The world became fuzz as my knees hit the ground.

My swirling vortex of flames wisped off into nothingness.

Time slowed even as [Spelldancer] and [Accelerate Adrenaline] burned themselves out with the last of my mana.

The pressure against my thought ward finally receded.

Before my drifting, swimming eyes I saw two Gwens and two of the Webspinner.

The panthers, enshrined in air-singing lightning, reached their claws out of her elemental form and, before the Galadhels could react, cut clean through the boss monsters' necks.

The half-spider, half-caliban woman's eyes bulged in shock and surprise.

The woman's hands slowly fell to her sides. The silver strings that had been only seconds from rending me into pieces followed suit, going from stiff razer-like lines to free-floating strands of waving silk.

"How--" the Webspinner said and spit out a cough of blood, "this world was already ours."

The monster staggered as her legs collapsed underneath herself crushing a number of pews as she did so.

The monster's still-crimson eyes bore into me with a mix of abject disbelief and an almost fearful hatred. "How?"

The moments that came next were slow and agonizing as I watched the very intelligent and alien, yet grossly human, sapience of the crimson eyed monster fade out to a dull grey.

And, yet, in the last moment when all the bloodshot red had faded from the woman's eyes and when there was almost no color left I almost thought I saw a sprig of peaceful green hiding deep within their depths.

And, with that, the humanoid half of the grotesque monster slumped forward unmoving

The two Gwens once more became one as my mana and health began to tick back up.

The panther landed a few feet away from Galadhel's corpse, her paws bloodied and wet from the slaughter.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 28.]

A series of further skill notifications flew past my awareness then.

However, just as my mind was starting to come back to itself, a wave of discomfort passed over me.

"Gwen! I need you to--" but before I could get my request out the world began to shake.

A pillar of light erupted from Galadhel's corpse.

As I had been with the Ruler of the West, I was once again bathed in my own cocoon of blinding light and power.

Unlike with the Ruler of the West, however, there were two colors of light swirling around me now. There was a beautiful cerulean and a vicious and cold ice blue.

I felt both calm gentleness and violent frigidity swirling over my skin.

[Congratulations! You have defeated a low-tier world guardian. You may either attempt to integrate its power into your own or forgo this for a different, lesser reward.]

[Warning! You are only ten-percent compatible with one half of the Southern Ruler's mana signature and eighty percent compatible with its second half; failure to integrate the inherent nature of another being into your own may result in permanent and lasting damage to yourself.]

[Do you wish to proceed: y/n?]

I didn't really want to proceed no, but I did want answers.

Absorbing the Western Ruler had given me some small insight into its mind. I had a strong suspicion that pulling in the Southern Ruler's mana might do the same.

It might benefit me to try and--

I felt my thought ward crack a bit.

Something was wrong.

"I will not lose this world, mage!" a hissing, guttural, and angry voice screamed out to me. "It is already ours! Your System be damned!"

The rush of energy into my body was all but unstoppable. My thought ward shattered under the sudden and unexpected assault.

[Warning! Safeguards overridden, extreme bloodlust detected, protective measures are failing.]

I felt the thing that I all but knew to be the thing that had possessed Galadhel, seeping through my skin. The cold, icy energy began to penetrate into my own essence.

As vicious as the energy was, however, I could feel that it was desperate and somewhat incoherent.

It had spoken that was true, but the more it tried to invade my body the less together the energy felt.

And yet, the invading mana of the Southern Ruler hurt all the same.

My hand grasped for my brow. "Get out of my head!"

Bit by bit, the cold and hungry darkness seeped into me, and I started to hear the screams all over again.

They started quiet and hoarse, as if the voices had stopped shouting momentarily and were only now finding themselves again.

"What are you--" I gasped.

The screams intensified and I suddenly felt the touch of many more presences than just whatever was trying to get inside me.

It wasn't quite the same though. Rather, it was as if the wailing voices were merely connected to the energy that was trying to enter me; they weren’t the invading mana themselves.

The screamers were agonized, anguished, and hurting.

Whereas the thing that had turned Galadhel into the Webspinner only felt hungry.

