Victor was a little taken aback when all of Alice’s magic ceased, including her flight and mana shield. She had been gliding just above Genus’s back as she slammed into him with a disgusting crunch. Despite her high stats, Genus was traveling at over a hundred miles an hour as they raced away from the Fleshtrees behind them and toward the next floor’s tower. Her face mashed into Genus’s scaled back with the force of a semi-truck, and her ragdoll body rolled off his wings with blood trailing from her broken nose as she plunged to the ground. Although the group had passed the thousand-meter-tall Fleshtrees behind them, there were still thousands of smaller ones between them and the next tower. As Alice descended, a surge of vines rose from the swamps like flesh-hungry vipers awaiting the falling snack.
Victor would have dived down to help somehow, but a dense ball of mana suddenly surrounded Alice. It was so thick that he could see the mana as it became a solid turquoise substance that enveloped Alice like a bubble.
“What’s happening, Genus?” Victor asked the most magically inclined creature he knew, although Victor’s mana detection skills were excellent due to how mana affected his lifeforce, like detecting a coming storm due to lower wind pressure or smelling something from far away. Unfortunately, he severely lacked knowledge related to mana since he never used the stuff. Nevertheless, despite his lack of knowledge, his System somehow converted his lifeforce into mana and did all the spell-casting for him.
“Evolving…” Genus replied with a grumble. “And not a good time for it.” The mighty noble dragon flared his maw and unleashed golden hellfire upon the numerous Fleshtrees dotting the swampy lands below. “We need to protect her while the evolution occurs,” he growled as his body began glowing with power; mana danced across his golden scales in myriad rainbow streaks. His wings spread out to their maximum wingspan, and then he opened his mouth and commanded in an ancient tongue that Victor’s language ability helpfully translated for him.
“Greater reality manipulation, Midas Touch.”
Genus then flapped his mighty wings, and golden flakes rained down upon the land. Victor made sure to float out of the way as he was far below the dragon. Huh, interesting. This spell is the first time I’ve encountered such a wide-area attack. It seems I continue to find new counters to my Stealth skill every week. The golden flakes slowly cascaded down like snowflakes on a cold Christmas morning. Unfortunately, the vines seemed oblivious to approaching ancient dragon magic and surged upward anyway—and every time a golden flake so much as grazed passed a vine, it shattered its mana shield and turned it into a piece of golden artwork.
“Wow,” Victor mumbled as he watched many miles of swampland transform into a golden paradise. Genus’s spell didn’t even spare the Fleshtrees from the onslaught. The seemingly harmless flakes punched through the dense red mana shields of the Fleshtree and transformed their black bark into pure gold. “I suppose the main counter to this spell is the long wind-up time and how slow the flakes move,” Victor noted as he watched the devastation. Despite how overpowered he found the Fleshtrees to be for only floor-fifty monsters, he had to admit the inability to move made them weak to many spells and tactics. If I didn’t have to bring anyone with me, I could just Stealth and float right past these Fleshtrees and blast a hole through that wall or use Spirit Movement at maximum power to slip right through.
While watching the unimaginable display of magic occurring before him, a thought crossed Victor’s mind. “Why didn’t you use this spell before? We could have saved countless hours.”
Although Genus heavily focused on casting his grand magic, he still managed to sneak out an answer through clenched teeth. “I will need to rest for three days after this spell finishes. If not for Alice going through an evolution, I wouldn’t dare use a spell that leaves me so vulnerable.”
Victor groaned. That was never good news, especially with the noble dragons hot on their trail. Hopefully, the Fleshtree wall will provide us with some time…but if all the noble dragons can unleash some crazy spell like Genus is right now, then we might be in trouble… He entered the black sea within his mind. He then focused on the many undead critters dotted around the previous floors. Those dragons should be approaching the forty-seventh-floor tower… He had managed to raise a few Fleshtrees as undead, making them even more sinister than before; however, apart from being surveillance, an unmoving, undead tree lacked usability.
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Victor felt his view warp as he used one of the many features of his maxed-out Raise Undead skill and looked through the eye of a Fleshtree. He had only used this spell once to scout out the Delving party back in the cursed forest, and that had been through a humanoid creature, a goblin. Taking over the perspective of an eldritch tree with a hunger for flesh was far different. He could feel the world around him through the roots and buried vines. He had felt a similar sensation when he used to go to the beach and bury his toes in the sand. That’s tolerable, but what the hell am I supposed to do with this point of view? He forced the Fleshtree to open its bark, and the light blinded him briefly. Okay, so the Fleshtrees’ eyes are very vulnerable to light. That is interesting to know… The sap surrounding the eye made the view blurry, like looking underwater or through a pickle jar, but he could make out the shadow of dragons flying overhead. All right, they are about a day’s travel behind us. He canceled the view and returned to his main body.
His eyes wandered across the landscape. The next floor’s tower loomed over them a mere mile away. Surrounding the tower was a gray swamp with bright-red Fleshtrees around a few meters tall dotting the landscape. Their willow branches twisted and turned as they focused on Alice with red, alien eyes. A perpetual fog blanketed the land, and with the wall of titanic Fleshtrees that they had just broken through surrounding the tower in an enclosing circle, Victor felt somewhat trapped.
A shill scream brought his attention back to Alice. Bubbles rose from her mouth as she thrashed around. Her eyes were wide open as the mana bubble shifted from a lovely turquoise to a grim black.
“Is this normal?” Victor asked the rainbow dragon a hundred meters above his head. The mana coating Genus began to falter, and through the cracks in the beautiful rainbow sheen, Victor saw something… Is that his bare skin? Where did his scales go? Oh. He watched in horror as Genus concluded his spell, and as the rainbow mana dissipated, he emerged as a completely white lizard. It reminded Victor of those hairless cats people used to own back on Earth. He consumed his scales to produce that spell. Were those golden flakes, perhaps, his scales? He felt those questions were more suited for another time.
Genus seemed beyond exhausted as he hung his head low, and even his mana shield flickered out of existence. The dragon shifted his head with great effort and observed Alice. His eyes danced in their usual crystal brilliance as he spoke. “Yes, that is normal. Evolution requires the body to be rebuilt. The evolved version of a species is not even comparable to the original. In fact, they are so different they can’t even mate with their previous species…”
“All right, sure. But why has the mana turned black, and why is there pink floating around there now?”
Genus frowned as he scrutinized the rapidly changing ball of mana. Not only had it become a deep black like a starless sky, but now streaks of pink were streaking through it like shooting stars blooming into roses. And then, the mana bubble began to expand rapidly like the sun does before collapsing and going supernova. “Is that also normal?” Victor questioned as he hovered backward. The mana bubble devoured all it came into contact with. Alice had fallen close to the floor before the mana bubble had appeared, so it only had to expand a little before it began consuming the golden landscape left in the wake of Genus’s spell. As the bubble greedily swallowed the golden land, flakes of gold were added to the mix and floated around, turning the mana bubble into a snow globe of golden flakes and pink roses.
“That can’t be good…”