The creatures that followed the first Contender were all of one kind. Four-foot-tall beings of metal, fighting in a loosely coordinated fashion that caused no end of trouble for the Symphonians. For a short time, their world became colors of orange, yellow, and gray as they eliminated the creatures one at a time.

  Leaving the outside Perimeter to the other three, Runner sped around the small enclosed arena, using her speed to trip and otherwise break the formations the Contenders had brought to the small group. Metal pinged. Flames ebbed and flowed. Sharply gasped grunts were uttered by those fighting too hard to speak. Even Thomas entered the fight as he and Lucy fell into a mix-match of distraction and quick, sharply-shielded attacks that puckered the body, black blood leaking to the ground below.

  When the last Contender had fallen, Chipper wrote, “All clear up here. Five down. Mana Tree is still in good shape.”

  The Symphionans looked at the seven around them. Throwing her hands in the air, Runner yelled, “Come on!”

  Chipper gave a squirrely smile before settling on his branch, assuming his role as the lookout.

  Burn marks inundated their area as well as a few Defenders, but Speaker Adele had been protected per Thomas’s orders. After only a few minutes following the attack, they felt a change in the area. Adele opened her eyes, a weary look on her face as she spoke in their minds with a tired voice.

  “I’ve established a zone they will want to ignore, but it won’t work on everything. Contenders with a high enough intelligence will spot the issue and come investigate.”

  Thomas nodded, “So we’re not out of trouble yet, but that should help greatly. Thank you, Speaker Adele.”

  She gave a squirrely smile before closing her eyes again.

  “Runner, can you inform the perimeter team what’s happened? They’re not to attack unless they have no other options. We don’t need to draw anymore creatures to us than necessary.”

  “Got it,” Runner said with a short wave before zipping away.

  Since the start of the fourth battle, more than three hours had already passed for the Symphionians. Thus, the reprieve allowed for necessary things to happen. Lucy changed out of her damaged armor into a new, clean set. Thomas fixed up their clothing using his mediocre skill at hand-sewing, one he yet again wished was an actual [skill]. Melias moved from person to person, spreading a special unguent for burns on those afflicted. And those with magic in their kernels had time to replenish their stores, except Adele, who was burning through her own at a ferocious rate.

  Oddly enough, no Contenders ever approached them. They were too busy hunting the Attackers throughout the forest. The Defenders knew that because from outside their small beacon of peace, the sounds of battle constantly rang through the area. Those sounds multiplied when a new milestone in the final five counted down.

  Congratulations to all remaining Creators!

  Your entities have survived the second phase of the final five!

  Changes among the joint territory will now occur…

  “What now?” Melias said, a hunch to his shoulders. He hadn’t participated much in the battle yet and was feeling the burden of it.

  Chipper above heard him. Snapping his fingers to get their attention, he wrote quickly in the air, “As Walker told us in the scripture, when your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt them. For now, we sit here and hide. When they come, whatever happens, we will fight it together. We win…together.”

  “He’s right,” Thomas said with a nod, receiving one in turn from Lucy, “Everyone back home is relying on us to see this through. There’s no way we can allow ourselves to be stopped, so doing nothing right now is the best choice we can make. Keep in mind, as of this moment, we are Symphony.”

  Melias gave a charismatic grin, “I can do nothing.”

  Lucy snorted, “Tell us something we don’t know.”

  Having bolstered their resolve, his own included, Thomas looked at the territory screen. That’s when he noticed something odd. Small parts of the territory's landmass were now blank, as if they’d never existed.

  A notification pinged his overlay.

  Dante: What you’re seeing is correct. The change from the second phase is that small portions of the landmass are disappearing.

  Thomas: What does that mean?

  Dante: It means Adele has her work cut out for her. All the Contenders moved away from the area just before it vanished, so any hope we had that there would be fewer of them to deal with is now moot. They’re condensing down the territory, with all of the creatures spreading to less surface area. Also, you have incoming.

  Thomas: Incoming?

  Dante: They’re already there!

