"Not so fast, you mutt!" a familiar voice spoke from the afterlife. A whish of energy and wind drove my matted hair off my eyes. My body crashed against something soft and lumpy. A body. Made from organic matter. Probably. Arms supported my back and the back of my knees. I was being carried. Then, we hurtled to the ground in a blur of white and yellow-green.

I rolled to a stop, a groan flying out of my lips when I tried to right myself. I succeeded in climbing into all fours, my chest still heaving huge gulps of air. What just happened?

"Seline, get up," Iruna said somewhere above me. My legs followed despite my head not quite understanding what was going on. "I'll give you both some time. Get out of here."

The features and the memories clicked. "Iruna," I said, relief washing over the burns in my gut. "What about you?"

The girl looked back at me with a grin. "My job is here," she said. "Go. I'll free Kora soon."

Before I could ask how in Haalor's horns did Iruna know Rin's name, she bounded off towards the netherbeast, some kind of white light dancing in her fingertips. A loud thud after, the beast collapsed to the ground, its flank burned to a crisp. Holy shi—

"Go!" Iruna yelled as she went after Arzo next. "Get out of here! Live to tell the tale!"

I was about to dash back into the fray when a hand gripped my arm. I whirled, fist already hurling towards their face. A warm hand stopped it and I found my face inches from Rin's. "That's enough," he whispered, his face grim and streaked with dust and blood. "Let's go."

My lips curled in on themselves and I allowed myself one last, lingering glance. Iruna yelled as she met Arzo's dark whips with her pure-white magic. Lightning crackled and shrieked. The whole room shook. Debris and shards quivered before breaking off their home and falling to the ground.

It's time to go.

"Come on," I felt Rin's gentle tug on my arm. Despite the weight digging in my heart, I followed Rin out of the room. For the first time since coming into this world, the corridors were quiet as we tore through them.

"When we face Arzo again, I'm not letting your skills out," Rin said, his breaths loud against the stillness of the dim hallway. We turned a corner, this one not any more familiar to me than the last one we left. "But we might be able to cheat the system."

That's Rin, alright. Always looking for a way to make the situation work better for him. Always looking for the smallest needle's eye to squeeze himself through. "What is it?"

He threw a glance at me. His eyes reflected so much uncertainty and fear—more than during the years we've spent together combined. "I'll cast Skill lock repeatedly and inaudibly, just so Arzo couldn't predict when you would have your skills and when you don't," he held out his hand and summoned a dagger into it. "You'll be the wildcard. Use whatever skill you thought would be best in the situation. The only thing I will be controlling is the when."

I nodded. Plans. How wonderful if they worked half the time.

We turned another corner. Explosions racked the place. I ducked under my arms, looking around for any sign of the ceiling coming at us. "What was that?" I didn't bother masking the tinge of fear coating my voice.

"I sent Revery and Nazran back into Cavya's team," Rin answered as if that explains everything. When he saw I wasn't having any luck understanding, he blew a breath and pushed his hair off his forehead. "There's two teams in this whole extraction process. Cavya would be leading the diversion team and the summoners were supposed to guard our rear while I get you out."

"Yeah, about that," I raised a finger as another corner came from the horizon. "How did you find me? My internal map's having some sort of glitch in this place.'

Despite the dim light, I didn't fail to notice the sheet of pink coloring his cheeks. He averted his eyes, seemingly focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. "I got the Key of Goran," he said. "I used that to meld one of the tricks I copied from you. Then, I used the signature to trace it to this place. It's like...DNA profiling, but based on your skills and magic."

"Huh," was all I said. Then, something about what he said registered with a click. "The Key of Goran?"

Rin arched an eyebrow, like he couldn't believe out of all the things he said, it was what I noticed. "Yeah," he said. "Why?"

"I have the Book of Darkness," I pointed to my chest and then flipped my finger back in his direction. "And you have the Key. Do you know what that means?"

Realization dawned on his face. "We can technically max our levels and perform skill alchemy like we did back then?" he snorted, the memories coming back to him. "Yeah, we can do that."

"At least we know what to do when we get out of this hellhole," I rolled my shoulders.

Rin laughed. Despite everything, he found the nerve to. And because I couldn't care more about this shitshow, I did too.

We made it outside through some expert maneuvering. When the smell of grass—no matter how dried or trampled over it was—hit me, I breathed a huge sigh. We're out. Now, to go home...

"Rin—"

The ground below our feet exploded into a shower of soil and stone. Rin's magic wrapped around me once more, his body crashing into me as he shoved me out of the way. Together, we scrambled back to put some distance between our attacker. Through the hissing curtain of uprooted dust and debris, a single set of footsteps emerged.

"You know what?" he tilted his head to one side, letting his teal hair spill past his shoulder. "I'm growing tired of this. I should just kill you."

He held something in his other hand, dragging something lumpy and heavy behind him. My throat closed up when I spotted the yellow-green strands from the settling haze. Iruna...?

Arzo tightened his hold on the girl's hair. With her eyes closed and her chest not rising or falling, she might as well be dead. Her clothes were muddier and more tattered than before, with some of the splotches too bright red to be attributed to dust and dirt. Without a word, Arzo positioned his blade at the base of Iruna's neck. Blood drained from my face. No—

He swept it through.

