(Zack)

Praevar is just as big as the other two Cities I've been in, as expected, though some of its buildings are in better condition, mostly towards the back of it. There's a gap around a hundred feet between the City's southern gate and the entrance to the mines, and there's where the encampment is set up. Dozens of sturdy tents and wooden buildings, erected to act as the homes of those who stay out here.

Nik chose to take the Dark Temple path, then flew us the rest of the small distance. I got my first look at kobolds as we flew over the Fallen City. I mean, I saw them in some of my visions, which were pretty realistic, but this is my first time seeing the doglike creatures for myself. Humanoid doglike creatures, and if I'm not mistaken, those are abs under that dark brown fur.

They walk on their hind legs, just like in my vision, and while their feet are more doglike, even if extended like a person's foot, their hands are pretty human-like, able to grip weapons. Covered in fur and tipped with short claws, but still roughly humanoid.

The beasts give us curious looks as we fly over, and a few even try throwing rocks at us, but nothing comes close, Nik's flying too high. An arrow does make it closer, and I'm impressed by their aim. Then again, goblins have decent aim, too, if it's a Goblin Archer.

Nik lands at the entrance to the mines, talking with a few of the guards there about random stuff while introducing me. I haven't seen most of these Adventurers before, but it feels… empty. Like there are people missing. Now that I think about it, so did Maelnor.

"Nik?"

"Yeah?"

"Where is everyone?" I ask, and he gives me a curious look. "There are more tents here than people, and you told me that there are usually around forty people in the camp itself at all times. I've only seen and sensed around half of that. And Maelnor had a lot less people than it should've. Where's everyone going?"

"We decided," he tells me. "That it would be better to have more there than less."

"Where?" I ask before realizing. "Kaelmar. Most of Maelnor is going to Kaelmar."

"Correct," he nods. "After your 'three-day period' ends and the twins come back to Maelnor, there won't be a single combatant over Level 150 in the city, save for you. The rest of us will be heading to Kaelmar."

"In other words," I say. "You guys are confident you can at least hurt the thing."

"Correct," he says. "Despite how weak you were, you were able to injure the Shadow of Life's avatar according to Big Flame. With our greater strength, decent weapons, powerful weapons, and buffs, we should be able to manage to deal some pretty devastating attacks. The more of us there, the easier it should be. They're practicing a few drills already; we'll attack in rotations, no individual attacking more than five minutes at a time so they can rest and recover."

"Got it," I say.

That sounds like a decent plan. Not only will it keep shifting the fighting style the avatar is fighting, but it gives everyone time to recover before their next attack. They could probably draw the battle out a long time, especially with hundreds of high-powered Adventurers.

Especially with the ones wielding gear forged with Primordial Essence. I didn't ask Jackson about that, about how many had some, how much more had been used. There was something like five or so left after the initial run, if I remember correctly. Has he used them up? He didn't mention it, if so.

Wait a second…

Just how much more powerful are Alexander's avatars than the Demon King Kobold? They're sending hundreds after it. Or are they just being careful, since the Fallen City of Kaelmar is filled with Corrupted Monsters and Fallen Adventurers as well?

That would make sense. If forty-ish failed against the Demon Kobold King and a bunch of Fallen Adventurers, then they'd definitely want to have as much power in their attacking force as possible. It's possible only half of them are going after the avatar, while the other half are keeping the enemies at bay.

"Come on," Nik gestures for me to follow, and I do.

The walls of the mines have crystals hanging every few feet, illuminating it, and are moist as well. It's… actually a little unnerving.

As we walk, I look around, watching the various tunnels, but no monsters come out. After almost an hour, I ask Nik about that, just as we are descending down a hole through a wooden platform. An elevator that uses gears and cranking to work.

"The first level of the mines almost never has monsters," he explains. "They take around three days to spawn there, and we have a patrol regularly walking through to clear any that do. The second level takes around two days, and are much more vast. A day for the third level, and it continues to decrease until we get to where the Demon Kobold King lives."

"Ah," I say. "That's several floors down, right?" He nods. "How come it's not, like, super-massive? It's only marginally bigger than the Kobolds, compared to the Goblin King."

Nik gives me a confused look.

"The vision that warned me you were going to lose, remember?"

"Right," he remembers. "We think it has to do with forming in the mines, same with the Kobold King. No doubt that had it lived outside of the mines, it'd been much, much larger."

"Ah, okay," I say.

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Nik leads me through the second Level, and we eventually reach a tunnel with four more branching off of it, which Nik tells me leads into the four chambers. He calls them by their proper names. I like my name for them better.

"This one," he gestures to one of the four. "Leads into a chamber that houses nothing but kobolds – no specialties. There's sometimes Bounty Beast versions, and all of the kobolds are Level 10."

"All of them?" I ask. "Even though they're cleared out regularly?"

"As I said," he says. "The monsters come from further within. We aren't sure where or how. Anyway, while you can slaughter them, I want you to know some stuff about the kobolds, first."

"Okay," I say.

"They're faster than goblins," he tells me. "With tougher hides and stronger senses. They also have a higher affinity for magic. They're the next thing up from goblins, in essence."

"Got it," I say.

