The grey knight’s death magic cascaded through the hall like a tsunami. Every inch of stone was covered in the night-colored flame.

Only blackness covered Nico’s vision for a split second until it evaporated.

He gritted his teeth, unable to defend against the attack. To his surprise, he felt no pain black wave. Measure fought back the last traces of the aura of despair the grey knight exuded. Nico’s mind was completely his own once more.

A quick look around showed him the real intent of the grey knight’s magic. Black flames swallowed all of Vera, Chris, and Keith’s spell arrays. In another breath, all of their spell formations burned up. The magical energies rotating within them evaporated into the atmosphere.

Oddly, Nico’s formations using Gallahad’s formations as the basis were untouched. Even so, he felt completely insignificant against the sentinel of the treasure room. The grey knight didn’t see Nico as a threat.

He banished the feeling. This was no time to open up old wounds.

Chris was dead or dying on the cold floor. The death knight walked slowly, sword unsheathed, like an inexorable machine toward Vera and Keith, who were completely frozen in magic-induced fear.

Nico’s ability banished the death knight’s mental attack, but he still felt regular horror. He pushed down a lifetime of feeling useless, and channeled his fear into anger.

Black fire lingered close enough to Nico’s pre-drawn modified control formation for parrying magic. He spread his fingers forward, and sucked the nearby black flames into his spell array. The foreign magic tasted like bile and decay and finality. It spread its tendrils toward his soul.

“No you don’t!” Nico commanded the grey magic. His fingers curled inward as he twisted the foreign energies, converting their nature in the time it took to blink.

Fire wouldn’t scratch the death knight. Ice would slow it down, but it was too close to Chris to be of any use.

Measure summoned a half-baked theory based on counter-resonance Nico picked up a few years back. He had no time to calculate or even double check if the theory accounted for how the NextOver changed magical frequencies.

Nico tightened his eyes, and released the magic back into the control formation. A green gust sighed out from the formation down the hall, smooth and swift as summer wind.

It overtook the grey knight, who staggered back with a surprised complexion. The grey knight raised its sword warily, squinting at Nico as if seeing a fly for the first time.

The gust of green wind wasn’t an attack. He converted the black flames into life magic, Vera’s speciality.

Nico grinned.

Vera’s eyes cleared up, and she stopped shaking of fright. The healer stood up, and without hesitation, incanted two spells in sequence. Nico felt his physical and spiritual wounds heal, followed by a familiar boost in abilities.

It worked.

Chris roared like a lion, pouncing back on his feet, and smashed his mace on his arm shield, echoing out a magical sound that could only be interpreted as war.

The grey knight’s head whipped to the magic-warrior, and raised its sword so the flat of the hilt covered the knight’s face. It tilted its head forward as if in salute, a recognition of another warrior. Chris’ blood still dripped on the edge of the blade.

Keith’s face ashened at the sight of the fallen party leader, but kept his stance. His sister’s life was on the line.

The grey knight’s attention was fully on the real threats, Chris and Vera.

Nico pumped more MP into Auto-Scan, revealing general estimations of Keith and Vera’s HP. It couldn’t give an exact measurement due to their powerful pranic barriers. Their HP were nearly at seventy percent and climbing slowly.

Vera’s buff and healing spells were just as effective as before, but cost significantly more. Nico bought them time, and Vera could buy a little more.

The grey knight smashed its bastard sword into Keith’s arm shield, which expanded to the size of a giant tower shield. Keith’s ability transferred all the metal of his leg armor to supplement the shield. He was knocked back two feet and seven inches, but burst-step forward, side-swiping his mace with the unnatural momentum of his burst spell.

The grey knight deflected the mace in a deft parry, curving the blade to slice through Keith’ thinned metal gauntlet. Keith screamed in pain, but the cut glowed green thanks to Vera.

A screen hovered over Chris, the fallen archer. He still had an HP bar, flaring red at approximately five percent.

