"So, are we all agreed on the strategy?" Aroust querried, sure to catch everyone's eyes, not moving his intent gaze til an affirmative nod was given. And it said something, Jack thought, that no one hesitated to dip their heads, that all of them were ready and willing to risk their lives even nearing the finale of their endless journey, for the sake of souls far less fortunate than they.

"Excellent." He flashed a hard smile, turning to Jack. "Since so much is riding on you, hero of stone and fire, let's review once more the plan of attack."

Jack nodded. "On footsteps soft as silk we proceed forward down the hallway to the T-section, and I'll be shooting up walls of stone reinforced by bloodrunes, sealing off passageways and chambers we pass, so no foe can strike us unawares. Then we turn left, and before the handful of sentinels can respond, we blast them with curses and killing flame. Then we casters pull back, and allow you masters of glaive, naginata, and warhammer to tear through any survivors like a double row of spearmen should the survivors charge us, cleaving right through those bastards with your mithril blades.

Chu Hua gave a curt nod. "And what should you do if they don't charge us? If survivors seek to parlay or strike at range?"

Jack's gaze hardened. "Then I blast them a second time, and show then not a lick of mercy. Because these masters would only be seeking to buy time before emplanting silver strands of compulsion before unraveling our minds, and then its us screaming our last as our abdomens swell with their foul brood."

Veti paled at those words, but everyone else's expressions hardened, accepting on a visceral level just how serious was the threat they faced, that their enemies were the farthest thing from misunderstood soldiers or desperate bandits, but inhuman monsters who saw humans as prey and sources for spawning, and nothing more.

Veti swallowed. "But Jack. What happens if one of those things foul cords actually touches us?"

She wrapped her arms about her waist, eyes haunted by fear she had hid so well in the madness that was the endless tunnels. Only now, with creatures that could melt their very minds, did she show the true extent of the fear Jack sensed she had always been holding back.

Jack solemnly held up his latest forging, an 18 inch long single bladed shear, both alike and quite different from the silver pair of shears so like scissors that Jack could manifest at will. The single edged blade was somehow both more ethereal and real than the one he had wielded every time he had faced Mentalists or Necromancers before, now as much sword as scissors, having as much in common with the Dread Artifacts the warriors among them wielded as it did a weapon of the mind alone. The shear's impossibly sharp blade was now etched in mithril the shade of Jack's blood, monofilament edge wavering between Shadow and Mundus... and realms of Spirit as well.

Jack flashed a rictus of a smile, feeling a weight on his soul just summoning the twisted abomination of magic, mithril, and Spirit that he had dared to forge in a fit of wild inspiration, happy to spit in the face of all expectation and norm, daring to use the blood infused ore that could buy and sell a crown and conjoin it to a tool that was as much an instrument of spirit as reality itself.

Because no matter the blaring messages on his interface flashing warnings against what he dared, all he had to do was remember the look of horror on a certain slaver's face whose neck he had slashed with a weapon of spirit when he was just a boy beside his oddly approving mother and father, dark legends in their own right, what now felt like a lifetime ago.

As Jack tapped into horrific memories revealed only when immersed in the darkest depths of living Dream.

A weapon that even as a boy he had torn from realms of spirit to inflict a killing blow, forged by furious resolve that had been as real as death itself.

Death he had forged to mithril and sealed with his own blood, and perhaps just a bit of his soul as well.

A killing weapon of both Spirit, Mundus, and Nightmare. An abomination of an artifact twisted into being with Masterwork Runes, too much of his own life force, Elite tier Arcane Manipulation, and resources no common mage would have access to into a tool far beyond what any Tier 3 enhancement should have allowed for, when he had dared to evolve his skill. A weapon he desperately hoped would serve them well in the battle to come.

"Then I sheer the silver cords between Mundus and Nightmare, between will and intent, between Psionicist and the souls of his victims," Jack said at last, refusing to flinch at the horror he saw in Veti's gaze. "I will cleave my weapon through their minds as fast as you all tear through their bodies. Because one way or another, those fuckers are going down."

Aroust and Drake shared a look.

"If I had ever doubted it before..." Aroust said.

Drake nodded. "He's definitely a child of the Apocalypse. Because if the Horsemen's blood doesn't flow through his veins..." He caught Jack's gaze, memory of Lord Hecklebart forcing his father's mind to bend to his will. Before Jack had cleaved free the cords binding the merchant to his father, and a Level 13 assassin who had nearly killed Jack and Drake both. A man who swore to do Jack one dark service, the moment Jack had torn free the soul of the monster who had sought to destroy them all. "Then I'd already be long dead."

