"Stop," Karrakas said immediately. "Let’s stop here. Are they close enough to attack?"

"Not yet," Akira said, her eyes gazing into the distance ahead of them, a look of concentration on her face. "They’re far enough out that we have time."

She turned to Karrakas. "Every time I use the headband, I can see a few seconds ahead. I’ve been doing it periodically as we walk, checking what’s coming."

"Anytime I activate it, I run ahead, so we’re still a bit far from the beasts, but we have a small window to work with."

Karrakas looked at her. "What are you suggesting?"

"I suggest you and I sprint ahead, and try to clear them before Lukas reaches that range."

Karrakas stared at her in disbelief. "No. Definitely not. Why the hell would you suggest that? There are ten of them. Ten D-ranks! And there are only two of us, sprinting in, against ten D-rank Chilopodas. Are you insane?"

"Trust me, we have the advantage," Akira said. "The headband sees a few seconds into the future. If anything goes wrong, I’ll know before it can happen, and we’ll retreat the moment we identify the danger."

She held Karrakas’ gaze. "I know I want Lukas to clear his class change quest just as much as he does, but do you know what I want more than that? I want him to be alive at the end of the day. So if you don’t trust me to be objective about this, trust that instead."

"But I won’t end this quest without trying. Not when I have this headband on my head." She turned to look ahead of them again. "If we let ourselves stop here without trying, then there was no point to attempting this quest in the first place."

Karrakas gritted his teeth as he thought about it. He looked ahead at the empty desert, then back at Akira.

He finally exhaled.

"Fine." He turned and called back to Lukas and Melody, his voice carrying across the distance between them. "Slow your pace down. As slow as you can without stopping."

Lukas raised a hand to show he’d heard.

Karrakas looked at Akira. She was already set to run.

He gave her a nod, and they dashed forward.

They ran hard, boots throwing sand back with each stride. The desert was flat in every direction but Akira could see what was coming, the headband feeding her the next few seconds in fragments as she moved.

"Just over the ridge," she said, not slowing. "Get your bow ready. I’ll draw them out."

Karrakas peeled off to the side without stopping, the silver bow appearing in his hand.

He planted his feet, nocked three arrows simultaneously, and drew them back in one smooth motion, holding them ready.

Akira kept running. She stretched both hands out in front of her and fired.

Two [Death Bolts] left her palms at the same instant, streaking forward as the sand ahead of her erupted.

Ten Chilopodas tore free of the desert floor in a single heaving wave, their bodies rising and legs cycling before they’d fully cleared the sand.

The first bolt hit the beast in the middle of the pack directly on the head. The necrosis moved instantly, flooding through the skull and into whatever passed for a brain beneath the shell.

[You have killed a D-rank Razor Chilopoda.]

The beast dropped to the floor, dead.

The second bolt hit the Chilopoda beside it on the shell across its back. The rot spread fast, eating through the outer layer in a dark ring, but the shell fell away to reveal healthy flesh underneath.

The beast’s constitution was high enough to resist the skill with its shell. The beast screamed and kept coming.

Karrakas grunted, releasing the arrows he was holding.

The three arrows crossed the desert air in a flat line. The first punched through a Chilopoda’s head, spraying blood as it flew out the other side.

The second drove through another beast at the joint between its head and body, punching a large hole through it. Both beasts dropped to the floor, dead.

The third arrow buried itself in the sand several meters beyond the group, sending sand spraying into the air.

The remaining beasts surged forward, ignoring their dead comrades.

"Get down!" Akira yelled.

She hit the sand face first.

The heat slammed into her immediately, every patch of exposed skin registering the contact at once. The pain moved through her forearms, her neck, and the side of her face, but she ignored the pain, activating [Corpse Explosion].

All three corpses detonated simultaneously.

The blast rolled out across the desert floor in a deep concussive wave, throwing sand into the air in a wide churning curtain.

The ground shook, and fragments of shell and body matter sprayed in every direction across the blast radius.

[You have killed a D-rank Razor Chilopoda(x4)]

Seven down, three to go.

Akira grinned savagely, pushing herself to her feet. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Her exposed skin had gone a vivid red from the heat of the sand she’d endured for a few seconds. In that moment, she couldn’t help but wonder if Lukas’ high constitution was really helping him withstand the heat, or if he was pushing through great pain.

Sand fell from her hair and shoulders as she straightened, and she raised one hand to shield her eyes from the last of the falling debris.

That was when something burst out of the curtain of sand directly in front of her.

It was an injured Chilopoda, its shell cracked along one side, legs scrambling, its body still moving on instinct. It came through the falling sand with its mouth open wide, driving straight at her face.

Akira activated the headband.

The world shattered, and she watched the next few seconds play out in front of her.

The Chilopoda’s mouth closed around her shoulder, the teeth shearing through her skin like it was nothing more than a nuisance.

She watched herself scream, looking down at her body.

Her torso was gone, as the bite had taken everything between her shoulders and her hips. Her head and her legs fell in separate directions.

She died in two pieces.

The world sealed, and time resumed again.