Kesstel grabbed the handle of his beautiful sword with both hands and lifted it over his head. Bright blue magic spread from his fingers down to the tip of the blade, leaving a stunning arc in the air as he dropped to the still ground. He landed on bent knees, his sword sinking two feet into the earth.

In a flash, the blue magic cracked through the dry dirt and spread like a burn scar from his location, tearing to the other side of the calm circle. Kesstel shifted and changed the grip on his sword. With a grunt, he swung his blade up like a shovel. His blue magic exploded in a tidal wave, hurling the dirt, planes, cars, and anything else in its way into the air.

I thrust out a hand and sent a wave of mist over the debri in the air — and with it, a solid barrier to help push it out of the way. A small mountain of stuff landed on the wiggling monsters on the other side of the airport, burying anything in its wake, monster and building alike.

“Your digging is a lot more effective than mine,” I muttered. An understatement, considering he cleared the whole airport of literally everything in one swing. “Good job.”

Kesstel jumped back from the small island of remaining dirt and landed by my side. “Thanks.”

We stared down at the flat black Portal nine feet below the surface of the earth. It rippled like a black pond, eerie and big as a Gate. It was all the more disturbing that it wasn’t a Gate. It meant that there wasn’t another barrier the monsters had to go through before they could enter Earth. They could just freely exit the Portal whenever they wanted. As for how, given the worms, it wouldn’t surprise me if there used to be holes that were dug daily to allow the monsters out.

“Let’s go.” Kesstel bent his knees, ready to jump down.

You shouldn’t go in there, Goddess suddenly spoke out.

I paused, also preparing to jump in with Kesstel. Why?

As soon as Goddess spoke, Kesstel’s eyes narrowed in displeasure. He shifted to a standing position and stared at me, waiting.

That cursed parasite knows I’m loose. And stronger. It can’t get us here on Earth yet, but the remnant planets and the tunnels between them are controlled by that horrible being. We would be at its mercy there with possibly no way out. Even with your Kartharian, there’s no guarantee we could make it back to Earth any time soon, Goddess explained. You should avoid going into Portals until we find the one that leads to the parasite.

My brows rose high on my forehead. It made sense. What about fighting in the Gate? How am I going to get stronger without destroying energy crystals?

That will also be dangerous. If you can conceal your presence, it might be okay, she reasoned slowly. Remnant worlds are most sensitive to foreign beings, as opposed to Gates, which are a melting pot of many different things.

I nodded slowly and looked up at Kesstel. “I can’t go into the Portal.” My finger tapped my thigh in frustration. The Portal needed to be closed, but I didn’t want Kesstel to leave me and go in alone. I wasn’t a weak little girl anymore. And what if he did get lost in there again?

He paused then bobbed his head, easily accepting my words. “I should have thought about that before as well.” He lifted his hand and held it over the Portal. “The Boss is just on the other side.” His eyes narrowed as he smirked. “Pathetic thing can’t figure out how to get out.” He looked at me, the thrill of battle in his eyes. “Since we can’t go in, it’s only proper that it comes out to greet us.”

My eyes widened at how easily he applied my restrictions to himself. Right, we promised we would go everywhere together now. I had no idea what he was planning, but that hardly mattered. “Right. It’s only polite.”

He pointed to the middle of the Portal. “Would you make me something to stand on right there, just above the Portal? So I don’t accidently fall through.”

I waved my hand. The small misty platform had barely appeared where he wanted when Kesstel disappeared from my side and jumped over to it. His jump was so long, he almost looked like he was flying.

He landed on it and bent down. He rested his hand on top of the black surface of the Portal. As soon as he touched it, the surface started to ripple like a disturbed pond. It didn’t affect the ground around the Portal, or even the still wiggling Mega Annelids. I could feel Kesstel’s power jolting through the Portal’s area, the black ripples almost taking on a pale blue color at their tips.

I noticed a couple worm monsters getting too close to me and turned. One of them attempted to lean over the edge of where the earth stopped to the platform I was on. I frowned at the ugly gaping mouth and flung a kindjal at it. The kindjal stabbed through its open toothy mouth, down its throat, and punctured its energy crystal. The monster exploded into lights while the kindjal was already on the move to the next monster. Ten seconds and three dead monsters late, I turned back to Kesstel when I felt a sudden shift in the magic around the Portal.

A spiderweb of blue magic cracked across the Portal, starting from his hand and spreading all the way across the black surface.

Kesstel’s lips hooked up and he jumped from the platform, back to where I was standing. He hooked an arm around my waist and jumped us back into the air. “We should step back.”

The Portal pulsed like paint on a beating drum, the sharp blue peaks pulling at the black bottoms.

Just as Kesstel’s leap reached its peak and we started to fall, I created something for us to stand on. As soon as our feet landed, the Portal surged up, bowing over thirty feet in the air. Suddenly, it split open.

