Notice

The bonded scalers have become Komodon Scalers.

The Komodon Scaler is a distant cousin of normal scalers. They are larger, longer, and more powerful than their smaller counterparts. Komodon’s retain all the survivability of a regular scaler, but with the addition of thick hides that are much harder for enemies to penetrate. Their powerful legs allow them to jump farther, and their tail is ten times more potent than before evolution.

Orb was buzzing with excitement. “So, they’re called Komodon Scalers? They look like komodo dragons! Well, their skin looks smoother, and they’re way bigger, but other than that, it’s pretty close! This is awesome! But what was that about mutated evolutions?” Orb asked. Charlie turned his attention towards the other two.

Notice

The bonded creature Bonehead, a scaler, has become a Komodon Bone Scaler. This unique creature is unusually tough, even compared to other Komodon scalers. It excels at defense. Its powerful hide, scales, and bones make it difficult to harm. This organic three-layered defense system ensures only the strongest of foes can take it down. As the creature gains more experience, it will gain more control over the bones in its body and new abilities may emerge.

Notice

The bonded creature King Scalea, a scaler, has become a King Komodon Scaler. This unique creature’s strength far surpasses its counterparts. It boasts extraordinary power that outpaces even the strongest of normal Komodon’s. King Scalea now possesses the unique ability Roar of the Scaler King. This ability temporarily enhances the abilities of all nearby scalers and Komodon scalers in its vicinity. As the creature gains more experience, the effects of this ability will grow stronger, and new abilities will emerge.

Charlie blinked. It was a lot to take in. The notices came quickly, almost one after the other. It happened so far, he scarcely had time to process it. Komodon Scalers were huge. A normal scaler was usually around six feet in length and fairly thin. Despite their thin size, they were quite capable in combat, with claws and teeth designed to take down opponents with ease. Not to mention they could survive almost any injury as long as they could escape the threat and recover. In other words, if you let one of them get away, you’d probably have to fight it again at some point, as Arroane was learning now.

Komodon Scalers were closer to eight feet in length, and far bulkier. In fact, though they were only three-fourths the height of Marvin the Horse, they probably weighed about the same. Charlie even bet that if Merlin or Vetica wanted to, they could easily ride one of these evolved scalers. The difference in power between the normal scalers and the Komodon’s was obvious.

Bonehead was slightly larger than the others, but not as large as King Scalea. He had thick scales that covered his body, and rivulets of bone protruded along his exterior in lines. A layer of bone covered his face like a mask. It had two openings for his eyes to peer through. Several sharp ridges of skin jutted out from his neck. They seemed designed to protect his throat.

King Scalea, on the other hand, towered over the others. His arms and legs were far more muscular than any of the others. He was at least a head taller than them. His tail was still stumped from where he fought the old scaler king, but despite that, it was longer than before and seemed much thicker. Two small horns sat atop his head. He was the only one amongst the komodon’s that had horns.

Arroane eyed the newly regenerated and much larger scalers now. He sucked his teeth. “It’s not as much fun when my opponents are the ones doing the healing. Though I have to admit, I’ve never seen a creature do that before. Some kind of transformation? What a peculiar dungeon this is.”

Charlie caught movement in his peripheral vision. He looked up and saw Vetica flying toward Arroane. She’d leapt off the curled fingers of the stone hand she was standing in and shot forward. Arroane turned to look at her, an annoyed look on his face. His own dagger flashed. Vetica’s blue hex blade activated, and she threw her hand forward.

To their surprise, Arroane didn’t dodge the attack. He let Vetica’s blade impale him. The blade sank right into his chest. Somewhere in between his ribs. He reached out with his free hand, wrapping it over Vetica’s and squeezing the handle of her dagger. He pulled the knife deeper into his body and then suddenly twisted to the side. This caught Vetica off guard. The last thing anyone expects is for their opponent to pull a weapon deeper inside themselves. She lost her hold on the dagger. Arroane swung his own forward, aiming for her throat. Vetica jumped backward, out of the way, just in time.

“Vetica, are you okay?” Merlin asked. He took a step forward, forgetting he was being elevated high in the air by a rock hand. Pieces of the rock broke off the edge of the hand and tumbled to the ground below.

“Merlin, be careful!” Charlie called out.

Arroane tilted his head at that. “Merlin?” he asked. A glint flashed in his eyes. “Wait, you’re M, aren’t you? You’re the one who sold information about this dungeon to the guild we had a contract with.”

Arroane lifted a hand to stroke his chin. The dagger was still lodged in his chest, a trail of blood leaked from the wound.

