Gabriel downed another bottle of Energy potion.

This is not looking well… He thought.

It was the second one he downed. Evading the monster was a good strategy, but after the Tyrant grew silent, he knew he would have no easy way to deal with him; potions, or not.

At the same time, he could feel Liz squirming, he didn't know why, but Gabe felt uncomfortable that he couldn't correctly feel her. Maybe Liz was being tortured by the immense amount of Mana the spirit she was made with was struggling to bind. Or who knew what else. But he could not lose focus, or it would be the end.

Because other than just evading until he was sure he could deal enough damage to bring it down, there was still a Skill from the Tyrant that he had yet to witness.

Teleport, beam of darkness, spikes, terrain manipulation, and shroud of darkness. Though terrain manipulation probably required a good chunk of his Mana, the Tyrant had been avoiding it entirely, and yet, that mysterious Skill worried him.

Gabriel let out a sigh of tension.

He evaded another spikes attack by entering his, thankfully much more manageable range, some spikes barely grazed him, Helping Hand still working overtime to heal him, the first two casts effect had never stopped healing him, because he kept getting damaged, and his abysmal Life pool had yet to manage to completely refill. The thing worked to his advantage because his body recovered before very fast since its state depended on his own Life pool. Overall it was a cheat ability to have, but he did not care in the least.

It was just the third time that he made it close enough to get in range to attack, and taking advantage of the situations, he put it all in that strike.

Gabriel targeted the monster's feet each time, hoping to crush them and remove his moveability; this time, he gained on his momentum to unleash a powered attack with his spear, which acted almost like a whip when he did not infuse it with Mana.

With both Meridians and Burst Attack enhancement, the Sk'rayr spear bent as he whipped it at the Tyrant's left calf; as it connected, he could finally hear an ominous creak.

Gabriell grinned, but he shouldn't have because the Tyrant took that chance to land a proper hit on him.

Like a dagger, the mayor's hand hit Gabriel's left clavicle, shattering it and mauling him. The force of the blow thankfully threw the man aside, making him lose his grip on the spear, which fell by the Tyrant's feet.

As Gabriel rolled on the floor to distance himself, his Life decreased to barely 2, it meant nothing, but the damage was real, yet more importantly, he had lost his spear.

Standing up while holding his neck to rein in the blood, Gabriel saw the Tyrant pick up his spear. Weighting it and sizing it up.

"Nice stick, Herald. Let's see how you fare without it!" Holding the spear with two hands, the Tyrant brought it down on his knee with all his strength and…

The spear bent, making no sound at all.

Gabriel sneered, "I see someone is skipping leg day."

Arching an eyebrow, the Tyrant tried to break it a few more times, but nothing changed.

Enraged, the mayor threw the spear at him with all his power, it would have skewered him on the spot if the man didn't raise his hand toward it, and mulled: "Built to Fly."

The Skill briefly sped up the spear, but right away, he released its hold, the spear came to a complete stop a few feet from his heart, all his momentum released, he picked it up as it fell from the air, whirling it around with his right, functioning hand and pointing it at the Tyrant.

The Tyrant growled.

"You taught me how to take advantage of my Skills, Master. Now, it's time for your apprentice to exceed you."

"Don't waste your breath!"

As the Tyrant shouted, huge, jagged slabs of rock and spikes raised up from the ground, aiming at the man, which grinning satisfied, rose in the air, and away from him.

Yes, keep spending your Mana!

Overall, things were going well for him, but what was going on outside? He wondered.

***

A bloodied Greta held Prisha in her arms. The petite girl had lost both her legs in the aftermath of the Tyrant Boss' first rock spikes.

After having expended all her Mana to buff the veterans and cast all her shields, the blond girl went in hiding. She wanted to heal Prisha, but Dark Mana saturation was so heavy in the air and on the girl's legs that her Light element was not being as effective as it should.

