“What was that?” Dazien’s voice asked in her mind as Phoenix catapulted herself from the hill and ran in the direction she had come from.

  “Book said a Gotaur,” she replied, gncing back to see if it was chasing her, but she didn’t see it yet.

  “I’ve never heard of a Gotaur sounding like that,” Uriel added to the group conversation, “They may be monsters, but they’re usually more intelligent and normally don’t seek out direct confrontation.”

  “Well, this one’s also Caged and Corrupted, whatever that means,” Phoenix expined and winced as a mess of shouts echoed in her mind.

  “GET OUT NOW!” Dazien’s command reverberated in her mind over the others, and she added another burst of mana to push herself forward across the snow.

  “I am!” she retorted and another bellow of rage and tormented pain sounded from behind her. She looked back and saw the Gotaur’s eyes focused on her, glowing with an eerie blue light, “And it’s chasing. My book gave a quest to flee and get Paul! Why would it do that?!”

  “Seriously? He was a famous Corruption Hunter! He’s never talked to you about it before?” Dazien asked incredulously.

  “No? I don’t remember reading about it either,” she compined, but didn’t want to admit she hadn’t finished making her way through that massive book of “common knowledge” Schor had given her. She had other things that kept interrupting, like fighting monsters, and traitors, and not exploding her crafts… which didn’t go so well with that poor Prism Lens earlier.

  “Corruption is basically an inverted element,” Uriel said in a more subdued tone, “If it’s a Gotaur, then it’s likely Ice.”

  “So wouldn’t the inverse of that be, like, Fire?” she asked, attempting to use [Ruler of Retivity] on the monster itself to force more distance between them but quickly stopped as it drained her mana at a much more precipitous rate.

  “No, it’s Corrupted Ice. The inverse of Fire would be Corrupted Fire. It’s a bit difficult to expin but think of it like a pgue, tainting the very magic itself, turning it into some of the most dangerous and self-destructive energies in the world,” he expined.

  “Wait, are we talking magic zombies here?” she asked in horror. With another gnce back, she could see the vague comparison with its sickly appearance that was much closer now, galloping after her, and its skeletal hand oddly beginning to glow brightly, “Can Gotaur’s cast magic?!”

  “Yes, they can,” Uriel replied matter-of-factly, “But Zombies are actually a result of Corrupted Death magic. The Gotaur isn’t technically an undead unless it gets to the point where the magic has fully taken over it and it can spread its Corruption. Are there glowing veins and eyes on it?”

  “Um, yes on the eyes.”

  “Run faster, and whatever you do, don’t let it touch you!” Dazien yelled out.

  Suddenly something burst through the snow ahead of her and she reactively dodged to the side. What looked like a smaller goat version of the Gotaur behind her—except carved out of ice and snow—popped out with a terrifying bleat.

  “It can summon minions?!” she asked incredulously and felt a slight wave of relief as she sensed the auras of her party. The next second had Rayna impacting like a furry missile with the summoned creature about to bite her leg off.

  “Gots,” Uriel responded, “Those are rather aggressive and—”

  “Not now Uriel!” she heard Dazien actually shout aloud that time when they all came into sight as she rounded a st hill, “Focus on slowing them down as we run!”

  Dazien was pulling the apathetic cinderen along and commanded through the communication link again, “Rayna, don’t let it hit you either. While it’s likely Ice-attuned we don’t know for sure what else it might have and if it’ll overp with one of us. If it can summon, it might have Dimension which would double with Phoenix. If that roar was some sort of ability, it might have Song which would—”

  “I get it. If it summons, it could also have Covenant, which means you too, King,” Rayna retorted, “Lessons ter. What are we doing?”

  “We need to retreat to the city. Phoenix get the portals going for Saiya first.”

  She was about to oblige when a bst of ice smmed into her back, sending her flying into the snow and knocking the breath out of her. She groaned and reconjured her [Starlight Companion] and [Sun Shell]—no point in trying to hide them when she was clearly not hidden.

  “A touch of frost and your death follows,” Uriel incanted.

  “Not Ice!” Dazien yelled with exasperated panic.

  “You said slow it down,” Uriel ftly retorted, “You know slow is Ice, burning is Fire.”

