Chapter 39: Relentless Gauntlet

Zarian focused his fractured attention between the aura link to keep Bianca fueled and fighting at the front like an off-brand warrior. It didn’t take long before he realized his current physicality wasn’t truly enough.

He needed more of Para’s direct help to reinforce his body.

The cloak behind his back became more conservative, less dramatic, less active. Parasitic threads crawled over Zarian’s body, gripping him like a bodysuit, covering him from the head down as Para synced her entire being with his will.

As a tradeoff, he lost the flexibility of mid-ranged tentacles, tendrils, and bone spikes. In return, he gained a major close quarters body boost and added armor, all dark red leather and white ivory bone plates, like an eldritch blood knight.

The parasitic change-up was worth it.

He swung his seven-foot nodachi with more oomph and for more devastation. The black and gray flames wavered more fiercely across the dense blade like a blazing, vitality-eating flag, hurling out more motes of Black Fire in the wake of each quick and heavy swing.

He chopped a wulver in half at the waist, intestines unraveling everywhere. It was barely alive as the Black Fire spell consumed the dregs of its vitality and left it with nothing to secure its life energy.

Bianca struck its head with a searing laser just to make doubly sure it died. She turned and combined a dozen mini suns into one palm-sized beam and burned a hole through a charging wulver’s chest.

It still kept running at her, so Zarian intervened, swerving around and striking low, hacking off a leg with Black Fire spreading rapidly over flesh and fur to finish the job. Bianca was already turning to shoot more searing lasers to their rear, then to their left, and then to their right.

She wasn’t as fast as an automated defense turret. But she was working her way up there as hard as she could.

Wulvers came running from all directions. The red dots on the mini-map barely served as much of a warning before they appeared. Thankfully, most of them came charging from the front and meeting the armored wizard head on.

Zarian marched with Bianca toward the next rare sunbeam that broke through the darkened lair. From there, Bianca could reload on miniature suns as they fought a relentless gauntlet from all sides.

And what a bloody, howling gauntlet it was. Way more intense than fighting the spiders. Way, way more.

Zarian used all the helpful lessons Reiki had given him about sword fighting. He shifted his footing while his balance stayed centered under him. He kept his edge alignment in mind with each powerful cut, using Para’s help to assist him.

He didn’t dance much, choosing a more steady footing at the cost of taking claw strikes and hits to the living armor. Para held up, and Zarian traded back. He swung with so much force and weight he bisected three wulvers in one cut.

He could get away with being a little flat-footed and simple when he and Para dished out big enough strikes. Still, it was a hell of an experience while encased in living armor, getting rushed and clawed at from all over, responding to each red dot closing fast on the minimap in the corner of his vision.

Multiple times, Zarian felt tempted to escape into the air or overpower the monsters as a wizard. Multiple times, he refused to take the easy way out and chose the harder, bloodier, bone-splitting, savage path.

And that stubborn choice was because of Bianca.

She was doing scary well.

Bianca moved with a calm, subtle grace with way better footing than him. She relied on her alpha skills to throw attacking wulvers off their aim.

She became a flurry of lights whisking away from danger with Light Step. She eluded lunging wulvers when they attacked a near-perfect illusion made by her Close Refraction.

Then she pumped them full of solar lasers. Her aim had improved. She hit the weak spots that would drill past the vitality bar and burn away their lives. Zarian found wulver corpses with a laser hole running through one eye, their skulls smoldering from within as boiled brain bits bubbled out.

Bianca was merciless, and Zarian loved to seeing. But this gauntlet wasn’t letting up at all. He was getting battered more while holding against advancing wulvers that funneled in mainly from the front.

“I don’t think this quest was meant for two people!” Zarian shouted above the growling and howling wulvers.

Bianca didn’t respond. He didn’t blame her. She was in the zone. She couldn’t afford to utter a word as she danced the dance of death while trying to get in kills within one to two shots.

One mistake could lead to a terrible fate for Bianca. And Zarian would be the one to blame. He could make this so much easier for them both. He could overpower all the rushing wulvers.

Show me more of your cheesy goodness, Bianca, Zarian demanded internally. Show me how scary you could be when you kill for the greater good.

Zarian played a dangerous game with Bianca’s life, waiting for the next revelation, hoping to see how far she could push it. The wulvers didn’t lighten up. Instead, their onrush of attacks intensified even further.

Zarian lost track of the kills and focused on hacking whatever snarling, clawing, furry monster rushed and battered him with a maddening frenzy. The fighting became more brutal and barbaric, and at some point, Zarian let go of perfect technique and lashed out with gauntlet-clad punches or a skull bash with the butt of his sword.

It became too much for him even with Para’s help.

Finally, Zarian caved, throwing out quick and heavy bolts at distant wulvers coming in hot on the heels of their charging brethren. He was an overpowered wizard first and foremost, and even he had his limits.

If he was stressed, he couldn’t imagine how Bianca was feeling.

“Bianca, girl, are you still with me?!” Zarian yelled back, sending forth a scatter shot of dark bolts covered in Black Fire. Once he turned enough of the frontal attackers into minced meat, he risked looking back, eyes widening in surprise.

