Last time, Tantrum had been a rush of power unlike anything else Charlie had ever experienced. But it was a double-edged sword. It used extra dungeon integrity in exchange for the raw power it provided. There were two problems, though. The first was that it didn’t feel as strong as it had last time. The second was that Charlie’s dungeon had already collapsed, and the power he would filter through Tantrum was borrowed.

So, how would these two factors affect how the ability operated? Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t have a choice but to learn through trial and error.

He needed to defeat the core guardian as quick as possible to minimize the damage to his dungeon’s foundation. Not to mention he was actively destroying his own dungeon mass by using it. He didn’t even know what that meant, but it sounded bad. That was reason enough for him to worry about it.

But he couldn’t do very much as long as he floated inside the core guardian.

The liquid grew thicker. It started pressing in against Charlie’s body. It was like the creature wanted to crush him, but was that even possible with a body made of liquid?

He decided it was better not to find out.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

A mass of jagged stalagmites erupted from the ground below the core guardian. The spear like pieces of ground pierced the Nae Glera and continued upward. One of them flattened as it cut through. It rammed into Charlie as it passed. The impact sent him spiraling out of the core guardian. He landed hard on the ground ten or fifteen feet away.

The impact knocked the air out of him. He winced. But it had been necessary. Hard to fight your opponent when you're inside its…stomach? He wasn’t sure.

Didn’t matter, he had to fight.

He held out a hand and twenty more of the icicle shaped spears shot from just behind him toward the creature. The first attack had caught the creature unaware, but now it was ready. A burst of green fire leapt forward and met the spear’s head on. The two magic forces collided and then disappeared.

But Charlie’s initial volley hadn’t been a total waste. The attack from directly below the creature had impaled two hearts, a brain, and some long, giant worm looking thing. Charlie didn’t know enough about anatomy to identify it.

Charlie realized the last snatcher standing had picked up the still unconscious mayor and moved him to a safe location along the wall. The other snatcher, the one he had knocked out of the core guardian, was still laying on the ground. This was the one he’d seen turned from a boy into a snatcher.

Charlie waved a hand, and a pillar skated along the ground and caught the snatcher by his hood. The pillar continued on until the man was resting against a wall. Charlie hadn’t given up on saving the boy, but for now, he needed to make sure he wasn’t in danger of being hit by an attack on accident.

To his right, Luc focused on preventing the Nae Glera’s powers from affecting Lyra. They were safe where they were in the tunnel. The Scalers were along the outer wall of the dungeon as well.

With his friends accounted for, he could focus on the fight at hand. He couldn’t let the creature recover from his initial attack. He held out a hand and created a large wall. Charlie pushed outward toward the creature and the wall went flying towards it.

But the wall dissipated before it reached the creature. Charlie frowned. He’d lost control over it. With his own dungeon, he kind of just sent projectiles in the right direction and let momentum do the rest. But he’d never encountered a creature that could override his attacks before. So, severing his connection wouldn’t work.

Fighting with stolen dungeon material was like punching someone with another person’s fist. It felt unnatural. Even in the empowered state he received during Tantrum, he wasn’t able to really take advantage of it.

Wait…punching with someone else’s fist! That was it! Charlie had an idea. He looked on either side of him and focused. He concentrated on the rage he felt whenever he thought about everything the creature had put him through. Charlie couldn’t allow himself to get too caught up in his thoughts and fall out of the Tantrum state.

He needed to be angry.

He needed to rage.

On either side of him, two long pieces of dungeon material grated out of the ground. The earth crunched, and the dungeon filled with the noise of rock scraping against rock. Each of the pieces stopped when they’d reached around twenty feet in height and six feet in width. Then they took form.

The ends of both pieces each slowly molded until together they formed two enormous fists. Charlie moved his own arms around, and the dungeon he was manipulating reacted in real time. A joint formed to allow him to move the stone arms like normal ones, and as he flexed his fingers, the giant hands did the same.

