Gabriel woke up, feeling decidedly weak.

The messages from the Anchor forced their way through his vision right away, but he was happy that he could once again move his body.

He adjusted himself on the branch and looked down below. They were still warring.

We need to hurry.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Your Shiny Spirit Skill has evolved into Golden.

Skills

Skill

Golden (Very Rare)

Description

Permanently doubles Power. Can use Burst Attack. Gives Light Resistance (+). Grow frills that can absorb light, empowering the user. Frills can shoot beams of Light.

Slot

Power

Type

Passive - Spirit Skill

That’s what I was talking about! Gabriel thought when he saw that the new effect doubled His Spirit Power.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Your Tough Scales Spirit Skill has evolved into Shiny Scales.

Skills

Skill

Shiny Scales (Rare)

Description

Permanently doubles Resilience. Can cast Toughen. Cost: 1 Spirit. Gives Fire Resistance (+). Gives Light Resistance (+). Summon a Light Armor made of Light.

Slot

Resilience

Type

Active - Passive - Spirit Skill

Armor! She’s gonna freak out. Liz seemed to still be sleeping inside of his Soul.

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Your Powerful Legs Spirit Skill has evolved into Brilliance Legs.

Skills

Skill

Brilliance Legs (Uncommon)

Description

Permanently increases Power by 50%. Permanently increases Resilience by 50%. Permanently increases Alacrity by 50%. Give Light Resistance (+). Legs support weight more easily.

Slot

Alacrity

Type

Passive - Spirit Skill

How many times did it evolve?

Congratulations, Gabriel Walker.

Your Brilliance Legs Spirit Skill has evolved into Shiny Legs.

Skills

Skill

Shiny Legs (Rare)

Description

Permanently increases Power by 50%. Permanently increases Resilience by 50%. Permanently increases Alacrity by 50%. Legs support weight more easily. Can use Light Dash . Cost: 2 Spirit.

Slot

Alacrity

Type

Active - Passive - Spirit Skill

So there is a pattern to it, Gabriel realized. I guess it goes, Light -> Brilliance -> Shiny -> Golden -> Stellar, and Legendary? What could it be?

The evolution had brought many changes to their abilities, and Anchor Page as well.

Gabriel Walker

Race

Human

Level

39 (18.53%)

Class

Dark Space Battle-Mage

Class Level

34 (53.36%)

Spirit

Spirit of The Golden-Lizard

Spirit Level

35 (4.82%)

Pools

Life

Energy

Mana

Spirit

10/10

55/75

57/110

43/60

Attributes

Body

Spirit

Final

Affinity

40 (20)

22 (11)

62

Alacrity

36 (18)

16.5 (11)

52.5

Power

21

34 (17)

55

Recovery

51 (17)

10

61

Resilience

40 (20)

55 (22)

95

Stamina

40 (20)

10

50

Come on, Lizzy, wake up.

Lizzy awakened slowly. The evolution had taken a toll on her.

When she came out from his chest, though, she shined in another Light.

She was overjoyed.

Gabriel couldn’t help but smile for her.

“Come on,” he said, “Use it. What are you waiting for?”

Liz yapped, then a beautiful Crown made of Light manifested on top of her head, hovering a couple of inches on it.

At the same time, her frills started shining with renewed vigor. And opened up by themselves.

“Damn, you’re so bright. You are almost hard to look at,” he noticed.

“But we can’t waste time here,” he said.

Taking another look at the feet of the tree. Gabe could notice that the battle raged without stopping. While around Yggdrasil, rotated massive gusts of wind, probably the same one that had thrown him to the side.

It was there, most probably, to stop anyone from getting away.

I really hope they are already gone, Gabriel thought.

However, they had to figure out a way to get down from there. The group of policemen had left, probably giving him for dead. But if they heard the Seer again, they might come back to look for him. He wasn’t confident he could escape them again. So he needed to hurry.

Let’s try and stay as close to the trunk as possible.

Joining back with Assimilation, for stability, they jumped.

Gabriel was so close to the tree trunk that if he wasn’t careful, he could scrape his palms; Toughen would not be enough to defend against the tree trunk’s Resilience.

In the meanwhile, they focused on whatever entrance they could find, and as a matter of fact, when at the level of the middle-tree, they stopped in mid-air with Built to fly.

There was a giant hole equipped with all types of weapons, but it had been assaulted.

He threw his spear behind to propel inside the hole, then recalled it, and dropped to the ground with a gambol.

“What is this place?”

Massive arbalest, cannons, rockets of sorts littered the place. But for the rest, it had been ravished.

Corpses of Druids and people dressed in an armored cassock could be found around.

The dead Druids were more numerous.

This could else be but an inside job. How did so many of them get in here? What more, to unleash this sort of damage, it must have been one huge surprise attack.

Did somebody betray? It was plausible, but even if the Seer could not scry the Priests, she could see the Druid’s behavior. Why hadn’t she found the culprit?

