30th of Season of Fire, 160th year of the 32nd cycle

  “If you want my opinion, I believe the cultists didn’t deploy stronger experts because that would cause a chain reaction. The same one your master rightfully feared when we were searching for you. The provoked saurians would attack and ruin the cultists’ rituals. That’s why they waited for the first serious skirmishes between us and manabeasts - to get the feel of the saurian threat before they struck.”

  Newt considered Dandelion’s words. Would Magmin’s daughter remain passive if she felt the cultists roaming around her territory? Did she even know about them and did she differentiate between the cultists and regular awakened?

  Many questions to consider.

  Maybe I should ask her the next time we meet?

  While Newt pondered the matter, he and Dandelion sped through the jungle, rushing towards the Swordpeaks’ camp.

  Dandelion suddenly stopped in front of a large gray rock at the base of a looming cliff.

  “This place seems easy enough to spot from a distance. I’ll open this rock and seal my spatial pouch inside it, like so.” Dandelion laid a hand on the rock, which parted like a door had opened, then he closed it. “The Swordpeak encampment is a dozen miles away. I can sneak away and return, pretending I’m scouting.”

  Newt frowned. “Why would you return if you’re going to save Maelstrom?”

  “I’m not going to intervene personally, it would paint a target on her back. But my duty is to evacuate the Swordpeak princes and their guardians, and sending them to another camp to face the danger together and make a powerful force seems like a good way to do it.

  “Doing that might paint them targets instead of you two in the long run, but…” Dandelion shrugged, showing not a hint of remorse. “… you will need scapegoats. Still, I hope that the death of their’ god and the imperial forces’ imminent slaughter should shock the cults enough to give up on hounding the Swordpeaks until they can return to their kingdom.”

  “Wait. What are you going to do? Where will you be?”

  “Well, I’m going to get captured, let the outer god get me, and then kill her. Now, come on, we can run and talk. We want to be as far away from here as possible when she arrives to make it look like we’re running away together.” Dandelion paused, hefting his staff. “Also, I’m sorry about this, I really am, but it has to look realistic.”

  “What?” Newt asked when Dandelion swung his staff at him. The thick iron pole smashed into the side of his head and Newt fell down to the ground bleeding and losing his consciousness.

  Newt jumped back just as the staff whirled right in front of him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Kidnapping you, so as not to paint a target on your back.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Well, yes, you can’t lead a life like mine without going insane, at least I couldn’t, but what I’m doing now is quite rational. I need you battered, bruised, and tied to sell the story. Now stand still, so I can beat you up.”

  “No!”

  Dandelion rushed Newt, staff whistling through the air.

  Newt jumped back, but the original attack didn’t happen. Dandelion plowed through his original plan, adapting to Newt’s dodge, and slammed straight into his torso. Instead of beating him with a staff, Dandelion entered a grapple.

  Granite Crust covered Newt’s skin just in time before Dandelion’s fist smashed into it. Where he struck, granite turned to black sand and evaporated into mana. When Newt returned the blows, Dandelion let them land, trading injury for injury. The tactic seemed idiotic, but Dandelion’s shell was no weaker than Newt’s and wood and water energies melded wherever Newt stuck, healing Dandelion’s flesh even before the bruises formed.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “This is the advantage of having multiple elements. You can use each of them as the situation demands.”

  Dandelion kept smashing his fist at Newt, who unleashed a blast of flames. The fire hit Dandelion’s shield, which, unlike Newt’s, didn’t burn away the heat, but redirected some of it. The rest struck true, and Dandelion’s flesh burned and sizzled before falling off, replaced with fresh, pink skin.

  Then, Dandelion’s fist smashed through Granite Crust and slammed into Newt’s chin. Newt’s vision went black for a blink, which was more than enough to open his defences to a vicious pummeling.

  He was black and blue before drawing the next breath, his defences crushed.

  “You know, your fire defense borders on cheating.” Dandelion spat a globule of blood and charred flesh. “Not to mention your fires are already searing beyond anything a sixth realm awakened should be able to dish out.”

