The dwarf looked up at Luke’s Black Mamba mech and said, "Your furry armor won't work. Even if you hadn’t messed up the stealth properties with that blinding white gauntlet, the monsters and titans down here all see well in the dark.”

  Luke waved away the concern. “I’m not trying for a stealth run.”

  The dwarvish attendant scoffed and said, “You don’t look like a titan buster to me. You look like a tinkerer who thinks they can skip years of practice and claim the trophy without all the work.” He held out a hand to forestall any response. “Whatever. As I said before, no skills that could destroy the canyon walls. If the avalanche doesn’t kill you, I will. So, back to instructions. The gauntlet starts as soon as we drop you into place below. There will be higher tier monsters down below, ones that have survived a gauntlet of their own to get here. You need to run or hide or whatever, working your way forward. The further you get, the higher your glory. The monsters are stronger and stronger the further you go. Every five hundred feet there is an escape pod. It’s those shiny metal things you can see over there. You’ll have to ditch your contraption since it won’t fit. Make sure your bonded animal is inside before you activate it because she won’t be able to activate it on her own.”

  “Sure, if I bail, I’ll take Jinx with me, no worries. How long is the gauntlet, what’s at the end?”

  The dwarf put his hands on his hips. “Just because this isn’t the highest ranked gauntlet, doesn’t mean you have a hope of reaching the end. It’s a solid mile and a half of monster filled canyon before you reach the final mithril trophy. True warriors only need to touch it to complete the gauntlet. And don’t think that teleporting straight there will earn you glory, it won’t.”

  Luke tuned him out. He must have been convinced by the anti-human rhetoric that was going around. He was going to beat this gauntlet and end up with more glory than he had sacrificed at level twenty-four. He double checked his mech and ammo levels.

  The dwarf noticed that he had lost his audience and said, “Alright, whatever. The challenge in canyon number four begins now.” He slammed his fist onto a nearby rune.

  The floor dropped suddenly, sending Luke and Jinx plummeting down to the canyon floor. Jinx used Solid Footing to air step down slowly. Luke braced himself, waiting for his Inertia rune to activate when he hit the ground.

  Instead, the platform he was standing on slowed down right before he landed, giving him a small jolt, not a bone breaking impact. He quickly stepped off the elevator platform and scanned the area. The canyon was a few hundred feet deep and had a magical barrier across the top. The cliff walls were sheer and the sides had dozens of alcoves, both big and small. The canyon snaked a mile and a half south, but twists and turns meant he could only see three hundred feet at a time.

  Moments after he landed, three monsters stepped out from behind different alcoves. As veterans of countless monster fights to get here, these monsters were cautious, none of them rushing in mindlessly. One was a purple tiger with three tails, another was a winged green hedgehog, and the third was the ugliest dog monster in existence. None of them were smaller than Jinx, and the ugly dog was ten feet tall at his shoulder.

  Luke and Jinx both focused on the butt-ugly beast hoping to kill the big one before the other two arrived. Or at least put it out of its misery. It was like someone had taken a naked mole rat and removed any redeeming features.

  Luke fired off a fireball and an acidball. He had learned that the combo created a larger conflagration and caustic air. The Ugly Dog weathered the fireball, but when the acid hit it yipped and jerked back, coughing. Jinx jumped up and then jumped again midair. She stretched out her claws as they started glowing.

  A blue swirl appeared in front of Luke and made him pull up short. The purple tiger warped out of the swirl and attacked Luke, lashing its long tails at him. Each one hit with the force of a hammer, clang, clang, clang. He stumbled back, more out of surprise than anything. He fired off a lightning spell and a fracture spell. Neither hit.

  The Warp Tiger’s tails caught both spells midair and dispelled them. Luke flexed his Acuity to speed up his thinking. If he couldn’t get a spell to land, he had to get close to a teleporting monster. In a few moments he had a new plan.

  He fired off another spell, this time a fireball aimed a few feet in front of the monster, out of range of its tails. As expected, the Warp Tiger teleported out of the blast radius. Unlike his own blink spell, the tiger’s warp had a delay while its portal formed. Luke spun and found the swirling blue spot midair where the monster would soon emerge.

  He instantly started running forward aiming for where the monster was appearing. It attacked him at the same time, pelting him with a staccato of tail strikes. Luke ignored the hits and punched the monster into the canyon floor. It was rattled and ribs were broken, but it got back up and warped away. Monsters of the gauntlet weren’t going to go down to a single punch, even if it was one from a two ton mech.

  The Flying Hedgehog joined the fight with a flurry of quills. Luke held up his new gauntlet to block them, which succeeded in deflecting several of the green projectiles. But others hit above or below the titan bone and sunk deep into the mech. Luke almost ignored them before he saw that the quills were moving. They flexed and burrowed deeper and deeper into his armor.

  With a growl, Luke tore them out of his armor, the moving barbs opening up larger holes as he did. He danced out of the way of a second volley of darts, and then met the Warp Tiger’s charge. This time the monster’s tail strikes did more damage, but the tiger took more damage from Luke’s enhanced kick.

  A quick glance to the side showed that Jinx was struggling with her Ugly Dog fight. She was faster and had sharper claws, but the monster’s main magic power was regeneration. Any damage she dealt would be healed before she came around for a second strike.

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  She would have to hold her own for a little bit though, Luke was busy. The Warp Tiger kept trying to teleport behind him and the Flying Hedgehog kept harassing him with small volleys of quills. He fired a fireball at the flying threat, but the monster used its wings to cover itself. It fell for a moment before it flapped hard and regained altitude and resumed its attacks.