  Thomas looked around at that, seeing nothing had changed since the messages first came in. Loudly, he explained what Walker had said and told them to prepare for more Contenders. That’s when he noticed Phil standing on top of the sand, waving a claw at them.

  “What?” Lucy yelled over.

  Phil pointed his claw at the ground. When they didn’t get it, he pointed both claws and his tail empathically at the grass beneath their feet.

  Then, the earth beneath them began to shift as something erupted from a crack only feet away from the sitting Adele.

  “They’re under the ground!” Melias yelled, swiping his staff at a small hairy creature leaping from the opening, his reflexes and panic saving him from harm.

  “What?” Thomas said, taking two steps back. He’d never prepared for attacks from underneath them.

  “They. Are. Under. The ground!” Melias said as he knocked two more away. Stepping forward, he stomped a boot down, crushing the haired creature beneath him to the sounds of small bones cracking. “I got a plan! Just stamp them down like this!” He illustrated his point by leaping forward and crushing another creature into the dirt below.

  Pandemonium ensued as everyone surrounded Adele, attempting to keep her as protected as possible since their lives depended on her camouflage ability. Lucy and Melias, the two who’d had the least impact in the final five thus far, exceeded their fellows in crushing the attack. They were the first to realize that the creatures’s attack vectors could only move in straight lines from the fissures surrounding them. Once the rest of the group understood what to do, the situation became much easier to control.

  Swing, step, and crunch became the actions of the moment.

  Lucy was the first to notice that some corpses had a soft glow about them, calling it out to the others. It could only mean one thing. They received confirmation of that from Walker following the last creature's death.

  “And then there were four,” Thomas said with no small amount of relief.

  “Four!” Runner said with a laugh.

  “Four, four, four!” They all chanted together in a quiet celebration.

  They settled down quickly, tending to each other and holding light conversations. A few creatures snuck up on the perimeter, but between the three guards and Phil’s traps, they were nothing to worry about. Then, the next change quickly landed in their laps.

  Congratulations to all remaining Creators!

  Your entities have survived the third phase of the final five!

  Changes among the joint territory will now occur…

  The Symphonians got their first visual notice of the changes when a small portion of the ground beneath the Mana Tree simply stopped existing. The land disappeared, leaving a black nothingness behind that instilled a sense of dread in everyone looking at it. With a groaning sound, the vast blue and cyan tree listed slightly to the side, the Zenith almost slipping into the nothingness as he shifted on his branch.

  The second warning they received was when loud thunderous sounds began to reach them from multiple directions at once.

  “What is that?” Runner asked as she turned to the wanderer.

  “You’re asking me?” Melias responded with a nervous laugh, “How am I supposed to know? Why don’t you run out there and find out?”

  She ran a hand across her short-cropped hair. With an impish grin, she asked, “Is that a challenge?”

  “No!” Lucy said, stepping between them, but it was too late as Runner flashed another quick smile, then zipped away in a streak of lightning. Lucy put her hands on her hips as she turned to Melias.

  “What?” The man said as he affected an innocent expression.

  Lucy’s ire didn’t have the chance to rise as Runner came back only seconds later. She looked at them with big eyes and a hand on her hip as she tried to control her breathing, “We’re gonna need bigger walls.”

  Thomas looked out at the ten-foot slab of stone he’d set up beyond the perimeter after their last attack, “Bigger than that?”

  Runner nodded as she managed her breath, “Much, much bigger.”

  Thomas didn’t question her; pulling in as much ambient magic as the Mana Tree could create, he upped the size of their protection to thirty feet all around them, shadows crossing over everyone within.

  Runner shook her head when he asked if that was enough, “Bigger and thicker.”

  Thomas got to work. Each moment the Mana Tree exuded its pure magic, he drained the area dry, raising the wall a few inches in thickness and height as he went. It wasn’t difficult, but it did consume all of his attention.

  It wasn’t long before they received another Walker message saying they were now in the final three and could expect that to be two soon.

  That was also when Adele fell over listlessly.

