85 Chapter 85 - "All roads go to Uto" II

[Sirius Vritra POV]

"Heh.. This will be funny..." I whispered with a smile, looking closely at the situation I was in.

That cave was full of decay mana, due to the various attacks and spells that damn Uto had launched so far. The two mages who had been left to assist me had already died very quickly, to the point that it bored me. But that just reminded me, the difference in level between training that the continents Dicathen and Alacrya did with their warriors.

The human mage's body was riddled with holes in various parts, with most of the holes being in the brain and vital areas. While the elven mage seemed to be the one who had the most problems, with his headless body lying on the ground, while his head rolled in one direction, ending up next to my feet.

"Hm..." I looked at that head and then grabbed it by the hair, bringing it closer to my face, and seeing the serious and restrained expression that warrior had before death, with a finger, I closed his eyes in a sign of respect, for not being afraid in such a situation and put his head close to his body.

"Grrrr.... So the ungrateful prince managed to befriend these idiots from Dicathen?... Really, you've lowered your prestige level a lot." I turned my face away, hearing those words coming out of Uto's mouth.

"Well, hilariously I'm only alive because of a family of commoners who found me after Agrona dumped me... So it's more about respect and not being a hypocrite." I spoke, not showing calm or anger, just commenting on facts.

"Hm... And that shield... I've never seen anything like it before, and on top of that it channels your soulfire so naturally... Have you been to relictombs to find such an artifact?..." Uto asked, chuckling as he positioned himself, seeming to prepare yet another of his tricks.

"No. I don't have access to relictombs on this continent... I literally found this dumped in a warehouse. Apparently dicathens still can't identify valuable items like this." I continued to speak only facts, without showing my emotions. I didn't want him to use my anger against me, even though I hate him so much, he's still a retainer, he doesn't have that status for nothing.

"So they're still dumb? Good to know..." He spoke and then made a sudden movement of a step back.

With that I started to feel a lot of decay mana building up behind me, making me run towards my enemy, he laughed heartily. As I walked, I could feel that Vritra Art taking the form of spears that were being thrown aiming at my head and back.

Instead of defending myself, I simply ducked at the last possible second, so that bastard wouldn't change the attack's path in time. And that's what happened, he didn't seem to have time to redirect the attack in my new direction, so he had to create more shadow spears that would appear on the ground.

In the same movement, I used the strength of my legs to propel myself backwards, starting to do some acrobatics to dodge the black spikes that appeared, both on the floor and on the walls.

"Argh! Why are you so fast?!? I feel your mana core! You're only in the Yellow Stage!!" Uto complained, continuing to try to launch attacks at me.

"Hm, mana isn't all there is, idiot." I thought as my body was enveloped in wind mana, I wouldn't give him a chance to hit me, well hypocritical my choice of actions and thoughts, but I don't care about that.

"Airborn..." I activated my spell, now being light as a feather, continued to dodge his numerous attacks. Incredibly, my aether wings continued to move fluidly and smoothly, equally dodging everything my enemy threw. I could feel, the fact that he wasn't able to hit "big targets" like that was pissing him off more and more.

"Stupid brat!!!" He complained more, more and more exaggerating the attacks he made, one after another, countless shadow spikes, floating blades, all that being unleashed against me.

I forced my wings to shrink in size, feeling all their aether entering my mana veins, making me feel tremendous pain, but I managed to contain myself and not react to it. I have to admit, with every minute that fight went on, there was less room for me to dodge, and it felt like he was always creating shields in front of him to protect him from my attacks.

"Argh, I need to make more advances soon! I've already managed to make one of his hands unusable, and he has a lower mana pool because I removed one of his horns. But that's not enough." I thought, already continuing my dodges until I reached the elf's corpse.

"Hehehe!" He started laughing as he created a spear, impaling the elf further there and piercing his mana core, causing a lot of the mana to be carried into the environment.

"Idiot, this won't do to stop me..." I thought, reaching out my hand, sucking the green particles of mana that went straight to my mana core.

"Omega Wind!" I exclaimed, my body filled with wind mana, I waved my two arms as if they were razors that were going towards Uto. The sound they made cutting through the air was quite high-pitched.

