(Zack)

"Morning, Nik," I greet the Dark Knight, who's standing just inside the entrance to my home. "What brings you here?"

"The Santa Bosses have been spotted," he tells me. "There's one in the northern half of the valley, and another in the southern half. There's also one in the pass to the east."

So today's Christmas, then. As I suspected, but good to know my estimation was right, even with the Boundary's wonky calendar. Nik strongly suggested to me last night that I don't try to challenge it.

Apparently, while it does have a highly-coveted reward, it can take fifty or more Adventurers to kill, and that's with at least ten percent of them being strong healers.

However, up to seventy-five people, everyone is guaranteed a reward. At exactly five people, the rewards are supposedly even, but Nik said that his party has never gathered for a fight against it as just them, so they aren't sure.

The fact that it can take more than seventy-five people to kill one of those tells me just how powerful it is.

"So you want me to stay here?" I ask.

"No," he answers. "Actually, I know you're probably burning to fight one. Normar's already in position, and Blaine, Travis, and I will be on standby."

So his team's going to try to take it on by themselves? Is Jesse not joining them?

"Good luck," I tell him. "Why isn't Jesse joining you? And why do you want me to watch?"

"Not watch," he laughs. "We know you're probably burning to fight one."

When he repeats that statement, I realize what he's meaning. Normar can heal someone even if they're delivered a fatal wound, his powers working fast enough to act just before their Health truly hits zero.

He's standing on standby to heal me once I'm unable to continue. With just five people, though…

They also want to test the theory on the rewards being even for five, rather than based contribution or something. And they're willing to let me get some of the reward. Nik only just taught me those Skills yesterday, so I haven't really Leveled them yet, but I can definitely use them in this fight. And I'm willing to bet that the real reason he taught them to me yesterday was so I could use them in this fight.

"Sure," I stand, grinning at him, then look at Gold. "You good staying here?"

Gold nods his head, though I can tell he's excited. In his own way, he's cheering me on.

"I'll see you, then," I tell him, then look at Nik, who's removing his tunic. "Uh, Nik?"

He extends his wings out, then holds out his hands.

"I'm carrying you," he tells me. "Turn around and back against me. Flying will be much faster."

I nod, doing as he says, and he wraps his arms around me, and I feel something else wrapping around me too. Looking down, I spot Binding Darkness strapping me against him. That's an interesting use of the Skill.

Nik takes off, and we're suddenly soaring through the air so fast, my breath catches in my throat. Everything becomes a blur, and in just seconds, we're already past the walls of Maelnor and flying over the fields, then over the forest.

Our flight takes us to the northwestern edge of the valley. Once we reach a river, which Nik informs me is the Haeus River, he starts flying along it. I can see Talorn in the distance, with its ruined buildings and walls, though even further, I can make out the imposing, black and red Dark Temple.

Moments later, we're too far for me to see it, as Nik's not flying that high, and he starts descending. I turn and face forward, watching, and spot the clearing with the Santa Boss.

It's over thirty feet in height, and is a giant, plump man in a red, black, and white Santa suit, a large, crimson sack slung over his shoulder.

Santa Boss Level 50 Health: 1,000,000 Mana: 5,000,000

Holy fuck. And they really expect me to be able to do shit to it?

Then again, they're only a hundred Levels or so higher than me, but I'm sure they're also using buffs and shit. Then again, I also have buffs of my own.

"Normar will heal you," Nik stops flying and hovers a few yards from the clearing, which is around a hundred yards across. "But only if you absolutely need it. Once that happens, the four of us will become active participants in the fight. Do as much as you can to it before then."

Jesse must be sitting this fight out, if the four of them are handling it on their own without him. Are they going to split their portion of the reward with him, in that case?

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Nik snorts, then tells me to let him know when I'm ready, so I tell him that I don't think I'll ever be ready, so just drop me in. He laughs, then flies to the clearing, dropping me down. I land in a roll.

"Ho, ho, ho!" The Santa Boss exclaims. "Lookit what's here! A naughty little boy, are we?"

He holds out a hand, palm facing me, and chunks of coal start flying through the air. I dodge them, rolling and jumping, and as I get closer, I let a piece of coal slam into my leg, which breaks instantly from the force.

-1,709 Health! Your left leg has been broken.

"FUCKING HELL!" I yell. "Jump!"

I jump as high I as possibly can, all sixty-some yards, dismissing the message as I do. No fucking shit my leg's broken! Did you really need to tell me it was? I start calling out Skills as I drop towards the Santa Boss, twisting and turning to avoid being pelted by more coal.

"Aura of Darkness! Aura of Blood! Dark Shroud! Dash! Strike of Darkness! Dark Vengeance!"

