A part of Leo wished they had more time, as simply leaving Steel, Willow, and Ember behind like that without so much as a wake or anything to even mark their graves didn’t sit right with him. Unfortunately, the fate of nearly ten thousand people rested entirely on how fast they could move, so they simply couldn’t afford to wait around.

  Without Ember’s ability to see heat, Leo and Taylor were forced to fight their way through a handful of magical beasts rather than run around them, which slowed down their progress even further as they raced back toward the entrance to the plane. While the two of them were fast enough to outrun the giant beavers and even the dual-wolves, which weren’t able to reach their maximum speed while trying to maintain their pack formation, the camouflage spiders and burrowing beetles were surprisingly quick. Leo got remarkably good at both using his gauntlets to deflect beetles launching themselves at his chest, as well as piercing spider abdomens from below when they dropped on them.

  At the very least, with her new speed skill nestled within her core, Taylor was just as fast as he was now. Together, they were able to cover quite the distance as the day went on.

  But they weren’t fast enough.

  Still about five miles from the rift that would bring them back to base camp, the two of them darted around a tree, and nearly smashed face-first into a group of almost a dozen people. Stumbling backwards, Leo righted himself, preparing for a battle before he realized who he’d run into.

  A quick scan through the large group made it pretty clear what this was. Three of the members appeared to be decent, higher-rank fighters. The remaining eight all felt and looked like they were far weaker than they should be for entering a tier 22 plane.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  “Are you with the giant migration?” Leo asked, cutting off the leader of the group before she could say anything. Looking mildly annoyed, the woman in the front of the group, a warrior wearing a full suit of armor with a large polearm slung over her shoulder, nodded.

  “Yeah, we are. Are the two of you being chased by something? I nearly skewered you out of reflex!”

  “Damn it!” Leo snapped, running his hands through his hair as he realized they were too late. Trying to hold onto at least some small sliver of hope, he turned back to her. “Are you like a scouting party, by any chance? Or has everyone entered the plane already?”

  “That’s none of your business,” the woman scoffed, at the exact same time one of the weaker-looking gem holders behind her spoke up and said ‘Everyone’s here.’ While the leader turned to admonish the younger member of her group, Leo looked at Taylor and lowered his voice.

  “Okay… that’s not good. There’s no way we can gather up ten thousand people and get them out of here in time. We need to try and find the Planar Lords’ remaining agents and stop them.”

  “Is it worth the risk?” Taylor asked, surprising him with her impassive face. “There are millions of lives riding on your survival. Do we risk all of them just for these ten thousand people?”

  “That’s a good point… Though we’re in the safest position of anyone,” he said, remembering the map he’d been working on. “We already have all the other rifts marked out thanks to you, which means if the plane starts to collapse, we can just run to the nearest one and escape. There’s no telling where in the planarverse we’ll end up, but at least we'll survive. Not to mention this is the largest plane we’ve discovered so far, and one that is distinctly livable. I know my dad said to find a colossal plane, but baring that, this might be our best option for whatever crazy plan he’s cooked up.”

  The thought of just leaving thousands of people to die when he could potentially do something to save them physically pained him as well. It was one thing to be forced to kill a few people who distinctly came after them, but thousands of innocent people? That was more deaths than he wanted weighing on his conscience.

  “And what are you two whispering about?” the woman asked, leveling her polearm at them as she narrowed her eyes. “This plane is to be the future home for the new Nexus. Unless you’re down with that idea, I’d suggest you get out of here this instant.”

  “This was all a trap, the Planar Lords’ agents are going to collapse the plane, and you’re all going to die if you don’t get out of here as fast as you can,” Leo said, spelling it all out quickly. They didn’t have a moment to waste, which meant as much as he wanted to explain everything in detail and potentially gather some new allies, this would have to do. “We’re going to try and stop them, you guys need to run around and warn the others you came in with. Get as many people as you can back out through the rift you came in through in case we fail!”

  Leaving the woman sputtering in disbelief, Leo and Taylor took off, running back the way they’d just come.

  “I don’t suppose your fancy open-soul technique can be used to find where they’re tunneling to the plane’s core, can it?” Leo asked hopefully as they ran.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “No. I can feel certain things, like a plane’s tier, and the location of the rifts. But not the physical earth,” she confirmed. “No idea how to find the hole.”

  “Fantastic. Then that really only leaves one option.” Leo kept up the pace until they were far enough away from the squad of newcomers that he was sure they wouldn’t find them. Spotting a hollow in a tree, he led Taylor up into it. Once they were secure, he sucked in a deep breath and came out with his plan.