Uto defended himself, creating black spikes that got in the way of wind slashes, but that was what I wanted, I wanted to destroy the perception of what to worry about. This made me smile.

"OMEGA FIRE! FLARE STYLE!" I exclaimed, creating a flame so intense in my hand that it began to light up the entire cavern, covering much of the shadows there. It was so bright that it seemed to have temporarily blinded Uto.

I started to run towards him, now with no shadows nearby where he could use his special magic. He was helpless, with his only sources of shadow being his own shadow. I cast that shimmering glow to the ceiling, making that point of light cover our arena well. With that free hand, I held the Redspier tight and turned my MW ring into its sword form. I started my slashes in fast pace.

Uto took species of large blades, which resembled immense nails, from inside his cloak and used it to defend himself. "Did you think I didn't have something like that?" he asked, smiling sadistically.

"I already expected." I answered him and we started exchanging attacks between us.

Due to the low durability of Redspier's blade, I had to reinforce it in soulfire, so that the alchemical flame would do the work of always rebuilding the blade during hits. My two swords clashed quite often against Uto's blades, causing an almost deafening noise, as well as sparks from the metal rubbing against each other.

"Ugh! Have you been training?" He asked arrogantly as he tried to speed up the attacks, still unable to use his shadow magic.

"Let's just say that destroying various camps and corrupted monsters.. This all was a lot of training." I replied simply as we both jumped away from each other.

"Wait... So all the natural disasters that happened... Most of us thought they were earthquakes caused by the excess space we created inside the dungeons. So it's all your fault?!?" he exclaimed, with a sadistic and angry smile on his face.

"Is there a problem with that, Retainer Uto?..." I said like that to tease him and then I looked closely at all the shadow items he had created before, he couldn't create new ones, but nothing stopped him from controlling the ones that were already in the arena.

"Die..." His face became very serious in miliseconds and soon all those spears and spikes were towards me.

I started to dodge it again, but soon feeling a sharp pain in my arm, Uto had thrown his nail-like blade while I was focused on his other attacks. And the result of that was my left arm being severed at the elbow area, also causing Redspier to fall to the ground.

"HAHAHA!" He laughed happily at that attack and soon he was advancing on me with more blades of shadow that were left on the floor and walls.

Not having time to activate soulfire or hero's thunder to reconnect that severed part, I leapt to my right, dodging the attacks and landing next to the horn I'd taken from his skull in the start of this battle.

Fuck... That Omega Fire and Omega Wind had actually used up a little more of my mana pool than I'd expected, and constantly using SoulFire on one of my swords didn't help either.

I was missing a hand, so it would be difficult to hold on to that horn while using my main sword to attack, but I really was a boy wonder, wasn't I? I should do something insane to have a little win in this.

Before Uto's next attacks reached me, I put the base of my sword in my mouth, holding it tight with my teeth, while my right hand held tight to that horn that was on the ground, starting to absorb the mana inside it.

"BASTARD! DON'T THINK ABOUT CATCHING MY HORN, SON OF A BITCH!" Uto exclaimed, fusing several of the shadow spikes next to him and flinging them like a big shadow slash along with several mini shadow spikes.

The mini shadow spikes approached faster than the shadow slash. Then using the sword that I held in my mouth, I balance my face, making several jumps, dodging some of the attacks while hitting some of them with the blade. All this still holding tight to that horn and still sucking the mana within it.

It was really difficult to dodge and protect myself from those attacks, when shadow Slash was almost reaching me, I saw that there was no way to really dodge it, so I had an idea and felt extreme pain, with the aether wings extending again and becoming quite solid, I used them as a shield. A rather shrill, high-pitched sound came from that impact, but it was enough to protect me.

Unfortunately, I still felt the extreme pain of the attack, even though It only touched the aether wings and not my actual body. But that wasn't the only thing that was causing me pain, my mana veins were getting stuffed with mana decay, thanks to the horn that I was absorbing. My mana core turned an almost onyx black color and I could feel blood running down my lips, but I remained holding my sword quite firmly in my teeth.

