At once, every single Vigor raised up its two arms, merging them into a single fist that swung down to create earth-shattering booms. Solera tumbled aside as dirt rained into the air, fumbling for his goggles.

Vigors were just dirt golems animated by their control talismans! If the talisman was destroyed, then the Vigor would naturally crumble apart. For a person unequipped with special gear such as truesight goggles, however, such a method was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.

But unfortunately for the controller of these Vigors, everyone here had truesight goggles, and could see straight through the translucent dirt to the talisman encased inside. Except for Skadi, who seemed to have his own substitute for the goggles.

Dirt showered Solera’s body as Skadi delivered an earth-shocking punch into a Vigor, snatching the talisman within and crumpling it up. The Vigor instantly became an inert pile of dirt.

The shockwave of another Vigor punching the ground near Solera sent him flying next to the foot of another Vigor. This Vigor raised its palm high into the air as it prepared to smash Solera into oblivion.

Solera shot into the air, his power crystal blazing with color as verdant power poured through his body. The Bloodsand sword stabbed into the Vigor’s body, piercing through the dirt into the rock core that surrounded the control talisman. It too, was penetrated.

Solera slid down the mud of the disintegrating Vigor, panting from the exertion. He whipped his head around as he ripped the talisman impaled onto his sword.

A woman had scaled the back of a Vigor, stabbing her sword deep into the Vigor’s arm, where the talisman was concealed. As it crumbled apart, a second Vigor leaped onto her. After a short moment, the resulting pile of earth reformed into the shape of a bulky limbed torso. As for the mercenary, her body was nowhere to be seen.

“Bah!” Skadi shouted, ripping out the talisman of another Vigor and crumpling it up into a ball. “COME HERE AND FIGHT ME YOURSELF, OLD MAN! DON’T LET THE KID DO YOUR DIRTY WORK!”

His voice shook the ground, nearly splitting Solera’s ears with its volume. With a vigorous throw, the talisman disappeared into the distance.

The ten or so Vigors that remained halted their attacks. After a few moments, the wheezing voice of an old man washed over them.

“Give me a few minutes, friend. I’m not as young as I used to be, heheh…”

Another four dirt columns shot into the air, forming new Vigors to replace the ones that had been destroyed. From the east, Solera could see another talisman moving through the ground at high speed towards them, like a shark fin shooting across the surface of the water.

Skadi looked extremely unhappy. “NORMAL GOLEMS CAN’T MOVE ACROSS THE GROUND LIKE THAT, I’M SURE THESE MUST BE EXPENSIVE! THE FASTER YOU COME, THE FASTER YOU CAN STOP LOSING MONEY!”

This time, the only response that came was the Vigors raising their fists up to attack. Skadi leaped onto the top of one, grabbing several rocks out of it. A Vigor disintegrated as Skadi tossed a rock straight through its body into its talisman.

Solera edged closer to Skadi as he tried not to trip from the shockwaves from each attack by a Vigor. He no longer could use this power crystal, which had become translucent again after he had depleted all the power within it. If he died after being saved by Skadi, then by Chip, then by the power crystal, then no matter how powerful the enemy was, he could only have himself to blame.

Using a spear he had picked up from a fallen UD soldier, Macaw pole vaulted onto a Vigor’s hips. He stabbed his sword deep into the Vigor, but it was stopped by the rock core surrounding the talisman. Cursing, he withdrew his sword for another try, sending mud spraying onto the ground below. Nearby, Verreaux channeled power into his sword and chopped off the arm the Vigor was about to use to smash Macaw into paste.

The mud behind them churned as another Vigor formed, its hands already poised to hammer down at both Macaw and Verreaux. Yelling, Verreaux dove away, while Macaw screamed, stabbing his sword back into the Vigor he was clinging onto.

Two giant slashes appeared on the arms of the Vigor behind Macaw, causing the tops of the arms to drop uselessly onto the ground. Chianti and Chip stood together, each wearing one of the purple gauntlets they had plundered from the Xuanwu.

Earth shifted out of the ground into the Vigor as its arms reformed, while Macaw stabbed into the first Vigor a third time. Finally, the Vigor collapsed back into hunks of earth.

Seeing this, Solera ran over to climb up the second Vigor to the talisman at the very top of its head. Chianti, Chip, Macaw, and Verreaux were working together, yet as a part of the team, he had been nearly getting killed all on his own again.

Using the mud moving up the body of the golem to boost himself up, Solera found himself at the top of the Vigor within several seconds. Triumphantly, he lifted his sword up to stab down into the talisman.

