Chapter 16

The group from the guild shouted again. After realizing their efforts were in vain, they sent Matt a message...

‘Leave now, or we will force you to use your emergency teleport.’

Matt sent back, ‘we were here first, go find another rift.’

All he received back was a simple ‘no.’

With a slight shift of his head, he looked at his former opponent. While they couldn't see the other’s face through their respective armor, they had a general sense of one another after their brief duel. At a slight nod, Matt charged.

The other group was shocked to encounter people that actually stood their ground., They were so shocked in fact, that they didn't react until Matt had closed half the distance.

The four new combats were an even split of melee and ranged. One had a massive hammer, and the other melee fighter had a rapier. The remaining two looked like a ranger and a mage of some variety.

Matt was intercepted by the hammer user before he could get to the back line. As he sized up the enemy in front of him, the rapier user flanked him, and landed a pitifully ineffective stab to the ribs.

Not one to let an opportunity like that go, Matt uncorked a vicious elbow to the rapier user’s face as he sent Aster a thought to help their temporary ally.

Even with his helmet blocking some of the hit, Matt felt something break under his elbow. Before he could follow up and incapacitate his first victim, the hammer user was swinging at him.

Dodging the heavy attack, Matt quickly advanced on the hammer user, using a flurry of slashes to hold the larger but slower opponent at bay. With their attention completely focused on Matt, his ally was able to slip a tendril of blood around the hammer user's foot. With a strong pull, the blood mage yanked the heavily armored limb out from under the hammer user, leaving them sprawled on the ground.

Matt used that opportunity to rush the back line. The archer had an arrow nocked and loosed it the second a clear shot on Matt presented itself. The arrow itself didn't feel enchanted, though the bow seemed to hum with the resonance indicating an enchantment.

He moved his blade to intercept and the arrow hit squarely in the center of his chest. [Cracked Phantom Armor] took the blow without a whisper of interruption.

Note to self don't try and block arrows with a sword.

These guilders were no match for Matt and his armor, let alone with the assistance of a skilled blood mage.

The blood mage hit much harder than this group of amateurs did. He had nothing to fear. Once in melee range, Matt began to work. He feinted a strike at the archer’s side, trying to draw them off balance. When they pivoted to react, Matt drew his blade towards himself, and carried the strike’s momentum into a pommel to the face. He struck at a limb being used to shield what remained of their face with the flat of his blade, snapping the arm for good measure.

The screams were audible over the wind, and at that moment Matt was engulfed in a torrent of flame. The fire quickly dissipated in the bitter cold and wind. Matt barely felt a change in temperature as the flames licked the translucent plates of [Cracked Phantom Armor].

Engulfed in the negligible flames, he turned to the terrified mage, who realized their massive disadvantage in the cold. Acknowledging that their already weakened skill was useless against Matt’s armor, the mage put their hands up in surrender. Matt closed the distance with two bounding strides and used the momentum from the third to power a knee to the gut. He left his final quarry doubled over, coughing up blood.

Matt sent them both a message, ‘pop your recalls. Just like you wanted to do with us. Or I'll keep breaking things.’ He wasn't going to show any kindness to anyone as openly hostile as this group, especially with their pathetic attempts at backing it up. A part of him enjoyed cutting them down to size, especially after the struggles he had endured during this expedition.

Using the emergency teleport would truly screw them. They would be at the end of the teleporter line after the mandatory 24 hour layover. And with more and more delvers coming planetside, they would be days behind the first arrivals.

‘Come on don't...’

Matt didn't read any further. He poked what remained of the archer’s pulverized nose with the tip of his sword, drawing more cries of pain. The archer and mage got the point. The bands around their wrists both lit up, signifying they had started the non emergency recall procedure.

Matt quickly turned to see the rapier user disappear from a pool of blood in a flash. The hammer user backed off from Aster and the blood mage as he watched the rest of his team retreat.

