*CLANG*

Jen awoke to the harsh sound of metal striking stone. Her eyes flew open in alarm and were subsequently greeted by the sight of an oddly familiar dragon wing looming overhead. The Monk’s muddled mind instantly recognized that the limb belonged to Azzyth, the adult diamond dragon the harpy had been fighting just before everything went black. To her mind it had only been moments ago that she was frantically dodging the dragon’s devastating beam barrage, so she couldn’t help but assume that the fight was still ongoing. Jen immediately rolled backwards onto her feet and assumed a fighting stance, her body reacting reflexively to the perceived danger.

*CLANG*

The rush of adrenaline, combined with a second serving of that noise from seconds ago, served to fully wake the harpy from her stupor. Now that she was thinking clearly, she realized her initial assessment had been a bit off. While the harpy had correctly identified the wing as Azzyth’s, she had failed to notice that it was no longer attached to the rest of the dragon. The webbed limb had been propped up by a series of crude metal poles to make a large-yet-primitive tent.

*CLANG*

Looking around the basic dwelling, it became apparent that the dragon had already been slain. The white wyrm’s bleached skull and half-disassembled carcass were clearly visible to the side. Dozens of pearly white bones were stacked up like firewood right next to the body. All but a few of the dragon’s glimmering scales had been pulled off and neatly stacked up in several piles in the corner of the wing-tent. Some of the pink leather that lay underneath the scales had been peeled off the body as well, exposing the dead dragon’s supple muscles. Looking down, Jen saw several layers of the beast’s hide at her feet, which she deduced had served as her bed while she was unconscious. Meatball seemed to be responsible for those, as the deformed warrior could be seen carrying various dragon-bits around while sorting them into their respective piles.

*CLANG*

It was only then that the Monk relaxed her stance, though she did not let her guard down. She was still on the Shattered Isles, as evidenced by the illusory terrain. The island’s environmental magics had been dispersed during the excessively destructive battle, but enough time had passed for the confusing landscape to return. It didn’t affect the camp since Xera had covered it in her counter-illusion, but the ambient magic was still visible beyond the djinn’s pink-hued barrier. As for the demon herself, she seemed to be lounging idly in the air above the tent. Jen couldn’t help but wonder why Xera’s head was engulfed in flames, but she quickly dismissed the phenomenon as ‘just demon things.’

*CLANG*

It was only once the harpy had taken in the sights in front, above, below, and to her sides that she finally turned around to face the source of that persistent banging. She was unsurprised to see Fizzy hard at work smithing something at her self-built portable forge. The harpy had been forced to endure similar sights and sounds for nearly a week straight while the golem built her anti-dragon cannon. Though the rhythmic pounding had originally been annoying and distracting, Jen couldn’t help but find it strangely soothing and comforting. Despite all that, the griffin-girl couldn’t help but feel that there was something off about the sight of Fizzy working. Jen couldn’t put a finger on why or what that ‘something’ was, however, despite the copious amount of differences when compared to the past.

*CLANG*

The golem had, for instance, decided to practice her craft in her natural battle form rather than the sleek and slim Service Mode. She was also smithing with her high-tech warhammer rather than the specially designed mithril tools she normally used. Fizzy also seemed to be putting as much force and effort as possible behind each swing, as if she was attempting to beat the material she was working with into submission. Said material was also unusual, as the Artificer was working with the dead dragon’s bones and scales rather than the metals and minerals she typically favored. Last but not least, she also had an assistant in the shape of a juvenile diamond dragon that was using small bursts of its breath to stoke the forge. The beast’s unsightly deformities and subservient attitude made it obvious to Jen that it had been taken over by Boxxy’s Corrupting Influence, and was therefore of no threat.

*CLANG*

While remarkable, none of these details could be identified as the source of Jen’s confusion. The harpy had never been one to beat around the bush, so she decided to approach the issue directly. She approached the golem with the intent to question her on what had happened while she was out. Fizzy seemed to be fully immersed in her work and failed to notice Jen approach even though the harpy was well within her field of vision. Even standing right beside the mithril construct didn’t grab her attention. The Monk thus decided to tap Fizzy on the shoulder with a clawed finger just as the golem was winding up for another swing.

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

“Hey!”

