Nrubenchal

"Zeeth? They entered Zeeth?"

"Is that his name? Yes, and when it was done, they were all healthy and cured, we just cleaned their beds."

Inside the box, Linda opened her Screen and showed them an image, "this is the school."

It was a large, old building in the middle of a large grass plain. Nothing but grass and greenery surrounded the school, blue skies ahead, a dense forest nearby, and mountains in the distance.

"This is Bardstrem, it's not particularly great but it's the only magic school in the Bardstrem Kingdom, and the people are proud. Within the school resides a menace to all of society, a beast who intends to kill everyone who has ever hurt him. Your objective, should you take it, would be to infiltrate the school, which we will help with, find him, and send him to us. If killing is necessary, then that is allowed as well."

"I recognize the school. Even amongst the very few schools on this planet, this one is still amongst the lowest and most boastful. They only accept those who already think they are great, and your blind patriotism will often get you a seat in the school even without great magical capabilities. It will be a challenge to enter and blend in since we all know it's a pretty bad school."

"Yes, we know it's bad but perhaps their advanced technology will help. Their board leaders are often bribed so they have a lot of money to afford great facilities and tools that are available to you as a student. Now, just to be clear, this is an offer only to Zeeth. My team was impressed by his control over water and wish to have him do this, although you may assist from the shadows if no one else knows about you."

"Why me? Page is clearly smarter, I think finding a mole is more of a brain thing, I feel like more of the brawn."

"In order to do this, we need someone with the highest water affinity."

Outside the town, a large cloud of smoke emerged from the ground. Within that cloud, a single black and white tree flailed its roots around, climbing across the land at an incredible rate. On its head, Rolas sat in the many branches, cheering and yelling, "go, Terry, go! Hahaha! You're so fast! To Falhalla!"

"What are the rewards?" Page asked.

"We prefer to capture, which will reward you with 30,000 styrs and a lifelong 10% discount for our services. Death will only result in 30,000 Styrs."

"That is a considerable offer. But we don't need money, I have my ways. I need other things. Things only you can offer to us. I understand Serkle is a very rich company, in both artifacts and power."

She paused. "what are you saying?"

"Connections. We want to know as soon as possible about any job offers from influential people. Also, any artifacts you wish to share, I want to look at."

"I will have to discuss with some other members, but I'm sure we can come to a compromise."

Cunner finally motivated himself to move, thinking, 'I'll be a coward for not doing this!'

He rushed in as everyone was distracted, pulled up, and swung down on Yem's head. His sword cut into her skin, cutting some blood out and causing Yem to wake up and scream. But that's all the sword did, it made a tiny cut on her cheek and woke her up, her muscles stopping the blade from going any further. Her face distorted and bubbled, causing more blood to burst out. She carried the ripple the sword created to pop the mana disruption stone out, allowing her to control her blood just enough to cut off her binds. Reaching out, she shouted, "Kruvreni! Yemisia!"

Yemisia, still bound by a slime, felt a lump in her throat. Then in her chest, arms, legs, and began pulling her aside.

Yem closed her fist and yank towards herself. "Your sacrifice will bring forth a greater force!! Arrive, Nrubenchal, I, thus named Yem, give you the flesh of my first contracted!'

Yemisia burst in a large ball of blood, flooding the slime with dark red goop. A rift formed between Yem and the now-dead Yemisia, a white crack appearing in the air. The crack kept growing wider, but as if it was being forced apart rather than its usual wavy opening. A black and brown foot crept from the crack, kicking it wider. A large head slid out from the gap, a large wooden one with branches and black leaves sticking out. Two black holes in the center of the face gazed around and finally locked onto one source of energy.

Wooden cracks opened up and croaked, "Yem."

Inside the box, Page gave her a card and said, "here. When you talk it through what you can show us, please let us know."

"Deal."

The box began opening, the top popping off and sliding off the sides. The moment cracks first began appearing, Zeeth and Page noticed a difference. The air was colder, frost developed in the air and their hair stood on ends.