"SHOW YOURSELF IN FRONT OF ME, SHIT COWARD!! GET OUT FROM BEHIND THAT SHIELD!" he yelled, launching more attacks at me.

I felt all the pain that reached my wings, but my real body was still without so much damage, if I don't count that I was missing an arm. My mana core was getting darker and darker, as if his decay mana was doing more bad than good for it, I was running out of alternatives on how to handle this battle.

"Damn horn, you were supposed to be a reserve source of mana, why are you causing me so much... Wait... That's it!" I thought, still gripping the sword with my teeth, and then tried to get my new plan into action.

Still protecting myself from the various attacks that Uto launched, I started to channel all the decay mana that entered my mana core, trying to send all that energy to my purple-transparent horns, which gradually become dark, like the horns of a true basilisk. But there was a lot of decay mana left to transfer, and I had sucked less than half of Uto's horn. So I tried to force it more inside me, and that's how I felt an even more screeching pain in the area above both of my ears.

The pain was increasing more and more, I felt like I was growing a new pair of horns just to be able to suck more of Uto's mana, without my mana core getting more contaminated than already was. I looked ahead, seeing my aether wings flashing, as if my transformation couldn't take it anymore and with that, I also heard Uto's laughter, as if he knew that little by little, I would be destroyed by him.

The sword in my mouth flashed, reverting to the gem shape it had in my right hand. More and more projectiles of shadow magic were hitting the wings that were slowly falling apart.

"I won't lose to him..." I muttered to myself. "Not like those times..."

Without my control, visions of the time when I lived in Alacrya began to flow... It wasn't the happy memories with my mother, or the calm moments when I thought that Agrona loved me as a son... No...

They were all visions involving the bastard in front of me....

Every time he tortured me...

All the times I screamed for help and no one came, because it was all a "training"...

Every time I saw him laughing at me...

Bastard... BASTARD... BASTARD!!!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

[Retainer Uto POV]

HAHA! This kid will see what happens when he goes against Agrona!

I still can't believe how this idiot is still alive?! As far as I know, Agrona had put a time bomb in his body, so he would explode and die with soulfire consuming him. The idea of ​​"taking him to Dicathen" was only made so that our special Scythe would think he was safe, but no, it was just a use to make the dicathens scared, with an explosion of a fire that would never go out in some of their forests!

When our spies said that there weren't reports of an endless fire, we thought that it had exploded before it reached a forest, or that the forest he filled with soulfire was small and remote from others, making it impossible for the fire to spread... But no... This idiot apparently didn't explode somehow.. However...

His mana core was different from the usual, it was as if it wasn't a mana core of a basilisk, so... His old one had exploded, and he created another one in the way of the inhabitants of this stupid continent...? This is interesting...

I'd love to experiment on him, but I feel he's an extreme threat... He destroyed most of our camps, and yet he did it in a way that we wouldn't suspect... Even though he's a weakling vritra, he still has the intelligence from both his parents. I shouldn't let my guard down... Mainly because he has those purple wings and horns, Seriously... what the fuck are those?!...

However, I really dont need to think about this now, those wings seemed to lose their shiny and become transparent, he was losing strength at an enormous speed as I attacked him. Apparently, he would already run out of choices to defend himself...

A wide smile appeared on my face at the thought, he will be trapped in my hands, and after killing him, I will kill those other guards who are hiding, and possibly leave the elf alive, but with so many injuries, that she will only survive until she tells someone about what happened here...

Yes!... I want to cause more chaos in the minds of these weak inhabitants... What will they think when they learn that a powerful person from their continent has been reduced to ashes? I would love to see the expression they will make when they have this information! HAHAHAHA!

My smile faded to see that my attacks were stalling in midair, no longer attacking my enemy's purple shield. "What the fuck is this?..." I muttered to myself, watching that shield crumble.

There I saw that son of a bitch who ripped off my horn, with the same one in his hands. His expression looked blank and neutral, with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.. And now, the wings were completely undone and those purple horns turned onyx-black, identical to a true vritra-blooded. But... Wait... Did he have another pair of horns?!....

"Uto... Now this ends here." His voice was absolutely emotionless, and he snaps his fingers, undoing that magic he did earlier, leaving the entire arena in darkness.

