“Wonder of wonders,” one of the Sylvans said, stepping forward. “Who would have ever thought that both our targets would appear before us at the same time.”

  Ray needed a few seconds to actually realize he was being spoken to. His mind was still seething over Sameer.

  He had gone out of his way to give that bastard a chance, despite him being… well, a right bastard. And now he had been taken advantage of. Even worse was that Sameer had seemingly done it without even telling his own teammates. The way Karkatrix had sounded and acted, Sameer must have taken the decision to betray Ray on his own. Pretty recently too.

  “Don’t be too happy.” Pierce stepped forward too. “You might be meeting who you’re looking for, but you’re also meeting your death.”

  The large Sylvan only laughed. “Bold words from the human who ran away and hid.”

  He had to be one of the bulkiest Sylvans Ray had ever seen. Easily over eight feet tall, twisted armour of Growth Mana covering up most of his body apart from where his navy-blue skin peeked out like his face.

  It wasn’t just the armour that caught Ray’s attention. All Sylvans had horns. It was part of their Growth Mana.

  This one didn’t just have horns. He had spikes coming out of half his body. Spear-like protrusions emerged from his knuckles, burst free from his knees, jutted out from his shoulders. This guy was more of a monster than a Sylvan.

  His companion looked more normal. The problem with that was Ray couldn’t tell how exactly he would attack them.

  Ray ignored their bantering for a moment, trying to see where the third member of their team was. He was pretty sure he had seen three of them, or at least heard there were three of them from Sridayne.

  “Where’s your third member?” Ray asked.

  Even as he questioned them, his mind reverted back to the betrayal. To the fact that Sameer had the audacity to lure Ray in and let the Sylvans loose on him. What the hell would he have done if the rest of his team had been here? Just popped up an extra portal to take Eliza away as well as Karkatrix?

  Ray: Gritty. This is urgent. Is Eliza with you?

  “Third member?” the large Sylvan said. “I know not what you mean, little human. You should be worried about the ones facing you instead of some imaginary third member.”

  Gritty: Yeah. We’re almost done clearing out the Demons of Frustration.

  “So, it’s a trap on top of a trap?” Ray said. It was hard to carry on multiple conversations at the same time, but he was managing. The Intellect tiers helped.

  Ray: Sameer betrayed us, but I don’t think his whole team is on it.

  Gritty: WHAT?

  The large Sylvan stepped forward, but he didn’t get to come much closer. Pierce was blocking his path. His eyes were locked on Ray, though. “Why would I need silly, overwrought traps when I can crush you with my bare hands?”

  Ray: Karkatrix was more or less kidnapped by Sameer, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t know that Sameer was going to betray us. It might be the same for Eliza.

  Gritty: So I’ll only carve her open after finding out if she’s a traitor or not. Got it.

  That wasn’t exactly what Ray had intimated, but it was close enough, in Gritty-speak. More importantly, Ray had done his part. He had warned his teammates. Now he had to focus on his current predicament.

  “Leave this overgrown asshole to me, Pierce,” Ray said. “You can take the other one.”

  The large Sylvan laughed. “Take us, he says. Hear that, Sorvell? This little human believes he can take us. No, he believes he can take me.”

  “The audacity…” Sorvell’s mouth thinned into a slash of a grin. “Teach him a lesson, Kyerl.”

  “You sure about this?” Pierce asked.

  Ray frowned in answer. It would have been nice to receive some support from his own ally. “I got this.”

  Pierce caught Ray’s look and backed off.

  Kyerl approached closer, his overlarge form looming over Ray. He really was abnormally big. “Prepare to be crushed, gnat. And do not think your companion can save you when you are about to die.”

  Ray didn’t bother answering vocally. He fired off a lasering breath from the Windbane around his arm, the motion as fast as he could make it.

  His opponent was caught by surprise. The blast of compressed flames caught him in the chest, sending him flying backwards. Ray was pretty sure he saw the laser breath burst into the Sylvan’s chest and out through his back.

  The second Sylvan probably would have tried to intercept his companion’s seeming demise, but Pierce was good. He stood before the other Sylvan with his sword bared and ready.

  Ray didn’t relent. Letting Pierce keep the second Sylvan busy, he focused on his enemy.

