“That… is a lot.” Ranthia muttered.

  “Yup. Hate when this happens.” The Subcommander agreed.

  They were standing atop the wooden platforms that helped everyone keep stable footing on the dirt/mud walls of their base. They—like most of their forces manning the walls—were fixated on the distant sight that was just starting to come into view. The approaching force of shimagu felt practically endless as they emerged from the horizon. Ranthia had no context for anything like it. Thousands of individuals were a simple enough concept in abstract—it made sense in reports—but the sight of it was something else entirely. It was intimidating on a deep level; the effect wasn’t entirely unlike the sight of a flock of ornithocheirus.

  She had fought men, but the numbers were always something that was far easier to grasp. Watching an army approach was something else entirely. She hadn’t expected to be shaken so badly by the sight—she had known what war was, in concept, but the reality…

  Well, it seemed that she would get an opportunity to test out her new System kill notifications soon enough.

  It had been three days since her first skirmish with the shimagu forces. Since then, there hadn’t been much to do, aside from trying to get to know the others in the base. Even if they knew the ‘army’ was approaching, there wasn’t much to do, it seemed. To be honest, it was a military base positioned for a war, Ranthia supposed that it was likely attacked often. …Which would be why she was stationed there, right.

  Despite the fact that the nameless base was officially an alliance base, everyone in it was human—except the unnamed dwarven not-a-blacksmith. Ranthia wasn’t clear how anyone knew about it, but the dwarf was an outcast from Khazad and his lack of beard was some sort of bizarre punishment to brand him a criminal. Seriously, who decided to use what should have been a personal appearance choice as a symbol of criminality? No one seemed to know how he had signed on with the Legions though. The base was mostly populated by soldiers from the 2nd Legion—and it was lacking in the tagalongs that usually followed Legion forces around. Everyone present was from the military, though a handful—like Ranthia herself—were assigned out of other forces.

  The Legion soldiers were nice enough, though they kept a bit of a distance from her through senseless formality. Many of them were aspiring to join the Ranger program once their current service rotation concluded (and Ranthia had thought she was over-leveled for the Academy when she attended; times certainly were changing), and the aspirants tended to treat her with an uncomfortable level of deference. Not that the rest of the Legion were much more relaxed around her.

  Unfortunately, there was a reason for that. By Remus’ normal (somewhat informal) standards, as a Ranger—War Ranger, whatever—she outranked everyone on the base and how her authority worked with the base Commander’s was a bit… murky. In practice, Ranthia was more than happy to let others lead, so long as she had the freedom to act when she needed to. But everyone was still a bit wary of her, and—since the empire hadn’t thought to clarify things for the War Ranger program—it was hard to blame them.

  Weirdly though, everyone seemed to like the Commander. Ranthia knew that she was holding a bit of an excessive grudge (slightly, maybe) over the woman’s one-time casual blasphemy, but it was hard to believe the woman was anything but unlikable. Still, she figured that she’d find out soon enough. How the woman led them through this would speak volumes.

  The ‘army’ of shimagu—not that they had the equipment, training, or classes to be true soldiers—was slowly drawing ever-nearer.

  The round wall of mud that defended their base was made for situations exactly like the force that was approaching them. …Which apparently wasn’t exactly an unheard-of number of opponents. War was a crazy thing. Either way, as the Subcommander had explained it: A proper fortress with stone walls and a gate would sustain damage over time, while the gate would be an obvious target for the physically powerful ogres to smash their way in. Instead, a ring of conjured mud was kept smooth on the outside and magically replaced as it took damage. It gave the ogres nowhere in particular to focus their attacks and made the walls impossible to breach. …At least unless there was a twin involved—and only while the mud [Mages] had mana.

  Unfortunately, the base hadn’t been able to requisition much arcanite. Ranthia wasn’t an expert on the mana potential of different sizes of stones, but there was a good chance that her armor carried more mana worth of arcanite than the base had been provided. Not that she was going to mention that to anyone. The arcanite was probably going to be essential for her own survival once the battle was joined.

  The attack began in fits and starts as individual members of the shimagu forces charged into bow range—or, at least, the Legion’s bow range, since their Skills gave them considerably greater range than the shimagu’s own archers. The [Mages] were waiting (surprisingly) patiently for larger groups of targets to blast, but archers—mostly [Warriors]—were all too happy to call targets and pick them off as they could. Ranthia wasn’t stupid enough to claim a bow or try to get involved—most of the Legion forces were of a comparable level and they actually had Skills to get far greater use out of their bows.

