POV: Altair Oberin Lyrius

"[World of Thorns]" I yelled as I watched the beast approach.

It was a large lion with leathery, almost bat-like wings, a fiery red mane, fur the colour of sand and the tail of a scorpion with a stinger longer than I was tall. Its teeth were even longer than that and its eyes sparkled as if someone tried to start a fire inside over and over and over without any success. The manticore glared at me, baring its teeth at me with murderous intent.

But before it could charge at me the ground burst open and countless, far too many to count them in a reasonable amount of time, thorn tendrils appeared, rushing towards the ceiling, piercing through the body of the manticore many, many times, blood dripping from them. Before me a thick forest of thorn tendrils was formed, each thorn bigger than my hand, each tendril thicker than my muscular legs.

I smiled as I watched the light disappear from the manticore's eyes.

"Now that one, that one I like," I said as I let the thorn tendrils disappear.

The manticore corpse fell down to the ground with a loud thud. A puddle of blood formed beneath it, sticking to its fur.

'Nice, now we went through the entire manticore family... what's next, a dragon?' Ira joked.

"Don't jinx it," I said as I walked past the corpse in front of me and walked down the staircase which coiled around the stone platform I was on.

After following it for a while it led into yet another tunnel with the same engraved walls like every other tunnel in this damned dungeon. After walking for what felt like an eternity and a half I finally reached the end of the tunnel, finding myself in yet another chamber, although this one was different, it was much hotter and at the bottom of it I could see a massive pool of bubbling lava, it was much larger than any of the others and instead of another kind of manticore, there was a massive black pyramid with a blueish light glowing in the gaps between the different parts it was made from as well as from the strange engraved squares in some of the different parts. It hung right in the middle of the room, connected to the walls, ceiling and to the ground beneath the pool of lava by massive shiny black chains that looked thicker than some houses I had seen. A hanging bridge made from what looked like charred wood led from the end of the stairway I was now on top of the pyramid where I saw an opening.

"Looks like that's where we're going... how fun," I said as I approached the hanging bridge.

'Be careful, I can sense something down there,' Ira warned.

"Oh, another weakling? How great..." I said as I walked across the bridge, not giving a shit whether or not another disappointment would jump out from the pool of lava below.

'I don't think it's a weakling... that mana signature is familiar...' Ira said.

'It's a dragonoid,' Arva stated. 'And by the mana signature it's giving off it's not something we should be writing off as another weakling!'

"Then what is it?" I asked.

The beast answered the question before either Ira or Arva could. It was a massive snake-like beast with a horned head, a long snout, glowing orange eyes, dark red scales and black spikes covering most of its back going all the way to the tip of its tail.

'Oh, so it's a wyrm... and a dark red one at that...' Ira stated.

"Dark red? Something special about it?" I asked as I got ready for another fight.

'Dark red, conceptual colour of liquid flame, also known as lava. That thing is a coloured beast...' Ira said.

"So like Grudon..." I said to myself as I began smiling.

'You mean that bear you killed before I began living in your head? That thing was both poisoned and young, even if its conceptual colour was higher than this wyrm's... this thing is far more dangerous than you little white teddybear,' Ira warned.

"Good to know," I said with a smile on my face.

The dark red wyrm had jumped out from the lava pool, arching over the bridge and diving into the lava pool on the other side. Mid jump it spotted me, one of its glowing orange eyes fixated itself on me before it dove back in. Some of the lava splashed almost onto the bridge itself.

"What are my chances of killing that thing?" I asked.

'Barely existent...' Ira said.

"Good... good, then let's just run into the pyramid if things go wrong," I said as I activated my wood elven magic mark on my entire body except for my face.

At the same moment, I used everything I could. [Predator's Strength], [Predator's Agility], [Predator's Instinct] and I took one of the small vials of blood that Vera had prepared for me and drank all the red blood inside. I felt [Blood High] activate. Then I went deep inside and removed all of the mental seal I had put onto the Power of Wrath, releasing all of my stacked up anger that I accumulated over the past few years that I didn't have to use when slaughtering those pathetic soldiers.

Black and white mana burst forth from my entire boy, in a nearly flame-like shape it whirled around me, black with some white spots and lines in it, it looked wild. I then burst forth, catching the wyrm as it jumped out of the pool of lava again with my fist. It hit the wall seconds later with a loud crash sound and I landed on a small overhang as I watched the wyrm sink into the lava.

"One," I said out loud as my smile widened.

POV: Rudolpho Alami

The earth shook and I had to hold onto something as to not fall off the edge of the mountain pass.

What the...

When I regained my balance and the shaking stopped I shook my head and continued onwards until I reached a split in the mountain pass. One path lead deeper into the mountains while the other led further along the side of them, towards a ravine through which the other side of the mountain range could be reached. I felt like someone was watching me.

"Who's there?!" I asked loudly.

No answer.

"Who's there?!" I asked even louder and angrier.

No answer.

I immediately released all my mana pressure, crushing some stones around me and cracking the ground I stood upon. The earth shook with each step I took as I walked.

"Who is there?!" I asked louder than before, more commanding and with far more anger in my voice.