System Change

Derek’s attack died on his blade before he even released it. He canceled out Void Step and fell to the ground, landing just in front of the swollen beast. Seconds later, Avery landed beside him, followed by others who were in the fight. They were all speechless—each of them must have gotten a notification stating that the beast was dead.

“What happened?” Avery asked. He was as surprised as anyone else.

Derek, of course, knew exactly what happened. He just didn’t quite believe it. It all came to him the moment Silvi told him to attack through their bond. The dread that he felt, it was very common with something else—the feeling of the portal from Void Travel opening up beside him. How did I not recognize it to begin with? He was too focused on the rest of the fight to really put two and two together until Silvi reached out to him.

The first light feeling of dread was most likely her opening the portal from somewhere in the distance. Then the last, more heavy feeling of dread had to have come from her literally opening the portal directly inside the Starfury Leonarus. He felt dumb for not instantly recognizing the flames that the beast began spewing, too. They were obviously the dragon flames that Silvi had used in front of him a few times already.

“Silvi happened,” Derek answered. He was proud of his small companion. She had thought outside the box for her final attack. He was no longer irritated that she had cut him off. He would have done the same if he was setting up an attack like that.

“Silvi? Where is she?” Vanessa asked.

Derek pointed at the beast which was slowly deflating. After a few more moments, it had returned back to its previous size, which was still massive, but it was no longer inflated. Finally, the beast started shaking, which caused almost everyone to take a step back. Eventually, the shaking made its way to the head, then, the mouth opened—revealing a small, soot covered beast.

Silvi was… well, she was naked. Gone was her cloak, collar, and storage rings. Derek even noticed that some of the dark spots on her fur weren’t actually soot, they were burn and singe marks. She must have injured herself while burning the beast up from the inside. Mostly, her small muzzle and nose were nothing but scarred, burned flesh. But the flesh was slowly repairing itself right in front of everyone’s eyes.

Derek felt bad. His companion was beat all to hell. He quickly searched in his storage bracelet to find the best healing potions he had, then unstoppered it and ran over to Silvi. He kneeled before holding the vial out. “Here, drink this.” Silvi tilted her head back, and Derek poured the liquid into her mouth.

Combined with her endurance and vitality, the healing properties of the potion didn’t take long to kick in. She had also closed her eyes and began meditating to expedite the process. Soon, she was technically back to one-hundred percent. Her fur still needed to grow back. Derek would have to ask Roman about a potion for that when he got back. He still wasn’t sure how stats affected hair. It was something he never thought about.

“I can’t believe that you did that, Silvi,” Derek said. “I don’t know whether to thank you or scold you for putting yourself in so much danger.”

At that time, Walter came running out from where the TIme Prison was. He was carrying Silvi’s collar and rings. When he arrived, he handed the equipment to Derek, who reached out and put the collar around her neck. With the collar around her neck, Silvi opened her eyes and her cloak magically appeared back on her back. “Put my rings in my pockets,” she said.

Derek laughed and slowly dropped her extra storage rings inside her small pockets sewn into her cloak. “There you go,” he said. “Now, why did you do that?”

“It deserved it,” she replied seriously. Then, the old Silvi came back and her eyes brightened. “And I get to cook it, right?”

Derek couldn’t help but laugh. Everyone was fighting for their lives, and she was worried about doing the final bit of damage so she could use her skill on such a monster. If he was being honest, he looked forward to seeing what she could create from the lion. I’ve never had lion before. I never would have thought I’d ever want lion before. But after seeing and tasting the plain steaks from the wyvern, he couldn’t wait to see what she made out of the lion.

“Oh, no!” Walter called out, then ran over in one direction.

“What?” Derek frowned and followed the healer with his eyes.

Soon, Walter stopped, then a flood of water poured out of his hands. Derek watched as the man lifted a body into the air—it was Cain Ibarra, the Guild Master of the Adventurer’s Guild in the capital. Derek had wondered what had happened to the guy. He had taken Silvi’s place when she went to regenerate, but Derek hadn’t heard from him since the boss began shooting stars.

Derek rushed over and sighed in relief. The man wasn’t dead—just unconscious. Somehow, he had survived having half of his side blown off. Luckily, the attack didn’t seem to have hit his heart, brain, or limbs. And because Walter got to him before he was thrown into a Dying State, the man should be fine after a while.

“That was a close one,” Derek said as he walked up to Walter.

“I thought we lost another one,” Walter said with a sigh.

“Another one?” Derek asked. “What do you mean?”

“Just…” Walter started. “Go look inside your space. It’s not good. That ability…”

Derek’s eyes widened, then he turned to rush to his Time Prison. When he got there, he was met with a chilling sight. Five bodies lay arranged neatly on the floor inside the Time Prison, while others were currently being healed by Elena and Tristan.

“What happened?” he asked, but he could already guess the answer.

Elena turned her head from Kieron, one of the support members, and spoke. “That attack—the one that blacked out the sky and shot out all those lights—some of them came inside this space with us. They didn’t last long, but they dealt a lot of damage.”

“Five people?” Derek asked.

“Yeah. We managed to save everyone else who was injured. We were lucky we had all the healers in here when it happened. The ones we couldn’t save… most died instantly.”

