For several seconds, Alana frowned down at the message that she had received from Randidly Ghosthound. She rapped her knuckles against the wooden tent pole in front of her, considering. She didn’t hesitate because of the content of the message, she understood very clearly what Randidly wanted. In addition, she had been in contact with Tatiana, who had said some things that made Alana suspect that Randidly was hiding the seriousness of the situation with his body from her. His words made the request casual, but she felt the ominous depth laying beneath the surface.

But even her hidden worries weren’t what Alana now considered. No, the reason that Alana was so annoyed was the fact implied by the message: of the four Task Forces created to clear out the Corrupted Invaders in the Danger Zones, her independent task force was the slowest.

The only reason that Randidly would request she delay was if all the others had already finished. Only the final Danger Zone cleared had meaning.

Clicking her tongue, Alana left her tent and trudged up the sand dune to reach the overlook. Immediately after she escaped shelter, the low hum around her turned into a dull roar. The sandstorm wasn’t the worst she had seen, but it was still quite persistently going. She pulled a scarf over her mouth to keep the worst of the sand away as she walked upward. Their Danger Zone was called the Desert Maw, a land of swirling winds and bitting sands.

With the buffeting gusts and the sand scratching at her eyes, the passage was an uncomfortable one. Alana could obviously leap upward, but she didn’t want to send the wrong message. Besides, some part of Alana wanted to practice a bit of self-discipline.

If Randidly could endure pain, so could she.

At the top of the dune, she found Hank spinning his repeater idly. Up here, the air was mostly clear of sand and visibility was vastly improved. This was where Hank waited, ready to signal the beginning of the assault. His expression immediately brightened when he saw her, but Alana quickly smirked and shook her head. “Tell the troops to stand down and get some rest. We are going to delay our attack by two days.”

Hank’s eyebrows shot upward even as he snapped his fingers and shot a bolt of red light into the sky. Across the surrounding dunes, their Task Force blinked in confusion and pulled back.. “What the hell…? Did something happen back on Earth?!?”

Alana shook her head. “No. But we are the only Danger Zone that has not yet been cleared. It was likely necessary for us to delay in order to prepare all the independent groups to work together, but… those two days of training exercises seemed to mean we have come in last.”

“We came in last…” Hank said out loud. Then he chuckled. “Even that haphazard force led by that slug King Phirun beat us ta the punch…? That man could’na outrun a three-legged mule.”

“Apparently Sydney moved to reinforce them. She apparently fights like a woman possessed. Perhaps seeing Randidly’s images at his birthday had a strong effect on her,” Alana said calmly. The two began trooping down the sand dune toward the shelter of the tents. Around them, the rest of the group also returned to the came to hunker down. “They were close before the System, you know.”

Hank just nodded, continuing to shake his head. He was probably still thinking about Phirun. It was the seventh day after the Ghosthound’s birthday party, which meant that the other Task Forces had cleared their Danger Zones in under a week. Considering the two-week time limit imposed by Randidly Ghosthound, the Earth was currently making good time toward their goal.

But it could be seen from the delay that what lay beyond this last Danger Zone would be quite a bit more difficult. Despite the approaching deadline, the Ghosthound still wanted two days before the final portion of this trial began.

Alana glanced at Hank after they walked back into the tent. “Want to spar?”

He gave her a withering look. Alana sighed. “You are no fun. Just because the last several spars have been your loss, that doesn’t mean you won’t figure something out to turn it all around…”

“Cowboys aren’t much fer spars and skirmishes.” Hank flashed a smile at Alana. “Pretty good at last stands though.”

*****

The weather was currently surreal in a way that Helen had never seen before. Just another wonder of Kharon, she supposed. Thunderous explosions rumbled across the midday sky, yet there wasn’t a cloud to be seen for miles. Everything was blue and warm.

BOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOM!

Helen hid a yawn behind her hand as Naffur walked up and stood upon the small stage that had been erected for just this purpose. He was dressed sharply, finally looking more like a man than a lost teenager. Seemed like the training with her and Ajax was finally pasting some muscle onto his frame.

She was slightly amused to note that the one thousand or so people that were gathered together to listen to his orientation speech weren’t looking at Naffur at all. They were staring in fear up at the crouching form of Kharon, the Wandering City, that was behind him. Even from this distance, the growing skyline of the city was buzzing with activity, a testament to its rapid development.

Yet who was she kidding? Even Kharon itself couldn’t hold these people’s attention. More accurately, they were staring up at the island floating above Kharon, wreathed in silver mists and appearing completely inert and distant… except for the intermittent rumbles that it released, creating the illusion of constant thunderstorms.

RUMMMMMMBLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEE!!!

The crowd shuddered as the noise slammed against their bodies. Naffur cleared his throat lightly and folded his arms behind his back like this sort of phenomenon was quite normal. “Thank you all for accepting the invitation of Kharon to come live and work here. I am Naffur Suite, the Acting Leader of the Order Ducis. For those of you who haven’t heard that name before… we are an independent police force that makes sure other Orders or governments don’t oppress their citizens. For that reason, we intervened directly and chased away the Blighted Paragon that you used to follow.”

