“What the heck is this?!” Veil yelled as the azure firebird flew near him.

“It’s my familiar!” Dallion yelled back. “Don’t hurt it!”

The last sentence was said moments too late to keep Veil from slashing through the creature. Fortunately, the blade passed through the flame, causing no harm whatsoever. Unphased, Lux perched on Veil’s head. The healing started immediately restoring the blond’s health in the familiar five percent increments.

A crossbow would really be useful about now, Dallion thought, while hacking through tendrils. In moments like these, he appreciated the raw destructive power the weapon provided. If Gloria had that, a few shots would be enough to half the gremlin in size. Instead, they had to fight it the old-fashioned way, and that proved challenging even for the three of them combined.

MINOR WOUND

Your Health has been decreased by 5%

A tendril sneaked past the edge of the shield, piercing Dallion in the right shoulder. It took a single slash to cut it off before it could do further damage, but it was evident that the cracklings were learning.

The trio’s efforts had managed to reduce the overall size of their enemy by a third, yet they had started suffering damage as well. To make matters more challenging, music attacks didn’t have the same effect they did to the initial crowd of gremlins. Apparently, size was a factor—the emotions vibrating within the monster were too strong, negating anything Dallion attempted. One way to change that was to stick his harpsisword in it and perform a music attack then, but he wasn’t going to; not after what had happened the last time.

Slow and steady, Dallion told himself.

“This thing is wild!” Veil grinned, pushing forward like a walking meat grinder.

“Don’t be reckless!” Dallion shouted, immediately becoming aware of the irony. “That isn’t an excuse to stop defending!”

Then again, a berserker with a constant life-gain was a vicious combination. In his mind, Dallion started going through possibilities. As things stood, the battle was likely to last at least another ten intense minutes, which was a lot considering the amount of effort exerted on everyone’s part. Gathering all cracks in one place was a good approach when it came to saving time, so now that they were here, the best way to continue was to split them up again. Dallion couldn’t manage that on his own at his level, but there was no reason for him to go at it alone. This was a team job and in a team job all it took was for one person to remain standing at the end for the entire team to win.

“Gloria!” Dallion shouted, pulling further back. “I’ll need you in close combat. We’ll do a combo.”

“Alright.” There was a note of hesitation in her voice, though not as much as the trust in him.

“Veil, same thing.”

“I’m already fighting up close.” Veil hacked at the gremlin’s leg, pretty much ignoring the tendrils piercing him. At this rate even Lux wasn’t enough to fully restore his health.

“Combo attack!” Dallion shouted, annoyed. “We go for the waist and split it in two. Wait for my signal!”

On its face the plan sounded absurd, and that is precisely why Dallion thought it would work. All he had to do was calculate the time it would take Gloria to reach the gremlin so he could coordinate the attack. Thanks to his improved mind, the calculations were easy and quite visual, allowing him to visualize the entire thing.

Nox, I’ll need your help on this, Dallion thought. When I tell you go for the gremlin’s face. Don’t worry about Lux.

Mrrow, the crackling said in return. If there was a way for a cat to make an evil grin while meowing, Nox had found it. Dallion definitely felt relieved, knowing the crackling was on his side.

Time to be a lure again, Dallion thought, and played a single chord on the harpsisword.

“Now!” Dallion shouted. “Shield, contract!”

Simultaneously, all three members of the group started their way to the gremlin’s waist. Dallion was no exception charging forward. Seeing that he was no longer protected by the shield, clusters of tendrils darted his way. This was precisely what Dallion was hoping for—more attention on him meant less on Gloria and Veil. Also, he had one trick up his sleeve, they didn’t.

Splitting, he thought.

In Dallion’s mind, three instances ran towards the monster, each following a slightly different route. A few of these instances suffered medium wounds, pierced by upcoming tendrils. Dallion simply chose the versions of himself that evaded the attack, then repeated the process.

Don’t rely on splitting too much, Nil said from Dallion’s awakening realm. There are situations in which there is no positive outcome.

Dallion didn’t reply. He knew that perfectly well, just as he knew that at the current rate, he would rather take a few wounds while charging than engage in a battle of attrition. Judging by himself, if he was already starting to get tired, there was no way the rest of his team would be any better. It was an all-or-nothing moment.

Seconds later, Nox made his move. Leaping from the spot he was hiding at, the crackling clawed its way up the mountain of a gremlin, headed directly for the eyes. As expected, the monster redirected all of its attention to remove the nuisance from its face. By doing so, it had left itself open.

The three awakened converged on the gremlin at almost the precise moment. Gloria was the first. Ignored by the gremlin until the last few moments, she easily evaded its attacks using her acrobatic skills, then slashed at its torso with a spin strike—apparently attack styles ran in the family. Dallion was second, cutting his way through the thicket of tendrils, then leaping clumsily up so as to perform a strike. Even with the vigorous training he had gone through, the lack of athletic or acrobatic skills was showing.

Veil was the last of the bunch. In his case, being the closest was a definite disadvantage. Having to deal with the gremlin’s kicks and punches, in addition to tendril attacks, made progressing forward next to impossible. It was only after Nox’s distraction that the opportunity opened to him, and naturally he took advantage.