Aster and the mage had frozen chunks of blood orbiting them, with even more blood coating the mage’s spear tip. If the ripped armor was any indication, the new blood was hammer guys. Matt was glad he didn't start bleeding during their fight, he had assumed that this mage could only use their own blood.

The implications of being able to use your opponent's own blood against them meant a single scratch was a loss condition.

Matt flanked the hammer user and he activated his armband, seeing it was now a two versus one fight.

As the beacon charged, a message came through. ‘Fuck you.’ And as a flash of light swallowed up the retreating figure, an object fell in his place.

Matt tried to dive towards Aster, but he was too far away. He felt her panic as the explosion went off. It wasn't as large as he had feared. There was nearly no fireball or visible damage. That was until the ground slid out from under his feet.

The retreating asshole had blown the entire side of the canyon off.

As the earth slipped away, he saw Aster and his opponent turned ally being wrapped in blood that was quickly icing over.

With as much assurance of her safety as he could have, Matt focused all of his mana into [Cracked Phantom Armor]. It was his only chance of surviving the ensuing landslide.

Quickly chucking his sword into the spatial bag on his back, he felt the ground pick up speed in its grim descent.

***

When the world stopped shaking and the earth settled down Matt found himself at an elevation three miles lower, and on the outer edge of the newly created slope.

With a quick check of his bond, he found Aster was still alive, but somewhere to his left under the rubble.

He quickly pulled out the small shovel he had packed. When he neared the point where he felt her presence, he started digging for all he was worth. When he encountered rocks, he dug around them until his Tier 4 bodily strength could shift them.

She didn't feel that deep, and when he was through five feet of dirt and debris, his shovel struck the frozen ball of blood.

He shouted, and fresh blood pushed up, expanding the hole he had dug, and a thoroughly red Aster came out in the arms of the blood mage.

As soon as she saw Matt, Aster jumped from her savior's arms and into his. The wind was far less noisy down at the bottom of the canyon, so they didn't have to communicate by AI anymore.

“Thanks, I owe you a huge debt for saving Aster.” Matt was infinitely relieved that this stranger had chosen to save Aster. They could have been selfish, and that thought horrified him.

“Seeing as them dropping the bomb might have something to do with me going a little overboard on the backline.”

His savior just looked to the top of the canyon, and he heard an audible groan. The wind was nearly nonexistent down in the canyon.

“You didn't happen to see my spatial bag when we were falling did you?” The voice was higher than he expected, clearly feminine. Noting the detail for later, Matt quickly reviewed his AI’s information, and sent a snippet of his view as they fell. The panel in their vision clearly showed when he saw the bag tumbling down with them.

When she received the information, she put her head in her hands and groaned again.

Matt understood. Losing a spatial bag was not only expensive, but it made surviving out here without the gear almost impossible. He still felt in her debt, so he offered, “I'm happy to share what I have, if you don't want to teleport back to the city.”

He knew she wouldn't want to, it would be just as much of a death sentence for her as it was for the team they just beat.

She pulled her helmet off, and copper waves of hair poured out of her helmet in a thick ponytail. She looked at him and asked, “You don't happen to have tampons do you?”

Matt had no idea how to respond to that. He had everything a guy or even a fox would need for months in the wilderness. Tampons were probably the one thing he didn't have.

“Umm, no. But I do have toiletries, and you're welcome to use them. I really do owe you. It's the least I could do.” He raised the fox, who was unsuccessfully trying to clean herself in his arms, and continued. “Aster is worth far more to me than any material possession.”

Matt thought over her actions in their fight and the team up against the guild party. He had a good feeling about the blood mage, so he proposed, “getting a new spatial bag will be costly. Why don’t we team up? Everything, until you have enough to cover the cost of a new bag, will be yours. From the rewards I've gotten so far, it shouldn't take more than one or two rifts. Then we can go our separate ways, or go to an even split.”

The woman across from him looked at his armored face and down to Aster in his arms.

