He wasn’t sure if it was a new type of death squad, but he shuddered to think of what they could have done if they were Tier 14 instead of alleged Tier 12s. The four of them would have almost certainly died if that had been the case. Again, he thought about Tiering up, but he shied away from the idea. Had they come this far just to fail and Tier up at the last possible moment? Matt rejected that notion. It had just been one bad fight, after a long string of victories through Minkalla. There had been setbacks of various degrees, less than total wins, but they had conquered everything set before them until now and profited enormously from it. Except…that was how it almost always was, wasn’t it? There was no gradual increase in challenge until someone found their limit, with the option

