The world moved slow, and so did the fiendish lichter. Easily, I propelled myself away from the trajectory. I was certain that its high-standing emissions were not enough to support this body.

  In short – it was big, but weak. Just before the foot crushed into the stone floor, I slipped out. Still dashing away, I reached into my pocket and gulped a pill. The burns went numb.

  From the foot full of bony spikes stream of tar flew through the air directly towards me. Its weakness was already obvious. That’s why the dragons put such a powerful monster here.

  Lichter’s Blood

  Description: Highly flammable fluid, which the fiendish lichter has full control over. Naturally suppresses spiritual perception. Metaphysically falls under the definition of blood. If enough is gathered in one place, a new lichter will be born.

  I tried to conjure a recursive flamethrower, when suddenly my side ripped open. I felt no pain. I slammed the invisible enemy with my fist and heard a crack in response. A twisted hand, covered in blood, appeared in my vision.

  My heart beat so fast, and dizziness crept in. The numbness wasn’t an effect of the pill; there were invisible monsters everywhere. I leaped towards the parched, and when I got closer, its wicked skull became apparent. It couldn’t even react as I cracked its head with a precise punch.

  It turned to light, and pain burst over me. The lichter leaned down and its hundred tentacle-hands, as thick as ancient trees, struck at me. I smirked.

  With a quick dash, I avoided the giant spike, all while weaving a flamethrower. The ground shook, and the hand pierced the ground with a boom. Tar drops flew from the hand towards me. Already, more of those hands were aiming at me.

  I had to win now or else the invisible parched would get me. Fire burned in my soul, and I channeled it outwards.

  A splash of crimson flames erupted from my hand, hitting its hand stuck in the ground and the tar on it.

  It was a miniature explosion. A wave of heat that singed my skin and shook my bones. The fire instantly burned through the tar and went higher, like a trail of matchsticks being lit up.

  I concentrated and directed all my starpower to my legs. Power, jump, distance, speed. The muscles of my legs unwound. I leaped.

  Accelerating fast, I channeled the force form at its hand, pushing against it to grant me additional speed. I was 15 meters in the air when the momentum ran out. I pulled the arm to me, but the force transferred, pulling me instead.

  “Thank you, Newton,” I said with an unhealthy amount of excitement and dug my fingers into the lichter’s skin. It was rough, like bark, but with my current strength, I could pierce through bark with barely any issue.

  The lichter did exactly what I wanted it to – it lifted the hand.

  “Woohoo!” I couldn’t help myself; if not for the traumatic injuries, this was the most fun I’ve had in a while. Just some warranted violence with no moral repercussions. No one to cripple, only the monster standing in my way.

  It lifted me high, high enough that my light couldn’t illuminate the ground. Before me were its eyes, one of which had a deep burn. I could see the pores on its face, smell the disgusting rot coming from its mere existence. Geists were abominations.

  From the pores, more tar flooded right above its eye, the liquid twirled into a spiral, absorbing the little light I could produce. Lichter looked at me with such intensity, but gazes couldn’t kill, or else I would already be dead.

  I gathered all my strength and poured starpower for another leap. Pushing off the arm, I jumped at the eye. The spiral of tar, twirled and twisted, but I refused to focus on it.

  Pulling myself with the force form, I rained fire. Before it could even land, a spark of red shone from Lichter’s eye. My chest went numb. I couldn’t breathe. My heart stopped beating. Scouter…

  Death Gaze Technique

  Type: Symbolics, Catalytics, Phasics

  Affinity: Onyx

  SE used: 155

  Description: Paralyses the muscles within the chest, stopping the heart and the lungs, causing instant medical death. Works only on targets with significantly lower SE.

  Instinct from being poisoned by Siege kicked in. Starpower burst through my lungs, revitalizing them. I couldn’t breathe still. With time going so slow, I had a few personal seconds to come to terms with the panic and calm down.

  The fire struck the tar, setting the surface ablaze. It burned so fast that the landing zone was cleared of it before I landed. I stuck my hands in the eye. I needed solid ground, a healing pill could save me…

  There was some time before I lost all power. I leapt higher, climbing over the eye and towards the top of the head. The scorched skin was unsteady, the lichter wriggled and shook. My feet shook constantly, so I burrowed them a few centimeters deep. I needed to breathe, I needed to live.

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  What could revitalize my muscles? Electric shock. A page from fundamental forms had exactly what I needed, unfortunately, it was diamond affinity, and it would be hard.

  Everything to live.

  Strengthening prevented my fingers from shaking, at knight I didn’t need to breathe to keep it going. One twirl, two curved fingers, slight angle of the wrist, intentions – as pure as lightning.

  My vision was becoming dark.

  Wild electricity burst out of my palm, and I scratched at my chest. Without any pain, my lungs and heart spasmed. Without any pain…

  Suffocation was taking me.

  I grabbed two pills and ate them. Incomprehensible noises came from my mouth as I shouted internally.

  I was dying again.

  More strengthening, I needed more. Another shock. My whole body tensed up. And then blank. Darkness ate my perception. I struggled with my starpower. I could hear the tolling of the bells.

  They tolled for me.

  I forced everything in myself to breathe, to move, to survive. If I could see, my starpower would have surely pierced the skies. A quiet gust of starpower surged from my stomach.