  “I meant to distract it! Oh fu—”

  Another soul-shaking roar—followed by another bleat from the direction Rayna had vanished in—echoed through the hills, and the Gotaur changed directions from trampling the downed Wayfarer. Instead, it focused on the Ice-attuned mage that had attacked it.

  Dazien moved and lifted his shield just in time to impact with the lowered demon horns aiming to impale his partner. He triggered [Stand Your Ground] in a vain attempt to withstand the assault that still managed to push him across the terrain a few meters.

  Phoenix stumbled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her back. She sent her [Night Bde] flying straight into the monster’s head, but it didn’t seem to care in the slightest. It looked like “undead” meant no vital areas that could one-shot it.

  Another smaller Got suddenly appeared near her, and she managed to toss a portal near Saiya before reconjuring the dagger in her hand along with her Caustic Floe sword to take on the little minion that lunged towards her.

  “Uriel! Go through the portal now!” Dazien yelled before the Gotaur conjured an icy staff to sm down on the Defender. After he raised his sword to parry, a deafening crack rang through the air, and he was sent to the ground instead as the sheer force overpowered his Strength.

  Saiya hadn’t gone through the portal yet, instead casting [Heal Life], which sent a bolt of Life magic into the downed warrior. The ability also put a new Boon on him after getting upgraded by Paul’s gifted Sustain Spirit Gem.

  Ability: Heal Life

  Type: Spell (magical, life)

  Cost: Low mana.

  Cooldown: None.

  Current caste: Sapphire 1 (68%)

  Crystal Effect: Delivers Life energy through a projectile, giving a small burst of health to an ally target.

  Sapphire Effect: Bestows an instance of [Life Regen].

  Life Regen (boon, magical, life): Periodically regain health for a moderate duration.

  Phoenix mentally asked the group, “Why is it after Uriel?”

  “Because they share an Elemental attunement,” Saiya expined in pce of the recovering leader as Snowbelle distracted the Gotaur with a bst of acidic water straight into its chest. “Corrupted creatures can’t stand the presence of their element in its pure form. They are obsessively driven to Corrupt beings with it.”

  There was a sound like a shattering gong being struck in the distance, and Rayna reported, “One creepy ice goat thingy down.”

  “Good, now get Uriel out of here!” Dazien groaned through the mental network, rolling over to try and regain his footing.

  That’s when everything went spiraling sideways.

  Phoenix felt like she was watching in slow motion as she stabbed the frosty little Got with her sword and saw Uriel move between Dazien and the Gotaur. He managed to use his own sword—which he rarely needed to wield—to redirect the glowing staff to nd in the ground beside the pair rather than take on the blow.

  The bst of snow being sent up and the tremor through the ground made it obvious to everyone that if that blow had nded on Dazien’s back that it had been aiming for, their leader would be dead—crushed in his armor just like the stone ground that was now caved in next to them.

  What made Phoenix’s heart stop, however, was the sight of one of the Gotaur’s glowing hands buried in Uriel’s abdomen and the elongated face biting down on the shoulder of his extended arm. Uriel’s cry of pain made her heart restart, and she flung herself forward toward her friend, trying to catch him as he was released by the monster.

  When she looked back at the minion she had abandoned, Rayna had arrived in time to engage it instead, creating an insane rhythm with her strikes to make quick work of the weaker summon.

  Dazien was already incanting, “You have forsaken my rule and thus forfeit your freedom!” quickly constructing a metal cage around the monster while shoving both of them back behind him and towards the portal, but Uriel stumbled.

  Phoenix tried to keep him upright, pulling one of his arms over her shoulder, and was grateful to her increased Strength from her Crystal 5 Attribute helping in this regard. Then her [Guide Book], in another poorly timed appearance, had yet another task for her.

  New Quest: Cleanse the Cursed

  Your companion has been inflicted with a Corrupting Bane.

  Objective: Eliminate the potential Corruption.

  Path 1: Cleanse the Divine Bane.

  Path 2: Kill Uriel Karislian.

  Reward: Sapphire Caste Spirit Gem.

  Phoenix worriedly looked at Uriel’s face near her own and saw it twisted in pain. She incanted, “As surely as the sun will rise again, let life shine brightly from within, and you will see the dawn of tomorrow,” triggering the severe cost version of her only healing Spell in an attempt to save her friend. Path 2 was not an option she would ever pick.

