"Cerion, duck!"

Both of us jumped behind a boulder, right before a red lightning strike struck our previous location.

Ueron started hurling more and more bolts at us, forcing us to stay in one position. Normally, I would be confident in taking him on by working together with Cerion, but our current circumstances prevented this from being a viable option. We were carrying Emer to our new hideout, and his unconscious body would be vulnerable to Ueron's onslaught.

With no other choice, I came up with a plan on the spot. I took Emer from Revan's back and attached him to the back of Alia, hiding him under some cloth that I had summoned from my spatial pouch.

"Give me your bedroll!", I told Cerion.

"W -what? Why?"

"No time, just do it!"

With Cerion's bedroll on top of mine, I could cover them up and make them resemble Emer's unconscious body. Ueron didn't know who Emer was, of course, but with some luck we could make him believe that Revan carried someone important to us, making him seem like a target that we had to protect.

It was true, technically speaking, but Emer wasn't on Revan's back anymore.

That would then allow me to lead him away from Cerion and Emer.

"Cerion, stay here for a minute. I'll take off in the other direction on Revan."

Are you crazy? You can't fight an experienced tier 3 on your own!", he protested.

"No, but I can at the very least survive him and run away."

I gave him a determined grin.

"We don't have any time to waste, Cerion. You know how hard I am to kill, and I don't even feel pain. I'll see you back at the hideout in a few hours."

He looked at me, moving to protest, but he couldn't come up with anything to convince me. I decided not to give him the time to think up a retort and jumped on Revan's back.

"Let's go, boy! We're running for our lives!"

He lowered his body to the ground and jumped to a nearby rock with a great leap, following it up with another, and another. With each jump, I heard Ueron's attacks intensify. He was following us jump after jump. In the back of my mind, I was worrying about Cerion and Emer. Hopefully, they had taken this opportunity to slither away. Cerion's water-aligned skills wouldn't fare well against a lightning-aligned combatant, after all.

As Revan jumped around like a maniac, I focused on increasing my overloaded mana output. I had to solidify all the mana I generated, because of our speedy movement, which resulted in me activating [Overloaded maelstrom] to maximise my efficiency.

The issue with lightning-aligned casters was that their spells moved at the speed of light, making them near impossible to dodge. Now that Ueron realised what we were doing, his aim was starting to improve significantly, frequently striking areas near Revan and me. The black flying blades my maelstrom skill created could block the occasional bolt, but they would fizzle out right after.

The lightning element was closely related to the fire and light elements, which meant that it held a small advantage against my dark-aligned skills. It wasn't as dramatic as Cerion's disadvantage, but still meant that my defences couldn't hold up to his attacks for an extended period of time.

Thankfully, Revan knew how to move erratically, because he dodged several bolts purely based on his zig-zag movement, which was typical of lizards.

Unfortunately, even all this combined wasn't enough. His attacks increased in frequency and started to strike true every now and then. Revan's bones were obliterated on impact, causing him to lose several ribs and a part of his skull. Some attacks even struck me, which made me understand the power of a high-level tier 3 for the first time. His red lightning coursed through my body, tearing my flesh and bones apart, even disrupting my mana flow. In fact, his first strike nearly tore my arm off at the shoulder. Thankfully [Dark form] was working overtime and healed me after a few seconds. The scars took more time to heal, however. My body was covered in a spiderweb of scars from the impact and heat. Clearly, he wasn't intending on taking me prisoner. He wanted to send me straight to hell.

I wanted to counter his offence, but had some difficulty. He kept a lot of distance as he pursued me, running from boulder to boulder, keeping his advantage of higher ground. His speed was impressive for a caster, which meant that his dexterity had to be at least as high as mine, or that he had a movement skill.

Several more lightning bolts struck near us, forcing Revan to duck into a little crevice in the cliffside. I found this to be the perfect opportunity to slow Ueron down a bit, and charged an [Overloaded orb], which I guided to the cliff face using a curse mark.

The cliff shuddered and cracked under the impact, right as Ueron wanted to jump to it, causing him to fall down.

He was momentarily stunned, which I took advantage of by using [Overloaded sword] to cut into him. Unfortunately, he kept his cool and reacted to my attack on time. The red lightning dancing around his body became brighter, creating a flash as Ueron dashed out of the way. He had initiated his dodge too late, though, because a long black scar ran down his arm. He had dodged a fatal wound, but my original intent had succeeded. I had left a curse mark.

