The knight suddenly launched itself forward, arcs of purple energy danced across its sword arm as it raised it up to strike.

  “[Tanlglethorns]!” Annabelle jerked her hands up as soon as she saw it start to move and vines reached up towards the knight, wrapping around its foot. The knight tore through them but stumbled, giving the two enough time to get out of the way as it brought its sword down. The energy running along its blade flashed, arcing outwards in a line as its blade struck the grass. The force travelled past the edge of the island before dissipating over the lake.

  “It got faster, great!” Lucian groaned, stepping back towards the knight as it pulled its blade free from the soil, striking with his own blade empowered by a combination of [Slash] and [Penetrating Strike]. His blade shone with a white light as it struck the knight’s back and dug into the now even further reinforced bark, cutting deep. It dropped him to 6 Spirit, so he wouldn’t be able to use another skill unless he dismissed his blade and let his Spirit regenerate, but the expended Spirit also held the dual purpose of reinforcing his [Spirit Barrier], brightening the aura that wreathed him that had dulled from the strike it took earlier.

  Lucian pulled back, taking a small leap away as the knight wrenched its sword from the ground and spun to face him, its sword beginning to crackle with purple energy again.

  “Conserve whatever Spirit you have left! Keep your hex up!” Lucian shouted to Annabelle as he readied himself, taking a deep breath.

  Lucian and the knight moved in tandem, each pushing off of the ground with lethal intent.

  The knight dragged its sword through the dirt, sparks of purple shooting off into the ground and leaving a scorched trail behind it.

  The two reached one another and the knight swung upwards. Lucian, wary of the energy that wreathed the sword and that was expelled from the last attack, dodged instead of parrying. He shifted and narrowly sidestepped the slash. He dodged the brunt of the attack, as the blade rushed up past him and unleashed an arc of purple lightning into the sky, but he didn’t dodge everything. Sparks of purple energy arced off of the blade and struck against his [Spirit Barrier], slipping through it with most of their force unfettered. He felt pain bloom across the left side of his body and leapt away, gritting his teeth. The knight immediately followed the upwards strike with a second attack, closing the gap and bringing the sword back down.

  This time, the sword wasn’t wreathed in deadly energy, so Lucian opted to block rather than dodge, bringing his sword up to meet the incoming blow - but he was at an inherent disadvantage. His sword was smaller, and therefore lighter, he was swinging against gravity instead of with it, and one of the arms he was holding his sword with had just been shocked.

  The force of the strike shook Lucian as he tilted his sword sideways to divert to the force of the strike, letting the knight’s blade slide down along the blade and hit the ground.

  As soon as the knight’s blade dug into the ground, Lucian pulled his own blade back and immediately aimed a thrusting attack at the knight’s chest. His blade struck, and the same light as before repelled it, “It has a cooldown, again!” Lucian brought the sword back again and thrusted it toward as hard as he could. He struck true, his sword piercing a few inches into the knight’s chest.

  The knight pulled its sword from the ground and tried to slice diagonally up at Lucian, who used his own sword as leverage to leap up over the attack. As he touched the ground again, he shifted out of the way of another grab before pushing on his sword again to drive it deeper. The knight let out a deep sharp groan that sounded like the cracking of a tree as Lucian’s sword pierced all the way through its chest, the glowing blade emerging through its back.

  The knight grabbed for Lucian again, this time it's clawed hand wrapped around his arm, and he flung Lucian away, breaking his grip of his sword. As his fingers left the grip of his sword, it began to vanish into motes of blue light. Lucian cursed as he flew through the air before coming to an abrupt stop as he struck one of the stone pillars surrounding the arena and felt the air leave his lungs, sliding down into a sitting position and gasping for air.

  The knight took a step forward, then faltered. It reached up and touched its chest where Lucian had pierced through it. I looked down at its chest, then back up at Lucian as the light in its eyes began to dim. Annabelle let [Witch’s Hex] end, unable to maintain it any longer, and looked nervously at the knight as it approached Lucian.

  Each step it took looked more sluggish, a longer pause between each footfall. Halfway to Lucian, the knight fell to one knee, then slumped over and fell to the grass beneath it.

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  Lucian stared at the body as he slowly stood up, coughing and wheezing slightly. He felt like he fractured a few ribs, “We did it…” He said softly, looking over to Annabelle who began to run towards him.

