Dracul

A voice echoes through the cavern’s depths—layered like wind through reed beds and stone grinding against root. It presses against my eardrums, ancient and unyielding: “You have my keys. You have come for my bounty. Prove you deserve it.” I raise my shield. Every fiber of my being tightens. The echo of that voice shudders through the stalagmites. I taste iron on my tongue. This is no apparition. This is a trial. Ariel and Millicent slip from the shadows at my sides—silent wraiths of promise and peril. Darius stands close, fists unclenched but ready. I inhale. Holy light pools around

I stand at the edge of the firelight, the glow casting sharp angles across my armor’s dark emerald trim. The cavern mouth yawns behind us, silent as a slumbering giant. My greatsword rests at my side—its weight familiar, grounding. In this moment of calm, I feel every rivet and plate pressing against my shoulders. Each breath draws in the forest’s damp chill, and I welcome it. It reminds me that I am alive. Ariel kneels by the stream, rinsing mud from her kimono. I watch her silhouette through the dancing sparks and think of the blade she wields. Shadowflame’s hunger still hums beneath he

It was unraveling before my eyes, bleeding light and fury, cracked open by Ariel’s impossible strike. The silver scar her blade had left across the lake’s reflection seemed to pulse, a wound in reality itself. My moment. The frustration, the near-misses, the electric burns—they coalesced into pure, focused rage. The greatword flared in my grasp, the blue rose motifs blazing with holy fire as I poured every ounce of strength into a final, desperate charge. "NOW! FINISH IT!" My voice ripped raw from my throat, less a command than a primal scream. Taneuma staggered, its star-core flickerin

Waterlogged and furious, I shoved Darius aside, his grip on my arm like a shackle I couldn’t bear. "I have this," I snarled, the words tasting of lakewater and ozone. Guardian’s Oath’s holy light flared along the rose-etched blade, a beacon in the charged gloom as I charged forward, silt spraying in great gouts from my heavy boots. Taneuma’s star-eyes burned a deeper, angrier crimson—Ariel’s insidious shadowflame still visibly gnawing at its crackling flank. Perfect. Let it bleed. With a roar that tore at my raw throat, I swung the massive greatsword in a blinding, overhead arc, the holy

Liquid light surged toward me—a tsunami of raw voltage roaring across the lake’s mirror surface. Guardian’s Oath flared in my grip, the rose-etched steel humming with holy energy as I planted my feet. Memories of Suterusu flashed: my sword swinging through empty air, knees sinking into mud while spectators jeered. Never again. The shield slammed down hard, carving a furrow in silt as blue rose motifs ignited. "OVER HERE, HORSIE!" Focused Howl tore from my throat—a sonic hook burying itself in Taneuma’s storm-core. Impact. White noise. Crushing force. Holy light flared around the shie

Ariel cut through this false paradise with blade-sharp precision, her form a dark stroke against the sickly-sweet greenery. I matched her pace, the emerald trim of my coat flaring like a challenge banner in the deceptive calm. This tranquility was poison. Even the moss trembled with the monster’s subterranean heartbeat, each pulse vibrating through my bootsoles. Darius pointed toward a crumbling bridge ahead, its timbers slick with emerald moss and rotten core. "Structural integrity seems compromised beyond safe parameters. I recommend a perimeter scan for a stable crossing alterna—" My l

Water roared like a caged beast around my thighs as Suterusu bared its fangs, cornered at last. Gold dust bled from its flank—Millicent’s scanner projecting shimmering trails that painted its agony across the ferns. Its health bar pulsed crimson, a dying star in the emerald gloom. My turn. RAW-A surged through my veins, Oath trembling with pent-up radiance. Not desperation. Certainty. I remembered Father’s sneer at my first fencing duel: "We do not miss." The panther’s eyes mirrored that contempt—golden pits of divine arrogance. Moss-slick stone shifted beneath my boots. Rapids clawed at

The roar of whitewater was a living thing around us, clawing at my legs as Suterusu paced like caged lightning. Its health bar pulsed—angry orange bleeding into jagged crimson at the edges—a testament to the thorn strike that had shredded its shoulder. Pride wounded, divinity insulted. Good. RAW-A sang in my blood again, that sword art that should have skewered this overgrown cat twice already. Oath trembled in my grip, light gathering at its tip like concentrated sunlight. Brighter this time. Fiercer. I braced against the current, moss-slick stone treacherous under my boots. The panther’s g

