The earth parted to make way for Frey, he was clutching his wounded shoulder but left behind a trail of blood.
He had been moving towards the source of the tremors, for he wouldn't be able to find the help he needed anywhere else, not in time.
With how much blood he had already lost, there was no way of knowing when he would succumb to his injury and never return from an unconscious state.
His mind kept wandering, the visions of his mother, they were so vivid… but hallucinating when on the verge of death wasn't uncommon either.
And if they were real?
What was she trying to tell him?
Why was she acting so strange?
Frey winced, lifting his arm caused an unbearable pain to shoot through him, but he needed to press on.
For himself, but also for Marv and Lu.
The path ahead unfolded, he had reached a clearing, did he make it out?
Frey stepped through, and immediately covered his eyes, harsh lights flickered and blinked across the cave, temporarily robbing him of his sight.
Soon his eyes adjusted, and he was able to take everything in.
He had made it back to the crystal cave, to the lake, to the heart, but none of them looked the same.
Debris adorned the walls, large holes and craters dotted the floor, the crystals were made into fine dust, that are knocked up with each spell flung through the air.
And at the centre of it all, below the massive opening in the sky stood Plamus, surrounded by a dark purple barrier, within were pitch black tentacles that lashed out.
On the outside swarmed pink-white petals, glowing, blue serpents, grey gusts of wind, and a seldom bolt of yellow lightning.
Ripples covered Plamus' defence, some large, and some small; they weren't enough to put him down, but they were keeping him on his toes.
Yet Plamus, in his reduced state, seemed preoccupied.
His appendages were ravaging the insides, and the insides only, striking virtually nothing…
He was looking crazed, but it hadn't been this rough before.
Were they finally wearing him down?
Kassan was listening in from the sidelines, as humiliated as he felt, there wasn't anything left he could contribute.
His senses still hadn't recovered, and while he wasn't sure why… unease was creeping up on him.
Plamus' power had grown beyond all reason, defying the logic that ruled the world of mages.
Rank four eclipsed practically everything else the world had to offer, but it wasn't the limit.
So, what if…
What if…
Kassan grabbed his hand, he was shivering, his heart got gripped by fear.
'What if he is still getting stronger?'
He shuddered, the impossible was getting more and more plausible, because all that Plamus had shown them so far, was pure and utter chaos.
"Hm?" Kassan's brows furrowed.
A new variable stumbled into the range of his awareness; one he had reluctantly counted out, as the cave-in had likely spelled their doom, but here they were.
All the remaining, living humans within the Sunless Mire had re-entered their execution grounds.
Kassan could feel it in his bones; this was the end.
Now it was time to decide whose end it would be.
Daren was huffing, he could feel himself nearing his physical limits, their tactic was to draw out this battle for as long as possible, hoping to tire out Plamus, and remove his pool of particles.
But this fight has been going on for far too long, they haven't been able to get a proper breather ever since they set foot into the cave, probably several hours ago.
Between their exhausting journey to their destination, their initial skirmish against the locals, and finally everything that Plamus has put them through… they were running dry themselves.
Frey rubbed his eyes, his vision was splitting, he was seeing double.
He tumbled backwards, but landed on his knee, scraping it open.
Plamus looked like a wretched figure, a monster out of fairytales, a nightly terror haunting people in their dreams…
Frey chuckled, '…but in stories… the heroes always win.'
His master, Cykrus, told him about the effects of the dagger-artefact, something that his allies all figured out by now without needing additional input, that it keeps eating away at its user's vitality, until they die.
'How much longer…?' Plamus was severely wounded, he had been fighting non-stop, the dagger was doing its work, but why was this not enough?
Why was he still standing?!
Willpower?
Can willpower alone drive someone above and beyond their capabilities and extend their life?
But what was he fighting for?
The point has been reached, where, even if he won, he would not survive…
Frey felt something splatter on him, he looked up, and the flower-woman, along with the infected girl hovered overhead.
He closed his eyes and allowed the warmth to envelop him.
"Thank… you…" the girl croaked, repeating the words she had heard from Daren.
Frey's eyes snapped open, "What?" did she just… talk?
Then he flinched, storms of dust appeared all around, but he was protected by petals.
Plamus' spells were no longer directed at his opponents; they were being flung into random directions.
Some lucky strikes still hit their targets, but otherwise he was simply ravaging the environment.
"Is this your doing?" Marquis Gomon pulled Winny out of the danger-zone of one of the rank three projectiles.
Plamus hadn't employed any rank four spells in a while, their strategy seemed to be working…
"Who else could it be?" she held onto Gomon, allowing herself to get pushed and pulled however he pleased, while she focused on her casting, "He is seeing the dead… and they are looking to drag him down into their kingdom of death."
"Those he killed are helping us?" Marquis Gomon inquired.
As serious of a situation as this was, Winny couldn't hold in a short laughter, "Hah, yeah, you can think of it that way."
Gomon alternated between controlling his spawns and evading the incoming attacks, "How much do you have left to spend?"
"Enough." she said curtly, "But if I need more, we could always sacrifice someone." she smirked at him.
Marquis Gomon averted his gaze; he is almost certain that she was joking… almost.