She sighed again, and nodded. “Sure, I’d appreciate it. Lost my weapon in the fall as well. I can fight without it, but it will be easier with a tank.”

She glared to the top of the cliff before kicking a loose stone. “That petty asshole. I lost two rift rewards with that bag. When I get back I'm going to challenge him to a duel, and break even more bones than you did.”

The armored blood mage looked back at the cliff and said, “I don't think you went that far. They came and immediately tried to force us into not just leaving, but popping our recalls because we didn't immediately roll over. Fuck that, and fuck them. If I had known he’d do that, I’d have snapped his stupid neck. Let him heal a broken neck and be out of the rifts for a month.”

With a heavy sigh she finished “let's go.”

With silent agreement, they headed to the nearest rift in the canyon. After a few minutes of walking, she turned to him and stuck out a hand. “Elizabeth. Liz works, but if you call me Beth or BethBeth, I'm stabbing you. What about you?” It sounded like a joke but he took the warning seriously.

Matt stuck out his hand and replied “Matt, and this is Aster.”

The fox glared at both of them, still trying to clean her fur.

Liz saw and winced, “Sorry girl, when we get to the rift I can pull most of it off, but with it frozen I can barely control it.”

That seemed to mollify the fox enough to go back to her ineffectual licking.

When they arrived at the closest rift, Matt drew his longsword from his bag, with a wince at the glare Liz gave the landslide behind them.

Setting down Aster and a beacon, he stepped through and out of the rift's entrance. A moment later Aster and Liz followed.

It was a warm and bright day in the rift. They were in a vast grassland, and in a small clearing of waist high grass.

Liz came out of the portal with a ball of blood hovering over each hand, and three more orbiting behind her head.

When they weren't attacked immediately, she turned her blood into a whip, and knocked the grass down in a ten foot circle around them.

Still, nothing attacked, and with that, she sat down right in the center of the circle by the rift entrance.

“Ugh. This sucks, do you have some water? All the blood loss dehydrates the hell out of me.”

Matt just took off his spatial bag and tossed it to her, and told her where the canteen was, and which pocket the extra mana crystals were in.

After draining the bottle, Liz activated the rune, but was shoved out of the bag by the angry fox. Once she grabbed her brush, Aster took residence in Liz’s lap, and dropped the brush. Clearly, she was unhappy with the manner of her salvation.

Matt was slightly worried Liz would take offense, but she just chuckled and fished out the bottle of shampoo as well.

While she scrubbed the wrong colored fox into a sudsy blob, they talked.

“So where did you get a beauty like Aster here? You're on The Path right?”

“Yeah, I'm on The Path. You are too right?” Matt could team up with someone not on The Path, but it was heavily frowned upon, as power leveling was a possibility. That would ruin the integrity of The Path.

“Yup. That's good. I'd hate to have to leave you because you weren't on The Path. The last thing I need is someone saying I was cheating”

“As to how I got Aster...” Matt wasn't sure what to say. He had told Griff that he wouldn't spread the information so he kept his answer simple “Well I took a stupid risk, and got lucky in both surviving and getting her.”

Liz didn't push, and reached into the bag to grab a towel and dry the now clean fox.

When she laid the towel out to dry, Liz sniffed around. Then like a dog after a bone, she leaned down into his bag and pulled out the heart from the tree.

“What’s this?” she looked perplexed, and sniffed it again.

“The heart of a boss from the second rift we delved here.”

Her face lit up, and she turned with hunger in her eyes. “Really? Which one? We need to go back!” she stood up and moved to the entrance.

His next words stopped her, “The rift collapsed when we left.” He didn't mention that they hadn't left voluntarily, or that he had not collapsed the rift willingly. An omission wasn't a lie.

She looked into his armored face and sighed. “What do you intend to do with this then?”

Matt knew that her asking meant it was valuable, but he still felt indebted to her for saving Aster's life.

