I walked toward the Eclipsed with the strangest sensation of… fullness. With each step, the creature’s eyes followed me, body still drifting above the tangle of roots where its legs should be, but otherwise motionless.

The desire to use the new dark power came with odd, unfamiliar impulses. I wanted to blast every living thing in the chamber, indiscriminate of friend or foe. I wanted to destroy. I simply wanted release, and I wanted destruction.

I blinked hard, gripping focus as tightly as I could, taking one step after another toward the Eclipsed. My instincts with mana manipulation gave me a vague impression of what was happening. There was far too much dark mana outside my cores. It had touched me and left behind a kind of taint that stained my nature.

My bedroll could clear that when this was all over, couldn’t it? I suspected I could manage this—maybe limiting how much I drew on the new power to avoid granting whatever was inside control again. At night, my bedroll could drink up the dark mana, cleansing me and filling its own belly.

It seemed like symbiotic relationship. I just had to hope I was assuming correctly.

Later, I could be cautious. Later, I could learn how to master this. Right now, I wanted to unleash it. I needed to. The Eclipsed was far above my power level, and I couldn’t approach this with caution.

Was that my own thought, or was the dark mana pushing its agenda on me?

Frustrated, I decided I didn’t have the luxury of worrying for now. I reached inside, found the hidden door to my corestones and slid it open.

The dark mana rushed out, filling me with power. The dark mana felt almost nothing like regular mana. I couldn’t shape or guide it. I simply had to rely on its nature and desire to be used, forming magic and drawing it in. Once attracted, the dark mana was unpredictable—almost as if it was trying to prove itself, dominate, or wrestle control from me.

I took another slow step, approaching the Eclipsed as I wrestled internally with the unfamiliar new power inside my cores.

Using it was an exercise in self-control and willpower. I steeled myself, feeling as though I was bracing my feet and holding back against a storm pouring out of my corestones. I tried to send threads of mana out to heal my allies. The dark mana instantly attached itself to each thread, flooding them with power and sucking something in from the chamber itself to heal their wounds almost instantly.

I snapped off the threads as quickly as I could, fearful of introducing some sort of corruption into them if I let it work for too long.

Keeping my awareness focused on the motionless Eclipsed was a challenge. I took one step after the other, slowly approaching as my allies groaned and sat up, confused to find themselves uninjured and alive.

Dark mana swirled inside me. I could feel its eagerness. Or was that my own eagerness?

I summoned two mana shields, angling them to guard my allies from the fight that was about to take place. The dark mana seeped into the shields, too, bending them and staining them purple. I heard cries of panic as the they wrapped completely around my party, forming a circular wall lined with magical spikes.

“Sorry,” I said through my teeth. “Just… stay put.”

I heard them saying something, but their words were muffled by the shield. I continued approaching the Eclipsed.

I knew there was a wrongness in me. Maybe it should have caused me to panic, but I was certain the bedroll could cleanse me. And I was nearly certain I could learn to control this power and make it my own.

I was sweating. The dark mana seemed to even be attaching itself to my bones and muscles. I sensed potential there. Could this make me faster, stronger, or more resilient? Combined with its obvious ability to supercharge my spells, the temptation to keep using this was nearly maddening. But I clenched my jaw, making sure I kept myself in command of my own body above all else.

The Eclipsed finally moved. It pivoted slightly, now facing me head on.

There were no features to determine its expression, but something in its posture had changed. It definitely wasn’t distracted anymore, and it was ready to fight.

I remembered what I had called it. Krete?

“You can walk away,” I said slowly. Even speaking normally took effort. The dark mana only wanted to destroy the Eclipsed. It didn’t want to talk. “Krete, right? None of my friends are dead. I know what this stuff feels like. I doubt you wanted to do what you did.”

The Eclipsed twitched slightly, then the purple eyes glowed brighter. I sensed nothing but malice there. Whoever or whatever Krete had been, I didn’t think he was inside the creature anymore.

The Eclipsed still had three roots left to draw power from, and I felt one light up. Distantly, I noticed my bedroll was still scooting its way toward another root, oblivious to the fighting as it focused on its next snack.

If I could reach it to make a Forge Echo, I could possibly try to take out the remaining three roots.

You don’t need to. Just end this.

I shivered. What the fuck was that voice? It hadn’t felt like my own. But I didn’t have time to dwell, because Mana Sense warned me of an attack.