Jack flashed a dark smile, gazing at the light sparkling across the edge of a shear sharper than dream itself. "I think we're wasting time, gentlemen. Shall we?"

He then turned to Chu Hua, humbled by the odd mixture of pride, pity, and fierce resolve he saw in her gaze. And something else as well that made his cheeks blaze... before pushing such thoughts away, knowing now wasn't the time or place for anything save a killer's resolve.

But all she said was. "Form up and move out! It's time."

And with those words they made their way forward, His friends with polearms at the ready, Jack and the casters armed with spells and a wickedly sharp shear Jack prayed would be enough to actually see them through.

"Master Amir! Thank the gods, you're here! Please, save us before it's too late!"

Words that froze Jack and his friends where they stood, taking their first steps passed the sealed iron door, covered in dread runes Jack had bipassed by the simple expedient of shifting the wall adjoining it.

The plan was simple. Proceed down the grand arched corridors of obsidian stone blocks, using his Artisanal Manipulation skill to seal all the portholes with stone, and any side passages as well.

A plan that had seemed so perfect, moments ago, before the first unexpected pitfall sprung, Jack cursing with sudden furious intensity, earning scowls from Aroust and Chu Hua both.

"Jack, now's not the time!" Aroust hissed.

"Jack?" Chu Hua's voice drew Jack's gaze She furrowed her brow, sensing trouble. "What's wrong?"

"I can't safely shift the stone the way I thought I could," Jack admitted with a bitter shake of his head, earning wide-eyed stares and the sharp tang of fear in the air, the group only then forced to acknowledge how utterly dependent they were on Jack's particular skill to assure any measure of safety, daring perils of the Orange tear as they now did.

"Then we need to abort," Aroust immediately hissed. "No fucking heroics. We race for the front entrance, burn and slice any resistance and get out of here as fast as we damned well can."

Everyone, even Chu Hua nodded in firm agreement, all of them of like mind.

It was then that the desperate panicked voices cut through the air, and none could pretend they didn't hear the sudden pleading cry of a girl far too young for these awful deeps.

"Master Amir. What are you doing? No, you can't be... no, please, I beg of you!"

Words that earned a dark cold chuckle. "Too late for that, dear Elva. I did warn you that perhaps the deeps weren't for you and your friends. Did I not? That heroics so often led to folly, and a far safer life awaited you, like so many other young adventurers, enlisting in the army for the wars to come." This was followed by a theatric, mocking sigh. "But no, you insisted you know best. Your kind always does. And perhaps this is for the best, dear, sweet, Elva. For now you and your friends get to serve a cause far greater than the doom awaiting a nation already claimed by our true masters!"

Twisted words that earned desperate panicked screams, as the dark voice dripping poisoned honey broke out in twisted laughter far more befitting a soul who had led his own kind to the foulest of dooms.

"Still want to leave?" Drake's words were bitter but his hopeless gaze said he already knew staying here was a fool's gamble that would only get them killed, even if his conscience would haunt him for a lifetime.

Jack glared at his friends. "No, you don't understand. My gift still works... but this tunnel reeks of those bastards! They have marked it with their lesser runes, no doubt seeking to stabilize it, to control the dungeon that spawned them!" He shook his head. "I can shift it, but it will cost me, and the moment I shift anything, they'll all be alerted!"

"This is a test, right headmaster? A test to see if we have faith, if we're truly ready to be adventurers, yes?" Panicked laughter slipped from a desperately smiling face, a young man pleading with a panicked smile for the nightmare before him to be anything but the doom it truly was.

"We're not ready!" sobbed the panicked girl. "You were right! We admit it, Master Amir! You know what's best for us. Just like you always said! Please, we'll accept any punishment, any discipline, just please... let us free!"

Jack clenched his jaw. For the voices were coming from the arched doorway they were even now passing on their left. He turned to his friends. "Make the call. You already know what I want to do."

Aroust cursed softly, shaking his head. "Bloody hell." He furrowed bitter brows as the girl began to sob. "No. No way in hell we're leaving them." His eyes blazed with sudden heat. Jack wondered if he was thinking about his wife, lost long ago to a mad bard's whim and a doom he could never take back. "We fight!"