Merlin grew extremely tense. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name isn’t Merlin it’s…Werlin, with a W! Charlie’s young. He gets his letters upside down sometimes.”

Arroane shook his head. “It was definitely you. The fact that you’re here means you clearly have some association with the dungeon. But why would you want to lure me here? No…no one else knew I had a hand in placing this contract. You weren’t after me. You were after the cult. Why?”

Merlin swallowed. “How did you figure all that out from a single letter?”

Arroane smiled. “So, you admit it. What are you after?” he asked.

Charlie spoke up. “We want information on the cult! If you tell us how we can find them, we can stop fighting with each other. That’s all we want,” he said.

Arroane raised a brow at that. “Why? What could you possibly want with the cult?”

“We want to stop the resurrection of Cendra!” Charlie declared.

This time, Arroane was the one who looked surprised. “I see. Well, unfortunately for you, our goals aren’t in alignment. My goal is to resurrect Cendra. So, for the sake of that future, I should kill you. But I’ll make you a deal. I’m here because I needed an intelligent dungeon core. So, if you turn that one over…” Arroane held his hands out. “I’ll spare your lives.”

“That dungeon core is one of us. You can’t just take one of us with you!” Merlin spat back. “Well, unless you want the raccoon or the mouse. I’d be willing to part with them.”

“Squeak!”

“Bleedy!”

“Ah shucks. Thanks, Merlin,” Orb said. He slowly floated behind Charlie and out of Arroane’s sight. “We should really make a move soon,” Orb said.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Arroane shrugged. He pulled Vetica’s knife from his chest and threw it to the side. Charlie noticed something in that moment. With all of Arroane’s previous injuries, he had healed fairly quickly. But although a few moments had passed since he pulled the knife into his chest, the wound was still there. Was it because the knife had remained inside him all this time? If he didn’t heal while being actively wounded, they just might have a shot.

Charlie shared his observation with his friends privately, ensuring Arroane couldn’t hear his telepathic voice.

They knew what to do now. But Arroane wasn’t waiting patiently for them to attack. They’d rejected his offer, and now he was making a move of his own.

A hex formed in his hand, and he pointed his palm toward the ground. The hex fell and settled into place around his feet. It pulsed, and a pitch-black circle slowly expanded from underneath Arroane. Deep, dark fissures formed in the ground around him and slowly spread outward. But the cracks weren’t just moving outward, they were moving deeper into the ground. The fissures were ever expanding, and Charlie could feel his dungeon integrity dropping rapidly.

Around them, the tendrils hanging from the ceiling and clinging to walls turned a sickly black. They withered and slowly, pieces of them fell to the ground. The pace picked up. With each passing moment, dozens of severed tendril pieces hit the ground all around them. The decaying tendrils fell like rain.

“We must act quickly, noble little one. He is destroying my tendrils faster than I can regrow them. It is a matter of time before all is lost. We must put everything we have into one final attack,” Koi Levi warned him. His voice was strained.

Vetica looked up at Charlie. “Charlie!” she called out. He realized she wanted to talk. The hand he was floating in lowered, and she climbed into the palm with him. She knelt and whispered to him. “When we first met, and I asked to come with you, you made me promise not to kill anyone. If I keep that promise, we’re going to die. I know our plan was to take a hostage, but if we don’t fight to kill, every one of us will die here.”

Charlie blinked. “What?” He didn’t understand. Was that true? Was their only option to kill Arroane?

“The scalers almost died. We got lucky they didn’t. But evolution isn’t something that happens often, and humans can’t do it. If one of us gets hurt like they did, that’s it. So, you have to release me from that promise. At least for now,” she said. Her eyes were focused on Arroane.

Charlie had been responsible for a death before. He still felt guilty for trapping Lusafeen in his dungeon and forgetting about her. But he’d never made the decision to kill another person. He’d used a technique against Brel he knew might kill him, but only as a last resort. Was this the same kind of situation? Was Vetica right? If Charlie didn’t fight to kill, would Arroane take away the lives of his friends?

A diseased tendril landed on the palm in front of him.

She was right. Maybe she was right.

“Okay, you have my permission. We’ll fight to kill,” he told her.

Vetica nodded. She slipped a new dagger from her belt.

Charlie closed his eyes for just a moment, trying not to think about what they had to do. He focused on his friends and gave the signal.

“Now!”