Greta wheezed as she hid behind one of the mountain peaks-sized spikes the monster had summoned.

She let herself drop to the floor, not even hearing the creak from her beloved staff as its butt, already half-broken from having abused its Mana storage, beat on the rock. The cacophonic sounds of explosion and screams were loud enough to cover her thoughts, let alone something like the creak of wood.

It was only a couple a few seconds after she sat, pressed against the giant rock and weaving, that the staff broke in two.

Greta turned to look at what had happened, that staff had cost her quite a few allowances, and she treasured it, but seeing her broken that very moment, did not shake her in the least.

Such was the terror that had insinuated her mind.

Suddenly the rock trembled from an impact, and she grew pale.

Greta raised her to inspect the damage and clearly see the broken top of the peak starting to slide down toward her.

Without having even caught a breath, the girl scrambled away. Prisha held tight on her body with her right arm. She crawled away as fast as she could.

The slabs of rocks falling on the ground raised a cloud of dust, which covered her entirely, but at least neither the stone itself or the debris hit her or caused any more damage.

Coughing, the girl was quickly out of the dust, only to find herself with a couple of giant bodies barring her passage.

Or at least those should have been bodies, she thought… the blood was indeed there, a lot of it, but those forms, they were not humanoid. Her confused mind only later realized that the giants had probably been trampled over by the Boss.

Recovering from that, Greta ran and ran.

It was a little over five minutes later that she found herself in one of the nearby grottos containing the Dungeon exit, and she was not alone.

Giants and Kanceldonian were beating on the sealed exit, some unleashed their strongest Skills, but nothing seemed to even put a dent in it.

She stared at their trivial efforts, but soon she realized it was meaningless. Their measure would amount to nothing. If the people trying to exit had the strength to break through the exit, they would not be there in the first place, but out there fighting.

So she closed her eyes, focusing on the breathing, and recovering her mental faculties.

"You are a mage… you are a mage," she kept repeating herself, "act like it, act like it."

"You are a mage!" she shouted, "Act like it!"

Her eyes shot open, more clear now.

Turning her head to the right, she noticed a rather comfy indentation on the walls of the grotto, and she headed there, placing Prisha on it to recover. Studying her legs, she seemed to be recovering fine. But the girl had chosen Enhanced Senses over Pain Resistance; the pain had shut her down. It was luck that she had managed to cast a shield in time to absorb the excess power from the blow, which would have zeroed her Life and killed her on the spot.

After breathing in a bit more and casting an AoE heal over the Raid members, trying to get out, they all looked hurting in one way or another; she headed over the exit.f

Trembling, Greta stepped over by the grotto's mouth, then looked over the battlefield in the distance. She was a Barrier specialist first and a healer second. She needed to choose Auto-Targeting to support her build, so her sight did not reach over the battle. However, she could clearly recognize the monster's massive frame moving about and teleporting like it was nothing.

They had managed to drive the battle over the islets turtles territory and were aiming to awake the Turtle Boss, the only one that had a chance of bringing down that walking terror.

In reality, Boss fights were not that much out of the ordinary, but few groups had the power to take on such a creature, and when they did, it was against low-level beings. The Tyrant Boss, though, was easily above level one hundred. But the real problem was that Boss fights were controlled and heavily analyzed and rehearsed, while that bastard had appeared in their midst like divine retribution and wreaked havoc.

Hell, after the first few seconds of fights, she had witnessed the Giant Champion's arms being shattered, like diamonds under a hydraulic press. She had no idea what had happened after that. At least, Lorad and Jiao Liu were both there today. She had no idea what would have happened otherwise.

Greta squinted her eyes as something came at her, it was weird, it ran in a straight line, and was dark, it looked like… liquid shadow, then it reached her at a speed she could barely register.

The dark beam, like a laser, cut over the mountain, one of its extremities brushing against the entrance of the grottos, then it shot up over the walls of the Dungeon, creating massive gashes in the rocks and perforating part of the external Mana barrier of it before it disappeared.