Surprisingly, everyone nodded, save for Veti herself, though Barlton gave her a quick squeeze, saying only... "I understand, luv. No shame. But we're going forward. Can we count on you for banes? Or would ya rather sit this one out?"

Veti gave a bitter chuckle. "We're going to get killed, I know it!" She swallowed a sob, but jerked her head with a nod. "I'll pull my own weight. Drake, and Jack and I will cast in concert, as we always do."

Chu Hua gave a satisfied nod. "Be careful with your strikes. Clearly there are innocents, and clearly there's an enemy adventurer. So expect someone with our skills, or worse. So focus banes and shouts on the human. Jack?"

Jack dipped his head. "And for my part, I'll burn the fuck out of any Mind Lords, the moment I see them, if I can safely do so. Or I'll use Icy Blast I already evolved to Crimson Shards, if fire's too precarious. Let's just hope that penetrates their flesh easier than it does the Shadow Bears."

Chu Hua shook her head. "Don't risk the shards. It's only ever killed Calamari worms before. Stick with fire if at all possible. We know it works. Short burst, tight cone, so less heat spread. Far better third degree burns than our minds lost, or our lives. Even if it puts the prisoners at risk... our survival comes first."

Jack swallowed, but dipped his head. "Understood."

"And if Mind Flayers manage to slip their strands past our helmets?" Veti whispered.

Jack flashed a bleak smile, patting the hilt of his shear, now sheathed in the silken fabric of his final enemy's soul. "Don't worry, Veti. I'll do my part, as best I can."

He felt an anxious twisting of his gut with the words he uttered with such confidence, because Veti was right to be worried. They were about to crash into a chamber with who knew how many Abominations and at least one enemy human comfortable enough to consort with beasts. In those circumstances, there was no telling if Jack's gift had a chance in hell of working. It had taken him long moments to break free before, using his previous shears to free himself alone. Now, he had to tend the minds of himself and nine others with a shear that was more sword than tool, one he had never tested before.

He could only hope that things didn't go as horribly wrong as he feared they might.

Thoughts he held tight in his chest as his heart pounded with an odd mixture of terror and anticipation as they darted through the doorway to find themselves in a vast chamber filled with men and women either struggling against restraints on obsidian stone slabs, or gazing out with glassy mindless eyes that somehow still rang with the screams of the souls trapped inside grotesquely bloated bodies secured with wormlike strands of black tissue to ichor filled pools as their flesh pulsated with hideous life growing within.

A sight that filled Jack with unimaginable horror and loathing, beholding what amounted to a massive breeding ground of honeycomed pits filled with paralyzed victims forced to carry unimaginably horrific broods slowly devouring them from within.

If the still intact handful of adventurers stripped naked and pinned to obsidian slats could turn their gazes to see what lay within the pools to either side of the coldly smiling man dressed in inky beast hides radiating magic with a pair of short swords at his hips, Jack had no doubt their minds would snap with the shrieks that would already be cutting through the air.

The monster in human form known as Master Amir abruptly smiled.

Jack clenched his jaw as he prepared to cast even before they were in perfect position, he and his companions slinking in the alcove shadows of the entrance they had just slipped through, eyeing the horrors of the room before they would attack with Chu Hua's mental signal.

But the one known as Amir wasn't looking their way at all, rather flashing a pleased smile as not one but three Mind Lords seemed to form from the Shadows, Jack's infravision and Mage Sight just barely discerning the passageway from which they had come, at the far end of the room.

"Well, dear Elva, Percy, I have so enjoyed our final chat, but I do believe our hosts have arrived and no doubt wish to discuss... at great length... the schemes you and your friends had regarding closing this sadly unbreakable pustule of shadow." Amir flashed a mocking smile. "I was actually quite impressed, hearing you new-bloods going over all your theorems, daring avenues of abjuration your older, wiser, and far longer lived peers knew to steer clear away from."

The young man known as Percy gazed at Amir with an odd mixture of terror and desperate hope, still not seeing the trio of Mind Lords approaching. "Is that what this is about? You wish to know if we actually have the guts, the know-how, to close the rift? This is a test. I knew it was a test, master!" He gave a nervous chuckle. "We unraveled the riddle. We figured out the puzzle of the rift, Guildmaster. We know how to close it!"

