Auron had no idea what to expect when he decided to take in the spirit's mind. He was going through a wave of depression and mistakenly threw himself to its whims as if that would be a solution.

As he was thrust out of his soul space, he stared at the ceiling, paralyzed. Each moment felt like an eternity packed into the length of a millisecond.

Even with the pain, the only thought on his mind was the state his mother was in while they floated endlessly through the void. The view of Her burned, bent, and broken form would haunt him for the rest of his life.

As the spirit ran greedily into his mind through the orb that connected them, he could not think, regret, or turn back. All he had was misery that engulfed his entirety.

The sight of the Spirits children being slaughtered joined that of his mother in pain. He and the spirit were a pair in their grief.

The electrical shock that coursed through Auron upon equipping the orb initially breached a new level of pain. The totality of mental torture being inflicted on him currently was on a higher plain of feeling.

Physically it was as if he was being forced to run marathons back to back without rest until dead.

Muscle pain was something he could conceptualize and possibly deal with. The loss of one's children, mingling with his own realization, he would never see his mother again, was beyond compare.

The small flame of hope he had allowed to grow while believing he might see her again was smothered—Auron's own depression, a stream, fed into the raging river that was the spirits.

The spirit's distraught mindset was almost a blessing, occasionally abating the rush forward from its place in Auron's soul, to his mind orb.

On playback in both of their minds were their worst memories. The deaths of the adolescent Pertyon were heartbreaking. Auron saw them through the eyes of the spirit. With each savage killing, a slew of memories alongside.

Auron felt the pride of a father. Looking over the children and spouse, he felt... full. His memories bled away, and he was not separate from the ancient spirit. They were only one. The memories came like a movie.

The hatchlings first stumbling steps, their slow breathing as they all slept together in the spirit world, playing as a family. Sights beyond Auron's comprehension.

Finally, came the time to take the journey to the mana realm, where Auron had come to know as home.

The young spirits had to go there to begin their growth. There was no other choice.

Centuries of life, loss, and death flowed into him. The spirit had grown from the youngest to watching all of his older family die. Eventually finding love and having his own children.

Auron felt as important as a grain of sand on a beach. The massive amount of information flowing into his mind swelled him. For what felt like an eternity Auron lived another life. If the spirit wanted to, he could have snuffed the existence that was Auron out altogether.

He felt the exact moment where the spirit was considering to do so. Like an ant awaiting the boot of a man that does not even acknowledge the bug's existence as it comes down and grants death.

Something stopped it. More images flashed through their combined minds.

A skinny rag of a boy rushing to the aid of the spirit. So weak and pitiful, this not even fully grown human was.

Auron saw through the eyes of the spirit how one would view him from the outside. He was still practically a walking skeleton. The Peryton had little hope for rescue until the power of unity flowed out of the skinny Rogue.

Auron felt odd watching himself, yet not viewing it in that way.

They watched the aura of human royalty spill out of the Rogue. Hope bloomed. The young human struggled, bled, and fought with all he had to rite the occurring injustice. Yet it was not enough. Another child fell to the blade.

The spirit gave in. Auron could tell he decided not to assume control of his mind. As if crawling into a corner, the old being shrank in size and wept.

Auron and the spirit melded in the dreamscape that represented his soul. Here Auron knelt as the remaining mana rushed into him, but out in the real world, he was walking forward. His eyes stared emptily ahead; he walked into the next room. The pain was too high. Both the spirit and Auron wanted the sweet release of death.

A spiraling staircase cut into stone walls lead up to the next room of the dungeon. In its center, a great pit.

Somewhere in his fragmented mind Auron was reminded of the void. Darkness. A fitting end to an existence filled with sorrow. A tug on his arm indicated Zander was trying to stop him. Auron, or what was left of Auron, did not care. His thoughts were not on the living, or the pain they would feel at losing him. His thoughts were on ending his journey. The path ahead was too long and arduous.

He leaned forward to fall. A vast wind prevented him from doing so. The small green familiar was shouting. Begging for them to not throw themselves off. They had been through too much. Both wanted their end. The ancient peryton spirit commanded Auron's body now. With a pulse of magnetic power, Zander was pulled to Auron's outstretched hand.

------

Zander watched as Auron stood. Initially, he was elated that the combination was over quickly. He was worried that Auron, in his emotional state, would give himself up to the whims of the Peryton spirit. Bonding was a sacred rite. Joining was never to be done in a weakened mental state, never with the power source also unstable. Zander should have stopped him.

His worst fears were then confirmed. Auron stood, life gone from his eyes, and walked forward toward the next room. Zander screamed messages mentally to get his attention, tried everything he could to stop him from moving forward.

As he called upon his wind, he stopped Auron from throwing himself off the cliff.

[Auron, you need to fight it! Please. I do not want to lose you too. Fight!]

Zander's mental messages went unheard. Auron pulled on him. He flew to his partner's outstretched hand. Auron forcibly stuffed him into his tattoo. They would not allow this to be interrupted.

As Zander dissipated, he sent a message.

[You are loved, Auron. I love you. Please continue to fight.] Seeing that did not snap him out of it, he sent one last message before he went. He did what anyone would have done to save their friend. He did something terrible. Zander lied. [Your mother reincarnated. You can see her again!] With that unspeakable mistruth being said, he was gone.

------

Auron's body paused for a moment as the words of his familiar flew directly into his mind. They echoed around in the mental space he currently kneeled in.

The spirit paused its flow directly into Auron's mind. The combination of their minds was not a one-way journey. Auron had life experiences. Though they were dwarfed by the centuries lived by the Golden being, they were still substantial in their own right.

Though still clouded, the two were presented with the last memory Auron had before the void.

His body in the dungeon halted. One was a foot on the ground, the other hanging in the air before the open abyss. Darkness loomed, waiting to welcome them as they would fall.