He smiled. Fighting with someone else’s fist. The dungeon was aware of what he was doing, and it was working to stop him. But Charlie wouldn’t allow it to. He wouldn’t try to seize control of the entire dungeon, or even just this room. He would focus on these two arms, and nothing else. No matter what, he would maintain control over them. His weapons against an impossibly resilient creature.

Charlie shrieked, and the hands shot forward. Additional material pulled from the earth to give them enough range for the strike. Charlie strained under the pressure of maintaining the connection and blocking the dungeon out, but he could do it.

He had to.

The fist reached the creature and the Nae Glera sent a spherical fire ball out in response.

Charlie swatted his right hand, and the stone arm on his right dispersed the fireball with a satisfying smack. With the left, he smashed the ground.

Splat.

The palm came crashing down where the Nae Glera had been.

It worked.

He’d hit it, at least he thought he had.

But once wasn’t enough. He wanted to tear it into tiny little pieces.

Charlie shrieked, formed two baby sized fists, and really embraced the whole tantrum thing. He shook his hands up and down, smashing them into the ground over and over.

Each time his tiny fists landed, the giant ones did the same, sending tremors throughout the dungeon with each blow. Dust filled the room, and rock debris fell from the ceiling above and clacked against the ground.

“Charlie!” Luc called out in his mind. “You’ll bring the whole dungeon down if you aren’t careful!”

Charlie paused, blinking. One of the giant fists stopped a second before it collided with the ground again. Charlie waved a hand in the air, and the dust quickly dispersed. One of the giant hands copied him, fanning the room.

His eyes widened.

The Nae Glera was flattened. His attacks had landed, but, as he watched on, the creature slowly took shape again. He blinked. Charlie had lost visibility, so he hadn’t been able to see anything once he started attacking. But though he had struck the creature’s center, it had scattered the organs to its edges. The fist hadn’t actually crushed many of them if any at all. They still floated in the now murky water that obscured Charlie from identifying the specific organs and where they floated.

How do you fight a creature that physical attacks don’t work on? He shook his head. Charlie was growing frustrated. This attack would’ve worked on any other foe he’d faced so far, but now he wasn’t sure what to do.

The Nae Glera did not share this problem with him.

“It’s pointless. You will become my vessel, even if I need to break you first,” the voice called out to him again. The sentient dungeon core hiding somewhere within one of the Nae Glera’s hearts.

It wasn’t an empty threat.

A fireball formed around the creature that was five or six times larger than itself. Charlie tried to swat at the creature before it could launch the attack, but it was ready for him.

The powerful fireball burned right through the fist, and Charlie looked up in shock as the arm he’d created crumbled into dust.

He pulled the other arm back to defend himself, but it proved to be a pointless action.

The larger fireball split into six separate projectiles. Each of them curved in the air and carved its own path directly toward Charlie.

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He realized he couldn’t possibly block them all with just one hand. He focused, desperately trying to recreate the second arm, but realized there wasn’t time.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

He waved his hand, and a large defensive wall formed. But in that moment of turning his focus away from the remaining fist, his enemy seized control of it. The stolen fist turned and crashed into the wall, destroying both creations.

The fireballs closed in on him as one. A sweltering heat blasted Charlie as the magic attack closed the distance.

It was all Charlie could do to cover his face. The resulting explosion sent him reeling backwards through the earth.

Charlie was on his back now, thirty feet away from where the attack had landed. He was hurt. He could feel it, but he was still alive. Charlie forced himself to sit up. He sat in a small indent in the ground. The impact had sent him flying backwards. He’d landed on the earth and scraped against it, leaving a Charlie sized trail through the ground up until the point where he’d come to a halt.

“Warning. Dungeon is at risk of sustaining permanent foundation destruction if additional damage is sustained. A large amount of dungeon mass has also been destroyed. Recommend immediate escape until recovery is complete.”

How could he beat a creature like this? It was so strong, and his attacks weren’t effective at all.

He noticed something green moving in his peripheral vision and turned to look. It was the friendly Scaler. The fighting must have roused him from unconsciousness.

