Chapter 100 - Interlude: Avelyn (Patreon)

Avelyn looked from the giant moth to the giant ogre.

Then back to the giant moth.

The situation did not improve upon further inspection.

If anything, it somehow managed to get worse.

Her tail lashed behind her in annoyance.

One roaming boss had already been more than enough trouble. Apparently the universe had looked at that situation, decided it wasn't quite unfair enough, and casually added a second one on top of it.

Right as the first chose to stop holding back.

It felt as though reality itself had developed a personal grudge against her first dungeon expedition.

The thought was admittedly a little dramatic, but Avelyn was growing very tired of life announcing, with remarkable consistency, that things were about to become much harder than expected.

Taking a slow breath, she looked over the rest of the party.

Marek's expression had settled into a grim frown as he judged the distance between both bosses.

Rin activated his momentum skill without hesitation.

Sylrae and Zeke were already charging their larger attacks.

Then Avelyn's attention found Lyn.

The white-haired Foxkin looked...

Excited.

Mostly.

Her tail remained spectacularly poofed from the presence of the moths, nearly twice its normal size. It was still adorable, regardless of how fiercely Lyn would undoubtedly deny that assessment.

At the same time, however, both ears stood fully upright, fixed squarely on the approaching ogre.

Avelyn already knew what that meant, unfortunately.

Either Lyn was wary, or she had just found something she desperately wanted to fight.

The second possibility felt considerably more likely.

Which was deeply worrying.

Then Lyn's tail gave one bright, energetic swish. The sort that usually appeared a heartbeat before a Foxkin did something spectacularly unreasonable.

...

Oh no.

Lyn turned toward Marek.

"Might I inquire, do you believe you all could handle the moth?"

Marek blinked.

"I think we can handle it. Why?" Understanding slowly spread across his face. "...Don't tell me—"

Lyn nodded and pointed toward the crystalline ogre, which was currently introducing another unfortunate tree to its shoulder.

"I will take care of that."

For a moment, Marek looked ready to object.

Then he looked at the ogre.

The moth.

Back to Lyn.

His shoulders slowly sagged.

Because unfortunately...

It really was the correct decision.

"Be careful."

Lyn nodded, her muscles already tensing to move.

Before she could, Avelyn reached out and gently caught her arm.

The Foxkin immediately stopped, looking up at her with quiet confusion.

"Promise me you won't hurt yourself, okay?" Avelyn asked, the words tumbling out a little faster than she'd intended. "I know you're basically tearing yourself apart whenever you move at full speed."

She swallowed.

"Just... please."

Lyn simply looked at her for a moment.

Then she smiled.

Avelyn forgot how to breathe.

It wasn't the careful smile Lyn showed everyone else.

Nor the elegant, perfectly composed one she wore whenever she insisted everything was fine.

This one was smaller.

Softer.

Just a little imperfect.

Before Avelyn could recover, Lyn raised a hand and gently patted one of her ears.

Every coherent thought immediately abandoned ship.

Heat rushed into Avelyn's face. Her ear twitched beneath the touch and, despite every noble intention of remaining composed, she leaned into the headpat.

Only a little.

A perfectly respectable amount.

Then Lyn withdrew her hand.

"I promise."

A heartbeat later, crystal shattered beneath her feet, and Lyn was gone.

Avelyn stood there for another heartbeat, staring at the place where Lyn had vanished.

Almost without thinking, she lifted a hand and touched the ear Lyn had patted.

That smile...

It had been different.

Only a little.

But enough.

She tightened her grip around her staff.

Lyn had promised. For some reason, Avelyn couldn't imagine her ever willingly breaking one. No matter what it cost her.

The instant the white-haired Foxkin disappeared, the dark soil and vines vanished with her.

Avelyn felt the difference immediately.

Without Lyn intercepting attacks before they reached Marek, the barrage became noticeably harder to manage. At the same time, the crystal monsters lurking around the battlefield no longer had to worry about being abruptly grabbed by suspiciously judgmental plant life.

Curiously, none of them advanced.

The Crystal Stalkers lingered among the trees.

The Chime Serpents remained coiled in the distance.

Even the Prism Squirrels simply watched.

Avelyn frowned.

Maybe they all understood the same thing.

The Monarch was about to do something.

She raised her staff.

Golden light flowed outward as Blessing settled over everyone once again.

The timing couldn't have been better.

Sylrae finished charging first.

The violet glow around her rifle stabilized.

She fired.

The shot cracked through the cavern like thunder, the recoil throwing the Wingkin backward before a sharp beat of her wings brought her under control once more.

