The Urodela warrior in front of Talen Dei burst like an overripe tomato. A drakonai, his scales and armor coated in the red of blood, appeared out of the resulting haze. He snarled. Talen grunted. Their weapons clashed in the space between. In the tunnel around them, dozens of fighters clashed in their own battles. He knew similar scenes would be playing out in the neighboring tunnels.

This was the result of his plan, his last act of defiance to the human, Ryu. The thought of the human, with his cold indifference and hostile glare, angered Talen, and his next blows backed his opponent up. Who was the human to send his people to fight dishonorably? They were meant to be here, owning the tunnels with honest battle. A crown won by deceit was the sign of a hollow, weak rule. That coward Shin might be okay with it but not Talen. He would have better for his people. The Logos demanded it.

In the weeks following Ryu’s failed threat, Talen’s popularity with the soldiers had boomed. He’d known then it was time. Time for his final move. Using his newfound popularity, he had rallied the Urodela troops. Not just a few. Not just his supporters. But close to all, save for a few staunch supporters of Shin. They’d marched out of the city, unmolested. What a sight it had been! Talen Dei, the head of the Urodela army.

He dodged a blow from his opponent’s glaive, summoning an obsidian warhammer with a Skill. His new weapon crunched into the Drakonai’s skull. Everything about this day was perfect. It was like a dream. He was not just the head of the army. He was a god of war, these tunnels his domain to rule. This was the highest of highs. Heady with adrenaline, he charged to meet another opponent. The Drakonai were as good as dead. His triumph was assured.

---

Ryu let loose a small sigh. “Have the Drakonai reinforcements arrived?”

The messenger, a small Urodela with a thin body, shook its head. “Not yet, sir, but Speaker Shin reports they will meet Talen’s forces within the hour,” she said.

“You’re dismissed then,” Ryu said, turning back to face his team. He’d be damned if waiting wasn’t the worst part of a fight. He wasn’t an anxious person by nature, but with the stakes on the line in this battle, even his nerves were close to fraying. Throw him into an open battle, and he was fine. This, however, was different. There were too many variables. Too many pieces that could move in a way he didn’t want. This was no hunt. Shin’s plan may involve a trap, but this was far from the simple ones Ryu himself set. It was something much more elaborate.

“Any news?” Roth, the grizzled Urodela veteran, called. He was dressed in his usual, a worn set of armor marked with faded Urodela clan sigildry. Behind him waited the remaining three members of Ryu’s team, Syl, Oash, and Ess. The four Urodela soldiers made up the first squad he’d worked with, the ones who had witnessed him murder Councilman Oni of the Urodela. The fact that they still supported him was the reason Shin had chosen them for this task.

“Not quite yet, but it won’t be long.”

Roth stretched with a grin. “I’ll be back off to bed then,” he said.

Ryu shook his head. Among other things, the soldier had the remarkable talent to fall asleep in moments, no matter what was going on around him. On any other day, Ryu would envy the man. For him, sleep was a distant companion at the best of times, but today there was too much at stake to sleep, even if he could. He settled into wait, his senses taking in the details of battle going on in the tunnel underneath them.

---

A flash of red caught Talen’s eye. The Drakonai banner. He cursed. Reinforcements! And so soon at that. They must’ve had a warning. A traitor… Could it be? The human, Ryu, had betrayed the Urodela. To force Talen into retreating, he had revealed information to the enemy. Fool. Talen would not retreat so easily. He called for his troops. They would break the enemy line. He could only hope his subordinates in the neighboring tunnels would do the same.

His hammer slammed into a Drakonai, throwing the lizard back with incredible force. He could see it in the enemy’s eyes. They were terrified. Why had he been worried? This battle was in the palm of his hand. He thrived in this. Anxiety and fear were constant companions in a fight. He was used to them, but worry? It had no place in a warrior’s heart. He beat at the advancing troops, and the Urodela around him fought in a bloody dance around him. In the air above them, the mages of each side casted Spells of magma, causing a spray of the molten liquid to splash onto the fighters below. From behind the Drakonai lines, a horn sounded, and in moments, their side had quieted. The Urodela paused, looking at Talen in bewilderment.