A jolt of electricity leaped up and mildly shocked both Jen and Fizzy, albeit for different reasons. The startled golem messed up her swing and accidentally flung her weapon through the air. Thankfully she was able to activate its Recall enchantment and summon it back to her hand before it sailed off into the illusory terrain. After taking a moment to collect herself, Fizzy turned to Jen with a face of pure annoyance, though it quickly softened.

“Oh. You’re awake,” she noted. “Welcome back to the world of the living.”

“… Did I die?” the harpy couldn’t help but ask.

“Uhhh, probably?” Fizzy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but the Rejuvenation potion worked all the same.”

“Ah, I see,” Jen frowned ever-so-slightly. “So that’s why it seems I’ve been out for a while.”

Jen had no doubt that she’d come down with severe potion sickness as a result, which would explain why it had taken her a few days to wake up.

“Three days and twenty-one hours, to be precise,” Fizzy chimed in. “Honestly though, all things considered, it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“How bad were my injuries?”

“Well, you can see that for yourself.”

The golem grabbed an oil-soaked cloth from nearby and gave her shield a few wipes, instantly bringing it to a mirror-like shine. She brought it up to Jen’s face so the harpy could see her reflection. Even with the curvature of the shield and the color of the mithril distorting the image, the mark that fatal blow had left on the harpy was still plainly obvious.

The right side of Jen’s face now sported a peculiar scar, for lack of a better word. There was a perfectly circular patch of skin that was significantly paler than the rest of the harpy’s visage. It enveloped the area around her right eye and was about the size of her fist, stretching from the top part of her forehead down to her cheekbone. Additionally, the new eye that had grown there was completely unlike its predecessor and left-sided counterpart. Its sclera was black instead of white, the iris a bright yellow with a solid black in the middle. It was no longer a human eye, but closer to that of an eagle.

Jen felt a bit conflicted by these changes. On one hand, she definitely wasn’t a fan of having part of her face be a different color than the rest. It looked odd and unsightly, especially since the pale circle wasn’t even remotely centered on her eye. Even a plain battle scar would’ve looked better than that. On the other hand, she quite liked having one eye be a different color to the other, and not just because she thought it looked cool. She knew from Fizzy’s lectures that Woodrow seemed to favor those with heterochromia. Being more appealing to her relatively new deity was hardly a bad thing.

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

The harpy had been so intrigued by her new look that she subconsciously reached out to touch the reflective shield, earning her another zap that made the fur on her fist stand on-end.

“That’s strange,” she muttered while patting down her hand.

“You do know I only turn off my Static Field for Boxxy, right?” Fizzy raised an eyebrow.

“Not that,” the harpy said bluntly. “For some reason I care about my appearance.”

“… And?” the golem asked, visibly confused.

“I don’t usually do that.”

In the past, Jen genuinely hadn’t cared much about her looks beyond making herself presentable at a basic level. The only reason she even kept her hair straight and shoulder-length was because Edward had asked her to maintain that style years ago and it had become a habit. If not for that she would’ve shaved it for practical reasons, much like she had done during her youth. These sensibilities had survived both her transformation into a half-harpy half-griffin and the mini Rank Up she went through just before the Dragon Festival. And yet here she was, having actual preferences about inconsequential aspects of her appearance.

“Yeah, about that,” Fizzy spoke up. “The blast that knocked you out? In case you couldn’t tell, it punched a hole clean through your skull. The potion filled in the gap, but Boxxy said it did so with harpy bits instead of the sort-of-human bits you have. This includes part of your brain.”

Jen reflexively put a hand over the injured part of her face as the distressing news sunk in.

“Boxxy also said you’ll suffer some permanent mental side-effects as a result,” the golem continued explaining. “It couldn’t tell how severe these changes would be, but apparently they should only be limited to scrambling your likes and dislikes.”

“… I see,” the harpy relaxed somewhat. “It is fortunate I survived with only this much.”

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

Unfortunately she relaxed a bit too much and, while lowering her hand, ended up brushing against Fizzy’s electrified frame once more.

“Hah! ‘Fortunate’ is a mild way to put it,” the golem chortled. “It’s a Jeremy-damned miracle is what it is. Make sure you pray your butt off in thanks when you get the chance.”

Jen nodded a few times to show she agreed and understood.

“You’re also taking this a lot better than I thought,” Fizzy remarked. “I expected you to panic or cry or something, being an unstable meatbag and all.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

Waking up after a four-day nap to a new set of tastes was nothing compared to the agonizing and drawn out transformation she had gone through to become a monstrous hybrid.

