For the first time in weeks, for the first time in hundreds of mornings, I woke up to something different.

The first and most relevant thing to note was the darkness, since it was like a dim black wall shoved into my face the second I opened my eyes. It was earlier in the morning, or perhaps nighttime, and the ambient lighting the dwarves used was a fraction of what I was used to. The second and more painful difference was that I was alone in bed. I had been sleeping without a shirt for a long time, but only now did I truly feel naked; the lack of warm bodies on either side of me was much more stark than the cold air itself. It was funny how you could live life alone for so long and think nothing of it, but the second you had any reprieve from isolation, all the strength you had built up was lost in an instant.

Third and maybe the most actually relevant, a fully armored Rose was leaning over the bed with her helmet under her arms, lips pressed against mine to wake me up with a kiss. How the turns have tabled. It was a business-like kiss done with purpose, and upon seeing my eyes open she leaned back.

"Good morning," she said calmly.

"Any particular reason you chose that method of waking me up?"

"By my count, you have done it to me somewhere in the order of literally over a hundred times. I supposed it was only fair that I return the favor at least once."

"Fair," I replied, and stared up at the ceilings to let my eyes adjust. I had barely been able to make out her pretty face as it completely blocked my vision, but it slowly came into focus, and I noticed her flicking her eyes to the foot of my bed. I followed her eyes, and noticed there was an unusual bump at the end.

It was then that I realized my lower half was much, much warmer than usual. I flung off the covers and discovered Sophia curled up between my legs, her body forcing my legs to separate. They weren't spread far enough to be uncomfortable, but they were spread far enough that my muscles instinctively moved to close my legs, putting her in a pincer that all but forced her body heat into me. To her it must have been like being in weighted blankets from both sides, or something. The change in position was curious, but as a master of dog psychology, I could deduce that she had submitted so completely to my dick that she willingly abdicated her claim to my left side so she could more fittingly be closer to it where she belonged. The fact her position was perfect for casual morning blowjobs did not even need to be spelled out.

Feeling slightly awkward with Rose just staring down at us judgmentally, I reached down and rubbed Sophia's hair to wake her up. She grumbled and curled up tighter. Eeeeh. The only milk-bone I had to bribe her into waking up was one it would take too long for her to finish with, considering how pressed for time we were, so I threw delicacy to the wind and just sat up, picked her up, sat her on my lap, and did the usual kiss to the best of my ability. She was as light as a feather thanks to her dainty elf-ness and my muscular, STR-buffed arms.

Her eyes fluttered awake and I pulled my head back, not wanting to get too absorbed. She looked around, getting her bearings, then looked down. Admittedly, I hadn't thought this entirely through. Boxers + erection from kissing + baby doll dress + sitting her on my lap = incoming incident we didn't have time for. I picked her back up and set her down while pretending not to notice her womb tattoo starting to glow.

"Okay," I said, standing up. "Rose, status report. What time is it? How long ago did you wake up?"

"It's as deep in the night as it can be before it turns into morning. I woke up thirty minutes ago."

"Thirty minutes? What took you so long?"

"I was contemplating the sudden rush of memories. There was a lot to take in."

"Contemplating what about them, exactly?"

There was a pause. I squinted in the dark and saw that her cheeks were faintly flushed beneath faded streaks of tears. It seemed to have been quite the tumultuous thirty minutes. In a way, I had to commend her for getting back in control after thirty minutes.

"I believe we have no more time to waste. The queen could be abducted at any moment," she said after a moment. (I had given them full information on everything I knew last loop, so they were completely up to speed. I included that she was the High Priestess of the Heir Cult and that we had a brief, tame sexual encounter in one loop while I was tortured. It wouldn't be honest, otherwise.)

"Yeah, yeah." At the very least, if we were too late due to her 'contemplation', she would presumably remember next time not to 'contemplate' her memories for thirty minutes before coming over here. "And you?" I asked, looking at Sophia.

"Hmph! I'm not mentally weak like a dumb human. I got in control of myself after twenty minutes," she said. Her voice oozed with the pride of an elvish princess, which almost disguised the fact she was in the process of stripping to get changed while her pink womb tattoo glowed. What a little jokester. She had been faking sleep the entire time.

