Cen looked up at Kur's words.

"You mean…"

"Yes. Can you use your new skill, please?" Kur asked. "And you, Nar, your [Aura Blade]?"

"We will bring down the cave, Kur" Nar muttered, considering the rocky ceiling above them. Once so solid, it now looked so frail… So fragile, in the face of what he might unleash. "And that's if I can even use it…"

"You can, I trust you both," Kur said. "You two are our only hope now, and if we're dying anyways, better it be on our own terms."

Cen gazed down upon her staff. Could she even do it?

"Come on guys, we'll buy you the time, but we can't hold on for much longer!" Kur said.

She looked up again. In front of them, the party was doing their best to hold back the surging tide of goblins and wargs, but with ice flurries coming down on them from the two new ice casters, and the boss standing behind his new forces, being healed, Kur was right. They were about to go down… And now was the time for desperate measures.

"Let's do it then," Nar said, considering his own, purple, burned blade. "We're not dying here."

Cen bit her lower lip hard, almost drawing blood, and after another heartbeat of hesitation, she stored her staff in her inventory.

"Cen?" Kur asked.

"I don't need it," she whispered, staring at her hands.

My path is one of pure aura manipulation, she told herself, repeating the words of the Master of Aura. It's my aura! I don't need anything to wield it!

While the master hadn't exactly told her yet, she understood that her days wielding the staff were soon coming to an end. The staff had helped her at the beginning of her uncertain journey, when aura was still an unknown factor, and a curse to be feared. But now… Now she knew the truth, and she too had been training hard.

Her staff was only a hindrance to her now, and it would not support what she was trying to achieve with her path… And so, after a deep breath, Cen cycled her aura onto her very hands, manifesting it onto physical reality.

"Hold the line! But get ready to fall back, everyone!" Kur shouted.

Crystal! They're all in my way! Cen thought, her heart trembling at the thought of her aura shredding through her own party.

"Don't stop!" Kur told her. "They'll get out of the way when the time comes!"

"But how?" she cried. "They're right on top of them!"

"Tuk will find a way, won't you, Tuk?" Kur said, grinning at the ring tosser.

"I-What?" Tuk stammered. "Are you kidding me?"

"Come on Tuk, show us your Thousand Petals!" Rel shouted, bursting into hysterical laughter even as she released another red, cursed streaking arrow.

"Ah, for fucks' sakes!" Tuk muttered. "Alright! Alright! I'll do it! Just tell me when!"

"I will! And Cen, trust in us," Kur told the caster. "As we trust in you."

Cen swallowed hard, and nodded, and with another deep breath, she filtered out the chaos of battle, ignoring the ice shards and arrows raining down at them, somehow funneled towards Gad's shield. The cries of the party and the wolf, the screaming goblins and snarling wargs, and above all, the silent boss, staring at them as he was healed, all faded away from her mind.

Think, Cen! Think! Remember the cave… Remember the rain! She told herself. For it had been the rain that had inspired her, though not the fact that it was comprised of water…

No, it had been the glimmering light of a thousand raindrops that had pulled her in. It had been the sound of the countless drops drumming against the grass and trees that had spoken to her, and it was in their cold, pitter-patter touch upon her brow that her own truth whispered to her… And yet remained beyond her reach.

Like Nar in the light, something in the rain had spoken to her, though it was not the rain itself that Cen was looking for. It was not a water affinity that laid dormant within her, nor light, or sound or touch, or any other such thing. What it was, Cen would have to survive that dungeon to continue searching for the answer, but in the meantime, the rain had inspired her, and guided her onwards a little step further on her path.

Within the shifting ball of aura in between her hands, Cen concentrated her will, coaxing her aura into tiny, tiny, little glimmering raindrops of aura, just like the ones she had witnessed in that dungeon…

And the still nameless, yet to unlock skill came into reality, and Cen shivered at the realization of the devastation she had just added onto her path. There was no shying away from it now… There was no denying it. Whatever path lay before her, it would be one capable of untold destruction, and the realization pierced her heart.

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That was not what she wanted for herself… Or was it?

Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she blinked them away furiously. It was neither the time, nor the place for such considerations.

"Kur," she called. "I'm ready."

********

"Tuk! Now!" Kur shouted.

"On it!"

Tuk's rings blazed out in a pattern Mul hadn't yet seen, like interlocked circles, whistling forward with the promise of death. He ducked under the closest ring, noticing its bright aura which was much brighter than usual, and there was a touch of color within the light. Of yellow perhaps? Or gold…

Is that his affinity? The brawler wondered, as the rings sailed overhead.

"Hey!" Mul shouted at the wolf. "Get back here!"

The wolf barked at him, crouching under the rings, and the two of them creeped away from the front line as the rings plunged the enemy into chaos.

As Mul and the wolf retreated back to open a path for Cen's bright, glowing and waiting aura, Tuk held his spot, tossing his rings in dazzling, impossible to predict patterns, shifting through the patterns he had thus far memorized in apparent randomness and ravaging through the new foes that had been created to fight them. And the way those rings flew, it was as though they had a will of their own.

