“Are you sure that’s where they are? I see nothing and only smell the titan on the wind,” Jinx said as they peered out from behind a rocky outcropping.

  Luke shook his head. “It’s nighttime, they are a half mile away, and they are hiding. Of course you can’t see them. But I’m sure they are there. The runic heli’s sensor suite is pretty advanced. It’s the best of both worlds' technology.”

  “Are you going to send the heli in on its own this time? You don’t have to be inside it for it to work, right?”

  “No, well, yes, but no. I’m sending in something different. These guys are probably the tough ones. The strongest Chosen they could get out here in a hurry. I need to be decisive with the first attack, because there might not be a second one,” Luke said. He shook his head. “Anyway, let me focus for a bit and then it’s go time.”

  He sat down on the forest floor and closed his eyes. Deep breaths helped him center himself. He was about to attack some mercenaries or soldiers. He was going to have to kill all of them. He couldn’t risk leaving even one alive to report back. It would make the political situation between the two worlds more strained than it already was.

  “Beta, Gamma. Wake up.”

  Beta, reporting for duty.

  Gamma, reporting for duty.

  “I’ve got some instructions for your next mission. I need you to know what to do before you attack because it’s going to rely on millisecond timing.” Luke mentally said.

  He was briefly distracted when Jinx placed her head on his lap. He instinctively started petting her, which helped calm him down. She could be really nice when she wanted to.

  He turned his attention back to the Greater Machine Souls and gave them detailed instructions. Then he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. It was time to go and he needed to do it before he lost his nerve.

  He stretched out his hands and pushed his intent into Apex Machine. Two small vehicles started forming, each costing fifteen points of mana. Out of his mana pool of forty, that only left him with ten points. That meant he had to do this quickly before the mana maintenance costs ran him dry.

  Out in the small clearing in front of him, something new was forming. He had the templates for three war machines loaded up. The Viper helicopter, the Booker tank, and the Switchblade bomb drone. He had seen what the first two templates had transformed into when he used Apex Machine. Now it was time to see how the Switchblade was changed.

  The same general shape formed out of gray mana. As the violet lines started etching themselves into the shape, the differences became clear. Instead of a tube with wings, this runic drone was more like an oblong flying saucer. It was aerodynamic and had curved ridges on the built up layers. He had a vague memory of something similar in an old movie, “Flight of the Navigator”.

  Once they were complete, they hovered three feet above the ground. Luke threw Beta and Gamma into a runic drone and said, “On one. Three, two, one!”

  The two runic drones shot off into the air, moving so fast the air screamed. They flew into the sky and then banked towards their own targets. Beta took the east foothills and Gamma the west. They streaked through the air, crossing the distance in a few seconds. It would have been even faster, but they were following Luke’s instructions.

  As they flew towards the hidden mercenaries, both runic drones juked erratically. It was like they were having a seizure as they continued forward. The chaotic approach accomplished what he intended though. Magical attacks speared out, trying to take down the airborne attack. Bright white lasers, spears of fire, an enormous green snake. They all missed.

  Beta and Gamma successfully guided their drones all the way to the target and then detonated themselves.

  A pair of bright white flashes were followed by a quickly expanding ball of void black gas. It shot out fifty feet on all sides. When the shadows dissipated there were uneven circles cut out of the land, like a pair of meteor strikes.

  Apparently killing a bunch of mercenaries in a coordinated strike was good for his skill growth. Apex Machine had been steadily growing since he had been heavily using it as a transport. This was the first time it jumped by two levels though.

  Luke’s Perception dragged his attention over to the western foothills. Despite the system thinking things were over, he hadn’t killed all of the mercenaries.

  An enormous orc stood in a narrow column of dirt in the center of the western crater. A transparent blue dome shield covered him from head to toe, emanating from his real shield that he held high above himself. He was covered head to toe in heavy plate armor. To his left and right were legs and half a torso. His compatriots had only been half protected by the man’s skill. The part of the body sticking out of the dome had been blasted away.

  As Luke watched, the magic shield fizzled and faded away. He started jogging towards the western foothills. He really couldn’t let the orc escape now. The good news was that the mercenary seemed like he was out of mana. The bad news was that Luke was almost there too.

  The runic drones had only needed a single tick of maintenance cost before they exploded in black death. Unfortunately, at three points of mana each, that meant Luke was only left with four points of mana to work with. It might be five points by the time he reached the orc, but that was it. Two skill uses to take down a professional killer.

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  Ideally, the orc didn’t have enough mana to reactivate that super shield. Then Luke could finish things off with a Blink Ball and an icebolt. But things were never that easy.

  Case in point, when Luke got to the base of the foothills, the orc jumped off his pillar of dirt and fell fifty feet to the bottom of the crater. Out of sight.

  Luke bit his lip and sped up. He couldn’t let the orc have too much time to prepare.

  “Why are you running? Have you run out of mana already? Your summoning skill is so expensive.” Jinx said. She was running alongside him, easily able to keep up with him.

  “Almost out. Enough for two small skills.”

  “I’m full up. Leave this one to me,” Jinx said.

  “No, I can’t let you go in there alone. It’s too dangerous. What if his armor can block your phasing?”

  “Fine. You can be a distraction. Go left,” Jinx said and juked to the right.

  She disappeared into the nearby foliage. It wasn’t a skill, more that she had black fur and it was nighttime. The planet’s ring reflected enough light to see by, but she was a natural at sticking to the shadows.

  Luke turned left and ran up to the edge of the crater. He slowed down and creeped up to the edge. Less than ten feet away, the heavily armored orc was climbing up and out of the crater. He had been moving as fast as he could, but the steep sides were difficult to navigate in full plate.