No, he doubted that was it. Something else might have been in place.

In the end, he could do nothing about it, he had to go to the Wandering Hearth, and that was it. And leave if he was lucky too.

Gabriel and Liz dashed through the tight tunnels of the Veins.

The Foxhole seemed to be located on the opposite side of the region of the Veins he used to frequent.

Why am I getting this gut feeling that if I go to Gorgi’s place, I’ll find him holed up in there?

His mind answered him that it was probable, the Gnome was a loner.

Fuck… I need to check now.

He was almost at one of the elevators, but it had been destroyed, so he could as well go look for Gorgi.

Or at least those were the plans, until a handful of what couldn’t else be but Yggdrasilians Bastards entered his sight.

Gabriel and Liz threw themselves inside the open door of a broken-in house.

“Hide that thing!” Gabriel whispered to the Lizard.

The crown flickered out of existence.

“How can they be here?” He asked, still, his voice was as low as he could make it.

Liz shrugged; she was confused too.

The police had not lost their mind then; the Bastards had really found a way to walk Alter as normal creatures, or even worse, sentients.

Now, that could be a problem.

Not because of the magic behind it, Gabriel did not exclude any possibility now that magic was real in his world. The problem he had was that he did not know how to deal with them.

With the Priests, his idea was to make them talk, damn, at least try. He did not want to kill them. But what about these things that were now probably sentients.

If he had to leave the place, he needed to kill. It was the only possible thing to do.

I needed to find the resolve to kill somebody else. Up until then, the only thinking creature he had killed was the Tyrant. But, it was his whether to kill him or forfeit his and Lizzy’s life.

He could not simply choose to die because someone had decided that his life was more worthy than Gabriel and Liz’s.

Gabe closed his eyes and tightened his fists.

“Damn, damn, damn…”

There was no way around it. He would have to-

He did not feel them anymore.

Liz was already looking out, then she turned toward him, shook her head, and made the sign for ‘ come with me ’. The Bastards were gone.

Thank the lord.

They hurried through, and this time Gabriel Assimilated Liz, covered himself in concealment-tainted Mana.

He was at Gorgi’s place in a few minutes.

Everything was turned off, but the shop was untouched, and there was a dead Priest by it.

Fishy , Gabe thought.

He closed in, keeping his direction to the door. At the level to which Gorgi could see with his eyes, the door had a see-through section, which meant roughly at Gabriel’s knees.

“Move another step in, and your toast!” Said a muffled voice behind the door.

“Gorgi?”

“Gabe? Gabriel!?”

Gabriel ran to the door.

“Gorgi! What are you doing here!? I told you to go to the inn! Why are you here?”

“What? Oh, well, the idea of leaving my shop alone wasn’t- hey! What are you even doing out there! Come in, hurry!”

Gorgi swiftly opened the door and let Gabriel in, then closing it shut the moment he had come through.

“What is happening, Gabriel? And what is the Herald doing here now? Shouldn’t you be out there?”

“Yeah… I’m Tier 2 Gorgi. I’m just experience served on a silver platter for them.”

“Oh, right, right…” Gorgi seemed rather unnerved. “So, what… what can I do for you?”

“Gorgi… I know this might sound weird. But, Yggdrasil is about to fall. The Seer has seen it herself. So, I think we should leave. Do you want to come? It could mean the difference between your life and death.”

“Gabriel… I… even if that was true… I won’t leave my shop. I’m sorry. This is my life here; I will not abandon it.”

His eyes said a thousand words, while his mouth only a few. But Gabriel could understand.

Gorgi’s mind was bound to his routine. His world was this little shop. The Gnome soul was linked to this place, and taking it away from him was tantamount to killing him.

Whether it was anxiety, a form of autism, or whatever else, Gabriel was taken aback by the unexpected rejection.

In his mind, he saw Gorgi’s death; it was probably just a question of time.

In the spur of the moment, Gabriel took a decision, then he Analyzed him.

Unnamed Elven Maiden of The Memory

Race

Gnome

Level

75 (?%)

Class

Destiny Tinkerer

Class Level

?? (?%)

Pools

Life

Energy

Mana

Spirit

120/150

137/150

217/300

140/300

Attributes

Body

Trickeries

Final

Affinity

?

?

?

Alacrity

?

?

?

Power

?

?

?

Recovery

?

?

?

Resilience

?

?

?

Stamina

?

?

?

I’m not going to abandon you, Gorgi. I’m sorry.

It was instantaneous. Gabriel touched Liz, engaging the Fusion, then hit him with a punch in the solar plexus. Exactly like the police wanted to do with him.

Gorgi’s Life lost more than ninety points, he had gone a bit further than he wanted, but the desired effect came to be.

The Gnome fainted.

Gabriel sighed, canceling the Fusion.

He and Liz exchanged a hard look.

“I could not leave him here to die,” Gabriel said.

