Guiding someone else’s spell without a Skill of his own, even with an Incarnate instead of an Aspect, was like trying to type with mittens on. Sure, you could make it work, but it was slow and clunky. Serenity could remember what it was like to have the support of a Skill. Sure, it conflicted with using the Aspect for an Aspect Form, but it wasn’t like he had an Aspect to use here anyway.

Serenity was absolutely going to claim that was why the next Death Magebolt missed, rather than the fact that he hadn’t expected the Viper to move so quickly. The Viper’s leap wasn’t an actual teleport, but it was much, much faster than Serenity had expected him to leap to the side. It was actually faster than the Magebolt moved.

It had to be a Skill. The Viper hadn’t moved even close to that quickly when he tried to get by Serenity earlier; on top of that, this was specifically a jump. It wasn’t just a straight speed increase. Serenity supposed it could be from an item, but a Skill seemed far more likely. If it was a skill specifically tied to jumping, it explained why the Viper hadn’t used it earlier.

The Viper’s next leap was towards the room’s entrance. Serenity released control of the Death Magebolt Zanzital had just cast; it was still aimed at the center of the room and there was no way he’d be able to get it to hit the Viper. Instead, Serenity stepped into the Viper’s path. The Viper had already shown that he could get around Serenity, but Serenity knew he could stab the Viper on the way by; that was better than nothing.

Only this time, the Viper didn’t try to cleverly and quickly squeeze around Serenity; he jumped a third time and barreled right into Serenity.

Both of them were surprised when the Viper was bounced back into the room. Serenity knew he was more massive than the other man, especially with the weight his armor-self added, but he’d expected the Skill usage to add enough momentum to do more than force him to take a single step back to keep his balance. It seemed like the Viper had also expected to have more of an effect when he tried to move through Serenity.

There was one other surprise from the interaction: whatever Skill the Viper was using to remain invisible was interrupted. He clearly didn’t have enough practice with it, either, because it didn’t immediately go back up. The Viper struggled to catch his breath and get to his feet at the same time. Did he not realize he was visible?

Serenity still had his Crystal Hilt in hand and this was far too good an opportunity to miss. He didn’t think he’d be able to kill the man in a single blow, his shield was too good, but he could do something just as useful. He could stop the Viper from escaping.

Serenity slashed at the Viper’s legs. As expected, the manablade was badly dimmed by its passage through the Viper’s shield. The important thing was that it did penetrate the shield; that meant he could still do what he needed to. The Viper tried to roll out of the way, but this time Serenity was faster; he caught the side of the Viper’s left knee with the tip of his blade.

That was enough. The Viper was going to have a hard time walking with that much damage.

The Viper tried to climb to his feet anyway. When that didn’t work, he collapsed to the ground and threw yet another dagger; Serenity was barely able to get out of the way. Even without being hit, Serenity could tell that this was a far higher quality dagger than the ones the imitation Viper used.

“Don’t let that hit you, it’s poisoned!” Zanzital warned Serenity. His warning was followed by a Death Magebolt aimed directly at the Viper’s face.

Serenity boosted the attack as much as he could with his Incarnate, but as a Tier Eight trying to improve a Tier Ten Skill, it probably didn’t help much. “I know,” he grumbled. “He stabbed me earlier. Doesn’t seem to be much of a poison. Blaze can burn it out when we get out of here.” Serenity still hadn’t noticed an effect from it, which meant that it must be slow to act, if nothing else. Definitely not the sort of thing you wanted to use in a fight; many fights didn’t last long enough for a slow poison to matter.

That Magebolt wasn’t enough, but three more, along with five arrows from Daryl, were enough to knock the Viper out. There was a decent chance he’d survive as long as he didn’t bleed out too quickly, but he wasn’t going to be conscious any time soon.

Serenity let himself relax for a moment, then pulled the three bags with animal hearts in him that were intended for the Silver Blades off his belt. One went to Zanzital and one went to Daryl. Serenity looked down the corridor outside the room; he’d have sworn he saw a glimpse of Gabriel earlier. “Where’s Gabriel?”

Both Zanzital and Daryl had started to relax as well, but they both tensed up and looked around. Daryl sounded worried when he spoke. “He was right behind me. I know he didn’t get hit, he stayed out of the way…”

Serenity hurried down the hallway. Daryl wasn’t far behind him, while Zanzital brought up the rear.

A greenish-blue glow from around a curve in the hallway was the second clue that something was very, very wrong. To manasight, it looked like it was a cloud of mana but the fact that it was visible meant something was going on. Serenity couldn’t identify the Affinity immediately, which almost certainly meant that it was the Life Affinity and therefore probably the Hollow One ritual he was afraid had already caught Legion.