Their hated enemy. The faux King. His dual bladed sword dripped with Auron's mother's blood. Her arm laid on the ground before him. He laughed. His mother lay on the ground, dying, and the man was laughing. Pulled up next to this memory as if on a screen was this same man cutting through the spirit's body into the flesh of its last remaining child.

Something else moved in them both. Something massive. An emotional fire that offered itself. The one thing that would take in all their sorrow. Consume everything. Vengeance.

Their combined emotional turmoil was enough to end them. If used as a fuel, they very well could choose that path. That would leave the originator of that pain alive and well. What a blight on their dead families graves that would be.

No.

Such an outrage. They would not allow it. United in their bloodlust, the two came to an agreement. They would live. They would take their pound of flesh in return.

As their minds finished combining, two became one. Their will a blade sharpened by their determination. Revenge.

Auron hurled himself into the chasm below. He was no longer looking for death. Through the memories of the great spirit, he knew how to access his power.

Every rock, dull, empty. Every pulse of life, vibrant, electric, he felt faintly around him.

A vast barrier of earth threatened to meet them at the bottom of the gorge. What felt like hundreds of beings slithered on top of it. The hard and unforgiving embrace of stone waited patiently underneath the snakes as they plummeted. Auron reached inward and traced the path from his core yellow mana to his mind orb. Using his power was something different than just pushing out mana. Time seemed to slow as a memory forced its way into his brain.

A memory that should be heartwarming soured in his stomach. His mother's jeep once again.

------

Auron was brought back into his younger body. He knew the memory was all fake. He knew it was all constructed by his mother to prepare him to control magic, to survive in his homeworld. Though the jeep and its interior, even his mother's appearance, were artificial, he reveled in the experience. She smiled brilliantly at him as she taught him how to use the volume for the radio.

"Auron, you see when I turn this knob here. I can adjust how loud the sound is. If I crank it," The sound exploded, and Auron's younger self laughed as he covered his ears, "Then it will be too loud." She continued. "You can reach a higher volume more slowly, then find the perfect level." As the memory faded, the two danced in the car. Auron felt sick from the realization that almost the entirety of his memories with his mother was fabricated.

------

Back in his body Auron used the mental construct of a radio dial to control his magnetic power. As he fell, he slowly turned the dial-up, using his magnetize and repulse magic simultaneously, he rejected gravity. Electrical pulses ran down his body as he shot back up. The snakes lying in wait had no time to lunge at them.

After going beyond where he could feel the layer of earth below, he was still three or four meters from reaching his jumping point. He fell back down once more. The pulse of power drained away nearly forty percent of his mana. He would only have one more chance to reach the cliffside.

Once again, he nearly reached the ground when he turned on his power. This time slightly augmenting how hard he pushed. The snakes were ready this time. As they all covered him in a layer of stone, he exerted on that as well. As he rocketed back up, the walls of the pit became a blur, the rock wrapping around him shattered and pelted the angrily hissing snack creatures. Reaching the flat layer he came from, Auron used the last remaining sliver of mana he had to push on the wall in front of him.

Sliding roughly to a stop, he was back.

Hissing at his rear made him run back to the first cavern he came in. With a mental call, he summoned Zander.

[I am glad you chose life, Auron.] Zander sent the message with apparent hesitance. It seemed he did not know if Auron was entirely himself again.

"Well, I could not leave you after such a heartfelt love confession. I must say though I appreciate it; I am not attracted to salamanders." With a shrug and a wink, Auron spoke the words dripping with sarcasm.

The retort was confirmation for both of them that Auron was the one driving his body.

"I am more than I was. I may need your help coming to terms with everything, but for now, we have monsters to free." Auron pulled one of his blades out of its sheath as the first few snakes slithered their way to the top of the chasm in the other room.

Zander called an overwhelming gale and blew it down the tunnel toward the monsters. With the time bought from the maneuver, Auron used his remaining twenty-five stat points and put them into his mana pool. The value doubled to fifty. He would need every point for his new and expensive magic.

A larger group came up as more of the snakes caught up with the ones blown back.

Once again, Zander blasted them. As he did so, Auron gripped the energy in one of the slithering beings and pulled it toward himself. As it flew through the air directly at him, Auron readied his blade and sliced it where its head met its neck. It fell to the ground in two pieces dead.

Had he been the same young man who fell from the void straight into a swamp, he may have paused at the bloodshed. Luckily he was no longer that person. Knowing how a monster's soul worked, and the ancient spirit becoming one with his mind, he no longer would regret his necessary actions.

As the creature's blood splattered against his cheek, and a droplet ran into his mouth, dungeon madness reared its ugly head. The part of Auron's mind that housed the ancient spirit raged at the invasion. Electricity, spurred by yellow mana, crackled to meet the intruding purple mana burning it to nothing.

Auron was glad to not have to worry about the madness's tempting sway over his mind. As he and Zander repeated their makeshift combo, they gained a mechanical level of proficiency.

Level ten and eleven creatures fell one after the other to Auron's blade. Slash after slash, he beheaded and bisected the creatures with his steel dagger. *Bing*...*Bing*...*Bing*

Bleed status activated. Bleed will be randomly triggered until an abundance of purple mana is dealt with.

Blood began to drip from Auron's nose and eyes.

Auron leveled three times as his kills piled up to his sides. The blood of his enemies and his own granted him a terrifying visage.

His arms did not feel tired as they would have before his yellow mana enhancement, but his growing headache made him pleased when the last foul snake perished on the edge of his blade.

He looked over to Zander and gave him a hard nod. Not bothered by the pile of monster corpses as they begin to dissolve all around him, or the blood weeping from his face. Auron had taken a plunge and found who he needed to become.