Just as fast as rain had come to Haadran, the clouds departed. The oppressive heat of the tier 2 planet returned with a vengeance, puddles of ether-charged water rapidly evaporating at a rate visible to the naked eye. Arthur's body was a wreck. His flesh had been scorched with lightning, his head was riddled with injuries that had penetrated to his very soul, and his right arm was missing from below the elbow.

  No matter how much his heart might say otherwise, his body was simply incapable of continuing with this fight. Samuel screamed in pain and rage, sending Maverick sprawling with a blast of concentrated mirror magic. The elf had fallen to corruption, but that didn't negate the fact that the Flood Wyvern had been his companion for centuries, if not millennia. The sadness and loss in the elf's gaze were difficult for Arthur to stomach, a depth of grief he wasn't used to seeing in his enemies.

  Those grieving eyes turned to Arthur a moment later, now filled with a hatred that made his skin crawl. He'd made a lifelong enemy here today. Even with all its ruinous wounds, the Flood Wyvern still clung stubbornly to life, though Arthur didn't need to be an animal expert to know it wasn't long for this world. Samuel wasn't even trying to heal his companion, which seemed strange until you remembered Arthur's final attack had practically made the wyvern a vegetable. Permanently. There was no coming back from that.

  Almost like they were following some kind of script, the battle lulled to a stop as they all waited for Esmerald to breathe his last. It didn't take long, and thirty seconds later, the Flood Wyvern was dead. Arthur gasped at the magnitude of the energy suddenly suffusing his body, irritating his barely healed lungs. This was the most energy he'd ever gained from killing any single monster, and the sensation of it running through his body in his current state was more painful than pleasurable.

  Arthur ran A Homunculus' Healing, targeting himself for once. The relief was immediate, and a few seconds later, he was able to move again. Much like the injury he'd taken from the corpse puppet, however, his right arm refused to heal. The soul damage he'd taken to the skull followed the same strain for obvious reasons.

  Samuel stood over the cooling corpse of his former companion. The corrupted elf was eerily still, with no hint of an aura or domain leaking from him. He felt more lifeless than some of the undead Arthur had faced. It was unnerving, and Arthur prepared himself for the violence that was sure to follow.

  The water soaking his clothes had already evaporated, leaving the salt-crusted residue of his sweat behind. Even after healing himself, his lungs still ached something fierce, almost like he had a chest infection, which meant that Esmerald had done far more than simply destroying his arm with his final breath attack. Arthur hacked up a wad of bloody phlegm and spat it to the side. He had to breathe shallowly, or risk descending into a coughing fit.

  This was about the worst he'd felt going into a fight, but he had Maverick backing him up at least. While the giant human had proven to be weaker than the corrupted elf, it wasn't by such a large margin that he couldn't hold his own. They could do this. Three seconds later, Arthur's confidence swiftly departed. Samuel swiped his hands towards them, and Arthur's body was suddenly in a world of pain. It felt like there were worms made out of magma crawling through his flesh, except they were barbed and coated in poison, too.

  A second later, what little remained of Arthur's vision went too, and he heard the dull thud of his body hit rock. Arthur tried to scream, to move, to do anything, but nothing was working. Blood poured from his mouth. He'd bitten a part of his tongue off, which was shockingly the only damage he'd taken from the pain coursing through his body.

  "What the hell did you do to him?" Maverick rumbled, his voice simultaneously sounding incredibly far away and right next to his ear.

  Samuel giggled hysterically. If he wasn't batshit insane before, he was there now—Arthur was sure of that. He tried to get up again and failed spectacularly.

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  "It's the first spell every mirror mage learns, the most useless spell in existence, really. It's used to link the sensations you feel with another, most commonly used during sex and grand orgies."

  Samuel began to pace back and forth. "Everything can be weaponised, though, even a seemingly useless sex spell. In the castle dungeons, I have three prisoners loaded up with the most refined poisons I could get my hands on. You know one of them, actually—your old lover, Rias. The poisons are benign in that they don't physically harm their hosts; that interferes with the sharing process, but the pain they cause is something else. As the link holder, I can exempt myself from the chain, but your companion's another story. He'll be a vegetable in twenty minutes. The longest anyone's ever lasted was eight, but your friend seems quite durable."

  Maverick groaned. "Samuel, my friend, sometimes I wonder if you were always this psychotic. You were a right bastard when you were my handler, but you were never needlessly cruel. Did corruption change you, or was this always who you truly were?"

