Lastaf shot forward like a self-propelled blue shell of destruction. The ring of massive spiders moved all at once to intercept the Axoli. The two front spiders vaporized before Lastaf stopped in front of the third. His greatsword came back around to cleave its front two legs off. Lastaf then kicked the bottom of the spider’s jaw, propelling the massive spider over the others.

I broke from the trance of watching the blue whirlwind of death and began to run towards the battle. Every spider’s attention was on Lastaf, and I came behind one of them and swung my hammer, shattering the back right leg with a flash. I swung again, taking out the next leg with another flash, and before the spider could turn to see its attacker, I swung sideways and hit the spider’s ass end from the back. The hammer flashed, and the spider’s body vanished from end to end. Its legs falling to the ground.

I turned to find the next spider already rushing towards me. I pulled a stone pillar between us and dashed in behind it. As the spider came around, I smashed its front leg just before it flicked me with its other front leg, sending me flying backward and right into the middle of Lastaf’s raging battle.

I scrambled to my feet and looked around at the five or so spiders now gazing in my direction. They rushed forward in unison. I constructed the ice sphere spell and willed it into existence just as they slammed into the wall of ice around me. I glanced around to see the shell begin to crack as the spiders slammed into its sides. It wouldn’t last long.

I summoned two orbs of the azure blue fire and waited for the first of them to break through the shell of ice. The spider to my right vanished a moment later. Lastaf’s work I'd wager. The sound of ice shattering came from my left a moment later, and I spun around, releasing the Fireball in my right hand towards the now open hole. The spell exploded, sending ichor and body parts in all directions.

The ice shell shook again, and I let the other spell go just as one of the spiders squeezed itself through its spider-made hole. It, too, erupted in an explosion of gore. Another spider crashed through the massive ice shell but in doing so destabilized the shell. The spider was crushed when the ice toppled over onto it..

I turned around and ran as two other spiders, seeing the large opening, began to skitter around to access it. Looking behind, I saw another spider vanish with Lastaf taking its place, his armor now looking dull and lifeless. The Axoli looked like he would topple over at any second as he swayed back and forth.

I summoned another azure ball and let it loose towards the remaining spider, whose attention was now on the dull-blue armored Axoli. The fireball hit its legs, exploding and taking out a smaller portion of its body than I’d have liked. The spider shrieked and tried to turn towards me, but Lastaf lashed out and cut its head in two. The massive spider began to sparkle as the blue sand began to compact in the air before an Azure Core fell to the ground.

I ran forward, picking the core up and downing it before heading over to Lastaf.

[ System Notification ]

Rank A Azure Core has given 56 Energy

38 Energy converted to 380 Mana

Muscular System: 174/200

I got my wish. There should be a few more of those blue cores laying around here. I ran over to the now wheezing Axoli as his armor vanished. He knelt on one knee and began to breathe slower. “You ok?” I asked.

“I was wrong. I can take out eight, If we get the jump on them.”

I chuckled with him. I looked around the cavern; the grey orb, Lastaf called the Annihilation Engine stood eerily quiet at its center. I couldn’t detect any movement. I helped Lastaf get to his feet. Seeing as he could stand on his own, I ran over and grabbed the three other glowing cores I could see.

[ System Notification ]

Three Rank A Azure Cores has given 168 Energy

Muscular System: 200/200

Closing out the notification, I got a surprise pop-up that played that simple jingle again before I could select the next System.

[ System Notification ]

Congratulations!

You have reached Level 3

Obtained a perk point.

I hadn’t been keeping track and was surprised to have reached Level 3 already. Looking at the perk point and seeing as we had room to breathe, I pulled up my perks and was surprised to see ten choices.