  “You scared me half to death!” He pulled him into a hug.

  Lucian winced, “Gentle! Ribs!” He groaned as she loosened her arms a bit, “Sorry.” He started to chuckle a little before coughing some more.

  Annabelle sighed and looked back at the slumped body of the knight, “Well, we’re both alive… So I guess it’s fine.” She looked back at Lucian, “Sorry about the ribs. Breathing okay?”

  Lucian shook his head, “Breathing is a little painful, but I can deal with it.” As he spoke, he allocated 5 of his free points to Constitution, bringing it up to 40 - again in the hopes it would speed up his healing. He tossed the other 4 points into Endurance, bringing it up to 34. The increases brought his Spirit up to 90 maximum. “More importantly, any good changes?” He asked, looking at Annabelle.

  “Oh. Yeah! I leveled up 3 times! [Witch’s Hex] and leveled up twice, which is nice. Now it costs a bit less, and does a bit more.” She said, mood immediately shifting upwards. She then glared down at the knight, “I AM annoyed that my poison spell didn’t work, though.”

  “With how corrupted it looked, I’m not surprised it had a resistance to poison. I’m honestly kind of shocked it didn’t use poison attacks of its own.”

  “I mean, yeah… But it’s still disappointing!” Annabelle complained a bit before sighing, “Oh well. Whatever.”

  Lucian laughed, then winced, before walking past the knight. He approached the shattered obelisk in the arena’s center, and examined it. A brief glance around him revealed that the glowing sigils upon the pillars were beginning to fade. He reached out and touched the remains of the stone, running his fingers across them.

  “Assuming that this doesn’t only run on video game logic, there must be a reason for all this setup other than a neat boss intro.” Annabelle said as she walked up behind him.

  “My thoughts exactly. My first guesses are either some kind of a prison or a quarantine.” Lucian responded, “Not like it matters if I’m right… I hope…”

  “Hopefully, yeah.” Annabelle blinked a few times, then looked at the stones again, “It does make me wonder, though. Do you think this thing was set up with skills? Or do you think it was more like…” She paused, looking for a good way to say what she was thinking, “Done with something closer to free form magic? Like the sigils, right? They could have been for decoration, or they actually had some kind of purpose.”

  Lucian blinked, “I hadn’t thought of that… That is a good point. It could feasibly be something more free form, since I was able to kind of create one of my skills.”

  “You what!?” Annabelle stared at him.

  “Yeah, [Quickstep]. I didn’t get it from leveling up, and it isn’t categorized as a class skill. I was kind of desperate when I did it - you know, trying not to die and all.” Lucian began to explain as Annabelle looked at him with rapt attention, “At first it was just… free form manipulation of my Spirit. I forced my will on it, my very strong desire to not be electrocuted probably had something to do with it, and got it to do what I wanted. After doing it a few times and getting a hold on how much Spirit I was spending, the system recognized it as a skill.”

  “That… That’s incredible?” Annabelle laughed, “You really are something else.” She smiled, then frowned, “But how did you manipulate your own Spirit outside the bounds of a skill?”

  “Well, when the system stuff first happened I felt this weird warmth bloom in my chest - the same with each time I leveled up and increased my Spirit. Each time I used my skills there was a similar feeling. Like, while channeling [Witch’s Hex] you can feel the Spirit being drained right?”

  Annabelle paused, “Kind of? It isn’t very pronounced, and it certainly doesn’t feel like something I could control.”

  “Well, I kind of tried to replicate the feelings I had when using skills and it just kind of worked. Took a lot of mental effort, though.” Lucian shrugged.

  “Golden boy.” Annabelle teased him, punching him in the arm gently, “That’s seriously cool though.” She smiled again, “By the way, on another note, thanks for getting me out of harm’s way back there.”

  “No problem. What else are friends for?” Lucian replied.

  “Normal friends go to, like, the mall.” Annabelle laughed.

  “Normal is boring.” Lucian smiled.

  “True enough… True enough.” Annabelle sighed before taking a seat on a large piece of what was once the obelisk.

  The pair rested for a bit, allowing their Spirits to recover to a level where Lucian could get them out of a situation if they really needed it. Lucian was insistent they didn’t need to take him to a hospital, and so they crossing the root bridge back over the lake, and continued along the river further into the jungle.