I had to respect that Sophia was wasting no time with getting dressed, though. I got out of bed and started putting on my armor too. Hopefully this would be a simple case of interrupting Medea's merry band of brainwashed dwarves and ending this in one swift fight. The thirty minute time delay was slightly concerning, but at most it would be a dumb inconvenience.

Once dressed, we strode through the halls of the dwarven palace, heading right to Queen Daiya's bedroom. I naturally knew where it was by now, and normally there would be two guards there. When we finally turned the corner we did indeed see two guards. I held up a hand to signal for Rose and Sophia to stop, then eyed them from afar. I didn't want to have to kill them if I didn't have too.

Eventually, the door opened and Duran came out. He was wearing an odd metallic helmet, which I just noticed the other guards were wearing as well. The other dwarves nodded and went into the room, then came out carrying Daiya along with yet two more dwarves, for five total so far. Daiya had on a helmet of her own, which made me finally realize they were probably psychic-dampening helmets to stop the psychic control that gems could exert over ores. (That felt like ancient wisdom; I really hadn't spent much time actually interacting with dwarves in this loop. That godforsaken dungeon took all my time.)

Interestingly, the question of "do dwarves sleep at all" was somewhat answered by the fact that she had her eyes closed. For some reason, she was completely nude, with her ornate, dark robes nowhere to be seen. Instead she was stretched out like an extremely long board, which was an ample description because her gray chest was completely smooth. She didn't even have nipples, which answered the long-standing question of whether dwarves had nipples despite being made of rock. It was comforting to have a clear and direct answer to that. Her crotch was smooth and rounded too, and for the record, I didn't even feel creepy looking her over ,since she hardly felt naked at all. It felt more like looking at a chunk of stone shaped into a flat facsimile of a human body. I supposed that was what happened when you magically formed your body out of stone using earth magic and the psychic power of your gems; practicality trumped sensuality.

What tore my eyes away from Daiya was none other than Medea herself leaving the room. She pointed down the hall in our direction and started walking. Well, that was nice timing. We just had to pop up, explain to her that she was living life incorrectly, and then this would all be settled.

We waited a minute, then I motioned for us to step forward. We all stepped out in full view of the hall just as Medea's gang was nearing the corner. She froze, then balked at my presence. The dwarves were unmoved, but froze as well to match her.

"Wh... What are you doing here?" she asked me in particular.

"Sorry, but it looks like you never had a chance." I pointed my sword at her. "Put Daiya back. If you kill her, the Goddess kills me."

She narrowed her eyes. "Do you think verbal trickery will make me stand down, after coming so far? No. I will save you, Heir, no matter what it takes." She flicked her wrists, and a staff with a pulsing black orb appeared at its top. Mysticism? She gestured at the dwarves. "Plan D. Get past Floor 2."

Aha, the crafty bitch. We certainly would have been fucked if they got past Floor 2 of the dungeon, but little did she know we were actually loopers that already dominated that place top to bottom. Honestly, it kind of made me realize how overpowered time looping really was. Even the most genius and elaborate plan with 100 steps and contingencies absolutely fell before the might of a little simple time travel, assuming there were no ridiculous closed-loop paradoxes ensuring failure. Medea genuinely had no chance to win from the very beginning. The only hope one had to even resemble a threat was to know about the looping ahead of time and do something batshit insane like use what floor tiles the looper steps on as an RNG seed for an even more elaborate plan with 1,000 steps, but that was already leaving the realm of what humans could reasonably do. We loopers were invincible.

Medea muttered a chant with her staff extended and shot a ball of void at Rose. She managed to dodge it, but I recognized that. It was... It was the Expert-level Cursed spell Soul Blast, a ball of pure void that pierced physical matter and did direct damage to souls. It... It did... direct damage to souls. It. It could possibly destroy souls entirely, I wasn't sure.

.........

Oh fuck.

