“Oh my God! Oh my God! This is so gross…! Gross!” Nicole quickly exclaimed, her voice going into a very high pitch on the last word.

A few days later—at least I assume it’s been a few days later, since I don’t actually know—we found another Unholy Dark Beast.

Before finding this one, it had been a generally easy exploration up to this point with nothing more than pockets of Dark Beasts that Nicole was easily able to dispatch. But right now, we were in a bit of a bind, even if I was currently freely using Darkness and Hellfire.

“Hiik!” Nicole weirdly exclaimed, creating a larger than ever before ball of fire and quickly launching it at the Dark Beasts that were approaching.

I couldn’t understand how she was becoming so strong when fighting another kind of Dark Beast that was no different from the other ones we’ve encountered but… I guess I could understand why she wouldn’t like these ones.

I raised my sword and split in half one of the Dark Beasts that tried to jump on me. It was easily cut, bursting into a mist of darkness just like every Dark Beast would do. However, there were still plenty more that were popping out of the walls and the earth to attack us, and it didn’t help that the Unholy Dark Beast up the slope of this cave was launching large Hellfire spells our way from its maw.

The small Dark Beasts and the Unholy Dark Beast looked the same. They had the appearance of centipedes, with as many legs as the bug would have, skittering on the ground as they screeched and jumped from the ground, or burrowed under it to pop up again from another angle.

The Unholy one at the top of the slope had a pair of enormous pincers at the side of the maw, from which a ball of Hellfire formed, burning the air around it as it was fired.

I would’ve had problems blocking such a thing in this narrow space, but by raising a Darkness and Hellfire Barrier, I was able to mitigate its effects. It made contact with the dark barrier with red hexagonal patterns on it, exploding in a mess of blood-red fire that heated the air and left a burning red surface all around the place of impact.

Blocking it would still take some toll on my endurance, as even if we didn’t suffer any damage, as it still carried a considerable amount of power.

“Oh my God,” Nicole exclaimed, covering her ears as she looked with awe at the place of the explosion. “Nice one, Althea. Those special powers of yours are—Ewww!”

She was interrupted when the smaller—yet sizeable—centipede-like Dark Beasts popped out of the ground. Nicole’s fists burned with fire, but she desperately swung her arms in the direction of every single Dark Beast that approached, leaving me impressed by how dexterous the girl could be, seeing as how she wouldn’t miss a single one of them, and she would swap from one to the other without stopping to even think about it.

“Hoh…” Asteora exclaimed with an impressed tone that didn’t quite reach the boring look she had on her eyes. “The girl’s improving quite fast.”

Asteora hadn’t bothered to touch the ground once from the moment we entered, even if it probably had been a few days already. I didn’t even see her sleep, eat, or relieve herself the whole time, which was something that wasn’t impossible to do, as I also used to be able to do that.

It wasn’t an easy thing to master as it required a large pool of mana to safely do it—even if one didn’t spend the whole time flying—but once it was done, one could go on for a long time without needing to do much besides focus on the task at hand.

“I-I think I would rather fight more of those big monsters instead!” Nicole screamed, her voice hitting high pitches in some of the words, and the fire in her hands flowing nonstop.

I was yet again amazed by how much she’d grown over the past few days. I was even wondering if perhaps she was also able to absorb the Darkness and Hellfire of the defeated foes for her to keep going like that, but I wasn’t sensing such a movement of magic.

It was while I was distracted looking at Nicole’s desperate fire spells that the Unholy Dark Beast moved from its spot, causing me to urgently turn to look at it.

It seemed to finally have realized that no matter how many Hellfire spells it threw, it wouldn’t be able to break my barriers, so it was now skittering with its many legs to come over and deal with us in some other means.

“Ooooh! No, no, no, no! Don’t let that thing get close!” Nicole shouted, turning from the mostly gone small Dark Beasts and aiming both of her open palms in the direction of the Unholy one.

From the front of her hands, a bright orange ball of fire formed, growing bigger and bigger in size with each passing moment. I was amazed by how much it was growing in power and size, when just a few days ago in the room she could hardly make a fist sized ball of fire.

After a couple of seconds, she fired the ball, sending it flying with just as much speed as the one used to build it.