Almost simultaneously, Zeke completed his own spell.

Not Pyroclasm.

Avelyn recognized the spell immediately.

Too expensive. Too dangerous to open with.

Instead, a massive lance of condensed flame roared across the battlefield, the heat alone leaving shimmering distortions hanging in the air behind it.

The Monarch answered with a deafening screech.

Light gathered within its crystalline body.

Brighter.

Brighter still.

Then the entire cavern disappeared beneath blinding white.

Avelyn instinctively threw an arm across her eyes.

A colossal beam of radiance erupted from the Monarch.

It was so overwhelmingly bright that the forest itself vanished, reduced to little more than dark silhouettes carved into an ocean of light.

Zeke reacted instantly.

His flame lance detonated.

Fire blossomed across the cavern, crashing into the beam and stripping away a tremendous amount of its power before being consumed entirely.

A heartbeat later, Sylrae's shot arrived.

Rather than resisting the beam...

It pierced it.

For one brief instant, a narrow tunnel opened through the center of the radiance before the overwhelming torrent of light finally swallowed the bullet as well.

The weakened beam struck Bulwark.

Avelyn instinctively braced herself.

The impact never came.

There was no explosion.

No crash.

Only light. Endless, silent light.

Pale blue mana surged through Bulwark as thin cracks spread across its surface.

Avelyn's stomach tightened.

Marek held the shield.

Slowly, the radiance faded.

The battlefield emerged from the white.

Avelyn blinked several times, waiting for the bright spots dancing through her vision to disappear.

Surprisingly little had changed.

Bulwark had absorbed almost everything.

The party remained largely unharmed.

The forest had been considerably less fortunate.

Several hundred meters away, an entire section of crystal trees had simply... ceased to exist.

One particularly unfortunate Chime Serpent had apparently decided to wait until the attack finished before joining the battle.

The reflected beam had arrived first.

The serpent, the ground beneath it, and several crystal trees behind it had all been reduced to glittering fragments.

Avelyn felt a tiny pang of sympathy.

It passed quickly.

One less threat meant one less thing trying to hurt her friends.

That was enough.

Another flicker of movement caught the edge of her vision.

Several Crystal Stalkers scattered throughout the surrounding trees flashed silver.

Then disappeared.

Avelyn's ears drooped.

Of course they did.

Apparently fighting a roaming boss and its personal army of enormous crystal moths simply wasn't enough excitement for one morning.

The rest of the forest had decided to participate as well.

"Stalkers," she called immediately.

Marek tightened his grip on his shield.

Rin's posture shifted almost imperceptibly.

Unfortunately, warning everyone that invisible predators had become invisible again did very little to solve the actual problem.

The silver flashes were already gone.

Above them, the Monarch screeched once more.

Lesser moths continued raining attacks onto Bulwark.

Somewhere among the trees, an unknown number of Crystal Stalkers were almost certainly trying to decide which member of the party looked easiest to ambush.

Avelyn sincerely wished they would choose a different hobby.

She closed her eyes.

The battlefield immediately grew louder.

Gunfire. Explosions. Crystal branches chiming softly together in the breeze.

Ordinarily the sheer amount of noise would have been overwhelming.

Instead, she forced herself to ignore almost all of it.

Just listen.

A faint scrape.

Another.

The tiny creak of crystal supporting weight.

Barely anything.

But enough.

Her eyes snapped open.

"Left!"

Rin was already moving.

His sabers carved through empty air.

The first strike missed.

Only just.

The edge of his Frostflame aura brushed something unseen, frost immediately spreading across what had looked like empty space only moments before.

Rin pivoted without hesitation.

His movement skill carried him cleanly through the turn, and the follow-up strike landed solidly.

The Crystal Stalker flickered into view for only an instant before Frostflame and steel shattered it into glittering fragments.

Avelyn let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Then she immediately refreshed Blessing across the party and and took a moment to reassess the battlefield. 

Zeke and Sylrae had already returned to thinning the swarm overhead.

Marek kept the remaining Chime Serpents occupied near the edge of the battlefield, forcing them back whenever they tried to advance. The crystal snakes had apparently reached the very sensible conclusion that standing within shield-bashing distance of a Bearkin was bad for their continued existence.

Avelyn had personally watched one of them get hit by exactly one shield bash.

The resulting cloud of crystal fragments had been... impressive.

Satisfied that nobody was in immediate danger, she lifted her staff and sent several Sanctified Spears arcing toward the canopy.

Two found their mark.

The struck moths faltered only briefly.

