He knew from the screams that the attacks hadn’t been lethal. Willow had the spark rhino to guard her, though it wasn’t doing well from the damage that had been transferred. In Khiat’s case, her armor covered the side of her head, but that had still been scorched by whatever kind of weapon the corrupted avianoid wielded.

  Sigron, beset by the majority of the maulers he’d taunted, was meant to be the next target before Daniel’s rapid approach made the new enemy reconsider. “Kill the rest, I’ve got this!” Daniel shouted, though he wasn’t thinking of doing the same himself. This was a superior enemy. The entire team working together might have a chance, especially with the mana overcharge coursing through them, but that would leave them open to the projections.

  He was talented, if by instinct alone. His body healed rapidly, and in the worst case, he had a power that could save him from death. And he could resist the corruption. The sight of the spark rhino sent a chill through him for the thought of what had happened to Khiat beneath the repairing armor.

  For the projections, he had felt anger and frustration. This thing, this once-person, that had so casually tried to kill two of his friends, had managed to at least temporarily nail one? Daniel had been consciously keeping his rage power in check, but his eyes widened as he felt the other one forced upon him surge as his mana became free upon landing. He struggled to rein it in, successfully, but opened himself up to one of the warden’s lasers and the avianoid’s next attack in the process.

  There was heat on his back, but his armor held in the brief moment he was exposed to the warden. In contrast, the translucent sword the avianoid exchanged the odd arm-gun for cut through it and into his side. It might have kept on going all the way through if Daniel hadn’t activated Flash Jaunt in time.

  He’d chosen only a short distance back, but for the brief time he was in the Astral or wherever the power sent him, he knew it had been a mistake. The itching of the astral corruption grew into a full-body sensation, interior and exterior, as if he was being vibrated apart. There was a purple sheen on the parts of his body he could see as he exited, as if he’d swam through dyed oil, but that evaporated as the effect failed to take hold.

  His thoughts didn’t stray to consider the implications of that, rather he put away Flash Jaunt in exchange for Evasiveness and heightened it. Just in time too, for the avianoid fixated on him. Daniel felt his mind sharpening as Defiant Rage’s bonus kicked in for the first time in the ruins, confirming the corrupted avianoid was a higher level. He still prevented it from running away with his emotions as it was plain this thing would destroy him with ease if he wasn’t careful.

  Not just him, either. Daniel attempted to parry the sword coming for him with the bone claws and felt the enchanted items give minimal resistance to the translucent blade. The attempt was just enough to make a deep cut a scratch instead, but two of the protruding claws and the tip of one of his real ones had been severed.

  Daniel blinked and the sword was coming for him again, a dagger materializing in the avianoid’s other hand as it did so. He activated Mark Prey, solely for the boost it would give some of his powers, feeling the mana drain from him due to level disparity. Considering the ill feeling the overload was giving him, that was almost a relief.

  It was the only kind he was going to get soon. Blood was flowing from the wound in his side as the avianoid attempted a hard cut while turning in place, following through far further than necessary in an attempt to split him in half. Daniel evaded backward, escaping the point of the blade and almost qualifying for Opportune Moment, only for the conjured dagger to appear out the other side of the twisting enemy and slam into his torso.

  Smoke billowed out from his boots to create a dense cloud that extended to cover him, the avianoid, and a couple of the maulers the rest of his team was trying to take down. In the center of the effect it was practically blinding, but Daniel didn’t need vision. He needed to change the momentum of this fight.

  To start, he abused the moment of surprise to claw at the wrist holding the dagger. It felt like trying to break the crawler’s hide, possible yet difficult. In the end he didn’t manage to cause any significant damage, but he did force the avianoid to release their grip on the dagger, leaving it lodged around where his right lung was. It had initially come for his heart, but as the score on his sternum attested, he’d been able to at least twist out of the way of a fatal hit.

  Can’t use it, Daniel reminded himself as he reached for the dagger. There was a burning pain for the second he held it, to say nothing of how pulling it out felt, but it went away as soon as he dropped it into a bag of holding.

  The avianoid was on him soon after that, but the smoke was having some effect on them. They could still tell where he was, but the deadly speed and precision weren’t there. Daniel was able to throw a handful of feathers at the avianoid’s face to buy time for another evasion, before attempting a Cleave.

  The sharpened edge of the sword met his claws as he swung toward the avianoid, but he had expected this. It met only bone as Daniel was holding his fingers in as if to make a fist. While this destroyed the item on that hand, the follow-through effect of the attack still struck his enemy as spectral versions bit into the avianoid’s side. Sure, they would only hit the first enemy once his attack was blocked, but he was only concerned with one enemy now.