Chaos ensued as the dwarves rushed away and I cursed myself for not realizing the significance of her knocking me out with probably Miasma last loop. We were dealing with an Expert-level Cursed mage here and... and we had forgotten to bring Hilda, holy shit. I had just forgotten about her entirely. I felt like an ass, but figuring out how to deal with Medea blasting around soul-destroying orbs would have to come first.

I moved to leap forward and maybe cut through her staff with my sword, but found myself stuck to the ground. Soul Sitch?! The lights on the wall! She took some steps back while launching more orbs at Rose and Sophia. I could move again, but the second I tried to step forward she Stitched me again, continuing to back up slowly. She couldn't do both at once, but she was blocking me from moving any significant distance, and was pulling quite a nasty trick where she Sitched Rose and Sophia immediately before launching a Soul Blast at them. It was like being frozen in place then immediately seeing a bus barreling towards you. It was a testimony to their skill as fighters that they were actually doing them all; Rose, though her sheer skill as a warrior, and Sophia, through her natural daintiness and dexterity as an elf.

This couldn't go on, though. Medea was obviously just buying time for the dwarves while also hopefully killing her competition for my dick. Even in a high-octane battle, her cultish brain was working through high-level plans to ensure she got the future she wanted. I could have blasted her in the face with Elemental magic, sure, but I didn't want to kill her. I got the feeling she had some contingencies that would really fuck shit up if she died, and I did not have confidence I could launch a fireball that both knocked her out and didn't burn her to ash.

I looked around, then had an idea. Right as I felt the Stich leave me, I jumped into the air so I wasn't touching my shadow at all. From there I launched a high-powered Thorn Whip into the ceiling, driving it right through the stone through sheer force of INT, and then swung towards Medea before letting go. I covered so much distance so fast I actually ended up flying over her.

Immediately, she cast a huge Blind cloud that consumed Rose and Sophia with no hope of being dodged. The two of them were likely out of the count, unless one of them had anti-blind magic or something. That left me and her; she had likely held off on using Blind for this purpose.

"I am doing this for your sake," she said, turning around to face me.

I waved a hand. "I know. I talked to your past self."

She frowned, then nodded. "Aaah, I see. I never did have a chance."

"You did pretty good considering you were up against the Heir backed by the Goddess, anyway."

"I suppose I should not disappoint at the end, then." She readied her staff. "You only truly lose when you give up."

Damn. She was truly a shining beacon of idealism. I could only hope to be half as determined as her. Even in the face of literally impossible odds, even without the ability to loop herself, she still—

Rose hit her in the back of the head with the hilt of her sword. Medea fell to the ground like a rock, lacking any exponentially boosted STR or END.

"Oh, she seems to still be moving," Rose said. Medea was not moving. "I should make sure she's knocked out." Rose stomped on her back with her metal boot, which obviously would not knock her unconscious, and if anything ran the risk of waking her up. "Hm. She is simply not staying down."

"Stop," I said as Rose lifted her boot again. I couldn't even pretend to doublethink here. Her seething jealousy was like a neon flashing sign pointing to herself like 'I am mentally disturbed.' Or in love. Was there a difference in this case, really? "I think you got her. Why aren't you blinded?"

She tapped her armor. "Paladin armor. It's naturally resistant to Curse Magic."

"Ah."

The Blind cloud faded, and Sophia was on the ground, flat on her face. I seemed to recall Blind removing all your senses instead of just sight, which would explain that. I walked over and picked her up under my arm, then started jogging down the hall to catch up with the dwarves. Rose followed. It didn't actually matter too much if the dwarves got past Floor 2, since there wasn't really anywhere for them to go from there, but the longer they had Daiya the more we risked them throwing some spare acid onto her or something.

We were leaving Medea behind both to save time and because it was too risky to kill her. We didn't know how she had fucked with the dwarves, and she had strongly implied last loop that they absolutely would not be mentally healthy without her. Killing her risked breaking down the entirety of the dwarf hold, depending on how deep her tendrils had gone.

We soon reached the elevator that led down to Malgreed... or rather, the elevator shaft. I peered down it with Rose. It looked like they had left someone up to cut the cables or something. It certainly wasn't coming back up.

