The small fairy-light tunnel eventually opened up to a bright, sunny field with a dirt road. Far off in the distance, Eric could see a stone building of some type.

  Shannon spoke first. “Looks like a Greek building. White stone and columns. The trail goes for a bit before we get there.”

  “How many chambers per floor?” Peter asked.

  “No clue,” Eric replied. “In the last timeline, you told me the number of chambers goes up the deeper you go.”

  “Right . . . I went a lot deeper.” Peter went quiet. “And you said I vanished?”

  Eric hummed in response. “Mhmm.” He frowned. “You went dive-crazy. That’s why this time around I set you up with Benson. Oh shit!” He stopped in his tracks and looked at his allies. “Mari and Benson are spies, forgot to tell you.”

  “Figured,” Naomi said.

  Peter frowned. “For who?”

  “Spymaster Persim Mistra,” Eric replied. “Don’t worry too much about it. Just don’t whisper our secrets or plans to either of them. That’s all. They’re contractors, not directly part of her network.”

  Peter gulped, then nodded. “Okay. I haven’t spilled anything yet, except talking a bit about the soirée and the Ghulara people I talked to. But that’s it.”

  Shannon crossed her arms. “Is the Spymaster someone we need to worry about?”

  Eric shook his head. “She’s one of the good ones. When we have to start worrying about politics, or need to deal with the kingdom’s corruption, I’ll let you know who the big players are. Best to focus on the here and now for the time being. I’ll worry about the plotting of big-picture stuff.”

  That caused a side-eyed glance of suspicion from Peter, but he said nothing. Shannon just shrugged and replied, “Sounds fine. I’m not one for politics anyways.”

  Naomi replied, “Back to the mega dungeon floor, then.”

  “What if what’s coming up is the last room?” Shannon asked. “Is the last chamber always a boss fight?”

  “Not always a fight,” Eric said. “It is just a really challenging encounter. But it’s not always combat.” He glanced at Peter. “Again, from what you told me before.”

  Shannon sighed. “We really need to buy one of those dungeon guides.”

  “Good luck,” Naomi said. “Those Dungeon Organizations seem to pick them up almost instantly once they hit the market.”

  Peter led the way down the trail. “Why not just hire someone who has been deeper to come with us?”

  “We could,” Eric said. “But then they would be able to observe us. Spy on us, maybe even be paid to give out a report after-the-fact even if they weren’t initially spying. The benefit of us being in here—just the four of us in this instance of the mega dungeon—is that we can progress and no one will know how powerful we become.”

  “That is sensible,” Naomi said, her voice becoming cool and smooth. “Having us be an unknown variable, even more than we already are, is going to be key in upsetting the status quo and ousting the people that will lead to the kingdom’s downfall. Especially as Seraphine has kept the other small council members far from us. They have no clue what we are capable of.”

  “That makes sense,” Peter replied.

  The dirt trail ended, becoming a huge field of tamped-down grass, as if countless feet had trodden on the shoots and crushed them into the ground. Despite the grass being pushed down, it still grew like a huge, green mat.

  “This must be it,” Shannon said. “Give me a second.” She began setting up her various crossbows, priming them with bolts, and then hefted the thin-yet-powerful arbalest onto her shoulder. “Ready.”

  Peter walked forward, his body seeping red as Sigils on his hand appeared for a brief moment then vanished. His body seemed to expand in size, and his usual crimson aura radiated from him. “All right! Let’s do it!”

  Eric walked forward with Naomi, Ash Shroud active and Blackflame Bolt primed to be launched. He scanned the grassland but did not see movement. Then came a loud cry from above. Looking up, he felt his chest tighten—not in panic, or fear, but with sheer adrenaline.

  A huge bird-like creature swooped down, and he barely dove to the ground in time. The clawed talons found no target, since Eric had dove, rolled and come to his feet. “Wyvern!”

  The scaled, leathery creature had swooped back up into the sky, using the momentum of its dive to swoop back up. It circled for a brief moment, unintentionally giving the group a chance for quick strategizing. Eric started spouting off the information he knew about them.

  “They’ve got claws on the edges of their wing-tips, big rear-leg talons like a falcon,” he said. “Long neck and dangerous head. Spines along the back that are coated with venom. Barbed tail with venom like a scorpion. The spinal venom is a minor paralytic, the tail coagulates your blood like a cobra.”