“Settle down,” he called, “It seems they wish to pursue peace.”

A gruff laughter bounced off the stone walls. “Oh, Talen. You poor fool. We did not stop for peace. We stopped for a fight.”

“Was that not what we were doing already?” Talen said. His troops laughed. Still, his reply was halfhearted. He knew that voice. It was Lazarus, the Drakonai chief’s son.

“Not just any fight,” Lazarus said, stepping out in front of his troops. The Drakonai’s scales glistened like fat rubies, and Talen could not tell if it was blood or their true color. “But a fight between us. Surely, you know that they call you the Urodela Brute.”

“What of it?”

“It’s because of how you fight, is it not,” the thin Drakonai said, gesturing at the black hammer in Talen’s hand. “You see, I, too, have gained a reputation for fighting in a way non-typical for my Clan. The Drakonai pride themselves on strength, yet I was born slight in arm. The Urodela, on the other hand, pride themselves on their speed and grace, yet you fight with a hammer. What I propose is a duel between the two of us kindred spirits. If I win, you will let us pass. If you win, we will retreat. Deal?”

“Deal,” Talen said without a thought. Back down to a Drakonai’s challenge? Not ever. He shouldered his hammer with an excited twirl. Across from him, Lazarus bowed, drawing a thin sword.

A puny weapon, Talen thought. He readied to move, his muscles bunching in anticipation. Pain. The thin sword was embedded in his snout. With a touch more power, it would’ve killed him. He felt something hit his stomach, and he flew back, the rapier pulled from his snout by the impact. He struggled to look up. Lazarus twirled his sword lazily, bringing his foot back down from the kick.

“I’ve won then, have I not?” he said. His forces cheered.

Talen drew in a shaky breath. It’d all happened so fast. How… No, he wasn’t a fool. The Urodela must come before his own pride. “Retreat!” he ordered, his voice distorted by the mess of his snout. Still, he was understood. The Urodela ran away. He followed.

Behind them, the Drakonai jeered and chased. Talen shook his head, trying to clear the pain. He hoped the battle had gone better in the other tunnels. It had to have. Otherwise, Talen’s actions had cost the Urodela this war. His actions. He cast a desperate look over his shoulder.

Crack!

The loud noise was followed by an avalanche. Stone. Weight. Talen was thrown forward under the blast, his body rocketing into the end of the tunnel. He looked around. A dead end? No. This was one of the tunnel’s the human had been meddling in. He’d chosen it because of the secret tunnels his force could slip away with. Right. What had happened behind him? A tunnel collapse. Those never happened. Never. Unless…

He’d been played.

----

A few minutes earlier.

Ryu tapped one of the hatchet’s at his waist idly. The time was crawling by. Underneath him, he could hear the battle reaching a fever pitch. The reinforcements had to have arrived. He knew they had in the other tunnels. The messenger had at least told him that. Those had been mere skirmishes in comparison to this battle, however. There was a reason his team was here, after all, and not one of Shin’s other agents.

Not only did the timing have to be precise with such large forces at play, but there was also a good chance that they would be discovered. It was unlikely that the Drakonai would not have brought someone who had a Skill that let them see past stone. It was a matter of when, not if. When they were discovered, they would have to hold back any enemy approach, and Syl, one of the most skilled Shapers of the Urodela, would have to obscure her actions from the Drakonai stone searchers. It was why he was so on edge. He wouldn’t just have to kill. He would have to protect.

“Sir, we have been spotted,” Syl said, her voice strained. He drew his hatchet. It was time.

To think that the Urodela were the only ones with Classers that could shape the earth was laughable. They just had the only ones who could serve an actual combat role. The Drakonai still had Classers who could move earth, and they used them to locate the small tunnel Ryu’s team was hidden in. Six Drakonai burst through the stone moments after Syl’s warning. Good. They weren’t in the Wilds anymore, but this was still the hunt. And Ryu always anticipated the movements of his prey.

