Everyone watched in stunned silence as Pride flung the dumbfounded pyromancer away from her with a quick pulse of gravity that sent the man skidding along the ground like a ragdoll. Zyla let out a soft tsk. Oddly enough, she didn’t look the least bit disturbed at the death of one her party members. If anything, her eyes looked hungry.

“Why, what an adorable little threat-beast you managed to tame,” she purred, her attention now fixated on Pride, who immediately went to gain several feet of altitude after her blast. She turned her head to Mute, who was standing with his hammer at the ready, facing the direction the lightning had shot out of the thicket. “Mute, crush the others. Roy, subdue the beast without killing it.”

The muscular man sprinted through the underbrush like a bulldozer. He tore through the shrubbery, barreling over any plant that stood in his way. Three large electric bolts shot out of the woodwork toward him. Two of them were intercepted on his hammer, but the third slammed home against his chest. The lightning arced across the large man’s body, but it only caused him to hesitate for a moment before continuing his destructive charge. Leo really hoped Sparky was going to be alright on her own.

“Your pardon, master…but if you could leave the beast to me, I’d be most appreciative,” spoke out a wheezing voice as Malnor’s dirt-smeared form slowly pushed himself to his feet.

A look of pure fury marred the pyromancer’s face, as the grievous wound Pride had inflicted began to smolder and smoke. He wiped a trail of blood that leaked down the side of his mouth, smearing the liquid across the side of his cheek as he glared at Pride with unconstrained malice.

“Oh, very well, but I won’t accept any dismemberment, understand? There’s no point in collaring the boy without his pet,” she said in a cheery musical tone, the wolfish smile never leaving her face.

Malnor bared his bloodstained teeth in a cruel grin of his own, “But of course, master. It won’t take but a moment.” He stretched out and opened up the palm of his left hand. A tri-pronged whip of living flames snaked to life in his grip, hissing as it devoured the moisture around him. It looked to be a stronger version of the same skill he had lashed out at Roy with. “Beasts are born to heel, after all.”

A quick flick of his wrist caused the weapon to crack through the air in a shower of sparks, the barbed tips flying toward Pride like striking vipers, curving and retracting in the air to follow the Chari even as she narrowly avoided their first pass.

“Shall I take care of this one for you, master?” Roy asked as he stepped forward with an emotionless voice.

“Hmm no, the look of defiance in his eyes makes me want to break him in personally.” She continued to strut over to him with a sway in her hips. “You should feel honored.”

Honored was not the word he would use to describe his current feelings. Oddly enough, neither was fear. A slow anger burned within Leo. The woman was leaving herself wide-open and unprotected as she approached, as if nothing he could do could possibly harm her. Maybe he wasn’t capable of beating her on his own, but if he could delay long enough, it would give one of the others a chance to finish with their opponents. He hadn’t been the only one growing in strength these past few weeks, after all.

Due to a combination of Amira’s and Zeld’s tutelage, both Sparky and Pride had grown in leaps and bounds. As a threat class beast, their natural strength and talent allowed them to gain power at a speed that might just surpass his own. Even at half the level of their current opponents, Leo had faith they would come out on top.

Leo unsheathed Aveth from his waist, the familiar weight of the sword filling him with confidence as his hand tightened around its grip. His own training had brought him far from the uncontrolled swings of his first few days.

He still had qualms about hurting another human, but from what he had seen the slaver in front of him was more of a monster than anything else he had faced on this island. Just the idea of collaring a sentient creature made him want to lash out at her. He didn’t quite understand where all his rage was coming from, but right now he didn’t care—all that mattered was wiping the smirk off her cocky face.

“Oh, child, do you even know how to use that thing or did you stumble across it in your father’s study?” Zyla said, covering her mouth with a small chuckle. She spread her hands out to her sides in an invitation. “Come. Show me what I’m adding to my collection.”

Not needing to be told twice, Leo took off, ignoring the lazed way in which her eyes tracked his approach and the condescending arched eyebrow when he began a deft horizontal swing still out of range of her position. He was tired of being ridiculed, tired of being too weak and having to rely on others to save his skin. Everything he had he put into the strike, all his frustrations and fears of failing fueling the blow that would prove he wasn’t someone to be looked down on.

“Aveth!” he shouted, the sword coming to life like the fangs of an uncoiling dragon as it raced to close the dozen-foot gap between him and his target. Aveth’s edge slammed into Zyla’s side just above her hip. He strained with the impact, releasing a primal roar from the immense effort put into the swing.

