“Fiancée?” Rowan repeated, startled enough to momentarily forget the urgency of their situation.

He wasn’t the only one who had something to say on the subject.

“Since when?!” another woman snapped.

“Can the two of you stop fighting for a second?” the last member of the party demanded, falling to her knees next to Blake just like Rowan and quickly grabbing his hand. A soft glow rose from her skin, slowly seeping into the hero’s body. His eyelids fluttered, but he gave no further signs of life.

Rowan refocused. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We were doing fine, making solid progress into the wastes when we got attacked. I-I think that thing was at the legendary tier. It just stabbed Blake through the stomach and then disappeared. That’s when the other monsters showed up…”

The third woman trailed off, but Rowan could guess what happened from there. Judging by all the bodies they encountered on the way, the soldiers got slaughtered.

“And you can’t heal him still?” Rowan asked.

“No. I’m not actually a healer,” the woman said, taking a second to brush her brown hair out of her eyes and glare at the huffy blonde who had taken exception to the other woman’s claims of Blake’s marital status. “She is. I am just boosting his natural regeneration.”

“It’s not my fault the wound is cursed, or something!” the other woman snapped, clearly still paying attention. “I tried everything, healing, purification, and cleansing rituals. All my cards too! It’s like the wound is a permanent part of him.”

Her voice hitched at the end and she turned away. Whatever their issues with each other were, Rowan strongly suspected that they still cared about Blake. Mostly because he wasn’t sure anyone could truly hate the man if they gave him a chance.

That wasn’t enough to stem Rowan’s frustration though. Are you telling me he’s dying and they’re still stuck playing out a stereotypical harem anime scene?

Before he had to contemplate that further, Blake’s eyes shot open.

The hero coughed, then broke into wheezes, rolling over on his side as a foul, tar-like liquid came streaming out of his mouth, eyes, ears, and nose.

Rowan recoiled so quickly he was almost on the other side of the barrier by the time he caught himself. His reaction was instinctual. A deep-seated revulsion that threw him for a loop.

“Blake?” Rowan asked quietly when the man gagged one last time and collapsed onto his back again.

Blake’s eyelids fluttered, and a moment later he was on his elbows, squinting in Rowan’s direction. “Rowan?”

Rowan really didn’t want to, but he made his way right back to his friend, doing his best to ignore the foul liquid. “I’m going to kill you for worrying me like that,” the Stalwart Hero hissed, drawing the other man into an awkward hug.

Blake returned a weak laugh, leaving Rowan alarmed at the lack of strength.

“What’s happening to you?” Rowan asked quietly. There was a tear in Blake’s shirt, he finally realized, and all Rowan could see through it was blackened skin, obsidian-like in its quality.

“You shouldn’t try to stand, Blakey,” the auburn haired woman intervened immediately, going to kneel behind the hero and drawing his head back onto her lap. The glares the other two sent her were glacial. “He’s been like this ever since. He passes out, wakes up, throws up, and then passes out again.”

Her confession didn’t make Rowan feel better.

“Can we risk moving him? We need to get out of here, quickly. If you really saw a legendary demon lurking around here, then we’re all as good as dead at the moment. One and a half heroes and a single army isn’t going to cut it,” Rowan said.

“It’s fine, Rowan. I’m fine. I’m not going to fall here. Lady Sarina wouldn’t allow it.” Blake spoke with such strength, such conviction, that Rowan looked at him with disbelief.

“What’s happening, Blake?”

Even Rowan wasn’t sure what he was asking. Was he asking about his injury? Or was he asking about why he said the name of a frustrating, no-good Goddess with such devotion?

“I think the demon is trying to possess me. Or corrupt me. I’m not sure. It’s using the wound as a link of sorts. When I pass out, I encounter it in my dreams. It’s… gotten close, a few times. There’s no need to worry, though. My Goddess had protected me each time.”

Rowan looked the man in the eyes, and for the first time, realized he could see a light in them. Not a metaphorical light or even a reflection. It was an honest-to-goodness, inner glow nonsense.

With what he had encountered very recently, Rowan suddenly had a very bad premonition. “You picked the blue class, didn’t you?”

Blake’s eyes widened in surprise for a second, and even though he said nothing, Rowan had his answer.

“Shit. Okay. Shit. Never mind.” Rowan shook his head, trying to refocus. “Listen, we need to move. How sure are you that the demon isn’t going to reappear?”