[ Available Perks - 3 point(s) ]

Nervous: + { 10 point - Free Affinity (t) }

Sensory: + { 5 point - Nightvision: Rank 2 (t) }

Cardiovascular: + { 2 points - Wound Closure (t) }

Respiratory: + { 3 point - Core Consumption: Rank 2 (t) }

Muscular: + { 2 point - Lactic Removal (t) }

Skeletal: + { 1 point - Bone Tempering (t) }

Epidermis: + { 7 point - Fire Salamander Skin (s) }

Endocrine: + { 5 point - Second Wind (s) }

Digestive: + { 3 point - Oasis Travler (t) }

Toxin: + { 5 point - Poision’s Embrace (t) }

Seeing Core Consumption: Rank 2, I immediately clicked on the ‘+’ next to the skill.

[ Perk: Core Consumption: Rank 2 ]

Consuming cores now gives a 5% boost to the Energy gained.

I closed the window before checking on a few others. The Free Affinity perk allowed me to gain an Affinity with a school of magic I currently did not have. I had no idea what schools I didn’t have yet, and it cost nine perk points, I couldn’t afford it.

The Fire Salamander Skin skill was interesting as it allowed me to use a skill to set my skin on fire. Again, I didn’t have enough perk points, and I felt I couldn’t pass on Rank 2 of Core Consumption. Who knows If I would ever get the chance to select it again, and a five percent increase of energy over my lifetime was huge. So I spent my points on it.

[ System Notification ]

Core Consumption: Rank 2 Trait gained.

I quickly selected the next System in the list before heading to Lastaf.

[ Skeletal System: 142/200 ]

Seeing as I was done with what I was doing, we began walking towards the colorless sphere. “What’s an Annihilation Engine, Lastaf?”

“I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. Whereas a Mana Well pushes Mana into the world, allowing progress and evolution, the Annihilation Engine is its antithesis. It drains the Mana and life from the world. Why and how they are created is unknown. What is known is they have been linked to The Eldritch Circle for eons. An organization known throughout history for destroying entire empires and nations before vanishing.

“This ‘Darkness’ possibly has ties with that organization. The keepers probably gave you that gift to destroy the engine. Let’s dispose of it before we get to meet this Darkness.”

“I can’t let you do that, I’m afraid. You see, he gets quite cranky if he’s not constantly fed,” came a voice that seemed to come from every direction at once.

Lastaf’s standard blue armor snapped around him, and I could see his antenna frantically darting about. “Why have you built an Annihilation Engine under the hive?”

“Annihilation Engine? What an odd name. What you see before you is simply a Mana Well turned inside out. It annihilates nothing but feeds the mana it absorbs and sends it on its way, down, to be consumed,” came the echo of a voice from the cavern.

“Feed what?” I asked.

“He who grants us power.”

We began to creep closer to the grey sphere when a flash of void came from in front of the sphere. Then a Drow with dark purple skin stood before us. “Please don’t come any closer. I’m not one to fight. I’d prefer to occupy my time in my lab creating.”

I was about to retort with what I thought would have been a pretty clever response, but a pink bolt of power rushed towards the Drow and vanished into a circle of void before it could strike him.

“Oh, please. What are you, Azure Rank at best? I’ve been on this planet for hundreds of years now, Axoli. The Darkness is my ally, and down here it hungers.”

My eyes flicked to the walls to our side. The shadows seemed to begin to move and seeth. They seemed to multiply and began to conceal the walls and stalagmites from view. My brain began to scream at the familiarity of it, but I couldn’t recall why. Then the dull light of the Glitterstones above began to dim.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave. The Guild would send far too many annoyances if they found out about this location.”

I had a feeling of dread and threw myself to the side. I looked back to see a spike of blackness like the bars in front of the queen had erupted from the cavern’s floor. I heard a shout and whirled around to see Lastaf deflecting a long black blade held by the Drow.

The Drow swung his blade with reckless abandonment. Lastaf was having a hard time keeping up with his greatsword. A moment later, Lastaf threw the sword at the Drow, who stepped back and deflected it into the darkness of the cavern. The Drow smiled as he watched the crimson sword vanish. He was surprised a moment later by two new blue short swords coming towards his throat.

