Meanwhile, somewhere else, in another realm.

*

*

"Karla, watch out!" Joseph shouted as the barbed tentacle shot toward the party's Wind DPS Arch.

They froze as a well-timed wave of mental pressure pushed down on them, stunning the Earth defender long enough to let the tentacle do its job.

It lacerated Karla's metallic armor, cloth padding, and abdomen. The gash was more than a handspan wide and the woman's entrails spilled down on the dirt.

"No! Pyroclast Grenade!" Joseph screamed in horror at the sight of his lover's organs on the ground. Using both of his stars, he conjured a massive sphere of barely condensed lava full of pressurized Magma and shot it at the Mental deviant monster.

The creature dodged by jumping backward but it was too late. The pyroclast's delicate shell cracked upon contact with the ground, catching the cat-like creature mid-air with a jet of superheated, pressurized liquid rock and gases. Its skin boiled, no, sublimated instantly, cooking its flesh in seconds. A charred, dead husk fell on the other side.

Joseph's vision swam as he spent too much essence on this reckless attack. Yet, all he could think was that Karla would still be alive if he had splurged on his essence and killed the Lash Tiger earlier.

Hunters couldn't help but try to save essence. They never knew how many challenges they would need to face. Joseph's overpowered spell could very well mean they wouldn't have enough Essence to overcome their next fight. And yet, without Karla, the fights would last much longer, exhausting all of them.

He didn't care if his rationalization was pure hindsight. He rushed to see if he could do anything to help his lover.

"Karla!"

She coughed. "Don't cry for me. You need to be strong and stalwart as a volcano. We will always have Pearrees."

It was cliché. But Karla always liked to quote her favorite movies.

"Heals? Anyone? Pats?" Joseph begged as he tried to push Karla's entrails back inside her abdominal cavity, dirty and all.

"Don't," Trevor said, holding Pat's arm. "You can't save her even if you blow all your essence."

Pats clenched her hands around her staff. Trevor was right. This would would take too much out of her to even fix and it wouldn't guarantee Karla's survival. She was losing too much blood. It was a fatal wound, through and through. With Joseph blowing half of his total Essence on that overpowered meteor, they couldn't risk wasting more resources. Yet the thought of leaving her friend for dead cut through her heart.

Trevor's gasp tightened to the point it started to become painful. Pats focused on that feeling, letting it distract her from reality. When it didn't work, she couldn't help it.

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"Cure Light Wounds!" She cast and let the faint golden light descend upon Karla. The weak spell did little to help her but would at least soothe her pain.

"Thanks, Pats," Karla said as she coughed a mouthful of blood. She went silent, then quiet. Her heart no longer moved and soon the open arteries no longer leaked blood as her heart ceased to pump it.

"Khaaaan!" Joseph howled.

The Wind warrior started to convulse as a dark aura enveloped her. Pats vomited. Trevor sensed a foreign and malignant essence invade him. He ran away, wailing in pain and despair as his lifeforce was drained at a rapid pace. Joseph shook where he was kneeling, his mind going into a state of shock.

Pats tried to resist but the Unholy energy quickly canceled her Holy essence. She felt drained and weak.

As the other three had their lifeforce stolen, the massive wound on Karla's abdomen closed. The vegetation around them also wilted and died.

Joseph was the first to expire. He didn't resist and had the lowest resistance to Unholy magic. Pats succumbed shortly after. Trevor ran until he got out of the range of the spell. He didn't stop or even though about returning. Though his fate was sealed, he couldn't suspect the evil he carried within himself.

Invigorated by the stolen lifeforce, Karla stood up and cracked her neck.

"It seems one of my insurance policies paid off," she said in a low, croaking voice. She checked her body and her Ethercosm. "Wind, huh?" Not bad.

He saw the shells of his abilities orbiting a dark purple and faint green pair of stars. Karla's abilities too were there, all his.

The entity formerly known as Damien grinned. This was the first time in the seven decades since he ascended to an Arch that his talent worked.

Seeds of Unholy Rebirth did exactly what its name hinted. He could spread seeds that would latch onto his targets. These seeds leeched a minor, imperceptible amount of lifeforce and stored it within them. At the beginning, they never did anything more than that, though he learned he could tap into that stored lifeforce when he reached two stars. The conditions for their activation, Damien's death, never came to pass.

These seeds would only then germinate inside a weakened or dying Arch and use the stored lifeforce to heal the body and revive Damien's soul, consuming and overtaking the target's soul. He gained the victim's talent, abilities, and affinities for as long as he inhabited the body. The seeds would remain dormant if the target was still strong enough to resist the usurpation of their souls.

The only way to eliminate Damien was to find the seed in everyone he implanted it in and remove the lingering curse. Over the last seventy years, he spread thousands of them.

His soul started anew, usurping the target's stars. His three stars, which he took so long to develop, were lost. He was a parasite inside Karla's soul. Though he was also what kept her body alive.

He was no longer Damien. Karla felt that losing her stars was a small price for true immortality. She also decided to forget any plans of vengeance against Damien's killers. Not only that Void guy was scary, she doubted she could defeat him weakened as she was.

She thought it was better to give up on revenge and leave Damien's status as deceased.

Her three-star talent evolution was gone. It allowed Damien to track the location of nearby seeds he implanted. Only the one Damien gained at two stars remained. He could access the stored lifeforce in a nearby seed and harvest it.

Karla's talent was called Triple Kamaitachi. Whenever she damaged something with a slashing attack, another two slightly stronger wind blades would attack the same target.

Now, she needed to find Trevor and kill him. If Damien were to live a normal life as Karla, no witnesses of her rebirth could remain.

She activated Zephir's steps and dashed above the forest floor.

After killing Trevor, Karla intended to see how living as a woman worked out for her. She intended to shed her past identity as Damien for good. At least, until she reached three stars once again. It would take a few decades.