A few steps later, it was clear that the glow emanated from Gabriel, but this wasn’t the proud man Serenity had come to know. Instead, it was a Gabriel that knelt on the floor and rocked slowly as he seemed to fight; one hand clutched his chest, while his skin seemed to ripple and pulse.

Serenity transitioned from his brisk walk into a run; he needed to get that bag to Gabriel now. It was only a few steps, but they went by very quickly.

The moment the bag with the heart touched Gabriel, before he even reached out to hold it, the greenish-blue mana separated from Gabriel and seemed to dive into the bag. Serenity waited for two long breaths before Gabriel recovered enough to take the bag. It was lighter now, but the light show seemed to have stopped.

The mana washed over Serenity but didn’t stop. Strangely, it didn’t even pay any attention to the bag he had at his own waist. It washed further down the hallway, as if Gabriel had somehow halted it but now it was free. That was entirely possible, depending on the ritual’s design; it might well be designed to handle one person at a time so that it could be sure to convert even people who were near the top of its Tier range. Gabriel might well qualify for that; the Viper was Tier Ten while Gabriel was Tier Nine.

Serenity glanced back and saw the greenish-blue glow wash over Daryl; it paused to duck into Daryl’s bag, but didn’t spend long in it. It didn’t pause for Zanzital at all, the same way it hadn’t paused for Serenity. The most likely reason for that was the fact that their Vital Affinites weren’t Life; the ritual probably didn’t register them as valid targets. Serenity had hoped that would be the case, but there were far too many ways to do a ritual spell to count on it.

Serenity turned back to Gabriel. “Are you all right there?”

The other man clearly wasn’t fine, but he also definitely wasn’t a Hollow One; while there was some lingering greenish-blue mana hovering around him, it wasn’t nearly pervasive enough. Once they got out of here, Serenity was going to recommend that he check himself or better yet allow Blaze to check him over. There might be lingering consequences and it was better to know what they were sooner rather than later. Cancer would be one of the easiest; Serenity knew that he could take care of that with Blaze’s help or even with Gabriel’s assistance.

Gabriel groaned then tried to stand. Serenity offered a hand and Gabriel accepted the help. When he finally stood, he placed a hand against the nearest wall and leaned on it. “That was terrifying.”

Serenity nodded. He’d been through a few things like that. They didn’t have time for Gabriel to work through it; they needed to get Legion and get out of the base. If he could destroy the ritual, he would, but even if he couldn’t he needed to know just how far it would spread before they ran. “Do you need a portal out or can you continue?”

“I can make it.” Gabriel coughed but forced himself to stand upright. “I’m fine. A little slow maybe but I still have most of my mana.”

If Gabriel was willing to try, Serenity was willing to let him. He’d already made it through the edge of the Hollow One ritual, so he ought to be safe for now from the ritual itself and he might well be quite useful if they ran into any actual Hollow Ones.

Serenity’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. The Hollow One ritual was quickly spreading down the hallway and they hadn’t left a spare heart for the Viper. He spun and snapped a command at Zanzital. “Make sure the Viper is dead, now! We can’t let him be taken over!” Zanzital was much closer to the previously warded room than Serenity, but Serenity started running while he was still shouting.

Zanzital took a moment to process Serenity’s order before he spun and ran towards the room they’d left. Serenity wasn’t far behind him.

Neither of them was close enough to get there in time.

When Serenity arrived, Zanzital’s first Death Bolt was on its way to the now standing corpse of the Viper. The damage Serenity had done to his knee was either gone or irrelevant. The first of many changes had already started on the Viper’s body; his skin looked roughened and darker. That could mean several things, but the most likely was that he was starting to grow a protective layer on top of his skin. Chitin and scales were possible, but so was bark or even metal.

This didn’t look like metal.

The good news was that fighting a Hollow One, even one who was once high Tier, wasn’t like fighting a high Tier human. It was more like fighting a high Tier monster, and one of the dumb ones at that. Hollow Ones couldn’t use the Skills of the person they replaced.

Unfortunately, Hollow Ones had their own abilities and were extremely difficult to kill even if you knew how. They were almost the opposite of someone with an extremely high Death or Undeath Affinity; they couldn’t come back to life after you killed them. Instead, they could heal through almost anything. Sometimes that was not as different as it sounded; they could even spread sometimes. It all depended on how the original set of Hollow Ones were created. There was more than one reason that Hollow One infestations were hated and compared to undead infestations.

Lillene

It’s a good thing Serenity ran to Gabriel as soon as he did, but taking the time to actually kill the Viper first would have been wise - even though it would cost information Serenity wants.