I jumped off of Revan's back and held my broken sword at the ready. Before Ueron could resume his attacks, I overloaded my sword several more times, sending nearly ten arcs of black mana in his general direction. Normally, he would've been able to dodge each one, but because of the curse mark even his dashing skill couldn't save him. My arcs of energy followed him after each dash, getting closer and closer in the process. In the end he was forced to break my attacks by counterattacking with lightning. He succeeded, but my attempts had bought me enough time to create a powerful overloaded orb, which was now slowly following Ueron as he dodged around the clearing we were fighting in.

For the first time, my silent attacker spoke.

"You're more trouble than I bargained for. I should've gone after the guy with the snake."

I didn't show any visible reaction, but knew that now was the time. I had to wound him seriously enough to force him to give up the chase.

With my orb forcing him to constantly move around, I could make things even more difficult for him by sending sword arcs at him that moved at a much faster speed. Finally, I could combo this with Revan's pursuit and my own Maelstrom for defence. If things got too dangerous, I would have to apparate out.

I did as planned, and slowly increased the number of homing projectiles I sent after Ueron. He managed to destroy my first orb, causing a shockwave to destabilise the cliff to our right even more, but I had created two more before he could counterattack, keeping him on the defensive.

Ueron got more and more frustrated as the battle dragged on. He started to use larger and more dangerous attacks, which became more and more dangerous.

After a few minutes, he started charging up a large ball of lightning of his own. I expected it to behave like my own orbs, but he held it out in front of him and created a giant beam of power instead.

The red beam of lightning headed straight for me, forcing me to dodge by apparating. Revan was hit head-on and turned to ash, but soon enough Ueron would join him. That was because I had apparated right next to Ueron.

One of the skills he had activated must have increased his reflexes, because he threw a lightning-empowered punch right at my intangible form. Unfortunately for him, I was immune to his attack while intangible. I dodged to the right and rematerialized while I was already swinging my overloaded sword right at his neck.

Unfortunately, his stats and skills were too powerful. He dashed away before I could land a lethal blow, reappearing in a burst of light a small distance away. I had to start overloading mana again, but that would take a few seconds. Thankfully, my opponent didn't know this. I approached him slowly with a confident gait in my step, as a bluff. Luckily, he fell for it.

"You know what? Screw this. I don't get paid enough to fight little monsters like you. I'm done for the night. I'll come back for you, kid. Count your days."

With a sadistic smile, Ueron's body became enveloped completely in red lightning. With a flash, he cannonballed into the sky, disappearing beyond the horizon a moment later.

"That guy had a flying skill? Not fair, dude...", I couldn't help but muse.

A few hours later, I snuck into our new hideout on the outskirts of the Thalia hills, where I found Cerion sitting next to Emer.

"I see you two made it here safely."

Cerion jumped up when he heard my voice and ran up to give me a bear hug.

"Arthur! You made it!"

I awkwardly patted him on the back as his hug lifted my feet off the ground.

"Of course I made it. Did you think my tier 5 skill would lose out to a tier 3 bandit? I had him on the ropes by the end of our battle."

He put me down and gave me a scathing look.

"You fought him head-on?! I thought you were just going to run the other way!"

I rubbed the back of my head.

"Well... plans change..."

"You idiot..." Cerion sighed.

I wiped the smile off my face to show him I was being serious.

"He's tough, Cerion. None of the tier 3s I've fought so far has had as much firepower as him. If not for my [Dark form], I would've been killed by the first lightning strike that struck me. I used my [Curse mark(guide)] skill to great effect in our battle, but he won't fall for being marked a second time. I even had to catch him by surprise to use it this time."

He nodded gravely.

"I see. It doesn't help that we're both weak to the lightning element, me even more so than you. We'll have to plan carefully if we want to take him down. That still leaves Bor, too."

"Bor is a berserker of some kind, right? I figure I can handle him easily." I said confidently.

"Not if his stats triple yours, Arthur. Don't be overconfident. You'll get yourself killed." Cerion countered.

I sighed. He was right. I couldn't let my latest victories get to my head. I still had a long way to go, after all.

Cerion and I patiently waited in the cave for Cara. I spent some more time in my mental palace, nourishing the plant life with introspection, while Cerion practiced his water control by sparring with Alia. Unlike Revan, Alia didn't have any big attacks similar to his dragon breath. In return, she had a basic level of control and summoning ability when it came to water, which made her a great partner to practice with for Cerion.

When Cerion had been busy with other things, Revan had tried to get closer to Alia multiple times. As far as I could tell, he just wanted a friend. In the beginning, she had persisted in blowing him off, but now she was actually giving him the time of day. I couldn't help but be proud of Revan's growing social skills. Wait a minute... was I projecting? I shook my head.

After about a day of this routine, Cara finally returned. She marched up to me and Cerion.

"I have all the evidence we could ever need. When Emer wakes up, it will be time to either leave or fight."