The Unholy Dark Beast didn’t bother to avoid it or do something about it—mostly because it didn’t have anywhere to go due to its large body covering the cave, so the ball hit it squarely in the middle of its mouth, exploding in a mess of fire much bigger than anything Nicole had done before.

There was a shockwave from the impact, followed by the screeching sound of the centipede crying in pain as it dropped to the ground. I couldn’t see from beyond the fiery curtain what the damage done to it was, but judging from the sounds it was making, I could at least tell that it wasn’t coming this way.

With my eyebrows raised, I turned to look at Nicole. “Good job.”

“Indeed. That was quite something for someone that could hardly fight when we came in this Magic Red Zone,” Asteora followed up, floating down to be next to Nicole. “But it seems like you might’ve pushed yourself a bit too hard.”

Nicole was heavily heaving, her shoulders sagged down and sweat pouring down the sides of her face like waterfalls. After a moment, she dropped to the ground on her knees, placing her hands on the ground as she tried with shaking arms to keep herself from hitting the floor.

“I think you’ve done enough. You can rest now,” Asteora said, and Nicole floated off the ground, going next to Asteora as she flew higher and away from the small Dark Beasts that were popping out of the ground. “Whatever happens next is up to you—though, I won’t be saving you if you run out of power.”

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I looked seriously at Asteora for a moment, mostly worried about whether or not she was actually going to look after Nicole, but the girl was currently passed out while floating as if she was laying on a bed.

Looking away from her, I gripped the large sword on my right hand and summoned Darkness to my left one. “You won’t even have to think about it.”

I clutched my left hand, and the darkness in it became much denser.

The small centipede-like Dark Beasts that had popped out of the ground were now rushing to me, their legs skittering on the ground, while the Unholy Dark Beast’s appearance was revealed behind the clearing fire.

It was mostly fine, save for the fire burning all around its maw, and a couple of blood-red fangs that were missing from it's maw.

Once the Dark Beasts were just a couple of steps away from me, I released the darkness that had gathered in my hand by throwing it to the ground. It exploded in a wave of darkness that disintegrated the few that were closer to me, while splitting in several pieces the ones that were further away.

Without giving them room to recover, I rushed with the sword to the side, quickly slashing and cutting the ones that weren’t hit by my power. I did vertical slash, and one of them was split in half. Then, with a quick turn and my leg raised, I brought it back to the ground, where I used the heels of the armor to crush another one’s head.

Using the strength of that stomp, I jumped, coalescing hellfire on the sword, and quickly slashing with a wave of fire that rendered every other Dark Beast still standing into nothing more than a mist of darkness.

After landing, I took notice of what remained: The Unholy Dark Beast that was now barreling down the slope of this cave, while a handful of smaller Dark Beasts were mindlessly trying to reach the floating Asteora and Nicole by jumping from the ground, only to suddenly explode once they got even slightly close to them—Asteora’s doing, no doubt.

This meant that the only thing left for me to deal with was the Unholy Dark Beast.

By clutching my left hand, I summoned even more darkness to my hand. I did so with much more strength than before, going as far as spreading it to the rest of my body, where an aura of darkness enveloped me completely.

The Unholy Dark Beast was violently moving down the cave, its body crashing with the walls and its pincers pinching with loud clangs as it approached me.

I had gathered enough power by now that I didn’t need to wait for it to reach me. I lowered my body to the ground slightly, empowering my legs with the same power that was coursing through my body, and with a powerful dash that broke the ground, I launched myself in the direction of the Unholy one.

It opened its mouth to welcome me, thinking that it would’ve been just as easy to eat me as it did the dirt of the ground. But I had no plans on being eaten, so as I was about to be caught by the pincers to then be chomped down by the maw, I swung the sword in a wide horizontal slash while still being mid air, causing me to do a full degree turn.

The monster’s pincers bounced back, having the tips broken up, and giving me enough room to push the sword ahead, piercing the Unholy Dark Beast right in the entrance of its maw. It screeched painfully, raising its front up.

Hellfire gathered in my left hand while I was hanging from the stuck large sword, preparing a Hellfire beam to shoot it right down the middle of the open maw, but without me realizing it, the Unholy Dark Beast had crashed me against the ceiling of the cave.