Helen twisted side to side with her feet planted and shivered in pleasure as a series of satisfying cracks ran up and down her spine. Because the Order Ducis had been the second Task Force to clear their Danger Zone, the whole force had been back when Vye’s follow up report on Howard Boltmer had made it to the Ghosthound. And Helen had the great pleasure to lead a group of Riders back to the headquarters of the Blighted Paragon to perform a more… thorough investigation.

Unfortunately, the former-Russian got wind of what was going on and fled with about ten thousand of his closest supporters. Although teaching the man a lesson was important, the half a million people that he had abandoned were more important in the eyes of the Order Ducis. So Helen’s excitement had turned to bitterness as she baby-sat the group until Kharon itself arrived on the scene.

Zone 7 and Zone 11, both of which needed additional population to fill out their land area, had combined their wealth to purchase a portable teleportation array from a Village and sent an elite group to bring it to Kharon when the Order Ducis had spread word of the huge group of refugees. With the array, Kharon had simply needed to gather up the drifting population and send them to be someone else's' problem.

Of course, they also combed carefully through the group to find anyone who seemed to have great potential or special skills. Most of the fighters had gone with Boltmer, but that was fine; if anything, the one thing Kharon didn’t need was more warriors. The one thousand people gathered in front of Naffur now were those that had passed the initial tests and interviews, were invited by various organizations in Kharon, and had accepted those invitations.

“After listening to you speak for the last several days, allow me to address a few of the common questions that I’ve heard,” Naffur continued to speak to the crowd, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t the main object of their focus. Honestly, Helen supposed this might be a normal occurrence for Naffur. He often was cast in the roll of a foil by simply being relatively solid and dependable while Randidly Ghosthound made large waves. “One, Kharon and the Order Ducis is a unique existence on New Earth. They were both founded by Randidly Ghosthound, the most powerful man on Earth. As you were informed with your invitations to stay in Kharon-”

BOOOOOOOOM!

Helen snickered as the rumble from above forced Naffur to pause in his speech. But now that I think about it, we basically all have to deal with the messes that bastard leaves behind… After the noise died down, Naffur continued.

“-there was a portion of Earth that was connected to each other, unlike the bubble cities. These were called Zones. Unlike bubble cities, they were only beset by monsters at the beginning. But the population density was much lower and the people there had to pass both a Tribulation and a Raid Dungeon in order to connect to New Earth. From what we’ve gathered, there were fifty Zones made on Earth… and only six have survived to this point. As you have seen, the people of New Earth are genuinely far more powerful than those from bubble cities.

“Two, I’ve heard a lot of people ask why we are powerful. The answer is simple: it’s because of images. You can consider Skills to be a preset image gifted to you by the System. People who master image can use Skills without using Skills, as it were. Which essentially means that those from New Earth can utilize two Skills at once, while people stuck in bubble cities are currently stuck with the preset Skills from the System. You can utilize half as much power as we can. That is why you are weak.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!

As if to emphasize the last line of Naffur’s speech, an extra ominous explosion rocked out from the island floating above. The explosion was so loud the concussive force hit the people below like a slap to the face. Helen clicked her tongue in annoyance and looked upward toward the source. Most disturbingly, there wasn’t even the smallest bit of change happening to the silver mist swirling the floating island.

Naffur cleared his throat and continued. “Three, because you’ve accepted an invitation of various organizations of Kharon, you will be required to stay on Kharon and participate in certain mandatory evaluations for the next three months. You will be trained in this period, but a lot of the training is voluntary. But I’ll say this: all your invitations were preliminary. If you do not perform well in the training period, you will be asked to leave Kharon when that period is over. And do not be surprised if higher-performing peers take the jobs that were tentatively offered to you.

“Kharon is a place of hard work and merit.” Naffur’s face was suffused with obvious pride as he spoke. “Based on your potential, you’ve been given the opportunity to join us. When not training, I would encourage you to explore the city and meet new people. Feel the spirit of the Wandering City. You won’t regret it.”

There was a smattering of polite applause afterward, causing Helen to roll her eyes. These fools had no idea the opportunity they were being given.

But how could they? Helen reflected. That first time that I fought against Randidly in the Regional Qualifier for the under Level 25 tournament, I really had no idea how much he would affect my life…

Her mocking attitude vanished quickly as she reflected on the woman she had used to be. Very quickly, her thoughts drifted to her mother. In front of her, other applicants to the Order Ducis stepped forward and began guiding the thousand people into Kharon. Despite the power they had achieved within the System, these one thousand people trembled with nerves as platforms wreathed in emerald energy floated down to carry them up to their new life.

Afterward, Naffur walked over to Helen and let the exhaustion show on his face. “Finally done… I really hate giving speeches.”

“You are getting better,” Helen offered. Perhaps it was the stray thought about her mother, but she felt like prodding at the obviously overworked young man. “But we aren’t done yet. We need to head up to visit Randidly. Did you think you wouldn’t be participating in the attack on the Epic Raid Dungeon…? The planning meeting starts in an hour.”

Naffur blinked and looked at Helen with a blank expression. Then he groaned.

Helen smiled wickedly. “Oh? Did I forget to tell you…?”