There were still plenty of lizards alive, but Torwin and Aria had thinned out the herd. Velik wasn’t worried about getting swarmed by them, not now. Of more concern was the fact that he didn’t think he could keep holding his wolf form much longer. He hadn’t gotten back the mana he’d been expecting from his fight with the monster, and using [Dread Lance] multiple times had burned through his reserves.

  Reverting now would be a death sentence. He needed to get to safety first. Velik didn’t run so much as limp for the tunnel Torwin was holding. He killed two of the lizards before they even knew he was there, then rushed past their corpses. Torwin shifted to the side to let him through, and the instant he was into the tunnel, he felt [True Form] unravel.

  When he came back to himself, he was on his hands and knees, covered in cuts and scrapes, and suddenly woozy. The poison, he realized. He was a bare fraction of his former weight, and without the innate regeneration his wolf form offered him, it was hitting him way harder now.

  “You alright there?” Aria asked breathlessly. She was holding a hand in front of her, but sweat poured down her face, and she could barely stand upright.

  “Poisoned,” Velik murmured. He needed a potion, but he wasn’t sure whether to go for an antivenom or a standard healing potion. Neither would likely work that well in his current state—it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d taken his last healing potion. What he really needed was to pull himself back into his wolf shape to let its regeneration patch him up.

  His pendant was enchanted with [Energizing], which would give him a small burst of energy, but not enough to make a difference. He could stall the poison by a minute or two, maybe, but it would still be coursing through his system when he reverted back. And the change certainly wouldn’t last long enough to heal any of the many wounds he’d taken.

  The poison was the bigger problem, anyway. It would slow down his healing, possibly even kill him if left unchecked. It was obviously powerful to be hitting him this hard, since even in his human form, he had 136 physical. Pain he could deal with, but whatever the toxin was doing to him needed to be handled. With that thought, he opened his system store and found the antitoxin he’d purchased in the past for exactly this sort of problem and purchased another one.

  I hope this works better than I’m expecting it to.

  Without wasting any time, he drank it down. Immediately, the dizziness started to subside, but his vision remained blurry. The antitoxin would take a few minutes to fully purge the poison, if indeed it even could. Considering the number of potions he’d already drunk in the last day, he had no right to expect it to work at even partial strength.

  “Shit!” Aria swore suddenly, pulling Velik’s attention back to the fight.

  Something was crawling out of the juggernaut tick’s mouth. At first, Velik thought it was just blood leaking out, but he quickly realized it was the wrong color. The parasite. He hadn’t killed it, merely the monster that was hosting it. If it got into one of the lizards, it could easily escape. Those things could go straight up the walls, and none of them had a way to chase it down.

  “Torwin, kill it!” Aria ordered, but the [Ranger] was too busy firing into a crowd of lizards rushing the tunnel. Eight of them were practically crawling over each other trying to get at the humans. Velik wasn’t even sure Torwin would be able to hold those monsters off, let alone fire a few extra shots at the agent.

  That monster was going to get away unless Velik did something. It didn’t matter that everything was still a blur. It didn’t matter that he could barely stand up without swaying in place. It didn’t matter that his spear was too heavy to even lift properly. Aria was wiped out. Torwin was fighting for his life. There was no one else to handle it.

  Velik pulled on everything his ring had left in it, activating [Power Surge] and throwing himself forward. He leaped up, kicking off the tunnel wall and turning a sideways flip over Torwin’s head. Blindly, he lashed out with his spear and felt it bite into something meaty. Velik landed, his boots forcing something squishy downward. Then he jumped again.

  The next three seconds were all instinct. [Aspect of the Wind Tamer] guided his spear as he fought without even having the time to process what his senses were telling him. His eyes were practically useless, and his ears weren’t much better. Still, monsters died. If nothing else, he knew that for a certainty with each kill notification he received.

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  Arrows filled the air, all of them enhanced by Torwin’s many skills. Monitor lizards with six or seven shafts already quivering in them kept coming, drawing power from the dungeon core perhaps. For every one he killed, two more were ready to take its place. They forced him to retreat deeper and deeper into the tunnel, leaving Velik on his own.