Plamus suddenly lifted his only hand into the air, particles gathered, as if to ready another rank four spell.
"GET CLEAR!" Kassan was the first to notice, his shout rattling the combatants into motion.
Power swelled in Plamus' hand, then burst apart… in failure!
The bones in his fingers cracked and splintered into the ground below.
There was no change in his expressions, but his actions stopped.
Plamus' movement ceased.
He froze in motion, his lonely hand hanging over his head, his purple barrier flickered, then vanished.
"…Is it done?" Kassan spoke to himself, "Did we… defeat the beast?" he exhaled a shaky breath.
He couldn't allow his burst of emotions to lower his guard, he was waiting for some sort of confirmation, but the silence was palpable.
The dark tendrils on Plamus' back were slowly waving back and forth, when Plamus' body started to shake!
Tentacles sprouted from out of his destroyed fingertips, his palm, from his arms and legs, out of his eye sockets, nostrils and mouth.
The tendrils on his back gathered around the dagger and clasped it tightly.
With one fluid pull, the dagger came lose.
Gasps escaped the onlookers; they were too stunned to react.
In the few seconds that they had distanced themselves, the unthinkable unfolded.
The tendrils from Plamus' back lifted the dagger into the air and placed it into his broken hand.
Plamus, who had become a statue, returned to action… his arm fell, and the dagger along with it.
Skin was parted, bones were pierced, and Plamus' last organ, his beating heart, was stabbed.
The cave returned to silence.
"He's dead." Winny spoke solemnly.
"He ended… himself." Marquis Gomon whispered.
It wasn't Plamus' willpower that had him continue fighting… it was seeking his demise.
His peace.
…Or did it?
Plamus slumped to the floor, but the dark appendages continued moving on their own!
More and more tendrils broke out from underneath Plamus' skin, they enshrouded him.
They wrapped around his body, holing him up inside of an egg-like shape.
Bubbles formed on the outside, they grew, then popped open to unleash flames that were darker than black.
One of Marquis Gomon's serpents caught fire.
He braced himself for a backlash, that never came.
The blue spell was consumed entirely, Gomon's connection severed, and when he thought that was it, he picked up a sizzling sound almost next to his ear.
His head jolted to the side; a black flame was burning on his shoulder!
He slammed his hand against it repeatedly, looking to quell the fire, but instead of extinguishing it, his left hand was now also affected.
"Stop your spells! Don't let them touch the black magic!" he roared, warning the others, as he pushed Winny out of his embrace.
Gomon tried to keep a cool head, the fire wasn't hurting him, but it was spreading, slowly, who knew what would happen to him when he was fully enveloped?
"Can we help?" Daren rushed over.
Winny curled her lip, "I can say for certain that it's not death magic." then she pointed to whatever Plamus had turned into, "Despite the looks of things."
"Kassan!" Marquis Gomon shouted for the only man that might know or at least reveal a clue about his affliction.
The black egg wasn't attacking them, it seemed to be in a passive, defensive state, yet they couldn't rule out the possibility of that changing at any given moment.
"Kassan, what is happening to me?!" Gomon voiced his question, anxious beads of sweat dropped down his forehead.
Kassan rubbed his chin, without access to his sight, he had grown more in tune with the rest of his senses, and especially so with the particles that were omnipresent.
He had a point of view, that no one else could compare to.
Something he could see, now that he was no longer focused on sight.
A strange substance was clinging to Marquis Gomon, its shape continued shifting no matter how long Kassan observed it.
First it was sharp, then soft, round, then full of edges and corners.
Like a peaceful day in the countryside, then suddenly a full-blown war that decimates the world.
"I've never seen anything like this." Kassan frowned.
Gomon cursed, he pointed his index finger at the expedition leader, "This is the moment where you should give me some hope! Not trample on it!"
"I'm sorry, but, even after all my years in service to the king, and on the frontiers of several planes, I've never encountered anything of the sort." he sighed.
Frey cleared his throat, then spoke up behind them, "Not even my master-"
"Aaahhh!" Daren jumped.
He clutched his chest, breathing heavily, "Frey!" he tried to calm himself, "Gods!" he felt lightheaded, "You're alive!"
Frey nodded, "I am. We are." he, Marv, and Lu were safe, they had escaped their entrapment, and potential death through suffocation.
Even the gaping wound he had suffered by Plamus' projectile through the shoulder had started closing, thanks to the locals.
"We?" Daren raised his brow, but his mind eased as he spotted Marv, safely leaning against one of the nearby walls.
"Still hasn't woken up?" he followed up, to which Frey ruefully shook his head.
"You were saying??" Marquis Gomon pressed him for an answer.
Frey nodded, "When master gave me the dagger artefact, he said that not even he knew what sort of element it was created with. But he also said that the drawback of the user losing their lifeforce might be an error in its design."
He turned to Plamus, "Maybe that thing is also some malfunction…"
"Wait! The dagger is yours?!" Gomon's veins bulged out on his bald head.
Frey lifted his hands, "I lost it when Reyna tried to kill me! It's not my fault she ended up doing what she did! None of this would have happened if someone had been on my side throughout any of this!"
