The dust must have hidden the approaching monsters from Rory and the others. Of course, they had lost track of the Neophytes in the chaos of the Stormscale’s assault, but it seemed the monster had been keeping them in reserve as though they were his trump card.

Which they very might be.

The nearest Neophyte snarled in Rory’s direction. He tried to see if he recognized the creature, if there was some sign of Dustin that he could pick up. There was nothing that informed him either way. It looked no different from the others. Maybe it should have relieved Rory that there was no clear proof Dustin had been fully transformed, but the threat of imminent death didn’t allow any relief to work.

“Can you turn them back, Stormscale?” Rory asked. He had raised his voice to make sure the monster heard him. “Answer me, Great Lord, and we might be able to come at some sort of deal.”

“Rory,” Viv warned. She tried to glare at him, but the approaching Neophytes kept her attention. “Now isn’t the time.”

“Join my ranks,” the monster said. “And I shall let these pitiful creatures go, in return for your servitude.”

The nearest Neophyte launched itself at them, but Trish was there to hammer it back with the haft of her axe. It snarled as it struck the ground.

Rory’s mouth twisted. “No deal, Great Lord. But here’s the thing—if you free some of the Neophytes, I’ll take off some of the ice keeping you trapped.”

“Rory.” This time, Viv did glare at him.

Rory bit back from replying. She wanted to fight, to kill the monster who’s caused so much suffering and destruction, and he understood that. He really did.

But that line of thinking also implied that the Neophytes before them was a lost cause. Rory wanted to be sure of that, first. Maybe he could Weave a Sigil from the Wyvern’s corpse that could turn the pseudo-monsters back to human, but it was a long shot.

As was any other option, to be fair.

“Will you truly free me?” the Wyvern asked.

It had to be genuinely considering Rory’s offer. All the Neophytes had paused their aggression, as though their master was keeping them calm. That, more than anything, proved that Rory was the one who held true power in the current situation.

The rush was heady. Not so long ago, he had been the one desperately seeking deals to keep monsters from tearing their heads off. With the Thunderclaw Knight, with the Wraith Lord, and now with the Stormscale Wyvern. Except, with the latter, Rory and his group were the ones with the least to lose. No longer did Rory have to be frightened.

He was the one with the power to deal mercy. Or not.

Rory swallowed, then settled himself. “I’m going to ask you just this once, Stormscale. If you won’t answer, then the deal is off, and you know what comes next.” He set his expression, forced it to be hard and unyielding. “Can you really reverse the process of transforming them into monsters?”

The Wyvern screamed out as loud as it could. Its words were halting as lightning arced over its body. “I need them. What is a Stormscale without followers? Without a community? You will never take my family from me.”

“Then you leave us no choice.”

“To do what? Kill me? Kill them?” The Stormscale made a dismissive sound in its throat. “You will fail, utterly. I will be protected and rise victorious over your ashes. Kill them, my family!”

The Neophytes surged towards them. Just as everyone was about to react in their own ways, all of their Sigils flashing as they prepared to defend themselves, Rory stepped forward.

“Don’t panic,” he shouted. “We’ve got this. Gather close to me. Now.”

With rapid steps, Viv, Trish, Ned, and Miles had gathered close. Their Sigils had all been activated—Viv’s red sabre turned them all crimson, Trish’s axe gleamed, Ned’s Burnwing appendages were about to fire, and Miles was courting flames in both hands. But that wasn’t going to help. Not if they wanted the ideal outcome.

“Viv,” Rory said. “Take Ned and Miles and teleport to the Stormscale. Take it out while it’s down.”

“And these ones?”

“Trish, Evelyn, we’re going to have to work together to stop them. I want them trapped but not dead.”

Trish glanced back at him. “How?”

Rory was glad why hadn’t been her question, despite her expression looking like that was what she really wanted to know. “Evelyn, I want you to use your Pyroclastic Hellfire to cover them up with lava. That’s when me and Trish will step in. While I cool your lava to solid rock, Trish, you’re going to use your Concrete carefully to hold them back. Just not too much, got it?”

“This is a crazy idea,” Trish said. “But I approve wholeheartedly.”

“Let’s go!” Viv shouted as the first of the Neophytes reached them. “Don’t die on me.”

“I won’t,” Rory promised.

