“How was the hunt?” I asked, knowing that I couldn’t see Kaneda carrying anything on her person. However, that did not necessarily mean anything, something which she soon proved true.

“It was decent.” As she said that, Genevieve’s shadow seemed to grow in front of Kaneda, and the body of a large boar slowly rose up from it. “I didn’t miss anything, did I?”

Just as I was about to answer, there was a distant shockwave that shook the ground around us. Griffith jumped to his feet, snarling in alarm while Genevieve flapped her wings from atop Kaneda’s shoulder. Just a quick moment of focus told me that the blast had originated from the nearby town, making me grit my teeth.

Kaneda turned her head to look at me, worry on her face. However, I simply shook my head, moving to mount the lion as Genevieve hopped off her shoulder, taking to the sky. “We’ve got to investigate.”

She simply let out a small sigh, moving to get atop the lion behind me, her arms gently wrapping around my waist. “So much for a quiet evening at home.” She muttered with some regret, and I couldn’t quite tell if that was from Kaneda or Irena.

Glancing back towards her, I flashed her a smile. “We’ll take care of this quick, and then come back.”

That seemed to cheer her up, and I signalled for Griffith to start running. His body was surprisingly strong, able to carry the two of us and still move quite fast. As he did, I began to mentally review the magic of this world, as well as what spells I had stored inside of Griffith.

It only took a few short minutes before we arrived at the town, where we saw roaring flames and billowing clouds of smoke. Mangled, fresh corpses were strewn about, causing myself and Kaneda to both gasp for breath. Some of these faces we knew in our memories, close friends that we would often visit.

Standing at the center of the town and wrapped in a flame as black as night was a winged figure. It was clearly male, going by the body shape, but beyond that nothing could clearly be seen through the flames. “Ohh?” It spoke, its voice crackling like embers. “There’s still someone left?”

Well… this certainly qualified as a challenge. In the world of our memories, there were no winged races. In fact, the only race at all should have been humans. And yet here there was something… else. I looked at it for just a moment before a thought occurred to me. “Amalgam…”

The word left my lips almost without me meaning to say it, and its meaning only truly occurred to me after the fact. Amalgamation was a forbidden branch of spells. As the theory went, familiars were created from the soul of the host, and therefore it should be possible for those two souls to fuse once again, to grant a man all of the magical powers of a familiar. However, reality was never so simple.

When a familiar is created, its soul becomes both linked to and separated from the host body. As time passes, it begins to change more and more. Amalgamation fuses these two souls, but in the process warps both the body and mind.

The nearby example of such a process chuckled darkly. “Oops, looks like I’ve got to clean up now.” His flaming wings stretched out, growing larger and larger, soon dwarfing the rest of his body before reshaping into massive hands.

These hands then picked up two chunks of walls from the collapsed buildings surrounding us, and threw them in our direction. “Griffith!” I called out, focusing on one of the spells I felt stored within him.

Griffith’s eyes began to glow, his mouth opening and releasing a rumbling roar. Visible pulses of sound swept out from his mouth, striking the debris heading our way and shattering it. With every pulse, it broke down more and more, until only dust remained, scattered by the force of the roar.

“Gen!” Kaneda looked up, whistling. The large eagle swept down from the sky as she jumped off of Griffith, holding her hand out calmly. Her eyes were focused on the enemy as Genevieve landed on her wrist. The bird’s wings extended fully, its body lying flat before flashing with black light. When the light faded, Genevieve had been replaced by a black longbow, the limbs of the bow decorated by dark grey feathers.

This was Kaneda’s signature spell, which she had named the Shadowheart Bow. However, our opponent wasn’t going to be kind enough and simply wait for us to finish powering up. Upon seeing that his initial attack failed, he sprang into action, darting towards myself and Griffith.

The massive hands attached to his back reached out at us, as if wanting to squeeze the life from our bodies. Jumping back, I sent Griffith forward, his body glowing with a golden light. A thin film of energy formed around the lion’s body before he crashed into the flaming figure, sending it tumbling back.

Kaneda turned to the side, taking a shooting stance, and began to speak softly. “Oh darkness that dwells within my heart, take shape.” Her bow flashed again, a long arrow forming and nocking itself as she grabbed the fletching. The arrowhead was curved downwards slightly, seeming to resemble a bird’s beak.

The man let out a bestial roar as he landed on the ground, dust scattering around him. His wings receded, and he brought his true hands forward. “You want to do this the hard way? Fine! Fires which burn at the end of creation, embers of a fallen star.”

Chanted spells were more rare, given that they took longer to cast, but that was also because the chant itself was an activation for a secondary spell that gathered more energy for the primary one. And, as a ball of pitch-black fire condensed within his hand, I had to wonder whose spell would launch first.

