It was hard not to panic as the pair of F-rankers rushed us. Rahm was only newly ranked up but he was already clearly powerful. I doubted he could now counter Randall, who was a veteran F-ranked beast, but the other one would probably end up doing the heavy lifting there. Which left engaging with the new F-ranker to me and Callie. There was no way we could leave him to Benny, even with that hammer on hand. He could probably help us out a ton as support, but my best friend was still early in the G-ranks, and there was no way I'd let him engage someone like Rahm head on.

I didn't even need to gesture to get Callie onboard, our bond made it much easier for us to communicate mid battle. As the other F-ranker, a tall, thin man with blue skin and three red eyes, was attacked by Randall, the two of us flashed forward to launch simultaneous attacks at Rahm. Having just advanced, the big man was still unsteady. I knew how much rank ups took out of you from experience, but he hadn't made a sound during the process.

Still, as I flicked out a blow at his exposed face, Callie spun out and attacked his ankles with a pair of bladed snowflakes large enough to slide her fingers into the gaps like handholds. Despite not being able to make anything near strong enough to hurt and F-ranker with her shadows, Callie wasn't a rookie. She's honed the edge of those things so sharp that they could cut through G-ranked steel.

As my blow landed on Rahm's head, hers hit his ankles and shattered, though I saw a small hint of greenish blood ooze from the wound. With that attack opening his defenses we switched, out Paired Dueling and Balam Skills both allowing us to move flawlessly as I swung at the same ankle while she attacked his face. My poison fire had done a bit of damage but nothing spectacular, having barely moved past the single point of impact due to his new found conceptual weight.

Poison fire was meant to be a debuff that I stacked until it whittled away at a person. I could overpower it for a quick drop, but against an F-ranker it would barely even stick...normally. As Rahm snarled, reaching up to bat away the black snowflake blades reforming in Callie's hands before they could cut his face, I drove my cane's head into the ankle Callie had cut.

The open wound let me drive the poison flame into the wound deeper than I could have managed, and the stacking of Mercy Kill and the triple strength density shifting attack, despite a bit of strain, let me land the blow hard enough to stagger the big bastard. There was a sharp crack, not a particularly large one, but I knew I'd at least cracked the bone, which meant the poison fire would be seeping into it.

Which was enough to put him off balance as Benny smashed that giant fucking hammer into the back of his skull layered with a triple stacked density shifted attack. There was a loud bang as Rahm stumbled forward, his damaged ankle rolling and his skull cracking under the impact of the hammer as he was thrown sprawling. I would have celebrated, but this whole exchange had taken several seconds and Mordaunt had circled around to try to backstab Callie, not even noting her companions troubles as she waited for the moment to attack.

Unfortunately for her, trying to sneak attack someone with a Stealth Skill like Callie's wouldn't work easily, especially not when we were in proximity and could alert each other to the danger. I lashed out quickly with my own cane to counter the daggers, Callie moving seamlessly from the path of the strike without me needing to actually warn her it was coming. The pair of daggers sparked a sickly green light as I deflected, and I saw flares of power as whatever was in them burned up in contact with my poison fire.

These things would be dangerous. I wasn't worried though. Callie and I were perfectly in sync, and despite Mordaunt easily dodging the heavy swing from Benny, she was forced to back off as the two of us sent a flurry of attacks at her. I could feel my bond with Callie becoming stronger, our experience in live battle helping us hone this Skill in a way training never could have.

We had the foundation. Every exercise, every bit of training, all to prepare us for this. It was why we'd done everything as we had. Not just to let us unlock the Skill fast, but to prepare us to rush it up to Lesser more quickly. I could feel things clicking into place, little aspects of our training becoming more understandable. It wasn't enough to break through yet, but it would be. We could get there.

Sadly, we didn't have the luxury of time. Rahm was rising now, unsteady but clearly enraged. I wasn't sure what the fuck that hammer was but I absolutely did not ever want to get hit by it. Scrambling the brain of an F-ranked abomination made from undead flesh and science with one blow, augmented or not, wasn't the kind of thing a normal person could shrug off. I didn't think my armor would even protect me, though my mask might do the job.

We rushed at the big undead, not wanted to give him time to recover, and I activated Double Trouble, appearing behind him and doubling up Mercy Kill and another triple density stack on the back of his cracked skull, the poison fire seeping through into his head. He roared and whirled on me, but luckily Impact makes you tougher and not faster, so I was able to dodge the attack.

I cursed as I looked around. We had no help incoming, Mordaunt was waiting to pounce and cut us down, and we were probably going to lose this if I kept going as I was. I had a skill that would help me bridge the gap, but I couldn't use it. Afterburner wasn't a smart choice in a battle this size. I'd need to stack my magma leg and hope it would be enough, because I couldn't be weakened with this many enemies still coming for us.

