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If I'd known they were right here, I wouldn't have sent Blurr away.
Watching the battle unfold nearby, Ethan felt a pang of regret. If Blurr encountered more monsters on the drive back and things went south...
Losing a Tier 1 card wasn't the end of the world. But losing human lives? That he couldn't stomach.
Too late to change it now. He'd just have to trust that Blurr could handle the route.
For the moment: observe the Response Team.
The team had deployed over thirty Tier 2 and Tier 3 cards against the ten monsters. The fight had been raging for several minutes already.
Despite the massive numbers advantage, the monsters' combat power was no joke. Several cards on the human side were already critical and had been recalled.
This was within expectations, though. Standard Rift clearance took about a week — if it could be done in a day, Rifts wouldn't be such a threat.
Since the fighting hadn't reached their position and his friends were relatively safe, Ethan sat down and opened the chat group.
One look and everything clicked.
He'd been in such a rush earlier that he'd missed the follow-up messages. Turned out 803 had been taunting him in the group after he left.
The bird-creature had bragged that with his family's backing, he'd upgraded the dungeon BOSS to Legendary level and increased the Tier 3 monster count to 50 — all boosted to Epic grade.
Fifty Epic-grade Tier 3 monsters?
An Epic monster could take on at least three or four regular Purple cards. Fifty of them?
Ethan scrolled further. Other group members had piled on, saying 803 was doomed. Then 803 announced he'd "go discuss it with his father."
The result of that discussion: crank the difficulty.
The new settings severely exceeded standard specifications. But in reality, there had never been an actual audit in all these years. Many Rifts were quietly set well below their intended difficulty — which was one reason most took a full week to close even at regulation levels.
He still wasn't sure what rewards the Administrators got for running Rifts — that hadn't been discussed. But he could infer the basics: these Rifts were set up by non-human entities, Administrators had to pass an exam to qualify, and there were clearly perks involved. Otherwise, 800+ beings wouldn't be competing for the gig.
The real question was how to deal with this.
While Ethan read, the situation on the field deteriorated. More Tier 3 cards were recalled, replaced by fresh summons. The fighting was brutal and uncertain.
The team could have fielded seventy or eighty summons, but there was no point. Too many bodies meant friendly fire and coordination chaos. Three-on-one was the standard engagement ratio.
Nobody had expected this Rift to be this vicious. The Response Team's dozen-odd members were the standard deployment for a normal Rift — and they'd walked into fifty Epic-tier monsters.
After another few minutes, someone from the Response Team walked over.
He noticed Ethan immediately.
"Who are you?" He glanced at T.K. and Agumon nearby. "How did kids end up in here?"
Just a passing grumble. He got to the point: "The situation's bad. We're going to retreat soon — move further back."
"Oh — right." Jake, standing at the front, agreed immediately.
Everyone could see the field. The monsters were brutal, and the current lineup couldn't win. Response Team members had Psionic levels around 2,000 — enough for four Tier 3 cards each. After ten-plus minutes of fighting, they'd only taken down three monsters while losing twenty or thirty cards. Mostly because they played it safe — once a card took fifty percent damage, they found an opening to withdraw it.
A Tier 3 Purple card was worth hundreds of thousands. Enough to buy a car.
The soldier glanced at the group one more time, then jogged back. A few more minutes and they'd pull back — employing the ancestral strategy of "when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy retreats, we advance."
After he left, the others were already discussing where to fall back to. Rift clearance was the Response Team's job. Not theirs.
"Wait." Ethan looked at the three of them. "Why don't we go help?"
He hadn't come all this way just to watch. If he only wanted his friends safe, he could leave right now — he had Rift Inspector privileges.
"I know Angemon's Legendary-level, but his sustained output isn't that high," Jake said carefully. "And after using him, your Psionic—"
He stopped mid-sentence. Something wasn't adding up.
"Hold on — you haven't been possessed, have you? You only had 700 Psionic. How did you summon that entire army?"
Sophie and Lily were staring too. They'd been doing the math. The combined cost of every card out there exceeded a thousand.
"I had the officers help me summon them." Ethan paused. "Anyway — you came in last night, so you must be starving. I brought food."
He tossed the backpack to Jake.