"Ha! Idiot!! Without that shit spell, I can create my attacks wherever I want! Are you going crazy by any chance?!?" I smiled and laughed, it looked like he had lost his sanity.

"Who said this will help you?..." He asked, looking into my eyes, his pupils glowed an intense yellow.

"Ha! My shadow magic becomes absolute in dark places like this! Even with low mana now, I have a chance to sever the rest of your body! Besides, I feel like your Soulfire skill won't work very well now!" I exclaimed, still laughing, seeing his severed arm still on the floor, away from the boy.

I waved my hand, forcing several spikes up from the ground towards him, but strangely, they stopped at his waist, without actually touching him. "What?!..." I exclaimed, and shook my remaining hand more, but those thorns didn't move.

"Are you worried about that?..." the boy asked, with a strange shadow magic surging through him, rebuilding a prosthetic arm for him.

"W-what?!...b-but you only have an affinity with Soulfire..! I know that, because it's my cause that you acquired this affinity, after many tests!?!" My eyes were wide open, seeing something that wasn't possible.

Everyone said there was no way he could acquire more affinities with decay mana arts... And that possibly he only had soulfire... Besides, he was thrown away by Agrona! If Agrona threw him away, that means he's a weakling!!!..Right..? ..But that shadow magic... That was... Impossible?!?

"It's true... I only have an affinity for soulfire... I always had to lie about having other affinities in decay mana art to get more followers..." He said, starting to take slow steps towards me, my attacks melt away just by approaching him.

"What?! Followers?!?" I asked, in disbelief at what I heard, this piece of shit have followers?! Who are those?.. Can he be.. Controlling our spies?!?.. but he seemed to ignore my questioning.

"As you said, Uto.... Thanks to you, I awakened my first affinity..." He continued to approach, I launched more attacks against him and nothing seemed to want to hit him, not even attacks coming from the ground touched him, that was completely abnormal.

"And now..." He looked again deep into my eyes and I felt a sudden sharp pain, looking down, I saw a shadow spike piercing my chest.

"H-how...? I didn't feel this attack coming any moment..... How is that possible...?" For the first time in many years, I felt my own voice trembling, as blood was coming out of my mouth.

He kept staring me straight in the eyes, with the spike getting bigger and impaling me. "Now... I've learned another affinity again thanks to you... Thanks, bastard..."

Those were the last words I could hear, after an even more intense pain hit my chin....

Everything became dark... Everything became muffled, as if sound itself stopped existing...

Did I... Did I lose?... Did I really lose...?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

[Arthur Leywin POV]

I was falling off that cliff inside Widow's Crypt, Tessia was holding tight to my waist as if it was the last thing she wanted to do in her life, and below us, the remains of Queen Snarle's corpse.

But we were still in free fall, I couldn't see the end of that huge hole, and I didn't want to find myself falling into it with all this speed.

"Tessia! Do you still have any mana left in your body?!" I exclaimed, she was hugging me tight and crying a lot with fear, but she at least answered me, shaking her head.

"Damn it!" I exclaimed and then something crossed my mind...

"This is going to hurt like hell... Tess, hold on to me!" On my orders, she made no comment.

Trusting me, she stopped hugging my side and hugged my front. I stretched my arms forward, with my hands a little behind her head, but aiming for the wall on the other side of that cliff.

"Fireball!" I exclaimed, using what little fire mana I had left to propel myself against the wall near my back.

"ART?!?" Tessia exclaimed, seeing now what my plan was.

Propelling my body against the wall, we would decrease the speed at which we fell in that place, but with one problem, the friction of my uniform with the wall, was destroying the back of my clothes and consequently, injuring my back a lot. Luckily, the winter clothes that Xyrus Academy gave to students had several layers, but still, it was damaging me a lot.

I tried to hold back my screams of pain, but it was impossible, it made Tessia more and more worried about me, but I decided to ignore her pleas, until I heard a loud crashing sound below us. Apparently the pieces of that mana beast's corpse had finally reached the bottom of the well, by the time it took for that sound to reach us, we were possibly already close to the end.