"Who are you?" I said this time to the voices.

The screaming only intensified and I felt my hand slip to the ground as if my acknowledgment of their existence only made them more frantic. "Let me help you!"

[Warning! You are only eighty-percent compatible with the second half of the Southern Ruler's mana signature; failure to integrate the inherent nature of another being into your own may result in permanent and lasting damage to yourself.]

[Do you wish to proceed: y/n?]

The text bubble changed and populated heavily in front of my vision as if the System was urging me to interact with it.

If the monster trying to get inside me was the first half of the Webspinner... did that mean the second half that I was more compatible with was Galadhel herself?

Much of the cold, frigid and blue energy of the light pillar surrounding me had already forced its way into my bones.

I could feel my own flame-like soul chilling at its edges as the frost of the invading essence tried to snuff it out and replace it--replace me.

I breathed out a sigh of pain and watched as my breath floated on a cloud of internally-produced frost.

The calm, emerald energy simply floated around me harmlessly, however.

I remembered then, amidst the growing pain in my assaulted soul, the hope and fear I had seen in Galadhel's eyes.

"Yes!" I shouted to the system. "Let her help me!"

The hand on my forehand slipped down to the ground, desperately trying to support my seemingly growing weight, as my body was wracked in agony.

The frost that had entered me really wasn't at all compatible with my own nature.

My fire blazed inside and tried to fight off the chill of the invading mana and yet, even where I would win, I would be weakened.

It was if the pain of fighting for survival didn't slow or deter the blizzard like soul of the Webspinner.

My vision grew clouded with frost as my eyes themselves began to freeze over.

I heard Gwen roaring then, but, for the first time since she'd become more than just a summon, I felt that our connection was muddled--not severed, but very impeded by the pure energy that was enshrouding me.

"Clarissa? What's happening to you?" Gwen asked.

"Gwen," I gasped as my hair and skin began to freeze, "I can't fight it. It's too strong. Oh god--"

I slumped down to fall against a numbing shoulder.

"It hurts," I gasped.

I felt the frigid, hungry, devouring ice within me reaching for my soulcore now. The vicious energy was posing itself to try to take over all that I was.

Is this what had happened to Galadhel?

That poor, poor woman.

My eyes slowly began to close.

I was losing. Just like Galadhel had.

"Never again," a beautiful sing-song voice entered my mind. "You will not have her."

A soothing energy entered my mind as I was swept into a world of visions.

----------------------------------------

I was disembodied, floating.

I saw before me an endless sky, a golden dawn set against the silhouette of great silver and gold buildings. A city out of a fairy tale or an epic poem. What one might imagine Mount Olympus to look like if it were to lose some of its Greek trappings.

The divinely beautiful sunlight-sparkled off of the water of the ever-expanding lake that surrounded the sprawling utopia that I now gazed upon.

My non-corporeal eyes were, however, drawn away from merely admiring the beauty in front of me as I slowly began to realize that something wasn't quite right with what I was looking at.

There were very few sounds to be heard anywhere as if the whole world had drawn in its breath to wait and observe some terrible fate awaiting to fall, soon to be struck off from where it was balanced upon a sharp edge.

Birds, fluttering faster than appeared casual, flew past and through my high-perched vantage point.

And then a chanting reached my ears, carried upon a solemn and oddly chilled summer wind.

The voices were legion. A hundred at least. All feminine. Some more beautiful than others, but each one alluring in its way, and every single of their words mixed with an unmistakable power.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The world shifted with my will to focus in on the origin of the sound.

In the heart of the great city, where a miles wide and long garden stretched out, adding greenery and a gorgeous break up from the metallic architecture, there stood a skyscraper sized gateway.

The tall and ugly ornate archway was decorated with carvings of every sort of spider-like creature one could dream or pull from their nightmares. The structure certainly didn't match with the style of the rest of the city--in fact, amid the scene it now took up, the towering door felt entirely alien and wrong.

Standing before the wrong gateway were the hundred chanters all headed up by a single woman, hooded and solemn. She carried a raised staff and glowed with a majestic cerulean energy.