Stolen story; please report.

This seems like a good time to talk about elevator facts.

Modern elevators on earth had a lot of safety features: multiple cables, tracks on the car and counterweight, safeties that slowed them down if moving too fast, the lock on the pulley at the top, etc. Those were all irrelevant, because the dwarves had actively destroyed them, if they existed at all in dwarven elevators. What mattered was the soft cushioning placed on the bottom of the elevators, which I had certainly seen during my many times going up and down this elevator in particular. Landing on the elevator down below would be quite a staggering fall, but there would be at least some leeway that made it softer than landing on pure rock. It was time to test out how high my STR and END had really gotten.

"Rose, hop in," I said while curving my right arm into a circle the same way I had my left arm circled around a still-limp Sophia. She was faking it. I was letting her.

Rose looked down. "I am... wearing a full suit of plate armor."

I made a swishing motion with my circular arm.

"Sophia is tiny compared to me.

I intensified the swishing.

"Ah, what the hell."

Rose stood a bit behind me, then bent over by my side. I circled my arm around the waist of her armor and lifted her up. She was tall enough that her feet almost came close to dragging against the ground, but luckily I was taller.

"I feel ridiculous," she said.

"Don't worry. Soon you will feel terrified."

I jumped into the elevator shaft. It might have seemed like a stupid and poorly thought out decision, but I could feel the strength seething within me. I remembered Duran trying to knock me out from behind. I remembered smashing a foot through the palace floor. Something deep within told me I had reached the requisite power threshold to jump down an elevator shaft by virtue of my own raw strength. Sophia lacked this reassurance, however, and so started shrieking while we plummeted at terminal velocity down a fairly massive elevator shaft which we knew would end on a metallic elevator. Rose, for her part, was merely blinking rapidly as the air buffeted us.

My legs hit the top of the elevator and smashed the entire ceiling panel down. It crashed into the floor of the elevator, and I felt the metal shattered beneath me as I sunk through maybe one foot of metal before coming to a stop thanks in part to the sizable cushions softening the blow.

"See? Perfectly fine," I said while pulling one of my legs out of the bottom of the elevator. Shards of metal were flung everywhere, but luckily they couldn't pierce my skin.

The sound of droplets hitting metal could be heard. I elected not to be rude and ask Sophia whether she had pissed herself or just gotten that wet in an instant. Neither answer would be one she wanted to admit.

After climbing out of the shaft, I set them down and we started jogging to the dungeon. They had somewhat shaky legs, but knew how critical this mission was.

It occurred to me while we jogged that the dwarves would have had a much higher chance of getting away from us if only they had kept going through the tunnels instead of hiding out in the dungeon. Medea couldn't have known that, though; Floor 2 should have been nigh-impossible for us to follow them through, while she could... while she could...

Teleport them out of the room with the circle?

Oh shit. By "get past floor 2" did she mean "take a wrong teleporter and wait for me to get you"? Technically we could just follow them into the wrong room if so, but that would really be putting ourselves at her mercy. Worst case scenario, she could wait like days to starve us out or something, who knew.

Things just got a lot more serious. We had to stop them in Floor 1. Luckily, Floor 1 was such a drag they were almost definitely still stuck there, even if they had cut off the safeties on the elevator and blasted down as fast as possible. It was just a question of where.

We reached the dungeon and threw the door open. There was no debris from fighting, since dungeons absorbed corpses and basically anything left on the ground. There was no movement anywhere we looked.

"To the staircase room," I said, and luckily I didn't have to say which one that was. Them actually remembering things was convenient. The direct path to the staircase only had eight encounters, and we speedran through them, by which I mean I blasted their fucking faces in with high powered magic while sprinting with Rose and Sophia barely keeping up. We reached the staircase room, flung the door open, and... Nothing. There was nothing inside.

Which was good. No staircase meant the switches hadn't been flipped. All we had to do was stay by the door and they couldn't come inside.

I took a deep breath and waited. We all kept our weapons at the ready. We waited, and waited, and waited. And waited.

...........

Where the fuck were they?

"I believe they may be hiding in one of the other rooms," Rose suggested.

