"After this is all over, you and I need to have a long talk, Davi." Sieg hummed and stepped closer to the two monsters. "I'd like to know everything that happened and why you left."
Davi gave a nervous chuckle and nodded his head. "Right, well, before that, we should deal with these two monsters first, right?"
"Of course." Sieg nods his head, and more golden lightning swirls around his body. "Row Electric Aura!" In a flash, he vanishes, moving just as fast as Huli. The fox woman was caught off guard and tried to block Sieg's strike, but his spear rammed through her shoulder and blew her arm off. In a flash, he filled her with holes, blowing more of her body apart. "Is this seriously all you got? No wonder you had to gang up on my little brother. You're pathetic."
Huli just growled and slashed out with her other arm, but Sieg casually dodged it. "Don't get so cocky." The woman's body glowed gold, and she was fully healed. "I can use Polymorph as many times as I want to heal—"
More holes exploded across her body as Sieg impaled her dozens more times in an instant. "So what?" Sieg snorted. "Heal all you want. I'll just rip you apart again. Sooner or later, you're going to run out of Polymorph and won't be able to recover. Row Electric Chain." From his free hand, a golden chain blasted out and wrapped around the spear that was poking into Farkiss's body. Farkiss grunted as he was dragged over by it, and Sieg tore the spear out of the fat man, wielding both at once, which he used to slash into the two monsters, riddling them both with holes as their bodies struggled to heal.
Farkiss let out a roar and, through the storm of strikes, stabbed out with his tail, but to the man's shock, Sieg's own body glowed with a bright golden light, and a tail covered in gold and red scales jutted out of his rear, wrapping around Farkiss's, halting it.
"Y-You're a Lung?" Farkiss screamed.
"The organ?" Sieg shrugged and clasped both his spears together, forming an X-shape in front of him. "Oh well, I don't actually care. Die. Row Electric Cutter." His spears glowed white hot, and lightning erupted from both of them, and then he sliced them both down, sending out a wave of energy in the shape of an 'X' which tore the tunnel in front of him apart, along with the two monsters, ripping their upper halves off their lower ones.
"What the hell is going on?" Farkiss yelled in rage. "We shouldn't be losing this battle! He's destined to die! We should be able to just kill him and get it over with! Adam said so! Why is a Lung protecting him?"
"Cool it, Farkiss." Huli hissed. Both she and the other man were just torsos, falling toward the ground as their bodies were sliced up. "He's not a real Lung; he's casting spells. Remember what Adam told us. Three humans met the Great Dragon of Roads. This must be the last one. Unlike the other two, though, his body couldn't handle the mana. Adam didn't factor him into the equation because this one is a Mutant. He'll eventually turn into a full Lung and work for us; we just need to give it time. Also, because he still clings to his humanity, he can't cast spells naturally through his core and still requires the incantation. He also most likely lacks true Polymorph."
Underneath his mask, Sieg couldn't help but smirk. "You two are fucking dumb."
"Shut your mouth." Farkiss roared.
"What? I'm serious." Sieg snickered. "You didn't even pay attention to where my brother went?"
Both Farkiss and Huli slammed into the ground just in time for Davi to rise out of the shadows and swing his claymore as hard as he could. Due to the injured state of both the monsters and the surprise attack, they weren't able to form their mana in time, leading to Davi's sword easily cutting through both their necks. He decapitated them both, but he didn't stop there and swung even faster, going the other way, slicing both heads in half. Then he did it again, until all that was left were bloody chunks that dropped to the ground.
Davi didn't stop there, either, though. He rammed his sword down onto the torsos and began to carve them up as well. He was going to make sure they weren't able to come back. If he had been fighting a normal monster or another mage, he surely would have won the fight by now, but the two beings before him were anything but normal.
"Unbelievable!" Farkiss's voice bounced around the tunnel even though he lacked a mouth.
Huli's followed seconds later. "I guess we have no choice. To think we'd be pushed to revealing ourselves. Oh well, with the death of our hosts, it can't be helped."
