TBATE - Strings of Fate

16 - Finishing the Dungeon

--ARTHUR--

"There's another group of them! Conserve your strength!"

Uh oh, that's not good.

I finished off the one I was fighting and glanced ahead of us for a split second. In that split second, I saw many more snarlers than were here at the beginning of the fight.

Uh oh, that's not good.

I resumed fighting, cutting, and burning my way through the horde, or whatever part of it reached me, anyways. The rest of the twin horns were doing a good job of controlling how many snarlers I had to deal with at a time. I hoped that wouldn't change after this new wave of snarlers.

I focused only on the fight around me and killed monster after snarling monster. Behind me, I heard Helen say, "Shit!"

Just as I was wondering what the problem was, a loud roar answered me.

Uh oh, that's not good.

The queen snarler was here. It must've been drawn towards the noise. A couple seconds later, I heard Helen again. "It's going towards Tessia! Help her!"

I knew that this was not directed at me, so I ignored it and kept killing snarlers. The sounds of battle raged around me, but I ignored them, focusing on the battle around me. I trusted them to update me on any information I needed to know. Especially Helen, who always had her eye on the whole battlefield.

After a while, I saw Tessia go skidding past me. She stopped a couple feet from me, collapsed, wounded, and struggling to stand back up. She looked past me and quickly yelled, "Art, watch out!"

I turned around, quickly surveilling the situation. The queen was right in front of me, running full speed towards Tessia and I, and there was no one to stop it. Time seemed to slow down as I raised my sword, augmenting it with water and fire as I brought it up to parry its quickly approaching claws. I wondered if maybe, this was what Tessia felt like while using her beast will.

My sword was barely fast enough to reach its claws before the queen was able to strike me. With a deafening roar, steam exploded around my sword, knocking me back to safety while tearing into the skin of the queen snarler's left front leg.

I skidded on my back past where Tessia had finally finished standing up. Suddenly, the air around her picked up as a pressure bore down on my entire body. Tessia looked back at me for a second and smiled.

"Thanks, Arthur. I'll take it from here."

Before she turned away again, I noticed a glowing purple color wash over the irises of her eyes. The tips of her hair glowed white, and the color soon crept upwards to affect the rest of it. Golden runes glowed across her whole body, making her look almost like a goddess.

Vines grew from under her boots and crept along the floor towards the queen snarler. More and more vines were added until she smiled contentedly at the dozen or so vines that she had conjured. She walked towards the queen, and the roots of the vines followed.

The queen shook itself out of the stupor that was most likely caused by the combined effects of the explosion and the mysterious pressure that Tessia was giving off. It began running towards Tessia, and despite her obvious powerup, I began to fear for her life. Then, in a bright flash, my fears were dispelled as I realized she had lit the vines aflame.

--TESSIA--

"Hehe"

I couldn't stop myself from giggling a bit when I activated my integrate phase. The sheer power and control that it gave me always felt a bit euphoric. Then, as quickly as it came, my smile vanished as I concentrated on the fight. I hadn't wanted to use my integrate phase yet, especially for such an easy dungeon, but we had clearly been caught off guard having to fight the entire fourth and fifth floors at once.