A small hill of flying mud appeared in the corner of his eye, heading straight towards him as his sword stabbed into the talisman within the Vigor. With a panicked yell, Solera let go of his sword and leaped off the Vigor’s crumbling body.

The mass slammed into his legs with the force of a mountain, sending a white hot pain shooting up his legs. Screaming, Solera crashed into the ground on top of his left arm. A cracking sound rang out as several ribs and the bones in his arm broke apart.

The mud grew back into a towering Vigor, arms poised to finish him off. Solera scrabbed weakly with his right hand in an effort to drag his body away from the Vigor, but he already knew this motion was useless.

He heard a roar behind him as two meaty arms hoisted him up by the shoulders and dragged him away from the Vigor. Mud splattered all over Solera’s broken legs as the Vigor’s fists thundered onto the ground.

Solera shivered as spasms of pain wracked his body. Guinness set him down behind a copse of trees, a worried expression on his face. After patting Solera’s shoulder, he turned around and lumbered back to Chianti.

Solera gazed down at his power crystal as his body screamed in agony. The sounds of new Vigors bursting out of the ground, of the shouting and cascading mud, turned into a buzz of background noise. To Solera, there was only the pain, and the power crystal.

Make the pain stop…

With an immense amount of effort, Solera gripped onto the power crystal, sucking in the power constantly pouting into the crystal. The glow of power trickled into his arms, nourishing the entirety of his body.

When he had used the power crystal at Fortress Hickory, his injuries had instantly healed. From that time, Solera had come to see the power crystal as his ultimate trump card. But now, its reserves were exhausted, and could no longer heal him. Still, the pain began to subside slowly.

Solera lay there in a trance-like state as a small trickle of verdant power flowed into his body. He felt itchy all over his body as his skin crawled and his bones began to piece themselves together. Perhaps if he lay there for several days, it could fully heal.

Despite the situation around him, or perhaps because of his state of mind, Solera found himself in wonder at the power crystal. Just what was this object, which could produce power from nowhere, and even have the power be of such a kind that it could heal these injuries? Vinoh had said he had found it in the Wastelands. It must have been an incredible place. Actually, shouldn’t Vinoh have used this himself to regrow his limbs? But he couldn’t have known about it until he used it, and he never did…

“Hahaha, only five of you died! Well done!” The wheezing laughter of an old man drifted down from above. Solera’s listless eyes unconsciously drifted over to see two winged figures floating in the morning sky.

One was an half-naked, emaciated elder whose white beard reached down to his shriveled belly. Solera could see the entirety of his ribcage, and his legs looked like it had been drained of all flesh. On his hands were huge cylindrical gauntlets that covered the entirety of his forearms with its golden metal. Like Leera, this man looked like he was reaching the end of his lifespan.

The other was a little girl who could not have been over ten years of age. She was dressed in pink robes and wore a glowing pink helmet, from which countless knobs stuck out. Around her shoulders was a small purse, whose flap was opened. She looked completely disinterested in the battle, and instead sucked vigorously on the lollipop in her mouth.

“I want to know, tattooed man, are you an immortal?” The elder asked, smiling maniacally down at Skadi.

Skadi grinned back. “I might be!”

“Oh, my. I passed the threshold to immortality in the nick of time, but you look to be in your prime still. The name’s Jeboro!” The elder laughed, descending onto the top of a Vigor and retracting his wings. “Seems like Eden truly is full of unknown experts. I’ve never heard of you!”

“You can call me Skadi.” Skadi cracked several knuckles. “But this girl has been doing all the fighting this whole time. Surely, she needs a break.”

Solera stared, wide-eyed, at the pink girl leisurely sucking her lollipop. Controlling twenty Vigors on her own… how was that even humanly possible? The sheer amount of power needed to move the golems, and the concentration needed to control them… The most he had ever seen was three, and he was in an army! How could this girl do such a thing?

“Her? Spoiled brat needs some experience.” Jeboro snorted, taking out another lollipop and giving it to the girl, who snatched it away as soon as it was presented. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.” Skadi shrugged. “If my comrades die, they can only blame themselves for dying to some punk toddler. Sorry, guys, you’re on your own.”

“Well said!” Jeboro wheezed with laughter. “Let’s fight!”

Jeboro smashed his gauntlets down on a boulder sticking out from the Vigor he stood on as the girl fished out more talismans from her purse and tossed them down to the ground.