They teleported to the Desert Village, which was closest to the Crimson, but William was not expecting it to be so... close.

Already it had expanded, faster and farther than William could have imagined. In the nearby forest, he could see it had completely obliterated the sunflower perimeter Nissa, Hayley and Andrew had set up earlier. In the desert, it had begun spreading straight through the sand, turning the sand a mottled reddish-gray. It couldn't do that before. It had almost reached the sinkhole where they'd found the Golfer.

The Golfer... William tried to shove him to the back of his mind, but nothing could keep out the sight of Robyn's Muramasa skewering him like a Slime.

He spotted Akbar the Dye Trader ahead, staring out at the bloodied desert ahead, and walked towards him.

"This ugly brown and red is consuming the desert!" Akbar said. "It's draining the colour from my palettes!"

"How fast did the Crimson spread?" William asked.

"I was staring out at this view in complete peace not even a day ago," the Dye Trader said. "Now, it is revolting, repulsive, unpalatable."

It seemed like what the Dryad had been saying about the Guardian's defeat amplifying the Crimson was very true.

"If the Crimson's already spread this much, we're going to need to find another way of keeping it at bay," William muttered. "Otherwise it will take over your village."

"I could try buying some Purification Powder from the Dryad," Meg said. "That clears away the Crimson."

"You do that at some point," Sid said, then hefted his Pwnhammer in a large swing. "But for now, we've got altars to smash!"

Sid and Meg began heading towards the newly Crimson-ed desert, but something caught William's eye. Through the window of the Dye Trader's house, he spotted a familiar painting on the wall. Andrew Sphinx, the sphinx with the green cap on its head, which he had picked up from an abandoned house in the Underground Desert.

He turned his head to Sid, who now wore that same sort of green cap. Which, he remembered, had been among the loot of the Wall of Flesh.

Which had been brought forth by the death of Andrew the Guide.

He couldn't help but wonder whether this was a coincidence. Had whoever designed the painting known this would happen?

He shook the thoughts from his head and followed after Sid and Meg.

Earlier, most of the enemies of the Crimson had become relatively easy to take down with their powerful weapons from the Underworld, but it quickly became apparent that in addition to the Crimson's more powerful spread, new enemies were spawning that were so strong that even their 'powerful weapons' were struggling against them.

Crimslimes the size of boulders leapt towards them, accompanied by mummies wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. The Blood Mummies ran towards them faster than any other ground-based enemy William had encountered, and only got faster the lower their life fell. Not to mention the fact that both types of enemies had life counts of around 400 – again, far more than any regular enemy William had seen before. They also seemed to be armoured enough that it rendered some of their lower-damaging weapons useless. Sid's Minishark and Meg's Bee Gun could barely deal more than 1 damage per hit, though the rapid-fire nature of both weapons were normally enough to stun enemies, Meg's bees stinging them into submission, leaving them open to William slashing them to bits with his Night's Edge.

Once they got past the desert and into the Crimson forest however, the enemies didn't let up for a moment. Some Herplings, which were large, slug-like creatures with eyestalks, spikes on their back, and a jutting maw, began hopping towards them at insane speeds. Two leapt at Meg and began mauling her with blow after blow, causing her to cry out and quickly use her Magic Mirror before her life got ripped out completely.

"These buggers are too quick!" Sid exclaimed as he tried snapping his Firecracker whip at the Herplings. He tried using the rockets on his Frostspark Boots to stay in the air above them, but he quickly ran out of juice and fell back down into their eager jaws. Another spray of blue particles indicated he had also used his Magic Mirror.

William groaned and used it himself. He was teleported back to the Forest Village, where he found Sid and Meg, both of which had low life counts and haggard looks on their faces.

"These enemies are too strong for us," Sid said. Coming from him, that was saying something.

"We could try again, but with potions this time," Meg said. "Remember when I found a Lifeforce Potion in the Underworld? If we could figure out how to brew it -"

"The Guide's dead, Meg," William said.

Her face fell. "You're right." She reached to touch her chin. "There's a few potions I can think of trying. There's one type of herb you guys haven't got in any of your chests, from the Snow biome."

"What is it?"

"Shiverthorn."

Sid looked to William. "Let's try heading over there first. We can use the Pylons."

Meg nodded. "I'll get some other potions brewed."

William and Sid teleported over, but when they did, his gaze landed on the Dungeon in the distant fog.

The place where Robyn had first seen a Cultist.

And now she was possessed by them.

Focus, William.

The two of them headed into the snowy valley. Thankfully, the only enemies on the surface seemed to be the usual Ice Slimes. They quickly found some blooming Shiverthorn, which were flowery blue plants that grew out of the snow, but at that same moment Sid seemed to notice something.

"Why is the grass over there... blue?"

They ran over to the edge of the Snow biome, which bordered a forest. But now that forest had transformed.

The trees' leaves had grown more puffy, and now showing themselves in a smorgasbord of colours. Pinks, blues, yellows and more. A rainbow seemed to hang in the sky

"Is this the Hallow?" Sid murmured.