  Not that waiting was remotely comfortable.

  The main shimagu force had finally reached the base’s combat radius. Ranthia had to silence army and ally kill notifications almost immediately—the notifications, like the shimagu themselves, came in an endless tide. Lives were being taken and lost in rapid succession; death visited in numbers that Ranthia would have never imagined being… ordinary. The scale should have been unthinkable.

  Ranthia was (probably) allowed to act under her own discretion since the Commander hadn’t given her any orders, but for the moment she remained atop the wall while she watched. She had never experienced combat like this before—she needed a strong framework of what the rhythm of this scale of conflict truly was before she could throw herself into the thick of it.

  A relay of soldiers carried orders and intel to and from the Commander. She remained in her tent with the [Analysts], and no one was allowed in except for the last member of her relay team. As the Commander’s orders came in, Legion [Mages] one by one provided their brief—yet brutal—mark on the battle. Each one unleashed a wide area Skill or a brutal bombardment of Earth or conjured materials. Dozens—possibly hundreds—of the shimagu’s puppets died in mere moments, and then the [Mage]’s mana was spent. In a staggered pattern the [Mages] ended lives and stepped away from the wall, smoothly replaced by the next. A few [Mages] kept to smaller scale Skills and made more targeted effects on the battle, but they seldom did much. Their duty was mostly to prevent potential wall breaches, an effort to prevent their mud [Mages] from being forced to exhaust their own mana.

  The base was strong, so long as the shimagu broke before the base ran out of mana or arrows.

  One thing that was a genuine surprise for Ranthia was that there was no melee response. The Legion’s [Warriors] were on standby, but everyone stayed secure within the base. In effect, the battle was just Skills and arrows rained down onto an enemy that milled about and hacked at the walls with clubs (and the occasional tool). There were other shimagu forces that returned fire with their own bows (…or just threw rocks, which was more common than Ranthia would have expected), of course, but the mud barricades afforded some cover for those that manned the walls. Casualties on their side were rare—typically just injuries that forced someone to head for the [Healers]’ tent, with yet another Legion soldier replacing them smoothly.

  It was an orderly defense against the chaos of the shimagu. Which meant that it was time to unleash some true chaos upon the parasites.

  “Right, I’ve seen what I need to.” Ranthia announced, before she turned to head for her assigned tent.

  “Where are you going, War Ranger?!” The Subcommander called after her.

  “You’ll see!” Ranthia promised. It was flippant, but she really didn’t want to stand there and loudly explain the secrets of how her Skills worked right in front of everyone. The shimagu seemed to rarely speak Creation, but that was no excuse to take such a stupid risk. Besides, she really didn’t want to hand her secrets to every Legion soldier in earshot either.

  A short run later she settled into her tent, next to her crate of knives. A final gear check only took a few short moments, but it was necessary to confirm her readiness. With that, she formed a mirror image—her armor hadn’t changed its external appearance, so her old Ranger armor image worked fine and she’d added her bandolier to it during the downtime—and channeled her mana until [Reflections of Reality] was primed. The Skill shifted her into the image and her perspective seamlessly swapped to one that looked down at her true body seated next to the crate of knives.

  Another short run later and Ranthia was back on the wall. The Subcommander gave her an exasperated look—she had made a bit of a performance of dashing away and coming right back from his perspective. But Ranthia just winked at the man, drew her knives, and leapt right off the wall—heedless of the numerous shouts and other reactions that she caused.

  During her Academy days she had once gotten chewed out for making that exact same maneuver. Her instructors had claimed it was something she only did because it was a training scenario, but it turned out—just as she had suspected at the time—it was just the kind of thing she was willing to do. But Ranthia tamped down on her bemused recollection after an instant. Her perception had already accelerated to the limits of her ever-growing stats, and it was time.

  The leap itself was the first step of her newest dance. A few arrows came her way, but since the shimagu forces’ arrows weren’t backed by Skills, it was almost comically easy to knock them away with her knives, even in midair. It was even easier since so few of their archers even bothered. Her actions probably looked like either an intentional suicide or a terrible accident, but, either way, the shimagu seemed to be confident that their forces that waited beneath her would kill her (or at least that was the best explanation she had, since she doubted their reaction speeds were that bad).

  That was not what happened, of course.