Viv stabbed her sword into the ground, letting a pool of crimson energy spread outwards from her feet. Rory, Trish, and Evelyn stepped back as Viv, Ned, and Miles disappeared.

“Our turn,” Trish said. “Or Evelyn’s first.”

It would have been Evelyn going first with her Pyroclastic Hellfire if the Neophytes hadn’t already reached them. There was no space for her to use her Sigil without Rory and Trish getting caught up in it too. Thankfully, Trish stepped forward with her shield held aloft, slamming it into the first Neophyte to send it hurtling backwards.

As though her steel was liquid, the shield rapidly changed shaped into a large maul, the blunt hammerhead as large as Rory’s noggin. The monsters tried to claw and bite her, but with expert precision, Trish evaded and slammed them back with her new weapon. Had to be her Sigil of the Warrior boosting her innate talents.

But it worked, which was all that mattered. Trish had successfully thrown all the Neophytes back, granting Evelyn the space she needed.

It was her turn to step forward. With her hands brimming with fire and spitting lava, she thrust her fist outwards at the Neophytes. The monster had been trying to recover their posture and attack them again, but Evelyn had acted first. A stream of lava burst out of her hands and swallowed them all, the Neophytes shrieking in agony.

Rory smiled. It was working. The lava was slowing the monsters down for the time being, without hurting them overmuch, though they weren’t fully stopped.

That was where Rory came in.

He twirled and stabbed his staff in an upward motion, its eye sockets flaring with deadly blue light. His Harmonic Blizzard shattered outwards. Rory quickly chose the outer sections of its area of effect as the target of its destruction, while preserving the inner area that halted the lava flow. The Neophytes really screamed this time.

Rory recalled how one of them had been taken down far too easily with his Frozen Lightning. Maybe resistance to fire was traded with weakness to ice.

“Some of them are trying to escape,” Trish said. “But I guess this is where I come in.”

She advanced next, throwing blobs of concrete at every creature trying to evade out of their trap. It worked, to an extent. The monsters had their claws, their legs, and some even had their mouths all glued tight with Trish’s Concrete.

Rory shut off his blizzard. No point in freezing himself and the others when Evelyn’s lava had been turned to solid rock.

His attempt to observe the result of their handiwork was quickly interrupted by vicious screaming from farther ahead. Viv’s party had engaged the Stormscale. Of course, engaged was putting it blithely. With the monster down thanks to Rory’s frozen Lightning, they faced none of the troubles they had before.

Rory watched Viv raise her arms, hands clasped together. Her Omnipresent Sabre was gone for the moment, but when she summoned it again, it was enormous.

The blade rose several dozen feet into the air, the hilt was as tall as Viv herself and as thick as the Wyvern’s neck, and each quillon of the cross-guard had extended outwards until they stretched at least thirty feet on either side. Like the rest of them, Rory stared. It must have been a new ability of Viv’s Sigil of Omnipresent Sabre.

As the Stormscale screamed once more, struggling in its trap of ice and lightning in a desperate bid to get away, Viv slammed her enormous sword down. The slash was vicious and final. With a final shriek, the Stormscale Wyvern died.

Viv’s red light slowly puckered out and faded to nothing.

“They’re not returning to normal,” Trish said. “Do we…?”

She didn’t end the question, but Rory didn’t need to hear the rest of it. There was no point in it anyway. His mind was set. He turned to Evelyn. “Any ideas?”

“I’ll need to observe them closely for a while,” she said. “Good thing we’ve got them trapped.”

With the death of the Wyvern, all the Neophytes had stopped struggling. They looked lost now. Puppets who’d had their strings cut free from the marionette. It was as though the Stormscale Wyvern had been filling up their consciousness, and now that it was dead, they had no impetus to do anything at all. Rory wasn’t sure he was relieved by that.

“I’ll help,” he said.

They approached together, staying careful in case some last vestige of instinct drove the part-human, part-monsters to attack them. Of course, they were well and truly trapped with the combination of the cooled lava and the concrete. Rory and Evelyn couldn’t be any safer.

The Neophytes didn’t react when they were approached. Evelyn knelt next to them and started performing little medical tasks as though they were her patients. She tried to check their pulse, pressed her fingers on their neck and temples as though to measure their body temperature, peered into their eyes, and more.