Liz, on her side, nodded.

Gabriel could not know what Could be the effects on the Gnome. But it was certainly better than death.

Before leaving, they took all they could get from the shop, stuffing their Dimensional Bag and saving space while putting as many things as they could inside other bags before placing them in their own.

Then, taking Gorgi in his arms, they got out as fast as they could.

The next objective was The Cradle.

It was fair to say that the Seer had warned her apprentice, which meant that Dustille might have already left or maybe had gone with her husband at the inn.

There was nobody else he had to warn in the Veins.

The question was now, how to get there.

Each elevator he found had been destroyed. There was no way around it.

Then how had the Bastards got up there?

I need to find them and ask them directly.

And so he did.

Finding them was easy; he just needed to follow the sounds. And in a deserted place, it as the Veins were now, with the echoes of every little thing moving, rebounding in the empty corridors, finding his targets had been child’s play.

The Bastards were heading toward another of the Foxholes. He guessed they were trying to arm the weapons and failing at that.

Can we make it, Liz?

To be sure, he Analyzed them in fast sequence so that even if they felt it, he would have at least some time to escape if he could not face them.

But what he found did not suggest him to run.

The Bastards ranged from level twenty to thirty, and their stats were those of normal people.

Not buffed up stats of Guardian monsters, Champions, and so on.

Regulars.

This is getting weirder by the minute . However, the situation did come in handy to him.

Gabriel appeared in front of them at speed they would not be able to reciprocate.

“Hello there.”

They emitted strange sounds, probably their own language, but it was weird; Gabriel had learned from the Tyrant that the Anchor would solve the language problem; why didn’t he understand them?

As he saw them raise their weapon, though, Gabriel answered in kind and took the Kata of the Tempest, unleashing electric discharge everywhere, calming their combat spirit.

“Relax,” he said and mimicked with his hands.

“I’m not here to hurt you! I just want to ask questions!”

After a few exchanges of glances, one of them nodded; he put his bow back to where it belonged, leaning on his back, the arrow they had prepared was again sucked into their forearms.

However, even though he tried to speak, Gabriel could not understand them.

But they do understand me!

“Where did you come from!?” Gabriel asked, raising his voice uselessly.

They tried to tell him, but he shook his head, beckoning that he could not hear them.

So they pointed behind him.

Gabriel turned around arching an eyebrow, but it wasn’t the best of the indication right now.

“You’ll have to lead me there, mate,” he said, gesturing with his weapon toward him, then to the corridors, and finally to himself.

The creature understood after a few seconds of interpretation.

They nodded their consent.

This is going to be a long day...

***

“Couldn’t you build a faster device!?” Asked Varcivald, trying to get his voice higher than the fracas coming from both outsides and inside of the inn.

“Don’t ye dare quit now, Elf! We’re still halfway through!” Shouted the Dwarf back.

“Come on! One at a time! In a line! In a line! There’s enough time for everyone to leave!” Shouted someone from the Staff members.

Yeah, I seriously doubt that, thought Varcivald. But more importantly, how come I keep on acting as a kekkaist? It’s like I am one?

Once again, the conjoined effort led by Varcivald had raised a barrier strong enough to block any incoming attack from the outside. However, this time it was much more solid.

Or maybe it was because there was not such a concentrated mass attack from the Priests. The ones attacking the inn were few and sporadic. It was a big target, but nothing else. The Priests had much more sensible targets to strike down.

However, the main reason was another. The barrier was meant to restrain the wild blades of wind that could easily bisect something like the inn.

The Storm Dancer and his entourage had been unleashing chaos, and they just did not want to stop.

Someone else could swear they had seen Bastard, Yggdrasilian’s Bastards out in the streets. Varcivald had seen one himself.

“Master,” said Nikki, that with great relief from Vald, had convinced their parents to come to celebrate at the inn, “Do you think we’ll be able to pass through the portal?”

It was a good question. There were a lot of people at the inn, and each portal took more than a minute.

Varcivald had no idea if they’d all make it by the time the Storm Dancer came thrashing the inn out of spur.

“Yes, Veronica. We will. Now, don’t worry, and go back in line with Bart. It will be your turn soon.”

After Veronica left, Varcivald sighed.

“Did you mean what you said, Master Elf?” Asked a wood elf waiting in line. He had a big Dimensional Bag on his back.

I’ve seen him somewhere.

“Oh, I’m Long-Dozen, of the Glade. Best Leatherworker in town. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

“Varcivald Shurrien, of the Glade,” he answered, sharing with him a look that meant a lot of things.

Of the Glade. Banished. Elf but not considered as such. It meant a lot of things.

Dozen, Dozen? Where did I hear this name before?

Varcivald could not remember, but he was not really interested right now; he could feel the barrier waver for a couple of times.

The battle must have grown closer to the inn.

This is not good, he thought.

Not even Larry might be of help here, I think.