Jace had never needed to be pulled out of a Vault before, and he wasn’t sure what it’d feel like. “Lessa?” he asked. “Are you there?”

  I’m watching, she replied, her voice echoing around the dreamspace. Are you alright? Are you…giving up now? Need me to pull you out?

  “No,” he said, backing up across the clearing, holding out his Whistling Blade and pointing it at the griffon-leopards. “But I think they’re going to get me pretty quickly. How fast can you pull me out?”

  Five seconds.

  Slower than he thought, then. Still, he nodded. “Alright. Are you ready?”

  I’m ready. Are…you?

  He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think these guys are going to give me much of a choice.”

  As soon as he spoke, the nearest griffon-leopard growled, then sprang down from the tree and charged toward him with a burst of speed. It thrust its decaying wings backward, and wind surged out behind it, then it jolted forward faster than any beast like it should’ve been able to.

  Jace only narrowly leapt aside, but the beast’s claws raked past his chest, ripping the air and nearly rending his armour. Although it was only an impression of him being launched halfway across the galaxy, he could still receive damage in turn from enemies, and he didn’t want to test his armour against the claws of a level sixty-seven darkling. They glistened in the night, sharper than his mind could comprehend.

  Two more leapt down behind him, both surging toward him and trying to close in on opposite sides, but he activated [Hyperdash] and surged away, passing through them in a blink and emerging on the other side of the clearing.

  As far as he knew, these darklings didn’t have anything to interrupt his jumps, and he was right. He emerged unharmed, blew a quick sigh of relief, then stumbled back to avoid yet another charging griffon. There were at least six of them, but he didn’t have time to count.

  He had to take at least one out before he left the vault.

  But if they kept him on the back foot, he wouldn’t even get a chance to fight back. He swept his blade at one, trying to keep it back, but his blade, though its cutting edge glowed and hissed and popped with plasma, barely left a scrape in the darkling’s toughened, tempered skin. He didn’t need Lessa to tell him that it had insanely high Vitality.

  That was no matter. He tried to activate [Lightvein], but two more griffons charged from the sides. He jumped back again, without a physical dash, then jumped back into the woods. A griffon chased him, smashing directly through the tree he’d been hoping to use as a shield. The wood shattered in an instant, streaking everywhere.

  Jace caught a shard and clutched it tight. He didn’t use [Wanderer’s Banishment] as much as he should, and it was starting to catch up with him. He didn’t have much practice to know how it’d work against a target like this, now that he’d greatly increased his Resistance.

  But that’s why he was here. Sure, the Aes from the darklings would eventually be nice, but if he could practice his skills, it would be invaluable.

  He triggered [Wanderer’s Banishment] and flung the shard of wood out at the griffon-leopard. The forest went quiet, then, like lightning had blasted down into the clearing, a boom roared out as the shard collided with the objects in its path. It splintered and ripped apart, and shards tumbled through hyperspace for miles, ripping through trees, shredding undergrowth, and probably killing a host of smaller woodland creatures. He winced at the thought.

  His actual target stumbled back, and it let out a high-pitched darkling screech, a few octaves too high to be a roar. The blow didn’t kill it, but it blasted off one of the griffon’s wings and made it stagger back.

  Which gave Jace time to use [Lightvein].

  He triggered the fortification card. Blue light shot along his veins and reached the tips of his fingers, and he pushed it into the Whistling Blade.

  The cutting edge lit up white, glowing brighter than before. It was like a lightbulb filament, he was realizing: it didn’t matter what kind of Aes he put into it, but the amount pushing through such a small space was enough to make anything heat up. (Sure, it wasn’t the perfect analogy, but it was better than nothing…)

  But it also imbued the blade with a hyperspace-like quality. When he swung, the blade flashed through the air faster than normal, like it was pushing against the fabric of the world, and reality was bending itself to let him swing faster.

  He cleaved a glowing gash along the nearest darkling’s muzzle. The beast howled, snarled, then staggered back. It pawed at the line of glowing hot flesh Jace had just cut.

  He couldn’t give it a chance to recover.

  He used [Purify], then triggered another hyperjump and shot around to the back of the griffon. Another was approaching from behind, and he had barely kicked out backward fast enough to strike its muzzle with his boot. It staggered away, buying him seconds.

  He drove his Whistling Blade into the flank of the first darkling, then dragged upward, cleaving a gash in its side. But that wouldn’t be enough. The beast flailed wildly, and he wrenched it to the side, just it time to push it into the path of a second charging griffon. The two collided, and the force of the diminished impact still sent Jace flying back into a tree trunk. The two griffons snarled at each other, snarling and sending black spittle flying.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  But the other four griffons…where were they? He hadn’t been focussing on them, but he’d been expecting them to charge with the others.

  “Lessa?” he called. “Can you sense them?”

  I…I think they’re above you! she replied. They’re circling.

  When they dove, he wasn’t going to survive whatever they planned on doing to him. If he was going to finish off one of the griffons, he had better do it now, and do it quickly. He picked up another wood shard and used [Wanderer’s Banishment] to blast both of the grounded griffons back, then charged toward the one he’d injured.

