Blinking away the remaining spots, I opened my eyes to find myself in what could only be called an arena within the massive skull I’d seen from outside the barrier. Rather than grass or underbrush, like out in the forest at large, in there the ground was completely barren, minus a few bones and teeth lying around. At first, I was worried about some kind of skeletal monster with the bones, but I was quickly dissuaded from that as the ground all around the massive gnarled form of the [Corpse Willow] began to rumble before armored hands sprang out to reveal over a dozen [Wights] pulling themselves from the loosely packed earth.

  [Wight - Rank C Monster

  Level: 30

  Vulnerabilities: Fire, Radiant

  Resistances: Cold

  Immunities: Poison, Necrotic]

  [Wights in service to Weaver are not mindless undead, but twisted reflections of their former selves. Their decaying flesh retains a semblance of past life, but their eyes burn with a malevolent blue light. Unlike zombies, Wights retain warped fragments of their memories and skills, making them cunning and dangerous. Often clad in tattered remnants of past clothing or armor, they act as lieutenants, commanding lesser undead and enforcing Weaver’s will. Their very presence chills the air, draining warmth and hope. They are not merely animated corpses, but cunning and effective agents of Weaver's twisted designs.]

  Great, semi-intelligent undead and I can’t hit them with a shitload of fire. Boo. I guess I’ll be leaning on [Sunburst]...shit, it’s not slotted and I only have the one free. I guess I’ll have that as a backup plan, but I’d rather keep a slot open just in case we need it for the boss.

  [Corpse Willow - Rank A Boss

  Level: 35

  Vulnerabilities: Fire

  Resistances: Cold

  Immunities: Poison, Acid, Radiant]

  [The Corpse Willow stands as a grotesque monument to Weaver’s power, a twisted fusion of nature and necromancy. Its bark, a sickly grey-green, peels like decaying skin, weeping a viscous, dark sap that reeks of rot. Instead of leaves, it bears clusters of desiccated, skeletal hands that twitch and rattle in the wind, the trapped souls of sacrifices bound to the tree. These bony “leaves” sometimes grasp at empty air, while skeletal branches reach out like grasping claws. Its roots, not of wood but of sinewy black tendrils, delve into surrounding graves, drawing necromantic energy at the same time as it produces its vicious aura. The Willow possesses a dark sentience, acting as a conduit for the darkest portions of Weaver’s will, commanding the surrounding undead. Its presence corrupts the land, a blighted testament to death’s dominion.]

  Damn thing is immune to Radiant damage? Fuck. I guess I’m going to have to lean on some of my other tricks for it. Not sure what Mindy’s going to do, but I can only hope–

  Not waiting for the adds to spawn, Mindy screamed and threw her hands forward. “[Raging Torrent]!” A stream of water, more than two inches thick sprang from the space between her hands and shot toward the branches of the [Corpse Willow] before slicing off nearly a dozen of the hand-leaves as she swept it to the side before it ran out of power. She followed that up with a trio of [Aqua Slices] and I realized I didn’t have much to worry about with her, assuming she didn’t end up in melee and even then she had her barrier charms and Volta watching her back. The Storm Elf took her bodyguard duties very seriously and was never more than a few yards from her charge while combatants were nearby, using her control of lightning and the wind to enhance Mindy’s already potent water magic.

  Not to be outdone, Raiju’s form blurred toward the [Wights], where she blasted the heads off of three of them before they could fully exit the ground. Not that losing their heads stopped them, but it did slow them down as she whirled back to engage them once more. A glittering cloud formed above her head, the evolved Skill [Celestial Tempest], before starting to pour down blasts of lightning on the monsters who got closest to the [Storm-Runner]. Before evolving, [Thunderhead] used to force her to focus on it to fire out its destructive payload, but the evolved version didn’t appear to have the same issue. It appeared to be autonomous, letting her focus on a new Skill, [Whirling Dervish] as she tore into her foes with wild abandon, trusting her speed to keep her safe as she flitted between the [Wights] like a tiny tornado of claws and kicks.

  Seeing my friends were already embroiled in combat with the [Wights], I turned my focus on the [Corpse Willow], despite how creepy the damned thing was. As I mentally flicked through my long list of Skills and Spells for a good option to use against it, I poured Mana into [Force Missile Swarm] and, for every five Mana I put into it another tiny dart of force floated over my shoulder opposite Glyph.

  The tiny [Voxel] hadn’t even flinched since we’d passed through the barrier and when I checked on him, he was frozen in abject terror. I poked at his leg, but it was ramrod straight, with almost no give.

  I can’t believe it, he’s a total coward! What the hell am I going to do with–

  “Dodge left!”

  Glyph suddenly shouted and, like anyone trained to fight monsters, I complied and I was very glad I had as a six foot lance of a white bonelike substance sprang out from the ground in front of me and to my left. I just barely managed to dodge it in time, though the bony lance nearly shot through Glyph, only missing him by the barest margin.

  “Invigorating!” Glyph cheered. “I shall make you regret that, madame!”

