Phoenix was on the opposite side of the city from the encampment point when she sensed the twisted aura. She had hoped to meet up with Uriel soon at this halfway point, but she knew there wasn’t any time to wait for him as she felt the glee increasing from within the building in front of her.

  She hesitated momentarily before going through the already broken door hanging uselessly from its frame. There was a sickening number of bodies already on the floor, far beyond her ability to heal since no aura came from any of them, meaning they were already dead. Pushing the corpses from her mind, she made her way up the stairs towards the likely cause and only remaining auras.

  When she reached the door to the room where she sensed the Crystal Caster, it took her a moment to process what she was witnessing. Her book helped, though, as it appeared behind her and fed the information directly through her aura.

  New Quest: Innocence

  The children’s innocence threatens to be destroyed by the craven raider.

  Objective: Save the children.

  Reward: Epic Crystal Caste Spirit Gem.

  Phoenix saw the scared girl and boy –both no older than ten and clinging to one another in fright. The sound of their cries mingled with that of their clothes tearing as the rge runeforged man attempted to grapple them.

  Phoenix didn’t need the quest to guide her this time to know what she needed to do.

  She triggered [Ruler of Retivity] and felt herself get dragged towards the man as he was ripped away from his prey.

  Phoenix had the upper hand with the surprise attack as she deployed the combat techniques that both the Banced Body Stance and Silent Stealth Stance tomes had taught her. She had diligently practiced with her party under Paul’s tutege for months now and the movements were almost second nature by this point.

  She maneuvered her body to sink her onyx dagger into the arm of the raider with shaved bck stubble on his head and face. She was surprised to discover that he must have had some kind of Strength and Fortitude-enhancing ability. He simply took the hit and overpowered her with his hulking mass, shattering her [Sun Shell] and pinning her to the stone floor as he sneered, “Wots a purty ss like ye doin’ ‘ere?”

  He gave her a malicious grin, apparently unaffected by the blinding Bane of the broken shield, as he roughly grabbed her jaw in a massive palm, “I ain’t ne’er seen such pale skin ‘n red hair ‘fore.”

  The raider licked his lips, and she could smell the putrid breath as he chuckled, “I’ll enjoy tastin’ ye ‘fore I eat them other youngin’s o’er there next.”

  Phoenix felt her anger fre up at the threat levied towards the two children, and she used [Ruler of Retivity] once more, sending the man flying into the ceiling above her only to crash down as she rolled out of the way.

  The giant man staggered to his feet, seeming barely affected by the attack, and conjured two wicked-looking hooked daggers that vaguely reminded her of some barbed fishing hooks or arrowheads; they were weapons meant more for inflicting as much pain as possible rather than delivering a quick death. Much like the miserlings, this guy seemed to like tormenting his prey.

  It became easier to imagine this enemy as just another monster with that revetion. She conjured her second weapon in response, the shadowy stiletto and icy sword gleaming from the fiery light entering through the window behind her.

  “Ya know wot?” the runeforged began, grinning at the weapons and her hesitant face, “I don’t think ye ‘ave it in ya. Yer one o’ them adventurin’ types, ain’t ya? Thems that thinkin’ they’re too good fer the likes o’ me. I met one o’ thems ‘fore an’ they got real friendly with Rosey ‘ere,” he said, lifting one of the daggers with a rose painted on the base of the bde, “It’s wot they got fer bein’ too good ta kill another person.”

  He slowly stepped closer as he spoke, the crimson runes on his skin making him look almost like a cinderen at first gnce. Phoenix clenched her teeth as she chanced a look at the frightened children before saying in a low growl that she had often heard Paul use, “You’re not a person… you’re just another monster.”

  As he moved to lunge, Phoenix surprised him by not pushing him away or dodging but by stepping back towards the window and bracing herself against the frame as she triggered her gravity ability to increase his momentum towards her suddenly. As the thug collided with her, both of them crashed through the window from the third story.

  While they were falling, she reversed the direction of her power and sent the rger man further into the sky as she was hurtled into the stone street. The breath left her in a sudden whoosh of air, and she heard the crack of a rib or two. She wasn’t quite sure how many had broken through the wave of pain that flooded her body.

  She collected her senses quickly enough, pushing down the pain before the man could drop on top of her. She sent another surge of mana into the ability to send him flying up once more while her body became further crushed by the force of mana trying to separate the two of them.

  Phoenix attempted to roll out of the way but was having trouble focusing as a wave of exhaustion passed over her from spending so much mana at once. She had been going nonstop for a while now, and her initial stab of the man with her dagger failed to trigger the [Mana Siphon] effect it had. She could only assume the Caster had some buffed-up resistances to go with that Fortitude.

  She stumbled out of the way like a drunkard as she hoped that the fall would be enough to eliminate the threat. It apparently hadn’t been, though, as the body nded with a loud crunch, the serrated daggers cttering away, only for the ravaged body to groan and slowly begin to rise again after a brief moment. Definitely enhanced Fortitude, she thought grimly.

  When he finished standing, and she saw the wounds quickly closing, she ruefully realized that it wasn’t just general attribute type Boons but some kind of self-healing ability. She vaguely wondered if he had the Troll Aspect and mentally assigned the monster type to him.

  Phoenix contempted once more about trying to capture the man instead of executing him now that he was away from the children. There was a small piece of her still trying to hold back –to not kill another person. She wanted to cling to her own innocence and hope that she could preserve life, no matter how unworthy it might be.

