I hit the ground like a sack of bricks, every muscle in my body staging a violent revolt against my poor life choices. The stone archway marking the beginning of the mountain trail seemed like a mirage—either from exhaustion or because my brain was actively trying to exit through my ears.

  "Holy shit, Cass. You're a fucking monster," I wheezed, fumbling for a water gourd from my soul-space. The first gulp was pure salvation, washing away the metallic taste of overexertion that had been coating my mouth like I'd been sucking on pennies.

  Red collapsed next to me with a dramatic huff, his red fur matted with mud and forest debris. I conjured a bowl and poured him water, which he attacked like he'd been crossing a desert instead of just keeping pace with two maniacs sprinting through the woods.

  Twice during that hellish marathon, I'd actually caught up to Cass, only to watch her ignite a green mana burn and rocket beyond my aura's range like she'd been shot from a catapult. To add insult to injury, she'd looked like she was out for a casual morning jog while I'd been giving everything I had—arms pumping, legs burning, sweat turning my shirt into a second skin.

  The physical backlash from cutting my mana burn after twenty minutes was like getting hit by a truck made of exhaustion. My legs felt like someone had replaced the bones with overcooked pasta, and I was suddenly, acutely aware that I'd sweated through everything I was wearing.

  "I'm the monster?" Cass leaned over me, not even breathing hard. Her blonde braids weren't even messed up. "I can mana burn for maybe thirty seconds total before I'm flat on my ass. Just how much juice do you have in there?"

  I sat up slowly, my spine protesting every movement as if it were filing a formal complaint. "Doesn't feel like more than before. Just... more efficient? Like I need less to do the same work."

  Malcolm was already pulling out some sort of custard dessert from his soul-space, completely unbothered by the fact that he'd been carried the entire distance like luggage. "That actually makes sense, given your milestone count. Your pathways are still evolving—you're not even expanding raw capacity yet. Reaching Adept is going to take forever for you, but what's that even going to look like?"

  "Me getting my ass kicked a lot," I said, using my wash-kit to convert the road grime and sweat into dust that scattered on the mountain breeze. The relief of being clean again was almost better than the water. "So we know Adiviperax are basically oversized murder noodles, but what do we actually know about this Goreback Hydra besides 'huge and melts people'?"

  Malcolm took another bite of custard, speaking around the mouthful like we were discussing the weather. "You've got to either wear down its mana reserves completely or take all three heads off simultaneously. Otherwise it just keeps regenerating. And we'll need to coat ourselves in Marigold oil unless we want to spend the entire fight chugging healing potions while it actively melts our skin off."

  I grimaced. That sounded exactly like the sort of experience that would haunt my nightmares for years. "Alright, let's get this oil applied." I pulled out the bottle along with the bandolier of antivenom pills. "Do we take these before or after we get turned into pin cushions?"

  Malcolm shrugged. "Given how many are in the belt, I'd say reactive. Take them when something bites you."

  "Huh?" Cass tilted her head.

  "We only use them if we get poisoned," I explained. "I was hoping maybe they'd prevent it entirely, especially considering what they cost."

  "There are dozens of different venoms out there," Malcolm said. "Easier to neutralize what hits you than try to anticipate every possibility. I could show you some alchemy techniques sometime."

  "Sure! Maybe it's like cooking?" I said it, then immediately regretted it when Malcolm's expression suggested I'd just compared fine art to fingerpainting.

  I pulled out the leather case and handed Cass her black armor, then manifested my brass scale mail. The familiar weight settled across my shoulders like an old friend—assuming your old friend was made of metal and had been repaired a few times. The gloves and greaves were in decent shape, but the chest piece showed clear evidence of damage where new scales had been fitted after I'd nearly become Varglid food.

  Still, it beat facing a three-headed acid nightmare in a linen vest.

  Malcolm manifested his own half-plate, sleek steel with a hood that he immediately pulled back to reveal his game face.

  I popped the cork on the oil bottle, expecting something with the consistency of mineral oil. Instead, thick yellowish syrup slopped down into my hand like molasses that had been mixed with tree sap and bad life choices.

  "Oh, gross," Cass grimaced as the viscous mess slid off my palm and hit the road with a wet splat.

  "This isn't going to be pleasant, is it?" I asked.

  Malcolm's grin was pure evil. "Not even slightly."

