Thick green veins burned up my arm, but they winked out as soon as I dismissed the claws.

“Everybody focus your fire on the big guy,” I said as I aimed my SMG right at him and pulled the trigger.

A volley of three bullets slammed into his chest in the second I held the trigger down. Those three bullets were enough to designate him as a target of my Focused Fire ability, so everyone would deal more damage against him,

Trench took the bullets in his stride. To my surprise, the bullets were expelled from his wounds, which healed over with fresh, clean skin. He grinned at me as he looked around at Khopesh and Xiphos. They were engaged with Scythe and Bastard, so couldn’t focus their fire on Trench.

“See that’s the problem with you EDGE Force cronies. You think that the same rules apply to everyone, but they don’t,” Trench said.

He rushed at me in a blur. Despite his size, he moved faster than me. Before I could react, his two blades sunk into my flesh. One punctured my chest, the blade scraping my collarbone as he drove it deeper. The other blade slammed between a couple of ribs.

The pain was blinding. A scream escaped me, unbidden and impossible to choke back. A black and gold shape leaped at Trench from the side, knocking him away. The blades came free of my body, but tore my skin and muscles along with it. Trench stumbled as Kaiser tore into one of his wrists, trying to pull the big man off balance.

How the hell did I ever think I’d be able to go toe-to-toe with this guy?

Suddenly Stiletto appeared right in front of me with a cluster of healing pills in his hands.

“We made these from some green and red herbs we found in the forest. Take one and it’ll heal you back to full health over thirty seconds,” he said.

“Red and green herbs, huh? That sounds familiar,” I said.

Stiletto grinned. “Sometimes I think EDGE Force take a miserable kind of pleasure fucking with us.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said as I slipped one of the pills into my mouth and swallowed it dry.

It started working immediately, infusing my body with healing energy.

Kaiser leapt away from Trench as he regained his footing. Khopesh faced off against Scythe, and they both seemed equally matched. His curved khopesh blade sunk into Scythe’s side, then she hooked him with her hand scythes right through the thigh. Xiphos and Bastard would have been equally matched if he hadn’t beaten the shit out of Xiphos already.

“Give one of those pills to Naginata!” I shouted at Stiletto.

“Can’t. She’s not conscious, so she can’t swallow.”

“Fuck.”

I needed to bring one of these fuckers down so I could suck out their anima and bring Naginata back from the brink. I’d stabilised her for a moment, but I had no idea how long that would last. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were closed. I felt like there wasn’t much time.

I pulled Gravedigger from its mount and stalked towards Trench. Kaiser was playing ‘come and get me’ – a game where he’d stay just out of reach of someone but make feints to attack them. He did the exact same thing to me when he was waiting for me to throw the ball to him.

It was a sobering thought realising how many of a dog’s play behaviours were modified hunting behaviours.

Trench took a step back and beckoned for Kaiser to come at him. My class skill was off cooldown now, so I activated it. Kaiser’s attack and defence stats doubled, and he portalled from in front of Trench to right behind him.

A moment before Kaiser slammed into Trench from behind, a translucent blue force field launched up from the ground, intercepting Kaiser’s attack. The force field seemed to absorb Kaiser’s kinetic energy and redirect it back at him, blowing Kaiser away with force.

Gravedigger boomed as I pulled the trigger, but Trench brought up another force field between him and me. It cracked a little from where my shot landed, but it still stood tall, blocking my advance.

If this shield was made of anima, then maybe I could use it.

I activated the Claws of the Dragon. Trench’s eyes went wide as my green claws slammed into his blue shield. His surprise turned to awe and fear as it did not repel me as it had repelled Kaiser. I drew in the anima from his shield, which caused it to crumble. It only filled my anima tank halfway, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

“That’s a fancy trick,” Trench said as he surged towards me. He kicked me square in the chest, which sent me rolling away. “Where’d you learn that?”

There was no telling just how much these Edgebreaker goons knew, and I had no intention of revealing the true nature of Balaur and his power. Not if it was the only thing that would give us a chance against them.

I rolled further away from where I would have normally stopped, then used my momentum to spring back to my feet. Trench landed right where I would have been. His knives slammed into the concrete floor.

I lifted Gravedigger at him and pull the trigger once, pumped the action, then fired again. The shrapnel shredded his chest, but it healed in seconds.

“That’s not going to work,” Trench said as he kept stalking towards me.

