“Pyro, can you encase us in a barrier?” I ask him. He nods and creates a shield out of regular mana, of which he builds a powerful sphere of creation mana over. I create my own layer of dark mana as well, adding to the protection and giving us a moment.

  ‘You really had to go and jinx us, didn't you?’ Pyro raises an eyebrow at Phoebe, who rolls her eyes.

  “Jinxing isn't even a real thing.” she says.

  “Magical jinxing is.” I point out. “It's a whole branch of curse magic actually.”

  ‘Curse magic? What- nope, not getting off topic.’ Pyro shakes his head. ‘What's good against blood?’

  “Both fire and ice are good against it.” I say. “So you'll need to use a lot of mana, Phoebe. There are a lot of little mini drakons.”

  “I’m already close to half empty.” Phoebe mutters, frowning. “I don't know how far I can go.”

  ‘I wish I could give you my mana. I'm practically full still.’ He says, frowning. Then he pauses. ‘I do have a lot of stat points I've never used if you want them.’

  “How many?” She asks, listening to the screeches and burbles of monsters on the other side of the barrier.

  ‘229.’ he reads off from his screen, making her freeze up.

  “What?!” She sputters, giving Pyro a dumbfounded look.

  “Yeah, sounds about right.” I nod. “2 points per level in tier 1 and 3 points in tier 2, plus how you gain bonus stats when you level up multiple times in a row as a reward for fighting creatures stronger than you.”

  “Well, yeah, but that's just absurd! You haven't used 1 stat point throughout every level?”

  ‘No, I used a few when I first got a few levels. A total waste.’ Pyro admits sheepishly.

  “You know what? No complaints from me. Even if it'll result in a big loss I need stats.” She admits with a sigh. “A lack of raw power is what's holding me back most right now.” Phoebe sighs while Pyro looks confused.

  ‘You can transfer stats?’ He asks, glancing to me. I nod.

  “With most people it results in a 90% loss of stat points though so it's not usually worth it. It's worth it for us though since our soul cores purify the transferred energy and provide our souls a stronger worldly presence, meaning we have an insane advantage in transferring stats, that being a 10% loss instead of 90%.”

  ‘So she'd get… 206 points.’ Pyro nods. ‘worth it. How do I do i- ope, theres the popup.’

  I watch the transfer of energy with interest. Almost all the energy makes it into Phoebe, however there is a tiny bit left in the air. I can only see it due to how powerful my eye mutation is. I don't think Pyro sees it. Curiously, I reach out with my mana control and grip onto the energy. It's not quite mana. It feels more like essence, but… purer. I pull it towards my soul core.

  {+230 essence}

  My eyes bulge at the message. They don't notice, preoccupied with Phoebe testing out her new strength.

  “My Intelligence is at 150! And so is my strength and durability!” She cheers. She hops up and down on my back, making me make an ‘oof’.

  “Well, go burn the freaks then.” I say, creating a hole in my shadow barrier. Pyro creates a hole in the same place as me, letting the creatures flood in. Instead, fire floods out, af wings off flame burst out of Phoebe's back and she leaps out, melting the mini-drakons as she starts flinging fire. I glance to Pyro, only to notice him looking at me curiously.

  ‘I saw the transfer's energy. It looks like you absorbed the spilloff?’ He asks. I nod guiltily.

  “I wanted to see if I even could. Turns out that the transfer rare of stats to essence is really high.”

  ‘Oh? How much?’ He asks, bringing out his blades and hopping into the air.

  “Ten times, I think. not worth it in my opinion.” I say with a shrug. “I can't reabsorb the energy as stats I don't think. Only essence.”

  ‘Yeah, it seems decent but not worth it.’ He says. He void steps out, then back in, his blades now bloody from carving through a few mini's behind Phoebe. He seems to have decided to just watch Phoebe's back while she melts the little things.

  “Better for empowering friends.” I agree, smiling. “Maybe Phoebe and Evelyn will be super overpowered like us.”

  ‘Phoebe's already ultra skilled.’ Pyro agrees. ‘With the added bonus of the stats, she's already a better fighter than me.’

  “Evelyn isn't so much.” I chuckle. “But she's getting classes from the best assassin god in the pantheon of life.”

  ‘A life assassin? Sounds a little…’

  “Contradictory? Yeah, I said that too.” I open my jaws, opening a hole in the barrier, which Pyro opens with me and letting me blast distortion at a particularly large congregation of mini drakons. They seem to be around half gone now.