Amir's grin widened. "Do you, now? By all means. Share your revelations, and perhaps you'll find that this was all just a test after all." He flashed a salesman's grin. "You might even find yourself with Guild credits to your name, upstanding marks, and I'll even note you as having passed your final test without any need for outside aid at all!"

Percy's eyes widened with impossible hope as he gave a relieved chuckle. "So, this was all just a test. I knew it! And I'll earn full marks?"

Amir chuckled like a benevolent uncle. "You bet you will. Furthermore, I can absolutely assure you that this will be the last test you and your sweet Elva ever have to endure. In this life, or any other."

Percy nodded and immediately began spewing jargon Jack couldn't make out for the life of him at about the same time Elva's gaze caught the presence of the rapidly approaching humanoids towering over them at near seven feet with broad shoulders, dark cloaks, and the heads of squid, their mouths surrounded by writhing tentacles tasting the air... before elongating and stretching out to caress the skulls of their captives.

Percy's rapid fire commentary was immediately cut off by Elva's terrified shrieks... eyes widening in sudden comprehension a heartbeat before the tentacles turned translucent and pierced his skull, at which point Percy's eyes rolled back and he began to spasm and froth while Amir roared with laughter, clearly taking delight in their helpless terror.

Jack's heart pounded with fury, no longer willing to wait another instant when it became clear that Percy wouldn't be allowed to say a word that could help Jack and his friends end this nightmare any way but the hard way, and if they didn't act now, two more souls would be robbed of their minds before their bodies were ravaged and filled with larvae, just like all the others in that chamber of horrors.

"Now!" Chu Hua hissed, the cavern suddenly erupting in deadly shouts, shrieked incantations, and crimson flame.

Arcane Manipulation skillcheck modified by previous successes!

You have successfully shaped Windfire into Plasma Beam! (2 degree arc)

Mind Lord has been critically struck by flame!

And the hot jolt of satisfaction Jack felt when the closest Mind Lord's head exploded in superheated gore was instantly quenched by the agonized cry of Percy, his face instantly reddening and bursting, and Jack halfway feared he had blinded the lad, cutting off this stream of inconceivably hot plasma an instant later as the two surviving abominations shrieked in eerie concert, before twisting back around and fleeing as fast as their oddly moving bodies would allow, even as Master Amir spun around with a curse. Marked by features both eerily symmetrical and utterly forgettable, there was no hiding the weight of age and experience radiating from the man in waves. Amir's cold grey eyes widened as he took in the sight of nine heavily armed adventurers favoring him with killing glares.

And before they could even blink, Amir's chilly countenance turned to a mask of easy bonhomie.

"How remarkable it is to see so many fresh new faces entering our realm's favorite delve! Greetings, friends! I do hope we can clear up any misunderstandings, lest you take the illusions of this room as anything more than phantasms of the mind, and risk harming the head of the local Guild Hall. Actions which, I hasten to assure you, will have repercussions for your own adventuring careers, and lives, beyond anything you can imagine."

Aroust hissed at the threat behind the tight-faced smile, and Jack could sense his friend's sudden horrified uncertainty. Because Aroust, more than any of them, knew the bitter cost of crossing the Guild. No matter how unfair or unintentional. And should Amir's words be true, should he actually be the Guild Head...

"He's buying time! Strike him down now!" Chu Hua, their tactician with who knew how many class perks protecting her against mind fuckery, also benefited from the fact that the Guild had utterly abandoned her home nation, so his words held little weight for her, immediately shouted in their party chat.

But Jack was already in motion, slipping from their ranks, though not toward the coldly smiling guild head even now unsheathing his blades as dark words slipped from his lips, but for the pair of Mind Lords attempting to escape.

"Ignis Ventus Sanguis!" Jack roared, peripherally sensing the headmaster hissing and squinting as the dim torchlit chamber blazed like the sun the instant Jack's beam of super heated plasma caressed the backs of the pair of fleeing abominations that were no longer half hidden behind their struggling captives

Monstrous squid heads squealed as the bodies fell to the ground, backs blasted open by jets of liquid flame, Jack then spending an extra ruthless couple of seconds obliterating both creature’s wildly squirming heads even as they seemed to be detaching themselves from their now blazing bodies, much to Jack's horror and disgust.