  Ranthia was already in a spin, and she carved her way down into their ranks. Ogres—and many dinosaurs—were taller than humans were. These provided her first targets for brutality. A half a dozen shimagu kill notifications—host and parasite pairs—triggered before her feet found proper ground (though she cheated slightly; she’d kicked off the chest of an ogre to redirect her descent a bit). In most of the battles she had been in, her dance was elegant—cuts were made only as a single aspect of a greater rhythm. This, on the other hand, felt more like butchery. There was a savagery to it that she had only one comparison for. Once again Ranthia found herself continually hacking through an endless sea of opponents. …Which meant that she couldn’t help but to compare it to her battle against the flock of ornithocheirus—where she had nearly died a year ago.

  This time would go better, she promised herself, as she tried to banish the dark thought. It helped that she was already dealing with the mental focus required to channel—not that she had enough space under her control to get another mirror image out just yet.

  The shimagu forces seemed to have no idea how to respond to the whirling death that had appeared in their midst. Clearly, they didn’t send their best and their brightest to die against the mud walls. With their inaction it didn’t take long before Ranthia had managed to cleave enough space for her first mirror image, which she immediately handed off to [Submind]. Her images could only attack with 1% of her own strength and power, but they were great distractions—even if they were unlikely to rack up many solo kills. With it set on the endless tides of shimagu, Ranthia focused on cutting her way through in a different direction to clear more space.

  Ranthia filled that space with a second [Submind]-controlled mirror image, then fought her way between her images. The three of her danced side-by-side—a graceful line of devastation amidst the brutality of the shimagu’s forces. There wasn’t enough room—or focus to spare while she held her channel—for more ([Submind] could control three, but it wasn’t able to quite keep up with her when it had to). [Void Edge] consumed knife after knife as Ranthia fought on. And all too soon, Ranthia was down to two pairs of knives—her emergency arsenal. Immediately, Ranthia released her channel and—after the long moments it took for [Reflections of Reality] to activate—was back in her true body.

  Swiftly, Ranthia began to restock the knives that had disappeared from her person once she shifted back. [Reflections of Reality] was invaluable, but there were (mostly) sensible quirks to the Skill. Her images could wear or wield whatever she desired, but if she shifted into an image that wore or held anything that hadn’t been on her person beforehand, it vanished as soon as she inhabited the image. But this meant that she only needed to resupply her true body and then she could then inhabit an image that had all of her knives. It also meant that she wasn’t forced to have images saved in [Image Recall] for each missing blade as she used them, thank Xaoc.

  And then it was time to return to battle.

  …Or, rather, to discover that her mirror images were all gone. Right, [Submind] still needed to use her senses and couldn’t exactly do much while it was blind to the situation she had left her images in. Whoops.

  The Subcommander seemed to be more than a little confused when she ran past him again and leapt over the wall once again. …In hindsight, she probably owed the man a few explanations once the base was safe—he had just watched her abandoned images ‘die’ after all.

  But for the moment, she had shimagu to kill.

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Dinosaur Enthusiast] (Fire, level 310), [Tamer’s Assistant] (Water, level 140)//shimagu [Accursed Jerk] (Ooze, level 302), [Lazy Sod] (Wood, level 314)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Farmer] (Water, level 214), [Harvester] (Water, level 193)//shimagu [Cruel Master] (Ooze, level 220), [Coward] (Poison, level 128)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a human [Experienced Deckhand] (Wind, level 221), [Fisherman] (Water, level 201)//shimagu [Wannabe Tyrant] (Ooze, level 421), [Bootlicker] (Miasma, level 397)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Alxasaurus] (Earth, level 278)//shimagu [Vicious Rawr] (Ooze, level 317), [Packmaster] (Earth, level 190)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Alxasaurus] (Earth, level 194)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Alxasaurus] (Earth, level 232)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Dutiful Daughter] (Mist, level 360), [Brawler] (Earth, level 329)//shimagu [Worst Friend Ever] (Ooze, level 412), [Hopebreaker] (Dark, level 404)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Alxasaurus] (Earth, level 480)//shimagu [Master Tamer] (Ooze, level 512), [Dinosaur Tender] (Water, level 370), [The Bitterness of Wasted Potential] (Ooze, level 65)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Simple Man] (Wind, level 190), [Light Labor] (Fire, level 118)//shimagu [Mean Spirited] (Ooze, level 247), [Vicious Tongue] (Ooze, level 199)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Eager Digger] (Earth, level 114), [Construction Worker] (Earth, level 93)//shimagu [Always Tired] (Ooze, level 182), [Tardy] (Poison, level 130)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Alxasaurus] (Earth, level 218)//shimagu [Likes to Bite] (Ooze, level 240), [Director] (Metal, level 157)!]