  In her momentary distraction, the runeforged charged her again. This time moving much faster than she had anticipated, and he knocked her backward into another building’s wall. The force of it flung her own bdes from her grasp, and pain surged through her back once more. Then she felt a hand grasp her throat as she became pinned against the wall by the bulky man’s body.

  Phoenix shuddered as she felt the raider’s tongue slide up her cheek and gasped as she felt his other hand grab at her, tearing at the clothing as he growled, “I’m going ta enjoy yer tears. Will ya scream fer me? Cry out fer someone ta save ye? That’s wot the st lil ss I had did, an’ no one came fer her neither.”

  Her blood ran cold as she reconjured her dagger and plunged it up through the monster’s ribs.

  He gasped for breath as his lung colpsed, and he stumbled back a step. She took advantage of the opportunity to return her sword back to her inventory through her aura and reconjured it directly into her hand, running the man straight through the gut.

  He spit blood and punched her hard across the cheek, knocking her off bance, but she recovered swiftly and began to move quicker, treating him much like the Frost Lurker as she danced around and sshed at his exposed areas.

  His daggers had reappeared and caught her a few times as she maneuvered around him, shallowly tearing through her unprotected flesh. She was carefully focused on not letting the stronger opponent get a hold of her again.

  “Phoenix? Are you okay? You haven’t checked in yet,” Dazien’s voice said over the telepathic chat and she lost her rhythm. She cried out in response as the hooked daggers nded true, one in her gut and the other in her left shoulder. Phoenix heard the others call out to her again, but she tried to push the voices from her mind and focus on the grinning face of her assaint.

  “Gaze into the abyss,” she said coldly and felt the Bane take hold. His smirk fell as he growled and used the buried daggers for leverage to kick her hard in her center, tearing the hooked bdes and a decent chunk of flesh from her in the process.

  Phoenix was bleeding heavily now, the Bane effects of the daggers having thoroughly taken hold and slowly draining her life from her. She grimaced as she vaguely thought that it wouldn’t be the first time she died, nor the st. However, as she gnced up and saw a pair of tiny, scared cinderen faces staring down at her from the broken window, she realized it wasn’t just her life on the line at that moment.

  The man was staggering towards her, his own wounds showing that he wasn’t that much better off than she was, and she thought she might just have enough time before she bled out to attempt one more maneuver.

  “Time to shine, Ta,” she whispered as she spent the moderate mana to reconjure the glittering shell to protect her and released the [Starlight Q she had been storing up. An explosion of swirling night surrounded her, quickly restoring her mana and stamina reserves as her Familiar manifested above her.

  Her opponent tried attacking again only to be rebuffed this time by the shield of light as he rubbed at his blinded eyes, and she recited, “Let dreams become reality,” and a swarm of semi-transparent Ta clones appeared to swirl around the man in a flurry of feathers and starlight.

  As the real Ta began to breathe [Star Fire] upon the Troll-like enemy, she began dumping her mana into constructing her [Night Bde] and sent it flying with [Ruler of Retivity] straight into him like an arrow. Then, she conjured it again to repeat the process. Again and again and again, she turned her magic dagger into a railgun as she became quicker and quicker and dumped more of her mana into taking down the burning foe.

  Only when the screaming abruptly ended, and the enemy’s perforated body y in an unmoving heap with no gleeful aura, did she allow herself to colpse to her knees in the middle of the street, finally accepting that she had killed the monster.

  Quest: Innocence

  Objective Complete: Saved the children.

  Objective Reward:

  [Avatar Spirit Gem] has been added to your collection.

  Completion Reward:

  20 [Crystal Mana Bits] have been added to your collection.

  Hidden Objective Complete: Sacrifice a piece of your own innocence.

  Bonus Reward:

  [Crystal Caste Alchemy Cache] has been added to your collection.

  New Title: Syer

  Your aura has been slightly modified by your accomplishment. The resolve to end the life of another person can be sensed within it. Your aura has slightly increased resistance to being suppressed when combating foes of the same or higher Caste.

  Phoenix wasn’t sure how she felt about the new title but didn’t have enough energy to ponder on the unexpected alteration to her aura. As her vision began blurring and everything around her started spinning, she vaguely remembered that she forgot to heal herself before emptying her mana pool into the chain attacks.

  Ta nded in front of her, chirping wildly in obvious concern, and she muttered, “Right, I know. Paul would be scolding me too,” then she clutched at the wound in her gut and cast the only version of her healing spell, [Dawn Rises], that she could afford at the moment, “See the dawn.”

  She felt the flesh begin to knit back together slowly, and Ta gave a few more cheeps before merging back into her, attempting to regain the lost [Starlight Q and making her skin glow softly once more.

  Over the st month, she had been slowly getting used to the fact that she was just going to be stuck glowing like a nightlight, and this fight made it abundantly clear that the regenerative glitter bomb was worth whatever attention her ability might draw from the people who weren’t actively trying to kill her.

  “Phoenix!” Dazien’s voice broke through her mental haze as she registered the voices she had subconsciously muted earlier, “Where are you?! What’s happening?”

  She noticed when the healing effect wore off and not all of her wounds had been taken care of, and she grimaced as her head swam again, “I’m just going to take a little nap now…” she muttered before colpsing completely on the half-destroyed street.