"Tessia! Do you see any holes in that wall below us?!" I exclaimed, still descending with my back against the wall, but at a considerably slower speed.

"T-there's a kind of crack!!!" She said still in a very worried voice.

"Take my sword and try to stab this crack! So we can 'rest' a little!" With my order, she took Dawn's Ballad, which luckily wasn't in its sheath, and stuck it in that crack, she held tight to the sword and soon I ended up letting go of her, holding on to another nearby support formed by that same crack.

We were panting and I could see that Tessia wasn't getting a firm grip on the base of the sword, so I grabbed her hand tight and held the sword instead, now she was hanging in the air with my hand being the only thing she could trust, as I stood there, holding tight to my sword.

"A-art! Y-you're having to hold both our weight! S-stop it!" Tessia screamed as best she could, but she was so tired it ended up sounding more like a dry whisper.

I didn't answer her and decided to focus more on the mana rotation technique. It took a few minutes in that extremely unpleasant position, but I felt that my mana core had enough mana for me to do something better for us.

Using Dawn's Ballad to channel earth mana into the wall, I created a kind of support where Tessia could sit so I wouldn't have to hold her weight. Gradually, I created more supports, which had a ladder format that goes down little by little.

"W-why are you doing this? Shouldn't we go up?..." Tessia asked, looking confused.

"We're way down already! And apparently it's faster to get to the bottom than to the top. I don't have that much mana to get us out of here the way we fell. We need to pray that the bottom of this huge hole leads to a path that we can use to get out of the dungeon...." I explained to her, and it seemed that she understood the situation.

It took a few more minutes, but we managed to get down the rest of that place, using steps I created from the walls. Downstairs we saw a large black spot with some broken bones around it, it was the remains of the mana beast, completely destroyed by the impact.

"H-hm...!" Tessia seemed to hold her belly tight and turned to a corner of the wall, vomiting with that putrid smell that black blood had. Unfortunately, I couldn't help myself either, but I couldn't contain myself and vomit on the wall, ending up doing it on the floor right next to the corpse's remains.

"This smell is horrible!!" Tessia exclaimed, wiping her mouth with a scrap of fabric from her uniform, but throwing it away as well after using it.

"I agree... Argh... There seems to be a only way from here.. we better get away from this thing..." I said pointing to a rather narrow corridor, it was really the only way we could go.

It wasn't very smart to keep walking without proper rest, but it was also even stupider to rest in a place where the smell would make us vomit non-stop. We continued on that path, deciding only to stop when the rotten smell was gone, unfortunately this took longer than expected, and when we finally arrived at a place with "fresh air", we heard a person's voice.

"Is anybody else there?!" the voice was masculine and seemed to come a little ahead of us.

"W-we're here!!" Tessia exclaimed, but soon I covered her mouth, we didn't know if he was a good or bad adventurer, so we shouldn't make contact with anyone, but whoever it was, heard her.

"Tessia! Get over here! We need help!" That voice exclaimed, making Tess and I both confused and surprised.

"How the fuck did that person know it was Tess who said that?!" I tried to understand this thought, but it was difficult to understand what was happening. Tess, on the other hand, was walking faster towards the voice, as if she were trusting whoever it was, just because the unknown person knew about her.

"Damn it, Tess, don't run.." I muttered and followed her until we reached a much more open area of ​​the cave. The colors of the stones that formed the walls and ceiling seemed more bluish than before, it was as if we had entered a completely different dungeon.

"I-I can't believe it... W-what are you guys doing here...?" A faint voice spoke and then we looked around looking for the source of it.

We saw something bizarre, a man with two pairs of long horns, one pair stretched upwards and the other pair pointed in front of his face. And beside him was a woman with white hair and white armor. My mind was too shocked by the image to comprehend what was happening and how they knew us.

"A-alea...? W-what happened to you?..." With Tessia's voice trembling, I finally understood the situation a little bit.

Taking a few steps closer to the two figures, I noticed that the woman really was Lance Alea, she was in a terrible state, with both legs and one of her arms severed, and one of her eyes missing, as well as a hole in her stomach. When I noticed the face of the boy who was taking care of her, I finally recognized him, he was my brother. He had his clothes torn too much in the back and left sleeve area, but the thing that caught my attention most about him, besides his horns, were his bright yellow eyes.

