It took a second for me to realize Cerea meant that I had killed the Eyelined beast, and not that I had attained not one but two breakthroughs. Power was what I had aimed for, to receive my first Gold, but Ritual had also nicely crossed into Silver. I hadn’t realized one incident could act as multiple breakthroughs.

  “Right,” I said, getting a grip on my sudden euphoria. “We should get the treasure.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve already got them.” Cerea pointed to one corner of the arena where a good bit of the monster’s blood had pooled in a small depression, though it was now smoking away. The treasure must have been in that little hole. “They’re kind of dirty with monster blood now, but we’ll let the guild take care of cleanup.”

  “Brilliant.” I looked around. “Nothing else here?”

  “Well…”

  She pointed to the ground. Hmm. I had noticed something odd about the floor since the moment I had landed on it. It was shaky. Loose somehow, in a way I couldn’t describe properly because I didn’t have architectural experience. Like if I jumped and landed too hard, or with too much weight, the floor would collapse and—

  “Hold on,” I said. I tapped the floor with my foot some more. Cerea’s eyes widened as she caught my meaning.

  “Can you get it?” she asked. “I’ll remain on guard.”

  I started doing so. It was a simple matter of using Granular Control to weaken the floor so I could go digging. I hadn’t used up too much mana against the Eyelined Beast, so my body’s capacity to channel mana wasn’t overly exhausted. Once I weakened enough of the ground, I could just force my way through and hopefully secure the treasure there.

  “Ross!” Cerea warned.

  Crap. I looked up just in time to see a dart of what looked like gas rush straight at Cerea. Too far. I’d never be able to reach her in time. But I didn’t need to. Cerea might not be able to put living things in her Dimensional Storage, but she certainly could put other people’s powers in them. Which was what she proceeded to do.

  A swirl of monochromatic threads appeared right in front of her face, which proceeded to swallow up the shot of gas rushing at her.

  The Scalekin bastard that had fired it was rushing at her too. He had landed from his hiding spot, wherever that was, and slammed onto the arena. Cerea had lightning sparking, ready to fire as soon as he stopped wavering in and out of sight thanks to his Stealth or some other related Aspect.

  “Cerea,” I said. “Just hold him off for a few seconds.”

  I was about to focus on my task, but then a black blur shot through the air. My arm rose instinctively to ward it off, but the blur swerved mid-air. Then it shifted. I only had the time to curse internally, before the bat turned into a vampire, whose fist connected hard with my jaw.

  The world seemed to blink out for a second there. Pounding pain radiated through both the lower and upper sections of my skull as I found myself on the floor of the arena.

  “Stay down, little maggot,” Zoltan said, standing over me. “I could crush you this instant if I wanted to. But I might take mercy on you and spare you. After all, you didn’t choose to be the target of that lowly wretch.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about just then, probably in part due to the pain making it hard to think. It was annoying.

  “You bastard,” I mumbled. Great. I couldn’t even talk right after taking that blow. How was this annoying prat that strong? “You can’t just come in here and—argh.”

  I had been kicked even as I had tried to get up. Now I was tumbling again, though my next reaction was to use Gravity and throw myself up. A combination of Siphon on me and Field Manipulation with Siphon as well sent my body shooting into the air.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Zoltan asked.

  The next second, hot pain shot through my leg. It was the wounded one that had been struck by the Eyelined Beast’s laser. Was this some kind of Aspect that Zoltan possessed? Manipulating blood, even if it was only exposed via a half-healed wound?

  I tried to bite through it and focus on the bastard causing us all this trouble, but it was difficult. Everything below my ankle felt like it was trying to rip itself off the rest of the limb.

  Worse, I was losing concentration. Gravity was going to fail. Desperately, I wondered if I could Sacrifice my pain, but no. It wasn’t self-inflicted. I didn’t own this agony.

  Blinking back tears, I noticed that Cerea was holding her own against the Claw. She had wounded him with her sword, but she was on the back foot. More gas surrounded her, hemming her in and even making it difficult to breathe. Slowly but surely, she was being pushed towards the edge of the arena. Towards the lava.

  “You really thought it was a bright idea to turn that monster into a Scarthrall?” I said, somehow summoning up a scoffing tone through the agony lashing through my foot.

  “Shut up!” Zoltan yelled hotly. “You weren’t supposed to have Light.”

  “I don’t. I’ve got Illumination. That’s what I used to kill Glo—that little wretch.”

  “I said shut up.”

  Zoltan twisted a hand like he was crushing my leg with his own grip, and it really felt like it too. I almost screamed. The agony was intense.

  And through it all, I focused on Gravity. On the Aspect I was already channelling, and on Sacrifice.

