Over the next hour and a half, Quadrus led me through another five of his rivals’ portions of the floor, detonating them and their armies alike. With my natural Mana regeneration, I could likely have kept going, but I faked being tired and my unwitting guide begrudgingly led me back to his portion of the floor, only to find his army completely wiped out.

In their place stood my party in all their glory.

Half an hour before, I’d had them move over and get to work on clearing out the remainder of Quadrus’ army. It was only when they told me they were all healed up and ready that I’d put on my act and brought him back to his original wedge.

He roared before lowering his head to charge at the assembled party like a huge black [Minotaur] with another orb of void energy floating between his horns. “My army! I’ll eat your entrails for breakfast! Conflux, attend me!” He screamed as he blasted toward them and I joined him, but not the way he expected.

Behind his raging form, I jogged as I produced dozens and then hundreds of [Light Arrows] in a fan above my head. While [Elemental Mastery] wasn’t directly able to help with my efficiency in producing the Skill, my practice with it had definitely worked wonders in my ability to pull energy from the air around me instead of just using my internal Mana reserves. It was harder when it wasn’t an elemental ability, but radiant energy was produced in small quantities whenever light was present and all I had to do was snag a hold of those small motes of energy to serve as the building blocks for my [Light Arrows].

“Hey, Quadrus?” I singsonged. “I don’t think this relationship is going to work out. This is a toxic workplace and I quit. Thanks for the name though, I think I’ll keep it.”

The huge [Nightfiend] stumbled as he couldn’t resist turning to look at me, but before he could say anything, I unleashed two hundred [Light Arrows] directly toward his face and torso in a flurry. His look of shock quickly turned into rage as the first arrow struck his cheek and blew a hole straight into his mouth.

Somehow, he managed to turn his entire body around faster than I could perceive as he completely disregarded my party in favor of erasing me from existence. The egg of void energy between his horns pulsed and the vast majority of my [Light Arrows] streaked toward it, but maybe twenty were aimed low enough that being pulled up just sent them streaking into his face.

“You’ll die for this betrayal, Conflux!” The massive general’s strides devoured the distance between us in less than a second as he hurled a huge haymaker straight for my miniscule body.

Just before he was about to make impact, I flexed my will and produced a [Wall of Force] between the two of us and, while I felt my HP take a hit from the impact, he definitely had it worse. I grunted as the massive demon’s severed arm grasped for me after my [Arcane Armor] and [Sun Armor] ate up most of the force remaining after it was removed.

The [Nightfiend]’s eyes glowed crimson and ebony as he pounded his remaining fist into my [Wall of Force] thirty times in less than five seconds. Despite my HP regeneration, if he didn’t stop soon, I was going to be in for a world of hurt.

Luckily, while he was on his own, I had a party to help me out.

Raiju was the first member of my party to arrive on scene and she went at Quadrus with a vengeance. She was everywhere, biting him, tripping him up, and shocking the ever living Abyss out of him with her [Lightning Strike]. Ylsa arrived just as Raiju used [Winds of Fury] to shove the fiend back from the barrier and down to the ground.

The [Mountain Tempest] somehow arrived like she’d been thrown with [Bloodsplitter] drawn back and [Primordial Fury] screaming from her lungs. She came down like a hammer of an angry goddess, which she kind of was, on Quadrus’ remaining arm, only to be deflected as the void energy between his head pulsed once more, throwing my allies back and shattering my [Wall of Force].

I fell to one knee as the sudden shattering of my wall sent a shock through my system. My eyes bulged when I saw the debuff I was dealing with.

[You have been afflicted with System Shock, leaving you unable to use any Skills for the next two minutes.]

What am I going to do to him now? Without my Skills, I’m a sitting duck!

I clutched Jaegan’s staff to my chest as Quadrus rose to his feet like he was a marionette on a set of really huge strings. The void energy from around his horns quickly surrounded him in a cocoon of sorts and, no matter what Ylsa, Volta, Voltaire, and Raiju did to it for the next minute, nothing was even able to scratch it.

When the cocoon split open, a small part of me was surprised to see Quadrus’ name show up on his Status, but the rest of me was terrified of what I was seeing on the rest of it.

[Quadrus - Unique - Rank S Monster

Level: 46

Vulnerabilities: None

Immunities: Poison, Fire, Acid, Cold]

“CONFLUX!!!” The newly evolved demon exited his chrysalis to reveal a figure merely ten feet tall compared to his previous towering stature, but instead of missing an arm he now had four in place of his original two. Armor that appeared to be made of the night itself covered his body from head to toe, with only cutouts for his horns and face. “YOU DIE NOW!!!”