That was good, but Charlie had to figure out what was weakening him.

What was he missing?

Tantrum didn’t feel as strong as before. Was it because he wasn’t using his own dungeon material? Or was it something else?

Was Charlie overthinking?

It was hard to be angry when you were so caught up in your mind. Sure, he could feel the surge of power, but it came and went from moment to moment. It wasn’t the raw destructive force he’d experienced before.

Back then, he’d been fighting to save his friends. Wasn’t he doing the same thing now? So, what was holding him back?

The Nae Glera wasn’t letting up. Another ring of green flames formed around it; it was preparing another attack.

If he took another hit, he wouldn’t have to worry about being a vessel because he’d be dead.

But even then, the thought of dying didn’t scare him. The thought of failing and letting his friends down, however, did.

There was a lingering doubt. An insecurity in his mind. These feelings felt more prevalent than the anger, and he didn’t know how to change it. He didn’t know how to feel better about his ability to face the fight.

The Nae Glera launched its attack, and six new fireballs emerged and arced toward him, drifting in a trajectory that would probably be the end of it all.

For some reason, he had a memory of something Merlin had said in Garden. It was during the fight with the cultists. Even though Merlin had been making it all up as he went, he had said something that stuck out in Charlie’s mind.

“But a real master magician is always overcoming his limits. I pushed past that weak form you saw only a moment ago and grew even stronger.”

Charlie wasn’t a magician. But he wanted to be the kind of person who could overcome any kind of situation.

He wanted to push past his limits.

He focused on his connection with the dungeon. Not to create something, but to tether himself to its sphere of influence again like he had earlier.

Time seemed to slow, and he saw visions again. But this time, he didn’t see Vetica, Merlin, or Kashak.

He saw an army of men flying under a banner. They fought snatchers, boars, and other creatures he didn’t recognize. One of the soldiers jabbed a sword toward him and he heard a boar squeal. The vision shifted.

He saw a group of people charging forward with black shields. The man whose perspective he was watching raised a hand and shot a green fireball forward. It collided with the shields and dissipated. Before he could fire another, a spear flew through the air and again, Charlie’s vision faded.

It was the last vision that really got to him. He could tell this one, just like the last one, was from the perceptive of a snatcher. It looked like it was standing in a daycare, surrounded by children. Charlie didn’t recognize any of them. The children were fighting back. They weren’t going along with it. The snatchers had come to collect them, and the children were actually fighting back. He couldn’t tell how it was going, but for a moment he caught a glimpse of a snatcher’s body laying still against the ground with an empty look in its eyes.

The children were fighting. The people of Sange were fighting.

And just like that, moments before the fireballs hit him, he realized something.

Of course, losing was a possibility. That would always be the case. But he was letting the pressure of saving so many people get to him. He had been second guessing himself because he knew what it meant for them if he lost this fight.

But they were fighting for themselves, too. The people and children of Sange were fighting all on their own. They were fighting for their own fates and the people they cared about.

Charlie’s battle was important, but he wouldn’t decide the fate of Sange alone.

It wasn’t all on his shoulders, even if he did have an important part to play.

That was a calming thought. Just like that, his doubt died. He focused on the anger he felt, knowing that these people were having to fight for their freedom because a bunch of nobles wanted to live longer.

His eyes shifted from their usual blue and became brown instead.

It felt as if something had clicked into place. The full extent of Tantrum’s power.

Two enormous hands shot out of the ground and enveloped Charlie. The fingers interlocked around him to form a cocoon. The fireballs collided against the makeshift shield, but while the hands shook violently, they held. His dungeon hands relaxed and opened. Charlie looked like a bee sitting in the center of a flower.

He threw his arm forward, pointing it at the core guardian. As one, the two arms surged forward, smashing into the Nae Glera again. The hands gripped the sides of the creature, their fingers digging inside of it. The beast shifted organs around quickly to protect them, but the fingers weren’t there to damage the organs.