He shrugged and told the truth “Aster ate what she wanted from it, so I was really only saving it if she wanted more. If you want it take it.” He deliberately did not ask what it was worth, it was easier to be generous with Asters scraps than some super valuable treasure.

Liz looked from the heart to him then to Aster. With visible effort, she stuck it out to Aster. “Do you want to finish it girl?” That raised his opinion of her, she clearly wanted it, but treated the fox’s opinion as valid.

When Aster looked at it then went back to drying herself, Liz’s face went from relieved to guilty. She looked back at Matt and asked again “She already ate some right?”

Once he confirmed it, her eyes went back to the heart, and a conflicted look came over her face.

“Ugh. You don't know what this is do you?”

“No, is it that valuable?” He knew he'd regret asking, but she was acting far to skittish.

“Yes and no. For anyone with a bloodline, it's worth a king's ransom. Without that, it's still valuable, but without a storage device made to preserve it, not really.” She looked back to him, and her eyes were drawn back to the heart in her hand.

“It's got a dragon's blood essence inside. It's not a lot, but it is incredibly pure and strong. The problem is, it's already starting to fade. And honestly, I don't know if the city would have any proper containers. If that rift was still there this planet would go from a training ground to a capital world in an instant. Blood essence of any kind is rare, and blood essence from a dragon is nearly unheard of from a rift. I'm assuming this is part of the reward?”

Matt shook his head “No, it's from a tree looking monster that was on the back of a big ass dragon.”

That got her attention away from the heart. “What? Explain. Please.” There was earnestness in her voice that made him answer truthfully.

“The rift was normal at first, but we found a void affinity tree. After killing it, I realized we weren't on a planet or asteroid, but a giant dragon's back. Then it roared, and we were returned to the overworld.”

He sent her the final moments of the rift, and watched as her eyes turned massive.

Her voice was hoarse when she said, “This is impossible, that dragon is far too large.” her eyes went back to the heart, and she pushed it back out to him. “You could and probably should, immediately take the next portal off this planet, and go put this in a container. You’d fetch an earldom on the open market. You'd even have the Emperor's attention with that video and blood essence. This is rare. Like retire off The Path and get enough resources to advance to Tier 25 rare. At a minimum.”

That brought him up short. If she was even half right, this was an amazing opportunity. He could give up a life of struggle and be immortal.

As he looked at her face filled with longing for the heart she had extended back to him, he steeled his will.

He didn't want to leave The Path. He enjoyed the fights and the growth.

He did however, still have questions about the heart. “You said it's more useful with people with bloodlines. What does that mean? Can I use it? And Aster ate some, will she be ok?”

Liz shook her head “Bloodlines are what you get from having a parent that is an evolved beast. Or a beast yourself.” she nodded at the fox, who was ignoring them still.

“This blood essence will purify her bloodline, and make it easier to evolve in the future. It will basically help her get stronger, faster. Probably double the gains for every Tier in both physical and mana cultivation. That's with a normal dragon's bloodline. With how large that one was, I don't even know. It's only a positive though. Higher Tier always means a better purity, to a degree.”

Seeing the hope on Matt's face, she continued. “Normal humans don't have a bloodline for it to work on. It would do literally nothing. I can swear on that with an Empire Oath to be checked when we get to a good signal. There is no such thing as a dormant bloodline either. It's an all or nothing thing. They can be weaker or stronger, sure., But the bloodline is either present or it isn't...”

That dashed some of his hopes, but he asked “And you can use it?”

Liz nodded, then shook her head “Yeah I could. My mom is an evolved companion. I'm a first generation, so I have a bloodline. But… But I can't pay you for this. Like never. I could probably get my parents to help pay for it, but that would outside help, and we'd both have to leave The Path.”

That wasn't what he wanted to hear, but he thought back to her grabbing Aster when she could have dove for her bag, or held her weapon instead.

The decision became easy.