In fact, each of the hundred priestess looking women behind her appeared to wield one form of energy or another--an energy that they seemed to draw up from the planet itself to collect into their hands and then channel in flickering streams into the staff of their matriarch.

My vision shifted without my input then to more closely zoom in upon the face of the staff-wielding woman in question.

What I saw shocked me. Underneath the hood there was the straining face of a caliban woman--one who was all too familiar.

"We practiced the old magic," Galadhel's voice entered my ears, though the mouth of the younger version of herself did not move, "we drew mana from the world. We thought ourselves strong when they invaded, but--"

In the vision before me I watched as the younger and more humanoid looking Galadhel began to strain. Her eyes glowed with the channeled green mana before, suddenly, I watched as the magic that she was sending from her staff towards the massive gate began to ripple.

And then the gate opened and the sorceress' staff glowed as a massive rebounding shockwave knocked her from her feet.

My own vision, meanwhile, shifted and changed with the explosion.

"The enemy had mana within themselves. It was concentrated, far more potent than we thought was possible," Galadhel's voice explained.

The vision I saw shifted forward in time to show a much smaller grouping of caliban priestess', still led by Galadhel, leading a procession of women and children down a long hallway.

A massive explosion rocked the scene as a cloud of frost and ice entered my vision.

"Get the people and children to safety!" the younger Galadhel ordered one of her lieutenants before she turned to face whatever threat was still out of my sight. "The rest of us... we fight."

The caliban priestess' body shone with a dazzling green light as she readied herself to make what appeared to be a final stand. A naturalistic, pure looking mana seeped up from the cracks in the stone beneath her feet to encircle and twirl around her limbs.

"Of course, when we were together we could almost harm it," the disembodied voice of the same woman I was looking at went on.

The priestesses behind the vision's Galadhel summoned mana and poured it into their leader, much as they had when trying to seal the archway in the center of their city.

I then watched as the leader of the assembled Caliban raised her staff and sent out a wave of pure energy towards whatever was pursuing them.

"But in the end... our need for numbers was our vulnerability," the voice went on to say as a number of silken threads lashed out across the room, from whatever monster the group was trying to combat, and sliced through a number of priestesses in one go.

The screaming was horrible.

Terror and shock filled the eyes of the vision's Galadhel, before the woman screamed a singular set of words: "Fall back!"

Then, one final time, my vision shifted.

"We led the thing that emerged from the gate down into our most holy site," the narrating voice explained to me, "we took it to the Worldheart. We thought we'd be stronger there, strong enough to end its slaughter."

Suddenly, I was watching as Galadhel and only a dozen or so of her remaining followers ran along a massive subterranean bridge, before the group was finally forced to turn and make their stand once again.

Behind the group, at the center of the massive subterranean cavern they'd entered, was a truly gargantuan mass of mystical energy. It was an orb of mana, beating like a heart, beautiful and peaceful and glowing with all the shades of reality.

"It only took one monster to end us all," the narrating Galadhel said. "The holy city of our empire fell by the hand of a single being."

It was then, for the first time, that I saw the creature that had stalked the holy women throughout the entire vision's length.

The monster was gross and misshaped. It was long-limbed and only just barely bipedal. It had the head of a spider, but many arms and legs that seemed to clack with deadly thread-wielding pincers.

"We couldn't stop it; killing it had proven to be beyond us when we'd first engaged it outside the gateway that had opened," Galadhel admitted, "so we tried to bind it. I tried to bind it."

Within the vision, the remaining priestess and Galadhel once more began to chant.

The monster struck out with its frost, silvered spider threads, cutting a few more of the women into pieces.

As it did so, however, a magic circle formed around its body.

And then around the ground beneath Galadhel.

The monster roared in confusion and rage.

The magic circles flashed into pillars of light that bathed each of the two.

And the world went white.

----------------------------------------

My reality shifted and I once more felt my body, but I was still in a place that wasn't the cathedral.

The world was white and Galadhel stood before me.

"Hello Clarissa," she said.

"You tried to absorb the monster while it was still alive," I uttered without thinking.