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

“So why do you keep doing that?” Fizzy pointed at Jen’s tail, which had just brushed up against the construct’s shins.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” the harpy frowned slightly again. “This thing sways wherever it wants sometimes.”

“But see, that’s the third time you’ve done that,” the golem crossed her hands. “You do know the Rule of Three, yes?”

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern,” was Jen’s response.

“Correct. And what does that mean?”

The Monk knew what the Paladin was getting at. Ever the teacher, Fizzy was using this opportunity to remind her disciple of one of the core beliefs of Milhouse’s religion. Every effect had a cause, and any devout follower of the Goddess of Misfortune had to strive to understand those forces and circumstances if they hoped to truly take control of their lives. As the deity herself once told Fizzy, ‘it is only once we see the strings that we might ask to have a word with the puppeteer.’

In other words, the harpy had just been indirectly told to stop, think, and analyze her own involuntary actions. This was precisely what Jen did. First she wondered why it was that she didn’t mind any of those jolts. They might not have been severe enough to cause damage, but they were still painful. Then she closely examined her hands, which had been zapped the most. After that, she glanced at Fizzy for several seconds before looking up at the sky. Her gaze then drifted back down to the golem and ultimately settled back to her own hands.

Having reached a conclusion, the harpy nodded to herself, turned to face Fizzy, then gave her a surprise hug. Her arms wrapped around the construct head and pressed it to her belly. The extra skin contact naturally led to a more severe electrocution, yet Jen refused to let go. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that the Paladin herself threw the harpy off, her radiant face plastered with confusion with a bit of disgust mixed in. While the golem would’ve normally relished the attention, something about the sudden way she’d been bird-handled made her feel strangely… sullied.

“What was that about?” Fizzy asked suspiciously.

As for Jen, the skin on her arms and abs was blackened with electrical burns. Such surface injuries were hardly life-threatening and were easily treated with a bit of healing magic, but they still hurt quite a bit. Yet despite the fact that she should have been in a good deal of pain, the Monk wore an expression of contentment.

“It would appear I am drawn to things that sparkle,” she calmly stated. “I feel compelled to touch you.”

“… Right. Of course, you are.”

Fizzy’s arms and shoulders drooped as she let out a breathless sigh. She knew that harpies, while relatively intelligent as far as monsters went, were still simpler than enlightened. Their needs and wants were basic and uncomplicated. It stood to reason that Jen’s newfound tastes would align with that part of her heritage. However, rather than desire to make a nest, find a mate, or prey on humans, the Monk had instead ‘inherited’ their bird-brained fascination with sparkly objects. It wasn’t exactly a common trait among harpies and certainly not one they’d risk their lives over, but it was a known factor. Fizzy really should have expected that Jen would pick up that specific taste above the others when considering who their leader was.

This coincidence did not escape the Monk’s notice, of course, though it did remind her that she had yet to see the abomination in question.

“Where is Boxxy?” she asked while looking around once more.

“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” Fizzy answered dismissively. “Last I saw it, it was doing something weird with the dragon’s corpse. It’s probably still there, somewhere.”

“Alright. And our perimeter?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Xera’s keeping an eye out. Besides, it’s been dead quiet for the most part,” the golem reassured her.

“It has?”

“Yup. Barely a-”

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

“Will you stop that?!”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, the locals meatbags might be morons, but they’re not stupid. Seems they figured that it’s not in their best interest to bother the folks that could take down an adult dragon.”

“What about that one?” the harpy pointed at the corrupted youngling next to the forge. “I don’t recall seeing that particular dragon before.”

Granted, they all kind of looked the same, but each mutated differently after being subjected to the Corrupting Influence Skill.

“Oh, I asked Boxxy to go out and fetch that one. Needed its breath to even stand a chance at forging those bones and scales.”

Fizzy was interested in those materials as she had heard that working with them did wonders for one’s Artisan Jobs. The issue was that the dragon’s bits were incredibly stubborn and refused to yield to her smithing hammer. This was mostly because her portable forge couldn’t burn hot enough to properly soften them. She could’ve just waited to return to her high-tech workshop in Azurvale, but the Paladin was far too proud and stubborn to let some meatbag byproducts get the better of her.