  He launched the Blackflame Bolt he had been holding, and thanks to his Tracking Gloves, he was able to guide the Bolt into the circling creature. The small explosion of black-and-white flame engulfed the torso and began to spread. Eric fired off another, and another, as the figure finished its circling and dove down at him.

  He also felt his bracer vibrate; when he raised his arm to fire off more bolts, he saw a small, holographic arrow that hovered above the surface and pointed up, spinning in a small circle. It also had a small readout alongside the arrow, showing distance in feet.

  Ah. Marking Spark, that new Trait.

  Peter ran in front of Eric, holding his maul ready to strike. “Be ready to jump to your left side,” Peter said with brash confidence. “Gonna smoke this fucker!”

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  Eric continued firing off Blackflame Bolts, feeling his mana continue to drop lower and lower. A few crossbow bolts from Shannon arced into the sky, slamming into the wyvern and sticking out from little spots between the scales.

  Eric sprinted to his left as it got closer, and watched with a grim fascination as Peter perfectly timed a side-step of the rear talons and swung his maul into the left one with a loud, resounding crunch.

  The wyvern let out a scream of pain as it tumbled into the dirt, end over end, before coming to a weak, pathetic stop. More of Shannon’s bolts thudded into it as it got up and turned to face them. Eric kept up his barrage, and his Rote kept stacking Blackflame Blaze higher and higher; the burning-damage-over-time applications continued until the entire body was wreathed with the substance.

  Peter charged forward, and Eric was about to fire off another Blackflame Bolt when something slammed into him from behind. He instinctively twisted and heard a loud rip as his armored robes were torn. A cutting, white-hot pain lanced across his left shoulder, and an explosive burst of Blackflame fwooshed out as the skin tore and the raw primal force surged out to afflict his new assailant with his Trait.

  Eric rolled with the impact and turned, watching as A second Wyvern flew high into the sky. His Ash Shroud had caused it to miss enough that he was able to avoid being hooked through the back.

  “Peter! Blast incoming!” Eric held up his left hand and made to activate a Sigil.

  But he was interrupted, as a bolt from Shannon slammed into the wyvern's eye, piercing through its brain and instantly dropping it.

  The wyvern was silenced, its body vanishing as it was incinerated thanks to the DOTs, leaving behind nothing but ashes. Eric felt the warmth of his Revitalizing Heat activating, and the wound on his back was soothed ever-so-slightly.

  Eric pivoted and tried to track the wyvern up above. Then, he felt a pit form in his stomach as yet another one joined it, flying in circles above. “I’m at about half mana,” Eric shouted.

  Half for what’s in my body. I still have whatever is stored in my Mana Skin, but the injury took away some of it.

  He felt the pulsating, rhythmic pain of his shoulder and the hot, slick blood flow down his arm to soak into the fabric of his robe. He was running low on Sigils as well—there were only three left out of his five total, and he had to save one for Flashstep just in case he had to perform an emergency retreat or last-second dodge.

  Raising his hand, he fired off yet more Blackflame Bolts, trying to draw the attention of one of the wyverns. At the same time, he pushed a sliver of his mana into his Deflection Matrix, manifesting the plate-sized shield above his left hand. It wouldn’t be able to stop one of the claws, but might buy a precious fraction of a second for him to react.

  Shannon kept firing, so one of the wyverns dove toward her. She vanished from sight, and the creature redirected for Naomi. Her eyes went wide, and Eric heard her scream echo through his mind as the creature plowed directly into her. Talons pierced into her shoulders and lifted her skyward.

  Almost without thinking, Eric activated Flashstep and moved. He had intended to get on top of it, so the Skill had near-instantly transported him to a perch on its back. He began to slip off, and grabbed onto one of the spines despite knowing there was a minor paralytic poison coating it. He hissed as the sharp spine sliced into him and his hand started to go numb. That numbness ran down his arm but stopped at the elbow. Still, his hand was able to cling on, the paralytic having frozen his grip around the spine.

  The wyvern tore up into the sky, what had to be hundreds of feet up—the air ripped at Eric’s skin and forced him to shut his eyes.

  Why the fuck did I do that? What the fuck am I going to do?

