Misato didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch.

At the last possible second, she sidestepped. The snake’s head crashed into the stone platform where she’d been standing, cracking the ancient rock. Before it could recover, Misato leapt onto its neck, driving her spear down with both hands.

The weapon punched through scales, but barely penetrated the thick muscle beneath. The snake reared back, trying to throw her off. Misato clung to the embedded spear, her feet no longer touching anything solid.

"Jordan! Now!" she yelled.

Jordan’s shadows surged forward again, this time targeting the snake’s open mouth rather than its body. Black tendrils wrapped around its jaws, forcing them apart.

"Naomi!" I grabbed her shoulders. "Can you hit the inside of its mouth? Full power?"

She nodded, face pale but determined. "I need five seconds to charge."

"You’ve got three." I pushed myself to my feet, raising my hands. Wave Motion wouldn’t kill this thing, but it could damn well distract it.

I fired three rapid blasts at the snake’s eyes. Two missed as it thrashed, but the third connected. The creature let out a shriek that made my teeth vibrate. Its head whipped around, the injured eye leaking some viscous yellow fluid.

"Ready?" I asked Naomi, who now stood beside me, her staff glowing so brightly it hurt to look at directly.

"Ready."

"Jordan, drop the shadows on my mark!" I shouted. "Naomi, hit it the moment its mouth is clear!"

Jordan gave me a thumbs-up, his face pale with strain as he struggled to maintain his hold on the thrashing snake.

"Three... two... one... NOW!"

The shadows vanished. The snake’s head lunged forward, jaws wide enough to swallow both Naomi and me whole.

Naomi fired.

The concentrated energy blast hit the roof of the snake’s mouth and kept going. It punched through the top of the creature’s skull in a geyser of yellow fluid and brain matter. The beam continued upward for another fifty feet before dissipating.

The snake froze.

For one absurd moment, it hung there, perfectly still, its massive body suspended in an S-curve above the platform. Then gravity took over.

It collapsed with a sound like a redwood falling. Water erupted in all directions as its massive bulk hit the swamp. The resulting wave nearly knocked us off our feet.

"Holy shit," I breathed.

"Is it dead?" Belle called from her position.

Before anyone could answer, the snake’s body convulsed. Once. Twice. Then it began to disintegrate, scales and flesh sloughing away into the water, revealing a skeletal structure that also began to dissolve.

"That’s weird," Misato said, noticing my alarmed expression. "Some gate entities can return to the Under when killed."

Within minutes, all that remained was a glowing silver orb the size of a grapefruit, floating serenely where the snake’s head had been.

Belle waded over, snatching it from the water with reverent hands. "Silver-tier boss core. Perfect condition." She turned it over, examining it critically. "No cracks. No discoloration. Twenty thousand credits, easy."

"Split five ways," Jordan grinned, "that’s four thousand each."

"Not the time for math," Misato snapped, but I could see the relief in her eyes. "We need to collect the remaining cores and get out. Time check?"

Naomi consulted her gauntlet. "Sixty-eight minutes in. We’ve got twenty-two minutes to finish and extract."

"Plenty of time," I said, trying to sound confident despite the burning in my muscles. Three Wave Motion blasts in quick succession had drained me more than I wanted to admit. "Let’s grab everything and bounce."

Belle waved us over to what remained of the snake’s body—basically just a large stain on the water now. "There’s more. Seven cores total. All common tier, but that’s still seven hundred credits each."

I waded into the discolored water, trying not to think about what I was stepping in. A quick scan revealed small glowing orbs scattered around where the snake had fallen. I collected three while the others grabbed the rest.

"That’s twenty common cores and one Silver boss core," Belle announced, double-checking our haul. "Value of approximately twenty-two thousand credits."

"And a clear time of under seventy minutes if we extract now," Misato added. "That’s another five thousand in bonus evaluation credits."

"So twenty-seven thousand total," I said. "That’s five thousand four hundred per person."

Belle grinned. "And if Blair’s team doesn’t hit similar numbers, we take first ranking going into winter."

"Speaking of extraction," Jordan pointed southeast, "the exit portal is that way. About a hundred meters."

Misato took the lead, creating two fresh clones to scout ahead. "Diamond formation. Stay tight. We’re not done until we’re through that portal."

We moved with renewed energy. The swamp seemed less threatening now, though I kept my guard up. Gates were notorious for last-minute ambushes. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Naomi fell in beside me. "You saved me back there," she said quietly.

"You saved all of us with that shot."

She smiled, a quick flash of teeth that made something warm bloom in my chest. "Teamwork, right?"

"Right."

The exit portal glowed purple in the distance, a vertical tear in reality that promised safety and showers and dry socks. Beautiful, glorious dry socks.

We were fifty meters out when Belle stopped dead. "Movement. All around us."

The water rippled. Not in one place. Everywhere.

"Mire crawlers," Misato’s voice was tight. "At least a dozen."

Long, segmented bodies broke the surface. Each was the size of a car, with countless legs propelling them through the water with disturbing speed. Their armored heads featured multiple eye clusters and mandibles that clicked with hungry anticipation.

"Portal’s right there," I said, calculating distances and speeds. "We can make it."

"Not all of us," Misato replied. "Not with how fast they move."

I turned to Belle. "How valuable are crawler cores?"

"Common tier. Maybe Silver for a matriarch."

"Not worth it," I decided. "We’ve got enough. We run for it."

Misato nodded. "On my mark, everyone sprint for the portal. Don’t stop for anything. If you fall, get back up. If you can’t get up..." She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.

The crawlers were circling now, tightening their perimeter. Intelligent predators recognizing prey that was trying to escape.

"Three... two... one... GO!"