That was when she had an epiphany. According to Boxxy, Hazalag had used his breath to somehow fuse his own scales with the shaft of the broken Voidcaller. Fizzy had never heard of such a method, but the abomination’s words had given her a hint. A polite request and a hunting trip later she was able to confirm her hypothesis - she could use dragon fire to work dragon bone. Not only did it burn much hotter than what her small forge could manage, but it seemed to have some inherent magical properties that softened whatever material it touched.

Even then, working with the stuff hadn’t been easy. After two days of non-stop full-powered hammering she had just barely been able to coax a single piece of dragon bone into the rough shape of a longsword. She suspected there was a certain trick or technique that she was missing, much like how mithril needed to be hammered in a specific way. Unfortunately, she was unable to ‘converse’ with the dragon bone like she did with metals, so she had to figure things out the hard way. Of course, it was entirely possible that there was no trick or technique to it and that raw strength and stubborn persistence was all there was to it.

Whatever the case, it was unlikely Fizzy would be able to finish her current project while on the Shattered Isles. The Dragon Festival was drawing to a close, which meant it would soon be time to pack up and go home. She wasn’t sure whether it was feasible to take the dominated dragonling with her, but it was worth a try. Ambrosia would probably take issue with its presence, but there were plenty of dungeons that Boxxy could keep it in. This meant that, if all went well, Fizzy would have no trouble continuing to practice her-

*Bdzzt*

“Ow.”

“… I’m going to count to three.”

Taking the hint, Jen left Fizzy alone before the golem could even reach ‘one.’ She walked over to Azzyth’s body, exchanging a casual wave with Meatball along the way. As she approached the slain wyrm, the harpy couldn’t help but feel an odd sense of pride and accomplishment well up from within. Sure, she almost died in the fight and suffered some weird brain damage as a result, but she still helped bring down an adult dragon. Those who could make such a boast were truly few and far between.

That moment of elation faded quite rapidly, however. As Jen walked over to the other side of the body, she was suddenly overcome with an odd sense of anxiety. She instinctively reached for her staff, only to realize it was still by her bedside. The harpy assumed a defensive stance as she scanned her surroundings, noting how eerily quiet the place felt. There was no signs of life or movement, whether from Boxxy or something else, yet Jen couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she was being watched. She sharpened her focus and her senses, but no matter how much she searched, she only found beaten dust, dead dragon flesh, and a deafening silence.

After several tense moments, she felt movement behind her. The Monk instantly spun around ready to defend herself, only to see a massive white dragon claw swipe at her out of thin air. She barely managed to block the heavy attack with her bare hands, her Ki-Imbued Skin struggling to repel those impossibly sharp claws. In the next instant the rest of Jen’s attacker was revealed to her as Boxxy’s shape emerged from the Dark Domain.

“Hmm, not bad,” the abomination commended her. “Your reflexes are still intact, at least.”

The monster pulled its limb back, allowing Jen to catch her breath.

“You… obtained a new power, I see.”

She knew the mountain of malicious muscle could be stealthy if it wished, but this degree of subtlety was unlike anything else she had seen it display before.

“Yeah. Hazalag gave me a fancy Phantasmal wand,” the creature boasted while flourishing the weapon in question. “It’s quite nice.”

“Ah… I see. Congratulations,” she bowed respectfully.

The harpy also realized the oppressive air from earlier had dissipated somewhat. Unbeknownst to her, the unsettling sensations were a side-effect of the Dark Domain. While Boxxy’s new item could render it completely undetectable, it had its flaws and drawbacks. For instance, it required a high amount of MP and focus to maintain, and any damage dealt or sustained would knock the abomination out of it. It also caused those near the user to experience various ‘bad feelings’ that tipped them off that something was amiss, though this only manifested itself should Boxxy linger in one spot for too long. In fact, the shapeshifter had been hovering around Jen ever since she had woken up. It wasn’t until all other distractions were gone that she began to grow suspicious.

“What about that?” she pointed at its dragon-arm.

From what Jen could tell, Boxxy had ripped that limb off of Azzyth’s body and then stuck it onto itself. However, the effortless and seamless way the thing moved baffled her, especially considering how unreasonably large it was compared to the rest of the shapeshifter. It seemed as if the abomination had been born with the draconic appendage even though the limb clearly didn’t belong to it.

“What about it?” it asked in return.

“Are you going to keep it?”

“Probably not. Just testing out my new Skill.”