  He stayed back cautiously after that attack, struggling for a moment to remember which bag held the backup claws before replacing the destroying lightning ones with fire claws.

  5 left, a distant part of him thought, tracking the projections. Pack Insight also let him know most of the team was in ok shape, but Khiat was close to losing her composure. The spark rhino was also fully dead, though from what exactly he couldn’t be sure. Still can’t rush this. Be careful. He was still standing, but hardly breathing. Collapsed lung, or just one drowning in blood.

  Both he and the avianoid were taking their time now. They were waiting for the smoke to clear. Daniel was good with buying time, though he wasn’t sure what the avianoid was doing. They’d just teleported in and started using weapons, but he’d had no sense that Siphon Mana would have given him anything from their attacks. Were they out of mana, or was the corruption preventing them from using the powers they’d once had?

  At least Daniel had his. Unfortunately, he had no explosive mana consuming power like Telekinetic Reach in this form, just better consistent damage. Neither were his unawakened powers obliging him. Instead, as the avianoid rushed him once more, he unloaded two arm-fulls of sharp feathers while Jumping over their reach. In the worst case he was ready to deflect with his bone claws, trusting that the avianoid couldn’t be as agile in the air unless they Grew Wings and dropped their sword.

  They remained on the ground, ignoring most of the feathers that barely penetrated either the avianoid’s own or the glass-like substance that grew over them, and instead swung out with their sword toward him. Daniel was confused at first as he registered pain, he knew he’d dodged the sword, but his hearing caught the sound of a thrown dagger that had grazed a leg before scattering off into the distance.

  Another one? Guess Khare’s not the only hoarder. His humor turned sour as his various injuries began to affect his ability to move upon landing. Need a potion, but no space. He knew from his history of playing one of the hardest games out there that as soon as you went for one, the enemy would be right on you. He activated the smoke cloud charge in his armor instead, the wolf fur dusting off and refreshing the concealment around him.

  Three projections left. Shuni had finished on the higher floors and was coming to assist with the last maulers, vanishing from his perception after she moved, but they were hard to take down and corruption was spreading faster across the rest of the team as the amount they’d accumulated over the fight stacked up.

  He wanted to end this, but what was he supposed to do, survive faster? It was clear by now that this avianoid didn’t need powers to outclass him, if only by weight of attributes and enchanted weapons alone.

  The avianoid took a moment to equip another item, a shield, either drawing it from some improved kind of bag of holding or straight Flash Crafting it. He didn’t have a good read on their class to know for sure. What was clear was that they didn’t need to hold their sword with two hands to inflict crippling damage on Daniel, and this would assure they could block the worst of what he could do. Cleave, or other special attacks, were an option, but only if he felt like having them shot back at him.

  Not getting enough air. Daniel began to feel lightheaded as the avianoid came for him again. Speaking was impossible at this point. He could stay up for maybe a few minutes, but that was only if he avoided further harm. Without the smokescreen he’d probably already be dead. Was it worth letting that power take him?

  No. The core of him had already decided that as the edge of the sword nearly cut off his head amid a series of four strokes, leading into a fifth as the shield came out and threw him back, toward the edge of the smoke, more cracking inside his body. That’s not me.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Past the attributes, archetypes, bonds, powers, and any other scrap of magic affecting him, Daniel knew that he would rather die than have it take him over again. Khiat had made the same choice with the Assassin class for the same reasons.

  It was just a shame that he’d have to make good on that impulse. There were only two projections left, and yet even with them down he knew the avianoid would continue focusing him. He was immune to the corruption. A dire threat to one who wielded it, if left unchecked.

  They came for him in a charge, no hesitation or gear switches this time. He could only make it back onto his feet, preparing a last ditch gamble with Unyielding Tenacity. Maybe, if he could surprise them with that, he could use the opening and the dagger in his bag. It would still mean he was crippled either way, but he was out of options.

  The avianoid raised their sword, paused before it was all the way up, and then twisted. The sword still came for him but as an afterthought, most of the intent went behind the shield as it was raised above and behind her.

  Shuni popped into existence in its path, barely visible to Daniel. This changed as, with a curse, part of Shuni glowed as the weapon struck her. “Shit! Well, that’s half my mana gone.”