Three series of slashes sliced through the waist of the gremlin from three different sides. Normally, the creature would close up the wound, merely decreasing in size. In this instance, Dallion’s feeling proved to be correct. The number of attacks combined with their intensity made it impossible for the wounds to heal. Within seconds the cuts met, effectively severing the top half of the creature from the bottom.

A chorus of roars and screams filled the air. Losing its intensity, the gremlin burst into hundreds of smaller ones that went falling to the ground like confused droplets of rain.

“Guard me!” Dallion shouted, as he played a chord on his harpsisword once more.

It took less than a moment for him to sync with the many enemies around him. All that was important now was for him not to be interrupted while performing his music attack. The nearby gremlins sensed that, but it was already too late—they could not reach him while falling, and Gloria had already switched to ranged attacks, killing off any who were remotely close to Dallion.

“A song of surrender,” Dallion sang while playing.

It was tempting to say that the lyrics of the song weren’t his best work, but then again, he had never composed a song before, so that wasn’t strictly true. The sound, on the other hand, were potent as ever, hitting the creatures like a hammer. The destruction of their merged form, combined with Dallion’s determination, rang to their core, replacing whatever emotions they had with petrifying fear. The vast majority didn’t even bother to fight, dropping on the ground like sacks of potatoes.

Dallion didn’t let his guard down, adding even darker notes to his music.

Surrender, he thought. Just surrender.

Whether or not the cracks had any intention of doing so remained irrelevant. Within seconds Veil went on his usual rampage, slicing through the clusters of motionless enemies like snow. Gloria initially held back, but seeing that there was no danger to Dallion, joined in as well. Even Nox started having his fun, clawing up a gremlin here and there.

Within minutes it was all over… and Dallion felt exhausted.

“Thanks, Harp,” he muttered as he stopped playing. This was the first time he had felt drained to this level in quite a while. Clumped on the ground, he remained still, trying to catch his breath. “Are you alright?”

A melody in his awakening realm stated that she was. Even so, Dallion continued to feel bad for hurting her.

Lux, spend some time with harp, okay? Dallion asked, just to be on the safe side. In theory, receiving damage within an awakened realm wasn’t supposed to cause any damage. However, that was no reason for him to neglect his head.

“Thank you too, shield.” Dallion tapped on the armadil shield. “We’ll have a chat again once I’m back in the real world.”

“Dallion?” Gloria approached him. “We’ve left you the last kill.”

“Oh?” Dallion looked up with a weak smile. “Sure.”

The last kill. Back in games, back home, the last hit meant everything when it came to rewards. From what he had seen here so far, a team win was a team win. More likely it was an honor thing?

“Sure.” Dallion stood up. Either way, he wasn’t missing the opportunity to find out.

The sole surviving gremlin was a short distance away, struggling in Veil’s grip. With the song of surrender ended, it had regained its viciousness, struggling to break free, though to no avail.

“Hurry up,” Veil grumbled. “This is uncomfortable.”

Here goes. Dallion took out Nox’s dagger and dealt the finishing blow.

Realm fully mended!

The STONE GARDEN is now flawless!

A sense of achievement filled Dallion. There was something about achieving a hundred percent that made his heart sing.

AREA MENDER

+2 MIND

Mending a major area is never a small feat. Remember to always be prepared. Some areas are more dangerous than others.

SPEEDMEND

+5 REACTION

It takes a certain type of recklessness to erase this many cracks in less than an hour. Nice join, just be careful not to make it your last.

Two achievements, including a fiver? This was definitely a welcome surprise. It was almost funny how Reaction always seemed to get bumped up, regardless of Dallion’s intentions. Personally, he would have preferred mind, perception, or the unknown stat, be he had no intention of complaining.

“Two of them? And a five?” Veil grumbled, annoyed. “Some people get all the luck!”

“It’s not like they would have been useful for you, idiot!” Gloria hissed.

That was all well and fine, but the way Dallion saw it, there were three achievements, not two. A third rectangle was also there, only this time its color was black with a single line of text.

NOX IS LEVEL 2

Nil, any idea how that happened? Dallion asked.

That is far from my area of expertise, the echo replied. Familiars increase in level along with their awakened. It varies from person to person, but usually for every ten levels an awakened levels up the familiar levels up by one. Since you made him a guardian as well, I guess there are other means as well.

Thanks.

That wasn’t much of an explanation, but what Dallion was more annoyed with was not knowing what a level two crackling was supposed to mean. Had Nox just become more powerful, or had he learned new abilities as well?

“How did you get that firebird?” Veil asked. “Any chance you can lend him to me for a while?”

“Familiars don’t work that way,” Dallion smiled. “And to be honest, I’m not sure. I guess I offered him to surrender, and he did.”

“Surrender, eh?” Veil made a serious face as if this was a groundbreaking concept. For him, maybe it was. “Maybe I should try that.”

“You never know.” Dallion laughed. “How about we get out of here? Let’s have something to eat. My treat. Then…” he glanced cautiously at Gloria “Then, we can continue exploring the city.”

At the end of the day, sacrifices had to be made.