Greta slowly turned her head to the left, acknowledging how close she had been to total evaporation. Her legs failing, she dropped to the floor, her cheeks wet with tears as her calves and gown got soiled in piss.

I'm going to die here… The girl realized, then covering her face in her hands, she started weeping.

***

Everything was set, and Varcivald crossed through the portal. He found himself exactly where the window back in the Traveling Hearth showed.

A slight turning of his stomach was all the aftereffect of space jump offered him, luckily. Among his studies, he head read some terrifying consequences of untested space magic, luckily it wasn't the case.

Varcivald stood alone now, on a not too tall nor too distant height, by the city of Kanceldom.

He turned behind, expecting to find a window in space, but there was nothing. Commodo was right. The hearth had to recharge. Only one jump could be done every five minutes.

I can at least figure out if the Giant in question is here or not. I need to find the house, the house.

Varcivald could see the battle taking place in the city. It was already devastated. Flames had spread to more than a third of it. The canyon's mouth on which the city rose looked like the entrance to a Fiery Succubus' pussy.

A small contingent of Priests of Lore was attacking the…

That's the Pearl-harness. Why are they targeting that device?

The Pearl-harness was not a unique device, there were more zones with a Singularity than the populace knew, and the Pearl-harness had finally been recognized, and their use had started expanding.

Varcivald did not know more than the bases. The Strass-Heisen Singularity produced untainted Mana, though unsteadily, it nonetheless meant a free source of wealth for any population lucky enough to see one pop up near their territory.

They want to hit them on the economic aspect too, killing them with such a dirty blow isn't enough? Mother Tree, they're disgusting.

It was for such dirty tricks that the Priests of Lore were hated all over Alter.

Part of him wanted to help defend the harness just to spite them, but he knew he needed to do something else.

Varcivald puffed but ultimately ran toward the detached house by the southeastern edge of the sky-island.

He cast his Growth spell a Sub-Skill tied to his Life, Recovery-bound Skill, True Blessing of Life. Varcivald’s ability bolstered his Attributes by up to eighty percent for two minutes, good enough to reach the house in less than five minutes from there, his Leaf on the Spring Wind Alacrity Skill, would significantly bolster his speed as long as he moved in the direction of the wind, and the wind blew favorably.

Varcivald threw himself over the small height. While in the air, he removed his cream cloak. It disappeared inside his satchel, showing instead of the light armor under it. His staff still hung behind his shoulders. He could not afford to place it back into his satchel, simply because he had to be ready to use it at a moment's notice. However, his hands gripped Elven Shivs made of Midnight Silver.

Mithril and Glassteel alloy, those were the materials his armor was weaved in. The dark blue armor made for a perfect cover for the eyes of the inexperienced.

Mithril, the Manaborn metal found mostly inside of the few yet precious Elvish caves, used for its relative strength and its incredible ability to be entirely ignored by the Mana. Its manipulation was subject to fractures and loss while near heavy metals. Glasteel was instead an alloy that could reflect tainted Mana, effectively lessening the power of any spells it received.

While Mithril was azure in nature, exactly like Mana, Glassteel was transparent. Together they made for perfect materials for a mage's battle armor. Yet how Varcivald had it made had been mainly to take his enemies by surprise. Especially since he had, it dyed to resemble classical Midnight Silver. He planned to look like a rogue type, and most of the time, it worked.

He spent just a couple of seconds mid-air before he hit the ground once more. Though his speed would remain the same, it was safer and more immediate to stay with his feet on the ground. There were many enemies around, many. He had to be careful.

Before long, Varcivald reached the house in question.

It was uninhabited. The family of the Giant he was looking for had likely escaped. Though not naturally endowed with flight, being it a relatively rare ability; he had heard that in the last couple of decades, Giants moved about with umbrellas that gave them flying abilities.