In the middle of the village, a massive, black and brown tree slumbered around, tearing up houses and roaring, "where is the little waterboy!! Come fight me NOW!"

"Who is that?"

Alba ran to Zeeth, her eye glowing purple, telling him, "Zeeth, don't go! We can get most of the villagers away but you will be hurt. I see you being pummeled by it and I don't want to lose someone else, especially not our savior. You will enter a losing battle."

"A losing battle, huh? What are the chances that your predictions are wrong?"

"I don't know, a hundred percent?"

"That's impossible. You just tried to get me to run away, meaning you think there is a way to change the prediction. So there's a chance that outcome doesn't happen and I win."

"Fine, it's not a hundred but I'm pretty sure it's at least in the nineties. It's not far into the future, there is a higher probability of it happening." Her eyes stopped glowing, seemingly drained of energy.

"Zeeth, I don't think you should be rushing into this either. From what I can see, Yem has called upon her counterpart demon from the afterlife with a sacrificial circle she likely carved in Yemisia a while ago." Page said, "They are both high demons, and while they might be easy for you to handle alone, they have mutually beneficial attributes of approximately the same level and seem to have quite a history together. This is a dangerous combination for any pair, especially demons for their strengths won't simply be added together but multiplied and strengthened by each other. This could be a challenge."

'A challenge.' Zeeth thought, 'might be interesting.'

He swung his sword out, prepared to fight the raging demons.

Rolas, still on Terry, saw the tree demon terrorizing the village and destroying houses. In a panic, she yelled, "Terry, to the demon!"

She pulled a syringe of a purple liquid and pumped it into Terry. Against its black skin, Terry grew purple veins that pulsed and caused it to run even faster.

Zeeth used his slimes to jump him higher and swung down harder, channeling mana into the sword's circles to slice off a chunk of the demon's head, causing a large branch to fall. The slice alerted the demons who turned to him and yelled in a mixed voice, "there you are, puny child! Let's see you kill us now. I am the nurturing waters of hell and he is the ever-growing tree of hell, together, we are unSTOPPABLE!"

Near the bottom of the demon, two pairs of feet, one small pair of wooden ones, and a small pair of water feet stood, holding the massive tree up. The legs melded together, the water seeped into the wooden legs and causing them to expand several times over to match the rest of the body.

A massive trunk grew from where he just damaged and whipped him away. His slimes lightened the blow yet it still bounced him far away. Sticks and rocks flew to the ground, nearly crushing a few elves and dwarves. He shot a few slimes below him, creating a bubble to protect them from the falling rubble. Meda, the dragon slime, flew down, opened its belly like a blanket to wrap the people in it, and fly away.

During his distraction, a massive branch launched at his face, narrowly missing his head and hitting his shoulder with immense force, reverberating through his body and bashing the sword away. The massive hunk of metal spun away, lodging into the ground and sticking in it.

'My sword!' he tried calling it back but the sword was too heavy and the demons didn't allow him any rest to take it back.

He grabbed ahold of one bolting branch, holding the entire demon for a moment. He used the moment to charge up and land a solid punch in its face, shaking the demon and temporarily separating the water and wood. The water head bounced back for just a moment and snapped back into the wood. He used Gul to cover his fist with rocks, embedding its face with dozens of little spikes. Mag wrapped around its branch and burned a hole straight through it.

The spikes were pushed out and the demon pulled back, letting the branch go and releasing itself from Zeeth. He threw the chunk of wood away, landing it near Linda and the rest. Linda had been recording the fight on an orb and lifted it up, holding it with surprising ease. She tried tearing it apart but the wood held together incredibly well.

She recorded herself and said to it, "a part of the demon that Zeeth has taken off, it holds together amazingly well yet is still rather lightweight."

A wooden hand erupted from the ground, snatching Zeeth and holding him down. The demons yelled, "combine skill: Sleep Paralysis!"