  “You think you’ve won?” a voice demanded, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Velik looked up to see the agent of corruption clinging to the dungeon core. “You’re nothing. You can’t stop us.”

  Blinking to try to clear his eyes out, Velik sighted down the ooze. He didn’t know what it was trying to do, but he knew better than to let it. His spear narrowed down to a slender taper in his hands, and with all of his skills guiding the throw, he hurled it straight up into the core.

  [Apex Hunter] showed him where to aim. [Aspect of the Wind Tamer] guided his body. Even before the javelin left his hand, he knew it would strike true. And the instant it did, it unleashed the [Dread Lance] he’d empowered it with after drawing on his pendant. An explosion of brilliant light filled the silo, drawing every living thing’s attention to it for an instant.

  Torwin recovered first and used the distraction to cut down three more lizards. Velik barely noticed that, though. He was too focused on the dungeon core above him. Come on. Come on. Where’s the kill notification? You’re dead. You have to be dead after that.

  Something pale and pink fell out of the light. The agent of corruption had somehow survived even that amount of punishment, though it hadn’t escaped unscathed. It angled its fall, aiming for Velik, who was too weak and exhausted to even throw himself to the side. The agent landed directly on him, splattering against his face and trying to force his jaws apart.

  Velik grabbed at it, but it was like clawing at a puddle of water. His fingers went right through it, doing nothing to pry it free. Somewhere behind him, he heard Aria yelling his name, but there was no way for her to help. He needed some way to free himself in the next second, or he was going to be the agent’s next victim!

  There was only one thing Velik could think of, but drawing up the energy to do it could kill him. If that didn’t, it was entirely possible that the agent being so close would. Better dead than a slave, he thought grimly. The lizards weren’t attacking now, either because Torwin had their attention or because their leader had commanded them to ignore its new victim.

  Velik activated [True Form]. His body became malleable as it shifted, the agent caught in the transformation. It twisted around, determined to maintain its hold as it tried to burrow deeper into Velik’s body. It made some progress, but not enough.

  When Velik’s wolf shape solidified, the agent was still in his mouth. It tried to squirm deeper down his throat, and there was nothing Velik could do to stop that. He had seconds at most before he shifted back to his human form anyway, but that was enough.

  Pulling hard on that core of energy inside him, that part of him that was powered by his mystic stat, and even deeper, Velik activated [Dread Lance] again. It erupted in his mouth, a bite centered on the goopy ooze monster sliding between his teeth. Power lanced out of him, incinerating the monster even as it tried to slide deeper into his body and reach safety.

  [You have slain an elite agent of corruption (level 57).]

  [You have been awarded 6 decarmas.]

  [You have advanced to level 43. +2 Physical, +1 Mental, +2 free points.]

  [True Form has advanced to rank 3.]

  [Dread Lance has advanced to rank 4.]

  Velik’s body rebelled against him. The last thing he felt before he blacked out completely was himself shaking as he vomited out what was left of the parasite, then the coldness of the stone ground pressing up against his fur.

  The lizards, he thought, they’re still alive. Have to get up. Have… to fight. Have… to…

  * * *

  “Is he still alive?” Aria asked.

  “Barely,” Torwin said.

  They’d killed the last of the monitors and shoved enough of the bodies aside to make their way back to the dungeon core, where they’d found Velik passed out on the ground. He was covered in blood, not breathing, and already getting cold. The only reason he wasn’t dead was because of his extraordinarily high physical.

  “We need to get him some help soon,” Torwin said.

  “He can’t take anymore potions.”

  “Then we’ll have to get him to someone who can do something for him.”

  “I can’t use [Astral Gateway] this deep into a dungeon,” Aria argued. She gestured up at the dungeon core. “Maybe back at that champion’s arena, but not here.”

  “Finish what Velik started,” Torwin told her. “It’s already cracked. Bring it down and break it.”

  She studied it, then looked at Velik. “Can he make it another half an hour?”

  Torwin checked the young hunter again. No change. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we have to try.”

  He lifted Velik out of the way and retreated to the mouth of the tunnel. Aria took a deep breath, summoning up all the mana she had left in her reserves, and reached out telekinetically. The first stone web strand groaned, then snapped, but there were dozens more. Gritting her teeth, she started working on the next one.