"OKAY! Okay!" Kassan intervened, "Let's all calm down a bit. We're not gaining anything from pointing fingers and throwing a fit."
Gomon grumbled, but he agreed, information was scarce, so even this hint was at least noteworthy.
"Now what? The old thing is almost definitely dying, Plamus might be undergoing rebirth, again, and we are not one step closer to making it out of here!" Winny pulled on her hair.
"Old thing?!" Gomon hissed.
Winny waved her hand, dismissing the Marquis, "Look, while we have this chance, can't we just leave?"
Those words made Frey wonder, "On that note, where is Reyna? Did she escape?"
"She lost against Plamus, and… got her life drained by the tendrils." Daren scanned the cave, "But her corpse disappeared, her remains are likely all over the place, judging from Plamus' aimless barrage."
"Stop changing the topic!!" Marquis Gomon buzzed in, but Frey was tuning out from the conversation, he couldn't help him, even if he wanted to.
'Disappeared without a trace?' Frey squinted his eyes, then spotted the flower-woman, holding the infected girl, they made eye contact, and Frey knew.
Frey rummaged through his pockets; there was a thing that could calm his nerves, the last present he was given before being sent off to fight in the competition… the coin-shaped artefact, that, by now, was littered with cracks.
And yet it wasn't brittle enough to break under Frey's touch.
He had used it twice; in both instances he was deciding what his best move was at the time.
He balanced the coin on his thumb and index fingers, 'Heads for yes, and tails for no…' he flicked it, and the artefact spun into the air, 'Is Reyna necessary for our survival?'
The question burned on his lips.
Reyna is a powerful rank three mage, Frey learned that by witnessing her fight against the Treeman he had struck the dagger into.
She took care of that creature without any problems, and unlike the other fire mages that were left in the expedition, she had no problems casting spells in spite of the lack of particles.
Frey caught the coin, and slammed it against the back of his other hand…
"It's moving!" Daren's screams echoed into all corners of the cave.
The egg that housed Plamus was growing, it went from being one meter tall, to two, then three, then four, until it collapsed in on itself.
It cracked into separate shells, that fell to the ground and turned liquid once they touched it.
Nothing hid within, Plamus' body was gone.
But the black liquid was spreading, like the fire on Gomon, without any clear goals.
"Let's back off!" Daren advised.
Winny was far ahead of them, the first to distance herself, smelling danger.
But no matter how far out they went, the liquid was creeping closer.
Half of Gomon's body was covered by the black flames.
At the centre, where the egg broke apart, a small mound was forming.
A slit appeared through the middle, then the mound opened to reveal a large red eye.
Some thin object forced its way out of the iris, like a needle, piercing the layer to break free.
Then the thing enlarged, the rest of it came rushing out of the eye, the higher up it went, the wider it became.
It reached up to the ceiling, clogging most of the hole, and stuck itself to the walls.
The survivors gazed upon the horrid view; a light purple tree made of flesh grew from the iris.
A heartbeat later, and thousands of red eyes in varying sizes opened on its surface, to glimpse the world.
The humans fell under its scrutiny, the eyes blinked asynchronous.
"What the-" Gomon felt like throwing up, and yet he struggled to look away.
Everyone became captivated, images of blood-dripping entrails, uncanny and disfigured humans, and other gory depictions flashed and burned themselves in their minds.
Everyone, except Gomon and Kassan.
"Don't look at it!" Gomon shouted, but no one was listening.
A slit appeared on the back of Daren's palm, from which the same eye grew, that spanned all of the living tree.
Daren raised his hands to his neck, like he was in a trance, and applied pressure to his throat.
"What are you doing?!" Gomon grabbed one hand and yanked it away, the fire that was covering him spread onto Daren.
"Shit!" he cursed, he had already forgotten!
Marquis Gomon gnashed his teeth, the others also began acting similarly, 'What is happening?!'
The black flame burned away the eye on Daren's hand, he inhaled sharply.
His eyes regained focus, and his mind cleared, "Wha- what am I-…"
"Daren!" the old man yelped, then he stopped himself, surprised that he had shown such a genuine reaction.
"Keep spreading the fire, Marquis! It's interfering with whatever is controlling them!" Kassan yelled.
Gomon hesitated for just a second, before running to the rest of their group, touching each of them, to get the black flames to spread.
The thing he expected should be avoided the most, instead became the most vital ingredient to staying sane!
One by one the others awoke.
Frey shot his head left and right, the survivors weren't his priority, he was searching for Marv, who, along with the flower-women, were gone.
But his attention was stolen, as the black liquid under him reached up, to coil around his feet.
He smacked his burning hand through the air, intending to conjure an earthen pillar to drag himself away.
The pillar flew towards him at breakneck speed, then whizzed by him by a big margin!
"Huh?" Frey's eyes went wide.
Again! And again!
Each of his spells went out of control and was sent flying into the walls.
It was the same for Daren and Marquis Gomon… no one could wield their spells as intended, if they were able to cast them at all!
Frey gulped, the tugging on his legs was becoming stronger, he could feel himself sink-
As the middle of the fleshy webbing was blown wide open!