The caliban woman smiled sadly. "I did. The Worldheart connected the souls of all of our people and all the living things on the planet. I thought by drawing on its power that I could bind the monster into myself."

"But it didn't work," I said, feeling a bit of the sad reality that was now coming together about this world's fate. "The monster took over."

"Halfway true," Galadhel admitted and took a deep breath. "We became one being. Halfway me. Halfway it."

"So together you became the Webspinner," I put it together aloud. "I'm so sorry."

Galadhel continued to hold her sad smile towards me. "It wasn't the worst part. Once it had its talons in me... it led its master to the Worldheart."

"Its master? Do you mean--" I started.

"The final boss of this 'dungeon'," Galadhel finished my thoughts for me. "From what I could tell, after all the years of sharing a mind with it, our world was unique in having a physical world soul. It apparently made things easier for them."

"Okay, but," I continued along with her, finally getting some of the answers I wanted, "easier how?"

"These things came here for mana and power. Power they could only get by killing and absorbing life," Galadhel went on.

That sounded a lot like how the System rewarded me for killing monsters.

"Like the System that's made me strong," I offered. "Are they connected?"

Galadhel shook her head. "It guarded its thoughts on the System very well, even after all these years. I can tell you that the System only came to our world after it had fallen and not before. From what I've seen from you, if we had been given a chance to use it then perhaps we would've had a chance."

My mind continued to work as I slowly put together a series of dark suspicions.

"Galadhel," I started slowly, not really wanting to know the answer to my next question, "what happened to your people?"

"Cowagin happened," Galadhel spit the name, "The Southern Ruler, as it was known before it and I became the Webspinner, led him to the Worldheart just as I'd told you. After we'd merged, it had near complete control over what we'd become for years. Cowagin used the Worldheart to corrupt and overtake every being on the planet and he gave the souls of my priestess' to it, to me. He warped them, Clarissa. He changed us all into monsters."

Images of the Frostblood Countesses flashed into my mind.

The woman closed her eyes as if remembering her pain.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," I said, "but I wasn't born here and I think my world is about to have to go through whatever yours did."

Galadhel took a steadying breath. "I know. For the time being I can see your mind just as you see mine."

"For the time being?" I inquired.

I saw what was perhaps a bit of fear, and yet relief in the woman's gaze then.

"I died a long time ago, child," she said. "This me, what you see here, is just a mana echo. I wouldn't let myself be absorbed entirely by the Southern Ruler. I held on for so long, but your System is already working to incorporate me into your being as we speak. I won't be around for much longer."

My throat dried. What could I possibly say to that?

"I--" I started to say, at a loss for words, realizing that I was basically overtaking whatever was left of Galadhel's soul.

"No, Clarissa, I don't blame you," she said, "this is a mercy."

The woman held up her hand, which I could already see was beginning to fade away into glowing particles of mana.

"We don't have much time," she said. “Over the years I learned to stave off the Southern Ruler. I've blocked us off in this part of your Soulcore, but I'm going now and you'll have to face it when I do."

My mind instantly went to how badly I'd failed to fight off the incredibly quick and violent assault of the monster before.

"I can't win. I don't know how," I said to her.

"I couldn't overtake the monster, Clarissa, because I didn't have the raw power to do so," Galadhel told me, "but you do. And together we'll have the will to do so."

"I have more questions," I told her.

"Please," Galadhel said as her face began to flicker away, "there's not much time. Take my hand. Let me save someone before the end."

I gazed deep into the deeply sad and dying being's eyes. There was a beaten down kindness there, but also the same hope she'd spoken of when we'd first met.

"Okay," I said and reached to put my hand in hers, "but Galadhel--"

The woman met my eyes with a bit of confusion.

"I don't know how," I admitted, "but we're going to save everyone."

The high priestess' sweet, green eyes streamed tears then as her body finally faded away entirely.

The woman’s beautifully green and kindness filled mana flowed around me in a spiral.

I closed my eyes as my own body began to break apart into the red and blue fire that my soul’s energy manifested as.

Our two energies intertwined and swirled.

I felt a new power enter me, along with a new knowledge.

Galadhel knew how to beat the Southern Ruler.