  [*ding!* You have slain an ogre [Terrible Cook] (Poison, level 395), [Accidental Murderer] (Poison, level 381)//shimagu [Disgusting Slob] (Ooze, level 444), [Stubborn and Cruel] (Poison, level 409)!]

  On and on they went. The kill notifications spilled forth with almost every swipe of her blade. Some of her fatal attacks were jabs made through the puppets’ throats to the shimagu hidden deep within. Others were kills that Ranthia made while she swept past a target and delivered a slash to the back of their neck. Of course, some foes were wounded by cuts—usually made without [Void Edge]—either to drive them back or set them up for a killing blow. Ranthia tried to avoid situations where she delivered a fatal blow to the host that the shimagu would survive—there was always a risk that she’d encounter another shimagu that could lash out without its host—but the reality of war forced her hand more than once.

  The battle was thick and Ranthia had precious little room to maneuver, even once she was able to get two mirror images’ assistance once again. And, for all her combat prowess, she still took damage. A broken foot. A shovel speared shallowly into her gut. A knife plunged into her arm. A club that broke her spine. A claw raked across her face. Each time it happened she simply released her channel and immediately shifted to one of the other mirror images. As swiftly as she could manage, she replaced the body she had abandoned. Her images weren’t just her backup dancers that helped inflict their own limited damage upon the shimagu—they were her escape route.

  If she ever lost her channel, she would probably die immediately. It had been a problem for her when she was younger—some injuries had jarred or shocked her so much that her concentration slipped. In the past she had, more than once, found herself bleeding out on the ground as she struggled to try to channel again. It would have been impossible in such a press of flesh, but ever since her idiotic battle against the kraken, pain had become unremarkable. Her flesh had been ripped and torn so many times that pain barely affected her concentration. In many ways she regretted facing the kraken, but for the lessons it had inflicted upon her… she would have never attempted such a tactic against the shimagu. Thanks to her prior recklessness, she was confident that she could hold on and endure through anything these Skill-less shimagu could inflict upon her.

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  The battle wore on as she continued her brutal, efficient dance of death, interrupted only by the necessities of further resupply runs.

  The day had grown long, and the shadows stretched as night visited the base. Yet the onslaught continued. [Vision of the Void] provided Ranthia with perfect night vision—which was probably a common enough Skill for a war zone—so it wasn’t like day or night changed much. Ranthia was on her way back to the battle from yet another trip to restock her knives, only to be delayed by a soldier that offered her a waterskin and some sort of weirdly flavorful field ration bar. Ranthia was still trying to choke down the rest of the dry, yet tasty, block of brown chewiness when she was distracted by a call from one of the archers.

  “What the hell is that?!”

  Ranthia stood again and looked in the direction that the archer indicated.

  A very, very large dinosaur rampaged through the shimagu forces as it charged directly toward their base. The monster was outright trampling the ogres, humans, and smaller dinosaurs that had the misfortune of being in its path, and its large tail smashed through others.

  [Tarbosaurus - Wood], level 652… wait no, it actually just hit level 653 from the allies it was trampling.

  “…Oh Xaoc. I’ll intercept it when it’s within my Skill’s range!” Ranthia called over to the Subcommander.

  The man hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

  “Good, we would need it dangerously near our walls to kill it ourselves. Something that big might be dangerous at our walls even as a corpse.” He replied.

  Good to know he had faith in her ability to kill it—because she sure wasn’t quite so convinced.

  Ranthia threw her current supply of knives into the horde of foes near her section of the wall, using [Sustained Chaos] to make them as deadly as possible. The large dinosaur—gods and goddesses, it was huge—was far enough out that she had time to do that and restock before it would be in range for [Reflections of Reality]. She had heard that there were terrestrial dinosaurs that were far larger than any she had seen, but it was intimidating to watch one approach. And she was about to do her best to kill it before it killed her. Lovely.

  The moment came just after she returned to the wall with fresh knives. Thankfully, she had already been channeling. Ranthia pulled from the arcanite woven into the padding of her armor and willed her uncertainty into submission. Then, she placed a mirror image behind the gigantic bipedal killing machine and released her channel.

  The godsforsaken tarbosaurus was even bigger up close.

  Her approach was a dance through the gore it left in its wake. She had considered her move since she laid eyes on the beast, and it was time to find out if she was right about it being too big to notice her weight on its back. Ranthia hopped forward, grabbed the shoulders of an ogre that was still scrambling to get clear—he hadn’t even noticed the gigantic beast had passed him—and vaulted directly onto the dinosaur’s back.