The hands started to pull the creature apart. It resisted, flames pouring out of it to no effect. When that failed, it started sending portions of itself through cracks in the fingers to look for weaknesses. But the hands molded and expanded to cut pieces of the creature off from the rest of its body, and to prevent larger portions of it from escaping their grip.

It was a battle of adaptability. Who could outmaneuver the other? Charlie with his dungeon hands, or the shapeless Nae Glera and its liquid form.

In the confusion, several organs were destroyed, and each time, the Nae Glera seemed to move slightly slower. Its flames grew weaker, its body less malleable. Charlie’s hands worked together as if they were kneading dough.

They weren’t large enough to crush it completely, but he had the creature on the defensive.

Charlie opened his hands wide and manipulated the arms again. The fingers suddenly expanded, so they were flat, and curved on the inside, like fingers made of scoops. The hands suddenly shot in opposite directions, ripping the Nae Glera apart.

The motion flung large portions of the creature around the room, thousands and thousands of droplets scattered as well. It also exposed many of the organs. Some fell to the ground, others bounced against the wall. But Charlie suspected which heart was the one he wanted. Of the many pieces the Nae Glera had been torn into, all of them immediately moved toward one of the large pieces, where only a single heart floated.

That had to be it.

A third hand shot out of the ground and picked up his green scaley friend. The friendly Scaler had seemed mostly recovered. He was the only one Charlie could trust with this job. Charlie gave him instructions, and he barked back.

“Arh!” it said, as the hand flung him like an arrow through the air. The Scaler was surprisingly aerodynamic. It cut through the air, and right into the piece of the core guardian Charlie had been aiming for.

It opened its mouth, snagged the heart with the dungeon core inside it as it sailed by, and emerged on the other side. If the core guardian had been at its full size, the move would have been impossible, but at this size, it didn’t have the ability to slow or capture the Scaler like it normally might.

The friendly Scaler flipped in the air and landed on the opposite wall. It scrambled away, but the Nae Glera was already in pursuit. The creature grew rapidly, droplets gathering into it at an alarming pace.

One of Charlie’s first two dungeon hands reached out, and the Scaler jumped into its palm.

“Stop! Or I’ll crush the core!” Charlie called out telepathically, so that both the dungeon core and the core guardian could hear.

The Nae Glera halted immediately. The dungeon core responded. “Crush me, and you’ll kill your pet.”

Charlie didn’t back down. “Nah, he’ll be fine. Scalers are tough. Dungeon cores? Not as much. So, surrender, and turn the snatchers back to children, or I’ll crush you,” Charlie said.

The core guardian was silent for a moment.

The dungeon shook, and Charlie felt a presence as the dungeon core wrestled him for control of the hand he was controlling. But Charlie held firm.

He would not back down now.

The hand clenched slowly in a subtle warning to the dungeon core.

The pressure stopped; the core relented.

“Convergence successful. The user has successfully achieved dominance over the rival dungeon.”

Charlie smiled.

He’d done it.

He’d won.

Now, he just needed to destroy the core.

The hand surged through the ground, and then sat the friendly Scaler down in front of him. The Scaler tilted its head at Charlie. Charlie raised a brow. The Scaler’s jaw seemed to move oddly.

After a moment, it spat out a bright, blood red dungeon core in one spot, and the human heart next to it.

“Oh! Thanks! I wasn’t looking forward to getting that out myself.” Charlie crawled forward and picked up the core. He wiped it off with the sleeve of his onesie.

The dungeon core grew still and dimmed significantly. Charlie’s lips twisted to the side. It seemed almost dormant now, unlike the Nae Glera.

The core guardian reformed fully and slowly approached.

“Arca!” the friendly Scaler barked. Bonehead and the other two Scalers that had tended to the friendly Scaler all scurried forward and approached. They formed a line between Charlie and the core guardian.

“Easy, I do not wish to harm you. I wish to thank you, as you have set me free. I would repay that debt if you allowed me,” the Nae Glera said.