Sophia sniffed the air. "I definitely don't smell a trace of them here. They never came to this room once."

Hmmm.

"Alright," I said. "I hate to say this, but... I think we may need to split the party. They might just leave if we stay here, but we can't leave the exit unguarded, so..."

"What do you suggest, then?" Rose asked.

"I'll run like a maniac across the floor and check every room, starting with the three rows that have switch rooms. You two stay here and murder anything that comes by."

"That's logical. Do you trust us to beat them if they come?"

"Of course," I said. "You two are the craziest bitches I know." Who would I be if I didn't trust them to fuck up some rocks?

Rose smiled. "Good luck, then."

"Th-That's right, go! It's not like we need you to win anyway!" Sophia turned her head pouting.

"Adios."

And I was off. I jogged down one row to reach the third row, then sprinted down it, throwing open doors and looking for dwarves while using my Athletics milestone to go even faster. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I reached the end of the row not finding any.

Next row. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I moved down again.

Nothing, and... There. They were in the switch room on the first row, which was the second from the left. I thought it over and concluded they must have been following my strat for going to the rightmost switch, then moving left for the rest. That would have stalled them for a good number of minutes if they mixed up a room or got slowed down by encounters.

I stepped inside and quickly realized the situation was more complicated than I had expected.There weren't just five dwarves; there was a battalion of fifty-some Excavator dwarves, with Duran at the front, facing me and the door. Had they met up in the caverns? No matter. Daiya was among them.

I took a step towards Duran and held out my sword towards him. "Has it really come to this, Duran? I thought you would catch the culprit with me, not join them. Save the world, not destroy it! You were my brother, Duran. I loved you."

He shifted his axe. "I don't even know who ye are."

A tear trickled down my cheek. I looked away so he wouldn't see it. Life was cruel, and fate even crueler, for it loved nothing more than to make the closest of companions fight against each other. It delighted in breaking the bonds of brotherhood and shattering fellowships. There came a time when every Hero had to strike down someone he once loved as a brother. It seemed that day had come early for me.

There were no more words to be said. Duran and I had chosen different paths through life; I, an immortal demigod trapped by time, and he, a brainwashed dwarf that had possibly permanent brain damage. We both knew no moving sentiments or pleas would settle this conflict. Only action. Our roads would never cross again, and our goals would never align, as the stars once had so long ago when we first met. Through death do we part.

I first walked towards Duran, then powerwalked, then sprinted, speeding up gradually over time. My sword hung behind me as I prepared to open with a sideways slash.

He walked grimly forward, distancing himself from his troops, sensing my radiating power from afar. Maybe.

Our blades clashed in the middle of the room; sparks flew as my sword grinded against his axe. It was a contest of strength.

I couldn't help but laugh mirthlessly at the irony. "Do you recall Derra from when we were young, Duran? Our childhood friend? He grew up to be so strong, so important. The High Builder! His last act was to have this very sword forged for me. I think he knew, Duran. I think he knew what you had done, and he wanted me to give you peace. To use the blade he forged to pierce your heart so you could join him in dwarf heaven. He's waiting for us, Duran! He's waiting!"

"What the fuck are ye talkin' about?" Duran said through gritted teeth. "And me name is Guran!"

Whaaaat...

Had I just mixed it up early on, and nobody mentioned it? Had Duran, I mean Guran, just felt too awkward to mention it whenever I slipped up in front of him? Damn. Fuck, this was embarrassing.

"Guran! You were my best friend!"

"Ye can't save it now, laddie!"

"Shit."

I pulled back, ending the clash, and kicked him in the stomach. The force of the kick shattered his torso and sent him flying back like a bullet. He crashed through all five rows of ten dwarves, killing everyone he made contact with, breaking apart more and more until the rocky dust of his corpse hit the wall and vanished into nothing. Luckily, he didn't hit Daiya.

With the emotional duel with my corrupted brother complete, I strode forward to massacre the rest of the army. The problem with grinding and overleveling was it kind of took the drama out of encounters if you let it.