  When I looked up at Glyph I saw his paralyzing fear was gone and instead I saw something familiar. Battle lust. It was something my cousins in Ironhold struggled with, though I’d never had an issue with it, minus the few times I’d gone off the deep end when someone I loved got hurt.

  Tiny letters began forming in the air before him and he was poised to throw them out when I stopped him with a mental message.

  ‘Hold, we’ll attack together. I’ve got thirty force darts ready with [Force Missile Storm], but none of them are nearly as powerful as my usual [Magic Missiles]. What does your attack do and do you have any other abilities I need to worry about?’

  Never had I been more glad for the Party interface as he unloaded his entire combat portfolio to me in text form. With a flex of my will, I forced the System to pick out his relevant abilities and was soon able to figure out what I was dealing with.

  ‘Debuffing and limited crowd control. I can work with that.’

  I dodged back away from a [Wight] who managed to get a bit too close just before Volta plucked it back with a loop of lightning and an apologetic smile as she hauled it away from me.

  ‘I need you to send your [Cutting Words] out half a second before I trigger the release on my [Force Missile Swarm].’

  I leapt into the air before starting to run around the undead monstrosity on [Air Steps] formed just before my feet would have ended up sending me sprawling. I was trying to stop the [Corpse Willow] from figuring out my path of travel and I think I did a pretty good job, as three different bone lances went through places that would have been where I went if I hadn’t changed tacts.

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  Undeterred, the [Corpse Willow] made its first big move, and it was a doozy. The bony branches gathered together, briefly forming the top of the creature into a misshapen bulb before springing open and letting loose a deep purple and black wave of energy that persisted after passing by.

  I didn’t even really notice it, minus the change of color in the area, but everyone else was a different story. This was the negative energy aura Glyph had warned us about and everyone else’s Stats would be ten percent less effective as long as it was active. At the same time, the [Wights] grew more aggressive, some of them going so far as to form spines of bone to harry me from a range as I rushed around the battlefield like a dog on a chain. None of them got close enough to hit me immediately, but they were just another thing for me to get distracted by as I was trying to figure out how to kill the [Corpse Willow].

  Since I didn’t have any better ideas at the moment, I started hurling [Psyknives] at the [Corpse Willow] at a frantic pace, nearly a dozen in half as many seconds. It may have been Mana intensive, with each of them costing three Mana, but the effect was exactly what I was hoping for. As each purple energy blade pierced the monster’s trunk it unleashed an unearthly screech, apparently it wasn’t used to feeling intense pain and my [Psyknives] specialized in that particular kind of thing. Meanwhile, I still poured even more Mana into [Force Missile Swarm], pushing just enough to overwhelm the increased Mana regeneration from the cheap Mana potion I’d popped upon arriving at the shrine.

  Speaking of shrines, Glyph was the first to spot it, so he messaged the rest of us in the fight with him about it. ‘The shrine we are here for appears to be located near the back portion of the [Corpse Willow]’s trunk. The undead appears to have shaped itself around it. It is quite fascinating, really.’

  ‘Mindy, kite around and start taking slashes at this thing’s rear, maybe we can get this bony bastard to move enough that I’ll be able to purge the shrine of Weaver’s presence.’ I flipped over a pair of bone lances before springing off of one like a diving board. ‘Glyph and I are going to really piss tall white and bony off in a second, so hopefully it won’t target you too much.’

  Glyph floated forward into the corner of my vision. ‘Which debuff should I use?’

  ‘Protection shred, definitely. Not only is it going to be useful, but it’s also the one you have the least practice with according to the System.’

  He bobbed in what I realized was his version of a nod before beginning to form a series of yellow and green letters in front of him in rigid lines.

  Checking my swarm of missiles opposite Glyph and found nearly fifty of them ready and raring to go. I grinned, this was going to be fun.

  ‘Hit it.’ I messaged Glyph and, surprisingly, he didn’t disappoint me.

  With a flap of his tiny wings, Glyph sent the orderly lines of text he’d generated streaking toward the [Corpse Willow] like hundreds of tiny knives. Wherever they struck the creature, they dug in before forming the word “Weak” over and over again until there was a band of the word all around the creature’s trunk nearly a foot wide.

  Mindy chose then to start hammering the back of the [Corpse Willow], seeing as Glyph and I were harrying it from the front at that moment. Where before each attack against the creature had been greeted with a resounding thunk sound and no real damage, now her [Aqua Slices] were digging in nearly six inches at a time as she launched them like a lumberjack would his ax, forming wedges of bony chiton on the ground behind the creature. The [Corpse Willow]’s screams of pain were like music to my ears as I unleashed the full complement of my [Force Missile Swarm] upon it all at once.

  The results were fantastic.

  Each force dart shot deep into the [Corpse Willow], leaving behind two inch circular holes that went nearly twelve inches deep each. The best hits I got, however, were where the force darts stacked behind each other. In those cases, I saw my force darts blasting straight through the monster’s trunk and down into its roots.

  Something changed in that moment and as I thought about it later, I’d realize what I did wrong.

