Wizards wearing black cloaks, stone gargoyles, and elemental beasts appeared on the other side of the bridge. Haglor, Marcy, Nico, Abigail, and I waited for our adversaries to approach. They all took different tactics. The gargoyles took to the skies, the elemental beasts charged across the bridge, and the wizards stayed back to provide ranged support. Haglor ran at the elemental beasts, aiming to meet them in the middle. As they charged, the beasts opened their mouths and released a blast of their element at Haglor.

  Some blasted fire, while others blasted ice, wind, lightning, and caustic acid. Haglor continued to run as these elements went right for her. Her rippling force shield wasn't up yet. She was going to be hit directly by all the blasts at once. I focused Advanced Healing on her preemptively, hoping she would at least survive the blasts enough that there was something left to heal. All the blasts hit her, creating an explosion of elements, obscuring her from view.

  Orange fire, green caustic smoke, and white floating ice particles kept Haglor from view, until suddenly she burst from the cloud, one of her arms blasted off and her skin burning, melting, and freezing on different parts of her body. I hit her with Status Relief, which reduced her pain but did nothing to stop the continuous burning, melting, and freezing effects. Then I hit her with Advanced Healing, repairing the damage dealt by the blasts and the status effects, without removing the effects themselves. The act seemed futile since as soon as I let up on the healing, the effects would damage her again. I was getting desperate when a notification popped into view.

  [You have leveled up your Healing Grimoire to Level 8! You have gained the abilities Sustained Healing and Status Cleansing]

  [Sustained Healing: The ability to continue healing on a subject for a period of 30 seconds after initially establishing a healing connection. Can maintain a maximum of 3 connections at one time. Can't be maintained through solid objects. Requires line of sight]

  [Status Cleansing: The ability to remove all negative non-magical statuses. Each status type takes a different amount of time to remove. Only one status can be removed at a time]

  Yes! Exactly what I needed at that moment. I stopped Advanced Healing and Sustained Healing kicked in, continuing to heal Haglor as I switched to removing the burning status from her. After a few seconds, I switched to removing the acidic melting effect, and then a few seconds later, the freezing effect. She was lucky she didn't get the stun effect or that might have affected her charge abilities. With the statuses removed, I hit her with healing again and watched as her lost arm, skin, muscles, and bones regrew.

  As she neared the elemental beasts who had stopped and were building up more blasts, her force field formed and spread out. It was over for them. She plowed over the elemental beasts, smashing, crushing, and dragging them across the ground with her forcefield.

  Meanwhile, the wizards had spread out and were hitting the walls of the castle with blasts of dark purple energy. Large chunks of the wall exploded and showered Marcy, Abigail, and me with rubble. Then gargoyles swooped down and picked up Marcy and Abigail, flying off with them. As I aimed at the gargoyles with bone spikes, a dark purple blast hit me in the shoulder, sending me flying off the wall and back into the castle grounds. I looked at my arm and watched it start to decay in front of my eyes. I hit myself with Status Cleansing and the necrosis went away. Then my regeneration kicked in and regrew my rotted shoulder.

  I looked up to see the gargoyles holding Marcy and Abigail explode into chunks of stone. Marcy and Abigail fell from hundreds of feet in the air. I summoned a bone platform to try to catch them, but quickly dispelled it. It would be too late to slow their velocity. It would simply crush them against its hard surface. As they fell, Abigail summoned bubbles to catch them and they landed safely on the ground. Abigail and Marcy hugged me. I have no idea why, but then we heard a loud explosion out in front of the castle.

  We looked out through the portcullis and witnessed Haglor running wide rings around the wizards as they shot purple blasts at her, which her forcefield deflected. She picked them off one at a time, slamming into them, obliterating them into nothing more than a messy wet cloak. She ran directly at the last one who feebly attempted to hit her with a blast that deflected right back at him. The blast hit him and then she did, exploding him into flying pieces of necrotizing tissue that disintegrated into the air as purple and black dust.

  [You have survived Wave 3! Wave 4 starting in 2 minutes]

  I waited for Haglor to get back to the gate and I said, "I think we need to figure out where the king and Nico are so we can know where to retreat back to if the next wave gets past us."

  "I agree," Haglor said.

  "Yeah, that sounds right," Marcy said.

  "I'm Abigail!" Abigail said.

  "Now, you're just doing that on purpose!" I said.

  "I know!" Abigail said and smiled.

  "Ugh. If you weren't so adorable, I'd do something unpleasant to you," I said.

  "Oh no! Don't spank me, sir!" She said.

  "Oh my god, stop!" I said.

  "Ok," she said.

  "Alright, let's find Nico and the king," I said.

  We wandered further into the castle until we found the throne room in a building in the center of the castle. The king was a slightly overweight man with a balding head, wearing a golden crown, a majestic cloak, and regal clothing.

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  "Hey guys!" Nico said. She was playing some sort of hand game with the king. When we got closer, I realized they were playing "Slap Hands," also known as "Slap Jack," "Slapsies," and "Pope Slap."

  "Don't mess with the king!" I said.

  "What? We're just having fun," she said.

  "Yeah! Who are you to question the rule of a king?" The king said.

  "Ok, fair enough. Carry on," I said.

  They continued to play "Slapsies."

  "Ok, now that we all know where the king and Nico are, let's go back to our posts," I said.

  Marcy, Abigail, and I got back onto the castle wall and Haglor stood in front of the gate as the last few seconds counted down.

  [Wave 4 starting!]

  'Hey, system! How many waves are there going to be?'

  [There will be 5 waves]

  'Ok, thanks.'