There definitely were umbrellas by the porch, and it was not unlikely that they had escaped with them.

Varcivald snorted, but he started looking for clues. If they were not there, he just needed to find somebody who likely knew them and could answer for them.

It wasn't long before he found a clue.

A girl's diary, he found it in a room whose walls had been covered in red polka dots.

It read it not long after he finished searching for the other rooms.

Skimming it from newest to oldest with his more than decent Alacrity for a Tier 4 mage, Varcivald soon got to read a couple of interesting pieces of news. The first one was about the writer's dad, the last entry, signed written on the previous day, detailed that her dad was still fighting the Tyrants, the second was even more interesting, names he had come to know very well.

They've been here. At least this confirms that the target I'm looking for is the right one.

"There!" He exclaimed after a while. The writer's uncle worked at the Star-harness.

Keeping reading, he found out that the writer's daddy was named Larry, the subject he was looking for, and his brother, the writer's uncle, was called Marcle.

Is it some play of the word 'miracle'? Witty.

He had to look for Marcle, hoping the Giant would do the miracle his name intended.

There is only one place he could find his target now, and it was going to where firstly his guts wanted him to go, to the Pearl-harness.

Suddenly Varcivald chuckled, Miracle, and Larry… talk about parents' favoritism.

***

A tall man with wild, blonde hair, a sharp nose, and irises of a deep red sat on top of the carcass of a Giant, he wore a dark cloak which covered everything about him but his head, though the Priests had to stay hidden, he wished for his name to be known, to be whispered.

By his side, the dragon, Phellingetorim was his name, stood domineering.

Phellingetorim's massive body was of an intense violet, the colors blended with purple as it reached his inner scales, those on his stern, abdomen, paws, and lower tail.

Though the Archbishop of his department had been the first to reach an accord with the dragon, Phellingetorim had swiftly taken charge of the Raid. He knew the Archbishop held the real power, but he could not show it to the Dragons, not yet at least. Phellingetorim was one massive beast, though.

Looking at him up close still sent shivers down the man's spine, and yet he was a Tier 5, a Superior Class. He wondered how good it would be to face such a monstrosity on his own.

Something deep inside of him whispered that he could win, if he really wished to, even with such a difference in pure ranks, he felt he could…

The man almost reached for his Sacred Gun but managed to calm his instinct at the very last moment.

There will be time for that, he thought.

"Chaos," said Agonxstrezz, before continuing and lowering his muzzle toward the man. The dragon's nostrils emitted puffs of violet smoke. "Chaos is a seed, young Priest. You look to have been born with it. But tell me, do you value it?"

The man was taken aback. Did the dragon read his intentions?

"I think I do, Phellingetorim, doesn't the very fact that I stand in front of you tell you anything?"

The dragon laughed, a hearty laugh, echoing heavily around the broken city.

"You are as interesting as the Archbishop said you would be; however, you should value your life more," said the dragon, before lowering his neck and reaching with its muzzle right in front of the man's face. He blew the hot vapor from its nostrils in the man's face, it wasn't enough to damage him in the slightest, but it was clearly intended to be a challenge.

"When you will really be ready, young man, you can come to find me in my Realm. I promise to give you a fair fight. It's not any day a dragon gets to taste," he inhaled, shuffling the man's already unruly hair, "Herald's bones."

The dragon raised his head again, haughtily turning his head away from him.

The man grinned. He was unfazed.

"Then I guess we shall meet in your lair before long. I'll make sure to bring some seasoning. It's not every day a man gets to feast on overgrown lizard's meat."

With eyes that definitely betrayed surprise, for a second, the dragon did not know how to answer before he exploded into laughter. Then as he was about to answer back, they both turned their heads toward the eerie sound of exploding Mana.

They managed to catch the last moments in which the dark beam broke through the Dungeon's shield.

Both the man and the dragon smiled at that, internal disputes or not, their plan was going along perfectly.