Cerion and I stood before the entrance to a large amphitheater, as my knowledgeable friend called it. We were located on the outskirts of the city, on a hill near the city walls of the city of tears. After deciphering the code on the barrier around the clocktower, Cerion and I had made it our mission to find and conquer the remaining two bosses, which had led us here.

Finding this place hadn’t been easy. Our plan consisting of ‘find strange place’ hadn’t been quite as thorough and well thought out as it had appeared at first, because we spent nearly six hours just walking around the city streets, in search of any realistic buildings and cautious of any monsters and traps. Apart from the empty city however, we hadn’t found anything. Thus, we decided to get on top of the rooftops and taller buildings to look for landmarks.

In the end, we marked the two most probable locations on Cerion’s map. One was a large arena that must have been used for sports and the like. The other was this very theater that we had seen from a distance, by virtue of its size.

The entrance was decorated sparsely, which had originally made us write it off as just another building in the city, but one detail that Cerion had noticed told us otherwise. On the door, the same music note as before was carved. At least, that was what Cerion assured me.

“This must be the place that houses the musical boss!”, he exclaimed.

I snickered.

“Don’t make the mini-boss sound so unintimidating, Cerion. You’re ruining my serious mood.”, I complained.

He flicked me on the forehead and opened the wooden gate of the entrance.

Cerion and I headed through the corridor to the actual theater itself, though it didn’t lead to an indoor area, like I had expected. Instead, we found ourselves in an open-air theater, where the forest outside of the city was visible behind the stage.

“Amphitheaters usually use the natural environment as decor for plays, and are also usually outdoors, like this one.”, Cerion explained.

As we walked out into the open, I took in the sights. The arena had a large arrangement of seats, that were carved into the hill itself, rather than held up on stilts. The arena could easily have seated thousands, and it would have, had this been part of an actual city.

The stage itself was just a raised wooden platform, with some stone archways at the back, presumably to act as decor and a background, though most of the stage opened up into the wide forests that were visible below the cliffs.

“Do you think we’ll have to deal with hordes of ghosts again?”, Cerion asked.

“I don’t know about hordes. How about we start with that one…”, I replied, pointing to the stage down below.

From behind one of the walls on the stage, a small blue ghost appeared. It looked like a miniature lady, wearing a long blue, somewhat transparent gown. She headed to the front of the stage, apparently not noticing us, and started to sing.

A heavenly voice echoed around the stadium, somehow just the right tone, the right volume, the right… everything… for us to hear. I couldn’t believe that a ghost could make such beautiful music, just for us! How generous of her! I had to… reward her? No wait, that was wrong! Was it though? As far as I could remember, that was right. Right? NO!

I grimaced and started to overload mana, though I turned off [Dark Form]s pain nullifying property with some effort. The immense pain of my body continually destroying and reconstructing itself flooded my senses, making my vision turn black and my legs sway. I held onto the balustrade to keep myself upright, but eventually, I was relieved of the strange compulsion that had taken over me.

For a moment, I deliberated relieving myself from the pain as well, but the risk of falling into compulsion was too great, so I didn’t.

Turning over to my right, I found Cerion, staring at the little figure on the stage in a daze. He had a bright smile on his face and was murmuring something about repaying her. I cocked back my fist and threw a haymaker in his face, sending him sprawling.

“What the… Arthur! What was that for!”, he shouted angrily.

“You were under compulsion, Cerion. The bitch puts you under compulsion by hearing the sound of her voice.”, I replied, crossing my arms.

Cerion shook his head and looked around in confusion. For a moment, he looked scared, before his face twisted in anger.

“Don’t call her a bitch, you asshole! We may be friends, but can you at least be polite to the people I care about?!”, he shouted.

Shit. It seemed that the compulsion had grabbed hold of him again. He wasn’t in constant pain like me, after all. Crap. That left me with few options.

I tried to explain myself.

“Cerion, she’s a monster. You don’t actually care about her…”, I replied, perhaps futilely.

“Don’t question my love, Arthur! What would you know about love? You don’t even love your own parents!”, he screamed.

My vision turned red, my hands clenched so tightly that I drew blood. I had told him about my troubles in confidence, and now he was using them against me?

No… focus. This wasn’t Cerion talking. I couldn’t blame him for his actions.

Still, the constant pain and now Cerion’s attitude were starting to become too much. The mana around me had grown so saturated during our conversation that the space was thrumming with power, all ready to be controlled by my aura.

I ignored Cerion’s outburst and shook my head. This only infuriated him more, though, sending him over the edge. He drew his sword and surfed at me on a torrent of water. I grabbed hold of the mana around me and made it tangible, forming a black platform below Cerion’s feet, sending him tumbling as he lost grip on his water. As he flew at me, I coated my fist in black mana, overcharged dark form and sent my knuckles into his stomach in mid-air, throwing him into the stone wall nearby. It cracked as Cerion’s figure hit it full force. He slumped down to the floor.

If anything, it seemed that the compulsion made Cerion less reactive and tactical. Usually, he would have never fallen for such an obvious tactic, nor would he have failed to see the black platform coming. With a snort, I activated aura step and dashed at the little ghost in the center of the stage. With several controlled explosions, I bounced through the air from place to place, leaving black shockwaves in my wake. Just a few seconds later, I came face to face with the cause of Cerion’s difficulties. I drew my sword with the intent to end it in one blow, and cut down using [Overloaded sword]. By now; the little whisp had long noticed our presence. Despite the black greatsword bearing down on it, it kept singing louder and louder.

