Ralph was managing to make big holes in the Black Guards lines using the Hallowed Blade. Unfortunately, that progress was two steps forward and one back when ever a well trained Orc clashed with the front line. The same curse that inflicted him days prior was running rampant up and down the line. Whenever an enemy thought it was going to die it would activate that curse ability on its weapons. Subsequently growing strong and doing more damage before they fell. That strength came from the siphoned attributes they were getting from the curse. The followers of Hipag, especially the Black Guard, had access to terrible powers.

As the enemy ranks began to thin another stream of Goblins would rush out to bolster their ranks. Ralph noticed after being cycled off the line that Deacon was fighting with that combined monstrosity. He seemed to have accessed a new ability to combat it. His hands and feet were covered in pale green ice while the rest of his body looked like the pitch black night sky. All except for his hair that looked like floating icicles. That was the best Ralph could tell considering he could barely see him moving. There was some kind of distortion blocking his sight but only around Deacon. That was all the time Ralph had for checking up on his friend as he received a visitor.

“Ralph, we need to push them back to the doors. Magrumin Smitehammer thinks he can close and seal them with a skill, but he says he can only use it once. That priest of Hipag can’t get away though, so I need your squad to make an opening,” relayed Typhus, appearing from the shadows around them.

“We need more priests out here. Hipag’s Wither is making the line less effective. If we can get them clustered closer together, we can push forward. If we tried it right now this would break down into a one on one melee. That would be the end of us as we’d be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. Right now, battle tactics are the only things keeping us alive. Is Deacon done with that thing yet? Could really use some of that insane power over here,” answered Ralph.

“I don’t think you want that. He is destroying everything around him. That war golem is just scrap metal now. Alfred doesn’t seem to be able to move and is just keeping the Goblins from going around the slab. That was a bit of luck right there. It’s just large enough to obstruct a full rush toward the fort. I guess we have Deacon to thank for that as well. He’s going to be insufferable if we survive this,” stated Typhus, before Ralph got cycled back to the line.

Meanwhile, Deacon finally rendered the corpse of the cyclops unusable. The whole fight lasted fifteen seconds and with the Dimensional Viaduct eating away at ten percent soul energy per second, he only had twenty five percent soul energy left in the meter.

‘I think its time you released this form,’ said Sun Wu with the barest hint of anxiety in his voice.

“You and me both,” said Deacon.

Deacon attempted to force the separation of the two energy sources and failed. He tried to calm himself down with deep breathing only to cough up some ice shards. That cough cost him twenty percent of his health bar. That began to worry him. If he ever got stuck in one of these combinations, it might just kill him. Deacon slowly got his heart rate under control and began to think about the calm surface of a lake of water. Undisturbed and serene. The technique broke and he was left channeling the Black as his body turned back to normal. All but the whites of his eyes which were now a starry black surrounding green pupils.

‘That was close. You should probably practice that more,’ commented Sun Wu.

“I don’t think I want to do that inside of Alfred. That power seems to have an unintentional environmental impact,” replied Deacon, now standing in his small clothes on an open battlefield.

Deacon looked around him and was saddened to see two Deep Dwellers frozen in place nearby. They must have been coming to help but got too close to Deacon. Their arms were crossed over their faces as if they were walking against a stiff wind. Spikes of ice grew out from behind them as if they were statues swept over by a winter storm. Deacon’s shoulders slumped at the image before him. He looked over his shoulder to see the path he had come to get here. Everything between the war golem and the fight he had with the Te’Kathin was frozen solid. The ground was just an ice slicked trail of his passing. Now that he really looked at it, the metal of the war golem was warped and bent out of shape. It almost looked like the ends were flaking like worn out leather upholstery.

“I have to learn their names,” said Deacon aloud.

‘You have to put some pants on. They still need you further in. Warriors understand the hazards of the battlefield. Now get dressed unless you’ve got some fighting in the nude ability I don’t know about,’ harassed Sun Wu.

Deacon attempted to float his clothes out of his bag but stopped. The strap that held it to his side was hanging on by a thread. There were holes dotting the length of the strap. He didn’t understand why it was taking so much damage from the use of that ability before Sun Wu spoke up again.

‘That ability is Tier Four Arcanum. They call it dimensional here. It’s the level of Arcanum that dimensional bags are based in. Your instincts about not using the Viaducts power inside of Alfred were probably correct. If it can do this much damage to a bag enchanted by a dragon, imagine what it’ll do to dungeon cylinder. The good news is that you are compatible with Tier Four Arcanum. Sucks you can’t cast basic elemental magic though,’ teased Sun Wu.

“It’s not ideal. Get dropped into a magical world and only be given access to the most destructive types of Arcanum. I suppose I should be jealous of fireball wielding mages. I would say its ok but then things like this happen. I didn’t even know they were there. I’ll see if I can set something up for their families or something,” bemoaned Deacon.

‘Do you really think money will rid you of the guilt?’ asked Sun Wu.

“No, but if it helps them even a little bit. I might feel better,” replied Deacon.

‘Collateral damage. It’s unfortunate but if you are traveling the road of gods, you’ll need to make your piece with it,’ commented Sun Wu.

“Not sure I even want—” Deacon tried to say before a blacklight beam smashed through both frozen Deep Dwellers and slammed into Deacon’s chest. It left a scorch mark from just below his left nipple, across his abdomen and out of his right side. His health plummeted by another forty percent, leaving him at just seventy percent health. That one attack sent him sprawling to the ground.

Ralph and his team made a large enough hole that there was fighting on the right and left sides of the cavern. That left a winding pathway to the Witchdoctor and the small shrine. Two assassins stalked the tall goblin. They launched themselves from either side of Goblin as it took aim through a break in the fighting at a distant Deacon. The Goblins target was standing naked before two frozen Deep Dwellers.

Pumus decided to fire his attack right through them, hoping to kill the soul eater in one shot. He no longer cared what his masters’ wishes were regarding the champion. His lines were breaking, and the Goblin forces were being pushed back. Just as he fired, two assassins sprung from the shadows burying their swords into either side of Pumus only to be rebuked by a blast of unholy energy that smashed the shrine behind Pumus as well as threw them back fifty feet with horrible weeping wounds. Two small skulls on Pumus’s belt shattered that same instant. Pumus cursed the chances of two assassins striking him with death blows at the same exact time. It would take a very lucky someone to set that up intentionally.

“Call the rest of the hoard!” screamed Pumus, “Flood the cavern with our brood and finish off these Dwarves,” with those words’ horns began to blare from the entryway to the Deep Cavern.

“Too bad you won’t live to see the end of the battle you fuck!” hollered Typhus as he leapt from Pumus’s shadow dragging his blade up from the Goblin’s groin into his rib cage.

Typhus’s shadow-self appeared behind Pumus and plunged two shadow daggers through his back. The blades sunk deep into Pumus’s lungs. They began to inflate with blood as Pumus’s face screwed up in a rictus of pain. Typhus began carving his way around the Goblin’s body removing its ability to move under its own power. His shadow-self split off to keep the encroaching enemies back while Typhus did his grisly work. All Pumus could do was keep eye contact with Typhus as each blade severed tendons and ligaments.

“You can take this message to Hipag when you meet him. Don’t call us Dwarves!” yelled Typhus as he finally plunged his daggers into the Witchdoctors eye sockets ending the fight.