This time, their trip through the passage realm was without any cataclysmic incident. No world-reaping eidola, no zombie smuggler crew doing stuff where they shouldn't. The passage to the next realm was right there, offering them succor from the dry heat and ashes. But they failed to find any deviants for Robert's beast bond spell. The normal salamanders weren't worth the effort.

"Are you sure we should go on without you taming at least one of the creatures?" Noah asked.

Robert felt conflicted. On one hand, he was eager to depart this shitty dry sauna. On another hand, he could tame and release monsters on the next realm. He decided to go with the convergence point of all his options.

"Yes. Even if the deviant gives me enough ether to manifest a prime, I wouldn't—"

Amanda shrieked, drowning the sound of electricity running through her body. Once she calmed down, she spoke. "Wait. Do you think you'll manifest a prime?"

Her eyes sparkled and Robert didn't know if it was because of excitement or lingering electricity. The amulet was tempering her body with something similar the thunder nerves tempering technique Lightning Archs used. It accelerated reflexes, granted protection form electricity, shock, and paralysis, and reduced the effect of any spells or powers that attacked the nervous system. The amulet was set to spend its charge as fast as possible. As Amanda's resistance to lightning improved, the shocks it delivered grew in strength but also drained more ether from its stores. Too bad the amulet was single-use and bonded to Amanda. Robert wouldn't mind some electrical torture for these benefits.

But then again, he remembered what affinities he had and what benefits they granted him. No, he couldn't complain. Though maybe they could go back to that forge and convince Noah to make one such amulet for him. He only needed the right trophy.

"Only one way to know," Robert conceded the point. "Come, let's find us a deviant salamander."

Noah nodded. They left the passage behind and walked to the nearest lava pool.

*

*

Monster tamers usually took their time and forged bonds of trust with the monsters, befriending them and forming mutualist or commensalist bonds that lasted until one of them, usually the monster, died in combat. It took months to tame and bond with each monster. one of the factors that made this avenue to power one of the least traveled and less desirable than others. Even though taming strong monsters granted one's stars more Ether than killing said monster.

Robert's method, however, ditched all these "power of friendship" bullshit. He saw a normal salamander, got into range, blasted its brains with mind blackout, and seized control of the creature's mind. With access to its memories, he brainwashed the salamander into believing Robert was its best friend, skipping the months of bonding, then cast his version of beast bond.

For outside observers, it took less than thirty seconds to tame the salamander. Its minuscule brain offered only a token resistance and its mind was so simple and bare that Robert found it easier to make the salamander think humans were its clutch-mates, piggybacking into the salamander's innate sense of family than to make it understand concepts like friendship and cooperation.

Bang. Salamander tamed and added to the Pokédex. I mean, the bestiary.

"What name are you giving it?" Amanda asked, already going into her novelty rush mode.

"Her. It's a girl. Why don't you name her? But I'm releasing her before crossing the passage."

"Maria," Amanda said with a dark voice. She was staring at the salamander.

It made Robert wonder if there was a story behind that name. "Who's Maria?"

"Maria the salamander is a fat bitch and a smoldering pile of garbage," she replied without making eye contact.

Robert glanced back at Noah. The professor shrugged and shook his head as he took a step away. Robert thought he got the message loud and clear. Leave it alone. He gave Maria an order to go deep into a lava pool and stay there for at least three days. Maria turned around and lumbered back into the lava.

"Look at her, going away with the grace and fashion sense of a dinosaur," Amanda drawled.

He felt curious about the story behind that but his wits told him to not ask. Instead, he released Maria the moment the salamander sank underneath the lava.

"Let's go," he told Amanda.

"Sure," she said, back to her normal self. Amanda studied Robert's face.

"What's the matter?" Robert asked.

"Nothing. Never mind."

Was she baiting him into asking? If she wanted to share the story, she would, right? Robert had no idea what game she was playing but he figured out the only winning move for him was to not play.

They left the fiery realm behind and crossed the passage.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

*

*

Wood creaked and leaves rustled. Scarce rays of sunlight filtered through the impossibly high canopy. The wooden platform where the passage gate rested swayed slowly as the massive trees moved. Thunder roared above in the distance and the faint sound of crashing waves came from below. The air smelled of pine, seafoam, and ozone.

Around them, trees and tree branches with sparse foliage was all they saw, until the brown bark blended together forming what seemed like an impenetrable wall. Above them, the dark green underside of the leaves, and branches that intertwined into a massive mesh of tree limbs, making it impossible to tell where one tree ended and the next started. And below... Robert didn't dare look beneath their platform. The cold damp air carried by strong winds and the distance to the crashing waves was all he needed to know regarding how high they were. Since the glider incident, Robert had a thing with heights. Especially if it meant gravity would force him to take a dive.

Then they heard the screams. Sharp, primal screeches as brown figures moved along the branches.

"Incoming monkey troop," Noah announced. "Everyone to their battle stations. Amanda, you protect the left flank. Robert, keep them from coming in from the right. Freddy, use your illusions to make duplicates of us all. And I'll keep them from dropping from above.

Amanda sowed crown-of-thorn bushes in an arc. They took root in the wood underneath and grew strong and sharp. The bushes thickened into a wall ten feet deep and rose five feet from the ground. The sharp barbs were laced with a paralytic poison, courtesy of the evolution trait of her plant growth spell.