His power to heal had to be fuelled by anima. Back on Mori Island, Bastard’s shadow had been an anima construct that melted away into blue motes when I killed it. Trench’s shield was made from blue anima too. That anima was of Mnemnhion, Altrighus’s eternal foe.

I glanced around Trench to see how the rest of my team was faring and had to do a double take.

There were two Bastards now. One was engaging Xiphos, and that one seemed to be followed by a blue echo, following Bastard’s every move. Xiphos was fighting Bastard’s shadow and the real Bastard stood over Naginata’s body with a wicked black pistol pointed right at her chest.

Bastard locked eyes with me, grinned, then pulled the trigger.

Naginata’s chest heaved as blood sprayed. Bastard pulled the trigger again.

Naginata twitched, her head rolled to the side, her eyes fluttering for a moment before they closed once and for all.

“No!” I shouted, and suddenly my tactical hatchet was in my right hand, and the dragon’s claws blazed on my left.

Quiet clarity descended upon me as I acted without conscious thought. Everything slowed down as I sunk my hatchet down into Trench’s shoulder. Flesh was cloven before the edge slammed into bone. Trench grimaced, spittle flying from his mouth. He was so close that I could smell his breath, and damn that guy needed a breath mint.

I thrust my claws into Trench’s flesh, using the little holes that my shotgun shells had torn in his uniform. The anima that thrummed within him burned as I drew it out of his flesh and into me. My anima tank quickly filled up, but I wasn’t ready to stop. I couldn’t let myself stop if I wanted to save Naginata. I drew on his anima, even though my tank was full, and the overflowing energy coursed through my body.

There was every chance I could have been doing irrevocable damage to my body with this move, but that didn’t matter. A warning flashed up in front of my eyes.

Anima saturation at maximum.

300/150

Automatically converting excess anima into experience.

That was fine and dandy. Trench’s skin sucked in on itself, like I was sucking out his very essence. Which I guess I was. He slammed his blades into me, which was an ineffective defence. My claws had sunk deep enough into his chest that I’d locked my fingers around his ribcage. He’d have to break my fingers or cut off my hand if he wanted to escape.

Trench tried that, of course, but the overflowing anima just healed me as he sliced into my skin. It was like the anima I drew away from him was acting in the same way that it would have in his system.

It was similar to how I’d learned abilities from the other monsters that aligned to their powers.

My experience total skyrocketed and I hit Level 13 as Trench faded away in my grasp.

Trench’s skin turned grey, spreading out from the claws, which burned green from within him. The grey spread across his body, crumbling into dust as it fell away from his body in chunks. He gasped for breath as it reached his neck, then his head fell back onto the ground and crumbled into a pile of dust.

Every other person in the room had stopped what they were doing to watch me. It was only then that I realised that my entire body glowed with thick anima vines on each part of exposed skin. Even Kaiser looked afraid of me, but I could deal with that after I saved Naginata. Kaiser would never have anything to fear from me.

I rushed over to Naginata and slid down next to her. The wounds in her chest were ragged and deep, but I would be able to fix it. Maybe.

My claws sunk right into the centre of Naginata’s chest. I had initially thought to aim for her heart, but that’s not what would save her.

Each human was born with a spark, a soul, a flickering ember of anima that gave them the life force for them to carry on. I grinned like a maniac when I felt Naginata’s spark still burning dimly inside her.

Anima rushed out of me, draining my overflow first, then sucking the rest of my tank dry. A whopping three hundred anima was gone in a matter of moments, and Naginata’s spark was burning brightly once again.

But not brightly enough.

Her wounds had begun to heal, but the bullets were still in there. She needed more anima, and she needed it now.

I pushed as hard as I could before I felt something inside me break. Anima leeched out of my own body, into my anima tank, then passed through my arm into Naginata’s core.

Warning!

This may cause irrevocable damage to your anima system!

Then that’s just the way it had to be.

I pushed harder, feeling my own skin contracting around shrinking muscles, and felt my spark burning a little less brightly with each passing moment.

Suddenly Naginata’s eyes flew open and she gasped for breath. She clutched her chest, which expelled Bastard’s bullets before the wounds closed over.

I sat back, exhausted, feeling like I’d just climbed a mountain.

“Hatchet?” Naginata asked. “What did you do?”

“What I had to do,” I said.

My head swam as motes of white light danced in front of my eyes. I’d felt like this before, a moment before I blacked out.

My eyes closed and I felt myself falling but there was nothing I could do to catch myself.