In the skies above the central zone, Mal’thor-dras brawled with a shell-like Tier 8 Spectre spouting a dozen tower tentacles. To one flank, Tim and Khar’al-dras skirmished and tried to evade two Tier 8’s all by themselves. To the other flank, Mindy and the Flame Emperor had already fallen and the Red Fang had gone off to rescue them. The advancing party had Kor’ag-dras and roughly ten surviving Pale Dragons tangled up in a dozen Tier 7 flyers, Three-Arms and about one third of the ground Spectres’ adding their long-range attacks. While at that altitude the lower Tier Spectres simply couldn’t reach them, anything above Tier 5 still posed a deadly threat. Meanwhile the on the ground, the Iron Legion drove deep into the Spectres’ ranks and were engulfed. To George, it was almost as if the massed ranks of Spectres were a single huge beast that had opened up its maw and swallowed the sortie forces whole. He almost called them back at once, but thin

As lot after lot was auctioned, the bids rose ever higher. “Three hundred and forty one thousand!” That was the concluding bid of Lot 15. “Sold!” By the time Lot 16 came around, Chen Ho had basically already spent his entire budget. Ming Ye was down some 375,000 Black and by his own estimates, had 125,000 Black remaining to spend. Wu Tian, however, since raising his earlier spending limit, still had some 300,000 Black available. This made him the only remaining threat to Remian winning Lot 17. Hmm. Maybe he could just sit back and let things be… chances were, Wu Tian would pass over lot 17 and save the remainder of his already-extended budget for the Most Important Final Lots. Then again… was it worth the risk? Remian sensed out Wu Tian’s thoughts. The guy had no intentions for Lot 16. He wanted to save his money for the later lots. Did those later lots include Lot 17? Remian had no idea, and apparently, neither did Wu Tian. He was going to wa

“What do you need to seal that Rift?” This was the biggest question on everyone’s minds as they met at a grim dinner that night. Tang Yin ventured an answer. “A couple of red mana crystals would be great…” “We don’t have any of those. Blue is as good as you’ll get and only a few are on hand.” George grimaced. Tim spoke up. “I have some, but we’ll have to fetch them from Fal’Herim.” “That would be great.” George said, in relief. Tim nodded and sent a message. “Then there’s the other question.” “What question?” “How long would it take?”  “Four hours? Give or take.” Tang Yin suggested. “Give or take what?” Gary prompted. “Give or take another four hours.” Faces fell. The mood, already gloomy, dropped further. “Are we going to have to go through that again?” George groaned. “No, the scanning is already done. We don’t need those delicate intruments any more.” Tang Yin assured him.

In order to take revenge on Mindy for her curtness, Gary went shopping. The phrase ‘Mindy said she’ll pay for whatever’ was as good as gold at Dragon Lake. Gary found that he could pick up just about anything he wanted without taking out his own coin even once, all at Mindy’s expense. So far, since arriving here, he’d only been sending Mindy the bills for food, lodging and medicine, but now, he was going to get serious. “I want eight Armored Frames.” Gary told Arnold. “The very biggest and best you have!” “You mean, the kind George uses?” “Yes, exactly!” Arnold stared. “Can you guys even manage that kind of Frame?” Well, it wasn’t hard, really, but to be honest, Gary felt rather uncomfortable with the lunkering, heavy movements of the Armored Frames. The kind of Light Frame that Remian and many Adventurers took up was much more comfortable, easier to use and nowhere near as hot and stuffy. “Isn’t there some way you can combine

While Mindy’s raid was crossing the Nine Kings Range, Remian and Xiao Yan were arriving back at Scorched Earth City.Xiao Yan, at that point, was having some doubts. “Do you… do you really think I’ll be okay there? In your world?”“Of course! I’m kind of a big deal there, you know.” Remian assured her.They stopped by Scorched Earth City to make a big withdrawal of Black Crystals, then made their way directly to the formation where Remian first appeared, landing the entire Pod on it.“Wait in the Pod.” Remian told Xiao Yan and studied the inscriptions on the formation.There. That should be the destination sigil, and the empty space was for him to fill. That board offered a list of choices, with symbols to depict each choice. Remian couldn’t make out what most of them said, but one of them he recognized.It was the symbol sequence for ‘home’. It had a price tag as