As painful as it was, I wasn’t able to heal myself yet.

Will’s frozen body needed to be dealt with before anything else; with my slow-venom having run dry and my body horribly injured, I didn’t have any desire to tangle with him again. He needed to be freed from the Lesser Core’s influence, and it needed to happen fast.

I let a few drops of vigor flow through my fangs, formed from the meager bits of life essence that remained within my mana core, and immediately noticed The Grateful One’s strength surge as the thought-light flickered twice.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vigor II] Increased.

[Life - Vigor III] Acquired.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life Essence Manipulation V] Increased.

[Life Essence Manipulation VI] Acquired.

It wasn’t just the increase to the strength of [Life - Vigor] brought on by the thought-light; The Grateful One just somehow responded to the altered life essence far more than she should have. I was thankful for that. If she hadn’t, things might have gone poorly. More poorly, anyway. Even in victory, the situation was far from perfect.

My ribs were still shattered, my mana was almost out, and we still needed to somehow drag Will outside of the spore-mist’s influence.

I was glad that I wouldn’t have to be the one to do it.

The Grateful One stepped forward, already recovered from the excitement of battle, and kneeled down beside the corrupted disciple’s paralyzed body. Her hand slipped towards his chest, reaching underneath the ore-flesh plating, fishing for something.

His [Little Guardian’s Totem] came out a moment later, and I finally realized something. Though Will was the most durable of the Great Core’s disciples, it hadn’t been his body alone that had been resisting my heavily mana-infused slow-venom. The [Little Guardian’s Focus] had been fighting it as well, reducing its effectiveness to a degree.

That was both good and bad. The good part was that it meant that my slow-venom might not have been as outmatched as I thought; for all I knew, the fight would have ended much faster had I been able to separate him from the healing it provided.

At the same time, it meant that I needed to watch for the same with the other stolen disciples. True, they wouldn’t be as resistant as Will turned out to be, but their ability to heal - even hindered by a portion of the healing going towards the [Little Guardian’s Focus]‘s constant efforts to remove the spore-roots infecting them - would mean that they could take more damage than I might have guessed.

It was lucky that The Grateful One had noticed the problem. If Will had broken out of the slow-venom’s effect earlier than expected, we would have been forced to run away. The thought rankled; we had earned that victory, as bloody as it had been.

Having taken the corrupted disciple’s [Little Guardian’s Totem] for herself, draping the carving around her neck alongside the one she already possessed, The Grateful One stood. She dusted off her hands, the motion bouncing me up and down slightly on her arm, prompting me to break free from my thoughts.

I think that I was still in shock; it had been a long time since I had come so close to dying. I had almost forgotten what that felt like. Even more, I had almost forgotten what feeling helpless felt like.

My length finally loosened with a distracted thought-hiss, another sending it winding upwards towards the Coreless’ shoulder. A set of fingers ghosted across my scale-flesh, almost tentative in the lightness of their touch.

“You okay?” I heard The Grateful One murmur in the incomprehensible language of the Coreless, the sound low and careful. I imagined that she felt the same way that I did. Her own blessings from the Great Core were powerful as well; it had likely been a while since she was forced to struggle, based on the way that she normally flowed through battle.

I gave her a conciliatory hiss, and we moved on.

The Grateful One strained again, pulling at Will’s body. Her arms hooked underneath both of his, reaching around to meet at his chest as she dragged him backwards.

“C’mon, Erik. We’re almost there, don’t you dare wake up yet,” she grunted, a hint of [frustration] marring the otherwise-placid surface of our connection before it wisped away. His body slid behind her as she continued backing up, leaving a long and somewhat winding trail like the slithering of a giant snake to mark our path.

More than once, we had been forced to stop so that The Grateful One could reorient herself; our original path to the corrupted disciple had been less than straight, having been forced to adjust it as he moved so that we could sneak up on him unseen. Unfortunately, that meant that our path back was just as winding.

Despite that, I urged The Grateful One to press even further, a frustrating array of illusions finally succeeding in the goal of getting my message across. Will’s body was too strong without the slow-venom to keep him down, and any attempt to heal the spore-root infection would finish removing the effects of the slow-venom first.

Besides, I didn’t have enough mana left in the first place. I needed more - the pool of mana-water was the key to that. We would have to go back, even if that meant the venom’s influence would deteriorate further. There was nothing else we could do other than simply move faster. I did all that I could to ease us along, donating the last bits of life essence I had left to The Grateful One in the form of vitality-laden droplets.

Finally, the spore-mist swirled again, brushed aside as we stepped into blissfully clean air.

The once-corrupted Coreless burst into a smattering of sounds at the same time, one of them even jumping back with a shriek before muffling the sound with a hand.

“Elara, you’re back!” the waiting disciple said, face brightening and [Little Guardian’s Totem] alighting with [relief].

“Help me pull him in, would you? We need to move fast.” The Grateful One asked, nodding towards Will’s body. The disciple rushed forward, reaching out and helping to drag the paralyzed corrupted further in.

Soon enough, they had carefully set him down at the banks of the mana-water. My body slithered down from The Grateful One’s shoulders, collecting a smattering of still-drying blood as I went, only to wash it off again as I slipped into the mana-water’s depths.

The liquid slipped over me like a comforting veil, drowning out the world for a few peaceful moments. I let it, but only for those few moments. I needed to hurry.

My jaws opened wide. Mana-water flowed in.

By the time that I broke the surface, I was already beginning to feel a burning sensation within my mana core, that too-stretched sensitivity that I knew heralded a sharp dive into something far worse; the same warning signs that I had experienced when fighting the Aridae in the first few slithers of my journey.

The once-corrupted had already gathered, managing with sheer numbers what The Grateful One and I alone could not. Their combined weight pressed against his arms, his legs, and his chest until I almost lost sight of Will himself.

“Keep holding him down,” I heard the once-corrupted disciple say. “It won’t be much longer now.”

Propelled by another thought-hiss, my body painfully slithered forward. Meanwhile, my mind was busy with [Mana-Life Conversion], forcing the mana I had gathered to shift its hues. Blue turned to gold, and then gold split in two.

That done, my fangs pressed against his flesh. It was just as frustratingly resistant as before. Yet, unlike before, there was little danger. A new thought-hiss forced them to press down harder.

They pierced the surface, and vitality was finally able to flow - and flow, it did. Both slow-venom and spore-roots were defeated in turn, the efforts of the gathered Coreless preventing the spore-roots’ final efforts from accomplishing anything.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality IX] Increased.

[Life - Vitality X] Acquired.

Just like that, another stolen disciple was freed from the Lesser Core’s corruption.

Still, there was another challenge waiting for me. My near-death had shown how easily this life - and everything that I had accomplished in it - could be lost; it was too risky to venture out into the spore-mist with only The Grateful One in tow. She was strong, but her strength was in her grace and dexterity; it wasn’t in defense.

I needed something different to defend me while I was in the mists.

I needed a protector.

I needed Will.

Hopefully he would agree with that.