  It immediately began to thrash, in direct defiance of her expectations and hopes. Even with her Skills and the stats that empowered them, it proved to be impossible to keep her footing. [Rhythmic Grace] could do a lot for her footing with her dexterity, but there were, unfortunately, limits. And a powerful dinosaur thrashing like an angry toddler was clearly beyond them.

  It was less of a plan and more of an instinctual reaction, but Ranthia turned the fall into a lunge and buried her knives into its back to use as handles. She’d already started to channel too, but for the moment her knives held firm.

  The tarbosaurus roared in anger, but—after several terrifying attempts—it proved unable to bend enough to get its head back to snap at her. Nor could its tail curl far enough to reach her. The attempts it made were definitely jarring though.

  She was safe but the situation was… less than ideal. She had hoped to reach the back of its head—and hoped the parasite was in roughly the same place, even on such a titanic beast—to kill the beast and its master. That wasn’t going to be an option anymore. Instead, she hesitantly released one of the knives she had buried in the creature’s back and, carefully, drew another knife. She was ready to drop it and grab her handhold again if she needed, but for the moment her strength and vitality kept her grip stable. Ranthia tapped [Sustained Chaos] to maintain the [Void Edge]—there was no way she could dance while she flopped like a fish on a spear, so most of her Skills weren’t available—and threw the knife at the back of the dinosaur’s head.

  Her aim was true, but the cut was pathetically small. The damned thing was too resilient for that to work.

  Which meant that it was time to improvise! Ranthia yanked her knife handholds free and kicked off the dinosaur’s spine. She spun herself—just enough to count as a dance—and slashed at the back and side of the tarbosaurus as she twirled past it.

  Another roar emerged from the monstrosity, even as it turned around far faster than she had ever expected—those horrifying jaws were coming straight at her.

  Xaoc, dinosaurs big enough to swallow me whole were a mistake! Ranthia wasn’t quite sure if it was a silent prayer or an intrusive thought; she was kind of focused on the moment.

  Ranthia summoned a mirror image below herself and kicked off of it. It was just enough to get her to the side of the dinosaur’s head. She made an attempt to strike the back of the dinosaur’s neck as she passed it, but she missed—wasting a knife as [Void Edge] consumed the blade and a bit of the wind as she sailed past.

  The damned thing’s legs were nearly as wide around as she was, but she still stuck her landing right next to them. She had no idea what her strategy even was anymore, but all she could do in the moment was throw herself into her dance, slashing at its legs as she could. The dinosaur was fast, and [Combat Awareness] was essential to her goal of not getting pulped as it stomped and kicked. If it managed to step on her, she wasn’t sure if she’d live long enough to shift back to the wall.

  Once she was down to her final two knives, she leapt and buried them into the dinosaur’s undercarriage. She hoped that the pain would make it think she was still there for a moment. Once the knives were set, she released her channel and carefully avoided death until [Reflections of Reality] had her back on the mud wall.

  Ranthia nodded to those around her, then sprinted back to her tent to restock her knives yet again—the bandolier helped, but she could only carry so many knives in a useful capacity. Every other idea she’d had was too inconvenient and problematic in practice. At least she was getting faster and faster at restocking her knives, as she repeated the process time and time again.

  “Xaoc, hope you’re enjoying the show…” She whispered as she ran back to the wall. She was more than a bit annoyed with herself over griping to the deity earlier, but there was no time to try to do a proper prayer—she would have to offer Him her mana later.

  The dinosaur was still thrashing about as if she was there, even though it’d crushed her abandoned image already. The shimagu’s allies had spread out to give it a wide clear area for the fight, and they were outright fighting to avoid being in the front rows of the crowd. The dozens of trampled and crushed bodies around the tarbosaurus painted a clear picture of why they were so desperate to get more distance.

  Ranthia sent an image in front of the beast then, while it lunged forward to crunch the image, sent a second near its side and pulled from her arcanite before she released her channel and shifted to the ‘safe’ image.

  And after the moments [Reflections of Reality] required, she already had the tarbosaurus’ powerful jaws closing in on her. Ranthia embraced her dance and twirled to the side, scoring a beautiful slash across its jaw, right below its eye. The beast yanked its head to the side and let out an oddly cute sound—it reminded Ranthia of a wolf’s pained yelp. Once again, she charged between its legs while it was distracted. Much as she had done against the kraken years ago, she focused her cuts on the wounds that she had already inflicted. Each knife consumed by [Void Edge] widened the wounds and made them deeper.

