The Red Orc ran out of the range of my mist and disappeared from my view.

Instantly, I activated Feather Step and sprinted after it, through the gap between the tan townhomes.

Behind me, I could hear Mona yelling, “Where are you going?!”

“How did she get so…” Alex’s voice died out behind me as I moved out of range.

They could scream all they wanted. I couldn’t lose the Red Orc. I didn’t know when I’d find another one. I slid around the corner to the back of the building and looked East, in the direction the Orc turned. One street over, a huge red humanoid with long, very dark red dreadlocks and wearing a brown loincloth jumped over the fence of a construction area. Damn, it was fast.

I cancelled my mist and activated Stealth then sprinted in that direction, Feather Stepping across fences, buildings and cars, anything that was in my way. I was fast, but the Orc stayed two blocks ahead of me, despite its large build. I thought it would find a place to hide and I could ambush it there, but it just kept running southeast, mile after mile. Was it going to the Portal? My blood pumped faster in excitement, boosting my speed.

A huge worm, at least three feet in diameter, popped out of the cement in front of the Orc, startling the red monster back. The worm had no eyes, no nose. Only a wide mouth full of sharp teeth and wiggly tongue topped the worm’s head. The level-forty worm lunged at the Orc. The Orc sidestepped the attack and swung the massive sword it was holding at the other monster. The worm screamed and withered as the sword cleaved halfway through its body. It wiggled away and sank back into its hole. It was all over in seconds.

The Orc didn’t pursue it, it simply turned and began running again, rushing down the long street.

So that I didn’t run into the same problem, I Feather Stepped along the sidewalk, a good twenty feet from where the worm monster’s hole was. I didn’t expect that as soon as my toe touched the ground, another giant worm would erupt out of the cement in front of me. Chunks of cement and gray dust geysered in the air with the thick monster. I gasped and lifted my foot. The heel of my boot sank a couple inches into the monster’s soft body to stop my forward momentum. I used that inertia to bend and twist to the right just as the worm bit at me with its toothy mouth.

The monster missed, but it was close enough that the bottom of its head brushed against my shoulder, leaving a thick string of rotten smelling mucus.

My kindjal appeared in my hand as I slashed out. The blade hit the worm and kept going, leaving a thick cut across most of its body. Unlike the Orc’s jagged attack, my cut was sharp and clean, leaving a gaping hole that revealed the red flesh underneath.

The monster screamed and sank back into its hole.

Breathing heavily from all the running, I turned and looked down the street where the Orc was running.

Or had been running. It had stopped three blocks away and was staring at me. Or more like, staring between the hole in the sidewalk in front of me and the glob of worm mucus that was ‘floating in the air’ on my invisible shoulder. The Orc’s red eyes narrowed. Its mouth pulled back, revealing its pointed teeth. I couldn’t hear it from here, but I knew it was growling.

It turned around and sprinted east at full speed.

“Shit,” I muttered. Did it just change directions because it finally noticed me? Whether or not that was the case, what else could I do? Of course I followed it.

A mile later, the Orc ducked into the broken front doors of a large home-improvement store.

I landed in front of the building and looked at the tan and blue exterior. When it came to the damage on the outside, this store looked like it escaped most of it. Mostly it just showed wear and tear from neglect in a desert environment. Then again, it was a hardware store, not a food chain. Most people wouldn’t ransack it looking for food. Building up your shelter is important, but not if you only have three days before you dehydrate to death.

I took a second to wipe the mucus off my shoulder. I couldn’t do much for the smell, but at least there wasn’t ‘floating goo’ on me anymore. Hopefully, the Orc didn’t have that sensitive of a nose.

My eyes narrowed on the gap where the entrance was. The Orc had gone in that way. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was waiting inside, ready to brain me as soon as I stepped through the doors. I could flood the entrance with mist and check, but I didn’t want to give away my position. Or… I glanced at the exit door thirty feet away. I waved my hand. Poison mist poured into the entrance. I anchored it there, as I flashed over to the exit door. Unlike the front doors, they weren’t ripped off their hinges, just slightly pushed apart. The Orc wouldn’t be able to fit in without bumping the doors, but there was enough room that I could slide in.

Silently, I crept along the dusty cash registers and paused, listening. Without electricity, the huge store was dark inside. Sparse skylights on the ceiling let in yellowed light, but it wasn’t much. Just enough to make it not completely pitch black inside. Fortunately, my enhanced senses were just fine with this light. The air was thick with the smell of dust, a slight smell of decay and animal musk. An inch of dry grime covered the blue registers and the brittle, curled pages of the magazines on the racks in the queue. The candy boxes and broken soda coolers were, not surprisingly, empty.

Something rattled and fell to the ground, as if it had been bumped. Carefully, I stood up and peered over the register toward the entrance.

The Red Orc crouched behind an empty merchandise wall, facing where my mist was pooling. It clenched its huge sword in its hand and shifted restlessly, obviously waiting to ambush me.

My eyes narrowed as I glared at the Orc. The first Orcs I’d ever met were invisible. Completely. No one, not even the A ranked Hunters on Blake’s team, heard, saw, or felt them as the group of monsters got closer — until they started chopping off Hunter heads. I didn’t have the System then, so I didn’t know what their levels were, but they were high enough to take down a group of A ranked Hunters easily.

This Orc in front of me was different. It was level 58. Judging by how it crouched, waiting to ambush me when I came through the front door, it would have already turned invisible if it could. So it didn’t have Stealth. It went without saying that this Orc was not an elite. And it was alone. Was it a scout? Were the Orcs checking out the city before they moved out?

I had so many questions for this monster, but half of them would have to go unanswered. Questions like, ‘Where was your Portal?’ were ten times more important. Which meant that I couldn’t kill the Orc, not until I got an answer to at least that question. A tall order considering it was so much higher level than me. I was just going to have to make sure I didn’t die.

