“Oh man,” Pell said as he came through the wall, wide eyes taking in the city below. “That’s one hell of a drop.”

The slip of stone bridge was getting too crowded for Simon’s comfort, so he walked down to the central platform. He doubted that they could use Pell’s Ability to dig their way out again, so he had to come up with a plan quick. There were seven other bridges in the distance, but none of them led anywhere. Most likely they all would have the same message as the one they had come through, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. So, what were their options? If these eight bridges all led to an exit tunnel each, where was the way down to the city?

> Quest received: Reopen the portals

The message appeared after Randel, the last one of the group, had arrived through the portal too. Simon spared only a glance at him before he turned back ahead, watching the stone plateau. Lit only from below, the flat expanse was quite dark—though there seemed to be a circular hole in the middle, about a size of a small pool, through which he saw lights shifting. It took Simon a moment to realize why those lights were shifting; glowing plants were emerging from within the hole.

“Movement ahead!” Simon barked, and the chatter behind him immediately stopped. He kept his eyes on the structure that slowly rose up, revealing a set of pillars with a rounded, mushroom-covered top. An elevator? It seemed like one, except it was way too big, and if he gave those pillars a closer look—

“A stone sweller,” Simon said, gulping nervously. The monster was much larger than the one Pell had defeated, standing still as it emerged from the ground.

“T-That’s not all,” Imaya whispered on a horrified tone. “Look underneath.”

Although the mushrooms growing on the stone giant illuminated the plateau, the area beneath the monster was cloaked in shadows. Still, Simon could make out some weird shapes in the darkness, several figures standing side by side.

“Are those … people?” Pell asked, though Simon knew the truth wasn’t that simple. The heads of the figures looked too misshapen.

“N-No, not people,” Imaya stuttered. “They are like … zombies. Player zombies. I can see their collars beneath the, umm, legs.”

Before Simon could have asked her to clarify, the platform on which the sweller giant stood came to a halt. The dark shapes under it walked out with slow and uneven steps, coming out to the light—

Simon flinched. The six monsters were at a relatively far from them still, but Simon had to take a step back at the sight of them. They were certainly not human, at least not anymore; pale swellers sat atop their shoulders, replacing their heads. The dirty and ragged clothes the zombies wore barely covered their dull gray skin, but they were all equipped with crude swords—except for one at the back, which was about twice as large as any of the rest and looked bloated like a balloon. The sweller serving as its head flailed its limbs greedily as the fat body lumbered forward. Simon couldn’t see any of the collars that Imaya had spoken about, but the implication was clear—and very, very alarming.

> Quest received: Arena in the air, below ground

“Defensive formation!” Simon yelled, and the stone beneath his feet rumbled from Pell’s Protective Shell. Simon took a panicked glance down, but thankfully the floor was thick enough to withstand Pell’s Ability.

“Sorry,” Pell apologized, his voice muffled by his stone helmet.

“Just hold the front,” Simon told him. “Tamara, prepare to defend him with a bubble! If those undead things can use Abilities like us—”

“Tamara, please give me an orb,” Randel spoke over Simon, dropping his backpack to the ground. “Devi, create clones—lots of clones. Spread them out.”

Simon clenched his jaw. “Randel, we don’t have time for this—”

“You stay here, you get pushed off the ledge,” Randel said in a calm but urgent tone. “I’m going in.”

Holding Soul Eater in his right hand, he snatched Tamara’s orb with his left and took off toward the zombie-Players. Devi’lynn began to create her clones right away, having them circle around instead of the beeline Randel was taking.

“He’s crazy,” Pell said. “He doesn’t even have anything to protect him.”