From the bloody corpses, two blasts of golden light pierced out, causing both Davi and Sieg to wince. A tremendous amount of mana suddenly shook the underground, and Davi watched as two floating orbs lifted into the air, each the size of a baseball. It looked like the king's core, but both were glowing with a bright golden light rather than the white color the king's was.
Davi swung his sword, but it bounced off an unseen barrier, unable to hit either core. Sieg's was the same, his spear being deflected away. The mana grew more intense, and Davi winced as he felt his scar throb. He no longer had an issue sensing either of the monsters.
"Davi!" Sieg yelled out.
"Way ahead of you!" Davi moved past both orbs and stood next to his brother, getting ready for the next phase of the fight. His shadow surged beneath him, and the golden aura around Sieg got bright, with flickers of lightning crackling out of him.
Both orbs shook, and the mana around them began to take shape as two new monsters filled the tunnel. The first was Farkiss, a massive, twisting, serpent-like beast that took its place around the core. He was easily over twenty feet long and covered in blue scales. Two tiny arms poked out of his body, and fur twisted down his back. His head looked dragon-like but had a large beard and whiskers that poked out of the side of his face.
It was said that the Lung was humanity's attempt to create a dragon. They lacked wings or the proper size but possessed a tremendous amount of mana compared to most other monsters. Like the dragons, it was also assumed they went extinct.
Next to Farkiss was Huli. She was equally as big but took on the appearance of a monstrous fox. She was covered in snow-white fur and had three tails, which thumped against the ground beneath her, cracking it.
The stone around both monsters began to melt as fire engulfed them, and they opened their maws, about to unleash a wave of energy that would surely fry both men. Sieg just smirked, though. "Dumbasses. Do they not realize how much mana they're giving off? They're practically begging for attention now."
The fire launched out, but it never reached Davi or Sieg. The air rippled and tore, and before both men, a massive zipper suddenly formed and unzipped. Space unfolded, and the fire flew in, vanishing as the zipper zipped back up and sealed the attack away.
From another zipper, a new wave of mana filled the tunnel, causing both monsters to flinch and shiver. "It's too damn late for shit like this." The captain of the Phoenix Flight guild let out an annoyed sigh and rubbed her neck tiredly as she stepped out of the ripple in space. She took note of the monsters and then of the injured Davi. "I know our guild is full of idiots that are all racing toward their death, but what the hell are you doing?" She poked him with her sheathed sword and made a face.
Davi winced and shrugged. "I was winning till the fox showed up."
"I'm here also!" From the zipper, Pock stumbled out, also followed by Olivia. "We came to help!"
"Davi!" Olivia dropped to her knees and grabbed her friend. "Are you okay?"
"No. I have a hole through me." Davi responded flatly. He then spat up some blood, and his helmet dispersed, revealing his bruised-up face. "Some broken bones also."
"Row Blood Recover!" Olivia instantly got to work healing Davi, but the damage he took was bad. The ice that blocked the hole in his chest was gone, and he was losing blood faster than she could recover. He was pierced all the way through, and the hole wasn't small either.
"Pretty impressive you were able to fight them both off by yourself the way you did." Pock grinned and folded his arms.
Davi frowned at that. "By myself? No, my br—" He stopped and then looked around. Sieg was gone… "What? Where did he go?"
Before anyone could ask what he meant, both monsters roared. "Go away!" Farkiss screamed.
"Yes!" Huli agreed. "Leave! We just want the one destined to die!"
"Yeah, not gonna happen." The captain's eye twitched, and she casually drew her sword. "Looks like my base will be getting a new rug." She pointed her blade at the fox, then slowly toward the snake-like monster. "And I'll turn you into a pair of boots."
"You think we're scared of you?" Farkiss howled.
"Of course you're not scared." The captain shook her head and stepped forward. In an instant, she was already behind both monsters and sheathed her sword. "Corpses can't feel fear."
Hundreds of lines suddenly appeared across the fur and scales of both monsters, and a sea of red splashed down as they were torn to bits. It was like they went through a blender, their massive bodies falling apart.