The ability in question was called Nervous Hijack. When used, it allowed the abomination to incorporate the severed body parts of other creatures into its own form. If successful, said parts would benefit from all of the monster’s Attributes, Perks, and Skills as if they had always been a part of it. At the moment the creature could only do limbs, but with enough Levels, Nervous Hijack could assimilate all kinds of organs all the way up to and including brains.

“This thing is quite handy, you know,” it boasted. “You would not believe how easily this peels the skin and scales off the corpse.”

“Isn’t it difficult to move around like that?”

The limb was almost as big as the shapeshifter itself, so she imagined the monster would have trouble maintaining its balance.

“At first, yeah, but I’ve got things well in hand now,” the monster jovially replied. “Look, earlier I figured out how to do this!”

The creature then raised its scaly limb and, with a bit of help from its Shapeshift Skill, bent the clawed fingers in such a way that it was able to snap them. The result was a satisfyingly thunderous clapping sound accompanied by a few small sparks. Boxxy clearly enjoyed doing that, as it repeated the act a few more times. The entire sequence also made it clear that the monster was going through one of its dreadfully good moods, which usually did not bode well for its followers.

However, Jen had gone wide-eyed with panic for a different reason altogether. She wordlessly raised her arm up high and, after taking a moment to focus her Ki into her fingertips, made a snap of her own. The air was suddenly filled with the deafening crash of glass breaking while the harpy’s entire arm and part of her torso were encased in a thick, jagged layer of ice. There was an odd, brief moment during which both Boxxy and Jen stared blankly at the way her frozen limb sparkled in the light. Their shock did not last long before both monsters grasped the terrible implication of this phenomenon.

“Ether storm!” Boxxy bellowed.

Those two words instantly kicked the rest of the group into high gear. Fizzy grabbed the Aethereal Repository and stuffed as much of her unfinished dragonbone experiments into it as quickly as she could. Xera flew down from her lookout position, ready to do whatever was deemed necessary of her. Meatball and the corrupted whelp grabbed as many of the shinier dragon scales as they could and hauled them towards their master. Boxxy told Jen to see if she could figure out the quickest way to vacate the island, hoping her Disciple of Chaos Skill would help guide the group. The shapeshifter then threw its Storage open as wide as it could so its mindless minions could dump their cargo inside. It also discarded its borrowed limb as it would only slow it down.

The abomination in charge cursed its own hubris while the group of monsters and demons rapidly prepared to depart. Despite repeatedly reminding itself, both internally and aloud, to not get cocky or overconfident, it had gone and done just that. It had a valid excuse for the slip-up, of course. As the one most familiar with the Dragon Festival, Jen had been put in charge of monitoring the environment for signs of an impending ether storm. She had carried out her orders dutifully and quietly, same as she always had. This was quite nice, as it allowed the rest of the group to focus on other obstacles.

However, with her near-death experience putting her out of her commission, none of the others had picked up the slack. They were all aware of the dangers that ether storms wrought, but had pushed the matter to the backs of their minds over the course of the Festival. After all, they had dismantled an entire fleet of adventurers, taken down a well-coordinated squad of double Rankers, and killed an adult dragon in spectacular fashion. All of these experiences had shifted the group’s perception of what was ‘normal’ until a bit of weird weather was little more than an afterthought.

The only reason any of them had slipped up so horribly was because nobody in Boxxy’s crew aside from Jen had experienced an ether storm beforehand. Sure, the shapeshifter had learned all that it could about the phenomenon beforehand, but it had failed to grasp the underlying reason of what made ether storms so treacherous. Despite the name and reputation, the magical maelstrom did not manifest any obvious signs like clouds, thunder, or lightning until it was already in full swing. Once it had reached that stage, the odds of escaping an ether storm unscathed were so low that even Siegfried hesitated to call it a ‘non-zero chance.’

Boxxy encountered the first major sign of the impending maelstrom almost immediately after it and its minions began their evacuation. Barely a hundred meters from their camp was a cloud of aberrant mana almost as big as a warship. It was invisible to all but the shapeshifter’s MLG, which easily picked out the anomaly from the Shattered Isles’ background magical energy. It was akin to looking at a giant flaming boulder amidst an endless field of green grass. Worse still, said metaphorical boulder was rolling straight towards the shapeshifter.