Before he abruptly cut it off with a hiss, having generated far more heat than he had intended, using the liquid stream of plasma to obliterate their cephalopedian heads, leaving the room like an oven, but at least it wasn't the death trap it would have been before he had learned to tightly corral his spray of fiery hot plasma into a tight killing beam. A beam which had done a damn find job of flash frying their enemies, three squid heads now fried to ash, his familiar quickly flooding the chamber with icy wet winds, having evolved in her own strange way from Air elemental to incorporate Air, Water, and even Blood, in the days and weeks since he had first summoned her forth, no doubt benefiting in her own way from the endless torrent of experience that had flooded through all their souls since they had first dared these deeps.

"Rusticias!" Veti cried out with a gasp, all but choking on the still too hot air, earning a glare from one Master Amir before he gave a mocking chuckle.

"You actually think a low level curse will effect an Elite Delver?" he shook his head with a tut. "How delightfully naive. Truly, you all are little more than children when it comes to Delving. I can see that now."

He flashed a bemused smile at the trio of blazing corpses. "By all means, strike at phantasms. Excellent practice for novices such as yourself. You might actually learn tactics, maybe even how to properly aim a spell."

His mocking smile turned hard and cold. "But you dare strike at your headmaster again, you'll find the conseq—"

"Brista!" Drake roared, sending a surprised headmaster ragdolling through the air before smashing into the back wall, and much to Jack's disappointment, seemed far more surprised than hurt.

"An actual Vrala Skald with a shout sufficient to knock even me off his feet!" Amir immediately applauded upon springing back to his feet. "Bravo, lad. You're exactly what we're looking for in the guild."

"Don't believe him!" Sobbed the still desperately struggling Elva, her once beautiful pale features now covered in blisters and burns. "He's a monster under investigation from the Head Chapter of New Horizon! He sells out the newbloods. The only adventurers left are accomplices, or those who avoid the guildhall like the plague! Everyone else is either dead or fled for safer chapters!"

Amir's eyes flashed with sudden heat. "I take it your superiors are the ones responsible for Vickens and Malbeth's disappearance?"

The shaking Elva, wheezing from the scalding heat blast she had been too close to, still managed to flash a fierce predatory smile, as if eager to lose herself in a bright blaze of fire to light up the terrifying darkness she had been drowning in just moments before.

"That's right, asshole! The rest of your battle brothers are already captured! Central's known something was up when the death tole of your hall spiked through the roof! Algorithms be damned, it was a slaughter, and the skewing of deaths to experience made no sense!" Her eyes flashed with heat. "Admit it. You had your foul abominations kill off all those who were a threat to you, setting up ambushes galore. You didn't even properly report their deaths! Counting on a stream of newbloods from the provinces to pad your numbers before letting records of their deaths trickle in over weeks and months!"

Amir shrugged his shoulders, eyes now twinkling with darkest mirth. "It seems like you have me all figured out, Lady Cristova. Whereas I, of course, had absolutely no idea of who you were the whole time."

The girl Elva paled. "There is no way you should know that name."

Amir's cold laughter filled the cathedral like chamber of horror and death. "And yet I do, girl. And yet I do. It seems like you don't have quite as many allies as you thought. And who knows? Perhaps your chapter head isn't quite as pristine and pure as you dream. And thank you for clarifying my suspicions. Now I now exactly who to speak to, to assure my friends' timely release."

His smile turned wicked. "Stupid girl. Do you truly think this all begins and ends with me?"

He gestured grandiosly to the chamber, and perhaps the dungeon, as a whole. "I'm just one piece, one cog in a grand and glorious machination beyond your feeble ability to even imagine, let alone comprehend!"

Elva, or perhaps Lady Cristova's eyes widened in fresh panic, desperately turning to meet her rescuer's gazes. Jack could all but sense the connections being made behind her horrified eyes. "He's distracting us! Trying to buy time! Strike him down. Strike him down now, before those nightmares swarm, or we're all as good as dead!"

Amir flashed a supremely predatory smile. "I'm afraid it's too late for that. My associates have just made it clear that they're..." His eyes widened, jerking his face to glare Jack's way.

"You!"

Jack flashed a tired smile, for he hadn't been idle while Elva was goading their enemy into revealing his secrets.