Bianca was covered in blood. Her own blood. But she was upright and still fighting. Even though she hadn’t remained unscathed from the charging wulvers, none of her current injuries could bring her down.

She wasn’t bothering to use her arms anymore. And she stepped like she was dancing, evading around wulvers with the graceful movements Reiki had taught her, movements Bianca had refined with consistent practice.

Hell, she was moving better than ever before while in the middle of the howling, blood-frenzied storm.

The difference between Bianca before and Bianca now was how quick and efficient she stepped even if she looked like she was performing in a ballroom. And she did so without giving herself much time to react to anything.

The elder wolf, who Zarian confirmed to be female with a closer inspection, nodded her head. “Wulvers are monsters. They breed in strange ways. They spread sickness in the forest. They do not respect the forest. They kill for pleasure. They hurt for pleasure. They eat wastefully for pleasure. You must hunt all wulvers, evil hunter, good hunter.”

“We will,” Zarian said. “They won’t breed new wulvers overnight, will they?”

“They grow fast. But not overnight fast.”

“We’ll rest for today and hit their lair again tomorrow. I have a good feeling that we’ll be able to finish with this second push.”

The next morning, Zarian earned +1 Strength after he woke up. Then Bianca woke up with a major growth. When she explained it to Zarian, he imagined her extraordinary changes as notifications like these:

<You’ve grown, earning +2 Willpower, +2 Wonder, +1 Mysticism. You’ve earned the trait Lesser Smite (Rare) and Aura Charge (Rare).>

<Lesser Smite (Rare): Empower your attacks against enemies who’ve truly earned your ire, boosting all offensive abilities that scale with Wonder by 50%. This also intensifies the power of your good alignment.>

<Aura Charge (Rare): Packing more aura into your abilities will grant them an extra kick in effectiveness. The bigger the charge, the extra the kick.>

<Your good alignment grows: +1>

“Damn, Bianca,” Zarian said. “Still no Aura Ignition, but I think we’re getting close.”

Bianca sat cross-legged, back straight, almost like she was meditating as the dawn light pierced through a horizon heavy with tetris-like clouds. She nodded slowly to the revelation of her changes before casting a beaming smile Zarian’s way.

Her good +1 pulsated. Zarian’s evil +1 roiled in discomfort, which he clamped down on.

He felt more of his own aggression aimed in Bianca’s way, but he refused to let the alignments mess with his judgments. It was just like what Bianca had said. They were friends. They were good and evil working together.

“It feels good being more good,” Bianca said. “I feel so sure of myself. I feel secure. Death even seems ... less of a worry. If I can help those little puppies up there, then I’ll even welcome it.”

“No,” Zarian said, almost growling. “Don’t forget this is so you can come back so freaking strong the others will beg me for the next one-on-one training session. No suicidal stunts.”

That was another reason to dislike do-gooders, even as friends. They had too much selflessness. Though Zarian could admit he was acting a little hypocritical.

He’d pushed her hard yesterday and could’ve lost her.

Let’s be smarter today.

“I’m proud of your growth either way. Finishing the wulvers is just par for the course. You won’t die. We’ll do this as routine,” he declared.

He planned to play as a more effective defense wizard – dark spikes, palisades, flaming bolts, the usual. That way, he could hold back the full tide of the wulvers and let Bianca practice her new abilities under calmer conditions.

“I know. I understand. I’m just less afraid. More at peace, even.” Bianca beamed a brighter smile at him. “Besides, it’ll be a shame to leave you now. I think my goodness has a purpose while around you.”

Zarian looked her up and down, suspicious. “Yeah?”

“It’s more than just keeping you in check. It’s for us to be in balance. With balance, good and evil are a way of life. That’s us. That’s our party. So I must be good, and you must be evil, and that’s more than okay.”

Zarian slowly nodded, trying not to cringe. Yeah, he could be cheesy, but clearly good aligned folks were way cheesier than him.

At the very least, Bianca confirmed she wouldn’t throw her life away for no reason. She was with him for the long run.

“Yeah, sure, ready to commit more wulver genocide?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, let’s! It’ll be good!”

Zarian nodded and picked her up. As they flew off, his mood settled on being both wary and eager.

Wary, because Bianca’s abilities made him feel naturally nervous. It was like holding close a potential bomb of goodness fused with his fundamental weakness: light.

Despite that, he was still eager. Maybe more eager than nervous. He wanted to see how much damage Bianca could dish out against their enemies with her new traits.

The way the Infinita Star System worked, involving traits, skills, spells, runes, and even alignments, deeply intrigued Zarian. He wanted to explore all the magic potential and profile builds with each of his party members.

Bianca’s switch from tricky support to being a huge damage dealer scratched a nice itch inside of him. He was the type who loved to optimize and push someone he liked to be their best.

It made sense to him. He needed the best people inside his party to compliment him and keep up with him. And maybe even push him to be better.

Zarian grinned. Look at me, Infinita, as I take one of your do-gooders and make her my laser cannon.

They flew over the blocky forest for another day of monster murdering. However, as soon as the area holding the lair came within sight, Zarian knew something was wrong.

The forest section that contained the lair ... it looked healthy. Way too healthy.

What the hell?