The room expanded out into a massive dome. The second half was over a giant hole in the ground that seemed to stretch to the center of the earth. Overhead, the roof closed to a point. There was no obvious way to get to the platform in the middle of the room. Ezra could see various controls and buttons on the platform—it was a control center of some sort?

Ezra looked from side to side. Surely there was something that would be more useful for them? On one of the control panels, there was a stack of papers stretching up by a good foot.

“What are the odds that those are the papers we need?” Dumrivil said.

It seemed a bit too easy. Surely Villscha wouldn’t leave the papers just out and about?

Dumrivil walked two more steps. Ezra sucked in a breath and grabbed Dumrivil’s scarf. Dumrivil turned back and glared at him.

“What’s that for?” Dumrivil said.

“You were about to walk into a laser beam,” Ezra said.

“A la-what now?”

Ezra reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his copper coins. He reached it toward the air—

A loud zap echoed out and the coin flew out of Ezra’s hand. The coin was black and singed where it’d met the laser.

“Oh,” Dumrivil said. “It would’ve been bad if I’d touched that.”

“Yeah, it would’ve.”

Ezra flipped on [Mana Perception]. As expected, long beams of mana were stretching from wall to wall in random patterns. It was like something out of a bad heist film. He followed the mana lines back to the source… all the way to the inaccessible edge of the room.

“Okay, looks like we won’t be disabling this too easily,” Ezra muttered.

Dumrivil frowned. “There’s got to be a way to fix this…”

Could Ezra just snake his way past the laser beams? With Cat’s Grace, he fancied his chances.

“Wait a second,” Ezra said. “Let me see if I can just get past this.”

Ezra stepped forward, flipped, did a jump, then limbo-d under one more laser. In a matter of seconds, he’d made it right next to the documents.

The documents that were protected by a glass casing.

“Oh, come on,” Ezra said.

Ezra searched around for some kind of lock, but couldn’t find anything.

“Well, we can just do it the hard way,” Ezra said.

He activated [Bind] and tried to pass it through the glass—

Only for it to bounce off.

[Bind must be Lv. 50 to use it on this material!]

Oh, son of a bitch!

Ezra reared back his fist and slammed it into the glass. His hand sprang back and pain flooded his wrist. He hissed and rubbed the injured area.

“What’s going on over there?” Dumrivil said.

Ezra glanced back at his companion. Maybe Dumrivil might be able to break it? But how did he get the man past the lasers?

Ezra went over to the source of the laser beams and stared at them. It seemed like there was a crystalline object where the mana was being pumped into and amplified to create the laser. Ezra activated Bind, passed Filamenta through the mana and into the crystal—

[Bind must be Lv. 50 to use it on this material!]

Filamenta returned to his hand.

“Perhaps you should consider leveling up [Bind],” Filamenta said.

Ezra clicked his tongue. “Probably, but that doesn’t help us now.”

Ezra looked at the lines of mana that flowed into the crystal. Perhaps that might be a vulnerable area of attack? Ezra activated [Bind] again and passed Filamenta through the slab and into the green mana lines. Thankfully, there was no trouble that time binding the two materials together.

Ezra focused on the property of mana inflexibility that the stone had. Mana didn’t go through the stone slab, that was why the mana in the green circuits wasn’t leaking all over. He focused on transferring this to the green material…

It worked. The laser deactivated.

“Dumrivil, you can walk through,” Ezra said. “Stop when I tell you to stop.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dumrivil tilted his head. “Okay…?”

Ezra took out the lasers one at a time, slowly guiding Dumrivil in front of the glass casing around the documents.

Ezra pointed at it. “Smash it.”

Dumrivil looked off to the side. “Why do I feel like some sort of accessory right now?”

“Smash the damn glass, Dumrivil.”

Dumrivil pulled out his massive sword. “Fine, you got it.”

Dumrivil reared his sword back, then launched it into the glass. The metal underneath shrieked as it was malformed, but the glass remained unbroken. Dumrivil’s sword bounced backward and a jolt went through his body from the recoil.

“What the hell is that thing made of?” Ezra said.

Dumrivil growled and reared back his blade. “I don’t know, but it’s not going to hold up to me!”

Dumrivil launched another massive attack and the metal ripped clean off, sending the glass box flying into one of the lasers and creating an unholy crying noise.

“Well, if they didn’t know we were here before, they definitely know now,” Ezra muttered.

He looked at the documents. A few had gotten scattered over the floor, but the bulk remained on the control panel. Ezra picked up a stack and started reading through it. As he did so, a grin slowly came to his face.

“Dumrivil, I think that we’ve finally caught him,” Ezra said.

Dumrivil grabbed a stack for himself and looked through a few sheets.

He gasped. “It has everything, just plainly spoken about. Breeding methods, addresses, contacts—this is a goldmine!”

“With this, Villscha's finished. I’ll be able to clear my name,” Ezra said. “And if I decide to pay Villscha a visit in the middle of the night, well… who’ll stop me?”

Footsteps echoed. Ezra turned sharply.

On top of the raised platform in the center of the room was Villscha, staring down at them.

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

Villscha looked awful. His face was gaunt and his hair had turned white. He was slouched over, and as he stepped forward, each of his steps was trembling.

