A sudden gust of wind and a fireball suddenly flew at the origin of the attack, slamming into the sandstone surface of the bandits' base. The rock crumbled and fell to the bottom of the clearing, though Kazach emerged from the dust unscathed. He looked similar in build to his son, Nareo, but unlike Nareo his hair was sand coloured, bordering on blond.

"I see you've finally decided to show yourselves, thieves! Don't assume you'll be able to leave this place alive!"

Neither Cara nor Emer bothered responding. Instead, they used their movement skills to take flight, slinging spell after spell at Kazach's position.

Unfortunately, he was able to block the incoming attacks by swinging his hammer in an arc. As he did so, the golden sheen appeared around his weapon again. I wondered what element that skill aligned to. Light? Earth?

As the battle erupted, my bones slowly started to correct themselves under the influence of my [Dark Form] skill. The skill's ability to keep me alive and heal my body from such a bad condition continued to astound me. If anything, I had to wonder when dark form would fail me. I supposed I could only die if my head was crushed? Hopefully, the skill could even heal that at tier 6. Sadly, tier 6 was still a long way away.

To keep up the skill, I had to concentrate my mana so that it bordered on overflowing. That way, I could give dark form as much power as my core could produce without accidentally expelling any. The downside of this was that I was basically left defenceless. I tried to pull myself further from the battle so as not to get caught in the crossfire, but was instead greeted by a cruel smirk looking down on me.

It was Bor, a spitting image of the doppelganger I had decapitated just a few moments earlier. I tried to stand upright to defend myself, but my limbs hadn't healed enough to support me yet. I tried to expel overloaded mana, but abandoning my healing skill at this moment would kill me just as well as Bor would.

It seemed he wasn't much for conversation, because he lifted his sword above his head, ready to strike down... only to be faced with a blast of water, knocking the tier 3 off his feet.

To my right, I saw Cerion, who had saved me in the nick of time.

"Are you alright, Arthur?", he said while glaring at Bor, who was lifting himself out of the rubble.

"I need another minute or so to heal. Can you buy me that much time?"

"I'll try!", he replied, lifting his sword at Bor.

The berserker simply grunted and stared down at my friend. After a moment of silence, he finally opened his mouth.

"The water user is mine, stay out of it."

His declaration confused me, until Ueron appeared from behind me.

"As long as you leave the dark-aligned kid to me, that's fine.", he replied in a jovial tone.

Thinking quickly, I called out to Cerion.

"Leave Alia here and keep Bor busy! Revan, now!"

In the distance, I heard the sound of Revan's skeletal claws jumping from rock to rock. A second later, he appeared in front of me protectively, accompanied by Alia who slithered into view.

Cerion stared at me intently, before summoning a small object from his ring and chucking it at me. It landed near my head, allowing me to make out that it was a golden brooch of some kind, inlaid with a blue crystal. I didn't know what the hell he implied by throwing this at me, but I trusted him, so I put it in my pocket, struggling a bit because of my broken arm.

With a determined nod, Cerion propelled himself into the distance, Bor hot on his heels.

Ueron turned to me and the summoned creatures with a smirk.

"Do you think a few tier 2 summons will be enough to defeat me? If this is all you have, you'll be dead in five minutes. Don't worry, it won't hurt. Much..."

Red lightning started to spark between his fingers, coiling up his arms and enveloping the rest of his body bit by bit. Not a moment later, he lifted his hand, pointing at me.

"I don't care who you work for, this is goodbye, kid."

A single red bolt of lightning erupted from his extended limb, piercing through the air, and aimed right at my head.

Thankfully, Alia intervened by creating a translucent shield of water, which absorbed and dispersed the energy. Revan charged at Ueron with no hesitation, tearing the earth with his claws with each leap. He launched himself at him with gaping jaws, ready to clamp shut at any moment.

Ueron dodged backward using one of his favoured lightning dashes, evading Revan's jaws, though he didn't see Revan's second attack coming. While jumping, he had also lifted his claw and swiped horizontally. A second dash allowed Ueron to dodge most of it, but still left a gash on his arm, where I had previously placed a curse mark on him.

Of course! The curse mark!

I had no mana to spare right now, because healing was my first priority, but as soon I did, I could put Ueron on the back foot again. I still needed another thirty seconds before my bones would heal, allowing me to at the very least move.

Revan and Alia continued their assault on Ueron. The bigger lizard focused on offence, while Alia focused on defence. Neither was having much success, because Ueron could dodge nearly every attack, use health potions to stop his small wounds from bleeding and could overpower most defences that Alia put up. Unfortunately for him, he was outnumbered, which caused a stalemate. This was all I needed, because another thirty seconds later, my limbs had corrected themselves. My chest was still partially caved in, but because I felt no pain, I could start to move shakily.

I pulled myself upright by digging my fingers into the soft sandstone of the nearby boulder, and drew my sword. I decided to make a small sacrifice in the speed of my healing, and overloaded just enough mana to power a single [Overloaded sword] skill use.

