Adrian followed the distant sounds of battle instead of heading farther toward the ruins.He did not do it because he felt responsible for every student trapped inside Briarwood. He had learned, painfully, that people could turn on you the moment survival became inconvenient. Still, the change in the Rift bothered him. If the monsters were becoming stronger everywhere, watching other hunters fight might tell him what he needed to know.He moved through the trees with his Boneguards dismissed except for three level-two scouts. Their faint blue eyes led the way through the dark, and their presence gave Adrian enough warning to avoid every goblin he passed.The fighting grew louder.Fire flashed between the trunks. A man shouted commands. Several frightened voices answered at once.Adrian reached the top of a shallow ridge and looked down into a clearing.Instructor Victor Hale stood at its center, holding a redwood focus staff in both hands. Hale was a Level 12 Cinder Mage and one of th

Instructor Hale reacted with a fire spell.He did not aim at Adrian. He aimed at the ground between them, perhaps hoping the blast would scatter the nearest Boneguards and give him room to run. Flame erupted across the clearing. Leaves burned. Several skeletons collapsed into smoking fragments.Adrian did not flinch.Black circles opened behind the broken Boneguards, and the same soldiers climbed back into the fight.Hale's eyes widened."You cannot keep doing that," he said."I can," Adrian replied.The truth was not quite as simple as he made it sound. Summoning again required focus and time. Keeping control over ninety undead while managing a chaotic battle was exhausting in a different way than casting spells. But Hale did not need to know the limits. Fear was part of every battle, and Adrian had no intention of giving his opponent useful information.The students had retreated against the far edge of the clearing. Ben was not among them. Adrian was glad. He did not want his frien

By dawn, the Briarwood entrance had become a military checkpoint.Rift Control trucks filled the parking area outside the gate. Portable barriers blocked every road into the reserve. Hunters wearing blue-and-silver armor moved in organized teams, carrying spears, rifles, enchanted shields, and emergency medical kits.The organization was called the Blue Banner Guild. It operated under federal authority, responding whenever Rifts breached their expected danger level. In Riverton, its officers were the people parents called when a monster came through a basement wall or a school expedition went wrong.Adrian watched them from a hill inside the Rift.He had meant to return to the ranger ruins before the rescue teams spread through Briarwood. The sudden arrival of the Blue Banner Guild changed that plan. Official hunters would be searching every trail, cataloging every corpse, and asking every survivor what they saw. A teenager walking around with ninety skeletons would attract more atten

The group moved toward the Briarwood exit in a loose, uneasy line.Owen Hart walked at the front with his spear drawn. The two students who had followed him stayed close together, exhausted and frightened. Dorian remained several paces behind everyone else. Ben walked beside Adrian, glancing at the Hobgoblin Marshal every few seconds as though expecting it to start talking.It did not.After ten minutes, Hart stopped to check the direction of a blue flare. The others gathered near a fallen tree. Ben took the Level Stone and spatial ring from his pockets again."You saved my life twice now," he said to Adrian. "Once by warning me not to join the first group, and once tonight. Take these."Adrian looked at the items.The spatial ring was a basic model, but it could store several cubic feet of gear. For someone carrying Ether Cores, arrows, weapons, and eventually more valuable monster parts, it would be useful every day. The Level Stone, on the other hand, was worth far more. It could b

The Hobgoblin Captain fought like an animal that had learned the basics of war.It never stopped moving. Every time a Boneguard reached for its legs, the Captain kicked it away or split it with the cleaver. Every time the Hobgoblin Marshal tried to pin it down, the Captain used the weight of its armor and its greater strength to force the elite skeleton backward.Adrian kept circling the fight, firing arrows whenever the Captain turned away.One arrow struck its shoulder. Another lodged in the gap beneath its jaw. A third bounced off its crude metal breastplate. The training bow was not strong enough to decide the battle, but it made the boss angrier, less patient, and more reckless.That was enough.The Captain swung at the Marshal with both hands. The Marshal stepped aside, and six Boneguards grabbed the Captain's arm. Another group piled onto its back. The creature roared and threw them off, but it lost three steps of ground.Adrian's skeletons filled those three steps.The boss wa