Water sluiced down my armor as Suterusu circled, yellow health bar pulsing like a sickly sun. Ariel’s second strike still hung in the air – that shiver in her blade as it recognized divine flesh. My turn. RAW-A thrummed in my bones – the sword art that should spear this beast like a butterfly. "Enough skulking!" I roared, channeling Oath’s radiance into the thrust. Light gathered at the tip, sharp as a stiletto. Now. I lunged, boots digging into moss-slick rock. The panther flowed sideways like ink in water. My strike pierced empty mist where its heart had been a breath before. Oath’s lig

Jungle heat pressed like wet wool against my skin. Acclimated? Ha. This green hell still reeked of peasant labor and rotting orchids. But the lioness’s vanishing act left me center stage. Fine. Let the furball learn true nobility. Focused Howl. I channelled it – not a shout, but a command vibrating in my marrow. "Face me, gutter-born shadow!" The soundwave hit Suterusu like a physical slap. Its golden eyes snapped from the mist where Ariel had dissolved, locking onto Oath’s defiant glow. Perfect. Hold that stare. It flowed down the moss-slick boulders – liquid darkness given form. Cl

The nest vomited knives. Wasps. Giant. Obsidian-armored, stingers dripping sizzling venom. Shrapnel in a tomb. I readied my weapon. Light flared—a guttering candle against a storm. I struck down the first wasp to dare attack us. Chitin smoked. It shrieked like grinding bones. Darius yanked Millicent behind an altar. Ariel flowed toward the swarm, blade bare. Cold steel. No shadowflame. Idiot! "Fall back!" I roared. She pivoted. Shink. A head tumbled. Ichor sprayed where her neck had been. RAW-A. Thorns spat from my vambrace as another wasp slammed into me. The imp

The heart nexus convulsed. Above, Ariel’s second strike had bitten deep. Light bled from the crown like a beacon. Kro’s corruption recoiled, surging downward into the chest cavity – thick, panicked, defensive. "It’s bleeding power!" Darius yelled. "Feeding the heart to heal the head!" No. I wouldn’t be ignored. Not while it funneled its strength away. RAW-A. I called it again. Stamina bled. Crystalline thorns sheathed my arms. The «Memory Fragment» glowed – steady blue. Focus. Not glory. Utility. I didn’t aim for the core. I struck the conduits – the throbbing veins of corr

The Colossus stumbled. Ariel’s second strike echoed through its bones like a death knell. She carved deeper. Again. Kro’s corruption recoiled from the crown, black veins slithering downward toward the heart nexus—toward us. "Sir! The corruption—it’s converging!" Darius pointed. The diseased light in the central nexus intensified, pulsing like an infected wound. Millicent’s frantic warning from above rang in my ears: "It’s trying to heal!" Rage crystallized into cold purpose. Not while I stand here. "Shield!" I barked. Darius braced beside me, burnt arm trembling but unwavering.

The echo of my Howl faded into the Colossus's stone gullet—swallowed by indifference. Darius sagged against the basalt spur, cradling his blistered arm. His stamina bar was a thin gray sliver. "Tenacity, sir," he rasped. "But stone has no ears for noble demands." Fury burned my throat. Ariel carved canyons in its skull. I got echoes. The heart nexus pulsed before us, a diseased sun radiating contempt. Oath's light felt thin. Insignificant. Like polishing silver while the house burned. Then—a spark. Not hope, but spite. Thorns. They'd shattered debris on instinct. Could I make them bi

The heart nexus pulsed—a diseased sun searing my retinas, its light bleeding into the Kro-tainted gloom. Darius braced beside me on the narrow basalt spur, knuckles bone-white against the rock. Above, chaos reigned. The Colossus’s skull had whipped sideways in a blur of rage, and Ariel’s health bar had flickered crimson at the edge of my vision like a warning flare before stabilizing. Millicent’s scanner chime echoed down through the titan’s cavernous innards—a tinny shriek of triumph and terror. They struck. They carved into it. The realization was a poison-tipped arrow: pride for the party,