"They're also just a little bit more intelligent," he tells me, and I nod. "And while there are only kobolds in these chambers here, the mines have both kobolds and goblins, as well as spiders and in some locations, bats."

"Got it," I say. "Anything else I should know?"

"This is the first chamber, coming from this way," he says. "The next one has Kobold Grunts, which wield crude clubs and axes. The next chamber after that has Kobold Warriors, who wield axes and shields, and sometimes swords. The one after that are the Kobold Mages, who wield magic. It takes around an hour before more come in from beyond."

In other words, if I don't clear it out within an hour, more of that variety will enter to replace those slain.

"Got it," I say. "You coming to watch?"

"Of course," he says as I remove my tunic. "Just in case the Kobold King decides he wants to come play."

I nod, then send my tunic into my Inventory and walk down the tunnel it twists and turns a few times, and then we're in a large chamber illuminated by the crystals that hang in the tunnels, only this time, they're not cut, but raw, embedded in the walls.

Among the three hundred or so kobolds, I don't see a single weapon. They could have them, of course, but since Nik said this is a regular kobold things, I'm assuming it's normal for them to not. The kobolds themselves stand around four feet in height, so just a little bit shorter than me, like most regular goblins.

"Hi," I grin at the kobolds who are starting to make their way towards me. "Demon Form!"

My body shifts, and I flap my wings before lunging forward. As usual, my hands easily pass through the hides of the monsters. I rip a path through them until I'm in the center, where I know I'm far enough from Nik that this won't affect them.

As I continue to rip through the kobolds, which fail to flee, I focus on my power, on learning this Skill unique to the Demon Class. Something tells me there's more to these chambers than Nik let on. Will I need to use a Skill to make them flee? It's not normal for weak monsters to continue to attack when they're being slaughtered.

Well, I guess in the battles for Cities, they are, but this isn't one of those.

I continue fighting until I reach 2,000 Mana, which the informational window about the Skill I want says is the cost to use it without the Skill. As soon as I reach that, I begin to attempt to unlock it. I only have around forty-five seconds before Demon Form is up, now.

Reaching, I draw on my demonic side, the darkness within me, and unleash a bloodcurdling roar, feeling the power of demons radiating out of me.

Immediately, the monsters around me go berserk as a notice appears in my vision.

New Skill! Demonic Aura Active Radiate with demonic power, affecting all within your range neither you nor of angelic power, sending them into a killing frenzy while empowering them. All effects are doubled while in Demon Form. Range: 5 yards per Level of this Skill Boost: +1% Strength, Speed per Level of this Skill Kill Experience: 3% of the affected's per Level of this Skill Duration: 30 seconds per Level of this Skill Cost: 2,000 Mana

Got it! And the information page didn't mention that their kills while under its influence affected my own Experience! This is fucking awesome!

Howling with delight, I let the kobolds near me battle each other, and I attack only the ones that attack me. My aura is awesome! I mean, I doubt these things killing each other gives me much Experience, since they're weak and I need a ton, but still, it's so awesome, watching them go inside and kill each other!

They're clawing at each other, punching each other, and biting each other! It's so awesome to watch!

As my aura fades away, just a few seconds before Demon Form ends, something catches my attention. Something that sends me into a fury. It's nothing in here, nothing that anyone else would have noticed. But it makes my blood boil and rage rise to an unholy level.

Nothing in here is going to live, and I am going to kill all of the other monsters in these chambers as well, then come back and kill more. I. Am. Pissed.

----------------------------------------

(Luca)

Braden and I have some free time, so instead of practicing casting a spell to raise my Mana, we spar each other. Blaine and Travis are in some sort of war council right now, and we weren't invited. We want to keep up with our training for the scary guy, because we know he'll probably be upset if we don't.

I don't want to spar, if I'm honest. I just want to curl up and nap right now. But Braden wants to keep up his training, and he told me that I should, too, because we won't be around the scary guy forever, and I'll need to defend myself.

So I train with him, if only so that we can do that.

Braden strikes at me with his staff again, and I block it, then try to strike him.

"You're not swinging with enough force," he tells me. "I'm bumping you a lot, Luca. Come on, swing with more force."

But I don't want to hurt you!

I try to swing at him harder, and he easily pushes my staff away. He swings at me, and I block it, though his staff bumps my side anyway. We keep going like this, with Braden sometimes telling me to use more force in my swings.

Then his staff strikes me in the cheek with a lot more force than he probably intended.

-1 Health!

"I'm sorry!" He exclaims, dropping his staff and rushing to right in front of me, grabbing my face and turning it so he can check the spot. "Does it hurt? I'm so sorry, Luca, I didn't meant to hit you that hard!"

I'm fine, Braden. It hurts a bit, but the pain's already fading. He has tears in his eyes, I trust that he really didn't mean to hurt me. I bet the scary guy would've hurt me on purpose, if he'd actually spar against me. But he refuses to, saying he doesn't want to hurt me.

He has no problem hurting Braden, saying it's to build up his Vitality. I think he just wants to hurt Braden, to be honest. I mean, he won't hurt me to build up my Vitality, so it's still at minimum. Of course, the scary guy also seems really protective of me, like he doesn't want me to get hurt.

Maybe we can work on my Vitality while we're separated?