“Take it. Aster got her fill and I can't use it.” Liz looked like she was going to protest but he cut her off. “I'm not leaving The Path until I fall off. Easy rewards are nice, but not what I want. And you saved Aster's life. I wasn't kidding when I said she was worth more than any material goods. Consider it a reward for kind choices.”

With that Elizabeth looked from the heart to Matt then Aster. Then with a massive bite, she took a chunk out of it like it was an apple.

She made a sound that was somewhere between a moan of pleasure and one of pain.

As Matt watched her eat in fascinated horror, he saw the rivulets of blood that ran down her chin retreat to her mouth.

The mix of her pale skin and red hair when eating a bloody heart like an apple gave him an idea.

“Hey does being a redhead...”

He didn't get out any more than that, because she stopped chewing and around her mouthful of flesh said, “Finish that redhead joke. Please. Be like everyone else who makes the same joke. I. Will. Stab. You.”

Matt decided the joke wasn't worth it.

She closed her eyes and finished the heart with slow bites. When she finished, she looked back at him and grinned. “You have got to realize that a redhead joke about using fire or blood is older than time. If you’re going to make a redhead joke, at least make it semi-original. Because, I promise, I've heard them all.”

With a swig from the refilled cantine, Elizabeth stood and brushed her armor off. “I'll need some combat to burn off the energy from that snack. I think I got more out of it because of my blood Talent.”

That gave him a bit more information than he thought she realized. His AI added it to her projections.

She wiggled to set her armor and looked to him.

“You good? Don't need to rest at all?” She had just eaten the heart, and Matt didn't know if she'd need to process the energy like cultivation.

“Nope. Ready when you are. And let's just go to the even split now.”

With a shrug, all the blood in the area from the washing and from outside the rift flowed onto her like a second layer of armor. When she replaced her helmet, it encased her head as well.

His AI alerted him that it was far more blood than should be available. It theorized that either the blood was much thinner than it looked, or that she generated large quantities of blood quickly.

It was good to know your enemies’ capabilities and those of your allies’. One might become the other at a moment’s notice.

As they advanced with Matt in the lead, they came upon their first monster. It looked like a scarecrow made of the surrounding grass, braided into a vaguely humanoid shape.

When he cut through it with a single blow, he was expecting the familiar rush of essence. Instead, the monster fell back into the grass, and was reformed into a complete whole. When Liz’s whips of blood leveled the surrounding grass, Matt cut the small figure down again.

This time it did not regenerate.

“Fire would make this a breeze.” He heard Elizabeth's grunt of agreement from behind him.

They slowly made their way deeper into the plains, cutting down larger and larger groups of grassmen. Liz made a great lawnmower, and that let Matt finish the monsters off quickly. Any that got close to escaping into the uncut fields were frozen by Aster.

The trio made quick work of the rift, and quickly progressed deeper into the grasslands.

When they reached a hilltop, all they could see in every direction was an endless sea of waving grass. It was only disrupted by the path they cut to get there.

The loud thumping of hooves snapped them to full alertness, and they began scanning for the source of the sound.

The grass surrounding them was waving. But unlike before, Matt's AI pointed out the patches of grass that were moving were doing so against the wind.

Liz sent out a blood whip in the direction of a massive wave of grass. Then, rising out of the grass like a submarine from water, was a fifteen foot tall grass centaur.

It was massive, and armed with a giant halberd. Thick plates of woven grass armor covered the beast from head to hoof.

Matt rolled out of the introductory charge’s way, even if his armor could handle the weapon, the combined force of the attack and charge would send him flying.

As the centaur charged past the hill and back into the grass, it sunk down and disappeared.

He started feeding his AI everything it could handle, trying to predict where the monster would reappear.

After a few seconds, rustling grass began circling them and picking up speed. The centaur charged out from his and Liz’s flank.

“Get it to bleed!”

Matt understood, and was shocked at the implication that Liz could track an open wound, but began formulating how to do as she asked.

This time it was charging directly at Liz, so he took the opportunity to slash at the centaur’s horse flank.