It was all the opening Sylrae and Zeke needed.

A rifle cracked.

Fire followed.

Two crystalline bodies shattered almost simultaneously, glittering fragments raining through the trees.

A small smile found its way onto Avelyn's face.

They were doing it.

Closing her eyes once more, she let the sounds of battle wash over her.

The shrill cries of the moths overhead. The soft chiming of crystal branches swaying in the breeze.

At first, it had all blended together into meaningless noise.

Now, little by little, she was learning to separate it.

A scrape. A branch bending under unexpected weight. The faint settling of crystal.

"There."

Rin changed direction immediately.

A heartbeat later, another hidden Crystal Stalker ceased to be a problem.

The battle gradually settled into a steady rhythm.

Avelyn listened.

Rin hunted.

Blessing never fell from the party.

Whenever she found a spare moment, she added another Sanctified Spear to the barrage overhead, happy to leave the finishing blows to Sylrae and Zeke.

As the minutes passed, her directions became more confident.

Rin's momentum continued building, Frostflame spreading farther around him with every successful kill until the Catkin seemed to trail winter itself wherever he moved.

Meanwhile, Marek punished every Chime Serpent reckless enough to overcommit, while the steadily shrinking moth swarm found itself increasingly overwhelmed.

The Monarch remained the greatest threat.

Every larger attack forced the entire party onto the defensive.

Fortunately, those attacks demanded time to prepare.

Time that Sylrae, Zeke, and everyone else used without mercy.

Each shattered moth meant fewer attacks striking Bulwark. Fewer attacks meant less mana draining from Marek.

Little by little, the battle tipped in their favor.

Avelyn also noticed something else.

The Prism Squirrels had disappeared.

She frowned, searching the nearby trees until she finally spotted one in the distance.

A gunshot rang out.

The squirrel fled so quickly it almost looked offended.

Avelyn blinked.

Apparently Sylrae had decided that periodically shooting at them was an excellent way to encourage better life choices.

Judging by the squirrels' unanimous decision to leave...

It seemed to be working.

Eventually, the last of the ground threats fell away, and the number of remaining moths dwindled into the single digits.

Marek grunted as his shield smashed through the final Chime Serpent, scattering another shower of crystal fragments across the forest floor.

"Let's finish this," Marek called. "Then we'll go help the Little Miss."

Rin's grin immediately widened.

"Combo attack?"

Avelyn's ears perked.

Marek gave a single nod.

Zeke's tail gave a single wag.

"Mind the count."

Heat poured from his body, the air around him shimmering as crystal beneath his feet softened and slowly began to melt.

Marek raised his shield.

"Sylrae. Wing."

The Wingkin didn't even glance down.

"Obviously."

Avelyn tightened her grip on her staff.

She only had one job.

Don't miss the timing.

"Five."

The Monarch's radiance intensified.

"Four."

Purple mana gathered around Sylrae's rifle until it almost hurt to look at.

"Three."

Golden light spread across Avelyn's tattoos, holy mana flowing down her arms and into the waiting staff.

"Two."

Marek settled into a lower stance.

"One."

Now.

"Blessing!"

Golden light shined.

Almost simultaneously, Zeke roared.

"Pyroclasm!"

A torrent of flame surged into the sky.

Even knowing it was coming, Avelyn found herself staring.

Pyroclasm never looked like a spell. It looked like someone had briefly convinced a volcanic eruption to fly in a straight line.

The Monarch answered immediately.

Radiance burst from its crystalline body as another colossal beam tore across the cavern.

The two attacks collided.

For one suspended heartbeat, neither gave way.

Fire surged forward.

Light pushed back.

Then the radiance overwhelmed the flames and continued onward.

Exactly as planned.

The beam that reached Bulwark was only a fraction of its original strength.

Marek didn't move.

He didn't have to.

Bulwark absorbed the remaining light almost effortlessly.

At the same instant, Blessing settled over Sylrae.

The Wingkin squeezed the trigger. The violet glow around her rifle collapsed inward.

Then she fired.

The shot simply...

Disappeared.

The projectile was too fast to follow. One moment it existed, the next it didn't.

A heartbeat later, the Monarch's wing exploded.

The bullet had struck the base of the left wing, and fractures spread outward with terrifying speed.

One became ten.

Ten became hundreds.

The entire crystalline structure unraveled before bursting into glittering fragments.

The Monarch lurched violently.

Its balance vanished, and it began plummeting through the forest.

Even then, it didn't scream.

Crystal beasts didn't seem to understand pain the way living creatures did.

