The ice-avatar of Aqua regarded the three adventurers. Echo cleared his throat, “Ahem…Hi. I’m Echo Asheron, Monster of the Guild.” He introduced Fumi and Rose with their titles.

“Umbra said you two monsters were her minions. And that you would deal with a dragon situation.”

Fumi seemed quite withdrawn, but Rose spoke up, “We did deal with the dragon.”

“And we saw the giant explosion of smoke, so we came over,” Echo added.

“And how, prey tell, did you get as strong as you are?”

Echo chuckled, “Just watch. Come on, Fumi.” He flew over to the monster’s corpse, Fumi right behind him, as Rose floated closer to the ice alongside Aqua’s avatar. He held up his hand over the monster and reached back to grab Fumi’s hand, draining more of the Quintessence from her ring. “Transmute Substance.”

The enormous turtle corpse crunched into a compressed fleshy and rocky mass as the heart was extracted and compressed down alongside it. Echo cut it in half deftly, handing one half to Fumi.

Consume…

They both chomped down on it, and as it hit his stomach, Echo screamed and fell. His body was on fire, his veins igniting and his whole-body heating to the point that he began to sink into the ice below. Fumi held him up and hugged him tightly as he rode out the painful transformation.

---

Aqua looked on, disgusted, as she saw Echo and Fumi consume the creature’s heart and saw him writhing in pain a moment later. The fire arcing from his body and the lava seeping from his orifices forced her to look away from the sight. She couldn’t bear seeing creatures in pain.

The mage next to her leveled her staff. “Improve upon my form, Siphon Strength.” Her icy-blue Quintessence flowed out and turned the clump of flesh and rock-like chitin into dust.

A spirit Affinity spell?

The Affinity was rare to possess. The Arbiter of Souls was the only holder of the Domain of souls, and the Affinity of spirit was the best any non-god could hope to obtain.

This mage is dangerous. Possibly more so than those two.

“Interesting, isn’t it,” White Rose commented.

“What is?” Aqua asked.

“That you’ve aligned with Umbra.” The mage turned to Aqua and crossed her arms, “I bet that you and she have a Pact. I can’t help but wonder why.”

Aqua raised an eyebrow, “That is none of your business.”

She looked back as the male monster stopped screaming and quieted, slowly sitting up and glancing around. Aqua approached him in her icy avatar form. “I must thank you lot for dealing with the eruption. My elementals stopped the lava flow from hitting the city below. But I was not expecting…this,” she gestured to the surrounding volcano.

Echo chuckled and stood up with Fumi’s help. The two looked refreshed. He wrapped an arm around the Ogo’s shoulder and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “We’re hunting down any monsters that Tiberius released.”

Aqua nodded, “Umbra informed me of the situation regarding Malvir’s wayward disciple.” She put her hand to her chin, regarding the trio. “I see darkness within you three.”

Echo frowned, “Well, yeah. We’ve eaten angels and monsters.”

What madness brought him here?

“How did you get here?” She asked Echo.

The young man scratched his head, “I died. Kalinor’s drone pulled me out of line at Last Light Temple, and I got a choice to go to Heaven or go to a fantasy world full of magic.”

Aqua nodded, her suspicions confirmed. As she prepared to leave, she recognized something that Echo said was off. “You said ‘released’ regarding Malvir. Past-tense.”

“Yeah. We killed him.”

Aqua raised an eyebrow, “He’s not dead. Malvir told me as much at a meeting between him, myself, Umbra, and Vythin.” She smirked, “You should know who the gods that are backing you are.”

She saw rage cross the faces of Echo and Fumi, their Quintessence boiling out of them as red sparks crackled the air. White Rose, however, was completely calm. “He’s alive?” Echo growled.

“Yes. I wish you luck in hunting him down.” Aqua dismissed her avatar, vanishing from Heimfold in surrogate form.

 

Aqua rose out of the pool near her throne in The Deluge. “So, you’re involved in all of this, are you, Kalinor?”

What are you up to?

Vythin’s power play made more sense. If Kalinor was pulling the strings, he might be trying to assert more personal control through his husband. Since The Arbiter could not leave Last Light Temple for very long – a day at the most – he would never be able to safeguard the world he came from.

But his husband could. And The Arbiter must have seen the resilience in Echo’s soul. Knew he could be used in a plot of some type. She nodded her head, sure of her conclusion being correct.

If The Arbiter is involved to that degree, then there’s no point in fighting it.

She smirked, very pleased that she had chosen the right side in the impending conflict. But disquiet gnawed at her.

Why did no one tell them about Tiberius’ resurrection?

---

Echo and Fumi seethed.

He’s alive?!

Echo felt rage bubbling up in his guts and his anger rose. The person who turned him into a fucked-up people eater was still out there. Still making monsters. Still hurting people.

Rose looked at the two and walked over, putting her hands on their shoulders. “Calm down. You can’t do anything to him right now.”