  ‘Do his blades, like… heal things? Or- ooh, do they have lifesteal? Maybe he does life force cultivation?’ Pyro asks curiously.

  “Yeah, he does.” I nod. “Life force cultivation is popular here among the lower tiers, but taken to higher tiers it's frankly absurd what he can do with life force. But sacrificing all magic to be able to use your own life energies to fight instead isn’t a good tradeoff for me.”

  ‘General Aerolyn uses it.’ Pyro says, flickering again and reappearing. As our casual conversation goes on, Phoebe is having the time of our life absolutely annihilating the drakons. Her new stats empowering her seem to have brought her to joy, like a child with a new toy.

  ‘Those things seem like a hive mind.’ Pyro says, watching one fly by. ‘They're all controlled by one thing. They're not their own beings, so we don't get experience from killing them.’

  “Well, there's got to be a central intelligence somewhere, right?” I glance about, my eyes tracing the walls.

  ‘Maybe the blood crystals? Any time we kill one of them the blood flows into the crystals.’

  “No, I only got one tip for the fight, and the tip was ‘don't break the crystals’. Something about releasing everything stored inside at us.”

  ‘oh.’ Pyro frowns. ‘So it's like… phases? We beat one phase, then it moves to the next, then the next? So we beat all the phases to win?’

  “I think so, yeah. Seems we are on phase 2 with the mini drakon- oh no.” I facepalm.

  ‘What is it?’ Pyro asks, turning to see what I'm looking at, then swearing. a drakon barely managed to nick phoebe before being burned, resulting in a single drop of blood falling and landing on another drakon. That drakon then bursts into fire and roars.

  Water bolt

  I toss a bolt of water at the drakon full force, piercing through the monster, putting it out, and killing it. However, the blood that made up the creature, now attuned to fire, flows into the crystals along with all the other dead creatures.

  ‘Oh shit.’ Pyro mutters. I sigh. I then shadow warp out and grab Phoebe by the arm, my talon basically as big as her torso yanking her back.

  “Hey, I-”

  “Your blood got in one of them.” I say, and she pauses.

  “What?”

  “Get in the barrier.” I pull her through the shadows and set her in the barrier. “You two have special blood. So you guys can't be hit. Ok?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  ‘Agreed.’ Pyro nods, not needing much convincing. after all, if fire mana is that bad, how bad would death mana be? Sure I could kill the creature with one water bolt, but you need to understand that I'm the only one here who can use water magic. And none of us can use life magic, so if the big boss got death, we'd be screwed.

  I sigh again. “Well, the final fight is tougher now, since it'll include fire. Theres only a few dozen drakons left so I'll kill them. Pyro, I need you on shield duty while I rip these things up. OK?”

  ‘Done and done.’ Pyro nods. I then let myself fall into my own shadow scales, vanishing.

  <{0}>

  “I fucked up.”

  ‘You did.’

  “I just made the fight harder, didn't I?”

  ‘You did.’

  “I Should've been more careful.”

  ‘You should've.’

  “You really suck at pep-talks.”

  ‘I'm aware.’ Pyro chuckles as he stands in the barrier. the shadows in the barrier are gone now, so he and Phoebe can watch as Abhor rips apart the drakons. Not only is his defence as high as possible, but his scales are both physical and magical damage resistant, and since the drakons seem to be kind of both, they can’t do more than nick his scales. He seems to be sticking to his dragon form, smashing them with his tail and ripping them with shadow mana claws.

  ‘Is there something different between shadow and darkness?’ Pyro asks as he watches Abhor rip the head off of a monster.

  “No, they're the same thing.” Phoebe says, creating a little fire in the palm of her hands which she snuffs out. “Some dark mana techniques are about shadows, just like how some light mana techniques are about illumination. Skills with ‘shadow’ or ‘illuminating' or 'illumination’ tend to be support rather than direct attack though, with exceptions like Illumination ray, or Shadow claws.”

  ‘Oh look, hes done.’ Pyro gestures to Abhor, who was ripping the last drakon in 2. As the corpse falls to the ground, it too was absorbed by the glowing blood stones. As the last drop of blood was pulled into the last stone, all thousand of them began to glow. A single crystal in the far distance glowed a bright orange instead of red, likely the fire blood drakon's crystal.

