Suddenly, the headless zombie sprinted right past me, aiming right at Terre. Its head and an arm tumbled across the ground after it, trying to catch up and reconnect.

"Stop it!" I yelled to Levi as he rushed by, after the zombie.

Only, I couldn't join yet — my opponent was already reconnecting itself.

I manipulated the water out from under my feet, formed it into a scoop and picked up a couple zombie arms, a leg, and the head. Quickly, before it wiggled out of my control, I used the scoop to fling the parts as far away as I could. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the head bouncing towards the edge of the plateau. I didn't have time to see if it actually went over, instead, I turned and scooped up another part of the monster — the other leg and the other arms — and flung them towards the opposite edge of the plateau's cliff. Hopefully, with zombie parts in three different corners, I had enough to stop the headless one before it got to Terre.

Leaving the helpless wiggling torso behind, I water slid after the headless zombie, putting in as much speed as I could. Vertigo crashed over me and I almost collapsed as my MP bar started flashing red like it was strobe light. I only had ten MP points left — five minutes to burnout.

Ding! [MP is severely low. Please seek medical assistance immediately.]

My lips curled up with irony. The System was so smart, so why did it keep telling me to find healers when there obviously wasn't one available? Quickly, I stabilized myself and pushed forward, ignoring the pounding in my temple that grew stronger every second. The teal screen disappeared when I passed through it.

Levi shot a spray of water out, tripping the zombie. It smashed into the ground, scrambling to get back up but the many weapons and arms actually hindered it. They caught on each other, getting stepped on whenever the feet tried to stand up. The head finally caught up, and started to reattach itself. Levi struck, sinking his dagger-like teeth into its left leg. He pulled back, trying to rip the limb off. The zombie collapsed back to the ground.

The water under me curved up, forming a ramp. I launched off, jumping high over the zombie. "Ha!" I yelled and came down on the monster's back. With two hands, I stabbed down into the zombie's neck, wedging my blade between vertebrae and twisted, my feet braced on its back. With a pop, the newly attached spine disconnected. With a fluid motion, I dragged my sword across, severing the decaying skin, until the entire head came off. I flicked my hand, guiding water to hurl the head as far as I could. In the same movement, I stabbed down again, nailing the zombie to the ground as much as I could.

The undead writhed and bucked madly. It planted its hands on the ground and pushed up sharply, forcing me off. I staggered back, dragging my sword out of the monster as I went. My water curled around my legs to prevent me from falling. Levi shook his head violently and wrapped his tail around the zombie's legs, trying to tear the leg apart. Before he could, the zombie swung a sword and axe its hands at him.

"Ah!" I threw my hand out, creating a water shield over Levi.

The weapons stabbed into the wet arch. The zombie's muscles bunch as the water resisted the weapons, then the sword's rusty point pierced the shield. The sword thrust down, right into Levi's side.

He withered and let go of the thigh, twisting around the rusty metal. He was already low health from the previous fights, what if this killed him?

"No!" I gasped and lunged forward. Gripping my dao with both hands, I chopped at the zombie's arms. When my move stopped at the zombie's hard bones, I lifted it up and chopped it down in the same place. The two hands cracked off at the wrist. The hand holding the axe, once it lost its support, flopped to the side at an awkward angle. But the water shield and Levi's body held the sword up. Desperate, I reached out, grabbed the undead wrist, and pulled the sword out.

Eeeee... Hhhhh.... Levi groaned in pain twisted tighter, blood smearing across his blue scales.

The hand attached to the wrist wiggled, waving the blood covered sword in the air, but unable to get me. Hatefully, I threw the appendage as far as I could. My gut screamed to stop and check on Levi, but the zombie was already scrambling up, never mind that it didn't have a head or two hands.