Her cool touch and common-sense words brought Echo out of his anger. He glanced at her, nodding slightly, and looking at Fumi who had also chilled out. But she was not her usual self.

She had withdrawn into herself once more, becoming just like how he found her in the tunnels. “…I’m sorry.” She whispered.

Echo shook his head, “Why?”

“…I…the magic items…your work…”

Echo reached into the pocket dimension and pulled out extra compacted silk and Adamantine. He was running low on the latter, but a few quick Transmutation spells and some effort between the two of them resulted in Fumi having her gear back. She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “…Thank you for not being mad.”

BREED.

Evolution Instinct hit the two like a tidal wave, and they began ripping the freshly made clothes off as they engaged in their amorous, passionate, violent intercourse.

 

Rose shrugged and used a short ice Affinity spell to raise a small pillar of the substance, pulling her notebook out of her hip pouch, scrawling notes about the interaction with Aqua.

 

After thirty minutes of misting up and melting the ice, the two monsters sated their instinct and redressed. “Let’s see what changed!” Echo said excitedly as he pulled the identification out.

 

 

“We are getting quite strong,” Rose commented. “Tiberius surviving is unexpected. I don’t know if I could face him even now.”

Echo felt the anger return. The man that hurt him. Turned him into a monster. Hurt Fumi. He was still alive out there. “How did he survive?”

“He is a universalist, as they are sometimes called,” Rose said. “Normally, creatures have one to five Affinities. But from our conversations, and my own experience, he has used far more than that.” She put her staff on the ground and leaned on it. “Normally a universalist is extremely weak because their Magic Potency is spread so thin across all of them. Malvir must have done something to his body – some type of Blessing, maybe – so that he doesn’t have to follow the normal rules. I’m guessing before he betrayed the New god.”

Fumi frowned, back to her usual self. “But how’d he survive? He was cut in half! He blew up!”

“A mage who has time to prepare can survive anything. He has Malvir’s Mimic Cube. It wouldn’t be a leap of logic to think that he made himself a body with that, an empty mind with his own magic, and then set up a contingent spirit Affinity spell to draw his soul to the new body.” She cracked a small grin, “It’s what I would do given the situation.”

Echo thought back to the archangel fight not less than a day prior. “But that means you can stop it, right? If we kill him again, and you have that soul capture thing ready.”

Rose nodded, “I can. But the timing must be perfect. You two will have to do all the heavy lifting fighting him.” She rummaged through her hip pouch and pulled out two vials. “I can only trap two more souls before I’d need to make more of these. And that process takes years.”

Fumi nodded and floated up, “We should check the Guild Hall. See if there’s any new monster quests.”

“Wait a second,” Echo said. “If he’s alive, then he could be watching us with those divination sensors again.” He looked around, scanning, and to his relief, did not see the muddy brown orbs with his Detect Magic. “Or not.”

Rose shook her head, “It does not appear to be the case. Come, let us depart.”

Echo nodded and flew up next to his soul mate. Rose was right behind him as the trio flew to the North, towards Alliaria, and a Guild Hall entrance.

---

Tiberius finished excavating the new tunnel with transmutation spells. He wiped the sweat from his brow as his divination screen floated next to him. He was pleased to see that Forge’s Fall was a giant ice-capped mountain, and even more pleased to see that his monsters were heading North. His new body had an amazing Ability to hide any spell from observers – a potent, powerful Ability that he hand crafted using the Mimic Cube, through many trials and errors.

“Hmm, going that way?” He didn’t have any monsters up there.

I need to find a way to direct them without showing my hand.

He raised his hand and muttered a spell – thanks to his new body’s Perfect Casting Ability, he had no more need for a spell tool or incantation. “Distant Speech.” He focused on Saint’s Hold, the physical part of the Guild Hall that intersected with Isaac’s extradimensional addon.

“Good day, you’ve reached April with the Adventurer’s Guild. How may I help you?”

Tiberius smiled, “Ah, I was hoping to leave a quest for The Undying.”

“Of course! I’m happy to help.”

Tiberius relayed the information to her. Reporting a monster sighting in the Forest of the Fallen, on the Northwestern most landmass of the Essence Isles. He ensured to describe the face and eyes very carefully, so there would be no mistaking it.

“Reward?”

“Put down ten thousand dreks. I’ll have my associate pay upon completion.”

“Thank you! I’ll pass along the quest as soon as they arrive.” She continued to ramble on about other terms and conditions regarding the time available for a quest to be fulfilled, and other inane nonsense that Tiberius just idly chatted his way through. He ended the spell as she bid him farewell.

He cackled at how simple it was to manipulate people from behind the scenes. The world was full of idiots. He focused his will on the monsters stored in that forested region, the sacred resting place for natives of the Essence Isles. The creatures in stasis were serene, still locked under his spell.

He released it. And more monsters were unleashed.