"Wait —" Jake recognized the snack stash. Then: "How did you even get in? We were sucked in, but you weren't here last night."
"I was trying to find a way in, but the cops wouldn't let me. Then the Rift expanded this morning and sucked in everyone nearby. Including me."
"I'm telling you," Sophie cut in, exasperation clear, "we should be running right now. This is no time for a reunion."
She had a point. They'd been on edge since last night, barely slept, and there was a Tier 3 battle happening fifty yards away.
"If Sideswipe can get you out, go," Ethan said, his eyes fixed on the battle. "I need to handle the front line."
"What?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Tell me — what exactly are you planning?"
Jake grabbed Ethan's arm. "I admit Angemon and Naruto are strong, but those are real monsters, not training simulations. You have to protect yourself too — they won't ignore you just because you don't have combat stats. One mistake and you're dead."
"Relax." Ethan brushed him off and turned to look at T.K. and Tai.
They were already standing side by side, a few paces ahead. They'd heard every word.
T.K. held his Digivice in his right hand. Tai held his in his left. Without needing a command, without needing to be asked — they knew exactly what came next.
They'd done this before, in the training room. A simulation. Safe. Controlled.
This was different. This was a real forest with real monsters and real death, and the air smelled like scorched wood and blood.
But neither of them hesitated.
Both Digivices began to glow.
The light was nothing like the training room simulation.
In the simulation, evolution was a visual effect — bright, pretty, contained within the arena's projection field.
Here, in the real world, inside a Rift, with genuine energy flowing through genuine cards — it was something else entirely.
Agumon's Digivice erupted first. A pillar of orange light shot upward through the canopy, punching a hole through the leaves and illuminating the clearing like a second sun. Agumon's small body expanded — two feet became ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Claws thickened. Jaw widened. The brown stripes on his skin darkened as raw power surged through his frame.
[Agumon — Digivolve to... Greymon!]
The ground shook. Nearby trees groaned as roots shifted under the impact.
Jake took a step back. "What the—"
But it wasn't done. The orange light intensified. Greymon's body contorted again — metal plates erupted from his skin, a mechanical claw replaced his left arm, missile hatches split open across his chest. His roar rattled Ethan's teeth.
[Greymon — Digivolve to... MetalGreymon!]
"Oh my God," Sophie whispered.
MetalGreymon stood thirty feet tall. Part dinosaur, part war machine. His mechanical arm alone was longer than Sideswipe's entire body. Steam vented from his shoulder joints. His single organic eye swept the battlefield with predatory focus.
Tai sat on his shoulder, goggles over his eyes, perfectly calm. Like he belonged there.
At the same moment, T.K.'s Digivice blazed white-gold. The light that poured from Angemon was different — warm, clean, almost holy. His six wings spread wide, feathers scattering light in every direction as his body grew, armor forming, a beam blade extending from his right wrist.
[Angemon — Digivolve to... MagnaAngemon!]
Eight wings now. Purple-trimmed armor. The golden glow settled into his frame like a second skin.
The pressure was immense — a wave of sacred energy that made Jake's hair stand on end and forced the nearby monsters to recoil.
For a moment, MetalGreymon and MagnaAngemon stood side by side in the clearing.
The cyborg dinosaur and the archangel. Steam and holy light. Missiles and beam blade.
Thirty feet of metal and fury next to eight wings of divine judgment.
This is what Ethan's been building, Lily realized. Not just strong cards — an entire army. Two Gold cards that could evolve past Legendary. Two partners who knew exactly when and how to fight. A system so deep that even its support pieces had independent consciousness.
No wonder he'd been so confident.
"Holy shit," Jake said quietly. It was all he could manage.
Even the Response Team members — a few hundred yards away and mid-retreat — had stopped to stare at the twin pillars of light that had just torn through the canopy.
The only limitation: Ethan couldn't create a Tier 3 Digivice. He'd tried — even with identical settings to the lower-tier versions, the card generation always failed.
Mega-level evolution was apparently locked at the Tier 3 stage.
Which made sense. MagnaAngemon was already a Gold card that had evolved past Legendary. If he could go further?
A Tier 3 card taking on Tier 4 enemies? That would break the entire system.
Plz Throw Powerstones.