Fury boiled my blood. I lifted my hand, forcing my water into a tidal wave. It smashed into the off-balanced monster and sent it back to the ground. I gripped my sword tightly and attacked the zombie with everything I had, hacking and slashing with vengeance. At first the zombie was overwhelmed, but it quickly gained its balance. After all, it didn't feel pain, so no matter how much I cut it, it kept trying to get up.

Sweat streamed from my pounding forehead and my whole body shook. Two MP points left. Desperate to hold out another minute, I canceled Water Slide. I was left at a speed disadvantage, but maybe the extra minute might matter. To keep my vision from blurring, I focused only on the zombie in front of me. I could hear the sounds of Terre's battle through the ringing in my ears, the explosions and the wraith's hissing screams, but it was muffled. Like a movie playing in another room. What was even happening?

The zombie swung its bastard sword out, full of speed and power. I lifted my sword up to deflect the attack. A painful vibration numbed my shaking hands as the two weapons collided. Groaning with effort, I directed the force to the side. It worked, and the zombie's sword missed me, but the force of the attack ripped my sword from my numb fingers. It clattered on the ground at my feet, and the water encasing the blade slipped off and pooled uselessly on the hard stone.

I stumbled back, reeling from the force as MP burnout gripped me. The zombie's body vibrated into two as double vision set in. I squinted, trying to stop it, but nothing worked. Damn, my head was going to split apart. The System kept dinging and flashing screens, but I couldn't read the wiggling words, anyway.

The zombie lunged forward and a huge hand clamped around my throat.

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My mouth dropped open in a soundless scream as fear exploded in my blackening mind. I gripped at the thick fingers, ripping at the eroding flesh, but I didn't have enough strength to open the fingers.

Levi appeared at my side. His mouth opened wide and he bit down on the zombie's wrist with his long, sharp teeth. The crunch of bone echoed through my body. Was it mine? My neck breaking? Was I just too delirious to feel the pain?

Levi jerked his head and the pressure around my neck disappeared. I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air and barely conscious. Levi got between me and the zombie, blood steaming from his gaping wound.

Wheezing painfully, I peered up through the black spots in my vision just as the zombie swung all four arms down at us. There was no dodging this time.

A huge white light exploded behind the zombie, nearly blinding my sensitive eyes.

The zombie froze as if turned to stone.

The thin suddenly mist condensed in front of us and slammed into the zombie, throwing the monster back. It smashed into the ground and broke into pieces. The bits rolled to a stop ... and stayed still. They didn't wiggle to reconnect or anything. The zombie finally stayed dead.

Ding! [+300 EXP]

Ding! [You have Leveled Up!]

Was it over?

Levi crawled to my side and pressed his cold face against mine. Eee... Eee... His feathery appendages folded forward, brushing against my neck like fingers, searching for injuries.

I wanted to pet him to let him know that I was alive, but I couldn't seem to move. Even though I leveled up and my HP and MP went up accordingly, I only gained 14 HP and 18 MP. When added to my current stats, it gave me a total of 20 HP and 18 MP. The MP burnout lessened a bit, but my whole body and brain still pulsed in agony. All I could do was lay curled up, my chest puffing with shallow breaths. Hopefully, the pain didn't leak through our familiar bond. I'd hate it if Levi felt this too.

A powerful presence appeared at our side.

Levi whipped around, hissing in warning. I think it was Terre — I couldn't see that far, but he was the only person around.

"Knock it off," Terre ordered Levi, proving his identity. "You're in the way." He grabbed Levi and dragged him away from me with a casual hand, obviously not bothered with Levi's weight — or the fact that the snake tried to bite him. Terre grabbed his head, his hand moving quick as a blur, and forced Levi's mouth shut. Terre set him a couple feet away. The mist collected around Levi like a cage, preventing him from moving.

Levi wiggled and thrashed against the cage in protest. Eee! Eeeee! Panic radiated from him. He didn't know Terre. All he knew was he was super powerful and a human. In other words, a threat. Even though I exchanged words with Terre earlier, that didn't put him on Levi's okay list. And now Terre separated us.