  The comforting emerald glow I could see with my soul. The wave passed through my heart, through my lungs, and reached my brain.

  My vision cleared, my lungs frantically moved again, and the beating of my heart was the best rhythm I could ask for.

  A massive hand was about to swipe me off, as if I were an annoying bug.

  “DIE!”

  With crimson fire burning out of my fist, I dashed forward, roaring like a wild beast. Never before has my starpower been focused like that, never before has the force form come so easily in my legs, never before did my muscles contract as strongly as that.

  A shockwave resounded, louder than an explosion. The tree-sized hand covering the horizon. It shattered. Tar burst from within, only to be covered by crimson fire and burned to nothing.

  Pain returned, in the corner of my eyes, I saw two parched getting thrown off the head. I cackled like a maniac, even breathing became a second thought. Starpower surged out of me in an eternal rain.

  It was time to kill.

  More hands were heading my way, too slow. I bashed my fists against the head, and each slam dug deeper into the lichter. Gunshot after gunshot resounded through the infinite nothingness.

  Tar leaked from the hole, only to be burned by fire. I didn’t stop. My mind was blank with rage.

  Ten, twenty, thirty punches. I dug deep enough in its head that the way out became a tiny hole above. I burrowed inside like a parasite, and the lichter was powerless to stop me.

  I stuck my fists into a wall and activated the flamethrower construct. My fists burned, but it didn’t matter because the lichter melted.

  For a second, everything went silent. I could hear the frantic beating of my heart, the mad laughter, the burning excitement. It brought back bad memories.

  The light covered everything. I covered myself from top to bottom in a self-reinforcing barrier and braced. The energy condensed, it turned the air into a lightshow, blazing my retinas in primal beauty.

  I won.

  And I fell. It took around four seconds to fall. I tried slowing the fall with the force form, but there was nowhere to grab onto. I reinforced the barrier, anything to not die a pathetic death. When my feet found the ground, the barrier cracked immediately - it absorbed most of the force, then my legs cracked.

  I screeched and dropped to the ground. I took another pill immediately.

  The dungeon was shifting. It was like a dreamscape, curving in on itself, twisting into shapes my eyes couldn’t comprehend. The space itself was transforming, all while the tsunami of actualized potential condensed.

  When the spatial kaleidoscope stopped, I found myself in a small spherical room, made from the same stone as everything else in the dungeon. There were cracks in those walls, and within them I could see thousands of pictures of the dungeon, barely lit by the construct in my forehead.

  This place was connected to everything all at once. Physically impossible, but when did magic care about that?

  A massive core lay on the ground. There was no smell of rot anymore, only the pure bliss of victory.

  Your SE has increased by 2. From 52 to 54

  Your mastery of Mind Acceleration Technique has reached Knight

  Your mastery of Catalytic Acceleration Form has reached Knight

  Your mastery of Plasmafication Form has reached Knight

  Your mastery of Starpower Compression Form has reached Knight

  Your mastery of Light Form has reached Adept

  Lightning Form learned at Initiate rank

  I let myself enjoy the sensation of victory. Nothing was better… Well, maybe magic. I scouted the core.

  Actualized Potential (104 SE)

  Rank: Knight

  Affinity: Onyx

  Source: Essence of the first onyx floor

  Description: A Combination of the fiendish lichter’s gratuitous masochistic suffering, eternal thirst for more, oversized ambitions, and some properties of its underlings. It is possible to get several compulsion traits, bizarre regeneration techniques, a lot of elementum, or artifacts. Highly compatible with us, if we absorb this, it’ll give at least 15 SE, more if we use an absorption technique. Around 70% compatibility with God’s Flesh Ritual, somehow, but it’s not even a Baron rank. It can be combined with identical cores to create a more powerful version.

  “Thank you, soul. I wish you were that useful all of the time…” I chuckled at the prospect of calling myself useless. I squeezed the massive actualized potential into the core bag. At this point, I only needed to defeat it two more times, and since I knew its tricks, the next time would be a breeze.

  I glanced around the room searching for the exit. It should be a glowing portal; instead, there was only an ancient trapdoor, leading deeper. To the second floor.

  For just a moment, I was tempted to go there, test myself, and kill some more, and then my rational side kicked in and chastised me for ignoring safety and enjoying the violence.

  I sighed. “Damn portal, refusing to appear. Do I have to mine out of this dungeon somehow?” I asked nobody in particular. My eyes were focused on the cracks that showed everything happening in the dungeon. If before the tar remained still, now it flowed somewhere.

  It gathered to make a new lichter. I would need to wait until a new one was born… Bothersome.

  With a crackle on one of the walls, a portal appeared. “Finally.” I jumped inside.

  There I stood, right in front of the onyx tower, victorious and proud. It was late at night; nobody was here to celebrate with me. Terrible hunger burned through my stomach and worse – embarrassment.

  I should have asked around about the dungeon before jumping in. Constant mortal danger made it easy for me to place my life on the line, especially after I defeated Ivaldie. Damn arrogance.

  With soft steps, I headed towards the cafeteria. Tomorrow I will tell everything to Kory and Steel, whether they want it or not.

  We will be friends, or else…