The dagger, still held by a glowing white thread flashed toward his neck and just like Edwin had done, Ethan dodged at the last minute, bending his knees for a fraction of a second as the blade whistled over his head right he dove in for a tackle, only for Edwin to fly back as if he’d been pulled away by a fly line. Ethan cursed and checked on the lord to find him approaching, teeth bared, but that didn’t slow him down and instead, he rose in the air with a flap of his wings and pursued.

  Even if he had to fight between the legs of the creature and risk getting trampled, he wasn’t backing away.

  Edwin dropped back to the ground, face waxy as he found himself slowly being sandwiched between the inner wall of the cavern, Ethan, and the lord, and it seemed that he finally began to realize the gravity of his situation but before he could rally, Ethan pressed on. With another beat of his wings, he accelerated and dismissed them, diving down at a wide-eyed Edwin with the lance primed.

  Edwin threw himself to the side, barely dodging as the ground erupted after him in a shower of stone, and out of the dust, Ethan came out, flames blazing around his claws. The lance was already gone, replaced by his enlarged claws and he swiped at where he assumed Edwin was, but he hit nothing.

  Edwin had already recovered and backed away, but he could only get so far considering the cave wall was at his back. He took a first step to the left, clearly intending on creating distance between himself and the oncoming monitor, only to be thrown violently back when Ethan’s fireball detonated at his feet, cutting off his retreat. Fire engulfed both of them, and Ethan realized he’d never felt as alive as right this moment. When he saw everything happen in slow motion. When there was a goal in front of him and a monster at his back.

  Edwin stumbled out of the flames, singed, and looked down just in time to see the attack coming, but even when he tried putting his hands forward to guard himself, summoning a barrier-like network of threads, it was of no use. Ethan was too close already. His footing was too secure, having shrugged off the explosion. And what could threads do against a burning, sharp set of claws?

  Five black talons as hard and sharp as steel tore through the haphazard net and found Edwin’s guts in tiger-claw strike, driving deep into his stomach and lifting the man off-the ground from the force of the impact, and now that Ethan finally had gotten his opening, he made sure to put all of his weight into the strike, punching with as much strength and momentum as his Might allowed before he wrenched them out.

  Edwin stumbled backward, surprisingly still on his feet. He looked down at his torn flesh then up at Ethan before his eyes focused on the lengthening claws that were going to finish him off.

  A shadow fell on both of them and Ethan, glancing back, realized that even for a small second, he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone in the cave. The lord was looming, and its jaw was glowing as it prepared to blast him point blank with an explosive glass-bomb, only for a fireball to hit the creature on the side of the face and cause its head to snap to the side.

  Ember dropped down to the ground, fur all puffed out, and her eyes met his. “[Hurry up and finish him! I’ll distract it for five seconds. Five! You hear? Then I leave!]”

  Ethan didn’t waste the opportunity the Ignisra was giving him, but he was still amused. Hadn’t she said she didn’t want to deal with the lord barely moments ago?

  No matter, he thought, and he exhaled.

  “You don’t have to do this,” entreated Edwin, face pale as he took a step back and found himself against the wall once more. The five punctures were still bleeding, even though he’d tried to apply the odd threads to seal them off.

  Ethan looked down at the palms facing him and at the blood covered them. He narrowed his eyes at the bit of magic he was sensing in Edwin’s hand as he answered, assuming the magic was connected to the dagger laying behind him, which he’d bet Edwin was about to try and stab him with it and just to be safe, he made sure the back of his head and neck were well protected. “I know I don’t have to. Just like you didn’t have to blackmail me and leave me for dead. Just like you didn’t have to prey on vulnerable kids and ruin their lives to do your dirty work. And just like—”

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  Edwin crooked his finger and snarled, and as expected, Ethan felt something stab into the small of his back, but it failed to pierce through the scales before it clatted to the ground a moment later. Still, he immediately sensed the numbing feeling that tried—and failed—to spread out of the wound.

  Without pausing, he continued speaking and with one swift movement, he parried a claw strike at his eyes with his left hand, and with his right, he cut three-quarters of the way through Edwin’s neck. “—you did not have to use other people as fodder. But here we are.”

  Blood fountained out of the severed arteries, and Edwin fell to his knees, eyes wide as he tried to hold his bleeding neck, and it would be the last image Ethan would have of the man before he drowned him in fire until the notification arrived, and until the ground was glowing.

  You have defeated [Human (I) - Level 57]

  You have reached Level 55. 1 stat point awarded.

  The ground shook, and Ethan looked up in time to see Ember be blasted into the wall with a nasty hit from the lord’s tail, right as more monitors began showing from behind the lord.

  “Ember!”

  The cat struggled to her feet, unsteady like a newborn kitten. “[I’m… okay. Are you done? Can you take over.]”

  Ethan breathed out a sigh of relief and threw a fireball at the lord’s face, drawing a throaty rumble from it as it turned its head toward him while he picked up the two glowing little gems and shoved them in the dimensional pouch tied around his thigh. “[Got it. I’ll take it from here,]” he told her. He leaned over and touched the crisped remains of Edwin, and a little storm of golden fragments rushed into the runic marking on his left hand.

  Shardpurse: 187 fragments collected.

  Ember limped her way toward the exit, and as Ethan stepped up to the lord, chest and spirit as light as a feather, he sent her one more message.

  “I owe you one, Ember.”

  The cat’s ear flicked back and forth and when she disappeared around the exit’s corner, she answered.“[Yes, you do,]” she said, and Ethan grinned. “Thank you! I mean it!”

  With a quick glance at his interface, and with a beat with his wings, Ethan flew back and away from the lord as he assigned his new point to Toughness, and when saw that the little crown had reappeared next to his name, he chuckled.

  Hello, you. Back on top, I see, he thought as he dismissed the interface and eyed the lord looming in the distance. Its mouth was already glowing, and Ethan quickly looked around for cover, but he found nothing.

  Or…

  Ethan hung in the air and waited, slowly exhaled as he pointed at the lord with a claw.

  Now, how am I gonna do this?

  Ethan strongly believed he could do some decent amount of damage if he used the Zenith State, but would it be enough?

  The lord spat out another exploding ball of shards, and Ethan shot a homing [Crystal Shard] at it, detonating it half-way between them as he let himself drop to the ground while surrounding himself with the wings, wincing when a handful of shard tore through it and poked painfully into his scales.

  Ethan lowered his forearm from his eyes and hopped up in the air once more, re-summoning the wings as the one he had got shredded.

  Piercing through its head with Zenith State might be enough to down it… but if that doesn’t work, then I get out and come back another time.

  Ethan beat his wings and surged forward, right as the smaller monitors surged forward to meet him, swarming around the lord in a maddened frenzy and as one, all of their eyes fixed on him. Then they all opened their jaws.

  Ah… shit.

  The air ahead of him turned into a sea of glitter as dozens and dozens of crystalline shards, forcing Ethan to drop down and fly closer to the floor. He winced when a few shards found his back and arm, but they weren’t enough to completely stop him. With the air rushing in his ears, he closed in on the lord, claws at the ready, and when the creature saw him coming, it just took a step to the side and twisted its body.

  A giant tail whipped out toward him, ready to splatter him against the wall, and as he watched the trunk-like limb full of scales and muscles rush toward him, Ethan thought of a single word. The same word that the gnawing, pulsing energy in his chest was impatiently waiting for.

  Ignite.

  Like a match thrown over gasoline, the energy spread through his limbs in an instant, igniting his horns right as his claw met the lord’s tail.

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