We ran.
Roots and stones blurred beneath my feet. Water splashed with every step. Behind us, the crawlers surged forward in a wave of chitin and clicking mandibles.
I could hear them gaining. The splash of too many legs churning through water. The hungry clicks growing louder.
"Almost there!" Belle’s voice carried a note of desperation.
Twenty ters to the portal. Fifteen. Ten.
Sothing grabbed my ankle. I looked down to see a pale tendril wrapped around my boot, yanking backward.
"Fuck!" I twisted, trying to keep my balance. Wave Motion erupted from my palm, blasting the tendril to pieces. I stumbled forward, nearly falling.
"Jace!" Naomi reached back, grabbing my hand. She pulled, helping regain montum.
The crawlers were right behind us now. I could sll them—a nauseating mix of rot and chemicals.
Five ters.
"Go!" Misato shoved Jordan through the portal first. He disappeared with a yelp. Belle followed, clutching our core haul to her chest. Naomi hesitated.
"Go!" I pushed her toward the portal. She stumbled through, vanishing in a flash of purple light.
I turned back to see Misato surrounded by three crawlers, their mandibles snapping at her as she fought them off with her spear.
"Misato!"
"Go!" she shouted. "I’ll be right behind you!"
Like hell.
I charged back toward her, ignoring the screaming exhaustion in my muscles. Wave Motion wouldn’t work—I was almost tapped out. So I did the next best thing.
I jumped onto the nearest crawler’s back.
The creature bucked, trying to throw off. I held on, driving my spear down between its armored plates. It shrieked, a high-pitched sound that hurt my ears. The other two crawlers turned, montarily distracted from Misato.
"Run!" The word ca out hoarse, my throat already raw from the swamp air. "Get to the portal!"
Misato looked back at for half a heartbeat. Then she ran. No argunts, no protests. She understood what I’d done, why I’d done it. She was gone in seconds, her boots splashing through the shallow water.
The injured crawler writhed beneath . I rolled off its back, landing hard in the muck. My boots sank ankle-deep. All three creatures pivoted toward , their mandibles clicking in a rhythm that sounded almost eager.
Wave Motion was done. My stamina felt like soone had scraped out the bottom of an empty barrel. I had nothing left.
Almost nothing.
I pulled the glass from my inventory. Silver-tier essence from Naomi, vanilla-caral sweetness visible through the container. I’d told myself this was for ergencies only. Life or death situations.
Pretty sure this counted.
"Overclock." I said it quietly, like a prayer or a curse. The glass touched my lips and I drank it all. The taste hit my tongue—rich, warm, almost comforting.
Then the power ca.
Wave Motion exploded from Copper to Silver in the space between breaths. My vision clarified, every detail of the swamp suddenly sharp and bright. The burning in my muscles vanished like soone had flipped a switch.
Four minutes. That’s what Copper-rank Overclock bought . Four minutes of playing god with borrowed strength.
I could work with that.
The first crawler lunged. I sidestepped with newfound speed, my movents fluid and quick in a way they hadn’t been seconds ago. Wave Motion erupted from both hands, twin golden spirals that punched through the creature’s armored head like it was made of paper.
The other two attacked simultaneously, coming at from opposite sides. I jumped, higher than should have been possible, letting them crash into each other beneath . As I ca down, I fired Wave Motion directly at the point where they intersected.
The explosion scattered crawler pieces across the dark water. Yellow blood spread out in oily streaks, already starting to dissipate in the murky swamp current.
I touched down on a moss-covered rock and ran. The portal called to from twenty ters ahead, its purple light cutting through the humid gloom like a beacon of civilization.
Behind , more crawlers erged from the deeper water. Their chittering intensified, taking on an aggressive edge. I’d killed their pack mates. They weren’t happy about it.
Fifteen ters to the portal. Ten. Five.
I dove through headfirst.
The dinsional boundary seized imdiately, crushing inward from all sides like an invisible hand. My bones compressed. My organs shifted. My eardrums popped from pressure that had no physical source.
Then I was through, rolling onto hard-packed California dirt under a sun that suddenly felt too bright. I stayed on my hands and knees for a mont, letting my body rember how gravity worked in the real world.
"Final extraction complete," the FGRA handler announced, barely looking up from his laptop. His fingers moved across the keyboard with practiced efficiency. "Clear ti: seventy-two minutes, eighteen seconds. Full team accounted for. Proceeding to scoring phase."
My team waited a few ters away. Belle clutched our core haul to her chest like a mother protecting her children. Jordan sat on the ground, looking shell-shocked. Naomi rushed forward, wrapping her arms around my waist in a tight hug.
"You made it," she whispered against my chest.
I patted her back awkwardly. "Said I would, didn’t I?"
Misato approached, her expression unreadable. "What did you do back there? You were surrounded."
I shrugged. "Got lucky."
She studied my face, clearly not believing . But she didn’t press. Instead, she turned to the handler. "Official core count?"
The man consulted his screen. "Twenty common tier. One Silver-tier boss. Total value: twenty-seven thousand four hundred credits with completion bonus."
Belle grinned, a predatory smile that reminded why we called ourselves the Foxes. "And our competitors? Obsidian Elite? Any word on their performance?"
The handler checked sothing else. "Completed approximately twenty minutes ago. Clear ti: fifty-four minutes. Core count: fourteen common tier, one Silver-tier boss."
I did quick ntal math. "That’s..."
"Twenty-four thousand nine hundred," Belle supplied instantly. "We beat them by two thousand five hundred credits."
The implications sank in. We’d done it. We’d outperford Blair’s team of elite guild-trained students.
"Which ans," Misato said, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips, "the Midnight Foxes are now ranked first in Obsidian House."
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