“He’s right, though,” Tamara said. “We can’t stay here—”

That was as far as she got before the foremost zombie, one that held a short sword much like Simon’s, raised its other hand and let loose a cracking globe of electricity. At the same time, Randel flickered; he teleported to his dagger just to change his posture, crouching low to dodge the attack. The projectile hit the ground behind him and exploded in a harmless shower of sparks, but the zombie that fired it lunged forward with shocking speed and swung its sword down at Randel. Randel twisted his body as he rose, sidestepping the attack. He struck back before the off-balance zombie had any chance to recover, cutting through gray flesh with Soul Eater’s elongated blade, severing his opponent’s hand in a spray of blue blood. By the time the zombie’s sword hit the floor, Randel was already pivoting on one foot and planting the other in the zombie’s midsection, kicking the monster back where it came from. He then finished it all up by tossing Tamara’s Gravity Orb after the creature and hopping back quickly.

“Now!” Simon said, and Tamara immediately turned her Gravity Orb black to pull the zombie-Players together. Simon was too far away to throw a fireball, so – against his instincts that screamed at him to run away – he charged at the monsters. The rest of the team followed him without needing to be told, but a second later they all froze.

“What the—”

“Not again!”

“The Inspector…?”

Simon’s body ached as if he had run into a wall. He couldn’t move his feet. He wanted to raise his shield in front of himself, but was shocked to find that his arm didn’t obey him either. Ahead of him, Randel stood frozen too.

“One of them has an aura!” Imaya yelled from behind Simon. “We can’t move towards them, only backwards!”

Simon took a step back and sure enough, his body responded just fine. His heart, however, beat faster when he realized what this absurd magic implied. Just how were they supposed to defeat the monsters if they couldn’t so much as lift a finger at them?

The two groups had come to a standoff; one not being able to advance, the other held in place by an artificial gravity. But Tamara would run out of mana sooner or later, and they had no idea how long the zombies’ aura could last. The vile creatures struggled against the pull of the Gravity Orb violently, though they were clever enough to avoid injuring each other. They communicated with strange chirping-chittering cries, the same sounds that the giants out in the forest had used.

Movement. Something moved on Simon’s left, and he spotted one of Devi’lynn’s clones walking forward. The clone wouldn’t be able to hurt anything though, so it was mostly useless that it could ignore the zombies’ aura.

“Randel!” Devi’lynn called out, edging sideways on Simon’s right. Randel glanced back at her briefly, then spun around and whipped his arm out—throwing Soul Eater straight at Devi’lynn. As if the blue-skinned alien had expected this move, she opened a portal in front of her to catch the dagger in it.

Loud screeching was Simon’s first clue as to what had just happened. He looked to his left, where another portal hovered in front of Devi’lynn’s clone, facing the zombies. Soul Eater – shaped like a double-bladed throwing knife – had hit the zombie-Player with the missing hand. Simon wasn’t certain whether the monster had actually died for good, but the black metal was already shifting, burrowing itself deeper into the monster’s flesh. The no-approach aura was still in place, however.

Crack! A sudden sound interrupted the chittering noise of the swellers.

“No,” Tamara gasped. “They destroyed my orb!”

The monster with Soul Eater in its chest was trampled to the ground as five zombie-Players lurched at Randel—who didn’t move at all. Couldn’t move at all, Simon realized, because the aura was affecting him through the portals too. The closest two zombies thrust their swords at Randel, who then did something unexpected; he swapped places with Devi’lynn. A pair of swords impaled the Sylven woman in the next moment, and she burst apart in a puff of smoke.

Simon blinked in confusion. When had Randel placed his mark on that clone?

Devi’lynn sent three clones running at the monsters from different directions, swinging their faux-swords wildly. Fire. A zombie-Player shot multiple jets of flame from the tip of its spider-like limbs, destroying one of the clones. The second clone was cut down by another zombie’s sword, but the third had approached the group from behind, unseen. It thrust its sword at the bloated zombie’s back—and suddenly it was Randel with his black sword in hand. Simon couldn’t see what happened next, but the sharp cries told him that Randel had hurt the bloated zombie in spite of the no-approach aura.