She performed the same routine on most of the transformed people before returning to Rory. “Most of their physiology has completely changed. It’s not just a coat of scales and weird masks and gloves. It’s… real.”

“I figured that,” Rory muttered. “Do you know of any way we can change them back?”

Evelyn shook her head. She suddenly looked too tired, and it echoed within Rory too. His legs didn’t want to keep holding him up anymore, and his arms were decrying his continued grip on his staff. Sighing, Rory put the staff away against his backpack. Of course, that made his shoulders complain. There was no winning against his body.

“Maybe Weaving will help.” For just a moment, Rory realized how ambiguous he had sounded. He might as well have said he was Weaving the monstrosity off the transformed humans, which was likely impossible. “Weaving the Wyvern, I mean.”

Leaving the others behind, he headed over to dead Stormscale, where Viv, Ned, and Miles were heading towards them.

“How are they?” Viv asked.

“Still Stormscales,” Rory said “But not violent anymore. Not… anything at all. It’s weird. Can you see to transporting them safely? I don’t think we should leave them behind.”

Viv nodded. If any of them had arguments against it, which would no doubt be valid from a safety point of view, they held themselves back. Maybe they too understood that it was less a black-and-white matter of either taking the Neophytes or leaving them behind, and more a matter of staying safe while still doing their best to help the afflicted.

It was a good thing Rory didn’t have to splash into the Wyvern’s black blood. He could simply use his Weaving from afar, focusing on the severed head for the moment. Instead of getting any options, he received a single Sigil with the image of blue fire.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Stormfire. This incredibly potent fire grows stronger the more flames there are in its vicinity. Also has no trouble burning through inflammable materials.

[Cerulean V] allows creation, manipulation, and imbuing of energy within a 25-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Energy

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Cerulean V [0%]

Efficiency: Medium [45%]

Intriguing, but not the Sigil Rory was hunting for. That was fine. He’d been curious to see what sort of Sigil he got from the monster itself, and now that he had found out, he decided to focus on the specific requirement of transforming people to monsters. Surely, it could turn monsters back to people too.

When Rory turned his Weaving on Wyvern’s corpse with that thought it mind, he received a pure-white Sigil.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of the Stormscale. Channel the power of the beast that rouses a monstrous flame in your heart.

[Cerulean V] allows minor Stormscale evolution across 25% of the body and channelling Monstrous Conversion for 4 minutes.

Stats

Type: Evolution

Rarity: Mythic

Tier: Cerulean V [0%]

Efficiency: High [62%]

Rory grinned at the Sigil showing an image of a white scale. Monstrous conversion! That had to be what they needed to help the people turned into Neophytes.

He hurried back to the others, who were all working to pull their quarry out of their binds. They kept the Neophytes’ hands and mouths glued together, though. The potential danger hadn’t passed yet.

“Did you find something?” Viv asked, easily reading his expression.

“Yeah. I’ve got a Sigil that lets you control an ability called Monstrous Conversion. We’re going to have to test it out.”

“Might be better to get to the palace first. Find someone who has an open slot.”

“It’s alright,” Evelyn said. “I’ve got one free.”

Rory didn’t move. “No, Viv’s right. This is a rare Sigil. Mythic. We need someone who’ll focus on it and make full use of its other abilities, aside from the Monstrous Conversion.”

“Yeah, it’s like picking a class,” Miles said. “Sure, you can override it with a different Sigil, so you’re getting a different class. But you don’t want to waste a rare one on someone who won’t bring out its full potential.”

Evelyn sighed. “I concede, then. Let’s get back to the palace.”

As they made their way back to where Sue and Allen was guarding the vehicles, Rory paused when they reached the large mound of debris indicating the location of the former main school building. He wasn’t sure if this would work when it was all destroyed and collapsed, but it was worth a shot. So, he activated his Weaving once more and used it on the debris, focusing on the memory that this had once been a place of education.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Education. Set the boundary of your realm of learning. Let all be welcome and partake of your bountiful knowledge.

[Cerulean VI] allows 4 educational interfaces in a 10-meter area within Settlement’s Area of Influence. Each interface provides comprehensive information about 5 chosen topics per day.

Stats

Type: Settlement

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Cerulean VI [0%]

Efficiency: High [53%]

Rory smiled at his newest Sigil showing the image of an open book on a table. Another Settlement Sigil, just as he had hoped. Now all they needed was the very last one.