I smashed the torch orb button. The intense light appeared over my head, but I didn't want it there. I thrust my hand up and pushed the glowing orb up, so that the light would cover a larger surface area. It didn't matter if the monster could see me or not, it already knew I was here. But I needed to see whatever I was fighting.

The level 12 zombie lifted the broken sword in its decaying hand and lunged at me with an animistic roar, its movements wild but fluid for a dead body. I blocked the attack and countered, cleanly cutting off its sword arm at the elbow. The zombie didn't even flinch when its hand and sword plopped to the ground. Instead, it threw itself at me.

I flinched and thrust out my left hand, casting Bubble. The zombie crashed into the magic, causing it to explode. It blasted the undead monster back, its body breaking into pieces with an uncomfortable sounding crack. Brownish bones and graying flesh, mangled together with eroded light armor, scattered across the ground.

Silence fell over the black void. Several feet above my head, the torch orb highlighted everything with a pale blue light. It wasn't easy to tell, but the entire valley had changed. The grass was wilted, and slanted at despairing angles. The only tree I could make out was like a skeleton, leafless, with thin branches reaching for the sun, but it died before it found any. The smooth rocky soil had transformed into hard, brittle clay with sharp rocks jabbing out like hidden daggers.

It made me wonder, which was the real illusion? The dark hell I was in now, or the peaceful valley I saw when I after rolling down the mountain. And, how do I get out?

I stared at the undead remains. That was ... too fast. Either I was better than I thought I was, or that monster wasn't actually a level twelve. And there was no way a D ranked zombie could cast an illusion spell this powerful. Hang on. I didn’t get an EXP for that battle.

The scattered bones and body parts shivered. Then wiggled. Like magnetic pieces, they slid across the ground and began to reconnect.

I held out my hand, another Bubble growing and ready to blast it apart again. Hopefully, I had enough MP to keep it down until I found the lair's exit. Suddenly the ground rumbled under my feet.

Levi's warning spiked through our bond. Eeee!

I looked over my shoulder just as the ground split open again. And again. Seven zombies clawed out of the dirt and launched themselves at me. Three held melee weapons and wore eroded armor, two wore tattered mage robes, and two more wore rags from everyday clothes.

I whipped around and exploded the Bubble, the force knocking the new zombies back.

"Levi!" I yelled and held my hands parallel to each other, calling on my internal water. A ball of water appeared floating between my hands. I twisted my hands around, infusing the water with magic. The water, which already had a natural blue glow, began to glow brighter and brighter. The ball thinned out into a long armed star shape with bright blue spirals swirling around inside. The arms stretched out and grew, branching and twisting with each other until a rune circle formed, beautifully glowing in my hands.

Levi appeared on my arm, a matching magic pattern spread across his body. He jumped, passing through the magic circle. A tiny snake entered, and a seven foot long snake as thick as my thigh exited out. Levi landed on the dry ground, magic runes dancing across his blue-green scales and golden eyes faintly glowing. His face was elongated, looking more like his leviathan self, than the cute boop snake appearance. A plume of three feathered appendages crowned his head. He shivered, relishing in his new appearance.

In the upper corner of my vision, just below my HP and MP bar, a timer appeared, counting down from twenty minutes. As soon as that ran out, Levi would revert to his travel sized self.

Levi opened his mouth, revealing sharp, backwards pointed teeth in addition to his retracting sharp fangs. He shot at the closest zombie and, fast as lightning, coiled around it until it was bound from chin to knees. The zombie tried to bite Levi, but couldn't angle its chin down. With a tight squeeze, Levi broke the zombie into pieces. He shook off the parts and turned to shoot water from his mouth at the next zombie.

In the meantime, I turned to the closing in undead and parried the incoming attacks. As I did, a thin layer of water pooled out from under my feet and stretched across the ground. The zombies stomped through the water, unconcerned about it. I, however, slid across the top like I was skating, moving ten times faster than normal. Against so many monsters, it's what kept me a step ahead of death.

Every direction I turned, a weapon stabbed or a zombie mouth lunged in for a bite. Although my sword was effective at taking the undead apart, it didn't stop them. Neither did the water whips I used to deal with the other monsters. It didn't matter what body part I chopped off, they would keep coming. Bubble blew them apart, but the monsters kept reconnecting at an alarming rate. No matter how hard or fast I was, I was under constant pressure by three to five monsters. For the most part, their actions were animistic and instinctive, without any form of calculations. But occasionally, the zombies coordinated a joint attack that caught me by surprise. Something a normal zombie wasn't capable of. Try as I might, injuries began to pile up, chipping away at my already depleted HP. Levi was in the same situation.

I grunted and exploded another Bubble in a zombie's face, sending it skittering across the ground. The monsters flanking me closed in, trying to take advantage of my distraction. I jumped back, the water on the ground pushing like a spring board and adding power to my action. I landed ten feet back, away from the monsters.

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My water reserve was stretched to its limit and water manipulation wasn't effective enough on the undead monsters. They were weak against fire, but I wasn’t a fire mage. I glanced at my MP. I had forty percent left, and my HP bar was even smaller.

I still hadn't found the monster that was controlling the zombies.