I leapt up to land in the middle of the fifty next to Daiya, making sure to kick the ground as I landed to form a shockwave that knocked them back and sent Daiya tumbling to the ground. I used the moment of confusion to pull the helmet off her head. She had been sleeping, but as soon as it was off, her eyes blinked open. She looked at me impassively, then stood up slowly. Being like nine feet tall, she towered over me when fully straight. She didn't seem embarrassed to more or less have her bare, unmarked stomach and crotch in my face. If I knew more about dwarven culture, maybe I could have said that clothes were just decoration and they had no shame towards nudity since rocks were all around them anyway, but I had no idea.

"Hrm," she said, voice completely flat. "The effect has not worn off. I cannot psychically control them."

That was not really the voice of a kidnapped queen deep in an enemy dungeon that was naked and possibly about to be murdered, but dwarves were hardly emotional to begin with. No point for a gem to go around getting hysterical at every road block along the way.

"It's possible they're just too brainwashed for your psychic powers. There's a nutty Cursed mage that's been corrupting your hold.

"I see," Daiya replied. She looked down at her thin arms. Immediately I was struck by the fact gems were largely in power due to their psychic ability, and not their physical combat potential.

"Don't worry, milady," I said, tipping my plate helm. "I'll save you."

She eyed me impassively, then gave a slight nod. "Kill them."

The question of whether murder was morally acceptable or not was a difficult one, and while Jeffrey's haunted soul appeared to me in visions every night, I felt completely justified in this situation. The all-powerful matriarch of a closed society built around psychically controlling a lower caste was giving me direct permission to murder that caste en-masse for treason. There was absolutely no moral ambiguity here; by the power invested in me by a gem, these dwarves were as good as dead, and with no blood on my hands, literal or otherwise. That made this easier.

I extended a hand and decided to use Rock Blast for the ironies. I shot rocks out of my palm like a machine gun, hitting the ores jutting out of their foreheads one by one, killing most of the lesser mooks instantly. Twenty silvers survived, each strong enough to either deflect my rock or just survive a direct hit to the forehead. Daiya stepped back to lean against a wall and watch impassively.

It struck me, as I started cutting through the nearest silver dwarf with my sword, that I really hadn't spoken to Daiya much. She was literally abducted out of the loop before I woke up, and the dungeon didn't even have anything to do with dwarf society. I barely knew her. That said, I had to say I liked her already. She had without any emotion ordered me to slaughter fifty of her people, then proceeded to watch me do exactly that, also without emotion. If Rose was an ice queen that was becoming increasingly emotionally and mentally unstable with time, then Daiya was just flat out the "literally made of rocks" queen that lacked any emotions for anything at all, except maybe annoyance at her time being wasted. I liked that. I felt like I could relate to that.

The silvers put up a better fight, but it was still a mostly "one hit an they're done" affair. Guran had been the strongest of them, fitting for the High Excavator, and even he shattered beneath a single kick. I warned you about exponential growth, bro. I told you dog! These dwarves were just not ready for my immensely high post-grind stats.

It was when only five dwarves were left that the door was flung open. I looked over, expecting Rose or maybe Sophia, but it was... it was Medea. She was bleeding from the head and staggering a bit, but she had caught up. God damnit. I made the rookie mistake of turning my back on the body. When the fuck will I learn not to turn my back on the bodies?

"You," she pointed to me. "I will free you from the Goddess. You will be free." Her voice was a bit shaky, maybe due the blood loss, or the possible concussion from Rose's pommel strike.

I was touched by how much she cared for me, but there was such a thing as being too overprotective, and that line was crossed when you started destabilizing governments and plotting the assassination of monarchs. Kindness could kill, as they said. They were talking about situations exactly like this.

"You've lost, Medea. All the Excavators here—" I chopped down the last of them. "—are dead. The queen is safe and sound, de-helmeted. You seem to be on your last rope. How can you recover from this?"

"I just need you. I didn't want to have to do this to you, of all people, but..." She pointed her staff at me. "Tamashii wo kiero. Soul Wipe."