He moved so fast, he may as well have teleported as he lashed out an armored foot to slam into my chest and send me flying into the air while simultaneously knocking all the air out of my lungs. Dark energy gathered between his horns as he screamed obscenities at me, and this time I was pretty sure it wasn’t his lunch as a beam of pure void energy ripped out towards me from it a moment later. I braced for the impact, but to my surprise, it never came.

In front of me stood the familiar form of Voltaire, his [Arcweaver] body wavering as the energy binding him to Genovia drifted out through the foot wide hole in his chest. He spun to face me in the air and bowed.

“It has been a pleasure serving you, Pactlord. I hope–”

Before he could finish, he burst into static and I heard his sister’s roar of indignation and rage off to my left. While part of me reeled, the part containing my mother and father’s training kicked in as I threw my arm out and [Arlo’s Animated Buckler] sprang to life, producing a mostly transparent, blue, floating shield of force about the same size as a large dinner plate. It hovered between us as I raised my other arm to level the [Ruby Heart] at him with a clenched fist.

Lances of crimson light speared out from the circle of ruby toward the fiend and, while the [Ruby Heart] may feel warm to the touch, it isn’t the warmth of a fire, it was actually the warmth of the sun. Quadrus took the first beam on the shoulder, only to roar out in pain as the radiant damage ripped into his new armor. His devastating speed was more than enough to dodge the next five bolts of energy from me as I fell toward the ground below, but while I’d been hanging in the air, my Party hadn’t been stagnant.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ylsa slugged back a green potion before triggering [Primordial Fury] once more and launching herself at the monster with reckless abandon, [Bloodsplitter] drawn back to cleave into the large fiend. She landed right in the path of one of my crimson light beams and, due to the secondary effect of the [Ruby Heart]’s attacks, was actually healed a bit as she hauled off into the waiting pair of Quadrus’ with a grunt.

The moment his hands landed on her blade, she tried to spin out of his grip, but soon gave up on overpowering him physically and instead activated [Storm Knuckles] the moment before she released her greataxe. Dropping low, she delivered a devastating combination to his body, her Unique Skill going to work, building up stacks of resonance damage on the creature while Raiju and Volta harried him from the other side with a barrage of lightning and wind blades he needed both of his free hands to deal with.

I’m not going to say my landing was graceful, it was anything but that, but I can say that Arlo’s gift really helped absorb the impact of me slamming into the ground. Though it cost a few durability points on it to do so, I marked them off as a cheap alternative while [System Shock] was still fucking with me. A quick glance at my Status told me I still had forty-five seconds without my Skills, but that made me think.

It specifies Skills, but I also have…

Leveling Jaegan’s staff at the fiend alongside the constant barrage of crimson lances from the [Ruby Heart], I focused on the first time I’d ever used [Magic Missile], two decades before my System Day. I hadn’t had its help then and I didn’t have it now.

Chanting the words of power I’d first uttered at two years old and polished training with my mother, I cast [Magic Missile] without the assistance of the System. It wasn’t as powerful as it usually was, but it happened, and that’s what mattered to me at that point.

A dozen tiny darts of force spun around the head of Jaegan’s staff for a second as I let myself be happy casting the Spell for the first time in forever. With a surge of will, I sent the tiny force darts spiraling toward the titanic force that was Quadrus.

His impressive speed would have been enough to dodge nearly any Spell or Skill in my arsenal, but [Magic Missile] is the go to spell for most [Mages] for a very good reason besides being cheap to cast.

It never misses. It can be deflected, but that requires a highly specific Skill only learned by certain bodyguard or knight classes. The dozen projectiles from my Spell slammed into the miniscule gaps along his breastplate, bypassing his armor as only force and psychic Spells can.

Green blood poured out from those holes as Jaegan’s staff tripled the damage of my Spell. His eyes blazed with crimson light as he threw his head back and howled.

Our only melee combatant at the time, Ylsa, was thrown back nearly fifty feet alongside her axe, which landed uncomfortably close to her head as it skidded along the ruddy dirt. She was back up in a flash, charging toward the demon, but he only had eyes for me despite my other companions’ attempts to get his attention.

“YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO REGRET BETRAYING ME!” His voice boomed out ahead of his body as he blurred toward me again and this time, I didn’t have a [Wall of Force] in my back pocket to block him. All I had was my father’s training to fall back on and I didn’t hesitate to put it to work.

Dropping low to avoid Quadrus’ attempt to grapple me with his lower arms, I put my small stature to good use as I dodged between his legs, an [Obsidian Dagger] in one hand and my staff in the other as I traced the blade over the back of his right greave, parting the armor on that leg like an eggshell before he could react. He whirled around and tried kneeing me in the head, but I was a man on a mission as I put my paternal grandfather’s tunnel fighting training to use.