The lair, the zombies' occasionally coordinated actions, the fact that they didn't die when I killed them — which should happen when they fell apart — all implied that something was using them like puppets. That's why I didn't EXP, because these undead weren't actually 'alive.' In a sense, they were the weapons of another monster. The fight wouldn’t end until the other monster died.

Once or twice, I felt something move in the black void, just out of reach of the torch orb’s light, but it was always gone before I could focus on it. Like a ghost, there but not.

Like a wraith.

Everything about this lair pointed in that direction. The darkness, the undead, the strong illusion magic. Which meant I was screwed. Wraiths were A ranked monsters. The only reason I wasn't dead now was because wraiths like to use their zombie horde to seriously injure their prey, then swoop in for the kill. The stronger the victim's fear and despair was before their death, the stronger the wraith's control over their corpse was.

I needed to get out here, now. Unfortunately, I didn't have a large enough area attack. Yet. My water manipulation wasn’t available, but I still had MP left.

Determination filled me as I pooled my magic. The swirling light converged into four shimmering pools that floated just behind my head. I felt the strain on my magic as I forced it into a new shape, but didn't let it slip from my grasp. "Ha!" I pointed at the handful of zombies running at me.

Water bullets burst from the magic pools, zipping through the air, leaving faint glowing lines in their wake. The bullets spread, covering an area about ten feet wide. They pelted the zombies, shredding their bodies one hole at a time. The zombies flopped to the ground in pieces.

Breathing heavily, I stared at the carnage left behind. That was ... very effective. But how long were the zombies going to stay down this time?

A System message popped up in the bottom corner of my vision. Ding! [Gained new Ability: Water Bullets. Cost 20 MP].

No wonder it was so much stronger, it took twice the amount of MP. Unfortunately I was down to only fifty-nine MP now. We needed to leave. Immediately.

I turned in the direction I felt Levi and water slid into the darkness, my torch orb keeping up with my quick movement. The water under my feet rolled in a constant motion, always staying five feet ahead of my toes and as soon as I passed over the water, that part cycled back to the front, enabling me to slide with ease.

The magic pattern sprawled across Levi's body quickly came into view, illuminating the length of the snake. He spun around, smashed his tail into a zombie, sending the brittle monster flying. Two other undead lunged at him.

I cast Water Bullets and pointed at the zombies. A torrent of water burst out, pelting the zombies surrounding Levi. Some bullets hit the large snake, but they disappeared without damaging him, just like I predicted. Our souls were tied together. Since my magic couldn't hurt me, then it couldn't hurt Levi. Especially when he was wearing a quarter of my magic on his body.

He stiffened in surprise when all the zombies crumbled to bits and looked at me.

I jerked my head to the side. "We have to get out of here. Now."

I waited for Levi to join me, then turned and sprinted as fast as I could with him at my side. I just hoped we were going towards the edge of the valley, and not accidentally cornering us with the steep mountain walls that surrounded the valley. Given, you know, that we were actually in a valley. I still couldn't figure out which was the illusion, the sunny valley or the black void. What if they were both an illusion? We could be anywhere — even in a pit underground with no way out at all.

Levi didn't have a problem keeping pace and sliding across the water. After all, the first time I saw him when he was fighting the unknown dragon, he used a tidal wave to move. As an innocent bystander at the time, that tidal wave gave me a lot of grief. But since I saw him moving, I had a good grasp of things I could do with the Water Slid skill.

He felt and understood the chaotic thoughts flashing through my mind. He didn't have a concept of a wraith — it was a monster he'd never encountered before — but he understood the undead and the fact that a powerful monster was controlling them. It alarmed him. This was also his first time encountering an illusion like this. He was sure we were in the valley we first landed in, but wasn't completely confident. He was just as confused as I was.

We passed the pile of body parts from the zombies I first hit with Water Bullets. The gross appendages wiggled and wormed around each other, worse than any horror film I'd ever watched. They stayed down longer than a Bubble attack, but from the movements, it wouldn't last much longer.

Levi and I quickly left them in the dust and the dark swallowed up the hungry moaning.

A dark shadow passed right in front of us, its very being absorbing the torch's pale blue light.

I skidded to a stop as all the hair stood up in my body. I brandished my sword at the shadow. Shit, there wasn't a lot of distance between us and the zombies. That wasn't good.

Levi stood up tall, spreading his plume out to seem bigger than he was. I had to say, for the first time in days, he almost looked as intimidating as he thought he was. The problem was, the timer for his transformation showed that there was only a couple minutes left before he shrank. And neither of us have enough MP to empower him again.

The shadow drew closed, moving with the silent fluidity of a ghost. All I could see was a human sized hooded black cloak that rippled in a non-existing wind. The hole where the head should be faced right at me, but I couldn't see anything inside. Truthfully, I didn't even know if there was a body inside the cloak. Most Hunters didn't survive an encounter with a wraith, and those that did only had an empty cloak as a trophy.

The wraith looked at me and lifted its arm, the long sleeve morphing into a point like a finger. A screaming hiss filled the air, ringing through my brain like a nightmare.

I gasped and clutched my head. The wraith's powerful aura spread out, choking the air from my body and stealing my strength. My knees gave out against my will and I collapsed to the ground.

*****