Eternium ~ 50!

The spider elemental unfurled, and the golden water orbiting around it began to move at high speed. I knew I was in trouble, but I had a plan for this. Gathering my courage, I ran as fast as I could toward the exit to the room.

The spider scuttled after me, and I zigzagged so that the droplets mostly missed me. Whatever did hit me was slowed by my armor, but I had never taken my own advice and gotten solid coverings for what amounted to awesome chainmail. The water went right through the holes, tearing into my skin and opening small wounds that I couldn’t afford to heal right now. I kept running, but the spider spun through the air and blocked my exit. 

I spun up a spell and sent a near-crystal shard of Mana at the Beast. This thing had every basic type of Essence in it. Shooting a fireball would do nothing, and really any elemental spell was out of the running. While the shard was hitting and digging into the main body, I followed it up with a field of force that I projected onto the trailing end, then spun in the air and kicked as hard as I could. The force transferred perfectly, driving the shard deeper before it detonated. As the smoke cleared, the counterattack came hard.

The scythe-like end of the spider leg caught my waist and would have cut me in half if My armor hadn't slowed it. As it stood, the Mithril armor tore and left my now-bleeding midriff exposed. That alone was shocking, I had not known of anything that could so easily demolish the resistant metal. It made sense, this creature was far beyond the rules of mere mortals, and I had been relying on something that a seasoned adventurer would wear. Well, seasoned adventurers still got messed up all the time.

A wave of water pelted toward me, seeking the weak section for maximum damage. I created a barrier of air to divert the water, using the slight shift to doge fully. The huge barrage should have been able to catch me no matter where I turned, but the spider hadn’t waited to find out if it would succeed. Three more blades were coming at me as I spun, and the only option was up. I got into the air just long enough to move over the blades, but then I was caught by the gravity and slammed to the ground. 

I had seen an option though, and I was going to make sure to use it. As the next attacks came swirling and swinging at me, I dove toward the elemental and focused a massive rush of sword Aura. I powered my attack with Mana, and drove my fist upward. I might have been able to get away from taking any damage, but my fighting style demanded that I attack vital areas and use devastating blows to end fights as fast as possible. An ‘X’-shape of the sharpest Mana I had ever created raced upward, through the elemental, continuing all the way up to the ceiling. Debris rained down, the enhanced gravity making every pebble have the force equivalent of a C-ranker’s fist.

I rolled under the huge body and ran toward the door, looking back to see if my attack had the intended effect. The spider started racing after me, and I realized that all I had gained was a head start! I pumped my legs, and got to the door just as I heard a loud *crack*. I fell to my knees, looking back just in time to see a soft pink jewel fall to the floor as four shards. I had been on target, it seemed.

As the Core fell out, the two diametrically opposed elementals that had been a single floor Boss began to fight for dominance. Instead of focusing in on me, they wailed on each other, tearing out huge chunks of power that steamed away and into oblivion. I threw open the door, slamming it closed behind me and lay there for three seconds to catch my breath and heal the worst of the damage being done to my organs. 

I stood and moved to the next trial: control of Mana. This would be difficult, since I had Mana steaming off of me. I grasped at it, twisting and twining it into a pseudo-Aura that surrounded my actual Aura, and ran to the first test. When I got there, I looked up and paused. Right. Barry had smashed his way through here, and without me fixing it, the area was still open. Happy coincidence. I went through the five rooms and looked into the mess that was the Core room.

The Silverwood tree was demolished, reduced to splinters of wood with only a single sad leaf remaining on the stone floor. The walls had taken so much damage that light was peeking through, and there were odd shadows being cast; as though the world out there was being set ablaze. Not having any clue what that meant allowed me to be far more terrified about what was happening in the room. 

“I win.” 

Barry crowed his victory over The Master, his eyes shining a bright and fiery green. “All these years of being defeated by you at every turn, all this disparagement from the rankers of the Guild, all the agony of not being able to find the capabilities of my own power… and now! Now! I have you at my mercy, I am the Guild, and Xenocide has taught me my true power!”

“All you are is another pest that is about to die with the rest of the planet.” The Master responded tiredly. He was being held on his knees, surrounded by a pool of blood. “Not only that, but you killed the seed that we had designed to grow into a new civilization. There is no point to anything anymore. End this, Barry the Devourer.”

“With pleasure.” Barry opened his mouth and a thin cloud of gas poured out and surrounded The Master. I could see The Master’s form begin to flake away, his spirit somehow being dissolved and taken into Barry’s. As The Master took more damage, Barry released more of his gas cloud, until all of his green power was surrounding The Master and Barry’s body stood slack.

It was time to intervene. I reached out with my Mana and the room lit up with potent Runescript. Every floor had a section devoted to this process, as I never knew when or where I would get my chance to strike back against this madman. I poured out my power, and the tip of my infernal cannons poked out from hidden sections of the floor, ceiling, and walls. Some had been demolished, so I needed to hope that this was enough. Wards sprung up around the room, waiting to contain the terrible power I was about to unleash. 

A dark wind seemed to blow through the area, and I converted all of the pure Mana into something else. Something dark, heavy, and infernal. With one last push, I collapsed and had to hope that I had given enough. Any more, and I would burn out. Already the stone I fell on was melting from the heat of my body, and burning fissures ran alongside my veins as my blood literally boiled

The Infernal cannons reacted, and the built-in Cores powered them all with perfect control. The power I had given was evenly applied, and spinning circles of darkness appeared in front of each cannon. With the firing of the cannons, all sound stopped and the world went silent. The blood flowing from my ears told me that it was due to my eardrums bursting, and that by itself let me know that the actual volume must have been on another level. After all, I was still a Mage. The cannons had released black bars of power, so condensed and destructive that all I had never been able to properly test their capabilities on any material before.

These were cannons designed to knock a soul out of a body, and the weaker versions had done exactly that. This version was supposed to do the same, but it also turned anything in its path into particles smaller than water molecules. All of these bars of energy converged upon a single point: right where the green gas of Barry’s soul left his physical body through his mouth.

I could see that there was an effect happening, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I decided against waiting to see if the surging green triumphed, and I moved over to a compartment under the remains of the Silverwood tree. Thankfully, the S-rankers hadn’t dug during their fight, or I wasn’t sure what would have happened. I pulled out the perfect Core that would be my new body, and started transferring me into it. All my time as a dungeon had done well for me. I debated - I really did - seperating myself into two once more. But as my mind and power drained from my brain and into the Core, I knew that being only a part of me had made me weak in areas that I couldn’t understand.

This process wasn’t fast, however. As I stood there with my new Core in hand, I watched the black bars suddenly lance through the green energy, continuing onward to tear huge holes out of the dungeon around us. Barry fell backward, toppling to the floor and no longer moving. The Green cloud started to condense, and the severed soul mindlessly drifted toward the prone body of Barry only to be intercepted by the black bars. The motion and power of the bar caught the adrift soul and whisked it down and away; out of my dungeon entirely.

“Looks like ghost type is weak to darkness!” As the power waned, I saw that The Master was also on the floor, his body mutilated almost beyond recognition. Then his eyes popped open, and I almost screamed.

“You’re alive!” I called out. His eyes rested on me, and The Master raised a shaky hand and pointed it at me.

“Dale, I swear myself to your service and the rules you have in place.” That was all he could mange before collapsing to the ground.

I opened my mouth and said ‘I accept’, but an instant before I did so, Barry’s lips moved. He only said two words, but I felt horror as I realized what the phlegmy sounds were. 

“Me too.”