“Very. As long as it’s focusing on corrupting me, it’s not going to be able to move around or even do much. I know it’s somewhere relatively close by, which would typically be a great opportunity to strike, but…”

“But you’re half-dead and there are epic tier monsters out there. Listen, I need to know what the lot of you can do if we’re all going to make it out of here alive.”

Rowan addressed that last sentence to Blake’s party, to the immediate displeasure of them all.

The blonde didn’t hesitate to protest. “You can’t just demand to know such —”

“Amanda Rhys, [Light-winged Saintess].” Blake cut her off, pointing at her and giving Rowan a mini heart attack when he recognized the surname. “Jacques de Vort, [Bulwark of the End].” Blake’s hand pointed right at the auburn-haired woman, who scoffed. “Mirabella Treagon, [Blessed Fortifier].”

Rowan heard Olivia’s sharp intake of breath and a hiss of recognition at the last name, but there was little he could do about it at the moment.

“Thanks, Blake. So, healer, defender, and buffer,” Rowan concluded.

“Barrier master, there’s a difference,” Jacques grumbled, crossing her arms. “I’m the whole reason we can chat here like this and why our hero is even still alive.”

“And my buffs are just, what? Entirely unnecessary for you? Because if you can keep going without me, I’ll happily focus on amplifying Blake’s healing,” the Treagon grumbled, her words ignored by everyone except for Blake, who sent her a winning smile.

Rowan wanted to pull his hair out.

“Okay, okay. Blake, you’re going on my back and I don’t want to hear any complaints.” Rowan addressed his friend first, before refocusing. “Can you empower us the way you can him? Because if what he said about the demon is right, we can probably kill most of the powerful enemies here and then flee.”

The trio grimaced and exchanged looks, but the desire to see Blake safe clearly won out against whatever issue they had using their abilities on anyone else.

“Fine. We can use our buffs on you, I guess. We swore to act in service to our hero, and this is close enough.”

Please, princess, don’t sound so thrilled. Rowan complained in the safe confines of his mind, but didn’t voice anything.

“But, if I stop, will you be okay?” It was the Treagon that protested, looking genuinely terrified to stop using her amplification on Blake.

“I’ll be just fine, my lady. Have faith in our goddess and she shall provide.” Once again, Blake sounded so sure of that, Rowan’s stomach turned.

“Yes, well, let’s see about securing you and get a move on. Just please try not to puke on me?” Rowan asked hopefully, even as Olivia pulled out a length of rope from her ridiculously and unnaturally large bag with a sadistic grin.

—

When the barrier suddenly fell, Rowan realized just how much it was doing. The sights, the sounds, the smell of battle all became briefly overwhelming.

The Mercenary King was pulling off a small miracle, fighting three epic beasts with only his lieutenants by his side. Tamara had another two distracted, raining what Rowan could only describe as ordnance down upon them while her apprentices worked to distract, defend, and corral.

The normal soldiers were doing quite well too, though Rowan didn’t miss the bodies, torn apart and squashed under the feet of the advancing horde.

Their chat and preparations had cost precious lives in the army and Rowan was ready for payback.

That’s when the buffs hit him. The Treagon girl erupted into a cascade of light far brighter than what she’d put on earlier, and the corona of light broke up into four strands which sank into Rowan and his party members.

Instantly, he could feel every last source of his strength surge in power, his body, mana, and spirit magnified in a way that felt glorious and left him feeling like he could topple mountains.

A moment later, the princess took action. Her power was equally impressive as a massive sun erupted out of nowhere overhead then collapsed into a million shooting stars.

Most of these landed on the bodies of the soldiers or the hero party, but quite a few sank into the bodies of monsters too, with the largest number congregating in the five epics.

The effect was immediate as a gentle warmth spread throughout Rowan’s body. Meanwhile, each and every affected monster broke into pained howls, yips, hisses, and a myriad of other sounds.

Emboldened, Rowan rushed forward, heedless of the strangled gasp Blake made when they suddenly accelerated.

His first victim was a monster fighting against the Mercenary King’s group, a humanoid with spindly arms, twiggy body, and absolutely no facial features.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As he channeled power through his body and into his spear, Rowan marveled at how easy it was. The amplifier’s abilities gave him so much more to work with and the saintess’s blessing made handling it all so much smoother.