Boxxy didn’t even bother yelling out a warning. It grabbed its three female followers and made a gut-wrenching turn to the left, barely avoiding the unnatural mass of mana. Its two corrupted minions seemed to sense their master’s intent and followed suit without being commanded. The shapeshifter briefly considered throwing them all in its Storage, but didn’t get the chance to finish that thought before it had to dodge another lump of hazardous magic. It avoided that one by barely leaping over it.

“Someone navigate!” it commanded the others. “I need to concentrate on dodging!”

The creature’s MLG only extended about a dozen meters or so outward. It was a very small margin of error considering its size and the speed it was moving at. For their part, Fizzy, Xera, and Jen didn’t even question this turn of events. Though Boxxy hadn’t paid it any attention, the trio couldn’t help but notice that the corpse they had left behind was now under a giant green iceberg that seemed to rapidly be growing upwards. None of them were sure exactly what was going on, but they all had the same thought.

Everything would work out so long as they followed the monstrous box’s lead, same as it always had.

“That way!” the golem pointed southward.

“Over there!” the harpy turned east.

However, it seemed as though they had a disagreement. Fizzy’s logical mind told her that they needed to get out of the storm’s range as soon as possible, so she wanted to take the shortest route off the island. Jen, on the other hand, had a familiar feeling telling her that they really should take a different albeit longer route. Boxxy made a spur of the moment decision to follow the harpy’s directions, as the ether storm seemed to be wafting in from the south. It was, after all, easier to dodge things that came at it from the side rather than the front.

This proved to be the right decision, as mere seconds later the path Fizzy suggested was engulfed in an anomaly. Bolts of prismatic lightning shot out from under the soil and struck skywards accompanied by a strange sound that was best described as ‘angry trumpets.’ The golem was just about to argue with Jen for going against her, but seeing that fiasco made her swallow her pride right quick. She had the profound feeling even she wouldn’t have been safe from whatever that stuff was. Turning her gaze forward, her own chaos-derived Skill kicked in, showing her a disturbing premonition.

“Stop!”

The abomination instantly halted its advance. Moments later, the ground in front of it sunk downward as if an impossibly large fist had slammed into it, creating an unreasonably deep crater in the process. Without skipping a beat, Boxxy slid down into it and made its way across the bottom. The magical energy seemed thinner down there, so the shapeshifter hoped it would be less hazardous. Its guess was proven wrong, however, as it noticed a wall of anomalous magic collapsing on top of it.

“Snack! Fire! Above!”

In a flash of inspiration, Boxxy remembered that one of Xera’s Pyromancer Skills allowed her to burn away at magical energy directly. It wasn’t sure whether it would work in this situation, of course, but it was desperate to not get caught in that stuff. The volatile energies of an ether storm had the power to permanently transform, mutate, or otherwise change any living matter caught in them. The shapeshifter wasn’t too worried about such things, of course, but it couldn’t endanger its prized shiny.

“Fireball!”

As for the djinn, she executed her orders without fail. She had prepared herself to be called on at any time, and was halfway through chanting her spell before Boxxy had even finished giving her a target. Her Spell exploded in a plume of brilliant flame just above the group, though it didn’t neutralize the aberrant mana. It instead set it off, causing a violent chain reaction that resulted in everyone getting pelted by a mix of ice, steel, acid, and miniature portals. The first three elements did a fair bit of damage, but it was the last one that caused the biggest stir.

The spatial anomalies caused whatever matter they came into contact with to disappear without a trace, whether it be flesh, stone, or metal. Thankfully these injuries were no bigger than a thumbnail and hardly what one would call life-threatening. The rest of the elemental cacophony was far more painful and dangerous, though a certain someone didn’t seem to think that way.

“Ahhhhh!” Fizzy screamed in sheer terror. “I’m full of holes!”

The damage might have only been skin-deep, but due to the golem’s personality that might as well have been the same as being pierced down to her core

“Calm down, you drama queen,” Xera rolled her eyes. “You’re fine.”

“S-shut up! You don’t know what this feels like! And Jen, will you knock that off!”

“… Sorry.”

Under the circumstances, the golem had decided to turn off her personal power generator. After all, she didn’t want to passively electrocute Boxxy while it was carrying her. The harpy, however, had taken advantage of that and was clinging onto the golem a bit too much. Still, aside from a nasty surprise and a painful magical incident, the group emerged from that fist-shaped crater mostly unscathed. More importantly, the shapeshifter had just learned of a trick that might help it escape the storm with relative ease and wasted no time in figuring out how to apply this knowledge.