  “We need you to bring the Grade 18 scrying gem into your core,” he said, pulling out the small, white gem box they’d taken off Ghost’s corpse. “I’d do it, but I’m still only rank 17, and it’s a Grade 18 gem. I have no idea how the skill works, but if Ghost was using it to look around the plane and keep tabs on who figured out that it wasn’t actually colossal, I bet we can use it to find the location of the other agents.”

  “I’ll have to give up my current gems,” Taylor said, looking strangely fearful as she stared at the box in his hands. “I’ve had the dark cat gem in my core for years now. It’s basically a part of me. The thought of giving it up…”

  “It’ll only be temporary,” Leo reassured her, taking her hand in his own. “I’m going to need your fighting ability by my side to take down whoever is carrying out this plan, so the moment we get a location, we’ll swap you back.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding and holding out her hand as she made her snap decision. “Let’s do this.”

  Giving her the gem box, Leo blinked as he realized he’d never actually witnessed Taylor pull a skill out of her core. To cultivate her soul, she swallowed gems whole. And to absorb skills, she sucked on gems until they vanished. Did that mean-

  In answer, Taylor lurched like she was about to throw up, before opening her mouth and spitting a fully formed, black gem into her palm. Wisely choosing not to comment about how gross such an action was, Leo took the gem from her and wiped it off on his shirt. One more lurch later, and the new speed-based gem she’d just incorporated from Ghost was handed over as well.

  “Woah,” Taylor said, wobbling slightly and nearly falling over as Leo helped her sit down and lean against the inside of the tree. Her eyes were half closed, and she looked like she wasn’t even sure where she was anymore. “My body. I feel… empty. Weak.”

  “Crap, I didn’t even think about what being completely devoid of beast gems must feel like to your weird body,” he muttered, plucking the Scrying gem from its box and bringing it up to her mouth. “Pull the skill from this, you’ll feel better. But whatever you do, don’t eat it!”

  With a slow nod, Taylor opened her mouth to accept the large gem, popping it into her mouth and swishing it around. The moment she did so, an electric shudder racked through her body, and she sat up as though she’d been slapped.

  “Woah!” she said, her eyes wide open now. “Now that’s some power!”

  “You’ve never had any skill stronger than Grade 10 in your soul,” Leo pointed out, watching her carefully to ensure she’d be okay. “Now you’re stretching your soul to the very limit, taking in a Grade 18 gem. You should be fine if you were a regular gem holder, but with your weird body… If it becomes too much, just spit it out. We’re not risking your life over this.”

  “I’m fine,” Taylor reassured him, smiling as she clinked the large gem between her teeth. “I’m going to need some time though. This gem is packed with power.”

  Time isn’t something we really have! But of course, they really didn’t have any other options, so Leo merely nodded and tucked her dark cat gem into the white box that was now empty. The Grade 8 speed gem would almost certainly dissipate before they got what they needed from the Scrying skill, but there wasn’t much they could do about that. Worst-case scenario, they could snatch up another one of the Injection Bite skills from the camouflage spiders and give Taylor that again.

  Feeling the different boxes rattling around within his pack, Leo briefly wondered how he and Taylor already managed to get their hands on not one, not two, but three gem boxes in the short time he’d been running around as a gem holder. Technically, this latest box was the first one they’d truly earned for themselves by taking down Ghost, as the first two had been given to them via his father and that random agent of the Planar Lords.

  To this day, Leo still didn’t know how he felt about receiving help from an agent of the Planar Lords. Even if that man was secretly working against the Lords somehow, there was almost no chance he’d gotten to his current position without carrying out some actual dirty work for them at least some point in the past. It even sounded as if he’d been a part of the team sent to find and capture his mother, which certainly didn’t make Leo feel very indebted to him.

  Shaking his head to clear it, Leo climbed down from the tree, determined not to waste what little time they had before hopefully tracking down the agents planning to collapse this rift. It would probably take Taylor at least an hour or two to fully absorb the Grade 18 skill into her soul, and then who knew how long to locate where they needed to go. Then they actually needed to get to the location, not to mention defeat who knew how many people to stop the plan…

  Leo shook his head more vigorously, cursing himself for the spiral of negativity he’d almost started going down. They’d do what they could, and that was that. No sense worrying about things they couldn’t control. Hopefully, the Planar Lord agents waiting to collapse the plane were waiting for Ghost to come back and give the order. If that was the case, then they might actually have the time they needed to carry out their last ditch plan and save both the plane and everyone in it.

  Let’s go find something to take the edge off, Leo decided, looking around for any nearby magical beasts. He had a fairly brand-new skill nestled within his soul he needed to get the hang of, and plenty of time to cultivate.

  He couldn’t let Taylor stay ahead of him in soul rank forever.

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