  The tiny chat had been a distraction from just that. I needed to break Zoltan’s concentration, and I knew just how I could achieve that. A cast of Gravity on top of what I was already pushing out, before Sacrificing it.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Cast of 1 Silver-ranked Aspect. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Effect of next cast is raised by 3x ]

  I repeated it. Then again. And again. I had been trying to minimize the use of Sacrifice, but situations like this called for it.

  Then I finally used Gravity with Field Manipulation and Siphon.

  “What the—”

  Zoltan bit down on what clearly would have been a very un-noble-like curse as he achieved liftoff, same as me. All I had done was extend the radius of the circle I had already active on the ground, as well as intensifying its lightening effect.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  That was enough to break his concentration. Whatever he was doing to my foot ceased, the pain disappearing instantly.

  I didn’t waste a second to take advantage. The Gravity I had been using on my own body now reversed direction, turning me heavy with Infusion instead of light with Siphon, and I crashed down to the ground. It trembled. Granular Control had already weakened the floor.

  “You stupid maggot!” Zoltan shouted as he saw me land. “You believe this will stop me?”

  He turned into a bat and then flew off. Typical Zoltan.

  I wasn’t paying much attention. My goal had been to distract him, and that had worked well enough. Now, I rushed straight for the Claw harassing Cerea. Gravity wasn’t the only Aspect I was channelling. Once again, I called on Flare to use the lava around me. I was drawing in more and more with Concentration all this time, from all over the arena.

  The Claw saw me coming. He whirled around, his knives rising to get in position and slash me. But he was forced to dodge as I leaped at him while bringing my weighted mace down in a powerful arc.

  His evasion was just what I was aiming for.

  “Ross, what—?”

  I cut Cerea off as I grabbed her arm. “Trust me.”

  A quick look confirmed that both Zoltan and the Claw with him were grounded. Both were heading in our direction too, now out of the range of the circle of Field Manipulation. They were more interested in taking us out than in securing the treasure.

  “What are we doing?” Cerea hissed.

  I held steady. “Wait for it…”

  Her lightning sparked between the fingers of her free hand. “We don’t have time—”

  “Almost there.”

  Before they reached us, I cast Gravity with Field Manipulation and Siphon yet again, this time in a tighter, smaller circle right beneath me and Cerea. We went sailing straight up as I jumped, taking my yelping companion with me.

  I just had to time it right so they couldn’t follow as they would have wanted. Mostly because Concentration had densified the heat energy drawn from the lava too much, right under the floor. I released it all. A series of massive detonations clobbered Zoltan and the Claw. They were both caught out flat-footed as Cerea and I took to the air.

  “What—”

  Cerea’s next sentence ended in a gasp as I pushed her upwards and away from me, reducing her clothes’ weight while increasing my own.

  “Get out of here,” I said. “I’ll protect the treasure.”

  “Are you crazy?” she said. Her arms sailed as she tried to control her motion, but of course, she had no way of doing so while in mid-air. “There’s—wait. Is it already time?”

  “It’ll be soon enough. Just find the others and stay safe, please.”

  Cerea looked like she wanted to argue, but this was going to happen in the end anyway. We just needed to play around with the timeline a bit. Or rather, leave the end of the whole business up to me because it would be too dangerous for the rest of the party to remain close now and find out it was too late to get to safety once everything was taken care of.

  “Good luck,” she sent down as she floated away.

  I was going to need it. As I raised my own weight to float back down, I noticed that Zoltan had chosen not to pursue mid-air. My first thought was that he had been too surprised and had fallen too far.

  The plummet was deep. Turned out the arena was more like a roof over a tall chamber that went far, far below and opened up into a wider inner courtyard filled with columns.

  Field Manipulation would have ended when I had destroyed the arena with my little heat bombs. Thankfully, I had made sure to contain the destruction just enough to prevent shattering the edge where I had created the field of Gravity.

  So, as I landed on it and peered into the newly formed pit, I found Zoltan next to the fallen Claw. I swallowed when I got a look at what was going on.

  Zoltan, that bastard, was kneeling next to the seemingly dead Claw and resurrecting him.

  As a Scarthrall.

  I cursed. It shouldn’t be too big of an issue. My Illumination Aspect would take care of both of them. But I’d have preferred not to deal with a second adversary anyway.

  “Look what you’ve opened up,” Zoltan said, staring around as I floated down to their level. The treasures were there, so I couldn’t just try to take potshots from where I was. Plus, my light wouldn’t reach that far. But the Scarseeker was ignoring me, opting to stare at everything around us instead. “Do you realize this goes even deeper? You can feel it, can’t you?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. My skin itched with the expectation of violence, and I was too busy keeping an eye on not only Zoltan, but the little puppet he was trying to raise up as an undead bloodsucker.

  But when I took a second to focus, I did feel it.

  It was like the hammering of waves on a beach. No, more like the pounding of a slow, large heart. A thrum that arose from deep within and sent pulses of energy into everything.