With a final burst, I slam into the Santa Boss's arm, which moved up to prevent a strike to the head. I was aiming for the fucker's eyes, but I still did decent damage anyway. I managed to strike it at the eighteen second mark, and since Dark Vengeance's collection period is twenty, that added some extra damage to the attack.

Your Target has Sustained Significant Damage! Target Health -34,093!

That's a hell of a lot of damage, and yet against the boss I'm up against? That's not even a full percent of its Health, and I drained a lot of Mana just for that. At least my leg's healed. Rolling to the side, I read the notifications I received from the impact.

Dark Vengeance is Now Level 5! Dark Shroud is Now Level 2! Strike of Darkness is Now Level 2! Aura of Darkness is Now Level 2!

At least I can do that again with a bit less Mana cost, now. I evade a few more shots of coal, downing a Mana Potion to give myself a bit more Mana to use, then take a piece of coal to my leg and my arm again.

-1,798 Health! Your left leg has been broken. -1,946 Health! Your right arm has been broken.

My rage builds up even higher, and I perform the same series of moves as before, moving even faster with the added boost from Rage, and this time, I manage to strike the Santa Boss's right eye, driving my sword into it, all the way down to the hilt.

Your Target Has Sustained Significant Damage! You have Struck a Critical Point! Target Health -198,807!

The Santa Boss roars that I'm eternally on the naughty list, and I barely manage to jump off its body in time to avoid being swatted aside by its hand. I've managed to deal pretty decent damage to it, now. It's under eighty percent of its Health from those two attacks.

However, this is considered to be one of the most powerful Rare Boss Monsters in the Boundary. There's not a chance in hell it's this easy, if even Nik's team hasn't managed to take it out with the five of them in past years.

Which means that the coal shots and its raw strength aren't its only attacks. I was sure of that from the start, though, considering its sack and what Santa is.

It takes me a few minutes to recover enough to where I'm comfortable performing the combo again, and I do, landing on the same eye I landed before, and dealing a little more than a quarter of its starting Health to it, enough to put it under half a million Health.

I barely have enough time to dismiss the notifications letting me know about the damage and my Skill Level Ups when it swings its sack at me.

"Jump!"

I soar over the sack, unleashing a series of fireballs at the monster's face. It's glaring at me with its remaining, black eye, and lets out a bellow, the force of its roar stopping my fireballs and even knocking me back a bit.

Landing in a roll, I quickly move to my feet in time to see it pulling something out of the sack, which has been returned to being slung over its shoulder.

A present wrapped in metallic crimson paper and tied with a golden ribbon. I hate that kind of wrapping paper, it's hard to just rip, and needs to have the tape ripped instead. Though my current strength means it probably wouldn't be an issue for me.

I don't have much time to dwell on that, though, as it throws the present at me. With a light dodge, I realize too late that I should've expected more from that.

The present explodes, fragments embedding themselves into my leg. I let out a small yell in surprise and pain, then dodge another crimson-wrapped present. I let my Health go down a bit, noting that the monster's Mana drops every time it pulls out a present. At least I know what its Mana is used for, now.

Once my Health is under a fifth, I perform the combo again, only managing to damage its arm, which moved to block my attack.

Target has Sustained Significant Damage! Target Health -59,098

The Santa Boss swats me away, and pulls something out of his sack as I recover. Cookies. He's pulling chocolate chip cookies from his sack, and before I can react, he's shoving them into his mouth, a total of ten large cookies, each one restoring 10,000 Health.

Well, fuck. Does it drink milk to restore its Mana, too?

Five minutes later, I confirm that he does, indeed, drink milk to restore 50,000 Mana a glass, but he only drinks one. From what I can tell, he only starts doing stuff like that once he goes under a certain amount, and it takes several minutes for him to do it again.

I manage to whittle him down to under a quarter of his Health, and once I do, he throws a present with green paper instead of red at me, and it's rather large.

When it lands, it doesn't explode, but rather, fades away, letting loose a swarm of elves, each around a foot tall, dressed in red and green with black belts, and I'm pretty sure those are supposed to represent martial artist belts, because the tiny, pointy-eared Santa's Helpers start attacking me.

Now, I have to dodge them and the crimson presents, and the golden ones, which explode into a shower of light. Black-wrapped presents explode into a cloud of coal dust, obscuring my view. Once I've taken out twenty of the twenty-five elves, another green present is tossed, releasing more of the fuckers.

At this point, I'm no longer able to fight the Santa Boss, my attention needed solely to take on the Santa's Helpers and dodging the presents being thrown at me, and it takes me several minutes to be able to strike the Santa Boss again.

Minutes pass as I do my best to stop the fight, to take out the boss, and my vision starts turning black at the corners. So damn close, but exhaustion and pain is wearing me out.

The Santa Boss pulls out more cookies.

"FIREBALL!" I holler, throwing fireballs at the cookies, managing to burn them before the Santa Boss could swat them away.

