And then there was somebody in front of her. She couldn’t quite make out who it was, her vision rimmed with the darkness of exhaustion and blood loss.

“Got me last time with that goddamned roar,” she heard the person mutter under his breath. A man’s voice, low and strong. “Not happening, now.”

Sadea blinked, trying to clear her eyes. They came into focus upon a large man clad in a ragged traveling robe, his back turned to her as he faced the chimera. He had to be closer to seven feet than six in height, and his bare right arm was corded with bulging muscle. Long, unkempt dark hair trailed from his skull. A curved sword arced from his fist.

Is that the warrior the idiots mentioned?

“Watch out!” she said. “The beast can attack with its voice!”

“Yeah, I know,” the man replied, more brusquely than she liked. “Me too.”

He inhaled sharply.

And as the chimera roared once more, projecting a sonic wave of bone-liquefying strength, so too did the man, unleashing a primal scream from his lungs that hurtled forth as a titanic torrent of sonic force.

The roars struck each other head-on, but Sadea could immediately sense that the chimera had the upper hand in this exchange. The greatly weakened remnants of the beast’s assault struck both her and the man, lifting her off the floor and sending her tumbling into the air.

The warrior caught her by the scruff of her neck in his left hand, killing her flight and momentum as if she weighed nothing. He plunged his sword down, and to her surprise, its curved tip sliced through the steel-plated permacrete floor as if it were warm butter. The warrior leaned forward into the dying notes of the chimera’s roar, not budging an inch from where he stood.

“Well, good job,” Sadea sneered. “It’s still better than you at that.”

The warrior dropped her unceremoniously on her rear, drawing forth an indignant “ow” from her. Then he charged the chimera, blade raised.

Sadea pulled herself to her feet as she beheld the warrior’s duel with the beast. He was fast, much faster than any other swordsman she’d seen before, and he was strong, far beyond the limits of even muscles as prodigiously overgrown as his.

A martial scientist. That’s it. He’s got to be one of them. Don’t see them often. Think I’ve only met other before, and she was kind of like him, only maybe not quite as fast and strong.

But the warrior wasn’t doing well against the chimera. Twice now the beast had struck him with its claws, the last blow smashing him face-first to the floor and opening up gaping wounds across his back and shoulders. To Sadea’s astonishment, the man’s flesh began to knit before her eyes.

That had to be the regeneration she’d heard that martial scientists were capable of. But it wouldn’t be enough to save him if the chimera bit his head off. Which it was now trying to do, its jaw encircling the warrior’s neck, prevented from snapping shut only by him keeping it pried open with his hands.

“Hey!” Sadea called, adjusting her grip on her war-staff. She’d had a few moments to catch her breath and focus her mind, so she was pretty sure she could manage what she was going to do next.

“What?” he replied, his voice wavering with strain.

“Looks like you’re going to die, anyway, so don’t hold this against me, alright?”

“What?”

Sadea bathed the entire area in front of her with a torrent of lightning, catching man and beast in a tidal wave of crackling electricity. The chimera roared, rearing back, its massive frame visible above the cobalt storm pouring from the head of her war-staff.

She didn’t relent. Her lightning tore into the beast’s flesh, cooking it on a molecular level. Her fury ravaged the monster’s very soul, breaking it apart and scattering it to the darkest corners of the Ethereal Tides. The chimera’s sole remaining head exploded in a shower of brains, blood, and bone.

Sadea closed her eyes as she let her lightning fizzle into nonexistence. It had been one hell of a day.

Still got to pick up that goat head lying around somewhere and get it verified by the town necromancer to collect my pay. She sighed. Better get going. And I still want to get drunk, hopefully today.

“Not bad, lady. Not bad at all,” the warrior said.

Sadea snapped her eyes open. The man was standing before the chimera’s corpse, nudging it with the toe of his boot.

What the hell? How is he still alive?

And then she saw it.

His soul was a blazing flame, defiant and unbowed, virtually impregnable to the Ethereal Tides. She didn’t know why that was the case, but that was how he’d survived her lightning.

The… fire of his soul extended to his flesh as well, which she could now see was wreathed in a subtle field of energy that caused minor heat distortions in the air around him. That had to be the aegis that martial scientists were famed for, but though she knew almost nothing about martial science, she was certain that his was different.

“You!” she snapped. “Tell me your name!”

“Raksha. Yours?”

“I’m Sadea.” She smiled, thinking of all the possible avenues of profit that had just opened up. “And I’m very pleased to meet you.”