Dumrivil crossed his arms. “Villscha. You’ll be displeased to know that your little operation is all over.”

Villscha put his hands behind his back. “Really? Here I was, thinking that I’d just gotten started.”

“We have the documents!” Dumrivils said. “Once I pass these around, the guild is going to unite and wipe you and each of your camps off the face of the planet.”

Villscha croaked out a laugh. Ezra frowned. The man was awful relaxed for someone who’d just gotten all their plans exposed.

“I have a question for you, Dumrivil,” Villscha said.

Dumrivil tensed. “Yes?”

“Have you considered what my endgame is?” Villscha said. “Why I’m doing all this?”

“Easy, you plan to set yourself up as king of a new Cortia.”

Villscha held his gut and cackled. “I’m sure you see the large, glaring problem with such a plan!”

“The Demon Lord,” Ezra said.

Villscha turned and looked at him. “Correct! You have the right idea, One-Eye. How do I plan to deal with the Demon Lord, hm? Any weakness I create in the kingdom is a weakness he’ll exploit, after all.”

Dumrivil furrowed his eyebrows.

“But I don’t get it. Why do this if you know it’ll fail?” he said.

“Think about it,” Villscha said. “Where have I been getting my money from? Why are the monsters here so docile? How have I managed to move all these resources? I’d need to have the backing of a king.”

Dumrivil gasped. Ezra flipped Filamenta around in his hand. He could already tell where this was going.

“You’re working for the Demon Lord, aren’t you?” Ezra said.

Villscha stretched out his hands from side to side. “Yes, yes! That’s it!”

“But why?” Dumrivil said. “What possible reason could compel you to join with someone who wants our extinction?”

Villscha grinned, a golden tooth appearing. “First of all, cash is one hell of a motivator, son. Second, he wants your extinction. Not mine. I’ve ensured my safety.”

“How’s that?” Ezra said. “Is the Demon lord the type to never break his word or something?”

“Heavens no! The man is a traitor to his core. But even he doesn’t kill his footsoldiers for fun.”

Dumrivil’s eyebrows furrowed together. “But you’re not a footsoldier. His footsoldiers are monsters, and you’re not a monster.”

Villscha smirked. “Not yet.”

Ezra looked at Villscha’s back. It seemed to be almost skittering like something was trying to explode from his shirt.

“What the hell did you do?” Ezra said.

“The Demon Lord, in his generosity, has allowed me to modify a boss monster for my usage,” he said. “It was a simple thing, after all the practice I’ve had, to make it a little less weak and parasitic, and to instead make it more… symbiotic.”

He winced and fell to his knees. His back continued to quiver.

“Unfortunately, the adaptation period is immensely painful,” he said. “But I believe that I’m near the e-end!”

His back continued to quiver until—

There was a shower of blood and a loud sequence of pops. Black, bat-like wings burst out of Villscha’s back. His name, class, and everything else changed.

Villscha - Demon - Second Boss Monster - Lv. 62

Villscha raised himself back up. His body had transformed in an instant. He’d seemingly turned 20 years younger and grown a foot. His hair had turned black, and onyx horns sprang out of his head. His body was lithe and muscular. His eyes were dark, blood red. He looked at his hands and gripped them.

“I suppose that I should kill you, but…” Villscha said.

He glanced at Filamenta.

“I can smell my kind’s blood on that thing,” he said. “Noble battles to the death are perhaps a tad cliché, anyway. Why take the risk?”

He pulled a switch on the control panel and the ground shook.

“What the hell did you just do!?” Dumrivil said.

“Nothing much,” Villscha said. “I just wanted to kick things off a little early, that’s all.”

He looked up toward the domed roof. The roof started to whirr and the top opened up like a camera shutter. Villscha’s wings spread out and flapped once, sending him flying up toward the opening. He flew out of the hole and into the open sky.

The floor shook and the shimmering lasers vanished. Ezra tensed.

A scream echoed from outside. Ezra looked up toward the opening of the roof. They needed to get up there and figure out what the hell was going on. His eyes glanced around from spot to spot.

He looked back. Monsters had started pouring out of the corridor. Unibbits, Oversized lizards… they needed to make a run for it.

“Dumrivil, grab onto me,” Ezra said.

“Wait, what?” Dumrivil said.

“We don’t have time! Grab onto me, now!”

Dumrivil wrapped his arms around Ezra. Ezra jumped into the air a half-inch.

“[Air Attack!]”

Ezra and Dumrivil shot up into the air. Dumrivil screamed at the top of his lungs. Ezra kept his eye focused on the opening.

“[Restrain]!”

Thread reached from the ceiling toward Ezra and wrapped around him and Dumrivil. They pulled up at breakneck speeds. Ezra dispelled the attack and they popped out of the hole and fell onto the ground.

Ezra pushed himself up and looked back. They’d come out of the fountain in the city square, of all places.

In the distance, he heard a loud ringing. An alarm bell?

Dumrivil sprang up. “The city’s under attack?”

A handful of people ran into the city square.

“Run!” someone said. “Monsters! They’re pouring out of the ground, run!”

In the background, Ezra could see flames kicking up, painting the horizon a deep red.

Dumrivil’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “What has that man done?”