Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

"We can't just leave," Jeff growled as we left the bunker's portal metal door and stepped back into Carlsbad's fake streets. "I only found two of the people on my list. There have to be more out there. Amanda and Kent can't be the only ones."

Yasmin put a hand on his arm, and he shivered a little.

I glanced at Carrol. He'd taken the lead, and he was moving fast. Most of me thought he was right. We could spend hours—or even days—clearing the fortress, house to house, and never find anyone. The fake streets looked exactly like the real ones, and it was almost impossible to find where the few civilians in Carlsbad actually lived.

What I didn't understand was why there were civilians in the city anyway. Why put kids and unawakened humans at risk by letting them live here when the convoy required C-Rank? This shouldn't even have been an issue; they'd pulled Jeff and his family out, after all.

But it was an issue, and after just a block, Jeff was lagging behind as he kicked in doors and shouted into buildings. I had to do something.

"Carrol, what's our time limit like?" I asked. "Jeff's going to hunt survivors. There's nothing I can do to change that. It's a mission he's been on for the last eight years of his life. But…"

"We need to move as fast as we can," Carrol said. He glared at Jeff as the tank forced his way into another fake house. Then his gaze softened a little. "Jeff, I'll make you a deal. You stay moving, up here, with me, and I'll tell you which blocks have actual houses on them. That way we check the most likely places for people, and you keep your ass moving."

Jeff's face reddened. Carrol kept talking over him, though. "Listen, kid, I get it. You want to save everyone—"

"Just my friends."

"Uh-huh. Sure. You want to save everyone. The best way to keep your friends safe is to finish our mission, not to focus on yours. We make contact with the convoy, they get Angelo to go ham on the portal boss, and this whole fort wakes up from a nightmare. We screw around finding a few people? Maybe we miss our opportunity to connect with the Light of Dawn, and that portal keeps spitting out monsters. You want that?"

"No."

"Damn right you don't. Now let's get moving," Carrol said. He followed his own advice, falling into a quick jog that felt like a sprint to my C-Rank body. I followed, and the rest of the team ran behind me.

Two blocks later, Carrol stopped. His spear pointed toward a row of three doors. "There. You have one minute. Then we move again."

Jeff didn't waste any time before the door was open. "Lamar? You in there?"

A voice responded. But it definitely wasn't a Lamar. And a minute later, a woman and her toddler son opened a door in the floor, shaking and covered in dirt.

"Well, I'll be damned," Carrol said. He shook his head. "Guess we're getting held up."

We'd been at it for an hour.

An entire hour.

We'd killed dozens of portal monsters. Actually, Carrol had killed dozens of portal monsters. The A-Ranker was a beast: relentless, destructive, and efficient. The four of us had fallen into roles supporting him…and protecting Jeff.

He needed the protection.

Jeff was losing his mind. He hadn't found anyone on his list. And the speed he was moving from house to house felt more frantic, even as he slowed down and got clumsy. He was a C-Ranker. This shouldn't have been an issue for him.

But I could see exactly what was happening. He was tapping into his Stamina too much. He hadn't been resting; not the way he needed to be.

He was about to be a liability.

And I wasn't the only one who saw it. Sophia hovered near him, trying to offer him what healing she could, and Yasmin looked over her shoulder at me, worry written on her face. The glances told me something I already knew: Jeff was my friend, and of everyone here, I was the one most likely to be able to talk him down.

I took a breath. Talking him down was likely to be impossible, but Carrol was right. We were wasting time, and that time meant the people we had saved were in more danger with each passing second.

Jeff had to be dealt with.

"Tell me about Amanda," I said quietly, a hand on Jeff's shoulder.

He stiffened. His helmeted head locked eyes with me, and I met his gaze. No, his glare. He was ready to fight me. Tallas's Dueling Blade was ready to be summoned, and I tensed my muscles to dodge a sudden attack. "I'm just trying to help, Jeff. I'm not your enemy. The monsters are."

Jeff didn't relax. If anything, he tensed more. "I've come so far, Kade," he said, voice an almost-desperate half-whisper. "I've come so far."

"You have. Now, who's Amanda?"

"Her parents were B and C-Rank when the big break happened. She got to stay. I didn't. What else is there to say?" Jeff asked.

"No. Who was she?"

"Childhood friend. We used to play in her dad's old silver trailer." He gritted his teeth and glared at me. "It was an old camper. He'd jammed it full of all the crap he collected. So many good hiding places. And she was my first kiss, behind a fake leather armchair."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Don't let Yasmin hear that," I joked.

"I already told her."

"Right." I hesitated. My sword was ready. I could take Jeff if I had to. "And Lamar?"

"We played baseball and soccer together in elementary school. His parents were older. C-Rankers. But before the Portal Blitz, they'd been scientists. Something to do with satellite radio and finding alien life." He snorted. "I don't think they ever thought about portals before they opened, though. If they had, maybe Earth would have been more ready. He was going to follow in their footsteps, studying aliens, but with the portals as a research tool."

"Right. And he's missing?"

"Yeah."

"Would he want Amanda to die because you were busy searching for him?"

Jeff tensed. His sword and shield were in his hands, and I realized I'd made a mistake. I was close enough that I wouldn't be able to dodge, summon the dueling blade, and react before he hit me. "I'm going to save them all," he hissed.

"I know. But if you want to do that, we need to balance our missions. Amanda and, uh, Kent? Yeah, Kent. They're not out of danger yet, and that bunker won't hold against something like Tathrix." I took a breath and stepped closer to him, putting his sword tip right against my stomach. Then I put a hand on each of his shoulders. "We can find Lamar and the others, but that won't matter. The only way we win is by getting the convoy's attention."

