PreCursive

  The light was so incredibly bright that it immediately cut through the absolute darkness that lived at the interior base of Gorenzan. I had to shade my eyes in order not to be light blinded, and I noticed that I wasn’t the only one. Kazuma had lowered his bde to flinch from the sudden burning fsh. Venix, though, stared forward with a furrowed brow, seemingly unbothered by the sudden star blooming in this cavern.

  I guess there were benefits to having chitinous eyes.

  However, unlike Venix, the rest of the Antium down here were very much affected by the sudden illumination. The hordes and hordes of undead shells that had been charging at us only moments before were suddenly shirking from the burning light. They shrieked and cried out from the touch of it, completely ignoring us and appearing to cower from the bright, burning red star.

  It hung far in the distance of this enormous, mountainous cavern, shining brightly from some distant rock face and almost seeming to be gring down at our immediate area. With my eyes having adjusted, I was able to see that the shine of that star appeared to be focused on us in a tight beam.

  “What the hells is that…?” I heard Kazuma breathe.

  I tensed suddenly, noticing something about the source of light agitating the undead were prepared to sughter only moments ago.

  It was getting closer.

  “Move!” I shouted, abruptly grabbing Kazuma and dragging him backward. I didn’t need to do the same with Venix, though. The Antium samurai was already on the move, having noticed the same thing I did. Kazuma found his feet underneath him and finally joined me in running away from the horde of undead.

  As the three of us raced away from the suddenly much more dangerous area, I hazarded a gnce behind my shoulder.

  The suddenly blooming star was rapidly falling from the sky, from some distant point in the distance that shortened every second. It pierced through the darkness, the air screaming from its rapid descent as it fell like a comet aimed straight at the pilr of Threnalyte stretching high into the disappearing void of the cavern. As it grew closer to the spire, I was actually able to make out the very tip of it, stretching what looked to be miles into the open air of the hollow mountain. The wickedly sharp, golden-orange tip gleamed in the sudden starlight.

  But that ceased to matter shortly.

  With a thunderous, shattering crash, the ‘star’ rammed right into the center of the Threnalyte ‘barrow spire’.

  Star met amber, and the amber lost.

  The entire edifice immediately crumbled from the force of the impact, enormous chunks of golden stone tumbling through the air to crash into the bedrock of the mountain. I stumbled from the succession of small quakes that shook the floor from the shattering of the spire. I didn’t realize I had stopped to watch as the small mountain within the mountain fell to pieces until my companions joined me in watching the demolition. Lakes worth of the strange orange liquid which had been suspended in the spire poured forth, washing past our feet to flood the cavern. With those falling rocks, I noticed that an uncountable number of undead Antium tumbled through the air as well, their screeches and chittering only barely audible over the crashing of stone.

  “Well,” Kazuma finally voiced, once the st of the pilr had crumbled to the ground. “It’s a good thing we woke you, Venix. You would have been in the center of that otherwise.”

  Venix huffed a small, barely amused breath in response, but nodded anyway. “Yes, perhaps. In some ways…it’s remarkably simir to a ritualized felling. But in others, this…malignancy has missed the point entirely. This liquid, for instance?” He shook his head. “The puppet master here has pyed their hand. Threnalyte has no liquid form. This merely illuminates that these are not true undead. Merely monsters aping them.”

  I spared him a quick gnce and a raised eyebrow at that. These weren’t actually undead, then?

  Well.

  Now I was actually interested in killing all of them. We could get some level Aether from this.

  Our short discussion was cut short by a sudden increase in the light, coming from the impact point where the ‘comet’ had touched down. However, this light was…different. Instead of the burning hot gre of a sun, this was purer somehow. Bright and white, some of the ‘undead’ closest to the new crater in the bedrock actually flinched away, and to my surprise, started to smoke.

  Out of that craggy depression, something happened that…only somewhat surprised me.

  A figure began to rise from it.

  And rise.

  And rise.

