My class [Death Knight] is just barely legal…

I spent the last two days testing the limits of [Dark pursuer], pushing the skill to its extreme. BY letting it copy each of my skills at least once, I wanted to see which skills it synergised with and which ones were less effective. Without going into an excessive amount of detail, I came to the conclusion that my offensive skills got the largest increase in power when they were copied.

Sword arcs were larger and flew for longer, more explosive orbs were summoned than I thought possible when the elemental copied [Overloaded orbs] and even [Breaking swipe] saw a large improvement. Above all others, [Sword laser] was the most dangerous skill I could let the pursuer copy.

Technically the evolved version of [Sword arc], letting this skill be copied meant that the elemental would be capable of using both. Unfortunately, it wasn’t using them in a very tactical way. I had asked Ash to act as a target for a bit, hoping that the summon would learn as the battle continued, but was left disappointed.

The pursuer acted like an enraged beast, with no regard for timing or rhythm. Instead, it brutishly attempted to smash its opponents. Only when that didn’t work would it escalate to its copied skills. Thankfully, there were upsides to the whole ordeal, too. That aforementioned empowerment, for example, increased the size and power of every skill, even the defensive ones.

As an experiment, I had let the pursuer copy [Dark embodiment] one time. The result had been astounding, since the empowered version of my most powerful skill made the elemental almost invincible.

Ash had unleashed all of his skills and tricks on the beast, to no avail. Every attack that took of a limb was ignored, said limb being replaced by an identical replacement within a second. Apparently, the replacement limbs that [Dark embodiment] provided were the exact same thing as the dark pursuer’s natural body, making the distinction pointless. On top of that, the pursuer’s strength and speed rose drastically with this skill copied, making it a legitimate threat, even to a tier 5, borderline tier 6 like Ash.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure whether I would ever use this skill synergy in battle. [Dark embodiment] had kept me alive throughout all of my struggles, always giving me a chance to fight another day. Without it, I felt… naked. The threat of death became far more ‘distinct’ with the skill deactivated. Feeling pain after all this time reminded me of the danger that most other people faced on a daily basis. I wasn’t sure if taking this risk was worth it, when there were other skills for the pursuer to copy. For now, I decided to think of it as a last resort. A tool for ambush, perhaps.

With that finished, my time in the between lands was swiftly coming to an end. It had been nice to see how the balance of this place had shifted during my time away, but unfortunately, there was a pressing matter that needed all of my attention. After a swift goodbye to the generals and grumpy dismissal from the dry man, the time to depart had arrived.

I pulled out the long-distance transmitter that Dalius’ people had loaned me and pushed some mana into it, activating the contraption. Mere moments later, a mirror-like portal had appeared, eagerly awaiting my arrival. I gave my friends a final wave, before stepping back into Dalius’ camp. As I did so, I also metaphorically re-emerged in the escalating conflict that was occurring in Alterian.

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It took a few more days for Emeri to join me, her own dungeon delve taking a bit longer than expected. Seeing her again, however, I noticed that her presence had become a lot more… heavy, so to speak. My mana sense allowed me to feel far more mana gathered around her than before. For a moment, I wondered whether she, too, had advanced to the next tier.

“How did it go?” I asked after a short greeting. She gave me a small smile, standing a little straighter and giving away how proud she actually felt about her progress.

“Not bad, I’d say. I’m level 83 now. You?” she asked, a competitive glint in her eyes.

I decided that this was the perfect moment to tease her. “Level 83? That’s seriously impressive! But that can’t be all there is, right? Your mana has grown so dense all of a sudden? Your level growth couldn’t have been the sole cause for that, right?”

“So you’ve noticed, have you? I suppose the three skills that I evolved are responsible for this change. That being said, I can’t help but notice that you’ve dodged my earlier question. Any reason for that?” she asked with a wry grin, homing in on a perceived weakness. Her eagerness to surpass me almost made me think that I had been the one to win our last spar in the tournament.

“I simply didn’t want to hurt your feelings, Emeri. You see, during our time away I decided to… advance to the next tier.” I half whispered, delighting in the way her face changed from one of smugness to one of shock, eventually settling on an accusatory glare.