  The rhythm of her chaotic dance carried her. Fighting like this was dangerous in the extreme, but it was a familiar kind of danger. …Not that she was nostalgic to relive the fight against the kraken in any capacity, even if it was on a far lesser scale. The dinosaur had no access to Skills and had (probably) never been a caster monster, even before the shimagu took it over. Its level was less than the kraken’s had been, but level aside, it was also just a far lesser being. It was large, it had powerful stats, and there its advantages over her ended.

  This fight was dangerous, but it wasn’t a foolhardy attempt at suicide, like the kraken had been.

  Her first success came when she—effectively, after getting through the bone—severed two toes from one of its feet. The giant dino’s balance was visibly reduced, but she couldn’t stop there. If anything, its loss of balance made her job tougher—it became far more difficult for [Rhythmic Grace] to predict the large dinosaur’s movements with the clumsiness added in.

  Another retreat to the wall. She had run out of knives again. The thing was ridiculously tough, for its level.

  Once she returned, Ranthia found herself scrambling. She’d thought that it looked like the tarbosaurus was waiting for her before she shifted, but she wasn’t expecting it to be holding a mouthful of ogres, much less for it to hurl them at her when she started to move! That probably confirmed that there was a shimagu inside of the monstrosity that controlled it—she doubted that the tarbosaurus was naturally quite so cunning or strategic.

  Still, she managed to evade the bombardment of ogres and once again got herself between its legs. The dangerous dance resumed. Usually, Ranthia preferred having her backup dancers when she did something stupid, but in this situation even [Submind]-controlled mirror images were useless. 1% of her power wasn’t going to even break through the thick hide of the dinosaur, and she didn’t want any additional obstacles while she danced around the dinosaur’s legs.

  Halfway through her supply of knives, the dinosaur lost its balance and failed to catch itself. Trapped beneath the falling monstrosity, Ranthia was forced to throw herself recklessly to the side—her only hope was to try to roll clear. The ground quaked as the beast came down, followed by a shockwave that imparted greater momentum on her—and the surrounding ogres.

  Ranthia was bruised and a touch rattled by the time she found her feet, but the dinosaur was stunned. She wasn’t going to waste the opportunity, even if she was on the wrong side. Ranthia charged at the dazed beast, leapt gracefully over its neck (okay, her jump came up short and she had to scramble a bit, yes, but the intent was graceful), and arrived at the back of its neck, just below the dinosaur’s skull. Ranthia began to dance in place to activate the full breadth of her Skills, even as she slashed as fast as she could. Frustratingly, she wasn’t entirely sure where the Shimagu would be with that much neck.

  Not that the dinosaur was going to let her get away with that unchallenged, the beast suddenly jerked its head back. Ranthia didn’t even have time to dodge, she crossed her arms to block, but the impact knocked her back—and managed to break her nose. Ranthia scrambled back as the dinosaur rolled and turned.

  Ranthia just threw one of her few remaining knives at its exposed eye with [Sustained Chaos] empowering the blade, then released her channel. She could find out if it was effective after her resupply.

  Once she was back on the wall, she sprinted for her tent without a single word. Gods and goddesses, she wished she didn’t have to burn through knives so quickly. This was a ridiculous waste of mana and her opponent wasn’t going to stay vulnerable indefinitely. Resupply done, she ran back to the wall and released the channel she had charged during the journey.

  Ranthia might have damaged—possibly blinded—one of its eyes, but the gigantic dinosaur was fighting to get back on its feet.

  “Nope!” Ranthia shouted, even as she began to channel once again.

  She charged in—honestly, it wasn’t really a dance—and leapt for its neck. She buried one knife into the side of its neck for balance and held on, while she used her other hand to slash at the muscles and soft tissues around its lower jaw. Resupplying was awkward, but the dinosaur was only partially upright, which made holding on far easier than it had been when it fought to dislodge her from its back.

  The dinosaur howled and roared as blood flew. But soon the jaws stopped snapping as she—hopefully—crippled the beast. With its jaw out of commission, the beast slumped back to the ground and Ranthia released the knife buried in its neck. Instead, she drew fresh knives and, once her feet were on the ground, went straight for its throat.

  [*ding!* You have slain a dinosaur [Tarbosaurus] (Wood, level 653)!]

  Ranthia staggered away from the beast, covered in its lifeblood. She was low on knives, but with the dinosaur out of commission, there was one final task. But she needed to hurry.