There was a surprised look on the slaver's face as her body shifted a few feet in the direction of his swing. As the strike lost momentum, Leo sent out a mental call and the sword retracted, further deepening whatever damage he already had done as its barbed edges continuously bit into her side. The blade clicked together as all its joints snapped back in place, the woman’s surprised face filling him with a grim sense of satisfaction.

His smugness withered and died when he saw the injury he had inflicted. Her skin-tight black dress had been cut through just above her hip, revealing a shallow gash no more than a few centimeters deep and seeping a thin trail of blood. She traced a finger along the wound before licking the few drops that had gathered off the tip of her finger. “You managed to break the skin, color me impressed,” she said with a toothy grin.

He was stunned. He knew the distance in power between them was vast, but for Aveth’s edge that was sharp enough to cleave through a full pine with ease to only cut so far, it felt unreal.

Zyla tilted her head with a frown. “Don’t tell me you expected to do more...” she said slowly, putting her blades away and curling her open hands into tight fists. “That someone as pathetic as you actually harbored thoughts of beating me!” Her form vanished and a concussive force exploded against his chest, lifting him clean off his feet and hurling him across the clearing. His body left a furrow in the mud behind him as he tumbled, only coming to a stop as another force pushed to counteract his momentum.

Leo sent a brief sense of gratitude to Pride for stopping him as he shakily rose to one knee. He tried to take in a breath and found his lungs immediately working to expel the blood that had started to swell inside them. His entire chest felt like it had just been struck by a pile driver.

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Zyla looked at him with mild curiosity, as if wondering what the odds were that he would get back up. Gritting his teeth, he slowly rose to his feet, forcing his body to function through strength of will alone. Next to the pain he had experienced from the giant tree behind them, this was nothing!

“Good, I love a man who doesn’t know when to quit!” the crazed woman said with a laugh. She disappeared again, moving faster than his eyes could pick up. “It makes watching their spirit all the more enjoyable when it breaks!” called out her voice from seemingly all around him. He searched around the clearing, frantically waiting for her to appear so he could react! Pride emitted a sense of warning just as he felt warm breath caress his right ear.

“Too slow.”

He managed to turn his head just enough to catch a glimpse of Zyla’s shark-tooth grin before she flicked him in the forehead. Her finger struck his skull like a gunshot. It didn’t do nearly as much damage as her first blow had, but it was enough to send his body sprawling back on the ground all the same.

Leo shook his head, trying to clear his vision and stop the world from listing to one side. Blood began dripping into his eye from the center of his forehead where her finger had struck him. Blearily, he struggled up to find his feet once more, trying to devise a way to fight back.

She moved too fast for him to see, let alone find an opportunity to counter-attack, and both his companions were still wrapped up in their own private fights. Sparky was off in the foliage, her mind a frantic mixture of glee, pain and determination. Pride smoldered with anger for her singed fur as she continued to deflect or avoid Malnor’s furious assault.

The pyromancer was sending large gouts of flame out of his left palm as his right one lashed out with his whip. Pride continued to prance in the air, nimbly keeping a step ahead of where the attacks would land as if knowing them in advance before slicing back with one of her own. All the while, she kept the gravity around Malnor multiplied to decrease his mobility.

The fight seemed to be at an intense stalemate. Even with the now-cauterized wound Pride had first inflicted, the mage was still powerful enough to cancel out any of her incoming attacks with a quick burst of flames. She needed something to tip the scales in her favor if only for a moment.

“Is that the extent of what you can do?” Zyla’s question brought him back to his own troubles, as she covered her mouth with a yawn. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that, but still for someone who had tamed a Chari, I suppose I expected more from you.”

Leo took the three attribute points he had gained from his last level-up and dumped all of them into Dexterity. His vision blurred and his legs gave out as his brain and muscles tried to process their sudden changes. The increase was so dramatic, he could actually feel the stored potential within him spread across his body, giving speed to his mind and limbs. The transformation completed in no more than a few heartbeats and as it finished, he marveled at the results.

When he focused his mind, the world seemed to move a touch more slowly than it had before, the mist drifted to the ground more gently, and even the heat of Malnor’s flames that had swept over like a gale of hot air didn’t blow quite as fiercely.