One of the zombies pointed its empty hand at Randel, and a faint blue light shot out of its palm; a translucent beam of force, similar to what Teva’ryn could do. Randel dodged the beam with a quick step aside, but it curved back in the air behind him, coiling like a giant snake. The translucent beam struck, but it only hit a clone that appeared in Randel’s stead. Simon expected the clone to burst apart from the impact, but it went limp and tumbled to the ground instead, like a puppet without strings. The headless horrors screeched again, clearly furious. Randel regarded them coldly, standing tall as the monsters bore down on him. Devi’lynn ran after the group of monsters, making replacements for each clone she had lost.

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“Yes!” Imaya cheered, bouncing forward. “Guys, you’re awesome! Keep them distracted, we’re coming!”

Belatedly, Simon realized that the no-approach aura wasn’t hindering him anymore; apparently it worked only if the zombies were facing him.

“Everyone, attack!” he said, then ran after Imaya. Taking the monsters head-on would be dangerous, but so was staying near the ledge. Fortunately, Randel had done a great job revealing what kind of Abilities the zombie-Players had. The one with the lightning ball was dead, one had force-snakes, another had flamethrowers, and Simon saw that the fourth zombie was covered by some kind of crystal-like material. He suspected that the bloated zombie was the one with the aura, which left the sixth zombie—where was the sixth zombie?

“One of them went invisible!” Imaya yelled. “It’s coming at us—I got this!”

She veered off to the side, screaming fiercely as she smashed her small shield into something only she could see. Simon slowed down for a moment, wishing that he had chosen Heat Detection after all. Should he try throwing a fireball and hope for a lucky hit?

“I’ll help her,” Pell said, barreling past Simon and Tamara. “You go and aid Randel!”

“It’s fast!” Imaya said, skipping backward. Something impacted her shield, but she gritted her teeth and retaliated with her dagger. Pell reached her a moment later, blindly swinging his stone-covered fists around.

“Alright,” Simon said, glancing at Tamara and Teva’ryn—where was Teva’ryn? Simon spotted the Sylven man further ahead, a pair of ghostly arms protruding from his sides, right beneath his armpits. His second Ability. Facing Teva’ryn was another zombie that had stopped chasing Randel, the crystal-covered one. It raised a rusty sword in one hand and a shard of white crystal in the other, then got punched in the chest by a translucent force fist. The crystal-zombie staggered back from the impact, and Teva’ryn showered it with more punches from his ghostly arms.

“Are we going to help him or not?” Tamara asked, and Simon looked back to the middle of the plateau. Randel had successfully lured the remaining three monsters away from the team, but even with Devi’lynn’s support he was constantly forced to retreat. On the upside, the zombie-Players had yet to figure out where all those clones were coming from. On the downside, Simon saw no way to join Randel’s fight. Neither him nor Tamara would hold out more than a few seconds if they faced those monsters.

This battlefield, this arena, this chaos … it made Simon feel like a fish out of water. Even that single zombie with its flamethrower Ability could conjure stronger flames than him, and flames were his specialty. But did that mean he would just stand aside and let the others risk their lives? Of course not. Not even if it killed him.

Simon shook his shield loose and tossed it away; it would be useless here. His left hand freed this way, he conjured a fireball in it. His flames felt pleasantly warm between his fingers, a comforting caress that promised destruction. If only those promises would finally come true…

“Yes, Tamara,” Simon finally said, striding forward decisively. “I’m going in. Cover me!”

Advancing wasn’t as easy as Simon had hoped. He came to an abrupt halt when the bloated zombie briefly turned his way, but as soon as it had its back to him, he broke into a run. He had to get there fast, before the no-approach aura affected him again. When Simon was only a couple of steps away from the closest target – the zombie with the translucent homing beams – he flung his fireball at it. Not going to stop there, he also activated one of his Weapon Skills, Horizontal Slash. His body righted itself on its own, his arm drew his sword back, and he swung his weapon at his opponent’s back. He was standing too far from the monster to actually hit it with the blade, but that wasn’t even what he was going for. His sword burst into flames as it drew a perfect horizontal line in the air, launching an arc of magical fire at the zombie.