Multiple dark rods erupted from the earth before the Drow, blocking Lastaf’s strike. The Axoli threw himself back, tossing his swords to the sides, vanishing a moment later. He thrust his hand forward and grabbed an invisible strand with his other, and began pulling backward. The massive blue war bow materialized in his hands, and as he let go of the string, an arrow formed before howling forward and between the black bars.

The arrow struck the Drow’s shoulder resulting in an ear-piercing howl of agony from the man. The drow ripped the shaft from his shoulder, and inky blackness covered the wound. Lastaf drew another arrow, and I decided I shouldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer.

I jumped to my feet and summoned the brightest light, tossing it to the ceiling before producing several more, throwing them around the cavern. The moving shadows seemed to recoil at the light and began to vanish, revealing the rock surfaces of the cavern once more.

This seemed to infuriate the Drow, who was now looking my way. He rocketed towards me, his long black blade ready to strike. I summoned the blue fireball and tossed it in front of his path. The explosion threw him to the side, and I began running towards Lastaf, who had released an arrow towards the downed Drow.

The arrow vanished into inky blackness before the same arrow, but black came back out of the void towards him. Lastaf raised a blue shield materialized from the air and the arrow impacted with a thunderous crash against it. I could tell he was on his last leg. Whatever Energy or Mana he had was rapidly vanishing.

I looked back at the grey sphere and thought about the Divine shard in my bag. I began tossing constructs with the fusion nodes, ready to find a new spell in case things looked grim. I ignored the pain as construct after construct began to sear my brain and the restriction box kept flashing. The system wasn’t going to allow me to use that spell again, even with a Tier 3 construct.

“Can you get out of here, bring reinforcements?” I whispered to Lastaf.

“Possibly. What’s your plan?”

“Shove this into the sphere and hope for a mighty display of fireworks,” I said as I removed the iridescent teal shard from my bag.

“Fireworks?”

The Drow hissed at the sight of the shard and threw a lance of inky blackness towards me. The moment the lance came within the sphere of the shard's light, it exploded in whips of smoke.

He screamed in rage and began chucking lances and balls of blackness towards us, each spell splashing across an invisible wall.

“I need you to escape as soon as I dash towards the engine. Let everyone know I look forward to seeing them in a year.”

Lastaf nodded, and I rushed towards the sphere, shard in hand, ready to drive it into the Annihilation Engine. The Drow shrieked from behind me, and I felt something hit my upper leg before tumbling forward. The shard slid across the stone floor to stop a meter away from the engine. The black and grey sphere began to shake before its shape began to wobble.

I looked back to see a part of a stone spike had pierced my leg. The spike had broken off from a larger spike from the cavern’s floor. I cursed myself for only thinking he could use his Shadow magic.

A scream in front of me tore my eyes off my impaled leg. The Drow had kicked the Divine shard away from the Annilhation Engine and had been gravely wounded for his troubles. His entire side and leg looked to have been badly burnt, his clothes of inky blackness gone from the side of his body.

“What is that unholy object?!” the Drow screamed.

He looked my way and held out his hand. The long blade of blackness slapped into his palm a moment later, and he began walking towards me as he flipped the blade in his hand to reverse his grip. I tried to scramble backward, but bars of blackness erupted from the ground, crisscrossing across my body, locking me in place.

“He who provides will enjoy the bounty from that crystal as soon as I can convert its element. Then I will destroy the people of these lands, allowing him to feed upon them. He will soon break from his imprisonment that the gods who use us for their enjoyment placed him in!”

The drow raised his sword, ready to strike. I readied myself to wake once again without Luin. I hoped Lastaf had enough of a headstart to get his ass out of here. I tried to create a fusion spell one last time but only gave myself a moment of burning pain before my death.

I closed my eyes and waited but threw my eyelids open as I heard a familiar scream from the side. A now tailless Lastaf was rushing towards the Drow, his skin burning and blistering. The Divine shard held in his hand like a dagger ready to strike just before he crashed into the Drow. The pair toppled backward into the Annihilation Engine as they both screamed in agony.