  Chipper, always watching everything at once, leaped down to check on her, Bale quickly beside him. He took her pulse and checked her breathing before writing, “She’s asleep, I do not know what’s wrong with her.”

  Something struck the wall Thomas was still attempting to build with a loud thud that shook the area. In the formerly pristine three feet of gray stone, a large crack now ran down it, spidery lines running across the area. Rather than frustration, Thomas looked at it with fear. The walls had already reached several feet in thickness. For anything to crack it, its strength would have to be awe-inspiring.

  Ever the pragmatist, the Runner lifted her spear and ran her hand along its length, connecting electricity throughout the metal ringlets. “Aim for the eyes.”

  A bulbous head of purple, leather-like skin burst through the wall, hundreds of eyes extending from thin stalks. They’d drooped when coming through the hole, but each seemed to wake up independently, keying in on the Symphonians with dozens of swiveling movements. None blinked as each member of the group found multiple eyes staring at them.

  “Which ones?” Melias said in a small voice.

  A second later, a gargantuan red hand twice the size of the bulbous creature burst through after it, further destroying the wall’s foundation as its meaty fingers collapsed around the creature. It squeezed once, popping the creature like a balloon as a scream erupted in their minds. It sounded like nothing less than pain and terror. Inching their heads up, they watched as the tree-thick tendons pulsed up and down as it squeezed twice more before slowly withdrawing. All that was left of the creature was the green blood and viscera coating the wall.

  Everyone received a message from Walker at the same time.

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  “Final two,” Thomas whispered as he and the others quietly pulled back deeper within. With the loss of Speaker Adele and the huge creatures so very close, the new name of the game was, absolutely don’t get noticed. Whatever horrors existed outside of their cracked walls were likely beyond them. Quiet and lack of movement were now necessary. Thinking fast, Thomas created a thick sheet of glass using a large but slow push of magical resources, allowing the others on the perimeter to cross to the center.

  The middle of their territory became a tight fit as all ten of them, including Gorlak the Consuming, hunkered down and waited. It may be a vain hope, but each Symphonian crossed their mental fingers, hoping that the last entities would get wiped out by whatever creatures hunted beyond their walls.

  As for their current situation, the smell of those around them mitigated the blessing of still drawing breath. Blood, sweat, and whatever Gorlak’s clothing was made of, all mixed into a cloying tang that seemed to suffocate the lungs. But it wasn’t their noses they were focusing on. It was their eyes, as they all stared at the hole so close nearby.

  A few minutes passed this way before a rumbling caused many of them to lose their feet. Thomas quietly informed everyone that something had cut off the top of the Mana Tree, meaning they were out of additional resources beyond what they currently held. Any use of magic would need to be weighed and measured because as the area drained, there would be no resupply.

  They were in the endgame now.

  Melias was quietly whispering to Gorlak when Phil let out a small hiss. Looking over at the scorpion, he found the monster supremely agitated. Crawling slowly closer, he asked, “What is it?”

  Phil pointed to the left, just beyond the sand where the wall stood.

  Melias didn’t understand what the creature was saying as Phil let out a second small hiss. Standing up, he inched over to the sand nearby, keeping a careful eye on the hole in the wall. When he approached, he found what the scorpion was pointing out. There were small, sharp indents in the previously clear sand.

  He turned around to tell everyone when he suddenly found he couldn’t breathe. Feeling a spreading wetness on his chest, he touched it, coming away with bright red blood on his fingers. With a gasp, he collapsed, his vision going dark before he struck the ground.

  Eight of the remaining survivors went on full alert when Walker’s to-the-point message came through.

  Dante: You’re not alone. They’re invisible. Melias is down. Protect each other.

  Chipper emphatically tried to wake up Adele, but it was no use. Whatever had happened to her had taken her down for the count. Looking over at the scorpion, he had an idea. Crawling closer, he whispered in the creature's vicinity, receiving two gently clacking claws in response.