Instead, light gathered inside its body once more.

It was still trying to fight.

The instant it struck the ground, Rin was already moving.

Avelyn refreshed Blessing.

The Frostflame surrounding the Catkin vanished.

For one impossibly quiet moment...

Nothing happened.

Then winter arrived.

The air became painfully cold as pale blue fire erupted around Rin, his grin widening into something that looked almost wild.

"Winter's End."

Frostflame surged across the battlefield.

Everything ahead of him disappeared beneath a layer of ice, and the already fractured Monarch visibly weakened beneath the sudden cold.

Beside Avelyn, Marek moved.

One moment he stood protecting the party.

The next he was beside Rin.

She instinctively cast Blessing one final time.

Blue mana flooded Marek's body. The runes carved into his armor and shield flared brilliantly.

Avelyn blinked.

...That was new.

Marek raised his shield.

Then brought it crashing down.

"Carnage!"

The Monarch exploded.

Not shattered.

Exploded.

Its head vanished beneath the strike, reduced to fine crystal dust as a wave of Force mana rolled outward, damaging a good portion of the rest of the body and reducing the nearest crystal tree to glittering fragments.

Crystal rained across the forest.

System notifications immediately filled Avelyn's vision.

She skimmed them just long enough to notice two level-ups before dismissing the rest.

There would be time to celebrate later.

Marek lowered his shield and pointed deeper into the forest.

"Alright." His voice was tired. "We've still got one Foxkin out there. Let's go help the Little Miss."

Everyone agreed.

Within moments, they were moving.

Sylrae took to the air first, circling high above the crystal forest in search of Lyn. Every few minutes she dipped lower to report the same thing.

"No sign of Lyn."

A brief pause always followed.

"Found more of the fight."

The trail wasn't difficult to follow.

Crystal trees had been flattened. Towering formations lay shattered across the forest floor. Entire stretches of the cavern looked as though something unimaginably heavy had simply bulldozed straight through them.

Whatever Lyn was doing...

She wasn't being subtle.

Several minutes later, the forest simply ended.

Not naturally.

Violently.

Avelyn slowed to a stop.

The clearing before them no longer resembled part of the dungeon.

It looked as though the land itself had been torn apart.

No crystal trees remained. No towering formations. No undergrowth.

Only broken earth and glittering debris stretched toward the horizon.

Then she felt it.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Something invisible pressed against every instinct she possessed, so overwhelming that her body tried to stop before her mind even understood why.

Her legs felt heavy. Her ears flattened instinctively. Even her tail tucked closer without permission.

Run. Leave. Do not approach.

It wasn't killing intent, and it definitely wasn't hostility.

It was simply...

Certainty.

The absolute certainty that something standing ahead of her occupied a place in the world so impossibly far above her own that resistance wasn't merely hopeless.

It was meaningless.

The pressure settled over the clearing like the weight of a mountain.

Every instinct she possessed screamed that prey did not belong in the presence of predators like this.

Avelyn had felt it once before.

Not nearly this strongly.

Her heart pounded anyway.

The entire world seemed to narrow until only a single point remained.

One figure. One impossible presence.

Lyn.

The white-haired Foxkin sat atop the shattered remains of the crystal ogre as though it were nothing more than a particularly comfortable chair.

She looked completely unharmed.

Completely relaxed.

One hand rested confidently on her hip while the other lazily supported her chin.

Her tail drifted back and forth behind her with slow, utterly satisfied movements. Her ears stood proudly upright.

The overwhelming pressure rolling from her only made the sight more surreal.

She didn't even realize the party had arrived.

Instead, she simply admired the ruined battlefield surrounding her with quiet satisfaction, as though appreciating a painting she'd just finished.

For just a moment...

There was no elegant mask.

No carefully practiced composure. No polite smile placed between herself and the rest of the world.

There was only Lyn.

Completely unrestrained.

Avelyn knew she should have been terrified.

Every instinct in her body insisted that this was the most dangerous creature she had ever encountered.

That she should keep her distance.

That she should lower her eyes.

Instead...

Warmth quietly spread through her chest.

"...Lyn," she whispered.

The Foxkin finally looked over.

The crushing pressure never lessened. The instinctive fear remained. Nothing about that impossible presence changed.

And yet Avelyn found herself smiling anyway.

"So..." She laughed softly to herself. "...That's what you really look like."

For the first time since meeting her, Avelyn felt as though she wasn't looking at the mask Lyn showed the world.

She was looking at the girl beneath it.

And somehow...

She thought that version of Lyn was even cuter.