As interesting as the increase to his perception of time was, he couldn’t afford to let it distract him any further. He painfully righted himself for what felt like the umpteenth time and dashed forward with all the organs in his chest feeling as if they were on the verge of rupturing. His health was sitting at around a quarter and any further damage could put him out of the fight permanently, leaving Zyla free to interfere and take down his companions.

The ground seemed to fly beneath his feet as he pumped his legs against the soft earth. Zyla’s bored eyes narrowed at the sudden increase of pace, but she seemed to have no trouble following his movements. He circled her opposite the side where the fight with Malnor raged on and the Creeping Horror lay as motionless as ever.

As he drew in on her right, he activated Camouflage. The oil-like substance quickly covered his skin and sword, distorting his form to blend in with the environment around him. More of Zyla’s lax focus tightened on him with the usage of the skill, her gaze like a weight digging into him as she scanned his body once more.

As soon as he felt he had her full attention, he stopped circling and closed the remaining distance between them. Leo lashed out with a feint to her mid-section before switching directions and moving the blade toward her jugular. Aveth came within half an inch of biting into the skin of her smooth pale neck before a hand shot up and stopped it with the tips of her fingers.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Leo brought up his other hand, which was crackling with electricity and released an Arc Bolt directly at her face. She flinched and managed to move her head to the side just in time to avoid the sudden lightning as it grazed her cheek before flowing past her.

“Still too slo-” Zyla must’ve seen the smirk on his face. She turned her head just in time to watch the bolt strike home at his true target, Malnor’s unguarded back. His Arc Bolt wasn’t as strong as Sparky’s but coupled with the near-fatal blow Pride had landed earlier, it was all that was needed. The pyromancer let out a wide-eyed gasp as the lightning barreled into him, then he fell to lie motionless on the ground without another word.

“You little shit!” Zyla cried, grabbing Leo by his neck and hoisting him in the air as he gave her a triumphant pain-filled smile.

You have killed Malnor (Level 18). You gain 78,862 Exp (Note: due to the level difference, 82% of the experience was unable to be absorbed by your body and will be distributed to the surroundings.)

DING!

Congratulations! You have reached level 10! You have gained +18 attribute points.

Golden light engulfed him like a thick cloud, and he felt Zyla quickly release him as she jumped away. The euphoric energy entered him in a steady stream, sealing his wounds, refreshing his body and refilling his mana until he was back to peak condition, but instead of tapering off as it always had, the golden energy continued to pour into him without any signs of slowing.

His insides began to feel like they were on fire as his body swelled with the steady stream of power. The energy continued to build until it shone through his skin like a beacon and his body temperature escalated into a roasting heat. Leo watched in horror as his skin began to rapidly crack apart before being pulled back together by the same radiant energy in an endless cycle of pain and pleasure.

“You have too much potential, use it or you’ll pop!” came an unexpected shout from Roy somewhere outside the maelstrom of power.

Panicked by the pressure continuing to build within him and not knowing how much time he had left, he drained his attribute points, assigning one to each before splitting the remaining twelve evenly among Dexterity, Origin, Luck, and Constitution. Yes, I’m sure! he shouted at the confirmation prompt before his world twisted in further pain.

Bones and muscle shifted and grew denser under his skin, while his head felt like someone had cracked it open and turned it into a slurry. He let out a shriek of agony, tears running down his face, only to evaporate from the heat of his body as the golden light transformed every cell within him.

As always, the changes were finished in an instant and he collapsed in a withering heap on a ground of freshly grown grass and newly blossoming flowers, staring blankly at the new life that had congregated around him. Someone grabbed him by his chest piece and lifted him into the air.

“You’re dead, runt!” Zyla gnashed her teeth in a frenzy, spittle flying to coat his cheek as his head rolled limply to one side. “That experience was mine to claim! Mine and you wasted it!” She lifted one of her daggers, the blade a deep midnight black. Somewhere inside, Leo knew this was something he should be concerned about, but his mind was gone trying to recuperate from the changes he had pushed it through. The blade started its descent for his neck, Zyla cursing and yelling all the while, the distorted air around her hand telling of Pride trying to stop the strike from landing, but it barely slowed the blow down.

The dagger’s tip split open his skin before a hand shot out and held the arm at bay. Leo managed to roll his eyes toward the figure, expecting to find that Zeld had swooped in to save the day, but the glimmer of white came from a metal collar and not his mentor’s robes.

“I can’t let you do that,” Roy said with an impassive voice as his hand continued to hold hers, preventing the dagger from going any deeper.