Derek sighed heavily and moved closer to the corpses on the floor. It seemed that even though he retreated, John Doyle had joined Ray Fergus in death. The two hadn’t listened well at the beginning of the fight, and Derek’s own redirected attack had actually killed Ray, whose body was laying with the other four. His body was completely unscratched—he’d been done in by the void attack on his vitals.

Looking at the other three, Derek recognized Sachiko Sato, the sword and shield user who had taken part in the first trial. He bent down to get a closer look; she was missing a leg, an arm, and she had a massive hole in her chest where one of the stars must have passed through.

“She’s the reason a lot of us are alive,” Elena continued while healing Kieron. “The attack lost a lot of momentum after hitting someone. First she sacrificed her arm, then leg, then she tried to block one more with her shield. But her shield wasn’t durable enough, and the attack cut straight through, killing her instantly.”

Derek nodded solemnly, then moved on to the remaining two dead bodies. They were of John Newman, another support class, and Scarlet Mason, the archer. John also had a hole through his chest, but Scarlet’s body was worse. The attack must have it her in the head. He could only recognize her by her clothes and the bow laying next to her.

“Dammit!” Derek cursed. “I should have closed the Time Prison.”

“It’s not your fault,” Elena said. “We had more than enough power in here to have blocked off the entrance. The support could have cast Barrier. The mages could have put up their own magic barriers, especially John and Ray, with their wind and earth magic. But Ray didn’t listen to you, and everyone else was busy watching through the door. We may not have been able to block all of them, but we sure as hell could have slowed them down. This is on me.”

“No, it’s on me,” Derek said. “I may not have asked for lead of this damn raid, but it was given to me.” Not to mention the fact that the boss probably would have been much easier if I hadn’t been here. Surely the Great System wouldn’t have summoned something like that normally… unless it would have, and since I’m connected with the other system somehow, I was just able to see it.

“No, you did your job. You beat the boss and finished the dungeon. I was de facto leader of everyone in here. They would have listened to me,” she replied.

Derek just shook his head and changed the topic. “How is everyone else?”

“They’ll be fine,” she said. “Tristan is going to have his work cut out for him. I imagine his skills are going to level like crazy after this.”

Derek threw a look at the light healer and almost laughed. He was currently healing someone’s leg… Ciera Cook’s leg, to be exact. “She lost her legs again?”

“This time only the one,” Elena half smiled. “Speaking of which, what about you?”

“What about me?” he asked, then recalled that he was still standing on a prosthetic created by void. “I guess I’ll have to hit him up as well.”

“Let me look at it,” Elena said. “Kieron’s healed. She was in a Dying State earlier, so she just needs some rest and she’ll regain consciousness.”

“Sure…” Derek said, and sat beside the top healer. Then, with his leg stretched out, he undid his Void Creation. The prosthetic instant vanished and blood begin to pour out.

“Huh…” Elena blurted out. “Fascinating.” She stared at his missing foot in awe.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Hold on,” she said, then, she reached out and held her hand over his leg. Green light spilled from it, and he watched as his foot began to regrow—and fast. “What!?”

“What is it?” Derek asked. “I thought only Tristan had the ability to regrow limbs.”

“He is the only person who can regrow limbs…” she muttered. “But your body… it’s like it has its own memory and it’s regrowing it for you. I’m only helping with the healing.”

Derek frowned. “Could it be because of my endurance and vitality? They’re maxed… well, over max.”

“The question marks?” Elena asked.

“Something like that,” Derek said. He actually didn’t have the question marks beside his stats anymore.

“No,” she replied. “That can’t be it. I’ve healed people who have broken through the final threshold in either endurance or vitality. Neither showed signs of regrowing their own limbs. They didn’t have both maxed out, but surely one would have shown something.”

It’s got to be the evolution. My body was completely rebuilt by the void. It even changed my race. Derek didn’t know what to tell her. I… don’t think I can tell her about the evolution without messing with that forced oath. “I guess I’m just special.”

“Sure…” Elena said as the rest of his foot regrew. Then, she moved on to his battered knee on his other leg and healed it up. “Everybody has their secrets.”

Derek nodded. “Thanks.” He rubbed his knee, and winced—not because it hurt, but because of the massive hole in the armor he’d just received. Tyron’s going to be pissed.

“I’m going to go help Tristan. Everyone’s stable now. We just need to keep some wounds from healing over. The others are fine.” Elena got up and walked away.

Derek also stood and went and examined everyone else. Wait, where’s Bones and Ogre? He hadn’t seen them since he came in. Finally, he looked over at the cell that Ogre used to stay in, and the door was shut as tight as it could be without actually being shut. He walked over and tugged on it. After a slight resistance, it opened.

“What are the two of you doing?” He asked once he saw that they were both untouched.

“Well,” Bones began. “I thought it best for us to stay away from your other visitors for the time being, so before they arrived, we moved to a cell. From the commotion outside, I am happy we did.”

“Me too,” Derek replied. “Good job.”

Bones nodded.

“The boss is dead. All that’s left is going to the orb and completing the dungeon,” Derek said. “Then we can get out of here.”