“How the hell did you-” she shouted. I had to stop her by covering her mouth with a hand. If she had said that too loudly, all of Dalius’ men would have become aware of my progress, which I wanted to avoid for now. Neither Emeri nor I trusted them, after all.

“Sorry for that,” I said as I released my hand. “I just wanted to keep that fact hidden for now. Best to keep some cards close to our chest, you know.”

She nodded stubbornly, but was rightfully angry at my behaviour. “Fine! Now tell me how you did it!”

“The way I always do things. I get lucky.” I replied, laughing at her reaction.

I quickly shut up as her glare turned murderous, making me fear for my life. I acquiesced and told her about my adventure, before she made good on her implied threat.

I described the dungeon I had delved and how I had dealt with the creatures within. Emeri grudgingly admitted that she would have a tough time replicating my strategy, as she didn’t have a solid healing skill to survive such a battle of attrition. While her single target skills were more powerful than mine, she would be able to outlast the creature.

I decided to trust her with the information that the dungeon itself had provided me, too, even promising to take her along when I inevitably returned to delve it again. The news of a sentient, multi-floor dungeon had come as a surprise, despite Emeri’s education, hitting home just how rare these things were.

Emeri’s own dungeon hadn’t been a doozy, either. The undead-centred dungeon she had delved had prided itself on having entire armies of undead animals to direct at any unlucky explorers. As Emeri described it, the main threat of the dungeon was that all nearby monsters would be alerted when you destroyed one of their kin. The more you killed, the further this message would travel. What could have been a simple dungeon quickly turned… dangerous. If it weren’t for Emeri’s inherent advantage of having a holy affinity, she would have been overwhelmed by half the dungeon swarming her. Her talent and powerful skills wouldn’t have been enough, in that case.

While Emeri’s affinity made it easy to break through the waves of monsters as they came, her lack of AOE skills also meant that it took ages to actually wipe them out.

Once she finally did, the dungeon’s boss, a giant undead eagle, had used a variant of [Corpse explosion] to turn half the battlefield to dust. It would then fly into the fake clouds, reappearing elsewhere to repeat the same course over and over again.

All of this combined meant that Emeri had had a rough time actually cleaning the dungeon up and getting the most out of the monsters there, leading her to be a few days late.

I would have felt even worse for her if my own experience hadn’t been so wrought with difficulties and hurdles. In the end, we had both overcome our respective challenges, though. With our newfound power, we stood a larger chance of succeeding in conquering the final two statues. Worse came to worse, we would be able to escape with our lives intact.

Emeri and I caught up some more, as I described my week in the between lands. Initially, she was hesitant about the friends I had made there. In her mind, those with a dark affinity were usually more than a bit insane at best, and horrific murderers at worst. While that rang true for the most part, I was reasonably confident that the dry man and his generals wouldn’t succumb to their mental weaknesses. At least not in the near future. To be fair, admitting otherwise would be… quite difficult for me, as I would have to start second-guessing myself, as well.

Thankfully, Emeri was happy to give them the benefit of the doubt, saying that her adoptive father had always taught her that “blind justice was no justice at all”. As Emeri described it, that meant that she would withhold judgement until she met them herself. A part of me was relieved to hear it, though I hid the loss of tension well.

An hour or so later, Emeri and I were called to the command tent, where a map of Alterian had been spread out. Five spots on the map were highlighted, of which three had already been crossed out. The final two, the locations of the two final statues, shone with a dull light.

“You’ve returned.” Dalius greeted, not looking up from the map.

“How is the situation, Dalius? We’re ready to strike whenever.” Emeri assured him.

“Not good, I’m afraid. Their defences have only slightly waned over the duration of your time away. We expect heavy resistance at both locations. To make matters worse, one of the cardinals has taken interest in this case and is personally supervising their defences. If we strike either of the two locations, there’s a chance that even the pope might become involved. At that point, we’ll be left without options.”

Emeri sputtered, thinking of anything to say to change this grim outlook.

“So what are you trying to say? That we’re done? That it’s over? That our efforts were for nought?!”

“I’m saying-” Dalius interrupted her, “That I can only see one path forward.”

“And what is that path?” I asked, before Emeri could protest.

Dalius breathed in deeply, sighing.

“We have to hit both locations at once.”