  "Hah, handler. Is that what you called us?" Samuel mocked, "We bested your kind in the last uprising and enslaved your people. At least the rebels had the grit to call us what we were. We were your masters, Maverick. No amount of sugar coating will change that fact. That you were deceived and indoctrinated is only your own failing."

  Arthur was learning a lot about the history of Haadran. Now, if only he weren't in so much pain, maybe he'd find it interesting. Groaning, Arthur tried to get up for the third time. He failed again, tumbling over and landing on his back.

  "You think I didn't know that?" Maverick said, "It was insubordination and death, or servitude. I did what I had to for my people."

  Samuel chuckled. "No, Maverick. You led millions of your kind to slaughter with your misguided sense of justice, and then thought appointing yourself a figurehead of your people's subjugation would serve as penance. It didn't. Have you ever wondered how our world would have looked if we had faced corruption without your selfish idiocy weakening us so much? So many lives lost that could have served our cause," Samuel spat, the pure vitriol in his voice acidic enough to melt steel.

  "Everything you touch, Maverick, turns rotten. You are a poison on this realm, and it is your poison, not mine, that will kill that hopeless fool accompanying you."

  Arthur had finally managed to get to his knees during the corrupted elf's monologue, but this was the end of the line. While he was certain he'd survive Samuel's mirror spell intact, there was absolutely zero possibility that he could contribute anymore to this fight. Arthur chuckled bitterly, but it came out more as a wheezing cough. He'd thought he'd been doing well, that he'd managed to prove his mettle against one of the reigning kings of this fallen world. How wrong he'd been. Arthur had only killed the bastard's pet.

  For the first time since he'd come into contact with ether, Arthur's survival depended entirely on the strength of another.

  "You always did have a way with words, Samuel. Arthur will not die today. Unlike you, I learned long ago to pick my battles wisely."

  Samuel's eyes widened in realisation, even as Maverick crushed a wooden statue in his hands. The corrupted elf roared in rage, sending mirror magic exploding in all directions. Deepstone shattered and warped, and the corpse of his former companion was desecrated, but Samuel didn't seem to care less. Arthur managed to place a single hand on the ground before the attack reached him.

  It was the first time he'd received a concentrated blast of the strange affinity, and Arthur did not enjoy it in the least. Skin that could survive burning lava became brittle and cracked like fragile glass, the shards of it penetrating Arthur's flesh. With the poison already hindering him so much, the attack just knocked him back down to the ground, erasing all his progress like fine mist in the rain.

  Maverick, the only functioning member of their duo, fared far worse. While Arthur had only suffered superficial damage, Maverick looked like he was at death's door. Where only Arthur's skin had taken on the properties of glass, Maverick's entire body looked like it had been transmuted into the material. His right leg was shattered into pieces, and his remaining leg had deep cracks running through it.

  The wooden figurine he'd broken seemed to be a teleportation token similar to the one Iris had given him, only Samuel's explosion of magic had interfered with it somehow. Arthur was so engrossed in the battle that it took him a second to realise that his vision had returned, at least partially. His soul-damaged eye remained a useless lump of flesh. Arthur could see traces of green energy surrounding him and Maverick, remnants of the failed teleportation spell that should have taken them away.

  Arthur's heart beat wildly in his chest, the sound of his blood pumping a dull thrum in his ears. Was this it? The end of the road. Neither of them was in any state to fight Samuel right now, and the corrupted elf had seemingly lost what little remained of his sanity. Arthur wouldn't go down without a fight, but he saw no legitimate path to victory right now. In a desperate bid to do something, Arthur threw his soul-spear in the direction he'd last seen the elf. A sudden spike of pain in his abdomen meant he'd hit something at least.

  Samuel roared in pain and released another explosion of energy. Arthur braced himself for the worst, pouring all his free stats into Draconic Vitality and hoping his durability would prove to be enough. He'd never have to learn the answer to that question. The failing teleportation spell surrounding him suddenly stabilised, the magic taking on a tell-tale purplish tinge. Arthur almost sighed in relief as he felt the familiar sensation of spatial magic cover his body. Wovan had pulled through in the nick of time.

  Samuel's scream of rage echoed into the deepstone mountains. His anger found no target, though. Arthur and Maverick were gone. The Perfect Homunculus had lost for the first time.

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