Cordan hadn’t moved since the angel appeared. Only a Skill he’d gotten early in his career and his Defensive Mindlink’s mental detection of viable link participants had saved his life. He had sensed the angel as it entered the range of his mindlink and had barely activated his only stealth Skill, Chameleon’s Suggestion, before the bright flash of light. The Skill made him effectively invisible to those around him by eliminating their ability to see him. He’d gained it all the way back in D-rank, so it had plenty of drawbacks. Chief among them was its inability to block other sensory data like hearing and smell. It also didn’t work on creatures with higher Willpower than him. In truth, he had questioned the usefulness of the ability more than once; he wouldn’t do that again. Cordan was all but certain that the angel was one of the Justiciars. That the Skill had worked on the angel and it hadn’t detected him in by other means was nothing short of a miracle.

He had tried to give Raina and Alindal a fighting chance, but it made no difference against the angel’s overwhelming power. He witnessed the events unfold with brutal detail from the destruction of the Shadowtitan to the creature’s attack on Alindal. In somber silence, he watched as the angel flew toward the Eternal Light’s Bastion clutching Jack’s limp form. His eyes drifted over the area lingering on the scorched remains of the lightweavers in the wagon. The creature had called down a pillar of light which had burned fruits of their labor before his eyes. The heat of the attack alone had singed the hair on Cordan’s face.

He waited several seconds for the angel to disappear before he deactivated Chameleon’s Suggestion. Despite his experience, hands and knees trembled and his heart pounded in his ears. He released a pent-up breath he’d been holding for fear that the angel would hear his breathing. The sickening smell of charred flesh hung in the air though worse was the scent of burnt hair that clung to his nostrils. He tried to calm the trembling but his muscles refused to relax and the smell in the air ruined his attempts at steadying his breath. He nearly left the site of the attack at that moment. However, he steeled himself and assessed the current situation.

With the enhancement of Cordan’s augmented Psycho Boost, Dorek had escaped into the wall of light during the chaos. Over the mindlink, he felt the faint mental signatures of Alindal and Raina which told him that they were still alive, if barely. He had a bit under half of his Mana left after the short-lived sprint to the wall. Jack was gone, but he’d already accepted that the man was dead. Cordan could’ve made an attempt to save him, but he wasn’t in a hurry to die. Still, despite their differences, he felt bad about the Jack’s fate which would no doubt be horrific at the hands of a religious zealot in the practice of enslaving people’s souls. Lastly, the assault on the wall had stopped and the voice which Cordan assumed belonged to Pope Bohum spoke no more.

On shaky legs, he made his way over to Alindal. Placing the Eternal Light’s Pillar on the ground to free up his hands, he turned the elf over as gently as he could manage so that he was face-up. A quick scan of Alindal’s body revealed three small holes in his torso and another in his arm. The wounds weren’t bleeding. From what little that Cordan knew about medicine, he guessed the intense heat of the attacks had cauterized the wounds. The blackened rings of scorched flesh around each entry point attested to that hypothesis. Cordan checked his pulse. It was rapid but weak; his breathing shallow. Amazingly, Alindal still held his sigilcraft rod in a death grip.

Did the beam puncture a lung or his heart? Cordan activated Vitalist’s Renewal, his only healing Skill. The Skill’s cost was forty Mana per mindlink member including him so it drained a hundred and twenty Mana as it took effect. For the umpteenth time since coming to this forsaken place, Cordan wished he had his gear. He hadn’t been wearing his combat gear during the staging period since he hadn’t thought it was necessary. He wouldn’t make that mistake again if he made it out alive.

[Vitalist’s Renewal activated.]

• Ethos regeneration of all Defensive Mindlink members increased to 500% of its base value for 10 minutes. You may double this increase for one person by touching a member and temporarily sacrificing your own Ethos regeneration while in contact.

[Mana: 403/850]

He frowned down at Alindal’s thin frame. Suddenly, he regretted not taking the upgrade for Vitalist’s Renewal upon hitting B-rank that would’ve increased the percentage and allowed him to double the effect on two people by touching them. While leveling up could improve the cost, range and/or duration of Skills, the effect and capability of a Skill could only be upgraded by advancing the Skill during a rank-up. He wondered if his decision would cost a life as he sprinted over to the stone rubble covering Raina.