And, now, so did I.

----------------------------------------

Mine and Galadhel's combined essence expanded out as the cordoned off section of my Soulcore that the priestess had created rejoined the rest of my soul.

When I was no longer being protected by Galadhel's aid, the frigid energy of the Southern Ruler instantly slammed into my soul's flames.

The pain was still as unbearable as before.

The screams of all the souls the monster had under its sway returned.

"You are both weak!" it screamed into my mind.

"Are we?" I asked back with my will alone. "You've only got two on me, now... bitch."

"I will--" the Southern Ruler's insectoid voice hesitated, "wait, no, what are you doing!"

My words to the thing had just been a distraction. I'd needed it not to notice as Galadhel's remaining mana had removed itself from my own to travel into the Southern Ruler's once more.

The only difference from now and when the priestess' soul had been trapped within the monster's, though, was that what remained of Galadhel was now tethered to me and thus had access to my power, my mana, and my levels.

I had the strength to at least hold the Southern Ruler back.

And Galadhel knew all its weak points.

A blast of soul fire erupted in a section of my soulcore that had previously been overtaken by the ice of the Southern Ruler.

Then another and another as Galadhel delivered my mana to each of the Southern Ruler's weak points.

"No!" the monster's voice screamed in my mind as it raged against the damage Galadhel was doing using my soul's potency, "you have always been beneath me!"

"She's not beneath you anymore," I told it. "None of them are."

"What do you--" the monster started to say, before realizing what we'd done, "you can't!"

The screaming voices, which I now realized were the wailing souls of the priestesses I had seen in the vision, had stopped.

For years Galadhel had been merged with the being that held dominion over the souls of her priestesses.

And, technically, Cowagin had given dominion over them to the Webspinner, not to the Southern Ruler.

Galadhel was one half of that entity. She'd just always needed the horsepower to overtake her mental roomate in controlling her people's souls.

"You're done for," I said as I reached out to the many pockets of my soulcore that Galadhel's mana had reclaimed for me.

I poured my will to survive, to free Galadhel's people from their torment, and to save my own planet from whatever fate awaited it into enraging the flames of my soul.

Meanwhile, Galadhel finally wrestled the reins of her priestess' souls from the Southern Ruler who was far too preoccupied with being burned alive by the mental manifestation of my soulcore’s mana to stop her.

I'd slain a good number of the Frostblood Countesses. Those who remained were out on patrols. However, with Galadhel now in charge, she was able to clear the mortal part of their minds somewhat.

The part of the warped priestesses that had become monsters, the part that had held on, was the same part that had been screaming in agony for years.

And now that part was given back a bit of its agency by Galadhel's newly empowered touch.

I, in turn, soon felt the power of the Countesses flowing into my soulcore through the machinations of Galadhel's mana as she overtook the link between her people and the Southern Ruler.

But, instead of attacking me, the frost-born power of the monsters began to overtake and infiltrate the creeping and sadistic icy soul of the Southern Ruler.

"No! You can't! No!" the Southern Ruler screamed as it was subsumed entirely by the donated frost of the momentarily mentally freed Countesses and my own flames.

The Southern Ruler struggled, it fought, and raged for the sake of its wretched life.

But it was too late, I had no mercy as I swept my fire over the foul monster’s mana signature, and its death cries echoed before they receded into nothingness.

"Thank you," a beautiful voice said as it faded away. "Save them. Please."

And with her parting words, the final touches of Galadhel's consciousness began to fade as her power merged fully into my own.

And as it did so, the touch of the Countesses' also withdrew.

Before they completely left, however, I felt their minds once more began to scream in agony as they were no longer being held to their state of restored sanity by Galadhel's lingering essence.

My flames, meanwhile, spread across the remaining frigid mana left behind in my soulcore by the Ruler and the withdrawn Countesses.

The icy mana burned as fuel for my fire and I finally opened my eyes to reality once again.

[Congratulations! You have achieved full integration of the Southern Ruler's essence. Its strength is now your own; may you use it to free this and other worlds.]

[You have gained the Frigid Flames [RU] perk.]