A gigantic monster broke out of it. The monsters from the Portal were huge worms, but the Boss was a centipede-like monster. Two hundred feet long and over twenty feet wide, thousands of angular legs rippled at its side as it flew through the air. Thirty foot long antennae wiggled around the front of its head, flicking and moving around before setting to our general direction. The huge mandibles on the side of its huge mouth twitched as its mouth opened and closed, revealing teeth that were taller than me. Every section of the body was plated in a rust-colored exoskeleton, the appendages only a couple shades lighter. On the top of its head, two black eyes focused on us.

“Ugh,” I whispered as a disturbed chill went down my spine. I’ve seen a lot of monsters, but this one just looked horrible. I’d take the nasty, mucus-covered worms over this. I couldn’t even tell why, there was just something horrible about watching the thousands of legs on its long body and the unnatural way the antennae moved. Or it could be the fact that it was a two-hundred-foot-long body, flying, and an S Ranks Boss.

“Still seen worse,” Kesstel muttered and let go of my waist.

“I don’t envy that,” I responded.

The Boss Volpoda arched in the air and drove at us, fast as a freight train. Kesstel jumped right and I dove left. The Boss plowed straight between us and chomped down on the spot that we were a second ago. The sound of its jaw slamming shut was sharp and loud enough to make my ears ring.

I twisted in the air and slashed out, a ten-foot Mist Blade growing over the crystal end of my sword as I swung. My attack hit against the armored joint of a passing leg. For the first time since I gained my kindjal, it didn’t easily slice through a monster. The Mist Blade reflected right off the exoskeleton, the rebound throwing me off balance.

I gritted my teeth as I tipped backwards. I took control of the flip and landed on a mist barrier.

At the same time, Kesstel had attacked the Boss on his side. The monster grunted and arched higher into the sky, avoiding the bright blue magic of his attack. A plate-sized chunk of a leg’s exoskeleton dropped to the rippling and boiling black ground below.

Without its Boss, the Portal pulsed, sending black spikes ten feet into the air. All at once, it compressed on itself and began to shrink, like a black hole that was eating itself. In a minute, the huge Portal shrank to the size of a basketball court. It left a near perfect circular crater in the ground in its wake, the dry dirt it revealed completely smooth. The black hole kept shrinking until it disappeared entirely.

In the distance, something … screamed.

No, I couldn’t even call it a scream because I couldn’t hear any sound. It was a feeling. An awareness. Something was happening somewhere in the West. It wasn’t a call, because it wasn’t inviting me, but I couldn’t help feeling like it was directed at me. Whatever it was.

A shadow rested over me, knocking me out of my distracted thoughts. I turned to see the Volpoda diving straight down at me, hungry mouth open.

Kesstel appeared in front of me and swung his sword. A blue magical tidal wave burst out of his sword and crashed into the Boss monster. Its mandibles closed around its mouth and eye area as it curled its head down. The blue magic hit the Volpoda right in the middle of the armor plate on its head and deflected off into the blue sky. The Boss’s dive angled away and it shot right by, the drag of the air turbulence pulling at my body and whipping my hair in my face.

Kesstel landed next to me. “You don’t have time to get distracted by the parasite’s tantrum,” he said, his gaze locked on the Boss as it took a wide turn over the whole city, obviously coming back at us.

I was high enough in the air to see that wherever the Volpoda’s shadow touched, the Mega Annelids would duck back into their holes. Given that they ate their own kind, I was sure the same thing applied to their Boss. The Hunters were several miles away, still fighting the giant worm monsters. For whatever reason, the Boss didn’t even indicate that it was aware of them. It seemed to be focused on Kesstel and me. Which was probably for the best.

I flicked a glance at Kesstel, paying attention to his words. “Are you saying what I just felt was the parasitic planet?”

He jerked a nod. “It didn’t like that a Portal closed.”

My eyes widened. “Did it start a Gate Surge?” With so many of North America’s top Hunters here, a Gate Surge would be bad. Especially a global one. I glared at the thick magic in the air, shifting and flashing rainbow spots as the Volpoda flew through it and disturbed the cloud.

“Possibly,” Kesstel said. “We won’t know for sure until we get back. Either way, there’s nothing we could even do about it.”

But my family was in Garden City. For once, I wasn’t there to protect them. Unease bubbled in my chest. I finally had a cure for my mom — I couldn’t let anything bad happen to them now. I took a breath and forced it down. Kesstel was right. I was getting too distracted.

“I can’t cut through its exoskeleton,” I said. “How did you damage it earlier?”

“It’s weakest between the plates,” Kesstel suggested. “And a little around the edges of the plates. That’s where I shaved off a small piece.”

I nodded. So aim for the joints. Got it. “I’m going to flood this place with mist. I hope it’s not going to be a problem.” I wouldn’t be able to fight to my fullest until I did. I hadn’t yet because I didn’t want to inconvenience Kesstel, but I doubted I could do much until I did.

Kesstel jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “Do what you need to do.” As the Boss drew closer, a smirk hooked his mouth. “I’ll do me.”

“Deal.”

*****