Of course, it didn't matter how damaged they were… A golden light seeped out and put them back together, catching Laer off guard.
Farkiss and Huli reformed, both trying to attack the blonde woman, but the Captain was too fast, easily dodging and slicing off a limb from the fox and the lung's head. Again, though, they both just healed up.
Olivia's eyes widened as she watched the golden light. "Polymorph?" She asked in shock. She was sure that's what she was seeing, but it didn't seem to be the same as hers. Was their version better? After all, hers would wear off, and she'd revert, so even if she did prevent her death, it wouldn't matter once the power wore off. Not to mention, she always changed, yet these two were just healing over and over again and were spamming the skill with seemingly no cooldown.
Was that what her version could become, or was it another ability altogether? It was hard to fathom the idea that Polymorph could be used to heal wounds like that so easily. The version that they had looked like it was an immense cheat skill.
"You can't kill us!" Farkiss yelled.
"I can." Laer snorted and kept dodging their strikes. "Traits require mana, even if it's a small amount. I'll carve you over and over again until either your minds crumble or your energy withers away and you fail to heal. It's going to be fun to see what happens first."
"The captain looks to be enjoying herself." Pock chuckled.
"Good for her. Also, I think Davi is dying," Olivia said, suddenly worried. Davi was spitting up more blood, and the ice was totally gone, leaving nothing to block the wound. His face was turning a pale white, and his breathing became shallow.
Pock let out a curse and nodded his head. "I don't have any skill with the school of Restoration either. Not to worry, though. I can just take him back to the base. Olem can easily heal a wound this simple." Pock muttered a spell and flicked his hand. Once more, a zipper appeared in the middle of the air and shook about the yank down, but it stopped suddenly. "Huh?" Pock frowned and waved his hand. The zipper shook, but again, it didn't fall. "What the hell? Why isn't it working?"
Pock even reached out and wrapped a hand around the zipper, attempting to force it to go down, but it didn't budge. The opening in space was refusing to unfold.
Olivia felt a flop in her stomach as she watched it happen. Pock kept trying and recast his spell, but it was as if the world itself was rejecting him. It wasn't allowing the mutant to open his rifts. If one were open, Davi Hawker would be able to be healed and saved, but that would go against the story that was written…
Davi Hawker had to die after all. The quill said so.
"I don't understand!" Pock spoke up, totally baffled. "Something like this has never happened before?"
Olivia focused on Davi and attempted to heal him again, using her second spell for the day. She managed to slow his blood loss down, but with how great his wounds were, the blood just kept coming, and she could feel his pulse starting to slow. "Can't you use a zipper to seal his wounds shut!"
"If I had any skill with the Restoration school, then sure, but that's not something I can do." Pock winced. "Damn it, I should have brought Olem! I just assumed the captain could handle it, and I could easily take Davi out of here." Pock shook his head and slapped at his face. "Okay, no worries. I think I have a solution."
"You do?" Olivia asked.
"Yeah." Pock nodded. "Magic or not, I'm still insanely fast since Mama Herta trained me. I'll use what she taught me to carry Davi back to the base as fast as I can. I think the monsters are somehow interfering with my ability to open a portal, so perhaps once I get away from them, I can open one and carry Davi to safety."
Olivia bit her lip, processing the mutant's words. "Can Davi handle those speeds, though? His body is a mess, and his mana is drying up."
"We don't have any other choice." Pock sighed. "I'll go at a speed that won't hurt him—"
"Wait!" Olivia's eyes suddenly went wide. "T-There is another option."
"There is?"
Olivia nodded and glanced down at her hand. "Let me try something."
She didn't know if this would work. She was still learning how the trait worked after all, but there was something she suddenly recalled about Polymorph. The version her father used had been to heal a hawk, and the version she learned from that other her had been used to recover a tree. She had used Polymorph a bunch today, but in actuality, it had all been in simulations and not real, so her skill hadn't been used yet. She should be able to use it, right?