  He rushed forward on Soaring Wings. Dust had risen where Kyerl had crashed. Ray couldn’t see the Sylvan’s hulking form, but he didn’t hesitate. As he pointed both arms forward to fire off twin lasering breaths, he cast Resurrect Recollect to call up a couple of flying Windbane maws to add to the blistering, flaming salvo.

  The Sylvan shot out of the dust with incredible speed. Ray actually blinked at how fast he moved. He was a blur charging out of the cloud of dirt, shooting to a spot behind Ray too fast for his motion to be tracked.

  Ray turned just in time. A quick, instinctive cast of Resurrect Recollect brought up Impenetrable Shell to stop the thrust of the huge Growth Mana sabre from Kyerl.

  “Hmm,” Kyerl said, retracting his sabre. “You are faster than you seem.”

  Ray was the one who ought to be saying that to the Sylvan. That brute had moved way too quickly for the bulk he possessed.

  Then there was the injury. The spot where Ray had struck the huge Sylvan was now covered in more Growth Mana. That huge hole his fiery blast had carved through Sylvan was now filled up with hornlike growths twisting in and around each other, plugging up the large wound so that it barely dripped out any blood.

  This Sylvan was something else.

  But a battle wasn’t for talking. Somewhere to Ray’s left, Pierce had taken on the other Sylvan. Their fight sent up furious flashes of light and banging detonations. As much as it tried to drag in Ray’s attention, he focused on his opponent.

  He cast Timereave. One thing was clear. If he wanted to win, he would need to take advantage of surprise.

  Timereave sent out a temporal apparition of himself shooting out of him. Not at Kyerl, but at the Impenetrable Shell. In less than a second after the cast, the spell struck the back of the dark shell and sent it flying forward.

  Kyerl dodged with his incredible speed again. Ray did note it this time. The Sylvan was extremely quick for his given size, his limbs moving almost as soon as Ray attacked. Almost automatically. Was that some sort of instant-reaction ability or something along those lines?

  Ray was already following up, of course. He had anticipated the dodge after all.

  His Windbane constructs had swerved in to attack from different sides, while opening another angle for him to blast out his flames.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The combined attacks struck in. This time, the Sylvan actually defended himself. A wall of spiralling Growth Mana erupted around him, rising as fast as Ray had seen him move so far. Neither of the fiery blasts hit Kyerl. The wall of Growth Mana blocked all of Ray’s attacks, and the explosion had done nothing to him either.

  As proven when he burst out of the crushed spikes and rushed straight at Ray. There was an only an instant to take in the rictus of painful promise on Kyerl’s face before Ray had to act.

  A quick cast of Resurrect Recollect brought up the Impenetrable Shell. Kyerl was moving too fast. He slammed into it, but so did his Growth-Mana-wrapped sword. It actually pierced right through. Kyerl let loose a piercing howl as he raised his sword with the shell impaled on it.

  Only to be struck by the Viledrake tail Ray had called up. The hit didn’t even budge the oversized Sylvan. In fact, even when Ray summoned up lava all along the Viledrake tail, Kyerl hardly seemed affected. Even when he was literally melting.

  All he did was yell out in rage and pain, before Growth Mana spikes burst out of both him and the area around him. Ray had anticipated something like that as soon as his Viledrake tail had failed to stymie his opponent, and had thrown himself back with the aid of Soaring Wings.

  “Stop running,” Kyerl yelled before rushing down with his blistering speed once again.

  Temporal Passage took Ray to a safe spot next to his Windbane head construct. He turned immediately, all three of the draconic maws—the two on his hands, and the flying one—firing laser-like beam of compressed blue flames.

  The Sylvan couldn’t check his momentum, but that ability of calling up spikes of Growth Mana as a defensive wall came into play again. Ray’s counter never even reached him. Annoying.

  “Face it, human,” Kyerl said. “You can never defeat someone as strong as me. Surrender, and perhaps I shall refrain from torturing you too much.”

  Ray snorted in disbelief. “What an attractive offer. See, it looks like you can’t beat me either. We’re at an impasse.”

