Kai charged again. On the far side of Vox, Levi threw his knife. Vox swayed back. Shadow tendrils darted out from his back and supported him as he pulled a neat backflip. Kai’s slash struck down behind Vox, beating a hole in the earth but failing to strike the man.

  “He’s afraid of your sword! You’re strong enough to break through his shadow armor!” Levi shouted. He darted in himself, bending over to snatch a sledgehammer from a dead cannibal’s hand. As Vox spun back to his feet, Levi hammered in in the gut. Vox spat out his air, startled.

  “Sharp edge shielding doesn’t do fuck against blunt force trauma, idiot,” Levi informed him.

  Not letting up, the Armalgam whipped its sword around. The blade carved toward Vox’s neck.

  Vox snarled silently, his air still gone. He snapped his fingers. His shadow darkened and leaped up. Razor-sharp spikes jutted toward Levi.

  Levi threw himself backward. The Armalgam caught him and scuttled back, carrying Levi horizontally back from the strike.

  Behind Vox, Kai loomed, sword raised to the heavens. The heavy blade swept down, seeking to cleave Vox’s skull apart.

  Vox didn’t have to turn. His cloak’s hood leaped up. Black shadow burst from its surface, catching the blade mid-swing. Kai struggled, pushing the blade down. Vox’s shadows held strong. Veins stood out on Kai’s forehead, and he pushed with all his might, but the blade didn’t budge. Vox yanked a knife from his belt and hammered it toward Kai’s chest. His cloak whirled, obscuring the motion.

  Kai’s eyes flashed. He jumped back. The slash whiffed.

  Quietly, Levi raised his brows. Kai hadn’t seen that strike, but he’d reacted as if he’d seen it. He had some kind of combat awareness skill. One that warned him of attacks before they landed. Levi tucked that one in his mental notes for later.

  He tapped the Armalgam, and it tossed him back to his feet. Levi pressed his fingertips to the ground. Death energy, the remnants that he hadn’t called up earlier, darted through the earth. The cannibals near Vox’s feet twitched. Green light flickered in their eyes, then faded. They laid in wait for Levi’s command.

  Glancing back, he whistled. The slombie rushed in. Vox and Kai struggled, trading blows. Levi had no desire to get in between the two titans. He was a magic build, not a strength build. That was what his undead were for.

  The slombie body-slammed toward Vox. Vox swept his arm, knocking it back. Brownish slime splattered over his arm. It stuck to his jacket. Where it sat, the black magic melted away.

  Oh? Interesting. Levi flicked his eyes to Kai.

  Kai didn’t notice, too busy dueling Vox.

  “Let’s make it a little more obvious,” Levi muttered. He nodded at the slombie. It grabbed a handful of its own slime and threw it at Vox. Again, Vox swept it away. The jacket started to hiss as some of the slime landed in the same place as before.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Well? Keep going,” Levi encouraged it. The slombie grabbed another handful of its slime, then another. One toss after another, it lobbed slime toward Vox.

  Kai noticed at last. He pressed the attack, striking harder than before. Forced to pay more attention to the fight, Vox turned his back to the slombie, letting the slime hit his cloak. It ate away the black magic and hissed into the cloth, but then had to get through yet another layer of magic and cloth beneath.

  “Damn. Well, nothing for it. Let’s just keep tossing!” Levi encouraged the slombie.

  The slombie nodded. As ordered, it continued to throw slime Vox’s direction. The hole in Vox’s cloak grew. Slowly, the jacket beneath his cloak started to throw its color, then show the skin beneath. Levi half-expected the magic to recoat the clothes, or coat the man’s skin, but oddly, it didn’t. He didn’t understand why not, whether it cost too much mana or took too much time, but he didn’t need to understand why it happened to take advantage of it.

  “Kai! His back is weak!” Levi shouted.

  Vox flicked his fingers toward Levi. A blur rushed at him. The Armalgam swung in front of Levi, protecting him before he could even will it to. Three knives stuck into its dead flesh, thud-thud-thud. And then they began to hiss.

  “Pull them out, quickly!” Levi snapped. The Armalgam yanked the knives free, but not before they did damage. Its arm withered around the puncture wounds. The once-muscular flesh sagged, and the arm hung limply from the construct, still able to move, but lacking its usual strength.

  He tilted his head. Was it the silver that injured it? Poison shouldn’t hurt an undead. The Armalgam’s hand hissed, and he quickly dropped the knives. Black burns dug into the Armalgam’s hand, not unlike the wounds on its arm.

  Levi wrinkled his nose. “Not good.”

  Across the field from them, Kai spun around and swept his blade toward Vox’s back. Vox turned, rotating his back away from Kai and turning Kai’s blade away from his back. Levi grabbed the silver knives with his own personal hands and tossed one at the weak spot on Vox’s back. Shadowy tendrils leapt up from his shirt and snagged the knives out of the air, but Vox froze for a second. Kai’s eyes flashed once more. He slashed at Vox again, instantly seizing the man’s moment of distraction.

  Heh. So we both saw that. Now, to exploit it.

  Vox parried the blade again, but as he moved, Levi tossed the other knife at his back. Vox froze mid-swipe. The tendrils jumped up.

  “Gotcha,” Levi muttered.

  Kai’s blade slammed into Vox’s side. The force of the blow lifted Vox off his feet. He flew for a few seconds, then hit the ground and rolled, cloak tangling around him.

  The second Vox hit the ground, Levi spun and sprinted. He spun his finger around in the air. “Go go go!”

  Isa instantly snatched up Colin and flew away. Levi threw his hand out. The Armalgam launched off his back. It hit the ground and scrambled alongside Levi. Levi hopped atop it, and it sped up, racing away at top speed. Even dragging the dead arm, it still ran faster than Levi could alone, and it didn’t tire and slow down.

  “Get back here!” Vox howled. He started to climb back to his feet, only for Kai to hammer him to the ground again. The blade couldn’t penetrate his armor, and seemed to frustrate more than seriously injure him, but he was stuck on the ground, unable to rise to his feet.

  “Get stunlocked, loser.” Leaving the warrior to mash the mage into the ground, Levi booked it. He had no delusion that Kai could win that fight. If a mage like Vox wasn’t seriously injured by a warrior like Kai beating him into the dirt, there was little Levi could do to hurt him. Or Kai, for that matter. Kai hadn’t turned things around. He’d just inconvenienced Vox for a moment.

  Levi glanced down at his palm. One final silver knife glittered in his palm, blade still tainted with dark poison. Vox had dodged the knives. That meant they could hurt him.

  Hurt. Not kill. But it’s a good thing to keep in my back pocket, in case he keeps up the chase. As the Armalgam hurried off, Levi whistled, calling for the slombie to retreat. He’d regroup with it later.

  “Good luck, Kai,” Levi muttered. The man didn’t have a chance, but he’d wish him luck anyways. Anything was possible, no matter how unlikely.

  But he wasn’t going to count on it.

  They raced into the woods, leaving the town behind.