Rowan experienced a brief surge of jealousy.

The power of the buffs means that the second his spear so much as touched the odd monster, a whole section of its body disappeared in a shower of gore. A good third of its torso was gone. All Rowan had to do was hop back and watch as his card synergy drained the creature of all its blood due to the excessive damage he’d dealt.

His spear rejoiced at this, all the flecks of blood and flesh disappearing into its shaft, and Rowan relished in how easy that was. If he had buffs like that from the start, what would he have been capable of?

Of course, that’s when explosions erupted around the other two epic monsters, frighteningly contained and literally blue. The bolstered flames made possible by Olivia’s new class drew cries of agony from the monsters and his jealousy evaporated.

Sure, Blake had a whole party designed solely around buffing the power of a hero to the absolute utmost.

However, did he have a kick-ass alchemist girlfriend?

Milena, too, seemed reluctant to be upstaged. She raised her hands and a storm of black bolts erupted out of them. She was obviously relishing the moment, and as the bolts made contact, Rowan could tell why.

Every single enemy touched by the bolts showed immediate signs of one of her curses.

Some were suddenly weakened, ghostly faces pushing against their skin from the inside of their bodies in a way that made Rowan want to puke. Some collapsed, writhing in agony as their bodies cooked from the inside. Many more still were suddenly rendered blind, deaf, and incapable of feeling anything, stumbling around like newborns.

Rowan swallowed thickly, recognizing that the epic tier was treating the wolf kin well.

He turned towards Marcus, half-expecting to see the man suplex one of the monsters into submission or cow them all using his aura or something. The shield bearer just had an awkward smile back.

“I mean, they’re not going to be able to touch a single one of our people from now on until I go down?” Marcus offered weakly. Rowan laughed.

Then, Rowan was moving again. He trusted his party to have the original trio of beasts handled, especially since one was down and the other two were almost cooked to death. He decided to make the most of the occasion and go for the other epic tier monster.

The monsters harassing Tamara and her mages were the oddest of the bunch.

One of them was a squid-like thing with far too many legs that were stretching to impossible lengths. Tamara was successfully burning the legs that came close but the creature kept regenerating and trying harder.

The other resembled a statue, and it seemed to just be standing there, staring at the different mages. The only sign of anything being wrong was that a few mages would suddenly stumble at times, and then send a volley of attacks against the creature that it just tanked through, not even moving.

Rowan chose to deal with the statue first.

“You won’t be able to hurt it,” Blake rasped in his ear, almost making Rowan stumble. “Here, let me help.”

Before Rowan could stop him, Blake reached out and gently touched the shaft of his spear. The weapon lit up, and through their bond, Rowan could feel that it was suddenly more. Tougher, heavier, sharper, pressing against the very world around it.

Gritting his teeth at the way Blake was pushing himself, Rowan nonetheless committed to the strike. His body grew visibly gaunt in a matter of seconds while he positioned the spear like a lance, pointing it straight at the monster’s rocky head.

The monster actually turned to face him even if it didn’t bother to dodge, and its eerie red eyes met Rowan’s. The hero felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his head but the impact was blunted, robbed of most of its strength.

The saintess’s blessing wavered in strength, but it didn’t matter.

Rowan’s spear didn’t waver.

It met the creature’s face, taking it right in the eye.

Rowan had to admit that without Blake’s help, he likely would have failed. It felt like he was trying to drive his spear straight into a diamond wall. But when his spear pulsed with the bright golden light, the wall gave way.

Ironically, the creature wasn’t made out of rock throughout. Once its stony exterior cracked, brain matter and blood were sent soaring into the sky. A couple of the mages cried out, and Rowan laughed at their expressions of disgust. Blake whooped right with him.

“Goddess, I dislike mages. That was great,” Blake chuckled, his arms briefly tightening around Rowan’s chest. “By the way, whatever card you’re using, it’s freaky. Why are you almost reducing yourself to a skeleton?”

“Blake, if you keep distracting me, I’ll feed you to the thing,” Rowan threatened jokingly, making his friend laugh again.

“You wouldn’t dare, you looooooove me too much,” Blake teased.

“Why, Hero Blake, are you coming onto me? Is there something you’d like to tell your girlfriends about why you haven’t picked one of them?”

Rowan marveled at the way he could afford to joke with his friends as he dodged the whip-like appendages of the squid monster. Just a couple of days ago, a single epic tier monster would have pushed him to his utmost.