The blow was mostly stopped by the armor, but a thin line of a wound was opened up, and trickled a sap like blood as the centaur rushed past.

“Gotcha, fucker.”

Matt immediately received a message from her AI with tracking details. There was now a highlighted, moving line through the grass.

The odd movements from before began to make sense, as the line teleported short distances in the grass.

While they chased down the centaur, Matt saw it surface several yards away, then with a burst of speed, it charged directly at them.

Matt stepped aside, while Liz and Aster did the same in the opposite direction. The centaur would now have to choose a target.

It focused on Matt, and he prepared to dodge and counter. As he waited for the opportune moment, he noticed the blood on his sword fall to the ground in a single wave.

When the horse man was upon him, Matt rolled, and heard crashing and screaming. Quickly standing, he set his feet, and with every ounce of power he could muster, he drove his enchanted longsword into the flailing rear leg. The tip of the blade cut clean through to the other side.

His AI knew the bone was hard. It had directed him to focus on cutting through muscles and tendons, rather than the stronger bone. He did so to great effect.

The centaur tried to pull itself free from the pool of blood it had been entangled in. As it tried to stand, its crippled rear leg completely failed, and the monster collapsed to its knees.

With giant sweeps of its halberd, it kept him and Liz back. It was only prolonging the inevitable. Without its mobility, it was little more than target practice, but a cornered animal always struggled until the end.

And indeed, target practice it was. Matt would step forward and fend off swipes from the halberd, while Liz slammed down on the centaur with whips of blood.

The blood whips Matt noted, were sucking up the blood pooling from every additional strike, and were constantly growing in size and density.

His AI also noted that the whips were hitting harder than water would at that density and volume.

He had no idea what her Talent was, but it was either completely absurd, or she had an array of really versatile skills.

When the blood loss sapped the remaining strength out of the monster, Matt deflected a half hearted blow into the ground, used the shaft of the halberd as a springboard, and attempted to finish the boss with a flying thrust into its humanoid chest.

Unexpectedly, the rush of essence didn't flow into him as the upper body went limp. A spike of blood pierced the flank where a horse's heart would be, and truly brought an end to the fight.

The shared essence was a nice rush, and Matt was surprised that the amount of essence was about what he expected from a solo boss kill. It felt almost normal, maybe a percent or two different. It was a much easier fight with Liz, and losing a small fraction of essence was a small price to pay for an easier kill.

He was closer to the reward distortion, so he dispelled it. Twenty nine Tier 4 mana stones dropped out. Not a bad haul. Double the normal rewards for each of them.

Liz came over, and peering around him said, “Not bad, over average. Honestly I'm really hoping we can get a skill shard or two to trade.”

“Yeah, agreed. You up for another rift today?” Matt was hoping to get one last delve in, before the night set in and it got colder.

Liz rubbed her helmet where her chin would be and then said, “Yeah I should be able to do one more, but I’m only at a third of my mana. I'd like to be at half at least.”

Matt paused at his oversight. He had forgotten about mana costs. It wasn't something he'd ever had to consider. He had his AI run the skills she had been using. From what he could tell, she was using a skill like [Blood Manipulation], but she was using the skill nearly constantly.

Using the more common [Water Manipulation], he was able to get rough estimates of her ability. According to his AI, that constant expenditure and the complexity of the manipulations she was performing put her mana usage at an absurd rate. Her Talent had to be an exceptional one, or he just hadn't seen its weakness yet. It was the only way she should be able to use a skill this often.

They waited in the rift until Liz said she was ready, and they once more returned to the cold wasteland. Before they left, she asked Matt to cut a staff from the half of the halberd.

Aster relished in the cold, and sniffed rocks and anything that caught her interest, as they trekked to the nearest rift. She was in a good mood, as she didn't have to do much in the last rift, and was now clean again.

Matt noticed that Liz left most of the blood back in the rift, only taking a small amount with her. His AI noted it was nearly the same volume that she had entered the rift with. It was either a limitation of her skill, or its interaction of teleporting through the rift.