"Formo!" He whispered yet again, pushing against the weight of countless years, wards, and wills, finally sealing off all the doors to this chamber with barriers of stone and blood as well, as the wide eyed Amir noted from the deep gushing slice on the palm of Jack's hand, the rivulet of blood flowing across the stone tiles, past the pools filled with unspeakable horrors, slithering like crimson snakes upon each of the three doorways into the chamber now filled with stone and blazing runes of resilience the hissing squids and roaring Death Bears failed to smash through, Jack forced to spend far more of his freshly earned potency than he would have liked in reinforcing the adjoining walls and the structure as a whole, in addition to the newly sealed entrances with a fresh surge of runes, blood, and will.

But it was worth it, if the look on the corrupt headmaster's face was anything to go by.

The monster now knowing the swarms he had allied with couldn't enter... and the bastard before them couldn't leave.

"I'm afraid you children are making a serious mistake," Amir said, shaking his head with paternal condescension once more.

Perception check made!

Jack flashed a bleak, jaded smile as Drake and the others hissed in outrage.

Because of course their enemy made the expected move.

The Headmaster's jaw tightened with a smirk of cruel satisfaction as he darted forward at chilling speed for a still captive Elva who barely had time to sob before two blades glowing with a sickly green light were now pressed to the terrified young noblewoman's neck.

"I'd think very carefully about your next move, children," the man said with a predatory grin. "For if you force me to act, noble blood will be spilled. And that will count as yet another high crime for which you all will be hounded to the ends of the earth for committing!"

He roared with mocking laughter as Elva hissed with helpless fury.

Then the man's eyes flashed with cold malignancy, his icy gaze locking with none other than Drake de Leone's own. "Slaves. Shouts and spells in unison. Now!"

Before his eyes suddenly widened, realizing that a smirking Drake was just smiling coldly at him, as were Veti and Jack.

You have successfully countered your foe!

All three having been the target of this supposed Headmaster's Silver Strands only Jack could see, the bastard’s alliance with the Mind Lords now painfully obvious. Two pees in a pod.

Only now that pod was more like a trio of threads. All gently wrapped about Jack's formerly Silver, now Mithril spool, also covered in masterwork blood runes, enhancing a spool it should have been impossible to modify before Adept tiers were reached, save for Jack grabbing ahold of mad inspiration after his Dread Sheer was finished and his now absurdly potent skills made it clear just how fallacious that assumption had been.

The Headmaster's features paled. "No."

Jack didn't bother answering, save with a single word as he gathered and channeled his will. "Spool!"

Skill check modified by massive level differential.

Skill check modified by Elite Tier Mithril artifacts!

Additional modifier in effect! You have managed to anchor not 1 but 3 strands of your opponent's soul!

Skill check successful! You are successfully spooling the psyche of your foe!

And before Jack could flash even a single fierce smile of satisfaction to goad his enemy... Amir was already moving forward so fast he seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Jack suddenly sensing a wave of dread so profound he immediately huddled up, though refusing to let go of his dread spool.

"Strike as one!"

Chu Hua's mental command washed over him as the world seemed to stop in an instant, now locking gazes with the surprised countenance of the hideously corrupt Master Amir who had just crashed to the ground beside Jack, gazing in stupefied awe that his glowing sword, radiating necrotic doom, had failed to penetrate Jack's mithril-infused gambeson, practically a jack of mithril plates at this point, upon which he used to anchor and secure his Crimson Armor spell.

A masterwork armor spell which the deadly blade so eager for Jack's heart had burst through effortlessly.

After shattering his Blood Shield so savagely the weapon had barely even slowed down as it dipped in for the kill.

Only now did Jack register the pain, a crushing agony now flooding through his entire torso, finding himself unable even to breathe with the shock of his enemy's strike, ribs having shattered with the force of a blow that still failed to pierce his skin.

His dying foe chuckled softly as blood gushed from his lips, Jack only now noticing the blood spurting from the stumps of Amir's legs and the mauled remains of his left arm, as well as the massive pair of rents that had torn open his chest, cutting through his magical armaments like they were the cheapest of fabrics.

It was inertia alone that had propelled Amir even as far as he had come. And had his body been able to generate torque sufficient for a killing blow generated by what were no doubt Elite tier feats, had he not thrust out with nothing but the power of a single arm attached to a mangled torso, Jack had absolutely no doubt that the power of Amir's enhanced thrust would have ruptured every organ in his body, killing him instantly, no matter all Jack's stacked defenses, blown through effortlessly by a level 20 Delver eager for the kill.

