“A bit. Sending Obelia after one of my guild members is a bit rude, don’t you agree?” I ask the man.

Still floating there with the golden circle behind him, Thalen looks down at Isola, shakes his head, and turns back to me. “There was a misunderstanding.”

“Sure.”

“My intention…” he starts, but I interrupt him.

“I’m not interested in talking with a fake,” the moment I say that, his expression changes. A look of sheer surprise overtakes his face, much to my amusement.

How funny. Did he really think no one would notice?

“You’re just trying to spew more bullshit. Isola pretends to be dumb while spewing out your secrets, maybe in hopes we will kill you,” I say, and they exchange glances, and Isola just smiles, mostly confirming what I said.

“Feral angry kitten, we did have some fun together, right? We trained a lot, and I don’t think we’re so different, so what do you say? Won't you join me?” Isola asks me.

“Sorry, I don't trust you and I think Myrra wants to kill you,” after answering, I turn to Myrra, who seems to be as amused as she is angry, her feelings betrayed by her tail.

“Is that so?” Isola sighs, “I guess my only option is to fight alongside Thalen. What do you say, old man? Without me, you won’t be able to get the items out of here. We can talk things out a bit later.”

More mana radiates from the red-haired man, and he nods, “You can go all out. I will take care of the aftermath. We will…”

He doesn’t even finish his sentence when the anchor I’ve been stealthily setting up next to him explodes, finally allowing him to sense its placement, too late for him to cancel it out. I didn’t try to set it closer because he would surely have felt it, but in exchange, I send much more energy through it. The explosion throws him against the wall, the left side of his body is missing and bleeding.

At the same time, Myrra attacks Isola again, aurora glass surrounding her and creating a dome around both of the women.

Before I can reach Thalen, he is already fully healed, and the golden circle behind him reactivates, spinning wildly.

Armor forms around my body and covers it fully, and I face down an attack that reminds me of [Oscillation], Generated from the golden circle behind the man.

Thalen disrupts even the small anchors I place near him, not falling for the same trick twice, not realizing that I’ve made them easily noticeable. He then lets my flames hit him. Yellow flames turn golden, burning and charring his extremely durable body, which even then regenerates at an immense speed. I’ve been doing that for a while, by the time I notice the effect of the flames weakening.

No, it’s not like they are getting weaker, it’s more like he is getting more resistant to them.

Some sort of adaptive resistance? Probably a trait or passive.

I cut off the flames, and my javelins pierce his body through and through, but before I can expand them and tear him apart, he uses his [Oscillation]-like skill to destroy them.

So interesting.

We continue launching attacks against each other, and I keep testing him, limiting my output slightly to see more of his skills, while using [Perception] at the same time to observe the fight between Myrra and Isola.

“You are really strong, one of the strongest humans I ever fought against,” Thalen says after I throw a small tricolored orb against him.

With his tough body, he takes some of the damage and avoids the rest while healing his wounds. He's doing it the entire time, getting hit by my skills partially to gain resistance against them while waiting. He’s not attacking much, most likely the type that builds up resistance, prepares a plan, and then ends the fight in one fell swoop.

I, on the other hand, ignore his words and continue to limit my output.

Still, I’m getting a bit annoyed by the way he talks, so I reach out to him with my domain, and I use [Resonance] to disrupt his skills in the middle of him restoring the leg I cut off.

While he quickly focuses on regaining control over his skills, I place an anchor that he is too late to disrupt and teleport next to him.

The feeling of my fist hitting his face is satisfying, and he crashes against the wall, then falters in the air before he starts floating again. His broken neck returns to its original position and the wounds on his face heal to a perfect state. He does that while he keeps healing Isola through their bond and through the tattoo on Isola’s neck, so she can stand against Myrra.

I hear cracking, and through [Perception], I observe as Myrra is sent flying and crashes against multiple walls, breaking through each of them.

Isola immediately charges at me, her body moving nimbly like a wild animal and with a speed I had yet to see. She jumps in the air and reaches me in a split second, her fist hitting my cuirass as I use [Infusion] to channel kinetic energy through it. The surface of the armor ripples, and it absorbs all the energy of her attack.