  It wasn’t as if she’d just phased through the shield, like if someone had tried to hit the illusion of Daniel while Flash Jaunting. Instead it seemed to be some kind of damage reduction flaring so intensely against the incoming damage that it became visible. Surprising for a Rogue, but then again certain powers were stronger than they should be due to how much raw energy they had at their disposal.

  Give me something to use! Daniel demanded internally as he evaded the sword, but there was no third awakening. Either nothing was there or each successive one in a short period of time got harder. When it became clear nothing was coming, he used Mark Weakness on the corrupted avianoid. It was an obscene waste, taking him below 100% for relatively limited effect, but Shuni had an opening and it was the best way he could support her.

  Surprisingly normal parts of the body lit up, the heart and parts of the head not covered by corrupted tissue. Another version of him might have thought about how this avianoid had come to be, whether they could have been reasoned with, but all he saw right now was an enemy they had to kill.

  Shuni was of a like mind, two daggers appearing in her hands as she transitioned into a slide off the shield, spearing toward the enemy. Her eyes were fixed on the avianoid, waiting for any sign of a power activating to stop her. None came in retaliation.

  Instead, Shuni briefly blinked out of existence as the avianoid’s sword came for her, appearing around the side. Her momentum was preserved though not in its original direction, allowing her to complete the attack as two daggers sunk halfway into the avianoid’s head. Daniel had leaped to savage the arm of the avianoid as well, and though they were able to throw him off despite the grip of his jaws, he came away with a sword pried from their fingers.

  “Shoulda told me you could fight in this stuff sooner,” Shuni remarked to him as she landed close by, smoke billowing out of her cloak to extend the area concealed by the effect. “Could’ve used it last time.” He tried to reply but only coughed up a bit of the blood filling his lungs. “Hey, you ok?”

  That was the problem with self-repairing armor. In the middle of a smokescreen, it could be hard to tell how injured you were. Daniel was doing better with the health he’d managed to scrape back from that last attack, but the corrupted avianoid’s high endurance was limiting what he could gain.

  He rasped ineffectually again, but Shuni caught the note of warning and was ready when beams of bright purple shot through the thick smoke. Disarmed, their enemy had switched back to the weapon they’d first used. Daniel would have tried to take that as well, but it was something fitted around the arm instead of held, and he’d only just had enough strength to break the grip on the sword while they’d been distracted.

  Whatever would have happened on the next clash was subverted by a sickening wave that filled the room. A mana pulse, pushing Daniel’s reserves up so high he was forced to his knees, coughing up both blood and bile. It wasn’t a direct effect of the mana overload, rather it was like suddenly being tossed onto a ship in the middle of the storm. His body held far more mana than it should have been able to, and it wasn’t the only one. Everything left in the chamber had been affected, even the corrupted avianoid who was disoriented, but rapidly recovering.

  All of the projections were dead, yet the corruption was still present. Daniel made a split second decision and activated Eyes on Me, forcing the avianoid’s attention on him and relieving a large chunk of the stress inside as mana drained. Again, he felt the flow inside strain against the edges of the pattern. It held, though it had gotten closer to twisting this time.

  He Jumped next, this ability untroubled though his flight was another matter. The avianoid opened up into him with their ranged weapon, each bolt coming a second after the last and burning through armor and centimeters of his flesh with every one. At this point he’d have better luck waiting out the cooldown of Beast Mode than continuing to fight, such were his injuries. That wasn’t his current goal, however.

  Daniel, hand outstretched, made contact with the lower rift in the room and through Sense Astral felt something untwist in the flat, endless space beyond where his claws made contact. He was a sword sweeping through an endless tangle, parting it, reshaping loose thread into a weaving of himself. No, it wasn’t him, it was the Spoke inside him using Daniel as a vessel and conduit. Either way, the rift was claimed. In fact, all three were at once, for they had been linked.

  The avianoid began running the instant this happened, straight at Willow. His taunt effect had already been unintentionally broken by Shuni, who he hadn't had the ability to warn. The avianoid tried firing on Willow from range again but she was able to raise a hand and throw out shield after shield, which seemed to gain some strength from the formless mist constantly evaporating off the Spirit Master as she vented mana.

  A sword identical to the one in his bag of holding appeared to replace the laser weapon as they closed, but it only just missed Willow as a shield deflected it. As they recovered, multiple attacks went out against them. A blast from Khare combined with several daggers all enchanted with Bleeding Blades. A sun arrow from Khiat, burning brighter than any before. A glare from Tlara that at first Daniel thought was pointless until he realized it hurt to look at, combined with a shot from the shock runner that had survived the fight. Lastly, an admittedly weaker arrow from a short bow Shuni had pulled from her bag of holding, though it still drove the point home.

