Chloe sighs as the woods again go silent, the final zombie now ashed and the last wraith exorcised from our world. And although the change is faint, the miasma that surrounds us has faded to a small degree. My earlier hypothesis was likely correct— there are a number of these [Necromantic Cores] buried within the surrounding landscape, which together are powering the field that suppresses healing and promotes the growth and strengthening of the undead.

I take my girlfriend’s hand. “Are you okay?” I ask. Her grip is tight and the tension hasn’t fully faded from her body. Her eyes remain narrowed, and her breathing is quick and shallowed.

“I– I–” She takes some more deep breaths, still clutching my hand tightly. “I just… really do not like undead, at all.”

I nod, wrapping my arms around her. “I’m here. I’m here and I’ll always be here. And we’ll rest and wait as long as it takes before you’re physically and mentally ready to move on.”

And we do for several minutes, Chloe’s trembles of anger and tense breathing slowly subsiding. As her calm fully returns to her, she looks down, averting her gaze from me.

“Is something troubling you?” I ask. I know something is off, and I think I know what, but I still need to hear it from her firsthand.

“I’m– I’m frustrated with myself. When those monsters appeared, I– I lost control. I saw red. All I could think about is how those creatures were an affront to life and to the natural order of things. And how it was my responsibility to grant them the solace of eternal rest. But… Now I’m scared that I’ll lose control again. And I don’t know what to do when that happens.”

I hold her close to me. “That’s… how classes work. They all influence us in certain ways. Some subtle. Some less so. Kristil’s sense of vengeance and fury has become heightened. Alana and Jasmine seem to desire to act as warriors who hold themselves and each other to a certain code of honor. Stefan’s class seems to want him to lead and train other fighters. I think that’s part of why he was so upset and frustrated when we were exploring the Tower with him, since he felt relegated to a mere disciple. And I feel a need to experiment with magic and improve my body with cybernetics.

“We already knew that you feel a desire to heal others. And it seems you also have a particular distaste for the undead in all their forms.”

“But–”

“It’s okay, Chloe. They all want certain things, yes. But those influences can be controlled, guided, even suppressed, from time to time at least.”

Chloe laughs. “You were about to cut off your own hand yesterday just to experiment with a new one. So please, oh great and generous font of wisdom, enlighten your lover and disciple. How does one go about suppressing those urges?”

“I– I didn’t actually go through with it!”

“Oh, but you were going to, had I not put my foot down and told you to cease with that asinine idea before you did something we were going to regret.”

I shrug. “Well, there you go. As long as we have each other to check the worst impulses of our classes, we should be able to manage just fine… Although, this does get into something I wanted to ask you about a bit ago.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows.

“You said the other night that you wanted to, if possible, resolve conflicts without the use of deadly force whenever possible. I want to know if that still holds true if we encounter intelligent undead deeper within this swamp.”

Chloe pauses and lowers her head in thought. As she does, I scan the area. No new undead have spawned since we destroyed the core, and I sense no disturbances of Ether flow beyond that which surrounds this entire marsh of negative energy. Sure enough, my [Health] is still continuing to slowly tick down from the buildup of natural processes following the last fight and my body’s inability to fully keep up.

She casts [Curing Light] upon both of us. The light is dim and muted, like a flashlight with nearly-depleted batteries. It’s not enough even to restore me to maximum [Health], even though the spell normally heals for close to 1,200 anywhere else. At least our [Ether] regeneration isn’t similarly affected, as much as I fear I jinxed it by thinking such thoughts. For a moment, I tense, only exhaling several seconds later once no System notification alerts me accordingly.

“I think– I think we need to play it by ear,” Chloe finally answers. “Some part of me is telling me that necromancy and summoning the dead is fundamentally wrong. But that doesn’t mean that the ends are always equally evil. I feel a pull urging me to let the dead rest but… at the same time, if someone had–”

She chokes on her words several times. I don’t force her to continue, instead wrapping her into another hug until she calms down. She does, at which point, I offer her some more water, some tissues, and a cookie out of my [Inventory], all of which she consumes with gratitude.

“If I may,” I say after she’s had a few more minutes. “One other question about your class. What does your class tell you about the use of the [Last Resort] brooches we’re wearing, or that [Rekindling Feather] you have equipped? Or about resurrection magic in general? Do you consider all of them as evil and violations of what a [Heavenly Saintess] considers the natural order?”

Chloe answers quickly. “[Last Resort] creates a barrier that activates before the moment of death, so it doesn’t violate any ethical principles. It’s no different than performing surgery on a wound that would be fatal if untreated. [Rekindling Feather] activates at the moment of death. In this vein, it’s like performing CPR to resuscitate a patient in cardiac arrest. Perhaps on the penumbra of necromancy, but it is acceptable as well.

“As for true revival magic, I don’t believe it exists. At the very least, it’s not something that I think my class can ever learn. Maybe some sort of higher being could use it, but even then… influencing the souls of the departed isn’t something that will sit well with me.”

“Then we gotta make sure we both stay alive, so we never have to grapple with those questions.”

Chloe nods. “And deal with whatever is causing this right here and now.”

With nothing else keeping us here, we proceed onward, in the general direction of the center of these corrupted woods. All the while, we keep our eyes peeled for any signs of areas that look particularly bad, even by the standards of this decrepit land. I’m not sure how many cores are being used to power this magic— three to seven is my guess— but I’m confident we should try to destroy them all before we face the ruler of the miasma.