  We trudged up the mountain path, clearly the island’s greasiest adventuring party. The forest grew denser around us as the ground shifted into a steep upward slope, massive rocks and moss-covered boulders dotting the landscape like ancient guardians that had given up caring.

  The air carried a rich, earthy scent of deep woods mixed with something distinctly sweet—namely, the sticky oil coating every exposed inch of my skin and matted into my hair like amber honey from hell.

  It had taken several minutes to slather ourselves with the stuff. I'd even worked it into Red's fur until he immediately rolled around in the dirt afterward, coating himself in fresh forest debris like nature's own camouflage system.

  I thought through our bond, getting a flash of playful pride back from him.

  "I feel like a prize pig at the summer festival," Cass complained, dabbing at her face with her glove and succeeding only in spreading the oil around. "Why did we have to put this shit on before we even found the monster?"

  "It takes time to cure properly," Malcolm explained with the patience of someone who'd clearly had this conversation before. "Better to feel disgusting than get dissolved."

  "That still doesn't explain why this stuff is basically tree sap," Cass said. "I've seen courtesans with less product in their hair."

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  Malcolm shrugged. "It has to stick through combat, so it's mixed with binding agents and—"

  "Never mind, I don't care," Cass cut him off, and I laughed despite myself. "Let's just kill something already."

  "Alright, formation time." I turned to address my grease-covered companions. "Same as always—I'm up front drawing attention, Cass covering our six, Malcolm… ahem… in the middle doing fire things." Red did his signature rumble-honk at me. "And Red scouting ahead because he's better at it than any of us."

  Cass drew one of her twin swords with a satisfying ring of steel against leather. I manifested my new spear from my soul-space, appreciating that it was at least lighter than Winchester. The smooth cloud pine shaft connected in the center with a satisfying click, grooves perfectly fitted for the orichalcum-edged spearhead.

  I let my aura expand, washing over my friends before spreading into the surrounding forest. The familiar blue sensation pulsed through the trees and underbrush, searching for anything that wanted to murder us.

  Nothing. No monsters within range, though that didn't mean we were safe.

  Valor pulsed through my aura with its usual aggressive challenge, practically sending out invitations for anything dangerous to come try its luck.

  "Valor's got nothing," I reported.

  We'd walked maybe thirty meters when the world suddenly betrayed us. It took a disorienting moment to realize that the ground had simply... vanished. We were falling through what must have been a concealed pit trap, because apparently even the monsters on this world had learned about proper preparation.

  All three of us ignited mana burns simultaneously. Blue, red, and green auras blazed around us as we plummeted much farther than any reasonable pit had a right to be, finally slamming into the bottom hard enough to send spiderweb cracks through the stone floor.

  Then Red landed squarely on top of me.

  I'd felt him coming through my aura and tried to catch him, but he seemed perfectly capable of handling the landing himself—he just used me as a cushion instead.

  We all cut our mana burns, and I rolled over in the oppressive darkness, my body filing multiple complaints about recent events.

  "Everyone alive?" I called out, my voice echoing strangely in what felt like an enclosed space.

  "Yeah," Cass replied from somewhere to my left.

  "I'll get us some light," Malcolm offered.

  Before he could act, dozens of red pinpricks began glowing around us in the darkness like a terrifying Christmas display.

  Not lights. Eyes.

  "Aw, fuck me," I groaned, pulling a lantern orb from my soul-space. I mentally cranked the brightness rune to maximum without risking an explosion.

  The cavern erupted in harsh white light, sending half a dozen anaconda-sized serpents recoiling from the sudden illumination. Their scales rippled and shifted like living camouflage, the light disrupting whatever stealth bullshit they'd been using.

  "Adiviperax!" Cass yelled, snatching up her fallen sword.

  We'd fallen into a kill pit. The snakes had been waiting, like patient nightmares.

  I was already moving as Malcolm launched bolts of molten plasma through the air, orange energy crackling off stone walls and carving deep into one serpent. It squealed—a sound no snake should ever make—and lunged directly at me with murder in its beady red eyes.

  Valor pulsed through my aura with aggressive challenge, and I felt every serpent in the pit lock onto me with predatory focus like I'd just painted a target on my forehead.

  Malcolm's bracer flared to life as he cycled through runic combinations before settling on Illumination. With practiced mudras, he launched a ball of steady light into the air above us, turning our death trap into a proper arena.