Gently, Olivia placed her hand on Davi's stomach. A golden glow seeped from her hand and began to cover Davi's body. Before, when she used it, she always restored herself to full power, but now that she was using it on someone else, she could feel a wave of mana being ripped out of her. She nearly blacked out as all her energy was sucked dry. The skill devoured every last drop of her mana, getting rid of it all, but in return, it worked.
The golden glow wrapped around Davi like some sort of cocoon, and a blue box appeared before her.
'Polymorph: Reality is what you make of it. Select the outcome that best represents you.' She could feel it. In this moment, she could shape Davi's form. It wouldn't be forever or last long, but with her trait, she could give him a body that worked.
That wasn't all she saw, though. The world around her seemed to fade, and Olivia found herself standing in an endless black void—a sea of darkness. Ice began to crawl up her body once more, and in front of her, she saw Davi. Not the person, though, but instead the truest form of him. She saw his core.
Unlike the king's, Davi's core was small. It was only about as big as a basketball, and it glowed with a mix of purple and black lights. It looked like it was an orb of purple, but all along it, black hands wrapped across it in a hug-like way, squeezing it tight. Also, poking out of the orb were swords forged out of blue fire. Jagged blades that impaled past the mana's barrier, staying lodged inside of it.
Olivia felt sick as she stared at the core. Was this actually Davi's? It looked so frail, and it shook; cracks appeared all along it. The hands grew harsher around it, and forcing herself to calm down, Olivia lifted an arm, and the golden glow burst out and shattered everything around the core, breaking the arms and the swords, freeing the ball of fire. In an instant, all the ice that had been forming around her faded as the core surged with power, growing in size and melting through the vault.
Then, suddenly, she snapped back to reality. Her Polymorph command was simple. It was the same one she used on herself. Just be you, and live. As she stared down at Davi, Olivia's eyes went wide.
"Davi?"
Over with Laerton, she dodged another swipe and slid back, using her sword to deflect Farkiss's tail attack. A jet of fire launched from Huli, but the captain avoided it with ease.
"Why won't you die!" Huli roared.
"As if something as weak as you could ever threaten me." Laer sneered. "I fight against fate itself. How can a mere fox and lizard compare to that?"
"We are fate!" The lung roared. "Fate is ours to command! I command you, die!"
Farkiss lunged forward, his mouth wide open, but before he could come near the captain, there was a flash of black and purple, and his eyes suddenly exploded as a sword sliced through the side of his face. Huli was also damaged, one of her ears being ripped off.
"Ah," Laerton clicked her tongue. "So you're back up. What's with the outfit?"
Davi casually stood next to the captain and hummed. "Not sure. I just woke up and felt like I should do something now."
Just like when Olivia would use Polymorph on herself, Davi had changed slightly. He appeared to be the same person, but his mana was calmer and refined. His outfit had drastically changed, though. Gone was his armor. No longer did he look like a Knight or a bastardized version of the Ebony Knight. Instead, he wore shadowy black robes. The same sort of clothes his father had on. They were still made of his own shadow, and they glowed with bits of blackish flame, looking as if they were about to trickle off of them. Most importantly, though, his body was fully healed.
Farkiss hissed, and his body glowed, but his eye injury didn't heal. It was the same with Huli. Neither of them recovered. "What gives?" Farkiss screamed. "He is supposed to die, not awaken. The story was already written!"
"Something must be wrong." Huli spat out. "That Polymorph isn't the same as ours. It's like it wrote a new Path."
"But that would mean—"
"Yes. It's the Great Dragon of Roads, Polymorph. The creation of a new Path to walk upon. He shouldn't be able to create such a thing, though." Huli's eyes narrowed. "I see why Adam ordered your death."
"You two yap a lot, don't you?" Davi frowned and casually held his sword out. His eyes lit up with a purple glow. "I think you should both just die."
"Ha! Don't get cocky!" Farkiss sneered. "Even if you can rewrite your own Path and layer it over ours, fate is still on our side! Your Destined Death will occur before the end of the night."
Davi casually gripped his sword with both hands, and he lowered it to the ground. He took a calm breath and then stepped back and yanked his blade up as hard as he could. In his mind, he imagined he held a fishing rod and not a sword.