  Until standing on the rim was a shining white, humanoid figure, burning with a pure white fme. It…it had to be at least fifteen feet tall at the very least. Whoever or whatever this thing was, it was covered from head to toe in thick, heavy pte mail. Not an ounce of skin showed through, and the metal itself flexed and moved like it was more skin than protection. The white fme of its glow came from a broad, flowing cloak composed of the fire that draped down its back in waves. Upon its left arm it held a massive tower shield of the same shining silver metal that comprised its armor, while its left held a gigantic two-headed hammer. Sitting snugly on their head was a pte helmet from which no features were visible. No eyes, no nose, no ears, and not even a mouth for them to breathe through. Upon the crown were five separate spokes that radiated out medially, as if to represent the sun itself. Sunburst reliefs were prominent on the joints of the figure, and runic scripts in a dialect I wasn’t familiar with were visible carved upon the limbs. However, if I had to guess, the syntax almost looked like…prayer of some kind.

  Stout and broad, the proportion of the figure, even as huge as they were, reminded me not so much of Kazuma and I…

  But of a dwarf.

  That, combined with the weaponry of the figure, gave me a possible inkling as to who this might be, but…

  My suspicions became certainty when two firey, burning coals appeared on the helmet where eyes should be, and a booming voice echoed out of the figure.

  A familiar one.

  “Alrigh’, ya sverin’ dogs!” The altered voice of Azarus burst forth from the covered mouth of the veritable titan. Within that voice I could feel all the soul-scorching fury of the sun, bolstered by the presence of a familiar Spirit.

  A Great one, even.

  “COME GET SOME!” Azarus roared into the void, banging his warhammer against his shield. The gong of the impact produced visible shockwaves in his surrounding area, kicking up waves of dust.

  At the provocation, the hordes of false undead screeched an answering cry.

  And charged him.

  As if in answer, the fming threads of Azarus’s white-hot cloak came apart into innumerable fming chains. Each and every one of them was tipped with a burning hot dagger pure white fme. And each and every one of them speared forward on rattling, burning chains to skewer one of the monsters.

  Hundreds died in an instant.

  Despite the almost intimidating majesty of the scene, an annoyed frown crossed my own transformed features. “Leave some for the rest of us, you asshole!” I called out to my oldest friend on Vereden, as I broke out into a charge at the back ranks of the monsters. At the same time, Venix raced ahead of me to crash into them in a whirl of bdes, while Kazuma sprinted alongside me.I ignited the burning bde of my staff and aimed the scintilting length at the torso of the first false undead I encountered. My fake annoyance with Azarus, already smiting these creatures by the dozen with every swing of his massive warhammer, died along with the monster as it was cleft in half.

  The rest of them…

  Well, they just couldn’t keep up with the four of us. What I had thought might turn into a rout with only Venix, Kazuma and I on the field of battle, was instead turning into an absolute sughter.

  For the monsters, that is.

  In the midst of all the fighting, I found myself near the titanic form of Azarus as he strode the battlefield like an ancient god. To my slight amusement, I found that I barely even reached the metallic construct’s waist. Even in my transformed state, I had lost the height advantage to a dwarf.

  “I’m guessing you got an offer you couldn’t refuse!” I called up to him, as I bisected one monster straight down the middle. Considering the form and markings on this transformed state Azarus had suddenly gained, it seemed obvious where it had come from.

  I guess Tarus had found an Envoy he liked more than me.

  That suited me just fine.

  Azarus barked a ugh that rang out from metallic lungs. “Oh, aye!” He boomed, crushing another beast. “Right pushy, he were! All kinds of terms and conditions. But can’t say I’m hatin’ it.”

  Oh, I bet you weren’t.

  I have no way of knowing just how long it took for the four of us to thin the entire horde of monsters. But I don’t think it was long, considering just how efficiently we were mowing them down. Soon, they were all gone but for a single, chittering creature.