I pushed up my heavy body, arms trembling from the strain. "It's okay," I attempted to comfort Levi.

He refused to accept my option and continued to thrash against the mist box.

"Stubborn," Terre commented, flicking a glance at the snake. "Isn't it a little too small to be a mount? And how did you tame it that quickly?"

"Oh, uh," I paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. After all, familiars weren't a real thing. You know, outside of me and Levi. "He's not a mount. He's ... my pet?"

Levi froze, clearly understanding the intentions behind my words. He glared at me, then curled up turning his back. All thoughts of rescuing me from the scary human disappeared just like that.

I sighed. How long was he going to sulk this time? Resigned to my fate, I tried shifting into a sitting position.

Terre reached out a hand and gently but forcefully guided me lay down on my left side, right leg slightly bent. "Don't move around just yet. You could agitate an injury." He looked me over, pausing at all the injuries and examining them with just his eyes. He kept glancing at my throat, obviously bothered by the bruise there.

Then again, Terre looked more like a guy out of a boxing ring than a fairy-tale prince. His pale blonde hair was disheveled and sticking up in the back while muck and gunk covered his armor. Then was an already healing scab on his chin and a couple cuts on his armor. Apparently, that wraith was a lot stronger than I thought.

"I'm okay, really. I just need to rest for a minute," I said and sat back up. Terre was Uncle's friend, but I didn't know him well enough to let myself be in such a vulnerable position around him yet. Which was funny, really. He was so powerful, if he wanted to hurt me, I'd never be able to stop him. I mean, he put Levi, who had boosted power right now, in time out.

Terre lifted a brow and looked pointedly at a particular ugly looking gash on my side.

I pressed out a smile, like it was natural. "I'm fine," I stressed. After all, Regen was already working, taking the bitter sting from my worst injuries. But I couldn't tell him about that. Technically, I shouldn't be healing this fast.

He sat back on his heels, brows pinched together. "Why did you leave the clearing? You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you just stayed there."

I curled my hands into fist to keep from pinching my thumb nervously. There was a lot of truth in his words. and coming from someone like Terre Noble, a Hunter so powerful that my System couldn't even figure out his level, his words sat more heavily than if Dad said them. But... "I wanted to help," I explained. "The wraith was really powerful and I was worried the zombies would distract you."

"And you almost died in the process," Terre said, with a small sigh. "I'm grateful that you were concerned about me, but you need to consider your own safety first. I'd never live it down if Maveric's grandniece died on my watch."

"I understand that my safety is important, but a Hunter doesn't hide from monsters. Besides, I knew I couldn't defeat that zombie, I just had to hold it off until you killed the wraith." I frowned, worried that the conversation was going to spin in circles so I decided to divert the conversation. "What are you doing here, anyway?" It couldn't really be a fluke, could it? The way his mist moved when it first showed up, feeling across the ground like a searching monster, implied that it was intentional.

Terre took a box of wet wipes out of his Items Bag and handed a couple sheets to me. "Well, after you disappeared, Maveric asked me to either bring your corpse back, or the dragon that killed you." He scrubbed his cheek, cleaning the battle dirt off. "So I went to Laramie, but didn't find a dragon or your corpse. Just a mess and lots of blood. So I went dragon hunting, thinking that it was in the forest. Instead, I kept noticing weird magic traces." He paused, looking at me closely. His blue and gold eyes pierced me like he could see all the way down to my soul. "When I followed them, I found you. Why the hell are you all the way up here?"

I gaped at Terre. I heard his question, but my mind had already short circuited by then.

Even Levi turned his head, understanding what Terre said through me. He was just as confused, curling around in his mist cage to stare at Terre.

"Hang on!" I waved my hand, trying to wrap my thoughts around the possibility. "Did you say the dragon corpse in Laramie is gone?"

Terre frowned. "What dragon corpse?”

*****