"A mana beast attacked her... it seemed to be corrupted... Apparently the reports about these things that have been made recently were no joke." Luz answered for Alea.

"A mana beast... Did this to her?..." I was amazed.

"To her and me... Luckily she and her soldiers were weakening that monster.. Then I came after some earthquakes happened and I managed to destroy it..." Luz continued to answer me, his bright gaze seemed focused on something.

"Wait, soldiers?..." When he said that, my face was shocked and I looked around, noticing several corpses in the distance.

"A-alea... I can't feel your mana..." Tessia said in a tearful voice as she dropped to her knees and tried to hug the well-known guard's without hurting her too much.

With those words, I also realized that Alea didn't have any mana... No signature mana... And there was a hole in her belly... That meant...

"Was her mana core destroyed?..." I asked the question I was most afraid to ask, and Luz just nodded while Alea kept crying and trying to return Tess' hug, even though she only had one arm.

But... What the fuck happened here...? All this chaos?... Why?....

"There's still a way to help her... So I was glad to see Tessia was here." Luz spoke, catching my attention. "It's absurd to say that.... But there's a way I can recreate her mana core."

"WHAT!??" Tessia exclaimed in shock.

"Her mana core was destroyed, I couldn't find all the parts.. But I think I have as much as possible to at least try to do that... Can you go to where the pile of corpses is?... There you'll see the mana beast we battled against. Get its mana core and if you can, get its horn too."

"Why didn't you do that before?..." I looked deeply into his yellow eyes.

"Because I had to help Alea... I'm having to use an advanced spell to keep her alive even with all this damage to her body... I can't move away from her." With his answer, I sighed, and walked over to the corpses in the distance. Most of them had armor similar to Alea's, but with clothes of different colors on each.

Looking closely at one of the corpses, I noticed the most different among them. It was a man over 2 meters tall with extremely gray skin, he had abnormally broken arms and legs, a huge hole in his chest and it looked like he had a large thorn going through his chin to the top of his head, with something slimy next to the last hole, possibly the brain.

That was really gross, but I took a deep breath so I wouldn't throw up again. As that one seemed the most monstrous of all, I figured it was the "mana beast" that Luz and Alea had to fight. I approached the hole in the chest and used Dawn's Ballad to carefully increase the size of the hole, and thus extract the mana core from that thing. I also saw a horn on the corpse, so I tried to pull it out with my sword, it took a while, but I managed to remove that thing too.

With everything in hand, I approached Luz, handing him the mana core and the horn, but he refused the horn. "Stay with you... You and Tessia will need it... This horn has a lot of mana inside, but it's extremely dangerous to take it all... So get only the enough mana so you don't feel helpless. And that's all..." he was very serious about it and soon he brought that mana core closer to the remains of Alea's mana core.

A dark flame appeared around his hand and the mana cores, as if melting those parts and fusing them together. Slowly it was placed in the hole made in Alea's stomach, making her groan in pain, but she didn't seem to have the strength to actually scream.

"Tessia.. Get some of the mana inside the horn that Arthur has in his hands, and inject that same mana into the wound where the new mana core is being placed. So, the mana that goes into it will be plant mana. This will make more easier for her body being able to accept the new mana core." Luz ordered and Tessia slowly released Alea to do so.

I handed that strange horn to Tessia and she held it tight with one hand as she placed the other close to the wound in Alea's stomach. Luz grabbed Tessia's hand and forced her to put her hand into that strange dark fire. Tess looked quite nervous, but her face didn't show that she was in pain, which was a little reassuring to me.

I watched that process for a while and soon, Luz took Tessia's hand away from that wound. Also, my brother made more of that dark flame appear, covering all of Alea's wounds, she didn't seem to feel any pain and slowly closed her eyes.

"Okay... She'll be fine... She's just sleeping... But unfortunately we'll have to see later if her body really accepted the new mana core or not..." Luz said, panting and sitting on Alea's side.

"By the way... How did you end up here?... It was a bizarre but nice surprise to feel your mana near us..." He asked, still panting.