"I don't like wasting time," he said, streaks of fresh blood highlighting the deadly glint in his eyes. Iruna's body thumped against the grass when he pushed her away like some discarded sack. The head dropped to the ground with a dull thud. "And you just wasted a lot of it."

From his feet, the shadows shrieked as they sped towards us. This motherfucker just killed a girl. Despicable.

Vile.

Anger and an inexplicable wave of grief crashed over me. Arzo has to go down. He has to be stopped. "Rin!" I yelled. It didn't matter if they knew what our names were. Not when we've never been this close to being uprooted ourselves. Not when we're facing off with a disgusting creature.

Arzo dashed forward and Rin met him in a shower of embers. I glanced down at the dagger Rin had given me. It wasn't ornate nor was it plain. Just the right amount of gold embellishments to make it shine but not stand out. I unsheathed it. A curved, tooth-like blade glinted in the sunlight streaming through the clearing around the temple.

I lowered myself into a stance, eyeing the whizz of movements from both Rin and Arzo. I'd hate to come at an awkward time and end up compromising Rin or getting hit by Arzo. My eyes followed their blades, their feet, their swinging arms. An opening. I needed one.

Rin pushed against Arzo, slashing his sword upward. A silver glint colored Arzo's dark eyes as he leaped back. That's the opening. Here goes nothing.

I zipped through, meeting Rin's gaze no more than a millisecond. My strength returned to my limbs as I swung, pointing the blade straight into Arzo's back. I poured the last of my MP into the properties of the blade. Gritting my teeth, I recalled the feel of Haalor's scales, horns, and brutal strength. Then, I swiped my hand down the flat edge of the blade, screaming at the top of my lungs. "Permeate!"

The blade sank into flesh. Someone gurgled and flailed, groaning in pain. A sword tip appeared near my cheek. When I looked, Rin's blade lay a hairsbreadth from Arzo's neck while my sword...pierced through him on the shoulder. Talk about stabbing someone in the back.

Rin's jaw clenched, his gaze hardening as he squinted at Arzo's face. With me behind them, I couldn't see if Arzo was still smug. Rin exhaled through his nose and stepped back, calling off his sword. He nodded to me and I got what he's trying to say. With a wet squelch, I gave my blade a hard yank, pulling it free. If this was real life, I would have doubled over and started hurling. Instead, I lowered my dagger-turned-sword, its sides still bright red and dripping blood over the grass.

I looked at Rin. "What now?"

A cylindrical container appeared in his hands. He tossed it up into the air before shooting a streak of light towards it. Like fireworks during the Lunar Festival, the cylinder shrieked as it went further up before exploding into a shower of green flares.

It's a signal.

"Extraction complete," Rin said to no one in particular. Then, he turned to me. "How are you?"

I handed him the dagger whose blade was now as long as his and my sword. "Sorry, I ruined it," I flashed him a sheepish smile. "It's fashioned after Haalor's scales so it could cut through anything. Sorry again."

Instead of showing disappointment or exploding on me, he tested the weight in his hands. His eyebrows arched higher and higher as he found more interesting things. Like a child being handed a free candy, I pursed my lips and waited for his feedback. "It's good," he said, turning to be with a bright smile. Relief sat heavily over his features and on his shoulders. "And did you say Haalor? Did you meet the Guardian of Darkness?"

I opened my mouth to burst into the story of how I got the Book, but the mighty flap of wings and the solid shadows coming from above distracted me. "Seline!" Heather's uneven red hair swished through my periphery. Within seconds, rock-hard scales pressed against my arms as she squeezed the air out of me.

"Heather, let the woman breathe," Revery's voice snapped the dragonkin back to attention. "I'm glad you're safe, Sel."

I clutched my chest as soon as Heather let go. They were all here, even Cavya and Nazran. Maybe Ahrian was somewhere in the distance, covering fire. "I'm sorry for worrying everyone," I said, ducking my head, especially in Cavya's direction. "Thank you for coming for me."

"Did you at least learn anything while you're with the traitor?" Cavya asked, sheathing his rapier with a final click. Whatever diversion they did, it couldn't have ended without any kind of blood spilled.

I told them about everything Arzo had spouted, starting from his motivation and his end goal. Their faces turned grimmer as I went on. When I got to the part of Arzo intending to use me as the next vessel for the Monarch, Rin cursed. "So, he's not only summoning her," he said. It seemed like he already had an inkling about this whole thing. Was this because of the runes he was researching? "He's attempting to resurrect her. This motherf—where did he go?"

My breath hitched. I looked down, expecting to see Arzo's curled up form, writhing from the piercing I gave him. The only proof that what happened had been true was a small puddle of blood watering the grass and the stone-laden pavement. The son a b—

"We'll find him," Cavya's tone was resolute. Final. "I'll talk to the guildmasters. This is a matter meant to be taken seriously by all of Solarlume."

I bobbed my head, glancing at Rin who returned the gesture. We didn't need to talk to each other to know what we were thinking. This was the quest. It might not be the reason why we're sent here, but it's something we had the opportunity of helping. Iruna and a lot of other adventurers and townsfolk didn't give up their lives for us to sit this one out.

This was the final journey. And this better be one hell of a ride.