Now? Now he was having fun.

Blake laughed louder, but before he could make an inappropriate comment about how Rowan was the one tying the two of them together, the sky turned into flames.

Tamara was clearly not amused by the hero intervening and stealing her experience. The entire light show turned into a single, thin column of fire. It barely covered the main body of the monster, but then flames went from red to white to blue, and the thing evaporated. For just a moment, Rowan was thoroughly impressed by the woman’s strength and control.

Then her apprentices started falling down while she just looked smug, and Rowan realized that her attack wasn’t without its costs.

Blake shared Rowan’s insight. “Did she train up a whole lot of apprentices just so they could manage the fallout of her spells?”

Rowan strongly suspected that the answer to Blake’s question was yes, but they didn’t really have more time to waste. A glance back told him that the other two epic monsters were dead too, and that it was time to run before the legendary showed up again and ruined everyone’s day.

“Lucius! Lead a retreat!” Rowan bellowed across the battlefield. A card effect swept over the army, and then they were moving, fighting against what monsters they had to while struggling to get away.

At least Marcus was good for his word. Rowan saw plenty of monsters take advantage and strike against unprotected backs, but all that led to was a few grunts from the shield bearer.

Not that they could afford to let them take potshots forever.

“We’ll cover the retreat!” Rowan really shouldn’t have bothered with that particular order because his party members were already on it.

Olivia was chucking her conjured potions left and right, this time focusing on explosion range instead of on focused strikes. While Milena and Rowan demolished the monsters and Marcus focused on protecting everyone, she was building a barrier of fire none of them dared try to pass.

That did leave them on the wrong side of the conflagration, but Rowan met Marcus’s eyes, nodded, and decided to trust the man. He plunged right into the flames, and while Blake let out a strangled grunt and started glowing of his own accord, neither of them felt the sting of heat or the choking of the smoke.

They were through in a couple of seconds.

Any monsters that tried to copy them bitterly regretted it and were burned down in seconds.

“Keep retreating. Lucius, if you can push them faster somehow?” Rowan yelled. “We need to make as much distance between us and the legendary as possible.”

That earned Rowan a wild-eyed look, but to his credit, the Mercenary King didn’t even bother to ask. He just intensified his card effect far past what they experienced in the past and the entire army practically flew down the path they’d followed previously.

Rowan felt a grin sneaking its way onto his face and exchanged a victorious look with Olivia, who was suddenly by his side. His fingers twitched towards hers, but even he felt a little awkward trying to hold hands while fleeing a monster horde and carrying his best friend on his back.

Nonetheless, they’d done it. The legendary didn’t show up, their losses weren’t catastrophic, and they got Blake and his party out. The three women were sort of struggling to follow along because they were, for some reason, unaffected by the Mercenary King’s buffs, but that didn’t matter much.

They were alive.

“Don’t mean to alarm you, Rowan, but I might be taking another nap soon.” Blake’s voice was thoroughly drained of energy, so much so Rowan almost stopped in his tracks to check on him.

“What’s happening? Talk to me here,” Rowan said.

“I can feel it coming on. Every time. The thing in my chest squirms and then tries to extend up into my head. Either I manage on my own, or Lady Sarina protects me, and I end up puking it all out. It’s just unpleasant.”

Rowan’s heart started beating faster as his mind replayed the moment when the knight demon grabbed him back at Felton’s Mill.

“Jeesh, mate, you really got yourself into a mess this time,” Rowan tried for a joking tone, and just ended up sounding miserable.

“Tell me about it. My Goddess didn’t even want me coming here. Wanted me to finish getting rid of all the heretics back in the capita, but I didn’t want to keep waiting and let people get hurt.”

The way he said ‘heretics’ was so vicious and full of vitriol that Rowan shuddered. He wasn’t sure what to think or feel on the subject.

This was Blake. His best friend. He kept catching glimpses of the man he knew and cared about. However, this new Blake the Zealot was a grim reality too.

I no longer trust Kayla already. Now, something weird’s happening with Blake, too. How do I even know I can trust him? Unless…

It suddenly hit him, and quite hard, at that.

Running at the back of his own army, surrounded by party members he was willing to trust with his life, Rowan realized how much he’s changed.

He was more than willing to put his life into the hands of Olivia, Marcus, and Milena, no questions asked. He was so afraid of messing up those friendships, he didn’t even want to bring up his new class feature with them.

