With the stolen disciple’s [Little Guardian’s Totem] still hanging around his neck, he had been easy to track. It was a little less easy to communicate with The Grateful One and prepare her for the ambush, though I had managed that too; the stores of light held within my reservoirs ran dim, but the constant glow of the ore-flesh wrapped around me had been enough to recover. By the third time that I had tried to get my point across, she had begun to understand.

It was frustrating, but better than some of my other experiences with communication. One day, I would find a Coreless with the intelligence to understand a proper hiss. Until then, I would just have to cope.

The Great Core truly must have trusted in me, to present me with these challenges.

Fortunately, the Great Core’s disciples possessed a variety of fangs and ore-flesh, so I had been able to explain which of the corrupted disciples we would be going up against. That was important, because they all had their own strengths - and Will would likely be one of the hardest to fight among them.

Alone, I even doubted that I would have had a chance to win. The fights against the flame-gaze bad-things had proven how durable the Coreless could be; many times, I had seen him take blows that would have smashed me into a fine pulp - and not even stagger.

Fortunately, he seemed to rely on the other Coreless to do most of the killing. He may have been durable, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was dangerous.

Just frustrating. Very, very frustrating.

With that in mind, I had prepared myself. As impressive as The Grateful One could be, I knew that she wouldn’t be able to fight Will in the same way that she had the others; there would be no shattered bones and crippled limbs to keep him down. It was more likely that her own bones would shatter in the attempt.

It was a good thing that she wasn’t alone.

I shunted a large amount of mana into the venom sacs that held my [Paralyzing Venom]. Each drop of blue suffused the pool of slow-venom within, pushing its potency to new heights. Eventually, though, I was forced to stop. Even having recently refilled it, my stores of mana weren’t large enough to treat them as if they were limitless; I knew that I would need to save quite a bit of it just in case.

The Grateful One followed the illusory light that I created to guide her way, trudging through the fields of dead spore-flesh. Her gait was heavy, as careful as ever to leave tracks behind her. Though the spore-mist tried its best to fill in the holes that she created, there were still distinct marks left behind, great gashes and scars that couldn’t be healed in what little time we needed to be concerned about.

It wasn’t entirely necessary; some time ago, I had realized that she was trying to leave herself a way back to the once-corrupted that we had left behind. With one of the Great Core’s disciples there with them, I would be able to find them any time that I wanted. The Lesser Core’s spore-mist couldn’t do anything to stop that.

Still, it was good that she was focused on keeping those that the Great Core had claimed safe; it showed that she understood her duty as a disciple, that she would keep the Great Core’s interests in mind even in the midst of the Lesser Core’s disgusting spore-mists.

Those same spore-mists still swirled with phantom images of Coreless-like figures; I had hoped that the Little Puppeteer we had defeated had been the sole source of the distraction apparitions, but it was clear that there were more. Then again, with how close to the Lesser Core we were, many of the nearby Little Puppeteers would have been around for some of the longest of its minions. They would be stronger than the ones that I had seen before; it was good that it didn’t mean all that much. The Little Puppeteers were not the giant darkwood tree, powerful enough to be almost unassailable. They could only act through their spore-mist, and the Great Core had provided both me and The Grateful One with ways to defeat that.

My leading light cut out, causing The Grateful One to startle. She turned to me, letting a spike of [confusion] pass through her [Little Guardian’s Totem] and lifting one brow. Gathering a few drops of life essence, I concentrated; they split in twain, forming drops of vitality and vigor that each brimmed with their own wonderful energies.

The vitality was pushed into The Grateful One’s flesh, causing a few spore-roots to fade and lending a healthy glow to her cheeks.

The vigor was pushed into my own, the energy burning through my flesh and making me feel alight with energy.

I motioned her forward again with a careful wave of my head, flashing a weak guiding light.

When the spore-mist swirled next, turning and churning as it always did, we saw him.

The Grateful One rushed forward on my instruction, following the plan that I previously laid out. She slammed against the corrupted disciple; in the clash between bone and ore-flesh, bone was found wanting.

They snapped like dry wood, creaking and cracking with enough force that I could feel it where I rested upon her shoulders - and then they started to snap again, forced back into place by the tandem healing of [Life - Vitality] and the [Little Guardian’s Focus].

Will staggered, and I took the chance.

I leapt, mouth open wide, aiming for the mottled green, black, and pale surface of his neck.

My fangs pushed against Will’s skin, dimpling its surface like a heavy breath upon a pond; pressing it downwards, but not quite breaking through. He spun furiously, and only [Clinging Grasp] stopped me from going on an unwanted flight through the mists.

Out of the corner of my obscured vision, blocked almost entirely by Will’s overly thick neck, I watched The Grateful One rise up from where she had fallen. The still-healing Coreless coughed, spitting out a glob of blood, and surprised me by pulling her ore-flesh fangs free.

She hadn’t done that against the others.

One of her fangs flashed, reflecting the mana-light of Will’s ore-flesh, dipping down and around the corrupted Coreless’ own raised ore-flesh. The fang slipped through a tiny gap between the plates of ore-flesh that coated Will’s wrist, forcing the right hand to fall limp and drop what it was holding. A puff of dead spore-flesh rose into the air.

Undaunted, Will jerked his other arm forward, the giant chunk of ore-flesh that it held smashing into The Grateful One full force. She tumbled backwards, a hand dropping backwards and sending her vaulting up again. Her nose was a crumpled mess, leaking blood and I-didn’t-want-to-know-what-else. The Coreless could keep knowledge of their disgusting mystery fluids for themselves; I didn’t want it.

One hand came up to push it back together again, and it was on the path to mending by the time the hand moved away. Will, having finally picked up his fallen ore-flesh with an already-healing right hand, stepped forward to follow.

At the same time, my fangs pierced through his skin at last. Twin rivers of slow-poison dripped through my fangs, gushing along their hollows with an almost painful intensity as my well of poison quickly ran dry.

The thought-light flickered.

Lesser Core Skill: [Mana Venom XI] Increased.

[Mana Venom XII] Acquired.

And yet, despite that, Will’s body kept moving.

Even worse, it moved towards me in a particularly awful way. Before I had time to notice, we were already halfway to the ground. Before I had time to react, the stolen disciple’s body had contorted itself enough to pull me further underneath it.

And then we landed.

My many ribs, small as they were, shattered like kindling under the force of Will’s great weight - a great weight that was many, many times my own.

A frantic thought-hiss went out, and my pulped flesh writhed. Many-tendriled spore-roots swept up the splintered and broken pieces, holding them together as best they could. Another hiss sent me downwards, diving through the dense spore-flesh below.

For once, I didn’t balk at its touch. I welcomed the green-black darkness.

Moments later, glowing ore-flesh pierced into the darkness, nearly pressing me into a pulp.

I sent out another thought-hiss, my body slithering harder.