  [No problem]

  The next wave spawned on the other side of the bridge. There was a group of shadowy assassins wielding jagged twin blades that glowed red, a group of half-human half-spider warriors the size and general shape of centaurs wielding various weapons, and a group of griffin riders wielding bows that immediately took to the skies. The assassins flitted across the bridge, appearing and disappearing from view every 10 feet. The arachnid warriors began to cross the bridge after the assassins.

  Haglor began her run, building up momentum. The shadow assassins flitted right past her. She ignored them, trusting us to take care of them. She built up momentum and her force field came out, but most of the arachnid warriors jumped out of the way. Some stayed too close and got obliterated but her charge was mostly avoided. One of the warriors that had jumped out of the way shot a string of web and attached it to the front wall where I stood. He scrambled along the web to the top of the wall and towered over me. He swung a massive glaive at me and I dodge rolled out of the way.

  I created a cage of bone around him and shrunk the cage until he got squeezed through the holes. Not a pretty death. I looked up to see 3 more warriors clamber onto the wall. One wielded a great sword, another wielded a spear, and the third wielded large frisbee-style blades known as chakram. The great sword swung first and I dodged out of the way, directly into the spear which impaled my side when I came up from my roll. Two chakram flew my way which I threw a wall up in front of. They made loud thunks as they impacted the wall.

  In retaliation, I made large bone spikes shoot out of the ground underneath the 3 warriors, impaling their spider halves several times. They tried to dodge out of the way, but they were too slow. They continued to throw and swing their weapons, but their legs buckled underneath them. I drove 3 giant spikes through their chests to finish them off. Their heads lolled onto their chests as they died.

  Another pair of spider warriors jumped onto the wall and attacked me as shadow warriors flitted past me. I turned and threw bone spikes at their backs, but they easily flitted out of the way. I was rewarded for dividing my attention with spear stabs to the back, making me cough up blood. I tried to turn around but I was stuck in place by the spears. I raised a wall behind me that lifted the spears and me with them into the air. Then I made the wall move forward, pushing me off the spears and onto the ground. I coughed up more blood as my lungs healed from the puncture wounds.

  I turned around and threw the wall forward, pushing the warriors off the wall. That would only slow them down, but I needed a breather. Right after that, a griffin swooped down and picked me up by the arms. It flew up high and dropped me. I didn't have anything to slow my fall, so I covered myself in armor and braced for impact. I smashed through the roof of a hut in the courtyard. I got up, looked around, and when the dust settled, I saw a familiar face.

  "Carl?" I said in confusion.

  The former corrupted miner was standing over a workbench, looking at something. He looked up at me and his face lit up.

  "Tom! What are you doing in my house?" He said.

  "I fell," I said. "What are you doing in another dungeon?"

  "I live here," he said. "Do you want to try my new unicorn tears-chamomile soap? It perfectly moisturizes your skin and it's pH balanced too. The tears were ethically sourced, of course."

  "Um, try? I don't have time to suds up right now, but I'll smell it," I said.

  "Here," Carl said handing me a bar of silvery soap.

  I sniffed it. "Wow, that smells good! It's like if peace and sadness had a baby, but it was good sadness."

  "I know right?" Carl said.

  "Kind of makes me want to eat it, but you know what they say. Never eat soap on an empty stomach," I said winking.

  "I've never heard anyone say that," Carl said.

  "Me neither," I said. A giant beak poked through the hole in his roof. "It looks like I have to get back to work! Good luck with your soap, Carl!" I jumped onto the griffin's beak and climbed through the hole. I formed a bone spear in the air and stabbed the griffin in the eye. It screeched in pain.

  I jumped off Carl's house and ran away to make the griffin and its rider follow me and leave Carl alone. It worked and they chased me, landing on the ground and running after me until I summoned bone spikes around them that pinned them to the ground. Then I summoned spikes from the ground, impaling them dozens of times. Blood came out of the mouths of the rider and griffin.

  I heard several explosions as Marcy threw bombs at the warriors and long loud screams as Abigail slowly froze bubble-trapped warriors to death. Then there was a loud noise as Haglor jumped onto the wall and leaped into the air to grab two griffin riders and slam them into the ground accompanied by a large explosion of dirt and grass.

  I looked around at the chaos that seemed to be well-managed by my friends. Then I heard Nico's voice faintly yelling, "Help!" Oh crap, the shadow assassins were in the throne room! I rushed to the throne room and made it there just in time for Nico to get her throat slit in front of me. She slumped to the ground and one remaining assassin laughed.

  "You're too late! Your little guard is dead and your king soon will be too," he said. Shadows obscured the lower half of his face, but his black hair and red eyes burned in my memory.

  "You really think you've won, huh?" I said.

  "Of course! No one can stop me!" He said as a knife pierced through his back and came out of his chest. Nico kicked him off and he tumbled down the stairs that led up to the throne.

  "How? I killed you," he said looking up at her.

  "I healed her," I said. I started healing her as soon as his knife left her throat.

  "No matter," he said. "More are coming."

  "I know," I said stepping on his chest as I walked up the steps to the throne. I put my hand up for a high-five.

  Nico looked at it confused. "What's that?"

  "It's a high-five. You slap my hand. It's a celebratory thing," I said.

  "Oh cool! High-five!" She said slapping my hand.

  "High-five!" I said. "Nice. You even knew to say 'high-five' when you did it. You're a natural."

  "Of course I am," she said gesturing to herself and her body. "Have you seen me?"

  "I have." I laughed. "Happy 18th Birthday!"

  "Thanks! Wait, how do you know it's my birthday?" She said.

  "I don't. I'm just guessing it's midnight outside," I said.

  "Oh. Uh, high-five?" She said putting her hand up.

  "High-five!" I said slapping her hand.

  "Nice!" She said.

  [You have survived Wave 4! Final wave starting in 3 minutes]

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