  I shoved my lantern orb directly into the gaping maw of the attacking snake and shifted the wavelength deep into the ultraviolet.

  The front half of the creature exploded in a geyser of sparks and purple ichor that painted the cavern walls like an avant-garde art project.

  Red snatched a mana orb from the air mid-combat and tossed it to me with perfect timing. I stored it just as Cass blurred past me—calling it a dash was like calling a hurricane a gentle breeze, since I could feel her movement through my aura but couldn't actually track it with my eyes.

  Two serpents that had tried to flank me were cleanly bisected by her twin blades, cut through like purple butter. They erupted into fountains of viscous fluid that splattered across the cavern walls with wet, meaty sounds.

  "Oh, come on," I muttered, wiping ichor from my face. At least the Marigold oil was doing its job—the stuff was sliding right off.

  Valor's warning hit me a split second before I forced mana into my legs. One of the remaining snakes shot through the air with whip-crack speed, its fangs punching through my scale mail and barely penetrating my mana-reinforced thigh.

  The bite stung, but I could tell from the creature's body language that it thought it had just landed a killing blow. It began coiling around my legs with confident malice, probably already planning what to do with my corpse.

  "Shit, Ben!" Malcolm called, orange energy crackling around his hands, but there was no clean shot with the snake wrapping around me like a very aggressive rope.

  I looked down into the serpent's beady red eyes as realization dawned in its alien intelligence. It suddenly understood exactly how fucked it was.

  My spear came down in a brutal arc, severing the head coiled around my leg from the rest of its body about a meter down the length. More purple ooze sprayed everywhere as I tore the now-dead jaw from my thigh, black venom oozing and smoking from massive fangs.

  The blood seeping through the punctures in my armor had taken on a distinctly black hue that definitely wasn't normal.

  Without warning, intense burning bloomed through my leg like liquid fire racing along my bones. The venom was moving through my bloodstream with terrifying speed—I could actually feel dark-aspected mana spreading through my circulatory system like parasitic vines, corrupting everything it touched.

  The burning sensation clawed its way up to my chest, and suddenly I was on my knees, agony tearing through my torso as the alien mana forced itself into my pathways. It felt wrong in a way I'd never experienced—like ice-cold fingers reaching into the very core of my magical self.

  I fumbled desperately for one of the antidote pills, my hands trembling uncontrollably as my fine motor control took a vacation. The vial slipped through my fingers like water, and I watched helplessly as the pill bounced off the stone floor and rolled away into the shadows.

  My body pitched forward, no longer taking suggestions from my brain. The stone was cold against my cheek, but even that sensation felt distant and muffled, like someone had wrapped my consciousness in cotton.

  The dark mana raced through my pathways with greedy hunger, following the familiar channels toward the tiny, precious connection that linked my physical form to my soul-space. That definitely couldn't be good, but thinking was becoming increasingly difficult—like trying to focus through thick fog while someone played death metal in my ears.

  Red abandoned whatever he'd been doing in the ongoing fight, his sharp bark cutting through the haze clouding my mind. I felt my consciousness jolt back for a precious moment, his concern flooding through our bond like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

  Cass and Malcolm were still fighting the remaining snakes, but Red's bark had drawn their attention to the fact that I was currently having a very intimate conversation with the floor.

  Malcolm rushed over, grabbing the pill that had fallen. I was even aware of Ted yelling something at me in my head, but his words felt like they were coming from the bottom of a deep well.

  Then, the corrupted mana slammed into my soul-space like a battering ram against a fortress gate, and everything went sideways.

  The connection between my physical body and my soul-space was something I'd never really thought about—it was just there, like breathing or thinking. But now I could feel it under assault, dark tendrils of foreign mana trying to worm their way through the link like cosmic parasites.

  This is bad, some distant part of my brain observed with remarkable calm. This is really, really bad.

  The darkness pressed against the barrier between my soul and the physical world, testing for weaknesses, probing for entry points. I could feel it trying to corrupt the space where I stored everything that mattered—my weapons, my supplies, the connection to Ted, my entire fucking .

  My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from the edges as the venom worked its way deeper into my system. I could hear Malcolm shouting something, could feel Red's panic through our bond, but it all seemed to happen to someone else.

  The dark mana found what it was looking for—a hairline crack in the connection, barely perceptible but enough. It seeped through like poison into a wound, and I felt something fundamental start to unravel.