The idea it came up with was rather simple. The lumps of volatile magic rolled in from the same general direction and had more or less the same speed. If the djinn’s magic was able to detonate them remotely, it could be used to cut a path through the storm. Of course, none of that would be necessary if the creature’s Legendary Perception could pick out the dangerous areas ahead of time. Unfortunately the Perk wasn’t as precise as a mimic’s Mana Locator Gland, rendering it incapable of differentiating between hazardous and harmless magical energy.

Naturally there were other alternatives to simply wading through the ether storm, but they had risks of their own. Teleportation magic would take far too long to invoke and there was a chance the monster would ‘land’ right in a cloud of volatile magic. Flying was also discouraged as the monster’s research suggested that the magical maelstrom would get a lot denser with altitude. Tunneling through the ground was an option, but there were likely to be rogue pockets of magical energy down there that the shapeshifter wouldn’t be able to avoid.

As such, going at it ‘the hard way’ really was the safest option, especially if Boxxy’s idea panned out.

“Snack, continuously bombard the area ahead of us and to the right. Forty-five degrees, thirty meters.”

“As you say, Master.”

For what it was worth, Boxxy’s plan seemed to work at first. The ether storm’s volatile energies were set off a safe distance from the shapeshifter and its passengers. This carved a line of magical chaos that ran parallel to the abomination’s path. Boxxy caught the resulting gap ‘downwind’ and was able to slip between the dangerous areas with far greater ease than it previously had. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a significant improvement.

However, in its ignorance the monster had misunderstood the ebb and flow of the magical maelstrom it was wading through. The way ether storms moved was closer to a flash flood than a wall of wind. What Boxxy and Xera were doing was not much different from using a sword to cut a path through a stream. Sure, with enough force and effort it was possible to gouge out a strip of water, but it wouldn’t be long before more of it rushed in to fill the gap. It would do so by closing in from all sides, as liquids were oft to do.

It was thus that the shapeshifter found itself surrounded by clouds of magical energy that encroached upon it from every direction, including above. The relatively predictable and consistent flow of the storm had become a messy tangle of vectors. The sudden change caught the creature unawares and it found itself incapable of squeezing its girth through the hazardous mist any longer. One of its tentacles passed through a cloud of it and instantly transformed from flesh to hardened clay. Another limb exploded in a shower of bizarre flower petals, and a third just vanished entirely.

Growing desperate and rapidly running out of options, the creature took a blind risk it really hadn’t thought through. Its body swallowed up its passengers until they were covered up to their necks in flesh. It then raised Hazalag’s gift, which it had been holding onto since this whole mess started, and invoked the Dark Domain. It had no idea whether this would help, make things worse, or do nothing at all, but it couldn’t think of another out in the spur of the moment.

As it would appear, however, the creature’s intuition had landed it a lucky guess. Not only did the weird things happening to its body instantly cease, but both it and the rest could clearly see the ether storm around it. The weird colorless filter that the Dark Domain put on the rest of the world somehow made the aberrant mana stand out as a black, wispy smog.

“Oh, great,” Fizzy grumbled. “Back here again.”

The golem had been volunteered to help Boxxy test out the limits of the elder dragon’s magic over the past few days, which was how it knew that it could bring other people with it.

“Would you rather be outside with the storm?” Xera pointed out.

“No… It’s just… unsettling. I can’t put my finger on it, though.”

“Agreed. I feel it too.”

There was something inherently unnerving about the Dark Domain that made it chip away at one’s psyche, regardless of which side of the veil they were on. Demons and golems felt it too, most likely because its wielder had Legendary Mentality. Boxxy didn’t notice it, of course, as mind magic did not and could not affect the one invoking it. This naturally raised the question of how and why mental manipulation factored into the Dark Domain’s workings, but the golem was concerned with a more pressing conundrum.

“How come the storm isn’t harming us?” she asked Boxxy.

“Don’t know,” it answered curtly.

“Perhaps it has something to do with the way it cuts out the rest of the world,” Xera theorized. “Master did mention it couldn’t feed off ambient mana in here, so maybe-”

“Quiet. Concentrating,” the shapeshifter interrupted her.

It had no idea why the Dark Domain protected them, nor could it spare the brain power to figure it out then and there. It had to split its focus between maintaining the shroud and avoiding the storm’s elemental hazards. Even if moving through the volatile mana didn’t set it off, it would still ‘ignite’ on its own at random. Taking any damage would end the Dark Domain, so the monster could not afford any mistakes.