  A loose breeze of sand filtered through the area. Slowly, it built into a small gale spreading in a concentric circle. It took a moment for Lucy to understand that it wasn’t naturally occurring. Knowing only one of them could control the substance, she inched over to the large scorpion, “What are you doing, Phil? You’re gonna burn through all your resources!”

  Phil was too busy to respond; he continued to cycle his magic throughout the area, controlling thousands of granules as they drifted through the air.

  Chipper laid a hand on her shoulder, nodding towards the sand clinging to her clothing. Lucy may not be as deep into territology or crafting as the others, but she’d always been a quick study. Understanding right away what was happening, she quickly formed a plan and began whispering to each of the Symphonians.

  Spreading out in teams of two, with Phil staying behind to guard Adele, they moved out to find the final Attackers.

  Runner found the first one.

  It was sitting in the back of the tree as the keen-eyed woman found a few unmoving motes of sand clinging to the air. Quickly, she threw her spear as fast as she could, giving it a little extra zip on the back end with her magic. A cracking sound gave a slight echo, causing her to wince before the creature took off.

  Rather than chase, she stepped forward to understand what they were dealing with. A small, transparent object was on the ground in front of her. She tilted her head as she squatted near it, Chipper watching her back for anything that might approach. Lifting it with a gloved hand, she quietly cursed as the hard reflective material cut straight through her glove and into her fingers.

  Dropping it, she held up two bloody fingers that slowly repaired themselves to the Zenith, then nodded in the direction they’d seen the motes travel.

  Several minutes passed, and nothing seemed to be happening. The invisible entities moved around the area as the Symphonians blindly did their best to track them. But as Runner and Chipper turned a corner, sure in their minds that they’d finally cornered one of the creatures, a bellowing sound caused them to return to the center with haste.

  Standing in the middle of the open area, a screaming Gorlak could be seen, his arms flailing around his body as tiny spots of blood appeared across his large body. Focusing, Phil converged a small gale of sand on the area, clinging it to the giant’s attacker and revealing the final Creator’s entity.

  Its body was made up of long, razor-like ends joined together at pivoting conjunctions. A creature of design rather than birth, as nature would never make something so obviously linear. As they sprang into action, it continued to climb the mountain that was Gorlak the Consuming, using its four appendages and a long tail as handholds.

  Before the Defenders could help their friend, he fell to the ground, rolling across the creature with all of his impressive weight. That only caused him to scream louder when the sharp-edged entity’s body was pressed into the giant's. The screams cut off as it fully dove in with the man’s unintentional help. Runner tried to step forward, but Chipper held her back. All they could do was stand there as their friend was torn apart from within, dodging the occasional jerky movements as Gorlak began to seize, white spittle dripping from his lips.

  Only seconds later, two-bladed arms erupted from the Symphonian’s chest, bisecting him in half with a spray of blood as it burst through him. Blissfully, Gorlak died in that moment, barely having felt his end.

  A spear covered in lightning, another two made of magic, and a cutlass thrown with exceptional accuracy all landed on the creature simultaneously. Within a blink, the being was no longer moving, a soft glow around it as shards of its body lay to rest on the Symphonian it traded its life for.

  A single word broke the stillness of the moment.

  “Fuck.”

  Everyone turned, expecting another invisible attack, but that wasn’t what was happening. All eyes landed on Thomas, the territory screen floating in front of him as his eyes grew larger and larger.

  Dante: The whole territory heard that. You have incoming!

  Runner zipped over and lifted her spear, “Protect the obelisk! Find them before it’s too late!” Pushing hard, she covered herself in lightning, then disappeared through the hole in the wall.

  Thomas, Lucy, Fillion, and Phil headed toward the walled Obelisk, each taking a position around the structure. Meanwhile, Chipper and Bale carried both Melias and Adele to a nearby spot, pushing them into the safest corner they could.

  A bit of sand floated unmoving in front of Bale.