  As if that was some kind of grave insult, the Sylvan growled and attacked. Ray had no choice but to teleport again. He was never going to match his opponent’s speed. Temporal Passage was the only thing that would let him fight on an even plane.

  He just had to squeeze in crushing an Aeon Mana crystal in the middle of the fight. Along with summoning more constructs using Resurrect Recollect. The extra flying Windbane heads weren’t for attacking Kyerl, not with how fast he was moving. They just provided extra points for Ray to move to and evade his aggressor.

  Kyerl howled out again. The whole battlefield shook. His yell wasn’t that loud, but all the Growth Mana he had spilled all over the area was coming to life. They glowed like missiles about to detonate. Then started shooting everywhere.

  Ray cursed. This was like the javelins that Pierce liked to use. Able to fly and attack on their own.

  They all shot in with the power and ferocity of heat-seeking missiles. Ray cast Mottling Aeonguard in the next instant. The orbs of blue time popped up all around him. They stopped the piercing spikes of Growth Mana. The time orbs might not be as powerful and eradicating as Eliza’s, but they were still good enough to slow down the attack and reduce them.

  Kyerl was even further frustrated that yet another attempt to kill Ray had been stymied. But he was channelling that aggression into another attack, shooting in fast as a bullet.

  Temporal Passage was all that allowed Ray to dodge again. More attacks came in. Kyerl changed direction swiftly and swung in. The whole battlefield was shattering with how much power he was unleashing.

  Ray barely got any chance to counter. This was stretching on too long. They really were at an impasse, which he detested. He couldn’t waste his time on them.

  Sameer, that bastard, had betrayed him and gone on to the end of the dungeon. Ray was done wasting time here.

  When the next attack came in from Kyerl, Ray called up Impenetrable Shell once again. The Sylvan crashed in and destroyed the dark shell utterly this time. His power seemed to have grown. He had shattered the shell so quickly that there wasn’t even time for Ray to dodge.

  He was caught.

  The tip of the Growth-Mana-wrapped sabre punched into Ray’s gut with such force that it lifted him off his feet.

  Kyerl’s face morphed into an expression that was almost rapturous. “Got you! Got you!”

  Ray used Temporal Passage the next instant, appearing right on top of the oversized sabre. Right in front of the Imitator construct that had taken his form.

  Right in front of the fake Ray that Kyerl had pierced.

  “Really?” Ray aimed both hands at the Sylvan’s bricklike head. “Don’t you guys learn anything from all of you I’ve killed so far?”

  Kyerl’s reaction was fast. Not surprising, really. He had been incredibly fast throughout the entire battle. The oversized sword he held glowed for an instant before the Growth Mana on it exploded in spikes everywhere, focusing where Ray was standing.

  All that saved Ray was the split second where the sword had glowed. His instincts had been honed to a knife’s edge to recognize danger. There was no point in shooting Kyerl dead if he was going to get impaled on Growth Mana anyway. So, Temporal Passage once again took him away to safety.

  When Ray reappeared, his arms pointing towards his enemy, he found Kyerl already facing him. His head had swivelled around far too quickly. Bastard was really fast.

  “You think your paltry tricks can overcome me?” he yelled.

  At the instant that Ray was about to fire off both Windbane heads on his hands, the ground trembled. Kyerl was calling up the Growth Mana projections from underground.

  But Ray grinned. “Think so?”

  Kyerl’s eyes widened a split second before the blast of compressed blue flames overtook his head and burned him alive. The Imitator construct had wormed its hand through the spikes of Growth Mana on the Sylvan’s sword. A hand with another Windbane head at its end. Kyerl had thought that impaling the construct had killed it. Impossible. It wasn’t even alive.

  The ground’s trembling stopped as Kyerl was immolated alive. Ray wasn’t holding back. Both hands blasted out their lasering breaths, shooting through his neck and upper chest. He was determined to make sure that the oversized Sylvan actually stayed dead.

  Ray was shocked backwards by the sudden explosion. As surprising as it felt to him in the moment, hindsight made it fully expected.

  There was the blast of flames from his impaled Imitator construct. Then there were the twin lasering breaths that he had fired out. With both blasts connecting at Kyerl’s head, the thunderous, flaming detonation was only natural.

  Better yet, the burst had destroyed Kyerl’s top half almost completely.

