Adrith was ready, Evelyn had prepared her disc for transportation as she asked once more, “Are you sure you can do all that running and at such speed?”

“Of course, I know if we rode on your flying disc it should be overall faster, but with both of us balancing on it, it could lead to us being slowed or being in a situation that could lead to one of us dying” Adrith began to jogs forward for a moment, “Besides, I may have been a trainee, but I was still being trained as a Knight”.

At that moment, Adrith’s foot slammed down with such force that it sounded like a hammer slamming against an anvil. Adrith launched himself with such speed that it took Evelyn a moment to react before she launched herself forward with her disc. It did not take her long to catch up, however, to see Adrith run at this speed was quite a surprise. Evelyn followed behind Adrith as she allowed him to guide her, which left her a moment to think. From what Evelyn could tell Adrith was running at such a speed that he could keep up with a horse if not possibly outpace it.

Evelyn’s eyes then widened as she as a thought crossed her mind, Evelyn then began to perform a chant, “Hear me, oh sparks of fire which light the night, answer me, Light”. Around her floated 8 motes of light as she gestured her hand out in front of her towards Adrith as she chanted again, “Hear me, oh will-o-wisps of the night, answer me, Light”. Evelyn took control of the motes of light and began to move them out in front of her to catch up with Adrith.

The moment they neared him Evelyn’s eyes widened in astonishment. She could sense from him, an internal rotation of his energy within him. She heard of this technique before, it was said to be a technique most Sacred level mages would be able to perform in a practiced circumstance at best.

A strange feeling was left in Evelyn’s mind, who was Adrith, he seemed to be a Knight in training who could practice magic, however, he seemed to be able to perform magical techniques that were of a level higher than even herself.

In this moment of thinking, she had forgotten where she was, if it was not for her motes of light she would not have noticed the strange force coming directly from her side. Her head flicked to the side to see a pulsating red orb of energy hurling at her. She made her disc fly up at high speed to dodge the orb completely and witnessed the moment the orb touched the stone it disintegrated. Evelyn yelled out to Adrith, “Watch out! They have a disintegration attack!”

Adrith called back as he continued to run, his voice seeming to now be amplified as it was loud and booming at her, “It speeds up decay! So our gear will disappear. Watch out for a purple blade from a monster. That’s the killer!”

Evelyn took a deep breath and yelled, “Thanks for telling me now!”

Adrith gave a small thumbs-up as he continued to run. His focus was solely on making the distance between himself and the tower as short as possible. He didn’t even care to turn back,

Evelyn, however, did. There she saw the assailant, a humanoid ghost, that wore black armor, carried a dark ethereal red blade, and had this constant mist of energy following it. The creature moved fast, fast enough to keep up with Adrith and Evelyn, but not fast enough to gain ground. It did however have attacks that could catch up as every time it slashed out with its blade, that same red orb would go flying forward.

Evelyn seemed to always be the target as she was behind Adrith, yet with how fast they were going, the orb respectively moved slow enough for Evelyn to be able to dodge it with ease. Adrith thankfully did not need to worry about the orbs from behind, he just had to worry about the other attacks from monsters finding them.

As the duo moved through the city at high speed, they began to slowly collect more and more monsters. The first creatures they collected were the vengeful spirits, which Evelyn identified as Revenants as they seemed to have been dead souls which are brought back to now haunt the living.

Next came the shapeshifting creatures. These creatures took the forms of different items and objects, yet the moment Adrith came near one, he shifted just far enough to dodge an attack that came from it. Often the attacks were in the form of large blades or spikes that came out to kill that target in one swift motion.

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Yet Adrith dodged them effortlessly. Leaving Evelyn to witness the horror of what these shapeshifters were. The moment they attacked they began to shift and change form, as their true shape was laid bare, they were hulking masses of gray goo which took on a humanoid form to try and chase down Adrith and Evelyn.