"There's no way neophytes could pierce dragon mail like that... Yet somehow you fools did. With an Elite Tactician mentally linked among you, coordinating half a dozen blows as one. And one of you fools is actually using a miner's mallet. That actually hit me! No doubt the dwarf. How remarkable." Final words whispered with a bloody chuckle as his eyes rolled back and Amir gave a guttural sigh, breathing no more.

And Jack's vision grew white, using the last surge of his disciplined will to twist and tear free both psyche and soul of his dying enemy before he howled with an overwhelming mixture of pain and pleasure, howls mirroring Amir's final despairing spiritual cry as Jack's bones began twisting and snapping back into pace, his every nerve flooding with agony, even as his soul drowned in such terrible rich potency that he could barely think, had forgotten how to breathe... channeling his earned experience as best he could as he played out their final battle a dozen, a hundred times, reinforcing and enhancing skills in the blink of an eye.

Congratulations! You have personally slain 3 Rank 17 Brain Harvesters!

You have successfully torn free the Psyche and Soul of a Level 20 Mentalist Guild Master!

Experience Earned!

Experience has been successfully channeled into mending ruptured organs and shattered bones.

Warning! Unexpected potency flood is now imperiling your unranked soul!

You have successfully channeled excess potency to your party!

Countless visualized repetitions of the killing blow that tore past your defenses has generated Crippling Pain and increased mastery of multiple skills and spells as you channel experiences that should have killed you!

Crimson Armor is now Adept Rank 2! Perk Chosen: Enhanced Potency!

Blood Shield is now Adept Rank 5! 150 Damage will now be reduced from any successfully blocked physical or elemental attack, including flame. (Kinetic damage may partially blow through.) Shield will absorb an 100 additional damage before being completely destroyed. Note. Spell & Shield or Weapon & Shield proficiency skill checks are needed to successfully counter opponent's attacks or spells.

Spell & Shield is now Journeyman Rank 4!

Windfire is now Elite Rank 3!

Snip, Pinch, & Spool are now Journeyman Rank 5!

Shear is now Adept Rank 3!

Arcane Manipulation is now Elite Rank 3! Perk automatically chosen! Mana Manipulation! You now receive a significant bonus to manipulating any spell of sufficient mastery to be altered at will!

"Woohoo!" I just hit rank 14! And I'm now halfway to level 15!" Elof hooted to the shouts and jubilation of the party entire, all of them reveling in their sudden growth, for all they were still in a chamber of horrors before multiple prisoners now desperately begging for release. Yet they did not revel because of the horrors endured, but rather despite them, taking fierce joy in their own existence, their rapid growth and empowerment being the most visceral and concrete of rewards for triumphing over hideous death over and over again.

Of course the endorphin rush still had them shuddering with an ecstasy that might have made Jack smile, were he not writhing in pain.

Before feeling the arms of his lover holding him tightly as the blinding white light finally receded, Chu Hua's cheeks glowing with a passion he flushed to see anywhere save in the depths of the blankets they shared, though her ebullient euphoria quickly turned to grave concern, now holding his trembling body tenderly in her arms.

"Jack, what happened? Talk to me!"

Jack force a weary smile from clenched teeth, trembling with pain and exhaustion. "That almost..." he swallowed. "I've put off a class for too damned long. That was almost too much for me."

He shook his head, overcome with sudden weariness. "I just spent a hundred hours training my skills in the blink of an eye. The flood of potency and my own knack kept my neurons rejuvenated, but not completely." He cracked an exhausted yawn. "I know it's crazy to ask, but before we do anything else... I need to sleep. Desperately."

He swallowed, gazing at the far walls... sensing the build up of death and fury just beyond.

Flashing a single satisfied smile as he sensed no strain to his reinforced rune warded doors, for all that horrors beyond pounded ineffectually at the barriers beyond.

"I think, maybe, we'll be alright?"

Chu Hua frowned, Jack's now bleary vision catching the worried glances of his friends at the pounding walls, even as he heard the voices of the captives now frantically begging for release.

"Don't worry, we already killed the elite pack and their specialized trainer that had been corralling the monsters to flood the hallways with so many horrors before we took them down and blocked all the side passages by the rune covered steel door. With their elite Death Bears dead, there is no way they can break through." - Words Jack tried to say, though it came out as little more than a barely held whisper as he slipped free of bitter consciousness and dove into the cool waters of oblivion, the deepest of sleeps gently carrying him away.