The ground shook as the zombie-Player turned Simon’s way. It had no head, no eyes, yet Simon had a distinct feeling it was looking at him. Not for long, though; the fireball Simon had thrown found its mark just as the flames from his sword struck, enveloping the monster in flames. Simon focused on those flames, willed them to last longer and burn hotter. His opponent let out an inhuman screech, but even as its flesh melted it fired a beam of force from its palm. The air distorted around Simon at the same time as a globe – with the same translucent quality as the beam – surrounded him completely, shielding him for a couple of seconds.

Simon heard a soft thud on the barrier, felt the ground beneath his feet tremble, but didn’t cease focusing on his flames. They were dispersing quickly; when the bubble around Simon vanished, he saw that only the dirty rags of the badly-burned zombie were still aflame. The sweller sitting atop the collared neck seemed to be in great pain, its segmented limbs blackened, its body twitching. Simon had won—he just needed to finish the monster off.

There was a thump, and the ground shook again. Lights swayed, shadows danced. In that second that stretched to an eternity, Simon looked up and up, his blood running cold as his eyes fell on the gigantic stone sweller from the elevator. It took another step toward him, its legs long like lampposts but twice as thick, weighting so much that Simon could feel the tremor whenever they impacted the ground.

“Move!” Tamara shouted, but it wasn’t actually the giant Simon needed to avoid first. He ducked just in time before a translucent beam of force flew past his head. He braced himself when he saw the sinuous apparition twist in the air, turning around to strike at him—but Randel was suddenly there, his black sword cleaving the beam in two, disrupting the magic.

Randel said nothing as he drew his sword back, but the glare he regarded Simon with was annoyed, borderline angry. His eyes seemed to glint with malicious green light even as a shadow fell over them, and above his dark cloak Simon spotted thin veins crawling up on the man’s neck, glowing under his skin. Simon flinched, and suddenly he wasn’t looking at Randel anymore, but the belly of the hideously bloated zombie-Player instead.

“What—”

Simon couldn’t even recover from his shock before the bloated zombie exploded, an enormous pole of stone stomping on it so hard that the monster burst apart, splattering Simon with blood and gore.

“What the—”

Someone grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him backward, and a beam of force whizzed past his face. It struck the enormous leg that had pulped the bloated zombie into the ground, and then Simon was yanked forcefully aside. He saw a flash of orange light cut through the air, and a black dagger sunk into the burned zombie’s torso. Randel jerked Simon aside one more time, his grip so strong that Simon had no chance to comply, and suddenly they were facing the last zombie—right as it fired twin jets of flame at them.

Scorching heat. Simon dropped his sword and cried out as the flames enveloped him, shielding his face futilely with his arms. The fire burned his lungs and tore at his skin, pain, maddening pain blooming all across Simon’s arms and chest. He reached out with his Pyromancy desperately, but these were not his flames and he couldn’t focus because he felt like his arms were melting in the heat. In the back of his head he dimly realized that Randel was crouching behind him, using him as a shield against the flames—using him as a shield!

Anger flooded Simon, and he finally had enough.

How could Randel do this to him? Why didn’t Tamara shield him? Why was everyone looking down on him?! As Simon embraced his fury he became aware of the flames like never before. He moved his singed, blackened arms and the fire parted for him. With a twist of his will, he gathered the fire in a blazing ball around the last remaining zombie, letting it taste its own medicine and burning it into crisps. Only then did Simon notice his collar’s message.

> Domain unlocked: Forged in Fire

It needed no explanation. Simon’s clothes and hair had caught fire too, but now it barely took any conscious effort to smother the flames. He had this awareness, this acute sense of heat around him—but also a terrible pressure on his mind to let it all out, a volcano that wanted to explode. He moved his hand and cracks formed on the stone plateau, lava bursting forth through those cracks, steam erupting all around him and turning the air incredibly hot.