Yet as they flew by, Evelyn saw that the shapeshifters at first tried to chase, but then they seemed to almost freeze up and transform back to their hidden form. Allowing them to continue their run with only multiple Revenants and countless attacks coming at them. Yet there was something strange about this situation, Evelyn watched Adrith run, his unwavering stampede forward, and all she could do was admire him.

His absolute trust he set into Evelyn’s hands. Never once did she see Adrith turn to check his back. He kept full faith in Evelyn. Even though this situation felt unfair to Evelyn as she was the only one who was in danger from the Revenants, he believed in her.

Evelyn then turned, she threw her motes of light to follow directly with Adrith she turned fully to face the Revenants. She could dodge their attacks much easier if she looked at them directly. She just trusted Adrith to lead her to the tower.

And that he did.

Adrith rushed toward the tower like a flooded river that was to crash against the rocks, and here was much the same. Adrith could not see a way into the tower, it had to be on the other side, however, if they were to run around the tower the Revenants would catch up by phasing through the stone.

“We’re going through”

Evelyn heard something worrisome as she slightly turned her head to hear again, “What did you say?”

“The entrance isn’t here. We’re going through the stone”, Adrith said dryly as he continued to control his breathing.

Evelyn now had her doubts about believing in him. Everyone knows that the Dungeon cannot be damaged through conventional means. Any damage that has ever been done by magic has always been healed, and any substantial damage has summoned a mass amount of monsters, and even some monsters not even seen in the dungeon. She called out, “How?”

“I’m gonna blow through the wall”, Adrith said as Evelyn could feel the energy within him starting to shift. The energy began to shift and concentrate within his body. His speed began to increase as Evelyn then began to notice a slight decrease in his energy, she knew he was prepared to do something stupid. Yet she gritted her teeth as she turned to be ready.

Adrith began to control his breathing, his vision began to blur, and he slowly began to lose feeling in his hands, his feet, his arms, and his legs, as eventually, he lost feeling across his entire body. Adrith had turned into a human battering ram, with the impact he made was so great it kicked up dust and shot smoke directly into Evelyn’s face, yet she kept flying.

She followed the energy signature she could feel from her motes of light. She gritted her teeth as she had trouble trying to scan the smoke to find Adrith. She couldn’t find him, but she could feel her light motes following something, so she hoped it was him, or at least his body so she could retrieve him.

As Evelyn shot up through the center of the tower’s spiraling staircase she saw in front of her, climbing the constantly winding stairs was Adrith. Evelyn was absolutely surprised, he somehow destroyed the dungeon with his body alone, she called out, “How’d you do that!?”

Adrith didn’t answer, he knew if he lost focus he would lose consciousness. The impact itself was something tremendous. He didn’t expect it to work, however he had to take a gamble. He remembered when a Revenant used their attack, it destroyed the stone in the city, so he took a bet. The idea of the dungeons being indestructible to normal means is essentially true. It takes such a terrific amount of force for it to be able to be done through mundane means that it could only be done through magic. But a Revenant’s attack did not damage through force, it sped up decay. Adrith took this idea and understood that the stone must have had been 2 things: not part of the dungeon, and brittle enough to be destroyed through mundane means. All it required was a little force, in Adrith’s case, quite a bit of force.

It allowed them to climb the tower without having to go through the normal methods, however, it did mean they did not face the tower keeper and would instead have it chase them.

Evelyn saw right in the corner of her eye a flash of purple energy that flew with such speed that she couldn’t dodge it. It flew with such killing intent Evelyn froze up. Her eyes widened as she saw the energy within the blade. It was evil, foul, it sucked up all the energy in the area. All light warped around the blade. It flew and whistled as she could see even the space around the blade warp. As it aimed to take Evelyn’s head off.

Yet the blade did not find its purchase into Evelyn. She was stunned as she saw it was blocked by a metallic arm. The blade had sliced directly into Adrith’s arm, yet drew no blood as it completely dissipated. Evelyn then saw it, why Adrith called that blade ‘killer’, All the energy that Adrith was circulating in his arm was gone.

Ripped out and replaced by an insidious black aura.