"We were in Widow's Crypt... A mana beast, which shouldn't have been on the first floor, appeared... It seemed to be an insane mutant and in the end, as that beast attacked the arena, the floor gave way..." I replied.

"Did anyone else fall with you?..."

"No, we managed to get everyone to back off, me, Professor Glory and Art were trying to kill the beast..." Tess replied.

"So Glory also managed to get out of this situation peacefully...? Good to know..." He said, giving a few coughs.

"And how did you get here?..." I asked something that was really bothering me.

"From what I understand... Alea was investigating a dungeon, and then she ended up discovering a passage that led to this area we are in. I was exploring with my students, when tremors started to appear. I managed to send them out, but I ended up trapped here... That's when I felt Alea's mana... And decided to come towards her thinking that she would help me escape, but in fact she was being attacked..." He replied to us looking at the ceiling.

"So... Not only a dungeon, which a Lance came to investigate, was connected to Widow's Crypt... But also the dungeon that your class was coming to the school trip?!..." Tess spoke as she handed me that black horn, apparently she already had the bare minimum of her mana reserves.

"Apparently yes, one of the soldiers who survived said that these 3 dungeons were very close together, but that there were no rooms that connected with each other.. This means that paths were created to connect them, without other people knowing." Luz said a theory as I started to get some mana from that horn.

"So there were survivors?..." I asked.

"Yes. They went outside the way they came, to let the guild know what had happened... I told them that if it took more than a day for there to be any news about Alea, they could come looking for us... "

"And how long has it been since that conversation?" Tessia asked.

"I think around 2 to 5 hours... We've been in this hole for a while... But I think with Alea stabilized and with your help, we'll be able to get out of here without problems... And by the way... Art, can you call Sylvie?... It will be very helpful to have a dragon at our disposal."

"Okay..." I sighed and sat on the floor, trying hard to connect with Sylv.

"Papa!?! Is that you?!? Where are you?! I tried to enter that dungeon, but it was all collapsed!!" I heard the worried voice of my dear daughter.

"I'm fine, I'm with Tess.. And, by the way, your uncle Luz is here too. The dungeon I was in was connected with several others... From what Luz said, there is only one dungeon we can use to get out. You can come help us?" I mentally asked her, and I could feel that she was super worried about me, but relieved that I said we were fine.

"Okay! I'll try, papa! But keep emitting mana to make it easier!" With that, her voice faded from my mind.

"She is coming." I told Luz and Tess who sighed in relief.

"Great..." Luz said with a slight smile on his face.

"There's something else that's bothering me..." I said looking at my brother. "What horns are these?"

"Hmm...?" He made a confused noise, still with his eyes closed, and then touched the two pairs of dark horns that protruded from his head.

"Yeah.. Like... Why do you have these things?..." Tess said a little worried.

"They grew up during the battle against that thing... It's like my transformation has been affected and some metamorphosis has taken place in me..." He replied, holding tight to those horns.

"Wait what are you doing?!" I tried to stop him when I saw that he was pushing hard with his hands.

"AAAAARGH!!!" he screamed, breaking and ripping off the two horns that were elongating upwards, those things just turned into mana particles that entered his body after that.

"M-my god, did you really need to do th—?" Before Tess asked, we saw him do the same thing with the other pair of horns that had grown above his ears.

"ARGH!!!" He bit his lip, making it bleed a little, and then that pair of horns did the same thing as the previous one, turning into mana particles and entering his body.

Gasping, he answered Tessia. "Better that than having to explain to our mothers... I bet Merial and Tabitha would hold tight to my horns while Alice would use a machete to rip them off..."

It wasn't a good time for that, but with that comment, I imagined this scene happen in the most comical way possible in some random hospital room in Xyrus Academy, with dad, Alduin and Vincent trying to stop them to do that, Virion amazed by the situation and saying that Luz was a trully beast as always, while the rest of us would be deadpanned. And it seems that Tessia also had this thought, because the three of us laugh heartily, lightening our mood.

Now it was just a matter of resting or waiting for Sylvie to arrive, whichever came first.

But.. It was still strange...

Why did that "mana beast" remember me something?