  The branches of the [Corpse Willow] sprang up around the top once more, but instead of launching out a pulse of negative energy, instead it launched a trio of white and black tendrils out into the air behind it faster than a non-enhanced eye could see. I was forced to watch as Mindy and Volta were both speared through the chest, Volta multiple times as she tried to body block for Mindy, and then hoisted into the air.

  Green energy began to draw from them down into the [Corpse Willow] and I watched as the holes from my latest attack began to refill in real time. Meanwhile, Volta and Mindy were screaming in agony as their faces grew more gaunt by the millisecond.

  Panicked, I activated [Flash Focus], gritting my teeth against the nasty spike of pain that now accompanied the insanely useful Skill. Part of me felt guilty in using it, but the perceived minute I used to balance out my emotions was less than a tenth of a second in the real world, so I ignored that feeling for the moment. Taking in the situation, things weren’t great.

  Mindy and Volta were, obviously, being leached by the [Corpse Willow] by those tendrils of energy something neither Glyph nor [Essence Reading] had told me the creature was capable of. Only four of the [Wights] appeared to be active, but they’d somehow managed to corner Raiju and she was fighting them tooth and nail, but it wasn’t going well as she had quite a few small cuts on her arms and legs and a larger cut across her brow. Despite that, the grin on her face was a mile wide and I was confident she’d ask if she needed help…or not, but I hoped to be able to wrap the [Corpse Willow] up quickly at this point, as its continued existence was grating at my nerves.

  Part of me said I should just let [Dominus’ Fury] loose on it, but when I pondered it for a few moments I felt a bit of pressure in the back of my head.

  ‘Not a great idea, if I move directly against my daughter, she could move directly against me.’ Dominus’ voice filled my head. ‘You could use [Sun Apostle’s Perdition] if it weren’t immune to Radiant, as that’s Light’s domain, but not on this thing. You should keep it in mind for other fights though, he told me he’s happy to have his favorite mortal’s grandson using his power, even if I claimed you.’

  ‘I was thinking of using [Serene Glade], despite the Mana cost of maintaining it and just going to town on it with blasts of lightning until it stops moving. What do you think of that?’

  She pondered it for a moment before clicking her tongue. ‘Not a bad idea, but you don’t exactly have an unlimited supply of Mana potions and you’d definitely need one if you end up having to fight that [Whisperwood Sentinel]. Those things are tankier than anything you’ve ever fought normally and that’s a boss variant.’

  She paused briefly and I would’ve sworn I could hear her muttering to herself before she began speaking again.

  ‘You have the tools you need to finish this thing off, just be careful, I need you alive and well.’ She whimpered. ‘Got to go, Weaver just figured out I was getting involved and threatened to do the same. Love you, Artie. Knock ‘em dead.’

  ‘Love you too.’ I sent back, knowing she’d get it even if she wasn’t present anymore.

  ‘Fascinating.’ Glyph’s voice nearly knocked me out of the state of concentration I was using to maintain [Flash Focus]. ‘Your relationship with your goddess is nothing like what I would have expected. Her care for you isn’t what the records said was common, instead it is more… intimate.’

  ‘How are you listening in on my mental conversations with my goddess…and how are you aware while I’m thinking nearly a thousand times faster than normal?’ I wasn’t exactly happy to have him intrude, but if he could do it without straining himself I could find uses for it.

  ‘Oh, this is nothing. The Librarian does this ten thousand times faster and I learned how to jump along for that ride, so this has been quite pleasant, all things considered. I can actually think right now instead of just tagging along for her thoughts.’ He sounded happier than I’d ever heard him when not learning something new. ‘So, what’s the plan?’

  ‘I was working on that, but Dominus said it wasn’t exactly a good idea right now.’ I sent the mental equivalent of a shrug. ‘Back to the drawing board. I’ve got about two more minutes in this time dilation-esque state, so I’ve got until then to figure something else out.’

  ‘Got it…’ He trailed off. ‘Mind if I make a suggestion?’

  ‘Go for it.’

  I figured it couldn’t hurt, considering I was coming up blank for a fast fix, everything seemed to take far too long except burning the damn tree down, but that would lose us loot and I knew I had something to deal with the tree, if only I could figure it out.

  ‘Why not use [Sanguimancy] boosted by your [Serene Glade]?’ He posed. ‘From what my scans were able to tell, this is not actually a tree, but instead some sort of warped undead in that form. [Sanguimancy] would allow you to stop the flow of life force from Melinda and Volta while simultaneously allowing you to stop it in its metaphorical tracks while they kill it.’

  ‘There’s no w–’ I stopped myself mid-thought. ‘You might just be right. I’ll try that. Nice work, Glyph.’

  ‘Of course, my role as your summon is Tactical Analysis. This is me analyzing your tactics.’ He sounded surprised that I’d been surprised.

  ‘Nevermind, I’m going to end this now, so hold on or…whatever it is you do while floating over my shoulder.’

  Before he could explain, I canceled [Flash Focus] and, fighting through the suppressed agony, activated [Serene Glade] and [Sanguimancy] in sequence.

  “Try this on for size, you overgrown zombie!” I lashed out with sanguine tendrils of my own from [Sanguimancy] toward the [Corpse Willow]. “Let go of my friends!”