The Eclipsed bent both arms as if flexing. A swarm of small wooden spikes tipped with mana fired out of its back. Hundreds of thorns flew out, rose high, then congealed like dueling schools of fish, swarming toward me with a deadly whisper. They twisted together in the air before rushing out in every possible direction to surround me.

I threw a Mana Shield in their path. The dark mana attached itself to the threads fueling my technique like a co-pilot, issuing commands and reshaping the spell on its own. The Mana shield I summoned broke apart into hundreds of small, fingertip sized circles. They flashed out, locking into place to perfectly block every single thorn—vaporizing the wooden spikes in a cloud of sparks.

I staggered, eyes going hazy for a moment as the feeling of losing control nearly overtook me again.

Keep it together, Brynn.

The Eclipsed was already drifting forward, calling on another power root as a huge hammer of twisted wood formed in its hands.

I was in control again, but it had felt for a moment like I was losing myself. Dammit. I needed to sleep in my bedroll as soon as I possibly could. But I couldn’t afford to go easy on this thing. I needed to end the fight, and I needed to do it quickly.

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I jumped backward and touched a Dragon’s Tail potion, preparing to make a flaming Elemental Spike. This time, I tried to form a protective weave around the thread of pure mana, hoping to block the dark mana from seeping into the spell. The dark mana punched through the barrier without much difficulty, winding around the thread and enhancing my ability.

The flaming spike formed in my hands, extending until it was a thick greatsword longer than my body. It should’ve been too heavy to hold, but it felt perfectly balanced and easy to wield. A pair of flaming gauntlets and guards for my forearms materialized, too. Despite my hands and arms being covered in magical flames, I didn’t even feel a hint of warmth.

I stared down, watching the air around the weapons and armor shimmer with heat as the sickening feeling from the dark mana came on even stronger.

I pushed it down. I was still in control. I was still—

The Eclipsed swung its hammer toward me. The weapon exploded into dozens of small blades mid-swing, but the sword in my hands pushed back against my palms hard enough to make me slide out of the way.

Ignoring my surprise and confusion, I jumped forward, swiping at the Eclipsed with the flaming weapon and carving a deep gash in its shoulder.

I raised my left arm and blocked as it tried to slam a fist down on me. My flaming armor fought back, blasting it with fire as its fist connected.

But the Eclipsed was faster and stronger than me. It lowered a shoulder and jerked forward, propelling me backward and knocking the air from my lungs. Instinctively, I used Devour Mana and healed the damage, even as the Silver Scream arrow in my thigh pumped me full of Healing Potion.

I looked down at the arrow, then ripped it out, gritting my teeth against the pain. I still didn’t want to figure out what would happen if the effect detonated on me, even with a Healing Potion.

I held the sword high, already breathing hard and dripping sweat. The Eclipsed stared back at me, purple eyes showing no emotion as its hammer of vines writhed, changing shape from a hammer, to an axe, and then to a scythe.

“Let us help!” Thorn shouted from inside the shields.

“Stay back,” I said. “I can do this.”

I took a few deep breaths. I felt the dark mana within the weapon. It wanted me to let it have a turn. I was no swordsman, and the temptation to let the blade guide me was strong. If I could just end this now, I could make an excuse and sleep in my bedroll. Hell, my party had already seen the creepy thing crawling around and eating roots. The cat was already mostly out of the bag, anyway.

I tried to grant the dark mana some control of the weapon, but not all.

I felt my muscles go tight, as if gripped by thousands of invisible hands. Suddenly, I was stalking toward the Eclipsed, sword raised.

It leapt for me and I watched myself parry and slash as if I had spent my whole life training with martial weapons. My body expertly dodged, ducked, and spun inside the Eclipsed’s guard, hacking away a chunk of its torso in a flaming heap. I blocked the constantly shifting weapon with a bracer, elbowed the Eclipsed in the head hard enough to make roots snap, and then put all my weight into a downward strike.

Its right arm came away, trailing fire as it fell and writhed on the ground like a dying insect.

My cursed bedroll finally reached one of the roots, biting down hard. The shifting weapon in the Eclipsed hands hardened and flaked away as soon as the root was severed. The Eclipsed threw back its head in pain.