  Saiya was on the other side of Uriel then, and cast her own spell, “May the stream cleanse you.”

  Uriel clenched his teeth and Saiya frowned before looking towards her, “Uriel’s been marked by the [Corrupting Ice] Bane, we need to get him to another Healer. I can’t cleanse Divine Banes.”

  “Take him through the portal and find help, my cooldown will be up soon,” she replied, then she turned to look at Dazien as she informed through the mental chat, “Go through and contact Paul. Rayna and I can run for a couple of minutes.”

  Dazien moved quickly as the Gotaur finished shattering the Crystal Caste cage.

  Rayna tried to intercept the next magical spell by rocketing into the monster’s side and smashing it off course, using both her [Sonorous Stomp] followed by her [Siren’s Cry] to further knock it away from the retreating party members.

  Dazien only paused for a moment while following after the Healer and Mage to begin telling her, “I better see you in one minute or else—”

  “What? You’ll tattle to dad?” Phoenix shot back, fully enjoying the embarrassed flush on his face before shaking away the brief humor from her mild hysteria to assure him, “Get Uriel help. We’ll be right there. Now, hurry up!”

  She didn’t wait for a response as she triggered her mana-recovery tattoo and began winding up a bigger deterrent for the undead creature, “From the depths of the universe I summon forth the shards of annihition. May the wrath of the cosmos descend upon all who dare to oppose me.”

  Phoenix dismissed her portal as soon as the trio had gone through and yelled out to the bard, “Time to fly, Rayna!” just as her Meteor appeared in the sky above the Striker and Corrupted monster wielding its staff.

  “Abyss, no!” she shouted back after releasing the bst of consumed [Impetus] stacks, creating a ripple of vibrating sound waves that spread throughout the monster’s fnk.

  To their horror, it responded by stomping its hooves on the ground over and over. The channeled Spell caused multiple mounds of snow to appear nearby before a half-rotted Got minion burst from each with an angry scream.

  Luckily, Rayna was already racing towards her as the meteor finished its path to crash into the growing swarm. The powerful Sapphire Caste Gotaur was still standing, however, when the molten rock shattered around it—devastating the smaller minions, but only causing the mini-boss to become angrier.

  The pair fled. Rayna forwent any ideas Phoenix had about her personal autonomy and picked her up as the remaining squad of smoldering evil ice goats chased after them. The bard would occasionally dodge out of the way of an oncoming ice bst from behind them, which Phoenix was impressed Rayna could sense coming and hoped that hitting Sapphire would be just as useful for her.

  Another minute ter, they were in Tulimeir, having practically dived through her portal as she quickly smmed it closed behind her. She didn’t want a repeat of “the mecha-cat incident,” and accidentally threaten the lives of all the people in the city.

  Phoenix quickly looked around for the others and found Uriel colpsed on the ground nearby as Dazien knelt beside him, holding his hand tightly. Beyond the pair, guards were leveling weapons at them while Saiya stood between them, trying to keep everyone calm while expining, “I assure you, Lord Padin Waynd has been informed and is on his way any minute.”

  Uriel let out an ear-piercing scream then, and one of the guards yelled, “He don’t got a minute before he turns! How big a Caste difference was between the d and whatever got him?”

  Phoenix moved to her friend’s side, kneeling opposite Dazien and asking over their communication link, “How long does he really have?”

  He grimaced and startled her by tearing Uriel’s tunic, ripping it off the delirious man to reveal a dark muscur chest absolutely covered in faintly glowing scars in the shapes of runes. There was a nasty bite that hadn’t fully healed on Uriel’s left shoulder that had glowing blue veins bleeding from it, slowly spreading over the torso and down the arm. A secondary source of tainted magic came from the half-healed wound on the right side of his abdomen where the glowing cwed hands had gouged.

  “Maybe a couple of minutes. I don’t know if Lord Waynd will make it that quickly. He told me he was with Lord Teras at the OOM building on the other side of the city when my ability became in range of him again,” Dazien replied with a furrowed brow, “It’ll take even longer for a priest with Divine cleansing to even get the request.”

  Dazien’s words triggered a memory, and she quickly double-checked her collection before conjuring a vial to her hand. She yanked the top off and poured the glittering pastel rainbow liquid down Uriel’s throat, praying that it would work.