  “Seems it's the third phase now.” Abhor comments, landing on top of the spherical barrier and looking down at them inside. It struck Phoebe as he stood over them how terrifying dragons are. Abhor was 16, yet larger than a semi truck and with claws as long as shortswords. His teeth were as large as her hand, and his frills were hauntingly beautiful under the red light.

  She tore her gaze away from him, reminding herself more than once that that was a 16 year old boy and not a death machine… Well, okay, maybe he could be both, but still. The terror and hatred of dragons was tradition in the badlands and shores of Camica. Just shaking off generational hatred didn't happen overnight. She considered herself quite adaptable, but this was still difficult for her. It made her feel guilty mistrusting him, as he'd been kind to them even when he frankly shouldn't have. If the rest of the city learned what they'd done, would they accept her? She thought not.

  ‘I'm guessing we'll be fighting the big one again.’ Pyro says, watching the flood begin to poor out of the crystals, forming a lake below them again.

  “Why do you think that?” Phoebe asks curiously.

  ‘Video game knowledge.’ He says simply. ‘It'll be stronger, and it'll shoot fire.’

  As all the blood flows out, the lake goes from deep red to a bloody orange.

  “So water affinity will be best for this.” Abhor suggests. “Ice too.”

  “I can only really throw around bolts of ice and regulate my body temperature.” Phoebe admits, watching as the drakon begins to reform. “I have no AOE attacks to freeze the blood on a large scale, though my ice bolts could freeze it on a small scale.”

  ‘What would using your fire do to it?’ Pyro asks.

  “My blood mutation enhances fire effects.” Phoebe shrugs. “It's pretty simple in that regard. I just cut my hand and coat my spear in it, then boom, I've got a stronger phoenix arc of flame javelin.”

  ‘Same here.’ Pyro agrees. ‘When I tried it on the dog, it worked similarly. Maybe it can be used in other ways but I wouldn't know.’

  “Maybe alchemy.” I shrug. “Alright, my idea is we just do our own things for the most part for this final stage. We act as normal for the most part, fighting like individuals and staying out of each other's way. We communicate though, and help where we can. Is that good with you guys?”

  ‘Yeah, sounds good to me.’ Pyro nods.

  “Me too.” Phoebe agrees.

  I turn and look to the nearly formed drakon. Scales of hardened blood like scabs, claws made of glowing orange blood like magma.

  ‘Pokemon rules.’ Pyro says after a moment. ‘Blood is weak to water and so is fire.’

  “what's a pookey mon?” Phoebe asks.

  ‘I'll explain it later. Lets just do this.’ Pyro opens the barrier and both Phoebe and he climb out.

  Phoebe reaches into her soul and tugs at her mana, forcing them to the pathway at her back and making her fiery wings form. She takes off alongside Abhor.

  She finds herself wishing she had real wings instead of these mana wings she needs to consume her reserves for. Her mana was far lower than it is now, but even so it's a costly technique. By her estimates she could keep it up for half an hour if she didn't use any other magic. Abhor has already vanished into the shadows, and her fire powers would be nothing if not actively harmful to her allies, so she doesn't coat her spear in fire as she shoots up into the air. Pyro void steps over to the drakon and tears into it with all 6 of his weapons. She notices how only the blades coated in mana actually deal damage, and said damage is fairly minimal.

  “I can't use any of my strong skills or techniques since they're all fire related.” She mutters to herself, watching the small amounts of blood flowing back into the drain. She pauses in her musings as she watches Pyro dodge a flurry of claw strikes. His sickles dive in an x formation, slicing 3 claws off. The severed claws flow into the grate and vanish as new ones form.

  Ice bolt

  The bold slams into the snout of the drakon just as it opens its mouth. Fire bursts out at Pyro, and Phoebe throws as many ice bolts as she can at once to preoccupy the drakon, turning it away from him just long enough for him to sever the entire talon before void stepping away. He leans against the far wall as he takes deep breaths, then sends his sickles flying in to attack the drakon while he recovers his stamina.

  Abhor, meanwhile, is ripping into the creature with claws of water, bolts of water, fangs of water, cannons of water, everything he can. Fire simply doesn't hurt his scales in any significant way, and thin sheets of liquid protect his eyes. He grins manicly as he tears into a wing with his extended claws of water. The wing collapses under his attack and it too flows into the grate before regenerating. The drakon turns its head to fire at him again, only for 2 sickles to come down on a horn, the other two going for its tail. The drakon's body warps out of the way of the attack, then opens its mouth and roars.