It was trying to burrow into the mountain. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to run away, or simply finding another path for it to attack me, but that didn’t mean that I had to allow it to do so.

So even as rocks and dirt fell on top of me and to the centipede’s maw, I continued gathering Hellfire until it was enough for me to fire a large beam, right in the middle of the beast’s body.

After a painful screech the body fell from the place it was trying to burrow. Before it hit the ground, I pulled myself up to the place where the sword was stuck, landing my feet on the beast, and using my body to quickly pull out the sword, allowing myself to fall down just as the Beast was.

The Unholy Dark Beast hit the ground with a thunderous crash, lifting rocks off the ground as it squirmed from the fire burning on its inside. I followed soon after by pushing down my fall with wind magic, sending myself like an arrow, straight at the top of the Beast’s head.

With the large blade held high, I slashed right through it, cutting everything in the way until I hit the ground, where I also crashed, cracking the ground as I prepared myself for a follow up.

The Unholy Dark Beast was slowly moving from one side to another, seemingly unsure of what to do as its head was split in half. Under any other circumstance, it would be a gruesome sight, but since this monster was composed of nothing but darkness and hellfire, what it was ‘bleeding’ was those powers.

However, I wasn’t sure if these things could suffer, so I had to end it quickly as I had no desire to find out if it could or not.

With the open palm of my left hand, I gathered as much Darkness and Hellfire as I could, creating a ball of blood-red fire that had a whirlpool of darkness turning and circling around it; all of it growing larger and larger.

Somehow, the Unholy Dark Beast could sense what I was doing, and with a pitiful attempt to keep fighting, it swung one side of its head, aiming one of the pincers my way. But it wasn’t nearly fast, nor strong enough, to deal any damage to me, so with the flat side of the blade, I parried away the tip of this broken pincer.

The Beast recoiled, and tried to follow up, but there was no more time left for it. I winded my arm back, the large ball of Darkness and Hellfire following after it, and with a mighty throw, the ball flew, twisting and turning in the air as it went for the middle of the Unholy Dark Beast’s open head.

The space around it went dark, as if someone had erased that place, only to then have rays of Hellfire appear all over, cracking the darkness that covered the Beast’s head, until eventually, it burst in a mess of both powers, destroying the rest of the body like a sand statue crumbling down.

I stood closeby, watching how the Unholy Dark Beast was no more, when suddenly, the power that composed the now disintegrated monster stopped in the air for a moment, before turning and twisting into a whirlpool of both things, bending in the air as it made its way to me.

I worried again that this might be some form of final attack, but I simply stood still, waiting to see if this was the same thing that happened with the large Dark Beasts.

Sure enough, the power entered through the middle of my chest, filling my body just like the Darkness and Hellfire Power within me, all of it settling in the same place where Holy Power used to reside.

A handful of seconds later, the power was completely absorbed, leaving nothing more than the light of the Light Orbs that still floated in the air.

My body gave one final pulse of darkness, and I took a deep breath with my eyes closed.

My body felt… refreshed. Not quite as powerful as I would feel after clearing a Holy Place of Power, but it still felt good, just like waking up after a good night’s sleep.

“Hm…” Asteora called out with her humming, softly floating down to be right behind me. “Not too different from Holy Power, it seems.”

I nodded slightly, stopping after a second to shake my head as I turned to look at her. “Not quite. Holy Power wasn’t mine. This one…” I looked at my hand, bringing up a mist of darkness, before disappearing it again. “This one is mine.”

Asteora smirked, and I felt like she wanted to say something about that, but refused to do so as she looked back at the sleeping Nicole. “I think we should go back now.”

I could still keep on fighting, but she was right that the girl had done more than enough and should have a proper rest at her home. “Right.”

Before we left, however, I turned to look at the place where the Unholy Dark Beast had died. There I found a glinting rock on the ground that could’ve been easily missed if not for the light of the orbs around me.

I picked it up. It was not bigger than my fist, and it looked just like a black rock with a couple of red streaks around it. It wasn’t a particularly powerful magic stone, but it was much larger than the pebbles we picked up on the way here.

I turned and shoved it on the backpack that Nicole still had strapped on her back, before throwing a light orb down the path we were going to take to leave the Tainted Land.