Fizzy, left with nothing better to do, took in her surroundings. She glanced back to where Meatball and that corrupted dragon were, but could see neither hide nor scale of either of them. They were lost to the storm and either dead or wishing they were. Peering beyond the Dark Domain made her uneasy and fidgety, however, so she decided to focus her attention elsewhere. She looked towards Xera, only to realize the djinn had a disappointed expression on her face.

“… What’s your problem?” the golem whispered.

“I wish Master held me tighter,” the demon grumbled. “So tight that my bones creak and my breath stops…”

“Uh… Sure… Whatever you say…”

Fizzy turned away out of disgust and looked towards Jen, who seemed to be taking her situation with her usual stoic demeanor. The golem didn’t have skin that could feel touch anymore, but she imagined being engulfed by an abomination’s constantly-squirming flesh was rather disturbing. She was correct, but the Monk couldn’t be bothered by a few icky sensations considering the predicament she was in.

The harpy watched with quiet concern as Boxxy moved through the storm. She flinched a little every time it dashed through a lump of volatile mana, but after a while realized it didn’t have the luxury of going around. It had previously mentioned this magic drained its MP quite rapidly, meaning this little reprieve was very much temporary. The really worrisome part was she had no idea how long it could keep it up, and the disturbing sights around here weren’t helping her state of mind. Even though she wasn’t aware exactly what that smog-like stuff was, her gut told her it was the true form of the ether storm.

After a few minutes of frantic running while avoiding random magical explosions, the hazardous energy outside the Dark Domain began to thin out ever-so-slightly. Another minute or so saw the ominous miasma rapidly diminish in density and volume. Only a few wisps of it remained by the time the fourth minute ticked by. Boxxy’s MP ran out at that point, causing color and sound to suddenly return to its world. It collapsed into an exhausted mess onto the ground, landing onto some burning ice that had been left behind in the wake of the ether storm. The creature had also relaxed every muscle in its being, releasing its three passengers from their safety-hugs.

“Awesome work, Boxxy!” Fizzy cheered while hugging a random floppy tentacle. “You were amazing!”

The monster responded by twisting one of its tendrils into the vague shape of a thumbs up.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. Just need to catch my breath. Burning that much MP in so little time is its own special kind of exhaustion.”

“We should move quickly,” Jen cautioned. “The storm may change course and come back towards us.”

“… Can it do that?” Boxxy asked.

“Maybe,” she shrugged.

“Right. Give me twenty seconds or so and we’ll start moving again.”

“Alright! We’re finally getting back to civilization!” the golem exclaimed.

“Master! You had me in your grip and didn’t violate me!” Xera protested. “I demand recompense!”

However, though all seemed well for the moment, the shapeshifter had unwittingly done something that one should never do during an ether storm. Without paying it much thought, it had collapsed atop one of the anomalies left behind in the magical maelstrom’s wake. Even if they appeared inert, these ‘souvenirs’ could sometimes hold a nasty surprise for anyone or anything that disturbed them. This was one of those times.

There were many ways that what happened next could have been avoided, of course. For instance, Boxxy might have ran through the storm in another direction, or it might have avoided the crisis altogether. Alternatively, the shapeshifter could’ve just collapsed a few meters in any other direction. Perhaps it might have kept its MLG active while within the Dark Domain instead of shutting it off in order to narrow its focus, which would allow it to realize the folly of its actions.

And yet, none of that had happened. The universe had aligned itself in such a way so that Boxxy wound up at that specific spot, in that specific state, at that specific point in time.

The layer of burning ice that Boxxy had chosen to rest on broke. The abomination’s form then fell through, and was sucked in by the spatial anomaly that lay just underneath. Said anomaly then collapsed, cutting off any hope it might have had of making its way back to Fizzy, Xera, and Jen.

The shapeshifter took in its new surroundings. It noted the total lack of air. It took stock of the familiar sun. It contemplated the fact that said sun seemed to be trying to boil it alive. It observed the infinite sea of darkness that surrounded it in every direction. It regarded the countless tiny, sparkling lights that glimmered in said void. Lastly, it beheld the beautiful blue-and-green ball that floated innocently in the midst of all this emptiness.

The creature analyzed all of this information with admirable calm and quickly discerned its approximate location.

Well… shit.

Boxxy was in space.