Robert dipped into his essence reserves and summoned two void sentries, positioning them so they had only a foot of overlap.

Two copies of each human appeared, taking fighting stances. Freddy remained in his non-detection mode.

Finally, Noah drew a rune made out of tangled gray fur. He pushed against the rune with his palm, charging it with essence.

"Unnatural disaster: Nova York rodent infestation."

That made Robert stop and sputter. With wide eyes, he glanced over his shoulder at the ridiculous spell unfolding before him. A ring of power exploded and shot out, covering the ground, and going around their barriers, wrapping around the tree branches and continuing to move up and down the trunk. Then he heard a cacophony of squeaks drown the howling of the monkeys as thousands of rodents of all shapes and sizes burst forth from the bark. Most of them were rats and mice of distinct species but also a few squirrels, porcupines, beavers, and even some capybaras.

Nova York was a city on the east coast. One of the few that survived the rift cataclysm, rebuilt over the corpse of the old world. The island of Man Ratter had deep catacombs where a whole civilization of vermin thrived. Some say a passage to a realm of rodent monsters lurked in its heart, spawning millions of the creatures. Yes, the city had a massive rodent infestation problem but why equate that to a disaster?

In any case, the rodents rushed the nearby monkeys. Monsters met summons in a ruinous ballet of claws, teeth, fangs, and death. Monkey monsters covered in rodents lost their balance and fell off the branches in droves, dead bodies flew in complete disorder and blood splattered everywhere in a putrid red rain.

It was so surreal that Robert only remembered to close his mouth when he tasted the coppery blood on his lips. The carnage was endless. Monkey monsters rushed down the branches. More rodents birthed from the cracks in the wood to run over the tree limbs and engage.

"Low essence," Noah announced.

It was no surprise. Such a massive spell must've cost a ridiculous amount of essence. But what baffled Robert the most was that it must mean Noah had the Animal affinity to summon the rodents. Just how many affinities did the teacher have? All of them? That was preposterous. Or maybe... Every spell he cast was a disaster, either natural or unnatural; could it be that Noah didn't have any of these affinities he used to cast such spells but instead had a talent that allowed him to conjure disasters of any affinity so long they were disasters?

Either the talent or the mask. It had to be one of them. Or maybe... Maybe Noah had a unique spell, just like Robert's mind blackout. One that defied comprehension.

In any case, unraveling the teacher's secrets was a fool's endeavor. He had to focus on survival. The blood bath had ended and while dozens of monkeys had perished and plummeted to the crashing waves below, more were coming, hell bent on avenging their brethren.

Robert only had a third of his Essence reserves to work with. He decided to use his spear and fight at the edge of his shield voidlings. When the monkeys entered range, he started to cast drain essence on them, bottoming his essence.

While Noah's rodent summons kept the monkeys busy, Amanda had flanked her thorny barrier with two prickly pear plants. Pacing herself, she let her talent take the brunt of the effort to grow the pears into menacing bombs.

Noah took a rapier out of his storage ring. The blade was blue-silvery steel and a white metal formed the cross guard. Small gemstones dotted the metal hoops, shimmering dimly when the scarce rays of sun hit them.

The monkeys arrived, a tidal wave of frenzied fur, muscle, and anger. Heedless of their own health, they threw themselves at the crown-of-thorn wall, expiring and getting their corpses pressed deeper into the plant as the ones behind climbed over the dead corpses and got themselves impaled by the thorns above. On Robert's side, the monkeys ran into the open space near the two black spheres.

Tentacles lashed out at them. While such attacks only left superficial wounds on the dense, hard, and resilient salamanders, on the flesh-and-blood monkeys they were devastating. Arms and legs were severed as the voidlings whipped the monkeys. Chests caved halfway through. Skulls offered pitiful protection to the monsters' brains. Corpse after corpse fell at the edge of the shield voidling range as the second wave of monkeys jumped over them or kicked them in.

The voidlings ignored the dead corpses. Only those alive and with intent to harm were targeted. The dead bodies of the second wave of monkeys moved on driven only by their momentum. The void tentacles erased matter but didn't push the enemies back.

Robert conjectured that a sufficiently strong and stalwart enemy would tank through the tentacles and reach the other side relatively unscathed. But it would need to be a threat sturdier than the salamanders.

He heard Noah's rapier whistle in the air along with the side of metal scraping on bone. He couldn't spare a glance to his side as he planted his feet and swung his spear at the monkeys that reached the halfway point through the shield voidling's corridor of death. Prickly pear bombs detonated. Dozens of monkeys grunted in agony. Some cactus spines flew across the shield voidling area, drawing tentacles to slap them out of existence. The far end of the volley hit the monkeys that were rushing to the edge of his section.

Then he saw himself rush at these monkeys and run past them, brandishing a sword. Robert froze for a moment but remembered. Freddy was using his illusions to misdirect and confuse the monkeys.

With the essence he got back from drain essence, he cursed the monkeys further away, on branches that would take them around a loop to reach the passage platform. Robert lunged and stabbed a monkey next to his left shield voidling. The monkeys were overwhelming the tentacles with sheer numbers.