  “What is that?” I murmured.

  Zoltan sneered at me. “The only thing you need to know is that it’s going to be mine. You really believe a mongrel like you deserves to own something of this calibre? Something as precious, as priceless, as the heart of this dungeon?”

  Heart of the dungeon? Did he mean its core? I recalled Cerea mentioning that, and that dungeon cores had their own special Aspects like our current one possessing the Aspect of Eversight.

  But this constant thumping didn’t feel like that. Where were the eyes? Where was the feeling of an Aspect called Eversight that should be present all around me like it had been so far?

  Why did this location, with its ancient columns and crumbly pavestones, feel so different?

  Plus, I had a powerful suspicion that dungeons wouldn’t let their cores be reached so easily. The last time I had been in a dungeon, it had actively changed its layout while we were inside. Surely, if we got close enough to take its core, likely the most vital part behind its function, it would do a lot more to prevent us from reaching it.

  The cracked feeling in my chest began to grow stronger. Mana implosion was imminent. But that was fine. I’d just need to survive till the moment it started.

  For now, I used the resources I needed to stay alive. There was a small window of opportunity. Zoltan was too busy staring around and his minion hadn’t risen yet. So, I took out the Spiritbloom Pills and the Runes of Barricade. The runes were crushed first. I remembered to use one inside me, which basically meant crushing it inside my mouth with my teeth.

  It tasted like ice. Cold, despite not feeling that cold to touch, but otherwise flavourless. As soon as my teeth crunched in, the solid bits dissolved like cotton candy.

  Then went the three Spiritbloom Pills in sequence. One, wait a second, two, then wait a minute, and then ingest the third. I didn’t taste them. They were supposed to be straight-up swallowed, so I followed the procedure and forced myself to gulp them down, using a tiny bit of water I had stored in my significantly-smaller-than-Cerea’s dimensional storage bag.

  Strange feelings were arising within me. The chill from the Runes of Barricade seemed to spread outwards, but instead of making me feel colder, they were energizing me. At the same time, the pills were adding weight to my lower guts, like they were expanding into cement-like porridge in—

  With a snarled groan, the Scalekin arose. He was looking down at himself, his eyes wide as he took in his form. It hadn’t changed much from what he normally was like. Except for the fact that his wound wasn’t really healing.

  I belatedly realized how odd that was. It seemed like new injuries were something Scarthralls were immune to, but the old ones still left when they were alive lingered like a birthmark.

  “You!” The Claw was looking at Zoltan with fire in his eyes. I had never seen a Scalekin Scarthrall before. His scales had turned from a light green to a dull white-grey, like he had grown old. The slit-pupiled eyes were red as blood. “What have you done to me?”

  Zoltan looked back in annoyance. “I brought you back.” His face screwed up in concentration. “Ugh, this feels dirty. No wonder that scum enjoyed this.” His scarlet eyes sharpened. “Now stop being ungrateful and kill that human mongrel.”

  The Scalekin Scarthrall immediately turned and rushed me down. Right. Scarseekers like Zoltan could control their minions with the Aspect of Ensorcellment.

  I was ready, though. The undead vampire Scalekin attacked me with no pattern, with none of the finesse and training he no doubt had possessed back in life. He was determined to decimate me with his bare claws and teeth, like a wild animal. Like so many Scarthralls I had already fought against.

  Which was why it became pretty easy to fend him off with my mace.

  A blow bearing as much strength as I could call upon using my new-and-improved Power—my Gold-ranked Power—sent the newly-turned Scarthrall flying back with a cry.

  I had delivered a terrible wound to his chest, but of course, that wasn’t fatal. It was regenerating in the very next second, and the vampire rose back up, ready to go again. I grinned. This was going to work.

  Of course, I could have ended the battle at any point in time with Illumination. I had no idea what Zoltan was thinking. Hadn’t he just seen me deal with the Scarthrall Eyelined Beast in the same way? Maybe he thought the Scarthrall Scalekin would have better self-preservation. But his forceful, Ensorcelled command had overridden any such instincts.

  Whatever the case, I didn’t need to end the battle just then. While Zoltan was busy wandering around, I could continue playtime with the undead Scalekin.

  Right up until it was time for the mana implosion to occur.

  The weird sensations from the resources I had used were a little distracting, but the adrenaline superseded them easily. Again and again, the monster Scarthrall tried to bite and claw my face off. I repelled him every single time. It got a smidge annoying at how relentless he seemed to be, but I needed to maintain patience. I had to—

  “What in the Pits are you doing?” Zoltan asked. He was looking between me and the constantly beaten back Scarthrall.

  Ah, crap. He was on to me.

  As was proven when he rushed me down himself with a snarl. Now I’d need to get serious.