  Though he’d cleaved a massive tear in the forest, the two darklings could take it. If this griffon was anything like the others, though, he knew it had a core near its neck. He raised his sword, then, relying on the bonuses [Lightvein] gave him, he sliced down through its upper body, then wrenched the blade up.

  The beast’s flailing claws whipped around, and its hooked beak angled toward him, slashing open his bicep. He shouted, then whirled the blade around and made one last cut, revealing its dark, shadowy core. With a shout, he pierced it.

  The core popped, the beast disintegrated, and he staggered back, hissing in pain.

  “Lessa!” he called. “Can you pull me out?”

  He wouldn’t get any rewards for killing the dark griffon, not if she pulled him out without completing the Vault—without honouring the Split’s request—but he’d use it for training. Eventually, he’d be able to clear a Vault like this with ease.

  I’ve got you! Lessa replied. Stay alive!

  Jace looked up. A shadow blocked out the starry sky, and one of the griffons was descending, beak first, shadow accumulating behind its wings, like it was an artillery shell barrelling toward the earth.

  He dove back, but the impact shook the ground and sent him flying off his feet. He let out an exclamation of shock, but was unharmed.

  Then a feeling of queasiness overtook him. The world shook, the sky dimmed, and everything grew hazy. Five seconds.

  Probably more like three.

  It only took two more before another griffon impacted the ground behind him. He didn’t have nearly as much time to dodge, and it flung him off his feet. He skidded along the ground, shoulder ramming into the ground, shredding his skin on the ground below, then rolled onto his back and prepared to fend off the griffons once again.

  Everything went black. After a few seconds of falling, the nauseating feeling ended, and he found himself on the dreamspace plane once more, standing in front of the sapling.

  But it was hardly a sapling anymore. It was nearly the size of a twenty year old oak tree…which wasn’t saying a ton, because they didn’t grow terribly fast, but it certainly wasn’t a sapling. Five cards were intertwined in its roots, now—[Hyperdash], [Purify], [Wanderer’s Banishment], [Lightvein], and [Questforger].

  He sighed, looking at it. He hadn’t even thought to use Questforger. It wasn’t a combat card, or at least, it didn’t register as one in his mind. But with the prescience it gave him, he could’ve used it well in combat.

  He hung his head. Mistakes, mistakes. That was why he needed practice.

  He glanced down at the roots. They weren’t white anymore, and when they formed an image of the body map, they were much darker and…bark-ier. But a single attribute shard rested in the dirt beside it, accumulated from the skirmish on Fentt. He set it down in the legs for Agility, keeping his baseline coordinated with his other stats.

  But soon, he’d have to get out of here. He had to do something about his arm.

  He pulled himself out of the dreamspace, then bolted upright and turned to face Lessa and Kinfild. Already, Lessa had begun bandaging his arm, and Kinfild was hunting for a medpack and a first aid kyborg.

  At least Jace wasn’t bleeding everywhere. He probably couldn’t lose the deposit for the apartment, but he didn’t want Lady Fairynor to get in trouble, and in turn, getting mad at him.

  Once Kinfild returned with the medpack, they set to patching up his arm, and letting the first aid kyborg disinfect the cut and suture him up. It was slightly more gentle than the one aboard the Luna Wrath, but not by much. He turned to Lessa, taking his mind off his arm, and asked, “How did you actually pull me out of the dreamspace?”

  “Well, it works on meditation,” she said. “I mean, you can’t just stay in the dreamspace plane if you can’t focus your mind.”

  “So…”

  “So I shook you. A lot. You’re getting a lot harder to shake, you know that?”

  Jace chuckled. “I’ll…uh, thank you?”

  She grinned, then said, “I didn’t think I’d live to see the day where you got mauled by a couple cats.”

  He rolled his eyes. “A couple. More like six. And big cats, mind you.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” she said, clearly with a joking tone.

  As the kyborg finished, he summoned his main status sheet:

  [Gathered Analytics]

  Name: Jace Scott Baldwin

  Worldjumper #: 5

  Class: Core Hunter

  Advancement Progress: Soul-Circle Blending – Stage 1 (13%)

  Standard Level Rating: 47

  [Attributes]

  Strength: 37

  Vital: 77

  Resistance: 96

  Agility: 44

  Potency: 1

  [Technique Cards]

  Hyperjump (Reforged) (Utility)

  Wanderer’s Banishment (Attack)

  Purify (Utility)

  Questforger (Reforged) (Curse)

  Lightvein (Fortification)

  [Significant Items]

  Whistling Blade (Arbiter), spirit-enhanced clothing, Luminian Praetorian Guard armour.

  [Titles]

  Worldjumper #5 (no effect) (cannot be removed)

  Witness of the Ancients (+1 Agility) (cannot be removed)

  Delver of Ifskar (+10 Vitality) (+10 Strength)

  Not much had changed since leaving the dungeon on Ifskar, but he hoped that’d change soon. But the sun was going down, and it had been a long day.

  “What’s the plan tomorrow?” Jace asked Kinfild.

  “Tomorrow?” Kinfild pulled out a note from his pocket. “Tomorrow, we’re going to the Royal Market. Lady Fairynor has left me quite the shopping list, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to afford half of what she wants us to get with just the stipend she gave me.”

  Jace chuckled. “It’s a good thing we have some leftover loot from Ifskar to trade in, then.”