  “Recover from that, you overgrown ass,” Ray said.

  The battle was done. There was the second Sylvan to deal with, or so Ray had thought at first. But when he looked up, he found Pierce more or less ending the fight by himself.

  Pierce had wounded the second Sylvan—whose name Ray couldn’t even recall—pretty badly. He was stumbling backwards. A large, golden bow was slung on one shoulder, but the Sylvan was missing one of his arms, so couldn’t even use it.

  “We don’t have time to toy with them, Pierce,” Ray said. “Kill him. Then we—”

  The second Sylvan laughed. “Kill me, he says. What an imbecile. As if you humans could ever kill us.”

  “I just did, pal.” Ray pointed behind him. “Just take a look at your buddy…”

  Ray followed his own advice and looked back, which was what led to his words dying in his throat. He had killed Kyerl. Of that, he had no doubt. But the bastard wasn’t exactly staying down, even after his head and half his chest had been blown off. Even after the devastating strikes Ray had landed on him. He still wasn’t dead.

  Growth Mana was bubbling around Kyerl’s body. Ray frowned. There was something odd going on here.

  He squinted to where lightning was sparking off the Growth Mana projections. Red lightning. He had seen that before. Ray cursed.

  “Pierce!” he turned back to his most recent ally. “Get back!”

  Pierce didn’t retreat, though he did tense at Ray’s tone. “What’s going on?”

  “I know where the third member of their team is.”

  The second Sylvan laughed. Growth Mana was bubbling around him too, edged with the same red sparks. Curling spikes rose free from the ground and overtook both Sylvans, covering up their bodies like living parasites with the ferocity of piranhas.

  Still laughing. The second, still-alive Sylvan was still laughing.

  Pierce attacked the large pile of Growth Mana that had accumulated in front of him. It didn’t help. His red sword slashed through the curling spikes and horns, a burst of crimson energy crushing them to pulp.

  There was nothing within them.

  The Sylvan inside that molehill of Growth Mana was completely gone. Ray looked back and was struck with the feeling that he’d find the same situation under the pile of Growth Mana that had claimed his opponent. There was nothing to find.

  But that didn’t break the laughter. It had changed in pitch, though. Turned harsher, more grating. More familiar.

  Ray and Pierce both turned as the remaining Growth Mana in the battlefield crawled away to one corner, where another Sylvan was approaching. The third member of the team that Ray had started to suspect as soon as he had seen the scarlet sparks.

  “Really?” Pierce said. He didn’t sound that surprised. Though, he wasn’t resigned about anything either. “Your henchmen failed so not only are you stepping in, but you’re also absorbing the remainder of their bodies like some sort of vampire?”

  The Lord of the Third Floor squinted as he drew closer, his laughter slowly dying. “The System informs me that vampire is some sort of mythological creature from your tales. Seems quite an obnoxious name. I assure you, I am far superior to any myth you could conceive.” He smiled at them. “And far more deadly.”

  Two birds with one stone. As much as the Floor Lord had been targeting Ray throughout the entire Immortalizer Tournament, it was difficult to be certain whether he was here for Ray or for Pierce. But then, why even choose?

  He could now take out both of them at once.

  Pierce glanced briefly at Ray. “Since I owe you, I’ll offer you a sweet deal. Leave this guy to me and you can go on ahead to stop your so-called ally. I only want one thing in return.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ray said. “You want your dumb Tower Nodes. I’ll make sure I surrender any I find.”

  “No. You’re not going to find any of them. I will.” He jerked a thumb at the approaching Floor Lord. “After I’ve killed this horned bozo. All you need to promise is not to leave the dungeon until I find the Tower Node.”

  Ray sighed. “Fine.”

  “What are you muttering among yourselves?” the Floor Lord asked.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, and honestly, neither did Ray. A flap of Soaring Wings started him in the direction that Sameer most likely had gone. But Ray didn’t get far. The battlefield shook, fissures ran everywhere, and lightning sparked to life around them.

  A bounded field of crimson bolts went up all around them, holding Ray back from going farther. He turned back, a growl caught in his throat.

  Looked like killing the Floor Lord was the only way he was going to get go forward and stop Sameer.