It doesn’t take very long before we stumble upon another area much like the first. A deep swamp full of bubbling ooze and even worse stench, surrounded by a thick mist exuding dark energy. Within a hemisphere about a quarter mile in radius, the fog is as dense and black as the night sky, only with none of the stars or the light of the pale moon to allow us to see through ordinary, optical means.

Chloe’s eyes glow a rich caramel with the characteristic glow of her [Ethersight]. My [Archangel’s Gaze] needs no light to perceive the outside world, and with our Skills active, we pass through the threshold and into the center of the sphere.

Immediately, the roar of a fierce monster shakes the air. The flaps of diaphanous membranes and their accompanying gusts of fetid wind bear down upon us, and up ahead, my worst fears are realized. Damn swamp dragon.

We don’t get a moment’s breath before a pair of jaws larger than my torso clamp down inches away from my head. Hundreds of teeth, each coated in miasmatic venom and sharper than a well-forged blade, grin at me right before a hand larger than Zethira’s attempts to flatten me whole. Only the glint of five claws and their tips radiating with dark [Ether], barely perceptible at eight o’clock, alert me to their presence and give me the barest of time to dodge.

Chloe fires a [Scouring Light] right as I follow up with a Light-aligned [Elemental Ether Bullet] right into the thin, batlike wings. The former doesn’t have enough punch to topple the beast, but my tiny shot manages to pierce through the membranous flesh like a knife through butter. The dragon roars, tilting its head and neck back.

“Fly out of the way, now!” I call to Chloe. “Breath weapon incoming!”

No flames emerge out of the maw of the beast. Just a rancid spray of caustic fluid that smells worse than piss and shit and vomit combined. I nearly retch from the stench alone, my high [Mind] maintaining enough mental focus to keep me from losing breakfast and preparing a counterattack. And sure enough, the creature is dazed. Maybe only for a second or two, but it’s more than enough in the midst of this battle.

Chloe’s already preparing another [Scouring Light], this one prepared at the beast’s exposed underbelly, while I aim more Light-element bullets toward our adversary’s eye sockets and wings. The latter might be a good way to disrupt any crystals contained within the creature’s head, while damaging its ability to fly can’t be a bad thing… Assuming that the flight Skill is at least partially mechanical, which… No, on second thought, better to focus on the head.

Chloe launches her next [Scouring Light], which flays scales from skin, skin from flesh, and flesh from bone. However, even before the smoke has cleared from its body, I see sinew and tendons beginning to stitch themselves back together. Necrotic flesh is depositing onto the ruined body, the miasma filling the creature with dark energy, which in turn is fueling rapid mitotic regeneration.

I charge a [Scouring Light] variant of my own, manifesting [Sharpness], [Light], [Expansion], and [Piercing] together in the midst of the spell array. As I do, I tear the flesh apart just as fast as the reanimating force stitches it back together. Then, once Chloe and I are both charged up and ready, I kick off the dragon’s stomach and fly backward, aiming my strike.

“Head or heart?” Chloe asks.

“Heart!” I respond. “Attacking its head got me nowhere before!”

“Understood!”

In nearly perfect sync, the two of us unleash our bursts of golden light, each as thick as a basketball. Hers hits a split second before, pushing the creature backward, but again failing to deliver a decisive blow. That changes the moment my attack collides with her. The two attacks, not being perfectly identical, begin to shift from a golden glow to a kaleidoscopic array of every color of the rainbow as our attacks simultaneously constructively interfere in some places while destructively interfering in others.

The net result is a combined attack greater than the sum of its constituent parts. A possible hidden effect of [Angelic Bond], or maybe just some heretofore unknown aspect of spellcasting, I don’t know. But I do know that with our combined might, our [Twinned Beams] are absolutely brutalizing the draconic form in front of us.

Chloe struggles to maintain her spell, but I’m able to make up the slack, and together, our spell bursts forth from the back of the monster. As it does, I’m able to vaguely pick up the sound of something cracking, then exploding and shattering in so many pieces. My hunch was correct— the second of these stones was contained in the chest this powerful beast, serving as a makeshift heart for the undead abomination. And with it destroyed, we’re one step closer to solving our mission and claiming our just rewards.

Right after assigning my four free stat points into my [Mind], along with processing the remainder of my level-up.

[You have purged a Necromantic Dragon (Level 47). You have gained a boosted 84,000 Experience.]

[You have gained enough Experience to reach Level 51. [Strength] +1, [Speed] +1, [Vitality] +1, [Mind] +1. Please assign free stat points (Remaining: 4).]

[Maximum Health increases by [Vitality] x 2 + Current Level + Rand[1,3] = 257]

[Maximum Ether increases by [Mind] + Current Level + Rand[0,2] = 203]

[Level: 51; Experience: 2,342,525; To Next: 121,125]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 5,642 / 7,733; [Ether]: 3,174 / 5,696]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 139 (Base: 71); [Speed]: 133 (Base: 68); [Vitality]: 200 (Base: 102); [Mind]: 296 (Base: 151)]

[Your [Glyphcasting (Rank XXIII)] has upgraded to [Glyphcasting (Rank XXIV)].]

[Your [Archangel’s Gaze (Rank IX)] has upgraded to [Archangel’s Gaze (Rank X)].]