Fucking Pile, Mul thought, pride sweltering within him. Would you look at that shit head…

"That's enough, Tuk!" Kur shouted. "Get back!"

The ring tosser retrieved his rings and ran back to the party. The illatrian screeched, and the goblins and wargs, the majority of which remained alive albeit injured, surged forward once more, as Tuk had been aiming to distract, not destroy. That role was reserved for someone else, and with the party out of the way, Cen let her aura loose…

The cave disappeared under a blinding barrage of light, and booming shockwaves pushed Mul back. In an instant, it was all over, and when Mul opened his eyes again, his mouth dropped open.

There was nothing left of the goblins or the wargs. Nothing. The entire back wall, floor and ceiling, were pockmarked with holes as big as his torso, and Cen's skill had annihilated everything in its path. Not even dust had survived, and the suddenly burning hot air was completely clear in the ringing silence that followed her attack. And of the dungeon boss, though his body had survived the onslaught more or less intact, it lay prone against the crystal wall at the back.

"Cen…" His voice died in his throat.

Tears ran down Cen's eyes, an expression of pure angst and torment glimmering from her neon yellow eyes.

Cen?

"It-it's still alive!" Tuk shouted.

Mul whipped his head forward. "What? How?"

The illatrian pushed himself upright.

One of its legs was missing, and large holes had burst through his barely held together torso, and half of his right arm was also gone, his glaive being nowhere in sight, but he was still moving…

"Rel, shoot him!" Kur said. "Cen, can you hit him again?"

"I will!" Cen said, her voice distorted by sudden anger.

Mul looked between the boss and his sister, lost as to what had, or was still happening to her.

"What in the Pile is he doing?" Viy whispered.

Mul stared back at the boss, just in time to see it pull his hand away from the cracked crystal on the wall, crystal shards gleaming in between his gray-blue bony fingers. The monster opened his mouth impossibly wide, unhinging his jaw, raspiness coming from him, and shoved the crystal shards into his mouth. Then he crunched on them.

"Did he just…"

He did, Mul mentally answered Tuk, too stunned to speak. He so did! He's eating that shit!

A rage of dark purple and ice roared from the creature, and terror howled into his mind as the boss's hair shone a bright lilac, his eyes glowing in a blaze of purple.

His leg regrew. His arm regenerated. And the holes in his chest closed…

Rel's [Mark of Transgression] shone bright and hot red upon his cadaverous chest, highlighting its oversized ribes, and Mul's vision blurred for a split moment. When it was back to normal, he could no longer see the status of the monster. Instead, ice screeched up from its fingernails, covering his arms up to his elbows, and a cloying darkness erupted through its lips.

We're fucked… Mul thought, as sheer terror of the monstrosity before him clawed into his mind, shredding every thought and emotion except for one.

Fear. Absolute fear in the face of their imminent death.

Cen… My party…

Viy dropped to the floor, clutching at her head, powerless before that mental onslaught, and the illatrian leaped forward, so fast it looked like it had teleported.

With a loud bang, Gad went flying to the left. The wolf went flying next, never even making a sound, and crunched against a wall. When it dropped wetly, Mul knew with a heavy heart that it would not rise again.

Then, Mul felt the incoming cold, and knew it was his turn. He raised his flame wreathed arms, knowing they would do little, and everything went white…

When he came too, a loud ringing filtered the sounds of the battle. His arms hung uselessly around him, his bones shattered, and his HP flashed with an ominous red in his blurry sight, empty, and a penetrating, unyielding coldness seeped into his body, seeking his aura core and to snuff it out forever.

The flames in his pathways roared and marshaled forth to fight the invading dark ice, but they fizzled, and popped, and gave way before the dark coldness…

And in that all consuming darkness, he felt a little something jump onto his lap, and a window popped open before him. Mul could barely read through the blurry words, but a smile creeped onto his bloodied lips as he did.

Eh… Sure. Why not? I accept…

A sharp crack resounded within his core!

A crushing coldness snuffed out his sputtering fire…

It was the unyielding death of the flame.

The uncaring spreading cold.

The unstoppable arrival of the end…

A pale blue shone where once there had been bright orange, and a pure, bright iciness spread from his core, driving back the darkness.

Cold versus cold, the pale blue in his pathways retreated from his core, and the flame sputtered to life once again.

Anger flared within him.

Anger that he had almost died, his life snuffed out from him.

Anger at the fact that fucking monster was still moving, and refusing to go down, even now threatening his sister and his party! And the cave began to go red at the edges of his sight…

Anger roared and melted through both of the fighting colds within his body, and Mul's eyes flared open, bright orange, and he pulled himself back up, raging flames roaring around him, spreading to encase him a furious orb of fire.

Arms broken or not, armor gone or not, the suppressor seemed to have given way, and the [Heart of Rage] came alive, ready to consume everything in its path.

You will not end us… Mul declared, eyeing the undead beast as it turned its blazing purple eyes to him. WE WILL END YOU!

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