When they reached the next rift, they set out a beacon and entered.

The first thing Matt noticed was the darkness, it was dim and rocky. This rift was an underground cave system of some variety.

When Liz and Aster came through, they took a look around and Liz asked what he was already wondering. “Which way is the exit? I can't feel anything.”

Matt had been examining the surroundings, trying to answer the same question. Rift exits were spiritually loud. It was normally very easy to sense the mass of power, just as the rift entrances were easy to locate.

He couldn't find anything, and apparently neither could Liz. Considering they were in a circular chamber with six exits, Matt had the sinking realization that this was a maze rift.

Not common, maze or labyrinth rifts were puzzles that delvers had to navigate. They usually came with conditions that had to be completed to exit. They could be anything from killing the boss, to flipping levers hidden throughout the rift.

This was going to be a long delve if it was a puzzle.

He turned to Liz and asked, “Do you want to pull out and try another rift, or test our luck?”

She turned a circle, checking out the passageways before saying, “Labyrinth rifts usually have above average rewards, and this rift is bursting with essence...”

She trailed off, letting the statement speak for itself. And it did. They could strike it big if they got a little lucky.

Matt weighed the risks of time lost versus the possible rewards, and ended up agreeing with her unsaid sentiments.

“I think we should do it. At worst we don't get anywhere, and in a few hours we simply retreat with little loss.”

Liz took that as approval and started checking out each exit.

“I don't see or sense any traps, so it's a question of one out of six chances to get the right path.”

Matt ran the odds with his AI and offered “Start from the top and work clockwise?”

Liz didn't have any better ideas, so they marked their path, and started down the tunnel. There were no splits or other tunnels to take, so they just walked down the path. That was, until they found the first enemies.

There was a giant lizard that was on fire, seemingly a standard salamander. What had Matt wary was the salamander's companion. The trio looked up to see a flying dragonfly that dripped sparks. That combination could prove annoying if not difficult.

The ceiling was high enough that Matt didn't have any good options for killing the dragonfly if it refused to land. It would be up to Liz or Aster.

“I can tank both. Let me draw their attention.”

Matt rushed in, and both monsters turned and let loose their respective elements on [Cracked Phantom Armor]. He felt a slight weakening where the attacks overlapped, but it was nothing his standard feed of mana couldn't handle.

The salamander whipped its tail around, and the blow was absorbed completely by his leg’s translucent armor, stopping the beast for a moment.

He activated the enchantment on his blade, and plunged into the back of the lizard. The blade pierced the back of the thigh high beast. But when he pulled out his blade, it was glowing hot, and the strengthening enchantment drained a large chunk of mana to keep the structure intact.

As he turned his attention to the head sized flying insect, he caught one last lightning bolt to the chest, before the dragonfly was blasted out of the air by a thumb sized orb of blood.

He nodded to Liz in appreciation. He really didn't relish flailing around trying to cut down the creature. Waiting for Aster to hit it wasn’t a great alternative. Her aim on moving targets was still questionable.

Waving his sword to help cool it, they proceed down the hall, repeating the encounter four more times.

When they finished off the fifth group, they rounded a corner, and found a salamander and dragonfly with large red crystals embedded in their foreheads. The duo were at least four times the size of the normal pairs they had previously encountered, and had four of their lesser counterparts circling them.

Matt scoped out the room, and turned to Liz asking, “If I get their attention, how long do you think you need to kill the flyers?”

Liz sized up the gem embedded versions of the monsters before saying, “I should be able to take out the smaller ones easily enough. But the larger ones' armor is going to give my shots trouble. I'll probably need to use a whip to pull it down for you to finish off.”

She looked at Aster and asked, “Think you can hit it with a shard of ice?”

The fox in question just tilted her head, and quietly yipped a negative.

With or without Aster’s questionable aim, the plan was good enough for Matt, so he stepped into the room with a loud cry.