Simon saw that the gigantic stone sweller was looming above him still, but he was no longer afraid. Flames sprang to life around him, hotter than ever before. The flames obeyed him. The flames belonged to him. The flames energized him. His footsteps left a trail of fire as he backed out from under the stone giant, moving with a burst of speed he didn’t knew he possessed.

Simon spread his arms apart to gather all the flames around him, just like he had done against the last zombie—except this time, there was much, much more heat on the battlefield. Fire gushed out of his hands, adding to the maelstrom he conjured around the large sweller, a blaze so intense that it melted stone. Power. So much power! Simon laughed when he realized that he finally got what he deserved. No one could make fun of his fires anymore—no one! Certainly not the gigantic sweller as it wobbled helplessly within the swirling flames, stumbling and sagging, the inferno destroying its legs thoroughly. Not being able to support its own weight, the lumpy body of the sweller fell with an enormous crash, sending flames and hot air in every direction.

The giant monster was done for, unable to move. The luminescent mushrooms on its back caught fire, adding to the low light of the molten stone strewn across the battlefield.

> Quest completed: Arena in the air, below ground

Simon felt his incredible power begin to fade, but he clutched at it with his mind, not letting it go. There was one more thing he had to do, one more unfinished business. His arms were ruined. He had been humiliated. He always got humiliated. His flames were calling for vengeance, and he would let them have it. This time, Simon would stand up for himself.

The warmth within the people on the other side of the arena was like a beacon to him. He strode toward them, heedless of the lingering heat in the air. Fire couldn’t hurt him anymore, in any shape or form. As he approached his disobedient team, someone hesitantly came forward—Randel.

“You!” Simon snarled.

“Before you say anything, let me tell you that I’m sorry,” Randel said, out of breath but speaking as fast as he could. “I just thought that since you can control fire, you can avert that sweller’s flames. Which you apparently could, just, uh … not without costs. I didn’t know—”

The floor cracked beneath Randel, and he jumped back quickly as a hiss of hot steam erupted.

“You didn’t know?” Simon said through gritted teeth. Lava broke through the ground all around him. “I saw the look in your eyes, Randel. I saw it just before you used me as a shield. You knew exactly what you were doing—look!”

Simon held up his blackened arms, showing off disfigured fingers he couldn’t even feel anymore. His injuries were so severe that he knew he’d never be able to use his hands again.

“I’m—”

“You did this to me!” Simon spat, and flames sprang to life along his arms. “You did this to me, so now I’ll do this to you. Tell me, which of your arms should I burn off first?”

Randel winced. “Please, don’t—”

But Simon was out of pity or forgiveness. Randel had ridiculed him this entire time, gave him zero respect. Wouldn’t it be unfair to let Simon suffer in his place? To let him come out of this unharmed? That just wouldn’t stand. Simon condensed his flames into two large globes of fire around his fists. Randel burst into motion right after, showing his true colors as he threw his dagger straight at Simon, intending to murder him outright. But Simon was ready for it. He released the fire from his left, unleashing a blazing inferno that knocked the dagger easily aside and engulfed it to stop Randel from teleporting to it. Simon heard the rest of his team shout something, but he ignored them as he raised his other hand at Randel—who scrambled away in fright.

“There is nowhere to run, you idiot,” Simon said, sending forth a jet of flames. Randel narrowly dodged his attack by tumbling beneath it, arriving dangerously close to the edge of the plateau. Simon was wise to Randel’s place-swapping tricks however, so he pointed his left hand at Devi’lynn and his right hand at Randel, ready to fire in either direction. He conjured another pair of fire orbs around his hands, but before he could have set them loose, Randel reached the ledge—and jumped right off.

Simon stared in disbelief for a moment, then his vision shifted and he found himself falling, falling toward the city of lights below. He cried out with equal measure of fear and anger, letting loose his flames, despaired, willing the power to propel him upwards. The wind of his fall tore at his skin, blinded his eyes, strangled his flames, but he kept pouring fire, kept putting everything he had into it, right until the sea of stone buildings swallowed him.

Only then did his fire die out.