  Luke smiled. These monster’s magics were impressive, but their attacks were predictable. He avoided a few more strikes before he made his move. When the hedgehog was about to throw quills again, he moved directly in front of the tiger, blocking its vision. After the quills were airborne, he flexed Acuity and pushed his Dexterity to the max.

  The two ton mech strained as Luke pushed it hard. He dipped and twisted, just enough to avoid the trio of burrowing quills. The projectiles hit the Warp Tiger instead, digging deep into its flank and shoulder. It yowled and teleported away. Luke turned and fired at the Flying Hedgehog. This time he used the Dissever Beam from his new gauntlet.

  The ray of magic hit the hedgehog and like before it used its wings to protect itself. This time Luke kept the beam centered on the monster, not letting up. It fell, caught itself, and then fell some more. It was splitting its focus between defense and flight, and failing at both. Eventually it landed and kept its wings forward, protecting its head. The silvery wings seemed to bear the brunt of the spell better than the other monsters he had tested the Dissever Beam on.

  Luke fired off a Fracture orb while he kept the Dissever Beam trained on it. The armor breaking spell worked as expected and shattered the monster’s left wing. The monster’s frail skin didn’t last long after that. A powdery hole opened up in its side and quickly spread.

  As the hedgehog disintegrated, Luke turned, expecting the Warp Tiger to be right behind him. It was. But it wasn’t attacking. The monster had all three tails raised and it was charging up some sort of attack. Luke knew he didn’t want to be in the blast radius of whatever that spell would do. He sprung away while simultaneously throwing out a Blink Ball.

  The gray and violet ball hit the Warp Tiger just before its skill activated. It was instantly teleported twenty feet away in a random direction. Which turned out to be up and away from Luke. The monster’s charged skill fired then, creating a huge swirling area around the tiger. The wind picked up, creating a miniature tornado.

  The wind howled like a train, small lightning bolts flickered inside the storm, and the tornado quickly expanded.

  Luke put on the speed to get away, glad he hadn’t been close.

  Jinx shouted, “What did you do, Luke?!”

  She was huddling close to the ground near the edge of the canyon, wind whipping her black fur. Her skill, Sure Footing, was clearly helping her stay put. The Regenerating Hound wasn’t so lucky. It was scrambling, trying to dig its claws into the stone, and failing. It screeched across the ground, being pulled closer and closer by the swirling winds.

  It might have been able to keep itself from falling in, but Luke helped it along with a dissever beam to the paws. The monster’s claws and the stone beneath it dissolved just enough to make it lose its grip. It yelped as it was suddenly airborne. It was sucked into the magical storm a moment later.

  The skill ended a few moments later, the wind stopping all at once. Rocks and debris fell to the ground, along with the shredded remains of a no longer regenerating hound. The Warp Tiger sat untouched in the middle, panting from exertion. Luke was almost impressed with the power it could wield. Almost.

  He fired off a fireball/acidball combo in front off it, just out of range of the tails. Its exhaustion meant that it couldn't quickly warp away. Caustic air quickly eliminated it from the gauntlet.

  “You doing ok over there, Jinx?” Luke asked as he walked over.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she groused as she stood back up. “That dog was annoying. It wouldn’t die like a respectable monster. It was very insulting to my beautiful claws that can cut through anything.”

  “Well, it’s gone now, so you don’t have to worry about the rude and ugly dog anymore.”

  She sniffed and said, “Indeed.”

  The black housecat padded over to the mostly burnt body of the Warp Tiger. Luke walked over to join her as she made two careful cuts into the corpse. A swirling monster core slipped out, clinking as it hit the ground. Jinx grabbed it with her teeth and gulped it down.

  “Hey! We talked about this. I want the cores we get in here,” Luke said.

  “Oh. Oops.”

  Luke frowned. The bond let him know she wasn’t being sincere. “Seriously, I want to keep the rest of the cores, no matter how tasty they smell.”

  “Fine, fine. You do the harvesting from here on out.”

  Luke gave her a look, but didn’t say anything. She was pushing it, but she also knew from years of experience that he could never stay mad at her. He wasn’t even mad right now, he had assumed she would eat some of them along the way. Not that he would tell her that. Give her an inch, she would take a mile.

  After he harvested the other cores, both tier five, Luke led the way down the canyon. There weren’t any monsters nearby, which was unsurprising because they would have joined in the fight if they had seen him. Right now, the other apex monsters in the gauntlet probably assumed that they had heard monsters fighting each other.

  They passed multiple alcoves and shallow caves, all of them empty. Still, he took it slow. There was a time limit on the gauntlet run, but it was a long one.

  Luke slowed down as he saw the next monster in the distance. It was hideously ugly, much like the dog they had just killed, but this one was familiar in a strange way. He walked closer as he tried to decide what it reminded him of. It had four long spindly limbs. Skin like a hairless cat, mixed with a lizard with a skin condition. Spines poked out from its spine all along its back. Long floppy ears completed the haggard look.

  Then it occurred to him. It was like a very large chupacabra.

  The hideous beast thought it was well hidden in the shadows, but his visor’s mana vision easily outlined his shape. It was sixteen feet tall and filled the shallow cave it was hiding in. Luke decided he didn’t want to find out what kind of magic it used. He stretched out his hand and pushed mana into Apex Machine.

  A gray and violet tank slowly formed out of mana, sitting about twenty feet ahead of him. Just like the runic heli, the runic tank was similar and different. It hovered in the air instead of having tank treads, but it still had a long tank barrel. There weren’t any machine guns, instead it had four spell rifles atop the turret. In addition, it had a few mortar tubes attached to the right and left sides. The runes glowed brightly and every edge was sharp. Once it was fully formed, Luke threw a Greater Machine Soul into it.

  What are your orders, master?

  “Kill.”