The six Drakonai soldiers looked around in surprise. Their Classers had no doubt told them the layout of the secret room they’d discovered, and with the quick work of Syl, that room no longer existed. They were left in a barren room of stone and dirt. Ryu nodded. He made his move.

A jar filled with a sloshing liquid dropped from the ceiling above the Drakonai. They responded with quick, professional movements, ducking behind their heavy shields. When they did so, Ryu’s team emerged from the stone wall like specters. He was, after all, still handicapped by the Quest when fighting the Drakonai. The most he could do was small tricks. Such as dropping a jar of dyed water.

The first Drakonai went down in a spray of blood. Roth stood over in his place, short infantry sword in one hand and shield in the other. That was the problem with defensive Skills. They only worked if you had the time to activate them. Cultivation and levelling didn’t make one immortal. Far from it, in fact. The stronger he became, the more Ryu realized just how fragile life truly was. The next Drakonai, alerted by some sort of perception Skill, whipped around and caught Ess on the side of his head with a club. The Urodela soldier crumpled. Ryu frowned. That left the odds at three of his team against five of the Drakonai, and Syl was drained enough as it was.

At this point, the rest of the Drakonai had been alerted. Oash, preparing to lunge with his spear, was exposed, and one of the remaining Drakonai, a mean brute with scales a sickly yellow, made to move towards the Urodela only to find his foot sunk into the ground. He growled.

“Find the damn Shaper,” he roared, pulling his foot from the ground with a grunt. He moved towards Oash.

“I’ll take this one, son,” Roth said, the veteran’s shield catching a blow aimed for Oash’s head. “Help Ess, eh?”

Oash nodded nervously, scrambling towards his fallen comrade. The Drakonai ignored him for the moment; finding Syl was their highest priority. Ryu tapped the handle of his hatchet. This wouldn’t do. He made a gesture to Syl, and the hole he had been looking through widened, dropping him onto the ground of the empty room.

“I understand you’ve hurt one of my men,” Ryu said, gesturing lazily to the fallen Ess. Once more, he was thankful for his naturally blank expression. There was nothing the intense types hated more than apathy.

“It’s the hu-”

“Nope. Don’t finish that. Surely you’re not going to say something that obvious?” This was why he hated conversation. Someone always had to state the obvious. It was as if people were always trying to find new ways to say the same thing.

The Drakonai charged him. Ryu sighed. Another body in the forest, he thought, knowing he was about to do something he would regret.

The Urodela were maybe not paragons of virtue, but they were a people Ryu had grown to admire. Especially those of his group. He would… No, he could not stand and watch them die. So, in a burst of reckless anger, he deactivated a certain Skill for the first time in years. Everybody in the small chamber stumbled as his aura crashed out in its full strength.

One of the Drakonai started to shout. “This the aura of a-”

“Monarch,” Ryu finished for the shocked lizard, his voice strained as he held back the waves of murderous rage in his mind. His aura was the sign of a cultivation that was at least Monarch Stage. It was a strength that came at a cost, however. Already, all the Drakonai in the room had shifted into the murderous monsters that haunted his dreams. It was hard to accept their transformation was all in his mind. He clenched his teeth.

Roth’s sword took the confused Drakonai through the throat. On the other side of Ryu, another Drakonai was taken by a spear. The rest died similarly, their minds overwhelmed by the strength of his aura. He wasn’t surprised. They were only level fourty or so, and while the power of the aura would’ve faded after a time, the realm of Monarch was typically only held by Master Classers, those few who had reached past the barrier of level seventy-five. Unless he enforced it with his will, his aura was thankfully not considered “direct” intervention.

While Roth and Oash killed the Drakonai, Ryu shook his head. He had missed the clarity of his thoughts, and soon he would have to reactivate the Skill, imbalancing the hormones and chemicals of his body once more. He would be back to that miserable, sad existence. He eyed the fallen Drakonai, the copper smell of blood filling his nose. Lucius. That’s who should be dead here. Oh, how he’d love that. He ached for it. His bloodlust must have entered his aura because Oash had backed away with a frightened look. It was that look that brought him back to reality. He let the Skill slip into place once more.

“Syl, prepare to trigger the trap.”