  With the tarbosaurus dead, [Vision of the Void] could barely see through the meat of the dinosaur, at least where she had hacked at the back of its neck before. The hide was too thick, but the exposed muscle wasn’t quite dense enough to block her. She found the shimagu hiding, higher up on the neck than she had expected, practically in the skull itself. But she only required one final cut.

  [*ding!* You have slain a shimagu [Despotic Dread] (Ooze, level 661), [The Mightiest] (Metal, level 581), [Very Conspicuous Information Broker] (Steam, level 219)!]

  An arrow bounced off the dinosaur’s hide a short distance away from her. It seemed that the other shimagu forces had finally realized their big dinosaur friend was dead.

  “Thanks for not firing blindly in while I was fighting, real big of you guys to make it a proper duel! Bye!” Ranthia called out while she released her channel. Almost the very moment she stopped speaking, she was back in her image atop the wall.

  She even got to dismiss the image that she had just abandoned on top of the dinosaur before the shimagu could break it.

  “The tarbosaurus is dead, as is its shimagu. …Can I get some more water and some light food at my tent? I need a moment before I go back out.” Ranthia requested of the Subcommander, while she channeled one last time.

  At long last, she shifted back into her true body and dismissed the mirror image she had left on the wall. That had gotten dangerous more than once… but once again, she survived.

  That was what mattered, though she did owe Xaoc an apologetic prayer while she had a moment.

  Once she was refreshed enough, Ranthia threw herself back into the fray next to the wall. The shimagu archers had taken to prioritizing her when she vaulted over the wall, so she had to get creative with her descents. Honestly, she should have been leaping with her [Submind]-controlled mirror images at her side the entire time. It was so much handier, even if at least one inevitably broke.

  The slaughter continued. The kiss of dawn upon the sky was heralded by a stream of kill notifications.

  A dance with cut after cut, interrupted by pain and a need to shift to another mirror image. Over and over and over. It was a surprisingly dull slog in that respect, even if the press of flesh still reminded her uncomfortably of the ornithocheirus swarm that nearly ended her existence.

  While Ranthia fought, Skills and arrows ended even more shimagu from the ‘army’ that hopelessly assailed their base. Calls came from the wall for shift changes. Yet Ranthia stayed, aside from brief trips back to retrieve new knives.

  Her first crate was emptied, but the second had already been delivered. Someone had anticipated the need—she’d work out a better system for handling the knife supply in the future.

  Mana was pulled from the arcanite embedded in the lining of her armor, once again.

  And the slaughter continued.

  Night fell. More blood was spilled. The kill notifications had all but become background noise.

  At some point she had started to give four mirror images to [Submind]; she never even consciously noticed when she made the change. Odds were that it was a mistake, but it worked just fine, so she continued.

  Sometime near dawn, a horn was blown and the shimagu ‘army’ began to withdraw. It was no orderly retreat. Most fled. A few took parting shots as they withdrew. Some stayed to die, and the base’s personnel were quick to oblige them. There was no discipline or unity among the shimagu, their escape was no more elegant than their attack had been.

  At length, Ranthia returned to base and let one of the [Healers] check her over briefly, before the woman left to tend to the other wounded that actually needed her.

  The debriefing was almost perfunctory, just a general “well done” from the Commander and they were released. Which suited Ranthia just fine, she settled into her tent with a bowl of what was presumably at some point vegetable stew before it had overcooked into mush. Not that she felt very hungry.

  At last, Ranthia let what she had just done wash over her. She had completely lost track of how many shimagu she had killed. The System could tell her, but she didn’t want a number. It meant that she had killed just as many hosts too. Host or parasite, they were all sapient beings (aside from the dinosaurs, at least). Gods, half of the kills were technically innocent—beings that were prisoners to the parasites that controlled them. Even for the shimagu, they were villains only through the narrow lens that the species was evil and needed to be purged to prevent the numerous tragedies their kind inflicted upon Pallos. Odds were, many of the individual shimagu would have preferred to not fight, if they were given a choice in the matter. Ranthia had no idea if the species was capable of coexistence, but she had denied countless lives the right to find out.

  And yet, no matter how heavy the thought was… Ranthia wasn’t bothered. Not truly. When she reflected on her actions, she found no guilt. The brutality had been necessary. There was no self-doubt. No second guesses came. She had done what she had to, and she didn’t regret it.