  Chipper’s hair stood on end the moment he spotted it. He reached forward with his magic, but it was already too late. Bale Quick’s decapitated head soared over the wall, the speed and precision of the attack sending it far. Reaching deep into his kernel, Chipper pulled as many resources out as he could, inundating the area before pulling it close on him and the Attacker. Gritting his teeth, he compressed it upon the Attacker as tightly as he could, the sounds of cracks erupting from the creature. He didn’t stop until the telltale glow of a body showed itself on the ground, just beside Bale’s own.

  Chipper looked at his friend's fallen body. He knew it wasn’t the time to mourn him. He had a fight to win, and Bale would be back in Symphony when they returned, unaware of his own death. He turned around just as the pointed end of another creature started to enter his chest.

  It stopped. Holding it at the base was the tan, fleshy hand of the man below him.

  “Get it, Chipper!” Melias screamed out through a tortured grimace.

  Chipper acted quickly. Compressing his magic down to a single point on his finger, he pressed it to the head of the thing, firing it at a downward angle to strike as much of its body as possible.

  It fell right there, taking many of Melias’s fingers with it as the glow let him know it was dead.

  “Fuck!” The man said, collapsing around what was left of his hand, “Why couldn’t Walker’s evolution give us a reduction in feeling pain, too?”

  Chipper smiled at him as the sounds of battle continued to close in.

  The wall to the west collapsed. A sizeable figure ten times Chipper’s height stepped over it. It scanned the area, a single eye roaming across the region from within a bronze covering, then stepped forth. It stood at ten times Chipper’s height, with a large gem in the center of its body that seemed to pulse as the Guardian watched. When it noticed them, four arms pulled away from its body, each ending in a reflected lens of varying sizes. Bringing them over a quickly brightening chest, it fired out a broad yellow beam, incinerating Melias beside him and badly burning Chipper by proximity.

  A spear covered in lightning smashed through one, two, three, four lenses before having just enough momentum to stick itself into the gem. The creature fell backward with a groan as Runner quickly leaped upon it, ripping her spear out and stabbing it into the figure’s eye. She looked around, heaving for air, and spotted Chipper.

  “Go for the eye!” She yelled from the throat, then zipped away.

  Not one to be outdone, Chipper looked around the field. To the right, he found several Contenders converging toward the obelisk, the sounds of fighting drifting from the area already. On the left, several flying creatures were approaching. In a rough estimate, he understood they’d be there in seconds unless somebody did something.

  Resolving to be that somebody, he leaped upon the slowly falling apart wall, then leaped again, pushing his magic into his feet for an extra boost.

  Over the field of creatures rushing forward, a panoply of different types but all with one mission, a white squirrel soared.

  To fly!

  He thought to himself, just before he covered his hands in magic and began to drain his kernel, punching them into his foes in the air. Always aiming for wings, he went to work.

  Two

  A pair of bird-like creatures fell from the sky to the mass of creatures below.

  Five

  Three snake-like figures got hit at once as he condensed his magic into a fine point, raking it across the sky.

  Eight

  Nine

  Fifteen…

  Chipper felt the moment his kernel ran dry. With a smile at the incoming creatures, knowing he’d given his friends more time, he awaited his second death in life.

  Thomas received a message the moment Chipper went down.

  Dante: You have to find the assassins, or it’s all over.

  He barely had time to read it before an ape-like creature punched him in the chest. Feeling his legs collapse underneath him, he tried to catch his breath as Lucy stepped in, the keen edges of her shields quickly tearing the fleshy creature apart.

  “Thomas! Are you okay?”

  He felt the bones in the center of his chest re-align. Giving her a weak grin and a thumbs up, he pushed himself off of the ground.

  She shook her head at him as Phil took care of a few approaching creatures nearby, “You really need to pick a weapon.”

  “I know, but-” He was interrupted by the sight of a massive red figure, twice the size of their now broken Mana Tree roaring only a few hundred feet away. Standing on its shoulders and screaming was what looked like an angry cloud of lightning, “Why won’t you fucking die!”

  Fillion sighed, standing up from his kneed position as he caught his breath, “At least we know Runner’s still alive.”