I’d cursed his name for months after the week I’d spent with him in the caves under Ironhold, but now I was glad for the experience as I treated Quadrus like a [Cave Ogre Skirmisher], strong, fast, and absolutely unaware of how to fight something so much smaller than him.

Quadrus was so much faster than me that I wasn’t able to get in more than a few slashes over the next thirty seconds alongside my [Magic Missiles], but the few I was able to get removed pieces of armor from the equation. By the time he finally clipped me with a rogue elbow and sent me reeling ten feet away, shattered [Obsidian Dagger] hilt in hand, I’d removed all his leg armor, the majority of his cuirass, and all the armor on his four arms.

Before he could dash over and stomp my head in, Ylsa made her presence known. She slammed into his exposed lower back with [Bloodsplitter] glowing white. “[Edge of Spring]!” Unlike when she’d last struck at him, this time she landed a hit on his flesh and the white energy coating her blade sprang into the wound and then detonated into a dozen more blades of wind, carving up his back and legs before he spun around and grabbed ahold of her blade once more.

The moment he did so, a huge blast of lightning crashed down on his head from above, where Raiju and Volta floated with a massive fifty foot tall thunderhead above them. Volta had one hand extended up toward the thunderhead and another pointed down at Quadrus’ twitching form while Raiju had her jaws wide open as she howled.

Despite all that, he didn’t fall. In fact, he began to laugh the moment he stopped twitching. “PUNY BEINGS, YOUR DOOM HAS COME.” He threw his head back and laughed as the energy around his crown of horns pulsed, it was nearly ready once more.

As I was scrambling back to my feet, I spotted a long awaited notification and my whole plan changed in an instant.

[You are no longer afflicted with System Shock. All Skills are available once more.]

Drawing deep upon my dwindling Mana, I used the only pair of Skills I had access to that I thought would let me fight Quadrus on equal footing. [Haste] and [Elemental Form].

In less than a heartbeat, gone was the tiny mutt of an adventurer and in my place was a seven foot tall figure radiating lightning in an aura all around.

Ylsa gasped. “A [Lightning Baron]. You truly are Storm-Blessed!”

[A Lightning Baron is a majestic elemental being, its form composed entirely of crackling multicolored electricity. It stands tall and proud, its body shimmering with a blinding intensity. Its eyes, two piercing bolts of lightning, seem to pierce through the very fabric of reality. The Lightning Baron is often adorned in ornate, flowing robes, their vibrant colors seeming to dance and shift with the electric currents that course through its body. With a single word or gesture, the Lightning Baron can summon bolts of lightning from the sky, or conjure a shield of crackling electricity to protect itself from harm.]

Flexing my newly elongated fingers, I summoned a pair of fighting knives made of blue and white lightning respectively. “Yeah, I never worked for you. You worked for me and I’m terminating that contract, effective immediately.” A flash of lightning later and I stood on the other side of him, having streaked straight through him. I spun and buried my blue blade into where a kidney would be on a human as the white blade cleaved straight into his spine. Both triggered [Backstab] and another notification popped up, but I didn’t have time to read it as he defied logic by spinning around, effectively severing his spine, to attempt to grab hold of me.

Shocked, I didn’t react in time and he snagged me before beginning to squeeze.

If I’d needed to breathe, I’d have been worried, but as a [Lightning Baron], that wasn’t a problem for me. I tried to pass through him once more and found I couldn’t.

“What the–”

He looked down at me and spat as his eyes danced crazily. “IF I MUST DIE, YOU DIE WITH ME!”

His whole body took on a glow matching the missing orb from between his horns and I suddenly knew why he hadn’t protected his spine.

“He’s going to blow! Get clear!” I screamed as I cursed my [Elemental Form] for its lack of ability to cast Spells.

It was the only real downside to the Skill. It gave me the ability to take on the form of any elemental I knew enough about in exchange for losing access to most, if not all, of my gear and Skills for the duration of the Skill. The only way to dismiss it was to have the form get destroyed or a minute long dismissal, so I didn’t have time to summon a [Wall of Force] to protect my friends.

In a panic, I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed hold of him and suplexed him before propelling the pair of us toward the farthest gathering of demons at blistering speeds. It was the zone controlled by Primus, Quadrus’ most hated rival and the most powerful [Nightfiend] on the fourth floor before Quadrus’ evolution.

“I’m not going to let another friend die to save me again. Never!” I clinched his arms with my own arms and legs as the purple glow intensified to an almost blinding level.

“TOGETHER WE DIE, CONFLUX!” Quadrus’ scream is the last thing I remembered before the world went purple and then black.