I smirked, my smile turning into a grimace instead as my body flared in pain. If the singer expected me to fall under compulsion after all, it was fated to be disappointed. If the pain I felt right now assured me of anything, it was the fact that I couldn’t feel anything but that pain as long as it persisted.

Unfortunately, right as I brought my blade down, a broadsword appeared and blocked my attack. Cerion appeared. For a moment, I wondered how he had reached me so quickly, before my thoughts were interrupted by Cerion’s appearance.

His eyes had turned white, and blue ghostly fire appeared around the contour of his body. He breathed out white smoke, his eyes, devoid of pupils, wide open.

“Cerion? Are you okay?”, I asked, concerned.

Instead of answering, he groaned like a zombie. The little ghost floated over to Cerion and sat on his shoulder, acting like a little fae following a hero. Slowly, the melodious singing in the background faded away, despite the fact that she continued to open and close her mouth, as if she were still in the middle of her performance. Was she not singing out loud in the first place? Maybe she had given up on placing me under compulsion and now just wanted Cerion to kill me in her stead?

“So you’ve decided to place all of your eggs in one basket, have you? Are you confident your mindless puppet can defeat me, disgusting little creature?”, I barked out in anger.

This small creature had completely corrupted my friend, and was now even taking away his sanity. I grit my teeth and lifted my sword. I had beaten Cerion in spars before, I could do it again now that the stakes were raised.

Cerion bared his teeth and charged at me, swinging his sword in a mad flurry of attacks. I met his blade with my own and blocked his haphazard attacks as best I could, though I noticed that the weight behind his blows had significantly increased.

It was as if his strength stat had grown exponentially at the cost of his intelligence and dexterity. Unfortunately for him, for a swordsman, this wasn’t necessarily a good thing. The main advantage humans had over monsters was intelligence, after all.

I met him blow for blow in a dance of blades, which tore apart our surroundings because of the sword arcs we each deflected. Quickly, I started to gain the upper hand. My [Berserker swordsmanship], paired with superior skill and tactics was too much for the enraged Cerion to counter using just his improved strength. Usually, I had the opposite problem, because Cerion had practically grown up around swords. That meant that to win our spars I usually had to keep my distance and outlast his mana supply. Of course, there was one crucial difference besides the stat imbalance in this fight. In this battle, we weren’t fighting for first blood. That meant that my dark form could keep me alive as long as necessary before Cerion tired.

Like this we continued our clash for a few more minutes. I always kept the upperhand, but I couldn’t seriously wound him, since that might have killed him. Then again, small wounds weren’t bound to keep him down for long, so he always recovered just in time to save the little ghost that followed him around.

Eventually, though, our stalemate was broken by a change in Cerion’s tactics. He jumped back to make some distance, before lifting his sword to the sky and summoning a giant tidal wave, larger than I had ever seen him create.

Oh crap. That little bitch was giving him mana, wasn’t she? I summoned Revan and told him to try and block the wave for me. Hopefully, he would be too heavy to be swept away.

Right as I had this thought, the theater was filled with the massive wave, which crashed into Revan and me and threw us into the stone walls and seats down below, pulling us down with the current. With a scream of rage, I activated overloaded maelstrom, cutting into his wave, tearing it apart from the inside. After the mana holding it together collapsed under the assault of my dark mana, the wave lost its shape and collapsed as well.

Like a wet dog, I stepped onto the stage again, only to be faced with an enraged Cerion, charging up skill after skill and sending all manner of water projectiles at me. Most I could block with my maelstrom, but I was still left on the defensive.

Unfortunately for the little ghost, Cerion wasn’t the only one with a nearly unlimited mana supply and varied ranged attacks.

I stood steadfast, and stopped blocking the incoming projectiles, instead diverting all of my attention to counter attacking. I could heal through the pain, while my opponents couldn’t. With a smirk, I started my berserker, overloaded sword synergy, sending arc after arc at my opponent. Right as I did so, Revan reappeared from the crater he had left on the theater floor and ran at Cerion, swiping his claws at the little ghost on his shoulder. Momentarily, Cerion was forced on the defensive as he had to protect his mistress. Sensing a chance, I apparated right behind Cerion, in mid air. As I fell, I rematerialised and slashed into the little ghost, separating it in two. As the little woman shrieked, it turned into water, which splashed to the ground as my sword dug its way into Cerion’s shoulder before I could redirect the swing.

“Shit!”, I shouted in fear.

Revan and Cerion separated from their clash, and my friend slumped down to the ground, like a puppet that had its strings cut.

“Shit, shit, shit…”, I murmurred, as I took out a health potion and force-fed its contents to Cerion.

Quickly, his wound stopped bleeding. I put down a bedroll and laid him onto it, before checking my system notifications to make sure the battle was over and there were no further threats.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Overloading Death Knight] level 47!

Reach level 50 to advance to tier 3.

Stat points allocated. 5 free stat points per level up awarded.

Satisfied, I breathed out a sigh of relief and sent Revan to scout out our surroundings and act as a guard. I fed Cerion another two health potions and silently watched as his wounds slowly knitted themselves together.

Hopefully, he would be himself again when he woke up…