As quickly as possible, he set about pulling the stone off of the girl. Thanks to the rank-up bonuses for progressing to B-rank, his Might was good enough to lift the majority of the rubble yet he activated Psycho Boost anyway to speed up the process.

When he finally pulled the last stone slab off of Raina, he inhaled sharply at the sight of her. Her left arm twisted at an odd angle and her right wrist and forearm were swollen. The rest of her body bore abrasions from her collision with the wall which had also left her clothes in tatters. Blood soaked the side of her head and her breath came in raspy fits. Given her condition, he wasn’t sure he could even move her without causing additional damage.

“Shit,” he said under his breath, running his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. His Telekinesis wasn’t strong enough to carry a person even one as light as Raina looked to be. His gaze drifted to the wall of light. It wasn’t far. If he could find a way to move the pair without jostling them too much, then he could reach the Twilight King’s domain. The wagon would’ve been perfect, but that wasn’t an option. After being hit by the pillar of light, its metal frame sagged in sections where the metal had started to melt while other parts were blackened or still red-hot with lingering heat.

Kneeling down, he lightly touched Raina’s arm to convey the increased regeneration. Alindal’s wounds were bad but Raina looked and sounded worse off. While the spell’s duration ticked down, he scanned the area for anything that would work as a makeshift stretcher. Sadly, he noticed nothing in the immediate area.

Occasionally, his eyes drifted upward, alert for any additional threats beyond his mindlink’s detection. The creatures from the castle drifted back to it a few minutes after the assualt though some drifted away from the group. He swore when he saw a few heading in the general direction of the temple.

He ran a few calculations in his head. Since Alindal and Raina were both D-rank, their Ethos regeneration would be somewhere between two to three per minute which would be multiplied by five under the Vitalist’s Renewal or ten for whoever he boosted by sacrificing his own regeneration. Once someone’s Ethos was completely depleted, it wouldn’t activate again until the individual regenerated their Ethos in its entirety meaning they were completely vulnerable during that time frame. Assuming neither Raina nor Alindal had more than roughly three hundred Ethos, he could guarantee both would be at full after twenty minutes if he switched who he boosted during the second cast.

He wouldn’t have that much time based on the speed of the flying creatures. Although he didn’t know why they were going to the temple after the angel had already decimated the group and killed the liberated lightweavers, he couldn’t risk the chance that they would check the site of the attack afterward. He needed to move. The question was to hide in one of the nearby structures or risk a break for the wall?

Hiding meant he could ensure Alindal and Raina were at full Ethos before moving which lowered the risk of their condition worsening significantly. However, none of the viable structures in the area gave him much confidence as hiding spots. Most were collapsed wrecks and those that were barely intact enough to provide cover. Also, Cordan didn’t know if the approaching creatures had any form of augmented tracking like a keen sense of smell and the ash-covered ground provided an unhelpful road map of the group’s footprints.

Running presented a problem too. Due to their relatively slim builds, he could carry Raina and Alindal together, one over each shoulder, with Psycho Boost; however, being carried in such a way would undoubtedly aggravate their injuries, particularly Raina’s.

As the creatures reached the temple, he neared the end of his first cast of Vitalist’s Renewal. Much to his surprise, Raina’s body shimmered and flashed as her Ethos reasserted itself. Her stamina must be lower than average for a Warrior.

He walked over to Alindal and gingerly picked the elf up in a bridal carry. Making his way back to Raina, he laid Alindal down. He took extra care to jostle them as little as possible while he awkwardly hoisted each of them onto his shoulders. Raina groaned weakly during the process which was worrying but he pressed on trusting her newly restored Ethos to absorb the majority of the damage she might suffer along the way. With both of them slung over his shoulders, he reactivated Vitalist’s Renewal as the duration expired and augmented Alindal’s regeneration. Briefly, he glanced at the Eternal Light’s Pillar where it lay discarded and his inner relic hunter cried out for him to figure out a way to take it with him. Then, a screech rang out from the temple.

Fuck the staff, he thought as he activated Psycho Boost and Amplify Boost. Fortunately, his designation granted Willpower as a key attribute and he had completed a designation objective which doubled his mana regeneration so he had plenty of mana after the first Vitalist’s Renewal expired. He took off at a breakneck pace toward the wall, simultaneously hoping neither of the rookies died on his watch and cursing Jack, the plan, the Twilight King, his bad luck, and lastly, Sarah for making him too soft to abandon his dying teammates, tenuous alliance or not.