Kaneda slowly pulled the string of her bow back, continuing her chant without showing any worry on her face. “Oh sorrow of my soul, ensure my aim is true.” Her bow pulsed with black energy, the feathers beginning to wave in an unseen wind.

I moved myself and Griffith back towards Kaneda, ready to act defensively as the enemy finished his spell just a step faster. “Consume all within your path, strike down gods and demons alike!” His hands began to spread apart, the sphere of black flame growing larger, before his hands clapped together. As if shot out from a cannon, the spell launched towards us, kicking up debris in its passing.

Even at a glance, I knew that we did not want to take that thing head-on. I crouched down, slamming my hand against the ground as Griffith mimicked the motion. Three tall, thick walls of stone rose up along the path of the spell, causing the enemy to begin laughing hysterically.

The first wall was burnt away on contact, the second lasting for barely a moment longer. The third wall crumbled soon after, but by that time, the speed of the spell had been reduced significantly, allowing Kaneda to finish her chant. “May the holy mother show you mercy in the next life.”

A black trail of light shot out as she released her arrow. It pierced through the ball of black fire and scattered it, before a soft gasp reached our ears. As the dust cleared, we could see the amalgam, his flames scattering from his body. His skin was leathery like a bat’s, his eyes large and dark. There was a thin hole piercing straight through his forehead, and we could see blood dripping along it.

His knees grew weak and he collapsed, falling back onto his misshapen wings. His mouth was twisted in a snarl, fangs poking through from both jaws. As we walked closer, a fresh arrow in Kaneda’s hand, we checked to ensure that he was truly dead.

Once we did so, Terra’s voice spoke into our minds. For defeating the mysterious amalgam, all parties involved have received six hundred points.

Neither of us truly paid attention to that voice at this time, Kaneda speaking softly. “Why here?” She slowly relaxed the bowstring, and allowed her weapon to return to its eagle form. “Genevieve, could you scout the area for any clues?”

The bird gave a nod, cawing before it flew up into the air once again. Meanwhile, I heard another voice in my mind, this one from Griffith. There is a stench about him. Old blood, and… a curse.

“He was cursed?” I found myself asking in surprise. I knew what a curse meant here. It was any magic forced upon another, their own innate energies struggling to fight against it. Normally, that should have been obvious, and people could easily associate Amalgamation with a curse, but… typically, amalgams are volunteers, even the researchers themselves.

“Slyris, this is bad.” Kaneda muttered, one eye closed as she looked at me. “It’s not just here… Every city on the horizon shows signs of a battle. I can see smoke rising in all directions.”

I let out a groan, shaking my head. “What are the odds that this was all his doing, and this was just the last place he visited?”

“As much as I wish that the case…” Kaneda shook her head sadly. “These attacks look all too recent… and some look like they’re still underway.”

“Then we need to get moving.” I immediately turned and began walking back towards Griffith. Think you’re still up for more?

The response I got was a huff, Griffith striding over and kneeling for me to mount him again. It will take more than that to tire me, Sly.

Kaneda walked over, jumping up behind me again, when the world briefly froze. Terra’s voice spoke out once again, this time surprising us. A new player has entered the game. As soon as she finished saying that, everything returned to normal, Griffith having not noticed that anything went wrong in the first place.

I so desperately wanted to ask who joined, but I had my suspicions. And asking such a thing right now would likely only confuse our trusty mount. Logically, there should be some kind of confirmation needed for someone to join a game like this, even with the Keeper’s logic. It was too easy to reveal secrets of the world, and so the system would likely take measures to stop that.

However, those measures were unlikely to apply to people in the Keeper’s own group, meaning it should be another of the deities that came with us. Narrowing it down a bit more by personalities… it should either be Accalia, Udona, or Aurivy. Beyond that, it would be impossible to tell until we met their character, assuming we were able to recognize them as a player.

I dismissed those thoughts with a shake of my hand, signalling Griffith to once again begin running towards the next nearest city. This one was further away, so the run would take quite a bit longer. It was unlikely that we would arrive before it was over, but… we had to try. Even if the attack had already ended, and the enemy wandered off, there was the chance that someone might still be alive, hiding in the wreckage and needing rescued.

Seeing as we had some time now before arriving at our next destination, I decided to make the most of it. Bringing one hand forward, I rested it on the back of Griffith’s head. As my eyes closed, I focused on the creation of a new spell. Thankfully, spells were not consumed when they were cast, but there were only a set amount that each familiar could hold. After that last battle, I noticed that Griffith still had some room for more.

Creating a spell within this system was… surprisingly, quite easy. The primary requirement was to have physical contact with the familiar while imagining the spell that you wanted to impart. And so, I imagined Griffith standing in an empty landscape, letting out a roar much like he did earlier. Only this time, instead of destructive sound waves, he was firing out a stream of fire.