With the rhythm of Elijah’s waning heartbeat, blood spurted from a dozen different wounds. He pushed with all of his willpower, trying desperately to stave off the darkness creeping into his field of vision. With his muddled mind, he could focus on nothing else. And yet, his efforts were useless.

When the ta’alaki reached him, he tried to fend them off, but he could scarcely lift his arms, much less stop the robed native of the excised world. The creature clamped their claw around Elijah’s thick neck, then lifted him free of the ground. He couldn’t resist. His legs dangled limply, and even when he summoned enough strength to try to pry himself loose, he found himself stymied.

Even as he ineffectually clawed at the creature, they said something Elijah was too far gone to hear. The ta’alaki’s grip tightened, and both his windpipe and the bloodflow to his brain were cut down to nothing. Panic suffused his mind as he realized that he was about to lose consciousness. A surge of adrenaline gave him just enough energy to gouge a small wound in the monstrous ta’alaki’s wrist, but the resultant trickle of blood was too miniscule to matter.

The creature pulled him close, and at last, Elijah could hear their words as they hissed, “You are a tiny, pitiful creature. Even with my power shackled, you are no more than an insect. You –”

Just then, a white light flashed, and suddenly, Elijah was falling. The creature’s claws were still around his neck, but they’d lost all strength. His breath left his lungs as he hit the floor, but when he breathed in, his airways were unrestricted. He was no longer suffocating.

A second later, warm vitality suffused his body, and, all at once, he realized that someone – or something – was screaming. He blinked, then looked up to see that Sadie had planted herself between the ta’alaki. Glowing with her personal shield, she looked like a fabled white knight.

Of course, that perception was slightly marred by the damage to her armor. Once again, it had been ripped to pieces, but the woman beneath held strong. She lashed out with her sword, and the ta’alaki danced backward. The blade still cut deep into the creature’s hastily-raised arm, but even as its white blood sprayed onto the floor, it looked mostly unaffected.

Except for the fact that it was missing one hand.

Another heal settled onto Elijah, and his mind continued to clear. Sadie aimed another blow at the creature, but it was clearly exploratory. She never intended for it to land. Rather, she was keeping it at a distance while measuring the space between herself and her opponent.

With their size, the creature had an advantage of reach, but they seemed much slower than her. Was that due to a lack of Strength? Or an inability to control that explosive power? Elijah couldn’t quite tell if they were physically weak or just uncoordinated, but the results were the same. The thing simply couldn’t keep up with Sadie.

The ta’alaki backed away as Sadie advanced. Every few seconds, she aimed Blade of the Avenger at the creature. In each instance, the huge sword erupted from the ground, sheering hunks of flesh from the monstrous creature’s thin body. Then, Dat and Kurik recovered enough to pitch in, shooting crossbow bolts and arrows at them.

That was when the necromancer – for that was the best way to describe them – got serious. Waving all three of their remaining hands. A second later, teal lightning arced out, slamming into the three attackers. Sadie stumbled slightly as her shield shattered, and both Dat and Kurik paled as Elijah felt their vitality flee their bodies and race toward the necromancer. When it hit, the ta’alaki’s wounds mended.

But by that point, Elijah had completed his transformation back into his caster form. Once he’d returned to his natural shape, he started casting. First came Swarm, then Calamity. After that, he tried Nature’s Rebuke, but it immediately became clear that the necromancer was not considered an unnatural creature. So, he fell back on Storm’s Fury, channeling it through his staff and into the creature.

Finally, between lightning strikes, Elijah used his healing spells to help ease the burden on Ron. In the back of one facet of his Mind, Elijah couldn’t ignore the fact that he still had no feeling below the waist. He tried to push those thoughts aside, but even as he fell into a rhythm with his casting, the knowledge that his lower half was paralyzed – likely permanently – twisted his stomach into knots.

Even so, he refused to let up. He wouldn’t let it derail his efforts. So, as hundreds of glowing insects descended upon the creature, he did everything he could to assist in the ongoing battle.

It wasn’t enough, though.

That became immediately clear when deathly beams of teal light descended from above, slamming into each member of Elijah’s party, and draining their life force at an accelerated rate. By itself, it wouldn’t kill them, but the ta’alaki had many more spells up its sleeve. Elijah had difficulty distinguishing between each one, but he could feel himself getting weaker as various afflictions took hold.

And he bore the brunt of so many deleterious effects much better than the others. Dat, in particular, staggered around like he was drunk, and his crossbow bolts missed more than they hit. Kurik was slightly better off – at least until he bent over double and vomited a mixture of blood and bile that smelled like charred flesh and garbage.

Ron did what he could, throwing out one healing spell after another. The air around him swirled powerfully as he pulled ethera into his Mind, but it was obvious that he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.

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Aside from Elijah, Sadie took the barrage of afflictions better than anyone else, but even then, her movements were markedly slower with every passing moment. Meanwhile, her own ethereal attacks had ceased, and she had begun to rely almost entirely on pure swordplay.

There were only two reasons she didn’t immediately succumb. First, she was quite a talented fighter, which had been obvious from the moment Elijah had first seen her in battle. She’d since revealed that she had trained in various martial arts before Earth was touched by the World Tree, and she’d only gotten better in the years since. That allowed her to stand toe-to-toe with a much more powerful opponent.

But the second reason she wasn’t overwhelmed by that gap in power was a simple one – she was armed, while the ta’alaki was not. Elijah had broken one of their staves, while the other three had been destroyed when their crystals had exploded.