  Phil finished off his creatures, then quickly sped over to them. He’d lost two legs so far, and one of his claws hung askew, but the large scorpion was still fighting. With a clack of his one good claw, he pointed to the right, just around where Runner was fighting the giant.

  The three looked towards the area before Thomas said, “You think an Attacker’s over there?”

  The scorpion clacked once.

  Looking over at Lucy, then at the Fillion, Thomas shrugged, “I’m not the one to go.”

  “Neither is Phil. He’s taken too much damage.”

  Phil clacked his good claw, pointing at the one that was in rough shape. As they watched, it slowly repaired itself. Two more clacks told them he wanted to try.

  A screech from far too close had them all put up their guard. Making a choice, he looked over at Phil, “You can track them, right?” Two clacks. “Then you have to try. We’ll guard the obelisk. Good luck, Phil. Do it for Symphony.”

  Phil clacked twice, then scuttled away.

  A flying creature fell from the sky only moments later, a cutlass sprouting from one of its eyes. Fillion stepped over and removed it. He caught the look the other two were throwing him. “What? Runner’s advice was solid.”

  Runner stabbed the giant again.

  Blood.

  Stab.

  Blood, screaming.

  Stab again in a different spot.

  Blood.

  The corner of her eye caught the wounds healing over.

  “Fuck you!” She screamed at the thing, stabbing her spear into the side of its neck. She ran the tip across the muscle, its yelling cutting off as it couldn’t seem to catch its breath. Knowing it was ineffectual, she couldn’t help throwing a little lightning in the mix. Not wanting her spear to break, she removed it. Immediately, it started screaming again.

  “Fucck, you!” She yelled out as she continued her bloody work. Stabbing down into a shoulder to hold her place, she looked down. More and more creatures were heading their way from the distance. Just then, a notification reached her.

  Congratulations to all remaining Creators!

  Your entities have survived the fourth phase of the final five!

  Final changes among the joint territory will now occur…

  Final?

  Several areas around her dropped into nothingness. Her ride almost slipped in himself, catching the edge of its giant feet near the nothingness. In one movement, it could’ve ended them both. It started to reach back toward her when she stabbed a spear into the hole on the side of its head she assumed was an ear.

  Screaming. More blood. No death.

  “Fuck!”

  Another small section of land fell away nearby. She took an educated guess as to what this meant. Pushing the spear forward, she shocked the creature, causing it to turn right and take two steps forward. Wanting to have a little fun with it, she did it again, the giant taking another two steps.

  This is fun.

  That’s when she spotted a four-legged Phil running forward, two much smaller legs slowly growing back on his hindquarters. The monster hissed as it moved, angling close to her and a large extended rock standing out in the field.

  Not knowing what to make of it, Runner watched as Phil continued to plow forward for all he was worth. The large scorpion’s tail stood up straight before jabbing down toward the top of the rock. A crack rang out as he hissed in victory.

  Then, he collapsed as blood seeped from four holes in his back.

  “Phil!” Runner screamed out, shocking the giant forward. A light groan erupted from the creature, but she didn’t care. Her eyes strained, causing her [Keen Awareness] to kick on all cylinders. Pushing another pulse of ongoing magic into her spear, she forced the giant to take several steps forward, just close enough to see the two sets of floating sand in the air just as Phil’s magic finally cut off.

  Runner Grove leaped from the giant, pulling her spear with her. In the air, she condensed all the magic from her kernels into the center of her chest, down the mana veins of her body, until what collected at her feet was the most powerful grouping of magic she’d ever before created. Slamming her feet down, she pushed with everything she had to make a massive ball of lightning coruscating from her body.

  Several cracks rang out as two sets of glowing bodies fell upon the field.

  Before she had a chance to claim victory, a great red hand crushed her into the ground right as the announcement came forth.

  Across the breadth of the broken territory, everything froze at once.

  Only one Creator’s entities remain...

  Creator Dante has won the Fourth Battle of Rendition 4AA’s Creator Wars!

  Congratulations!

  One by one, each of Walker’s entities faded away, leaving a hellish landscape behind them, along with their memories.

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