The tendrils were the first to move. A mass of them shot forward from the tunnel behind Charlie and his friends. They moved in and out of the ground like swimming dolphins as they approached. The corrupting hex stopped some of them, but others reached Arroane. They wrapped around him, pulling him a few inches into the air. More came from the ceilings and walls and further cocooned his body. They were withering and falling away just as fast as new ones wrapped around him. But somehow, Koi Levi kept up his assault.

King Scalea and Bonehead flexed their powerful legs and leapt toward Arroane. Bonehead ripped into one of Arroane’s legs. He tore it off and then gnawed on the remaining stump to keep it from healing.

One of Arroane’s hands was pinned to his side, but he’d managed to keep the other free. He aimed it toward Bonehead to ward him away with a hex. But King Scalea bit down on it. He dug his teeth deep into Arroane’s shoulder to keep him from casting.

Arroane gritted his teeth.

Charlie focused on several of the pillars embedded in the ground below Arroane. He could tell the hex had damaged them, but they weren’t beyond repair. His thoughts drifted to a technique Orb had recently suggested to him. Charlie hadn’t ever thought he would use it against a human. He frowned.

He repaired the underground pillars. Their ends filed to a point, and their bases widened. He twisted his hand and the three pillars started to spin.

He activated dungeon manipulation. Orb recognized the name of the technique as soon as Charlie whispered it.

“Drill.” Charlie grimaced. Three drill like rocks shot from the earth and impaled Arroane’s body at various angles. They ground the insides of his body into a red mist as they settled into position, skewering him further. Arroane’s head shot up and he coughed up blood.

“Do it,” Charlie whispered in Vetica’s mind.

For just a second, Charlie thought he heard Vetica mutter something. He couldn’t make it out, but he noticed the blade. Blue Hex Blade made a person’s sword or knife glow blue. But Vetica’s dagger didn’t glow blue this time. It grew a strange, dark black color. A singular, shining white spot formed in the center of the blade. He barely had time to process it before she shot forward again.

Arroane’s eyes locked on her. He’d realized it was over. She pulled her arm back. Then, just as she reached him, she flung it forward. As she passed him and landed on the ground behind him, the severed head of his corpse hit the ground.

She turned and threw her dagger at his head for good measure. The noise of it penetrating Arroane’s skull made Charlie sick. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. He’d made this decision. It would be wrong to look away.

Koi Levi’s tendrils slowly unraveled and fell to a pile on the ground. Charlie’s drill turned to dust and Arroane’s body fell. The tendrils landed in a pile at his feet. On either side of the corpse, Bonehead and King Scalea collapsed as well. After undergoing several intense fights on top of evolution, their bodies were exhausted.

“Well, at least that’s over.” Merlin breathed a sigh of relief. Orb floated from behind Charlie and surveyed the damage.

“This looks pretty bad. I bet your dungeon integrity is super low by now. Good thing we finished him off when we did,” Orb said.

Charlie frowned. He was having a hard time staying positive about it. At least his friends were safe.

At least, he’d thought they were safe.

He thought that until he saw the fingers on Arroane’s headless body twitch.

One second.

It took exactly one second for the corpse to flip, land on its foot, and shoot through the air. One second for a victory to turn into a total and complete defeat. Arroane wasn’t targeting Vetica or Merlin. He didn’t bother with the scalers. He wasn’t even concerned with catching Orb, who was the reason he had come here in the first place.

No, Arroane’s body was moving directly toward a different target entirely.

It was moving towards Charlie.

It was missing a leg, and one of his arms hung limply from its body. Despite that, it still had somehow reached speeds Charlie hadn’t thought possible.

A blade fell from the corpse’s sleeve and settled in its palm. It flashed. Charlie could already tell it was moving too fast. He focused and sent the rock hand Vetica had been standing on earlier to block the attack. But a hex formed around the base of the blade, and just as the rock hand reached it, the rock crumbled to pieces instantly. Arroane’s momentum was unaffected.

Vetica reacted as fast as she could. She tried to follow. Several of the Komodon Scalers, including King Scalea and Bonehead, leapt after Arroane as well. Even Bleedy tried to react. He leapt off the hand with Charlie still on his back to try to get them out of harm’s way.

Arroane’s body kicked off the hand where Charlie had been only moments ago, redirecting itself to follow them. The hand exploded into hundreds of small shards the moment Arroane pressed off of it. Everything that blade and its hex touched turned to dust.

Charlie knew it was over. In his final moments, he looked toward the first friend he had made in this world. The first friend he had ever made. He looked at him and said his name.

“Orb…”

In that last moment, he saw his dungeon core best friend turn a bright blue and explode into light. He felt the most powerful burst of energy he’d ever felt.

“Notice.”