud. If Rick tried to protect the crowd with his magic, he would turn the fifty falling monsters into fifty giant bombs. He would slaughter his own people. "Then I won't use magic," Rick said, his jaw locking hard. He gripped his wooden staff. "I will fight them with my hands.""You don't understand, Rick!" Isaac yelled, pointing at the sky. "They are eight feet tall! They are wearing heavy armor fused to their flesh! They have the strength of twenty men! And

Auditor Isaac stood perfectly still. His pale gray eyes watched the fight with absolute, terrifying focus. His brilliant, mathematical mind was calculating every single variable in the muddy courtyard. "He cannot use green magic," Isaac muttered quickly to himself. "The parasite explodes when it eats life energy."Isaac looked at the giant, broken black metal gates of the city. He looked at the massive pipes running along the high walls. "The factories use liquid nitrogen to cool the giant furnaces," Isaac said, his eyes widening. He looked at Luna. "The pipes above the gates are filled with absolute, freezing cold. The Blood Rust parasite creates massive body heat. It melts their armor into their skin."Luna understood instantly. "If we freeze them...""The sudden change in temperature will crack the iron armor," Isaac finished the thought. "It will cause the metal to shrink violently. It will crush their bones and paralyze their muscles. It will stop them without using green magic

Ash closed her giant, endless black eyes. She did not push magic into the monster. She did not summon green light or white light. Ash opened the void. She simply created an absolute, empty, bottomless hole in the universe inside her own soul. The Blood Rust parasite was an aggressive, hungry disease. It wanted to consume energy. When it felt the massive, empty space inside Ash, the parasite eagerly rushed forward, trying to fill the void. The bright, burning red light under the monster's skin began to flow rapidly toward the spot where Ash’s hands touched the armor. The toxic red magic poured into the little girl. If Ash had a normal soul, the red magic would have exploded her heart. But Ash had no shadow. She had no soul imprint. She was an endless, empty ocean. The red magic fell into the void, and it simply vanished. It was completely deleted from reality. In ten seconds, the bright red glow washed out of the monster's skin. The boiling heat faded away. The thick, unnatural,

The road was long, winding, and covered in soft, white morning mist. It had been many weeks since Rick, Luna, and the little girl named Ash had left the terrible City of Iron. They had walked away from the burning factories, the toxic yellow smog, and the cheering crowds. They had walked through the dark, cold mountains of the East. Now, the world around them was changing. The sharp, black rocks of the wastelands were gone. The ground beneath their boots was soft, brown dirt. Tall trees grew on both sides of the road. Their leaves were a bright, healthy green. Small yellow and blue wild flowers bloomed in the tall grass. Birds sang sweet, happy songs in the branches above. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. The air smelled like fresh rain, sweet pine wood, and clean, wet earth. But Rick was not smiling. For the last three days, Rick had been very quiet. He did not talk much. He did not laugh at Luna’s gentle jokes. He kept his head down. He pulled the hood of his dark gray trav