“Is there anyone else we have to watch out for?”

The Recordkeeper stroked her chin. “Amongst the people you know, there’s Kondra”—

“Kondra!?” Stella asked, her eyes widening. “There’s no way Kondra can beat Vur! You can say Gren went easy on Vur, but Kondra’s too scared to even fight him since he beat her before!”

“You didn’t let me finish,” the Recordkeeper said, wrinkling her nose at the fairy queen. “Kondra can’t defeat Vur; her most powerful skill is useless against him because he has a pure heart. I was going to say Kondra’s mate can defeat Vur.”

Stella’s eyes widened even further. “Kondra’s mate? How can he be stronger than Vur!? He doesn’t even have a name!”

“What do you mean he doesn’t have a name?” the Recordkeeper asked and snorted. “Everything has a name! His name is…, err….” The Recordkeeper scratched her head and furrowed her brow. For some reason, she couldn’t recall the holy dragon’s name. Was she developing dementia? “Forget it, his name is Kondra’s mate. Do you know why every dragon respects Kondra despite the questionable way she holds herself? It’s not because they’re afraid of her strength; they’re subdued by the threat of her mate’s retaliation.”

Stella glanced up at Vur. “Do you think Kondra’s mate is strong? Honestly, I thought he was whipped.” She furrowed her brow and waved at the Recordkeeper. “How come Kondra wears the pants in that relationship if she’s the weaker one?”

The Recordkeeper shrugged. “Isn’t it almost the same for Vur and Tafel? He’s stronger than her, but whenever Tafel wants something, Vur always yields.”

Stella blinked. “I guess that sort of makes sense….” She wrinkled her nose and raised her notepad. “What ability does Kondra’s mate have that lets him defeat Vur?”

“He’s mastered the ability to heal and surpassed conventional usages of the spell,” the Recordkeeper said. “In other words, he can heal something to death.”

Vur tilted his head. “Heal something to death?”

“Right,” the Recordkeeper said. “The process is pretty complicated, but I’ll simplify it as much as possible for you. Your body is made up of little things called cells. You can think of your body as a nation and the cells as citizens. All the cells work together to help the nation prosper. Sometimes, cells become defective, and instead of helping your body, they cause problems for it. When that happens, the cells self-destruct, and the problem is resolved. However, if, for some reason, they don’t self-destruct and continue living on, they reproduce, creating more cells that are detrimental to your body.”

“Like a rebellion?” Stella asked.

“In a sense,” the Recordkeeper said. “Nutrients that should be going towards helping your body prosper are now taken by the cells for their own selfish growth. If this cluster of cells grow large enough, it can disrupt major bodily functions, eventually leading to the body’s death. Kondra’s mate’s healing spell is capable of promoting and accelerating the growth of these defective cells—leading to death by healing.”

Stella scribbled on her notepad with her quill. Her brow furrowed as she read her list. “Vur,” she said, glancing upwards to meet Vur’s eyes. “I think I know what the problem is. You’re being defeated by these people because your defenses aren’t high enough!”

“That’s not necessarily true,” the Recordkeeper said. “As long as Vur develops an overwhelming attack like Pyrrhicandra’s or Serafina’s, he can defeat his opponents before they can use their abilities on him.”

“You say potato, I say tomato,” Stella said and waved her hand. “We’re both right.”

The Recordkeeper’s expression darkened; however, she wasn’t going to bicker with someone who was smaller than her arm. “Do you want me to continue?”

Vur shook his head, but Stella flew up and grabbed his chin, stopping his movements. “Yes,” Stella said. “We absolutely want you to continue. You’ve only listed dragons; how about things that aren’t dragons? Is there anything that isn’t a dragon that can beat Vur?”

“Non-dragons…,” the Recordkeeper said and scrunched up her forehead. “Didn’t I say Lindyss the Corrupted One? She’s not a dragon. Other than her, however, I don’t think you know any—which makes sense because you only really interact with dragons and humans. There’s a deep-sea creature, nicknamed Ruler of the Ocean, that’s a giant sea turtle. It’s over a million years old, and it’s nigh unkillable. It has defeated every one of its opponents by simply ignoring and outliving them.”

Before Vur or Stella could respond, the Recordkeeper’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Have you met the lich that rules the Graveyard? He’s strong enough to defeat you as well because his phylactery is with Lindyss. If you want to defeat the lich, you’ll have to deal with her first. If you don’t destroy his phylactery, he can slowly grind you down with his summons over the course of several decades.” The Recordkeeper cleared her throat and nodded at Vur. “But, yes, as I was saying, there aren’t that many creatures out there that can endanger you; however…, there are occasionally non-living things that pop up that can kill you—or at least cause you to never be heard from ever again.”

Stella blinked. “Like what?”

The Recordkeeper shrugged. “Tears in space,” she said. “The item that Pyrrhicandra swallowed came from one of those. If she had entered the other dimension instead, you would’ve never met her.”

***

Mary tilted her head. In front of her, there was a purple and red crack in space. It looked similar to the portal’s Tafel opened, but if the portal’s Tafel opened were cute domesticated dogs, then the one in front of Mary was a wolf with a bloody maw that had just brought down a deer. Mary peered through the portal, but it was hard to make out anything on the other side; cracks and ripples distorted the image, and with the swirling of energy only, only a faint golden line indicated there was a structure on the other end. Mary took a step back and waited. Was something going to come out the other end?