  She had no frame of reference for such a sentiment. It was so far outside of anything she had experienced. She had killed people before, but they were always villains—often heinous ones. She had, to the best of her knowledge, never before cut down someone that was innocent—someone who didn’t deserve death. But the knowledge she had done so on a scale she could hardly imagine just… didn’t bother her.

  Ironically, that bothered her.

  Was she a monster? Did she delight in slaughter? No, she never felt pleasure while fighting. There was a certain degree of satisfaction over her victories—but much of that stemmed from doing her part to save the base and prevent Reman lives from being lost. The men and women here were once again safe, at least for now. She had already been told that everyone that had been injured was expected to survive. They had a single casualty from two days of warfare. That was great, in that strained way that words like ‘great’ became twisted when it came to warfare.

  She wasn’t a monster. The shimagu might disagree—probably vehemently—but that was their problem. They were on the other side of a war. She was just strong. She was hardly alone in being strong, but she had been the strongest in this fight, regardless of what levels said.

  She wasn’t just a [Warrior], she was a warrior. She had been one in her past life. She would never escape that fate.

  She had no plans to. Not when she could protect the other Hyllas of the world.

  With her morality confirmed to be intact, Ranthia finally checked her level notifications.

  [*ding!* Congratulations! [Diffuse Reflectance] has leveled up from 291 to level 308! Per level: +5 Free Stats, +3 Dexterity, +3 Vitality, +120 Mana, +120 Mana Regeneration, +120 Magic Power, +120 Magic Control from your class, +1 free stat for being human, +1 Mana Regeneration and +1 Magic Power from your element.]

  [*ding!* [Mirror Spirit], [Scattered Reflections], [Pure Reflections], and [Persistent Imagery] have leveled from 291 to level 308!]

  [*ding!* [Ideal Reflectance] has leveled from 169 to level 220!]

  [*ding!* [Reflections of Reality] has leveled from 122 to level 128!]

  [*ding!* Congratulations! [She who Dances with Chaos] has leveled up from 313 to level 340! Per level: +100 Strength, +100 Dexterity, +100 Vitality, +100 Speed, +8 Mana, +8 Mana Regeneration, +5 Magic Power, +5 Magic Control from your class, +1 free stat for being human, +2 Mana from your element.]

  [*ding!* [Void Affinity], [Rhythmic Grace], [Void Edge], [Flowing Momentum], [Echoes of Devastation], [Divine-Touched Identify], [Ranger’s Lore], and [Combat Awareness] have leveled from 313 to level 340!]

  [*ding!* [Vision of the Void] has leveled from 148 to level 199!]

  [*ding!* [Sustained Chaos] has leveled from 70 to level 103!]

  [*ding!* [True Grace] has leveled from 96 to level 102!]

  [*ding!* [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc] has leveled from 95 to level 98!]

  [*ding!* [Submind] has leveled from 170 to level 239!]

  [*ding!* [Fast Learner] has leveled from 228 to level 240!]

  …By Xaoc. Numbly she checked her full sheet.

  [Name: Ranthia]

  [Species: Human]

  [Age: 25]

  [Mana: 19743/97900]

  [Mana Regen Rate: 51314]

  [Stats:]

  [Free Stats: 351]

  [Strength: 9296]

  [Dexterity: 12408]

  [Vitality: 12445]

  [Speed: 11889]

  [Mana: 9790]

  [Mana Regeneration: 11075]

  [Magic Power: 7934]

  [Magic Control: 7793]

  [Class 1: [Diffuse Reflectance – Mirror (308)]]

  [Mirror Spirit: 308]

  [Scattered Reflections: 308]

  [Echoes Reflected: 189]

  [Pure Reflections: 308]

  [Persistent Imagery: 308]

  [Ideal Reflectance: 220]

  [Distorted Likeness: 94]

  [Reflections of Reality: 128]

  [Class 2: [She who Dances with Chaos – Void (340)]]

  [Void Affinity: 340]

  [Rhythmic Grace: 340]

  [Void Edge: 340]

  [Flowing Momentum: 340]

  [Vision of the Void: 199]

  [Sustained Chaos: 103]

  [Echoes of Devastation: 340]

  [True Grace: 102]

  [Class 3: Locked]

  [General Skills:]

  [Divine-Touched Identify: 340]

  [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc: 98]

  [Ranger’s Lore: 340]

  [Submind: 239]

  [Combat Awareness: 340]

  [Fast Learner: 240]

  [Image Recall: 201]

  [Sexy: 237]

  War agreed with her, it seemed.

  fan content license provided by !

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.