  The smoke was clearing, but it would now be a hindrance. Some kind of calculation ran in the mind of the avianoid, whether by twisted logic or instinct. Before Khare could load another round, they were already running out of an entrance on the bottom floor, impossibly fast.

  Sigron, the only other on the team left out from the combined attack, quickly planted his real hand on the surface. There were more breaks in his armor this time, and the corruption had gotten far worse, but all of it was purged like last time. Some spots had taken damage after the fact, though nothing that wouldn’t recover with time. The Knight paused to inspect Daniel again, giving him a questioning thumbs up. He blinked as he saw one of the ghostly hands that followed him around briefly mimic the gesture before going back to tending to his armor, now free from suppressing the corruption.

  Warily, Daniel nodded, and Sigron ran off to help the others get to the rift. Khiat was especially bad off, half of her head having been glassed. More than the avianoid’s had been, making Daniel wonder why she hadn’t turned after the fact.

  “It’s over?” Willow asked after she touched the rift, the same twisted tangle within her being cleaved now that his Spoke’s presence was within it.

  Daniel coughed, then coughed again, hacking up more blood as he tried to clear his throat. “Yes,” he eventually managed.

  “You should take a healing potion.”

  “Regeneration,” he answered simply. It would be a waste to use one now.

  Tlara chose to change the topic before her sister insisted. “What the fuck was that? I thought all this crap was supposed to be on our level.”

  “I know. What do you think she was?” Shuni asked chattily, taking Tlara’s widely directed aggravation in stride.

  She? Daniel was about to ask, then realized the avianoids in the team might have a better read on the corrupted one than he did. Without a voice, it was still a little hard for him to tell.

  “5? Anyone that level should have destroyed us with their powers.” Tlara brushed at one of the feathers that was still reverting back. “Fuck this place. This is the last one, right?” There was a threat in that question.

  Daniel cleared his throat again, his body starting to stabilize. “I need to change back to know for sure. Probably. Will need to watch for that one coming back.” Now having recovered his voice, he ignored Tlara’s followup and asked Khiat, “Are you alright?”

  “I, I’m fine.” He couldn’t see her face but the lie was plain in the voice.

  “Khiat.”

  One of her hands reached for the cheek that had taken the hit. Her deep voice nonetheless sounded young, and distressed. “It, it hurt, but then it… it started trying to get in my head.” Willow put a hand on her shoulder as Khiat shrunk down. She hadn’t been there for the removal of Khiat’s class, but she’d heard about it by now. Daniel should have been there as well if he wasn’t half-dead.

  Instead he put his head to the rift, wishing that Hunter was there on the other side. Knowing he wasn’t. He stayed like that for a minute until Shuni coughed to get his attention, the sound like most things more melodious coming from an avianoid. The Rogue had a furtive look on her face. “So, uh, what exactly was your agreement with the Regent on stuff we found here?”

  “Didn’t have one.” Daniel shrugged, feeling good about the fact that he could do so without part of his torso separating from itself now. He tapped the rift with a claw. “Hadn’t thought about it. If he can take it from me, he’s welcome to.” Daniel said this with a fair bit of confidence that the gestalt probably couldn’t. He had the sword of Threst, but they weren’t technically in Threst.

  “Me neither.” Daniel furrowed his eyebrows at that and Shuni gestured to one of the larger elevator shafts, one meant for moving cargo that was completely enclosed between floors. “Spotted something in there stuck under the third floor. Figure if you can control that other place, you might be able to get it out.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mystery box.” There was a gleam in Shuni’s eye. Gold was not enough to tempt her, but the unknown? Ancient relics from the pre-Collapse society? He already felt they might have broken even with the two weapons he’d stolen from the avianoid, which there was no way Soraso could lay claim to. “He won’t mind if we look, right?”

  Daniel gave a slightly pained smile back at her. “It is what we’re here for.” Shuni’s eyes flicked to his fangs and he saw some of the feathers on the back of her head shiver.

  “Huh. Still gotta get used to that. I mean, I’ve seen Totem Warriors before but this just feels different. No offense.”

  “It is different,” Daniel replied, leaving it at that. “I need another half hour before I can switch back. Keep an eye out for anything coming in here. I’ll see if I can control the elevator after that, and then?” The excitement and anticipation of what might be in the elevator faded as he caught Khiat and Willow sitting under the first set of stairs, talking quietly. “We’re getting out of here.”