  He smiled, lips bloody. “I’m proud of you. Now, you might be wondering why I have to beat you up and tie you the way I am right now. Well, once the outer god catches us, I’m going to tell her you’re the key figure for her cultists’ future. I’m not sure she would fall for it, but I will be honest. You really are a key figure for them, the person who would decide their fate one day.”

  Dandelion sat Newt so they could see each other’s eyes.

  “I’ve prepared long and hard for this day. I knew it would come. While I didn’t expect an outer god with a seventh realm avatar to come chasing after me in person, I guess I should’ve seen it coming. Regular people would chase me as soon as they realized something was off about me, and that would in turn let me not do whatever weird thing hypothetically gave me away.”

  Newt felt the sorrow and the gravity behind Dandelion’s gaze.

  “I’m sorry I’m abandoning you to this.” He gestured at the jungle or the world in general. “Leaving all the weight on your shoulders. Dying is easy, you know. Even staying dead isn’t all that hard, but abandoning the people you care about… I don’t seem to know how to do that.”

  Dandelion grabbed Newt and carried him like a princess.

  “You’re all skin and bones, you know that? Not your fault, I guess. Mana did you in on that one, Maelstrom got the much better end of that bargain. And she really cares about you, you know? Love would be too strong a term, since you haven’t been doing any lovey things together, but you have these nice, wonderful emotions that could one day become love.”

  Dandelion rambled for a while, going off on tangents, explaining things Newt didn’t understand, using strange words such as conservation of energy, convergent evolution, and survival bias. Then he dropped the bomb.

  “The dragon. You and the dragon have identical auras. Is he a part of you, or are you a part of him?”

  “What dragon?” Newt played dumb.

  “You know what dragon, but fine. You don’t have to tell me. Did the dragon tell you how to make that shield that protects you from fire? How does it work? Tell the dead man. I won’t get to use it in this world, but it could prove a boon in another.”

  “It burns heat before it reaches me—” Newt started, but didn’t get to finish.

  “Bullshit! You can’t burn heat, I mean, what do you get from burning it? Where does it go?” Dandelion shook his head. “What am I even doing, trying to find logic with magic? Fine, you can burn heat, do you burn away the cold too?”

  Newt wasn’t sure. Magmin Scales protected from cold just as well as they did from heat, but he didn’t know why or how.

  “I don’t know. Never thought about it.”

  Dandelion nodded. “Of course you didn’t. Why would you think about the physics you don’t know exists? Fine, I’ll work on the concept, burning heat away from me, and freezing the cold so it doesn’t reach me. I feel stupid just saying it.”

  “Dandelion,” Newt hesitated. He trusted his friend, and he had seen the portal and the creature beyond it, but it all still sounded absurd. “You’re one strange man.”

  “Thank you. You’re quite strange yourself, burning away heat to protect yourself from fireballs. I feel my IQ dropping just for saying it.”

  Dandelion ran deeper into the jungle,explaining to Newt how to handle allies, whom he could trust, whom he couldn’t, and how to act when the outer god finally caught up with them.

  On the second day of their run, Newt’s skin suddenly crawled. It wasn’t fear. The emotion was alien, somewhere between disgust and instinctive hatred, and it had a clear source behind them.

  Dandelion suddenly stopped and spun around, switching Newt’s position from a princess carry to an over-shoulder grip fit for a sack. A strange device appeared in his hand, and he gripped it firmly. Newt sensed potent energy from it, but that was all he managed to get from it before it appeared.

  “Don’t approach or I’ll kill him,” Dandelion said as a seven-foot-tall crone with pointy teeth and long, pointy nose covered in warts appeared.

  “Why would I care about him?” she asked in what sounded like the last gasps of the dying.

  “He is the future of your cultists. If you approach me, I’ll kill him.”

  “Save me! He’s insane!” Newt shouted, and he meant it. Not the rescue part, but about Dandelion being insane, the man had quite instilled that truth in him.

  “I don’t care. I’ll eat you, demigod, and—”

  An explosion of energy consumed Newt. His high realm ensured a split second of agony as his body tore to shreds, then he found himself flying above the Explorer’s Gate’s contingent.