The beam of light traveled from the staff instantly, targeting my soul rather than myself. I had never seen this spell, and Hilda had certainly never mentioned it. It slammed into me and I fell to my knees from the force; if not for my high WIS, I might have been wiped then and there, but I managed to keep my focus and mentally resist the beam. It was digging, digging into me, but I held it back, just barely.

What the fuck? I knew she had some kind of soul-altering spell, but I thought it would involve some sexy hypnosis, or at least physical context. A beam of heat-seeking light that wipes souls or whatever? That's insane.

Medea's staff wavered as she kept the beam going. "Soul Wipe is a lost spell of the soul manipulation arts, which was forbidden and scorned for reasons you can guess. All practitioners were executed and spellbooks burned, leaving only scraps such as this staff for those willing to find them. I may be the only Cursed mage alive who can cast this spell, especially given its nature—it deletes aspects of a soul. You have to add what you want back in the normal way. Delete loyalty, make them loyal to you. Delete their reason for living, give them a reason for living. It's not easy. But I suppose it is the job of a cult to guide lost sheep, even if at times we must make them lost ourselves."

"What... are you... trying to... delete...?" I forced out. Jesus, I couldn't move. Maybe I could outlast her MP though. Just focus.

"I think anything to do with the Goddess will be a good start. And then we begin anew."

I gritted my teeth. At this point, I was pretty sure my WIS would hold out and she wouldn't actually be able to delete my soul, but I was basically paralyzed here, and anything could happen while I was down. Maybe Daiya would get recaptured. There was only one thing I could do: Power Through.

I pounded a fist on the ground and forced myself up, despite the beam of light slamming into my skull like a battering ram. I stood on wavering, shaky legs, but then took a step forward anyway.

"Impossible," Medea breathed. No doubt she had wiped thousands of souls on her quest up to becoming the High Priestess of the Heir Cult. That would have infuriated me due to its sheer injustice, but she had wiped millions of my sperm off her lips in the past after sucking my dick, which more than cancelled the soul-wiping out. Still, I had to advance. I had to take her down.

"DAIYA WILL BE SAVED!" I roared, in hopes that dramatization would give me extra power, like in a movie. "IT IS MY MISSION, MY QUEST!"

"This cannot be...! Nobody can resist the soul arts!"

"You underestimate my dedication! If I can't save Daiya, I might as well just die myself!" Because I would literally die an hour later!

"You just met her...! You know nothing about her!"

That was true. I was more or less outright lying here. Very astute. However, I wasn't going to win this without friendship power of some kind. "I KNOW ALL I NEED TO! SHE CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO DIE!" I roared, taking two firm stomps forward.

Medea staggered backwards. It was a testament to her incredible skill and MP reserves that the spell was still going at all. But not for long.

"SHE! WILL! BE! SAVED!" I declared, pulling a dagger out of my belt. I hadn't trained my Throwing Weapons skill at all, but I could make up for it with raw STR. "BEGONE, WITCH!"

I threw the dagger. It soared through the air, spinning beautifully. Time seemed to slow as we all watched it spin through the air, going through rotation after rotation. It was flying right towards Medea... and as it got closer, it became obvious that it was aimed not at her, but her staff.

The hilt of the dagger hit the pulsating orb, rather than the blade. That showed you how out of practice I was, but the sheer force of the throw was still enough to make the staff explode. Medea was knocked back, and the beam of light faded into nothing. I fell to my knees, then onto my back, drained of energy but not my soul. Thank god for my WIS providing high magic defense.

Skill Up! Throwing Weapons Level 8!

As my vision faded, I saw Daiya standing over my left side and looking down with a blank expression. Her impassive eyes bore holes right through me as she remained immobile like a statue, expression as unmoving as the rest of her. I could have resisted falling unconscious, but this was exactly what I wanted. The Hero had to fall over, unconscious, after busting out the ultimate secret weapon that was friendship power. It was fate.

Just before my vision faded entirely to black the gray blob shifted. "And so it goes. I shall join your quest, Heir."

Companion Unlocked! Queen Daiya the Eternal, Ruler of the Eastern Dwarvish Holds and Supreme Diamond, has joined your party!

End of Arc 3