Her thoughts ran under the moonlight. Then, in the next heartbeat, Pandora froze.

  Like a night-stalking predator catching a scent, she picked up on the faint noise coming from just ahead—a patch of shadow hidden behind a wall of tall ferns. The dull thud of bodies hitting the ground, the sharp clang of metal, and muffled shouts of pain and anger.

  Her heart squeezed tight like a wound spring, then began to pound. Vital energy surged in her veins, muscles coiling, her mind sharpening to a fine edge—ready for the next fight.

  The crimson greatsword seemed to taste her killing intent. The dark red light along the blade grew brighter, shining with a deeper, hungrier glow.

  ………………

  A hidden spot.

  Whether by habit or chance, the watchpoint Nicole had picked felt weirdly similar to the busted room Pandora had used earlier. Both were abandoned houses. Both had broken windows. Both smelled of old dust and rotting wood.

  Only, Nicole’s spot was on the complete opposite side of the garden from where Pandora had been.

  She was hunched behind a window frame fuzzy with old cobwebs, leaning forward a little, her eyes sharp in the gloom.

  She scanned the area ahead inch by inch. It was a scene washed in red moonlight and ghostly blue ritual light—the abandoned garden, a blur of shapes in the dark, but humming with a wild, overgrown energy.

  Truth was, even this carefully chosen spot only gave her a slice of the view. The garden wasn’t some little shed. It was big. Open walkways, twisted paths, and a cluster of glass and steel greenhouses.

  Those greenhouses were the real heart of the place. The main breeding ground for the Blood-Weep Worms, and Ascension Road’s number one priority to defend.

  So Nicole’s first rule for picking a spot was simple: her line of sight had to include the Greenhouse Zone. The open, spread-out outdoor areas were less important.

  Right now, she had a decent view of the garden’s southern sector and those greenhouse buildings that stood in the night like giant glass skeletons, throwing back a cold, faint shine.

  The rest—the far corners, the hidden energy nodes—she couldn’t see from here.

  Not with her own eyes, anyway.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  But as a veteran info-broker, a pro who sold secrets, she had her own ways to find out what was happening in those blind spots.

  Something in her chest pocket twitched.

  A warm, slight wriggling feeling.

  Nicole looked down at the bulge over her heart. She quietly backed away from the window and stepped lightly to the middle of the abandoned room.

  There was a wooden dining table there with one leg shorter than the others. The top was slanted, covered by a newspaper that had yellowed ages ago, the print smudged and blurry.

  On top of the newspaper was a terrain model of the botanical garden. Handmade, a little rough, but packed with detail. Clay for the ground, twigs and moss for the plants, broken glass for the ruined greenhouses.

  Dozens of little “chess pieces,” marked by different colors and materials, were scattered across the map. They stood for the two sides currently killing each other inside the garden.

  Nicole reached into her pocket and carefully pulled out the wriggling thing.

  A Palmfiend.

  Palm-sized, with skin a translucent purple, three pairs of spindly legs, and a big set of compound eyes.

  This modified Palmfiend was her “intel assistant.” It had lost its original purpose. Now it was tuned to be incredibly sensitive to specific supernatural signatures—especially the kind put out by Corpse-Plague Acolytes.

  It stared at her with those compound eyes now, its skinny legs trembling slightly, sending silent bursts of data that only Nicole could read.

  Nicole concentrated for a second. Then she reached out. From a pile of spare markers, she picked up a tiny flag made of red cloth.

  She bent over the map, her eyes darting over the terrain before locking onto the section marked “East Side Outdoor Zone.”

  A black obsidian marker—standing for Ascension Road control—was stuck there.

  Nicole gently plucked the obsidian piece out and planted her red flag firmly in its place.

  A flicker of surprise crossed Nicole’s face.

  “What happened?” she murmured, her brow furrowing. “It… sped up all of a sudden? Weren’t things moving slow over there just now? Basically stuck?”

  Nicole was different from Pandora. She’d been camped here for a long time, tracking the energy swirls and fight-auras in every part of the garden since well before the first gunshot tore the night open.

  She took tonight’s “counterattack” dead seriously. It was tied to her blood-debt with Blighted Hand Wilber and The Blood Tonic Aldrich.

  But even with all the energy and hope she’d put in, her honest read of the situation… wasn’t great.

  Echo Quarry had prepared well, no doubt. After getting her precise intel on all six ritual nodes, they’d pulled their best people together fast, made a plan to hit all the spots at once, and launched a quick, hard strike.

  But Ascension Road’s prep work? You could only call it… over the top. They lived up to their name as a faction of potion masters. Their resources ran deep.

  They’d only controlled the garden for three short months. But they hadn’t just set up a complete, complex ritual array for defense, traps, and gathering energy. They’d actually built in full backup systems.

  Besides the core Master Node in the greenhouse zone, there were six other key secondary nodes planted around the rest of the garden.

  As long as three of those secondary nodes were still working and feeding power into the array, Blighted Hand Wilber—the guy running the garden—couldn’t lose.

  Even though he’d only just made Third Rank recently, his foundation still a bit soft, the massive energy the ritual sucked up for him let him stand firm against the two veteran third-rankers from Echo Quarry. Guys who’d been at that level for years, with way more experience. They were fighting even, and Wilber wasn’t backing down.