Only now that I was in this position, getting ready to fight a Red Orc, my hands started to tremble. Nausea rolled in my stomach. I’d been a Hunter for a year and a half, but suddenly I was shaking like the first time I ever walked into the Gate.

I swallowed and gripped my kindjal hard enough to make my hands shake for a whole other reason. I focused on the dull pain in my fingers, letting it force back the memories I refused to see again.

I took a deep breath and Mirrored my kindjal. After obsessively leveling up for the last half year, this was my first step on the path to revenge. I wasn’t going to trip now.

I stood up and threw my kindjal at the Orc’s chest, where a faint energy crystal light shone. Like a rocket, the crystal-steel blade shot at the Orc. The Orc jolted and turned at the last second. Instead of hitting where the energy crystal was by its heart, my sword sank into the Orc’s left shoulder blade. It howled and reached back, trying to pull the short sword out. Every time its beefy fingers touched the slender sword, it howled in pain as its skin blackened. The blade disappeared from the Orc and reappeared in my hand.

My brows pulled together, as I stared at the black scorch mark around the Orc’s wound. I’ve never seen the kindjal do that to a monster before.

My shock only lasted a split second. I lunged forward, Feather Stepping over merchandise racks, and closed in on the Orc like a bullet. Unfortunately the dust was so thick, it left small poofs in the air as soon as I touched it, giving away my location.

The Orc lifted its sword just as my kindjal came down on its head. A loud clang rang out as my crystal-steel blades hit the Orc’s crude metal. For a second, I was suspended in the air as my attack came to an abrupt halt, all my weight on the Orc. Then the Red Orc swung its arm and flung me toward the wall.

I twisted and landed with my feet under me on the wall, legs bent to absorb the impact. The wall vibrated and groaned, raining down more dry grime on me. Seriously, what was the use of Stealth in this place? As soon as I landed, I jumped to the side. A large box smashed into the spot where I had been on the wall. The box exploded and ceramic pieces of a sink clattered to the ground. As soon as I landed on top of the short merchandise stand, I dodged box after box as the Orc threw the entire stack of kitchen sinks next to him at me.

Annoyed, I waved my hand. The poisonous cloud filling up the entrance enlarged and moved. It washed over the Orc. The seven-foot tall monster froze then let out a short high pitched sound. Wait, was it … scared of the mist?

The Red Orc rushed straight at me, crashing straight through display racks and scattering merchandise everywhere like a freight train. Its roar echoed loudly off the steel rafters overhead as it swung its huge blade down at me.

I flicked my own kindjal out. The Orc’s strength was a lot higher than mine. Hell, its arms were as round as my waist. But I had enough strength to deflect its attack enough that I could slide to the side. The Orc sword smashed into the merchandise stand I was on. It completely collapsed into a pile of wood rubble, bent metal wires and merchandise casualties.

I was a slight step ahead. I jumped up and stabbed the Orc. Yet again, it was fast enough to shift out of the way so that I missed its vitals. The Orc’s skin hissed and turned black around the kindjal’s blade where it stuck out of the Orc’s shoulder. It twisted and backhanded me, its shovel-like hand catching my hip and shaved off a chunk of HP in one hit. I groaned painfully as I was thrown away and landed halfway down the lighting section.

I rolled to my feet, and immediately started to dodge more merchandise. Since Stealth was useless, I cancelled it and waved my hands. One hundred feet of Poison Mist spread out around me, filling the building all the way up to the ceiling. The building opened up to me like a 3D map in my head. I could see every piece of merchandise, every mouse carcass along the sides of the building, but most importantly, I could see the Orc perfectly.

The Orc howled and ran for the door. It slammed right into the barrier that I had placed over the exit and bounced back. My brows wrinkled at the effort it took to keep the barrier in place. The monster could have attacked the barrier. It was strong enough, though I doubted I could have kept it in place for long under the assault. But the Orc turned and ran toward the large glow of light to its right — the entrance to the garden area on the side of the home improvement store.

I didn’t know if it was the prolonged exposure or if my attacks had weakened it enough, but Poison and Bleed had finally started to work on the Orc. Its HP started to drop. It was a good and bad thing. I didn’t want it to die before I had a chance to get answers out of it, but it would be easier to subdue if it was weaker.

The Orc broke through the glass doors between the main store and the garden area. I was just a step behind. The area was fenced in with thick steel, thirty feet high. On the right were rows of tall steel shelves, full of bricks, wood, and other wares. On the left were rows of short tables full of hundreds of dead plants.

As soon as we were outside of the mist, the Orc turned on its heel and attacked me. I dodged and counterattacked. Our fight continued until the garden area was destroyed in our wake, as I shaved off its HP a little at a time, trying to avoid the Orc’s heavy attacks. I was mostly successful, but my body and HP took a heavy beating regardless.

“Yah!” I screamed and kicked the Orc in the chin.

It yelled and fell back heavily into a pile of scattered gray bricks. Black blood seeped from dozens of cuts on its mostly exposed body, turning the clay red skin a dark maroon color and dripping from its tan loincloth. A large chunk of its deadlocks had torn off, making its hair very lopsided. Then again, with or without hair, it was still ugly as shit.

I didn’t wait a second before I created a mist barrier around the Orc, locking it into place.

It shrieked and tried to twist free, but it was too weak to break it now.

Breathing heavily, I leaned on my knees to get a little strength back. With the back of my hand, I wiped the sweat and blood off my forehead that was threatening my eyes then stood up tall. I pointed my kindjal at the Orc’s nose, finally level with mine.

“Talk,” I commanded. “I know you can.”

*****