And yet, the second Rowan was reunited with Blake, he was tempted to offer him a spot as one of his [Knights]. Somehow, a space had grown between the two of them. But Rowan also had a practical reason for the thought. His regeneration card might help the situation.

After all, it was supposed to ‘restore a body to its natural condition.’ This wasn’t like with Bron, where giving him the card would have been useless since the card was too low-tiered. The card was at epic now, and its effect far more powerful and pervasive.

And making Blake a [Knight] would let him pick one card out of Rowan’s deck to copy.

“Hey, Blake. Might have a solution.” Rowan wet his lips, hesitating just for a second before pushing on. “I just got to epic, and my class is called [Spear of Unity]. I can select eight people to link my class with. If I do, they get access to a copy of one of my cards, of their own choosing. It doesn’t count against their deck either. And I have an extremely powerful regeneration card…”

Rowan trailed off, ignoring the startled looks of his party members and the way he was pushing his guilt down.

“Really think it would help?” Blake asked.

“Didn’t have time to switch cards around with us in combat and rushing about right now, but yeah, I think it would. The card says it returns your body to its ‘natural state.’ I doubt that means corrupted as hell.”

It didn’t even take Blake a second to decide. He didn’t even ask about potential drawbacks to doing it, or what Rowan would get out of the whole thing. “Let’s go for it.”

So, for the very first time, Rowan reached out for his new card, triggering its effect.

“Huh, yeah, got a window asking me if I want to accept and an offer of cards to select,” Blake said. “You’ve got some pretty nice ones. Good. See the card, too. Well, here goes.”

Blake finalized his choice, and hit the final yes. A stream of power opened up between the two heroes, linking them, letting them tap into a part of each other’s strength.

A smile touched Rowan’s lips as he felt the blazing ball of trust, friendship and care emanating from Blake towards him. All doubts were squashed. All suspicions washed away. This was still his best friend, even if things had changed a bit.

And then a flash of something cold and dark snuck through the bond too and Rowan barely had the time to gasp before he was falling.

—

Rowan jerked and blinked awake, only to hiss in pain and confusion. All around him, a blighted land stretched, dead and barren. In spite of the cloudless sky, the only source of light was the weak, reddish glow of a flickering sun. Even with it at its zenith, the sky was practically black as pitch.

“Rowan? What are you doing here?” Blake’s voice was hurried, panicked.

Rowan blinked and looked around again, this time immediately spotting his best friend. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed him the first time, with the land as open as it was and the link between them still blazing bright.

Except, not everything was as it should be. Rather than a man of flesh and blood, Rowan realized that Blake was cast out of pure, golden light. Every detail was there. Everything was moving and working as it should. He just didn’t look like a human being. And right there, in his chest, a ball of miasma and foulness coiled, trying to stretch its tendrils higher. They were already up to the hero’s neck and grasping ever onwards.

A startled glance down revealed that Rowan wasn’t exactly in his own body, either. His form was made out of reddish energy with a black tint, but at least he didn’t have a parasite squirming in him.

“I— Wait, where am I?” Rowan demanded, quickly clambering to his feet. His spear materialized in his hand, almost like magic. But looking at it was a challenge. The entire weapon was darkness, blood, and some strange matter wrought together in a beautiful whole.

“This is what happens every time I pass out,” Blake said. “Though I don’t know why you’re here, or why you can summon that.” He pointed at Rowan’s spear, almost pouting. “I’m stuck with only my class and cards. You know what? It doesn’t matter. He’s coming. I can feel it.”

Rowan didn’t have time to wonder at the fact that Blake didn’t have a bound weapon, especially when his friend was sponsored by the king instead of a backwater baron. Rowan was a bit preoccupied by the storm cloud tearing its way across the horizon, making an even bigger mess of the blighted lands.

There really wasn’t much the two heroes could do. They fell in together, Rowan clutching his spear, Blake summoning a sword and shield made of light.

Finally, just before swallowing them whole, the storm cloud stopped.

“My Lord will be so proud of me. Two heroes, for the price of one!” The voice was ripe with madness, malice, and a twisted kind of worshipful devotion that made Rowan feel sick.

When Rowan finally felt the thing’s aura sweep over them, almost driving them to their knees, there was little doubt left.

They were face to face with a legendary demon.