I felt myself at a tipping point. If I let the dark mana keep this up, I would lose control. I couldn’t ever let it get this far again. The dark mana was winning the fight for me, but I sensed that I couldn’t give it another inch of control. Not another minute. If it went any further, I wasn’t sure I could wrestle it back into my cores again.

I used every scrap of will I had to drag the dark mana inward. At first, nothing happened.

Come on, Brynn. If you don’t figure this out, you’re going to end up killing this thing only to take its place. You’ll be saving your friends only to kill them yourself.

The thought filled me with fresh anger, letting me push back harder.

The dark mana finally gave. I felt it snaking inward from my toes and fingertips, as if it was being dragged kicking and screaming into my cores.

You need me.

It was the voice again. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “I’ll fucking use you if I want to, and you’ll learn to obey.”

I pushed even harder, finding a new kind of mental muscle the more I pulled back against the dark mana. It sped up, dragging inward even faster.

I fell to one knee, gasping for breath when it was all inside again. I could feel the residue of it in my body, though, like oil left behind. This was what I needed my bedroll for. This was the permanent touch that people like Krete eventually lost the battle of wills to, wasn’t it?

But I had a secret weapon to combat it.

You made a mistake picking me, asshole, I thought.

It was a small victory, but my flaming armor and huge sword had diminished as the dark mana was pushed into my core. Now, I held only the small Elemental Spike shaped like a dagger.

I can take care of a weakened, one-armed Eclipsed by myself.

I was tempted to release my allies from the cage just to free up the concentration I was using to maintain them. But I knew I could do this, and my hastily forming plan wouldn’t work if I had to worry about hurting them.

The Eclipsed drifted forward. Its weapon was gone and it was leaking blood. Flames rose from its body in several places, highlighting its form in the dim chamber like a living, purple-eyed torch.

Without the dark mana in my system, I wasn’t about to willingly start a melee fight again.

It lurched forward with sudden speed, arm snapping forward as if trying to grip my neck.

I used a Mana Shield to shove its arm off course and stabbed it in the stomach, leaving the dagger stuck in place as I jumped backward. I used another Mana Shield to bump it backward when it tried to rush forward. The creature broke the shield, but the barrier slowed it enough for me to summon my Silver Scream quiver. There was no time to use the bow, so I pulled an arrow from the quiver, not even bothering to catch the quiver as it fell.

I activated Abyssal Step just as the Eclipsed reached for me again, vanishing and moving to its side. When I was in the abyssal realm, I saw tendrils of purple reaching from the roots toward the Eclipsed’s core. My eyes widened in surprise just as I reappeared, slamming the arrow down into the Eclipsed’s neck.

The beast hissed, swiping at me again and landing a blow that sent me flying away.

Thankfully, I wanted distance. I skidded on my back, kicking up dust as I formed a Cloudfall of Bombroot directly over the Eclipsed. Before the explosive power could start to fall, I boxed the Eclipsed in with Mana Shields and reinforced them as quickly as I could. If the shields held, they should amplify the explosive power of the Bombroot, working with the flaming arrow and the Elemental Spike still sticking out of it’s chest to—

The caged-in Eclipsed began exploding. Each explosion sent fragments of wood and black blood spraying against the cage of Mana Shields. They popped with muffled, percussive blasts like distant gunfire. The Eclipsed twitched and convulsed, body slowly engulfed by flames and yellow bursts of light where Bombroot Potion landed on it from above.

Piece by piece, the Eclipsed blew apart.

Within seconds, there was nothing left but a pile of shredded wood and black gore staining the ground.

Notifications pulsed for my attention, but I barely noticed.

I was still on my back, body shaking as I felt Lyria’s hands on my shoulders.

When had I released the cage?

She was saying something to me, but I couldn’t quite make out her words.

I remembered Circa talking about a woman who had died in the infested ruins from “overdrawing.” She had burnt herself up from the inside out, and I wasn’t sure if I had nearly done the same. I knew I hardly had any mana when I approached the Eclipsed, but how many spells had I used? Or was this feeling because of the dark mana still staining me from the inside out?

My body ached all over and I could feel the alien presence of… something lurking inside my corestones. I kept part of my focus on that doorway, trying to keep it shut as I urged the last scraps of dark mana in my body back inside.

But a single thread of dark mana suddenly erupted upward, straight toward my head.

My body went rigid, hands closing into claws as I fell on my side, nearly biting my tongue off as my eyes slammed shut.