"It must be," William said. "The Dryad described it as 'an overcompensation of purity.' This type of purity is almost... it looks like a kid's picture book."

"Awesome!" Sid exclaimed, running forwards onto the bright blue grass.

"Wait!" William held out his hand. "Careful, Sid! The enemies here could be as strong as the ones in the Crimson!"

Of course Sid didn't listen. He ran straight at a glowing yellow energy ball with wings – a Pixie according to its label – and snapped at it a few times with his whip until it died.

"Hey, it dropped some Pixie dust! Now we're getting somewhere!"

"Sid, watch out!"

That was when a charging unicorn slammed into him. It had white skin, a pink mane and tail, and a purple horn that had embedded itself into Sid's side, knocking him away for 116 damage.

"Hey, get out of here!" Sid whipped at the mythical horse with his Firecracker. His Imps pelted it with fireballs until it eventually died, dropping its horn.

"We've got what we came for," William said. "If you get hit by too many more unicorns, you will die."

"Yeah," Sid agreed. "It's crazy how much damage these enemies are dealing now. It's like getting hit by a truck."

Except we haven't seen any trucks in this world, William thought sombrely. "Let's just get back to Meg with the Shiverthorn."

***

Meg planted the Shiverthorn seeds in some planter boxes she'd purchased from the Dryad, then used the plant itself in her brewing.

After a moment of crafting, she began distributing the potions among the three of them. Ironskin, Swiftness and Regeneration for all of them, Summoning for Sid, Magic Power and Magic Regeneration for Meg, and Titan for William.

"The Titan potion increases your knockback against enemies, so you can more easily keep them away," Meg said. "Sid, the Summoning Potion will let you summon one more minion than normal."

"Oh yeah!" Sid exclaimed, casting his Imp Staff once more. He now had five little fire imps flying around him.

"Lastly, I made some Calming Potions. These don't help us directly in fighting, but instead they decrease how likely enemies will attack us."

"Really?" Sid said. "How did you brew it?"

"With some Daybloom and some Damselfish that Robyn caught at some point," Meg said. William felt his heart crack at the sound of her name. "If we all drink one, hopefully it'll mean when we go back to the Crimson there won't be as many enemies attacking us."

"That'll make it easier to get to the Crimson Altars, so I can swing this bad boy!" Sid slung out his Pwnhammer, twirling it around like some superhero William felt he vaguely remembered from real life.

***

Meg's plan worked. A few enemies were in the Crimson when they returned, but they were able to easily run past them with their Lightning Boots and reach one of the tunnel entrances. The boulder it was situated in seemed even more menacing than before, like a mouth that would chomp down and munch them for breakfast. Would Sid's plan lead to this fate for them?

Once inside William sealed off the entrance, to prevent any enemies outside from getting in and attacking them, while Sid ran forward, Pwnhammer in hand. Without hesitating even for a moment he brought it down on the first Crimson Altar in the tunnel, which still had the blast radius around it from when Sid had tried to blow it up with a bomb. It cracked and burst apart.

"Your world has been blessed with Cobalt!" William heard a voice whispering in his ear.

"Cobalt? Is that a new ore to mine? Awesome!" Sid sounded the most excited he'd been for awhile.

He wasted no time smashing the rest of the Crimson Altars in the tunnel. The next brought the same ethereal message in their ears, except instead the world had been blessed with Mythril. The third brought Titanium, but the fourth went back to Cobalt, and from what William could tell those were the only three things that smashing the altars were going to bless their world with.

"Man, those Cultists aren't going to stand a chance against us now!"

"Sid! Watch out!" Meg cried.

He turned just as a dark, shadowy form floated out from one of the tunnel walls and slammed into him, knocking him backward and dealing over 120 damage.

William gasped as more shadow entities materialised around them, some dropping from the ceiling, some emerging up from the floor. The only distinguishing feature on each was a pair of glowing red eyes, reminding him horribly of what Robyn's had looked like when she'd turned. Their labels named them as Wraiths, with 320 health.

"It's an ambush!" he cried.

He swung his Night's Edge forward, his attack knocking them backward and causing them to float through the wall he was facing, but they just came back out again. Thankfully they weren't very fast, and William was able to take them out, the enemies disappearing into clouds upon defeat.

Meg seemed to be holding her own as well, though Sid was having trouble dealing too much damage to them. He had managed to knock them into one big group and the constant fire from his Minishark and Imps kept them at bay. William ran forward to help, and within moments the Wraiths had all been defeated.

"I think that was all of them," he muttered.

He broke through the stone barrier at the tunnel entrance and together the three of them ran out of the Crimson as fast as their boots could carry them. They headed for the Desert Village, which was just outside the borders of the Crimson-infected desert, and used the Pylon there to warp back over to the Forest Village.

"Suppose we should head underground to do some mining, fellas?" Sid asked.

"In a moment," Meg said. "We should prepare – wait." She pointed.

"Is that... the Guide?" Sid exclaimed.

William spun to where they were looking and gasped. There he was, wearing the same old shirt, the same blue pants, with the same hairstyle as before.

He cautiously approached him, and the man turned.

"Oh. Hello, William. My name is Jeff."