For a few seconds, I thought Jeff would stab me for sure. The tension was written across his face. I had no idea what he was thinking, or which way he was leaning.

Then he nodded. It was slow and painful. "Southeast, then?"

"Yeah, southeast. We're looking for Loving," I said.

Ellen snorted behind me. My face heated up, and I deliberately didn't look at her as Jeff nodded. He hadn't caught it. "Right. I know the way there. Let's go so I can get back to the important stuff."

"I'll open the door. I've got the code," Carrol said.

I stared as the massive portal metal gate that led southeast out of Carlsbad opened. The dueling blade hummed in my hand, and so did a brand new piece of Stormsteel armor. In addition to the swirling, portal metal-bound armor on my chest and arm, I'd added a cloak. A swirling cloak of black clouds, silver linings, and blue-white lightning that whipped in the wind. I had a feeling it would do that, even if there wasn't a Category 5 hurricane parked over us.

I wasn't sure what the benefits of the cloak were yet, but I didn't want to add more armor and slow myself down.

And, thanks to my C-Rank status, I didn't lose Mana for having it all equipped.

My regeneration would be nothing with all three armors, but that was fine.

The gate opened enough for Jeff—shield and all—to wedge himself into the gap. Then it stopped. "That's as far as we go!" Carrol yelled.

"Right," Jeff said. He'd been speaking in short bursts ever since our conversation—no more than necessary. "No enemies!"

"What?" Carrol asked.

"There's nothing out there. Nothing's trying to get in, nothing's waiting to ambush us. Nothing at all," Yasmin said. She hesitated. "What do we do?"

I cleared my throat. "We take the opportunity and try to get to the convoy."

"Correct," Carrol said. "Let's move."

The desert felt empty. Almost quiet. The edge of the storm over Carlsbad passed as we pushed southeast, toward Loving. That was where the portal was—but more importantly, I'd predicted that the convoy would be there. They wouldn't stay in the hurricane. Not when they could regroup and try for a different gate in relative safety. They'd go toward Loving. Toward the gate we'd just come out of.

But as I looked around, there was no dust cloud on the horizon. No idling diesel engine on the wind. Nothing. The convoy wasn't nearby.

There was a purplish glow on the horizon, though. "The portal. It's over there," I said. "We should—"

I didn't finish my sentence. I couldn't.

A flash of light erupted to the west. Then it went pitch black as every scrap of light sucked away. Ellen's shadow magic kept a small bubble of light around us, but that was it. "What's going on?" Sophia asked.

The answer came as three new suns rose to the west, one after the other.

Angelo Lawrence was many things.

The hurricane-force winds buffeting the convoy and slamming his C-Rank teams around like so many screen doors were irritating. The swarms of semi-skeletal insects that attacked him with blades of wind and chitin were little more than mosquitoes. The sand whipping in his face was annoying, but no more.

He could do something about it. But in order to do anything meaningful, he needed to find the A-Rank portal that was causing it all. And he hadn't been able to. Even as the convoy rolled slowly around the southwestern flank of Carlsbad Fortress, passing in between the main entrance to the caverns and the weakened walls of the fortress, he hadn't found a single sign of a portal.

But the moment they turned east, he found something.

An A-Rank aura.

An A-Rank monster aura.

A strong one.

Angelo Lawrence, the Light of Dawn, was not a patient man. And the moment his target revealed itself, his patience ran out.

"Attention, convoy, this is the Light of Dawn. I am beginning a full-power strike against a portal break to our east. Take whatever defensive precautions you can. Sarah Cullman, please prepare for emergency antiradiation casting. Deborah, shield the remainder of the strike team. We will be engaging the portal immediately after my attack run," he said tersely.

"Understood," Deborah said. "All units, take cover!"

In the distance, barely audible through the howling hurricane around Angelo, a dozen and a half truck engines stopped. He closed his eyes.

It had been a long time since Angelo had been able to go all-out on Earth. To use his full, one hundred percent power combination of skills.

Fission. For anything up to ninety percent of his maximum power, that would be enough. The resulting explosion would ripple across the sands and obliterate most of the monsters within a mile of him. Only he would be unaffected—his full suite of spells would make sure of that. The flash would be visible from Roswell, and the shockwave would ripple out across the sands. Every B-Rank and lower within a few miles would be done as the Light of Dawn shone bright.

But for an all-out assault against an A-Rank monster capable of summoning the storm overhead, that wouldn't be enough. So, instead of releasing Fission, he held it and combined it with his Unique. Demon Core. Fission's light compressed. It vanished. Then the Demon Core began eating all the light around it as Angelo Lawrence, for the first time in years, showed the world why he had his second title—the Depth of Midnight.

Night fell across the desert for a full ten seconds. The Demon Core wobbled. It shook. Radiation rippled out from it—enough radiation to make even Angelo's mouth tingle. He quickly applied two more skills to it: Power Plant and Supercritical.

Mana poured off of it, and Angelo burned that Mana in a series of explosions that rocked the desert in front of him. His own core fed off the Demon Core, filling as fast as he could burn off energy. Radiation rippled across the sands and crashed into the wall and convoy. Angelo didn't care.

He didn't have time to care. As Demon Core grew in strength, Angelo used his fifth skill—and his third S-Rank one.

Fusion.

The Demon Core vanished. Power Plant shut down. Every ounce of energy put off by Supercritical poured from Fission and into Fusion. For a second—one endless second—the desert was Purgatory. The world held its breath, waiting for a new day.

Then the mid-day midnight was blotted out by the Light of Dawn as Angelo Lawrence unleashed his power three times.