“Evolved? What does that mean?”

“Well…when we put energy into a creature, we change the creature. When the creature change by themselves, they evolved.”

“You just made that up didn’t you?”

“So what as long as it make sense.”

Another spirit chose this moment to get into the argument. “Would you two cut it out and focus on the more important question? What actually happened? How did Boss suddenly get a new class?”

“First off his name is Brand not Boss, and what happened to him isn’t all that different from what we do right?”

“It’s totally different! We put energy into animals and change them into something else. Boss or Brand just change on his own.”

“Exactly! We already know all creatures has energy, that’s why we gain energy whenever one of them die in our tunnels. So it make sense that if the energy inside a creature changed, they change. That’s basically what we do right? We put energy into a creature to change the energy that’s already in them. The energy inside Boss changed and that change must have caused him to gain this new Berserker class.”

“But why did his energy changed? We didn’t put in any energy and he can’t do it himself…”

“Why not?”

“Uh…can he?”

“Remember what we said earlier about him getting stronger just by killing? If that is true and he does get stronger by killing, then it only make sense that all the killing he had done so far would change the natural energy already inside him.”

“I/we see where you’re coming from. If his natural energy get stronger with each kill, the energy would change him after a certain amount of time. Killing makes you stronger!”

“No, that’s wrong.” One of the spirits within the Hive objected. “Remember what the Speaker said before about the human city? Not every human kill. In fact, according to the Speaker most don’t. The Speaker herself said that some of the most powerful mages in the human city just study and never leave the city. It can’t be just killing.”

“Yes, that’s right!” Another spirit also objected to the just killing theory. “Just killing can’t be right, there must be something else.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe it’s the life and death situation Brand was in that caused the change. Or maybe it’s just the experience of fighting. Anyway, there is still a lot we don’t know about the change. Let’s not jump to conclusion.”

“Okay, we’ll give you that. It’s true that there is still a lot about the change we don’t know yet. Everything we said thus far could be either wrong or right. We don’t know. We need more time to experiment.”

At that, the spirits laughed. Experimenting is fun for them and all of them look forward to it. Several spirits immediately began discussing on what they would do and some of the wiser ones even commented that they need a way to catalogue all their findings. One of the spirit even suggested that the Hive should think of creating a ‘system’ to catalogue everything.

The idea intrigued the rest of the Hive and the spirits were soon arguing about how this system would work. All the while, the remaining humans walked ever closer to them.

***

The dragon saw the incoming fireball and immediately turned away. He glided past the burning fireball and smirk as it flew past. It has become a normal occurrence for the dragon. Using his natural speed advantage, the dragon has been evading the spells of the human mages with ease. To the dragon, it looks as if the mages were aiming straight at him instead of where he was flying to. It was almost too easy.

Just as he was crowing, an arrow shot towards and the dragon put in a burst of speed to avoid it. Unlike the spells of the mages, the arrows of the hunters were giving him trouble. The dragon look down and saw the hunter who had fired the arrow standing on top of a building. The dragon arched his neck and shot a poisonous ball towards the hunter. The hunter immediately jump down the building and the dragon scowl as his ball bounced harmlessly off the top of the building.

That was also another normal occurrence. The mages and hunters had been taking aim at him and just as they had difficulty hitting him, the dragon had increasing problems hitting them. The dragon know the source of the problem; he is flying too high.

It was a suggestion from the Speaker. The Kin requested that he take on the more powerful of the Council members and the Speaker helpfully suggested to the dragon that he could just fly high above the city and shoot down at the humans. It was a good suggestion. The height meant that the dragon had plenty of time to see incoming fire and firing down at the humans was no trouble for him at all. However the humans soon got wise to his tactics and began dodging his poisonous balls.

That was a problem because the dragon did not have any other weapon to harm the humans. Landing to attack with his teeth and claws was out of the question, and he was too high up to effectively use his poisonous mist. The results was an unsatisfying stalemate. He was still doing his job of keeping the hunters and mages occupied but he want to do more. He eye the fighting between the Kin and the humans and saw that although the Kin were having the upper hand, it was still a close fight. The Kin had managed to push the line further in but the humans were holding their own. The dragon decided that a little irresponsibility can’t hurt that much!

Turning sharping in the air, the dragon flew back towards the line of fighting. The dragon was deep behind the human line and his sudden turn caught the humans unaware. They did not notice him flying back towards the main line of fighting and the dragon took advantage of it. He swoop down, flying across the human line. The humans finally notice him but it was too late. The dragon blew out his mist, taking aim slightly behind the human.

At this lower height, the mist was terribly effective. It hit the ground and dispersed. The unlucky humans caught in the mist began crying out in pain while the other humans immediately move away from it. A fortunate byproduct of the mist was that it managed to cut the human line in two. The frontline of the humans suddenly found themselves cut off from support as the mist prevented the other humans behind them from joining in the fight. The Kin roared forward.

The dragon smiled and flew higher. As he flew back to the backline of the humans, he took a quick glance at the Keg Mountains. As a former member of the Hive, he still has some slight connection to those idiots there and the dragon had realized that something was happening back in the tunnels. He decided to ignore his misgivings. He was too far from the mountains to be of help and even with the Kin here in the city, the dragon knew that the Hive was powerful enough to handle anything that came their way. The dragon put the Hive out of his mind and concentrated on killing the humans.