Nico used that small glimmer of hope to raise their spirits. He yelled, “Chris is still alive! Buy me as much time as you can!”

Without thinking, he input more than the safe amount of MP into his kinetic-burst formation on the flat of his shoes. He burst-jumped from the back end of the hallway near the egress points that lead to the uncharted parts of the map.

Midair, he felt Measure calculating frantically the distance, inertia, and several other factors from his jump, and landed right next to the pool of Chris’ blood. Nico’s knees felt uncomfortable on the landing. His body couldn’t handle repeated burst-jumps at that distance.

The notification window hovered above the fallen archer.

Chris Sedgehome. Estimated HP: 5%. Condition stabilized by Vera’s spell.

That meant time was running out. The only thing keeping the party leader alive was the life magic. Every time the buff spell ran out, Chris’ condition would worsen. The wound was closing not nearly as fast as it should, probably slowed by the lingering decay properties death knight’s sword.

Nico had to do something fast.

He grabbed the portal scroll that fell out of Chris’ satchel, and opened it. The contents of the spell formation were familiar, but he couldn’t completely understand its working on first inspection. Luckily, he didn’t need to.

The portal scroll was more of a reverse-summoning, which meant only those predetermined by the magic could use the portal. Nico couldn’t use it to get away, which sucked, but neither could the death knight chase his new friends through it.

Nico poured magic into the scroll, which withered into a thousand glowing specks. The specks formed together to create a door made of light. Nico poke the door, but found resistance, and he was certain he couldn’t escape.

But his friends could. He checked over his shoulder.

Keith was knocked back by the grey knight, his arm shield completely torn. He had run out of metal for his special ability, and was down only to his civilian clothes. Vera’s face was drained of color. She panted heavily, her knees wobbling.

The death knight’s attention was not on Nico, but Keith could not handle another attack from the Grey Dead sentinel.

Nico had to buy them more time, and somehow position Keith and Vera next to the portal while also getting the death knight away from them. But how? The death knight wouldn’t even give Nico the time of day. It saw him nothing more than an ant to be stepped on after the real mages were put down.

Something glinted silver on the stone floor under the new light of the portal-door.

The key!

Nico grabbed it. A notification appeared. He blinked it away.

The undead knight halted its slow march at Keith, and whipped around, its red eyes glaring. Nico gulped.

It opened its mouth as if to say something. Keith used that opportunity to smash his mace. Red light exploded into the grey knight’s back, and the undead sentinel fell on its side.

Nico didn’t want to wait for the death knight to recover, and apologized to his knees. He burst-jump back down the hall near the egress points which led to the unknown areas of the tower. He yelled, “The portal you idiot! Stabilize Chris back one earth!”

Vera’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing!”

Nico ignored her, and grinned at Keith. “You owe me a drink when I get back!”

Keith, exhausted and out of metal to draw from, dropped his mace while the grey knight was recovering from the floor. Without a word, he grabbed his sister’s wrist, and pulled her away from the death knight.

Vera screamed out a defiant, incoherent sound. He pushed her through the portal anyway.

Keith bent down, and grabbed his dying friend’s body by the shoulders, dragging him through the portal. Chris and Vera were gone. Keith knew he didn’t have time for words, and gave Nico an expression half regret and half gratitude before stepping through the door of light.

Nico felt his body untense at the sight of his friends safe. Hopefully, Chris would get magical and medical attention on his return. He breathed out a small sigh of relief. What he did was stupid and thoughtless, but he felt no regret.

The portal vanished, leaving only the magical torchlights on the walls and the grey knight’s flickering, red eyes to light the hall. The grey knight stood up, pointing its giant sword in one hand down the hall.

Nico’s body tensed once more. He was alone with this monster of the Grey Dead.

The grey knight opened its mouth and raised its sword, an aura of decay spreading out from its presence.

Nico swallowed his never ending curiosity to witness new magic. Now wasn’t the time.

He fled down the hall, once again alone and outmatched.