  I held it by its false neck, dangling it above ground as I inspected it with a frown on my scaled, transformed features. As my three other companions, one of whom was also still transformed, came to stand with me to look at the thing, I was simultaneously both grateful for and annoyed by the bright light Azarus cast around him. If nothing else, it illuminated the scores of Monster Cores lying all around us, as the bodies of monsters we’d sin poofed away into Miasma.

  It looks like Venix had been right. Time to see what these really were.

  I Observed the beast cwing uselessly at my scales.

  Name: Hollow Wretch

  Level: 132

  Age: 10 years

  Species: Monster

  Abilities: Nightmare Imitation

  “As I thought,” Venix said, frowning at the monster. In a precise move that I only saw a glimmer of, his right-most katana shed out and removed the head of the corpse-like imitation of one of his people. The now-deceased monster wisped away into Miasma, and I accidentally got a whiff of the foul smoke up my sensitive nose. I wrinkled it and shot the Antium man a foul look. He just ignored me. In return, I released my transformation and shrunk back down into my human form. “I have not personally encountered these creatures before, but I have heard tale of them. Wretch’s such as these lurk in the darkened corners of the world and typically stalk the unwary, physically transforming themselves to match the fears of their prey.” He paused for a moment, his frown growing. “However…I’ve never heard of them massing in such numbers.”

  “It…must be the curse,” I said aloud, furrowing my brow and momentarily forgetting that two of my companions had yet to be briefed on the situation.

  At least, that’s what I thought.

  To my surprise, Azarus nodded along. “Ya, it is. From what I can tell, the Hexmistress’s curse adapts itself to each person differently. Fer ol’ Venix here,” He nodded down towards said Antium. “It spawned a bunch o’ those beasties, and had ‘em transform into undead.”

  Hexmistress, huh. That…didn’t sound like Ixiah to me.

  She was way more about the blood to my understanding.

  I raised an eyebrow at the still titanic Dwarf, curious. “I’m guessing Tarus filled you in on what’s happening?”

  Azarus nodded at me and then released his own apparent transformation. He shrunk back down to his usual size, while the metallic pte of his skin receded to reveal its normally tanned and hairy nature. However…

  Like me, he bore the physical marks of his new transformation.

  Azarus’s hair and beard were normally an almost fire-truck red, but now it had a visibly metallic sheen to it that glinted in the golden light still being cast by the Threnalyte. I think it was still hair, though, just metalized to a degree. The same runic markings that had been prominent on his transformed self had transted over to his base state as well, looking to be almost scarified onto his skin. Finally, his golden eyes seemed…purer somehow, cleansed of the faint flecks of brown that used to reside in their depths. They didn’t glow in the dim light like my own did, but the light reflected off of them to reveal a metallic sheen.

  I was a bit jealous, honestly. He still looked like a dwarf, unlike my almost Elven state. Just…a bit shiny, now.

  I didn’t let that show on my face, as I reached out and lightly punched the dwarf in the shoulder. “The Envoy of Tarus, huh?”

  Azarus smirked at me and nodded. “Yup. And he’s got some stuff for me ta do. All part of the deal.”

  An unexpected voice cut through our reunion, causing all four of us to jump in pce. “Yes, yes, this is all very interesting. But you have better things to be doing than standing around and gabbing.”

  All of us pivoted in pce to look behind us, weapons suddenly drawn once again. I don’t think any of us had noticed anyone sneaking around.

  Certainly not the open doorway that had appeared from nowhere to reveal the inside of a familiar, illusioned infirmary. Standing in the fluorescent light was the form of the Lich I knew as Travers, simirly illusioned to appear like a normal human man. He stood there in the light with his hands on his false hips. “Well?” He prompted in annoyance. “What are you waiting for? Get in. I need to take you lot to the next location.”

  I sighed and then assured the still wary forms of Azarus and Venix that this was, nominally, an ally.

  With that, we all walked into the clinic

  The door shut behind us.