  He decided to trust in his cat and ran over to distract the mercenary. The orc came up to the edge and Luke fired off an icebolt in his face.

  Almost predictably, the magic skill fizzled out on contact with his helmet.

  The orc chuckled darkly. “It doesn’t matter what you throw at me, my skill is powered by yours. Face it, you are dead. The bird said they wanted you alive, but I think they’ll understand I couldn’t allow someone like you to live. I think they want what’s in your bag anyway.”

  While he talked, the orc pulled out his shield and a flanged mace. The eight foot tall orc leapt forward, swinging his mace in a wide swipe. Luke took a step back and used the stun baton to deflect the mace. The two weapons met with a clang and the baton sparked as the mace slid off.

  The orc growled and swung again, harder this time. Luke deflected once more, giving ground again. A glance at the baton showed that it had bent slightly. He was stronger and faster than the huge orc, but he didn't have a weapon that could stand up to the power the orc was dishing out.

  Luke juked to the side to avoid a shield bash. He had to admit, the orc was talented. Even with his higher strength and dexterity, Luke was still being driven back with every exchange. Too bad for the orc, Luke had plenty of room to maneuver and wasn’t letting himself get pushed towards the crater.

  “Stand still, you shameful worm!” the orc shouted, loud enough that his helmet rang.

  He swung harder and faster, trying to overwhelm the puny human. The baton bent again in the next exchange. It probably had one or two more strikes in it before Luke was left holding a handle.

  A smile spread across the human’s face.

  The baton wasn’t his only weapon. In fact, he had a much tougher weapon that the orc probably hadn’t noticed yet.

  Instead of dancing back again, Luke timed his next evasion and jumped forward, into his guard. He threw his hands to the side to distract the orc, and then kicked as hard as he could.

  A solid steel marvel of modern technology and runes streaked through the air and slammed into the orc’s codpiece. The magically strengthened prosthetic leg crunched into the plate armor and delivered over fifteen thousand newtons of force to a very important part of the orc’s anatomy.

  Luke ducked to the left as the pain hit the orc. He coughed and a high pitched sound escaped him.

  A black shape appeared out of the darkness and hit the orc in the middle of his back, knocking him facedown on the ground. It was Jinx.

  Her claws were glowing, but none of them made it through the orc’s heavy armor. He started pushing up from the ground, even with the huge cat on his back.

  Jinx jumped on him again to keep him down and then opened her mouth wide. She bit down on the orc’s neck, hard. It was armored, but the chainmail didn’t stop her bite force. She jerked her head to the side until there was the sound of a crack and the orc went limp.

  She let go and hopped off the body. “Do I get the core from this one since I killed it? Do orcs have mana cores?”

  “Yes, they have them, but I don’t think we should desecrate the body. There will be other people coming after us, we don’t want them to think we are evil.”

  “Don’t they already want us dead? What would this change? They can’t want us deader,” she said with a huff.

  “Maybe, but I won’t help you open up the body. Besides, we need to go. The titan is headed this way and I don’t have near enough mana to deal with it,” Luke said and pointed.

  The titan was lumbering this way. It was a half mile away, but moving quickly. Its long legs let it cover a lot of ground with every step. Luke looked around, trying to find a good spot to hide from the Feathered Elephant Titan.

  “Alright, fine. We can leave. But you owe me a core. A good one,” Jinx grumbled.

  “Fine, I’ll give you one later. Let’s go,” Luke said.

  He reached down to the armored body and pulled a small pouch off its waist. Then he grabbed the shield and mace and started running.

  The shield was heavy, but his strength was more than enough to wield it. It was unwieldy, but the huge shield fully covered his body so it would be useful if the titan caught up with them. Which it might. The monster was getting closer and closer with every long step.

  “Luke, over here,” Jinx hissed.

  She had found a large tree stump with extensive roots, big enough to hide in. Luke followed her in without question and ducked down.

  The sounds of its footsteps grew closer. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Luke slowly peeked up over the tree roots. The titan had stopped at the crater and was nosing around the new formation. He watched as it found the armored body of the orc. It daintily picked up the corpse with its long lips. Then it chomped down with a crunch and swallowed it whole.

  Suddenly, the huge shield by his side didn’t seem so big.

  The titan walked around the crater, looking into the forest. Luke resisted the urge to duck down behind the root. He wasn’t very exposed and any sudden movement would draw the attention of a predator. The Feathered Elephant paused and stared in his direction.

  Then it surprised him by climbing into the crater. It knocked over the pillar of dirt in the center and curled up in the center. It snuggled in and closed its eyes.

  Huh. It had only wanted a comfortable place to rest.

  Luke waited there patiently for the monster to go to sleep and his mana pool to refill. A very quiet wait later, he pointed downhill and summoned a runic heli. He threw Alpha inside and gave it instructions.

  The summons shot into the air and fired. This time he had the heli use its ooze rockets, firing four of them at the sleeping monster.

  The titan’s supernatural reflexes jerked it awake a moment before the rockets hit. It was still too late. The ooze rockets exploded above the crater and dropped green acid all across the monster’s huge body. It screamed in pain and climbed out of the depression. Great gouts of smoke rose up from where the acid hit. It made it a hundred feet away before it stumbled to the ground. It died a few moments later.

  The ooze continued its work, breaking down the monster’s body until there was nothing left. Atop the steaming pile of goo sat a tier nine monster core. Luke smiled. Even after being chased out of the city, this had been a very profitable trip.

  “Can I have the core?” Jinx asked.

  Luke just rolled his eyes.