Slipping back I readied my cane, letting Callie clash with Rahm as I acted as a deterrent against Mordaunt. Seeing me waiting she didn't seem willing to put herself in danger, opting to hang back and wait for the right time to strike. I pressed my foot to the ground, the contact enough for me to trigger Stone Limb after all the training I'd been doing. My soul strength could handle pushing the skill that much, allowing me to use the touch of my boots instead of bare skin.

I felt my leg begin to toughen, my boot and armor doing the same with a bit of soul strain, then I triggered my other skills in succession. Mercy Kill, Touch of Tears, triple stack density shift, I even shoved a fire attack into the limb to enhance the magma's power, and almost fell over from all the pain. Almost. I was able to force my way past it after a second of clearing my head.

Once I had my head cleared I waited, and before the other two could react, I activated Double Trouble. I'd had Callie position Rahm so he was blocking my new location from Mordaunt as I appeared, and since Double Trouble left an illusion, it gave me time to use Balam to its fullest and strike out with a brutal spinning kick to the back of his head, the most damaged area on his body.

The F-ranked hammer had seriously hurt him, cracking his skull and tearing open flesh, and since it was the same rank as he was he wasn't healing very quickly. Keeping my leg close to my body as I spun, I let it whip out along the axis of my rotation as it came around, putting every ounce of Might and Precision behind the blow as I smashed it into the injured back of Rahm's head.

At the peak of G-rank, and with every possible stacked modifier on my leg to boost it, combined with his injured state, the blow drove an explosion of poison flames directly into his head like a fucking mortar shell. Adding the fire attack had allowed it to burst out on contact, and the combined power of every bit of extra energy I had lit Rahm's head up like a fucking green torch, the flames penetrating his head through the wound and bursting out inside.

F-rank or not, the brain is the most delicate part of the body, and having a toxic frag grenade go off inside your skull after something cracks it open was enough for even a fresh F-ranker to be overwhelmed. Rahm threw his head back and ROARED, his F-rank body so strong that even that hadn't been enough to finish him instantly. I saw the metal from the chains climbing up his limbs under the damaged bandages, his ability activating, but too late.

Rahm's eyes and mouth poured out green fire as he screamed, his body shaking before he fell over with a crashing sound. Fucking miraculously, he STILL wasn't dead. Which I honestly wasn't super upset about. Rahm hadn't been as actively malicious as Mordaunt. I grimaced at how terrifying Abel was. Granted my stats were all pretty low because they were so diffuse, but the difference was pretty clear.

Turning from the not dead, but definitely unconscious for a while (his brain was currently poisoned and on fire for the gods sake) I spun on Mordaunt, whose eyes were wide and gaping. Sadly, the shock wasn't enough to distract her from Callie's attack from behind her, and she dodged to the side, lashing out with her daggers at my shadow covered girlfriend, who looked just like the clone she'd left to keep the monster maker's attention.

The daggers were scary, but Callie was no amateur, and we were wearing F-ranked armor. I suspected my sneak attack on Rahm had partly worked because of that. I couldn't manage another attack on that level, and actually needed to let even the magma leg go so I could let my pounding head recover, the soul weight I'd used so far too much for me to bear and still be mobile.

To my shock, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and then a wash of soothing coolness flooded my head. I turned to see Benny, eyes closed in concentration, somehow managing to push the energy from his spiritual calming belt into me to help me recover. Considering it was a part of him after integration and he'd learned to spread his other abilities around his body it was feasible, but I could tell from the grunt of pain as he steadied himself it wasn't easy.

I let the coolness flood me and calm down as I watched Callie kick the living shit out of Mordaunt. While the other woman had clearly been trained and possibly even augmented herself based on the battle, Callie had nearly two hundred MIght, and Mordaunt was a crafter. Focus had to be her main stat, so she wasn't really equipped for frontal confrontation.

She tried to escape, eyes wide with terror as she glanced down at her bodyguard, who was obviously still out of commission, even as his vitality and undead nature battle the poison fire. Even after that faded I was betting it would take a while to recover from THAT. Sadly for her there was no escape, and Callie beat her into submission with brutal efficiency, smashing every limb to make sure she didn't escape.

Once that was done, she created a braided rope of shadows and tied the woman up, turning to come check on me. My soul was WAY overstressed, and I wouldn't be able to modify any Skills or anything, but Benny's calming belt had helped my head clear enough that normal attacks and movements were fine. I gave him a grateful nod and stepped forward to meet her. She shot me a smile and as Randall and the other F-ranker battled in the background we turned to meet Pietro as he finally made it to us.