  Then, he felt it. Mana seeped out of him and onto the spike from the gap in his flesh that blood poured from. Blood mixed with Blackflame, from the [Reactive] Mana Skin. An idea popped into his head. He slid his hand down the spine by squatting down, cutting more of his skin, and Blackflame poured out of the wound and onto the creature under him.

  Naomi’s screams from below told him he had to work fast, and so he set to blasting with Blackflame Bolts as he continued to cut his hand. Finally, he felt the numbness travel to his shoulder, so he moved his arm up, allowing his hand to slip up and over from the top of the spine. He tumbled back off of the wyvern and fell toward the ground.

  Naomi will have to figure out how to land on her own.

  Eric activated Inferno Trigger. The detonation roared above him, the wyvern’s entire back, spine, and upper body was incinerated in the explosion, killing it, and the flame spread to consume the whole form, turning it to ash.

  Without any claws to grip her, Naomi began to fall toward him, screaming. Eric tried to push his arms out to slow his own fall, and Naomi inched closer to him, her descent faster than his thanks to her uncontrolled plummet.

  The second he felt her hand grip his forearm—now less than forty feet away from the ground—he used his last Sigil to activate Flashstep. His downward momentum was transferred to angular momentum, as if he was moving at speed coming out of a quarter-pipe, and he went slamming into the grass, feeling something crack and crunch underneath him. The wind left his lungs.

  He heard Naomi’s screams of pain and knew she was also tumbling through the grasses, her body crashing just like his was before they came tumbling to a halt.

  Eric let out a pained groan and slowly turned over. He felt a flare of warmth that soothed some of the ache and knew that the second wyvern had expired. But he was also out of Sigils.

  “I’ll cover them!” Shannon shouted, and Eric heard more deep, rhythmic twangs of her arbalest firing.

  Eric felt hands grip him by the scruff of the neck, and Peter growled out, “Fucking annoying dragging your ass around. Good play, though.”

  Naomi groaned and vomited, her splatter mixed with blood as she began to convulse. Immediately, Eric’s brain went into the mindset of his past timeline.

  Severe internal injury, her head or neck must have taken the brunt of the hit, and she’s having a stroke.

  Eric rolled onto his stomach and got to his hands and knees, which prompted Peter to stop dragging him and Naomi. “Healing Potions,” Eric said weakly as he pulled all of Naomi’s out from her cushioned belt pouches with his right hand and poured them into Naomi’s mouth, his left arm dangling uselessly from the venom. Her body stilled its jerky, erratic movements. He felt another flask pushed into his outstretched hand, so he fed that to Naomi as well. Her breathing slowed, calming, but she remained unconscious.

  Eric glanced back. Peter’s eyes were set in grim determination as he stared at the two injured Summoned. “We need to help Shannon,” Eric said, his lungs burning in his chest. He knew he’d broken several ribs, but knew he could draw enough breath that he hadn’t pierced his lungs. Perhaps he had internal organ damage, but he wouldn’t know for a few more minutes until his adrenaline died down.

  “I got it,” Peter replied as he turned around and joined the fray. Eric saw Shannon deftly dodging the now-grounded wyvern, dancing back from strikes with elegant dodges and returning fire with her smaller crossbow.

  Eric raised his hand and launched another Blackflame Bolt, burning the last bits of mana he had in his reservoir. He kept applying the licking flames as Peter engaged the last wyvern, bringing his maul crashing in a sweeping arc that slammed into the creature’s front-left leg.

  It let out a pained cry and collapsed, which gave Peter an opening. He activated a Skill and swung his weapon, which was now outlined in a crimson glow. A massive crunch sounded through the open space as he caved in the skull with the single, titanic blow.

  The area went still. Everyone was breathing heavily—except Naomi, who was in blissful unconsciousness. Shannon looked at Eric with a concerned expression. “Is the chamber cleared? Or is your special thing going to happen again?”

  Shannon’s suspicions—and Eric’s fears—were confirmed a split-second later as Eric’s body went flush, all pain left him, his flesh mended, and his mana fully refilled. He regained control over his paralyzed arm and bolted to his feet as the message from The Paths flickered in floating, holographic text above his bracer.

  [Mega dungeon Floor Boss - defeated.]

  [Ember Acquired.]

  [Holder of primal force detected.]

  [Additional challenge activated.]

  [Full Restore - granted.]

  [Defeat the Wyvern Lord, and receive an Ember.]