However, even with those advantages, Sadie was slowly losing the fight.

Elijah couldn’t allow that.

So, without further ado, he initiated the shift into his blight dragon form. In the couple of seconds it took for the transformation to complete, Sadie lost more ground. Elijah gritted his teeth as his body transitioned, and the second it was complete, he used Flicker Step.

After slipping into the shadows, he was instantly transported to a position just behind the ta’alaki necromancer. He’d slipped from the creature’s field of vision, so a second later, he was out of combat. The thing never even knew he was there, and once he’d adopted Guise of the Unseen, he faded entirely from visibility.

That was when Elijah used Predator Strike, Venom Strike, and Envenom. Ethera swirled within him as the abilities took hold. He dug his front claws into the floor, then threw himself forward. He hit face-first, his gaping jaws clamping down as his fangs pierced the creature’s left leg. A second later, his amplified venom flooded the limb, delivering with it a powerfully destructive affliction. Insidious Malady came with it, and Elijah had a feeling that the necromancer would not prove nearly as durable as the amalgam of merged zombies.

The creature howled in pain, then tried to kick him free. However, even with only two claws, Elijah was as stubborn as any badger. He clung to the thing’s calf, administering one bite after another. With his attributes, he could strike incredibly quickly – at least once with every passing second – so the afflictions continued to pile up.

Then, the monster did something Elijah never could have expected.

The necromancer produced a large knife – seemingly summoning it from nowhere – and lashed out at their own leg. The blade bit deep, and Sadie took that brief distraction to land another blow, cutting into the necromancer’s side. The ta’alaki ignored the wound, continuing to hack at their leg.

Elijah saw what was happening, so he scrambled up the creature’s body, dragging himself to the necromancer’s torso with only his front legs. Then, he continued his attacks, reasoning that, while the creature might succeed in cutting off their leg and removing the site of so many afflictions, they could not remove their back.

In the back of his mind, Elijah did wonder if such a strategy would be effective. Theoretically, it should work so long as the venom didn’t have a chance to enter the veins and get pumped throughout the body. But Envenom – as well as Insidious Malady and the results of Venom Strike – were magical in nature. So, he suspected that they wouldn’t behave like normal venom.

Finally, the ta’alaki managed to succeed in amputating their own leg, but by that point, the combined might of Elijah’s afflictions – with the effects of Swarm not to be forgotten – had begun to take their toll. The necromancer continued to drain vitality from the others, but that was a losing strategy. Eventually, their efforts would be overcome by the sheer weight of so much damage.

After all, Sadie hadn’t stopped her own onslaught, and Dat as well as Kurik had continued to fire in the necromancer’s direction. Many of those projectiles went wide, but enough hit that they couldn’t be ignored.

And the creature soon seemed to come to that same conclusion, because they stopped trying to mitigate the damage, shifting their strategy to inflicting as many wounds as they could manage.

Elijah was the obvious target.

With his mobility cut down by his paralyzed lower half, Elijah couldn’t move nearly as quickly as normal. Even if he’d been at full health, he wasn’t fast enough to indefinitely avoid the creature’s efforts at catching him. So, it was inevitable that he would eventually be caught. And when he was, the thing grabbed hold of him with an iron grip – one hand on either side of Elijah’s body – and ripped.

Elijah was tough.

But the necromancer was far stronger.

He let out a primal scream as he felt his entire body ripping in half. His scales protested. His dense flesh resisted. And his bones briefly held fast. But eventually, his body simply gave out.

In a shower of gore, Elijah was ripped into two pieces. For the second time that day, he felt the darkness of unconsciousness creeping into his field of vision. One half of his body sailed through the air, while his upper half was used as a weapon as the creature bludgeoned Sadie.

Vaguely, he was aware of his vital organs slipping to the ground, but strangely, he felt no more pain.

Sadie screamed, the sound so filled with emotion that it cut through even Elijah’s detached thoughts. A second later, she erupted with white light, and Elijah felt a burning that encompassed his body, mind, soul, and spirit. Even his core roiled in agony as he suddenly flopped to the ground.

Looking up, he saw Sadie – glowing even brighter than ever before – fall upon the weakened and one-legged necromancer. Her sword moved so swiftly that Elijah couldn’t even track it. He did see the results, though, as the necromancer fell into two pieces. Sadie didn’t stop there, though. She leaped atop the thing’s head, then buried her white blade into their gaping face.

Elijah lost consciousness after that, but the blackness only lasted for a couple of seconds before he blinked. Looking down, he saw that he’d returned to his human form, and to his immense surprise, he actually saw a pair of legs. His body was whole.

And very naked from the waist down.

His hands shot to his groin in an effort to preserve his modesty, but he needn’t have bothered, because Ron was beside him a moment later, covering him with a curiously sparkly piece of cloth.

“What happened?” he asked.

He didn’t need to add a question about the fate of the necromancer. He’d felt the influx of experience that had pushed him up another level.

Glancing around, he saw Sadie, gulping air as she stared down at the fallen ta’alaki. A few seconds later, she blinked, then turned to face Elijah. Her eyes went down his body, then settled onto his intact legs. They were covered by the sparkly cloth, but they were evident nonetheless. He wiggled his toes, astounded by their presence as well as the fact that they weren’t numb.

Dat, who’d approached alongside Ron, said, “A Miracle, bro. That’s what happened.”