Isola pushes against the air with her feet, a short burst of mana or a skill allowing her to push against the air. She continues to strike at me, dozens of attacks in a moment barely longer than a blink.

And I absorb all of them, even though I can barely see them.

For a moment, I even activate my trait, watching the way she moves mana through her tattoos and the way she keeps up barriers over her skin, and make sure to remember the flow of mana.

Before my head starts hurting from all the information that I'm still unable to filter out, I cancel the trait and release all the kinetic energy I collected from Isola. The explosion throws her away and pushes me towards Thalen.

Blood spurts from the pale woman, and her broken body crashes against the floor, immediately getting restored. In the meantime, I reach Thalen, disrupting his attack and grabbing his arm. Before he can do anything, I try to disrupt mana inside his body, but he counters that while a constant stream of Oscillating attacks start tearing my armor apart, no matter how much I strengthen it.

Like a lizard dropping its tail, Thalen cuts off his arm, only to immediately restore it after putting some distance in between us.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

He decides to use the orb he found in the tower, the weapon against lynthari.

Well, he tries to.

I activate an anchor I left on his body and teleport behind him. Mana flows through my body, strengthening it, and I tear off both of his arms, taking the orb from them.

[Tether - lvl 26 > Tether - lvl 27]

I dodge Isola charging at me, and Myrra also quickly passes by, surrounded by armor made of aurora glass as she faces Isola again.

Thalen restores his arms again and turns to face me, and I activate another anchor I left on him, this time exploding the right side of his body.

Fear appears in the redheaded man’s eyes while he regenerates his body.

“Try to guess how many more anchors I left on you,” I say taunting him.

I am getting better at masking them, I happened to notice that as an option among the available upgrades for the skill. My new trait helps a lot, that and the fact that this isn't his real body and he seems to be lacking in places.

Flying higher, I dodge Myrra as she’s thrown by Isola, and when the black-haired woman reaches me, I blast her away with a surge of kinetic energy, barely doing any damage but getting rid of her for a while.

In the meantime, Thalen uses his skill to cut off most of his body. Only his chest, neck, and head remain untouched, floating in the air with a seraphic golden circle behind him. The blood and pieces of flesh drip from the man towards the ground and severed limbs. Then his heart sends more mana through his body, and the missing parts are restored, replaced by new ones.

“I knew you were strong and I knew you had faced the Calamity on your own. However I have not taken you seriously and didn't show you the respect you deserve,” he says and bows curtly. Then the amount of mana he is releasing doubles, and the circle behind his back expands as parts resembling wings form at the sides.

The look in his eyes changes, “I won’t do that aga...”

His head explodes.

For a second longer, his headless body floats there before the golden circle and wings behind his back flicker and disappear.

[Infusion - lvl 19 > Infusion - lvl 20]

"I left three anchors on you when I touched you," I say to the now-dead body.

I deactivate the trait I’ve been using as I placed the anchors. There is no notification, obviously, as the body we fought wasn't the main one; either an avatar, a copy, or something else.

Seeing that, Isola immediately tries to flee, boosting her body to the maximum and rushing towards the door we used to enter the tower.

I wait for a moment, and just before she gets out, I activate the anchor I left there before we even entered the tower. I teleport in front of her. Unable to stop her inertia, Isola crashes against my body, and before she recovers from the shock of impact, I coat my hand in [Resonance] and cut off one of her legs. Then I blast her towards Myrra, who follows close behind, teleporting through pieces of multicolored glass.

Instead of landing on her back, Isola twists in the air, a barrier over her skin expanding and surrounding her with a sphere that absorbs Myrra’s attack. The spherical barrier then shrinks back to her skin, and part of it elongates to give her a prosthetic limb in place of her missing leg.

She pushes against the floor and avoids another attack from Myrra. She then charges to my side. I track her movement, and doing so, our eyes meet. In the end, she notices and strengthens the barrier in front of her, creating multiple layers. The anchor I placed there explodes, sending her crashing against a nearby wall, destroying it and sending dust and debris into the air.