  Drakon pain

  Every cell of Phoebe's body exploded in pain as she screamed. It felt like her cells were being ripped apart as she fell from the sky, slamming into the ground and writhing there. She wrapped her wings around herself to block out the mana of the roar, but the pain did not immediately subside. The roar had fire mana in it too, just like her, leading to it flowing unimpeeded through her bloodstream to send jolts of false agony through her.

  Desperate for some way to do something, she pulled her wings back into her. But she didn't dissipate them. The fire of the phoenix wings began to burn the fire of drakon pain. A battle ravaged inside her until, eventually, it all stopped.

  {Skill gained: {Phoenix regeneration(Medium)Rare+}

  The fire began moving towards the points it had burned out, then began fusing into them, restoring all the damaged nerves and tissue she'd had to destroy to burn out the invading mana. Slowly she stood up. In the distance she saw Abhor roaring in pain and thrashing on the ground as the drakon slammed its claws and fire into him, doing minimal damage at one time but chipping away at him at a rapid pace. Pyro seemed to have pulled himself back together, turning to her.

  ‘Are you ok?’ He asks her and she nods. He then turns to Abhor and almost gasps as he sees what's happening. ‘Abhor! Enter the shadows!’ He shouted into Abhor's mind. Abhor thrashed about a moment longer, then he fell into himself and vanished into darkness.

  <{0}>

  Well, that was fucking aweful. I lie on the… whatever passes for the ground inside the shadow step gate zone, as I gasp for breath for a moment. It only takes a few seconds before expelling the invasive mana, as the skill doesn't apply here. Time doesn't flow inside the shadow zone, which is what I've chosen to call it. Glancing about, I find disappointingly few shadow gates around for me to move through. There are some in cracks and crevices, but nothing too close to the drakon for a surprise attack. If it weren't for the roar, it'd be dead already. I'd noticed that the more we cut off, the smaller it got as it used its existing mass to replenish lost limbs.

  As I look over my body, assessing the minimal damage to my scales and frills, I feel the skill begin to tell me its time to leave. the pull on me to get out is increasing with the moment. I force out a reversal restoration on my scales, which works shockingly well, restoring my scales to the state they were before the drakon had begun pummeling me. It only takes a moment to realize why. Reversal restoration can only rewind so far, and it rewinds to the best state it can. However, time doesn't flow in here. So it's likely only been 5 or 6 seconds since the beatdown as far as my skill is concerned. That's good information for later. Anyway, choosing to appear under Pyro, I dive through the gate. Time instantly resumes as the shadow under Pyro deepens, letting me slide out and land beside him despite my massive size. He pauses in slight surprise before nodding to me. He rushes in for another attack as he talks.

  ‘You ok?’

  “Yeah, I'm fine.” I respond with a nod. I then turn back to the drakon. “We need to sever the parts. My time mana skills aren't good at that. They overlap and stretch time, they don't sever things directly.”

  ‘My blades are good at that, and so is your water. We just keep doing what we're doing.’ Pyro agrees. ‘But keep attacking the head. We can't let it get off another roar.’

  “Agreed.” I nod. Phoebe likely heard us, so I give her a thumbs up before going in and slamming into the drakon. It's not much bigger than I am at this point, and I tear into it.

  Water jaws

  Hyperdense water forms around my teeth, and I bite down, ripping a chunk of blood out of its throat. I spit it out and do it again. And again. And again. The drakon thrashes and opens its jaws to fight back, but ice bolts slam into its head, freezing then shattering the jaws. It raises its claws to swipe at me, but sickles find their way to the claws, ripping them to shreds. Within a few seconds, it's already smaller than me. It sends blood and fire at me in waves, but I am able to withstand it. I haven't even had to use my save state yet.

  I slam the drakon into the ground, then open my jaws.

  Water cannon

  The drakon is obliterated in a blast of concentrated water.

  {Level up}

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  {level 85 -> 93}

  For a moment I stand there, drenched in blood as I stand over where there once was a deadly third tier blood drakon. Then I begin to laugh.

  “HahaHA! We did it!” I roar, my face stuck in an near-splitting grin. Pyro stumbles over, still slightly tired, but he's grinning too.

  ‘That we did.’ He says, standing beside me. Phoebe also comes over and stops beside me with Pyro.

  “So, rewards?” She asks. “I kind of want some rewards.”