Its face turns crimson, and a pair of horns sprout of it, the Santa's Helpers suddenly taking off into the woods as the boss itself charges me, roaring about how I'm about to be a pancake.

Then, my vision goes black, and the next thing I'm aware, I'm laying in the snow, my body screaming in pain, and Nathan Normar is peering down at me, crouched beside me, his face filled with concern. I move the messages to the sides of my vision, probably just letting me know what my rewards were after they took it out.

"He's woke," a voice says, and I look over to see the Holy One, Travis, standing a few feet away, then Nik near the giant sack, and Blaine chatting with him.

The two of them look over at me, and a yellow-white light coats my body, my injuries and pain fading away, my body cleansed of the blood on it. I look at Nathan.

"Thank you," I say, and he dips his head to me, then I look back at Nik. "You guys killed it?"

"No," Nik walks over to me. "You killed it."

"But-" I cut off, reading the messages in my vision.

Santa Boss Slain! Rewards: +10,000% Static Experience to Class or Classes of Your Choice, +10,000% Static Experience to Subclass or Subclasses of your Choice, +25 Platinum, +5 Platinum Presents, +10 Diamond Presents, +15 Gold Presents, +20 Silver Presents, +25 Copper Presents Santa Boss Slain in Rage Mode! Rewards: +10,000% Static Experience to Class or Classes of Your Choice, +10,000% Static Experience to Subclass or Subclasses of your Choice, +25 Platinum, +5 Platinum Presents, +10 Diamond Presents, +15 Gold Presents, +20 Silver Presents, +25 Copper Presents

Presents? I got presents for it? Is that really what everyone covets? Just what are the presents? Judging by the types, they probably follow the standard 'rarity' here. That is, copper are the worst, and platinum are the best.

And then the Static Experience… 10,000% each. No wonder it's so coveted. But if that's the full reward…

"How did I kill it?" I ask. "I passed out!"

"Your vision went black," Nik says. "And the next thing you knew, you were waking to Normar staring down at you?"

He's guessing at that.

"Yeah," I stand, stretching my stiff body. "But how did I kill it? The damn thing overwhelmed me!"

It's then that I realize something pretty important.

I'm wearing Nik's coat. Not my clothes, Nik's coat.

"You, ah, tranformed," Nik tells me.

"I did… what?"

"Transformed," he says, and I look at Normar, whose mind is filled with both awe and wonder.

That, and the images of me transforming. I really did transform, if they're being serious. I turned into a fucking dragon. How in the actual fuck?

"I feel… so exhausted," I say, my body suddenly feeling heavy, and I stumble a few steps. "Whoa."

"I'm not surprised," Nik tells me. "We're, ah, going to not tell anyone about you transforming into a dragon. I doubt you can do it on command, and we're sure you weren't even aware you could do that."

"Thanks," I say. "And yeah, I totally had no clue that I could."

The dragon I saw in that vision of the Shadow of Life… did it know I could do that? It seems to know a lot about me.

Shaking my head, I decide to check my status. The other notifications let me know I'd gained several random Stat Points from the fight, as well as plenty of Skill Levels and Dark One Levels – I'm now a Level 10 Dark One of the second Tier.

Character Information Dark of Fire Name: Zack Primary Class: Dark One Level: 120 Unavailable: Unavailable Title: None Unavailable: Unavailable Health: 4,750/4,750 Mana: 3,510/3,510 Strength: 209 Intellect: 157 Endurance: 171 Willpower: 183 Vitality: 475 Wisdom: 351 Agility: 126 Perception: 113

Some pretty decent Stats, now, I think. It's a shame I still only get one to each upon every fifth Level, though Adventurer does make up for it a small amount. I'm also just five Levels from being halfway to Ascension. Rubbing the back of my head, I ask if they can give me some privacy.

"Barrier Prison," Blaine triggers a Skill, and an opaque, blue barrier forms around me, creating a cubic room.

Well, that's one way of doing it. They probably know what I wanted to do.

I quickly shed Niks coat and burn it, then change into a clean outfit from my Inventory. I'm so glad I recently bought new clothes, because morphing into a dragon kind of destroys them. I'll make sure to pick up a few more sets, just in case it happens again.

Though… it does make me wonder why I turned into one, and how.

As soon as I finish changing, I drop to the ground, fully exhausted and nearly asleep, fighting to stay awake, and after a few minutes, the barrier fades away.

"How did you know I was done?" I ask Blaine.

"It's you," he tells me. "You'd have wanted to move as fast as possible."

I grin at him.

"So what now?" I ask.

"Want to go home and sleep?" Nik asks me. "Or come with us to meet up with Jesse and watch us try to take on the one in the pass by ourselves?"

So they were planning on challenging one as a full team, then, regardless of the outcome of this fight.

"Sure," I struggle to my feet. "Though I'll probably need to sit during it."