[Tether - lvl 27 > Tether - lvl 28]

I deactivate my trait, and this time my head hurts a lot and my sight blurs. I send thermal energy through my body, activating my passive in an attempt to alleviate some of the aftereffects.

“Fuck,” Isola groans from the ground. She doesn't move and just lays there, most of her tattoos losing their glow and her barriers weaker than before.

“She is faking,” I tell Myrra.

“Feral one, who do you think I am?”

Isola, still lying on the ground, giggles and tilts her head, looking at me. “I always hated you, creepy-eyed fuck.”

Mana explodes from her body, barriers absorbed into her skin, and for a short moment, she moves like the wind. Chaotic and hard to grasp. She dodges Myrra’s attacks and tries to flee once more, only to be blocked by Aurora glass. Then she moves even faster.

Her tendons and muscles tearing from the strain, each of her attacks sends Myrra backward and damages even the epic armor the lynthari is wearing. In the last attempt, she lets Myrra stab her with a weapon made of Aurora glass that passes through Isola’s chest entirely. In exchange, Isola bites down into the lynthari’s neck and giggles like a demon. She tries to bite again after tearing a chunk of flesh from it.

But she doesn’t have the opportunity and freezes in the middle of the attack, as the bottom half of her body separates. However, she still tries to attack, to scratch, to grasp, her weak attempts blocked by Myrra. Gradually she slows down, and the light starts disappearing from her eyes.

[You have defeated Stoneheart - lvl 228]

Myrra lets go of her body, and it falls to the ground, the head of the dead woman bouncing off the floor. The emotions on Myrra’s face are hard to read, but I ignore it and come closer, searching through the pockets of Isola´s clothes. Maybe she had a nice item or two.

While doing so, I also examine the tattoos on her skin, making sure I remember them all.

I spend a minute on it, but I don’t find anything; the only things I can consider an item are her intricate tattoos. Isola always liked to rely on her body alone.

“Feral one…” I hear from over me and look up at Myrra, who continues, “Do you really feel nothing? You knew her, you two did spar a lot, and yet here you are, searching through her pockets, while her body’s still warm.”

I stand up and dust my clothes a bit. I look over Myrra, who still holds a hand on her bleeding neck. The wound nearly healed already, either thanks to a skill or some items or maybe a hidden tattoo she possesses.

After thinking it over, I answer Myrra, “She tried to kill me, didn’t she? She also allied herself with someone who attacked my group,” I answer. “I mean, she wasn’t that bad, and we did have some nice duels, but I’m not strong enough to just let her live without worrying about it biting me or others in the back.”

“So, you would leave her alive if you were much stronger?”

“Probably? I mean, if she didn’t threaten my group and had only attacked me I probably would. If I was much stronger, I would consider it cute rather than threatening.”

Myrra opens her mouth to ask something else, but I interrupt her, “You keep telling me that you know me so well, so why don’t you answer your own questions?”

We start walking towards where the corpse of Thalen is.

“You only care about your guild, and you wouldn't hesitate if you had to kill anyone here. You might be sad afterwards, but you would do it,” Myrra says carefully back in the hallway of the tower.

To answer her question, I hand her the orb, the weapon against lynthari that Thalen held. “You are mostly right, but I think I would hesitate to kill you as well. As for Isola, I never trusted her.”

After saying that, I search Thalen´s body and don’t find anything interesting.

I notice that Myrra wears a strange expression, and her tail is swaying weirdly, but I decide to ignore it. Honestly? Myrra is often annoying, and we fought multiple times, but most of the time she is honest and not the type to stab people in the back or treat them cruelly without a reason, and that’s what I like about her.

Yes, it’s true what she said, and I only care about Group 4 out of everyone on this floor, because everyone else here is fake and will disappear. Yes, I did treat some lynthari and humans well, like Cael, Obelia, Eris, Myrra, and even Isola at times.

There is no reason for me to be cruel, to murder people for pleasure, or to kill others for their goods. That’s a path I don’t want to walk. Sure, if it comes to it, I won’t hesitate because there is a difference between being cruel, and being stupid and actively hurting myself. But I won't do it if there isn't a reason to.

That’s what I’ve decided for now, and I will continue to do so, changing my ways only if I have no other option.