I used my broken sword to draw an arc of overloaded mana which I sent at Ueron. My swing wasn't very steady, nor very strong, so the end result was a pitiful arc, but it was better than nothing.

Right as my arc was about to make impact on Ueron, he smiled and dashed to the side. Contrary to my expectations, my attack didn't follow him anymore.

"Did you think I wouldn't be able to get rid of that curse without your consent? I just cut it out of my arm, you fool!", he declared cockily.

I had to give it to him, cutting a part of your arm off like that was pretty cool. Unfortunately for him, my attack had served its purpose and bought me more time. Thank Helios for villains and their tendency to monologue.

With the extra time, a part of my muscle and organs had recovered. My strength was returning to me, and Ueron was finally starting to take notice.

"Wait a minute... you have a healing skill! No wonder you were being so passive while your pets distracted me! You should die NOW!"

He slapped his palms on top of one another. As he separated them again, several thick bands of red lightning sparked between his hands and fingers.

He turned his palms towards one another again, concentrating the lightning into a red ball. I could tell he was charging up a serious attack with the intent of killing us in one blow. I had to consider my options. I could apparate away, but that would interrupt my dark form, causing my wounds to worsen. I couldn't mount Revan because we wouldn't be able to escape in time, as I had realised in the chase from the day before.

I didn't think Alia's defences could match up to that attack either, but apparently, she wanted to prove me wrong. She summoned more water than I had seen her create before to form a large shield that enveloped us. She even sacrificed herself to do so, as she slowly used the water her own body had been made of to add more layers to the shield.

I didn't want to waste the opportunity she had created for us, so I turned to my own summoned creature.

"Revan! Get over here and start charging!"

He jumped over to me like an eager puppy, happy to finally be able to use his only ranged attack.

I sacrificed my healing to create as much mana as possible within the shortest amount of time, which Revan greedily absorbed into his open jaw, slowly forming it into a round, black ball.

Unfortunately, Ueron finished charging up his attack first. His red ball of lightning erupted outwards, turning into a beam that impacted Alia's shield. It sheared through its layers incredibly quickly, but was held back by the layer created out of Alia's sacrifice.

Right as even that layer was about to collapse under the pressure, we, too, finished charging our attack.

The dark mana in Revan's jaw turned into a black tornado that howled at Ueron's own. Right as the shield broke, the two attacks clashed. Normally, no tier 2 attack could match a tier 3 one, but we had some special advantages. Overloaded mana was by its very nature unstable and chaotic, which allows it to destabilise other mana it comes into contact with. Skills that used internal mana or spells that used ambient mana would collapse first.

On top of that, Revan could charge a lot of mana into his attack, allowing his breath attack to transcend tier 2. Quantity was a quality all its own, after all. Finally, Ueron's attack had lost a lot of its power when it pierced through the shields.

Because of that, when the two attacks made contact, the area became deathly still for a moment. After what felt like an eternity, Ueron's attack collapsed under the strain of the black tornado. The red lightning lost its power and fizzled out, while Revan's breath still had the power to keep going.

Because of Ueron's arrogance, he had never expected his attack to lose to Revan's. He hadn't put up any additional defences, nor had he expected to need to dodge. By pure instinct, he dashed to the side as the tornado came for him, but it wasn't enough.

The whirling cyclone of black mana impacted him and howled into the cliff behind him, reducing it to rubble in the process.

When the dust settled, Ueron became visible again. He had lost an arm, a large part of his shoulder and the right side of his chest. The wound looked like a vortex had sucked in half of his body.

To his credit, he stayed determined and drank health potions to keep his body stable. In my mind, however, the battle was already over.

The extra time had given me the opportunity to heal the rest of my wounds, even allowing me to recover some stamina. I started to focus on generating and expelling overloaded mana, more than I had ever created before. I used my maelstrom skill, creating innumerable black, spinning blades around my body.

The satisfaction I felt at overpowering my opponent was addicting, but I forced myself to focus. I walked up to Ueron's collapsed body slowly, careful to avoid any sneak attacks.

As I stood next to his body, I couldn't help but gloat a bit.

"How the mighty have fallen, eh? You should've dedicated your strength to a worthier cause."

He spit some blood at my feet and regarded me hatefully.

"Why should I live for the people who rejected me? Fuck you, you cunt. You'll realise how fucked up this world is eventually. With your affinity, you can't escape that reality-check."

I grimaced. His insult hit a little bit too close to home. It was time to end it. I lifted my broken sword to lop his head off, but instead had to apparate behind him as a small dagger appeared out of thin air and flew at me.

Thankfully, I had remained careful.

"Good try. Now just die quietly, okay?", I asked him, with my blade at his neck.

He gave me one more mortifying smile as he glanced at me.

"Fuck you, little monster."

I reeled back and decapitated him.

Even then, the smile remained on his face.

Right as I was about to leave, his body sparked with lightning and exploded.

After that, all I saw was red.