Suddenly, from their wounds, Huli and Farkiss found waves of black and purple threading wrapping around them. It was like wire, the same kind found on a fishing pole, and it began to bind their legs, snouts, and arms, growing tighter and tighter, and yanking them toward Davi.
The two monsters tried to fight back, but the wire surged with more mana, and their scales and fur were ripped apart, being sliced open, as their bodies began to get shredded. With one final tug, the wire tore them completely apart and wrapped around a pair of golden orbs that were in their corpses.
The wire pulled back and twisted around Davi's blade, as if he were reeling in a fish, bringing the two orbs before him where they gently floated in the air. "So that's what E1 fishing looks like." Davi mused.
"What the hell just happened?" Laerton raised an eyebrow, baffled by what she just witnessed.
"I went fishing." Davi mused, and he lazily flicked the golden cores, which kept floating in the air. "I don't know why, but everything looks different. Like I'm seeing threads."
"Instinct?" Laer mused. "And Sword Silk?"
"What?" Davi looked back at the older woman, but she just shook her head.
"Nothing. I'll explain it to you when we get out of here. Pock, can we leave now?"
Over with Pock, he held an unconscious Olivia over his shoulder and was gritting his teeth as he tried to yank the zipper down still. "Nope. They still won't budge! What gives! Ms. Olivia also blacked out after she used some power on Davi!"
"Guess we'll leave the long way." Laer sighed.
"What should I do about these things?" Davi asked as he flicked the cores.
Laer hummed. "Those are monster cores. Most decently strong monsters have them, though those two were laughably weak and must be at the bottom of the tier. Monster cores can be used to refine enchanting, or you can use them to improve yourself. If we were in Rossum or knew a Rossum alchemist, you could even get them forged into pills to take and get a trait the monsters had, like their Heat Resistance. Just put them in your bag."
"They won't regenerate, will they?" Davi frowned.
Laerton gave a slight nod. "Eventually, if they aren't destroyed, but it'll take them days, maybe even weeks, to do. If you swallow the core, your own will break it down and destroy it."
"That doesn't sound safe…"
"It is." Laer shrugged. "Monster cores are weaker than human cores naturally. They won't cause you mutations either. That's caused by the dungeon itself. Dungeons actually fuel monster cores and slowly convert mage cores into monster cores. It's likely the two monsters haven't been in their dungeon for a while, which is why their cores were so weak."
Davi hesitantly reached out for the cores, about to grab one, but before he could, a sound echoed off the walls, making him freeze. Laerton and Pock also stopped, and slowly they processed the noise. It was the sound of clapping.
They weren't alone.
***
Far, far away, there was a cold stone room. Within this room, a table resided, and upon this table a book lay. Its contents open, and above it, a quill began to shake and write once more. The story of Davi Hawker's death was about to start.
***
Footsteps then could be heard, and the three of them turned to see a new figure lurking in the tunnels.
"You did better than I thought you would." The figure mused. "Still, you can't be that good if you didn't even know I was here." The person stepped forward, allowing himself to be seen, his smile growing as he looked at the unimpressed Laerton.
The man was young-looking, with pale skin that was fair and pretty, similar to Sieg's own. He also had soft blonde hair that was combed and neat. He wore a pure white suit, complete with a white tie and a white undershirt. He even had on white shoes and white gloves. Despite being in such a filthy place, not a speck of dirt touched him. What was most startling, though, were his eyes. His iris was twisted and deformed. It was strangely beautiful, being bright pink and white, looking almost like some sort of pink flower. Instead of veins or blood vessels, black root-like lines danced around the flowery iris, and each time he blinked, the shape of his eyes changed in subtle ways.
"Who the hell are you?" Laerton demanded. She didn't sound like she actually cared, though. Her sword was already held tightly in her hands, and she looked as if she was ready to rip this man apart.
The man's smile was already large, but now it looked as if it would shatter his face. He gave a flourish and a bow and tilted himself down. "You may call me Mister Bloom."