Colorful flowers bloomed in the wooden hand and rapidly released their pollen. It hovered around Zeeth like a cloud, putting him and his slimes in a sleepy state. He couldn't move and he couldn't control his slimes.

A second large fist punched him in the face, causing a nosebleed. The single fist split into a dozen.

Tens of fists launched at his face, berating him repeatedly. He clenched his jaws, blocking as much damage as he could but he still suffered from the attacks. Blood poured from his face and rattled his teeth and brain.

Yem and Nrubenchal said in unison, "DIE! DIE! DIE!"

He couldn't think properly, he simply repeated, 'take as little damage as possible!'

His flight or fight instincts reacted and he simply wanted to flee. But for a second, he considered attacking back and that activated [Angel or Demon]

The angel told him, "run now! Before you take any more damage!"

While the demon yelled, "fight back! Do to her what she's done to you!"

"If you fight now you'll just be more injured! Just try to stop her and flee!"

"If you hit her back hard you'll feel so much better!"

Their talking snapped him out of his rut and forced him to think of plans. He couldn't run, the trees bound him too tightly, which also meant he couldn't hit them back. But there was one thing he could do, the one part of him that he could move.

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, allowing a fist to fly into his mouth.

"What kinda plan was that?" The demon yelled, "now she's in your mouth!"

"Yeah, I agree! Why did you let her into your most vulnerable part?"

"And we know you didn't think this through, we have your memories!"

He didn't think this through. But, "what else was I supposed to do?! Let her punch me forever? At least I did something!"

A gear in his jaw turned and locked his mouth in place, trapping one of her fists. She paused for a moment but continued berating.

The moment their fist reached deeper in, he gagged and a series of texts appeared in his eyes, [your gag reflex has been activated. Your body senses danger, Dragons Self Protection measures have been activated in attacked areas: Dragon's Maw.]

His teeth grew larger and slowly became sharper, his mouth stretched out into a long purple snout. Muscles blushed from the changing area. The clamp in his jaw slammed down, causing his mouth to break off her fist. Splinters flew everywhere as the empty arm flew back.

"SKREEEEE!!! My ARM!" they screeched, a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

More teeth grew from inside his mouth, chewing and breaking up the arm inside of his. The muscles moved on their own to push the arm inwards and swallow it while protecting his skin from the dangers with the dragon skin.

[Undigestible Dangerous Object found in the stomach. Stomach Acid ineffective. Dragons Self Protection measures have been activated in attacked areas: Dragon's Stomach.]

He felt his stomach growing warmer, a gurgling noise emitted from his mouth and belly as another text popped up. [The complete digestion of an item concentrated in water affinity has permanently raised your water affinity slightly.]

[The complete digestion of an item concentrated in nature affinity has permanently raised your nature affinity slightly.]

The punching stopped and they threw him away, staring at the change in his face, worried he might bite the rest of their hand off.

Linda whispered, "A large purple dragon-like snout has appeared on his face. And it can bite off a chunk of the demon. With ease."

After swallowing the demon nits and dissolving it, his dragon parts slowly returned to normal, shrinking as time went by. Zeeth looked to see where his sword was but it was too far for him to reach it. Instead, he hopped to the gold coffin, drawing a large halberd. 'Black, have you collected enough mana?'

'Just enough.'

'Then it's up to you. I give you full control of my slimes and body for ten minutes.'

His eyes halted. For a second, his brown pupils shook violently and turned pitch black. They grew until his entire eye was black, as well as his fingers and belly. He grabbed the long halberd, holding it tightly. "Form Two."

He ran at Nrubenchal, spinning and swinging the halberd while letting all the slimes go, letting them bounce away. Flowing with the built up momentum, he bashed the halberd down on one of their wooden toes, shaking the ground and sending a shockwave through the air. Using the force it created, he jumped up and blew himself towards its head, hacking away at its body to pull himself up. He landed a strong chop on its arm, lodging him there and pulling himself up again.

Nrubenchal grew sharp branches to stop him but they were too thin, broken off with a simple whip of water and ice. They halted the branches for a moment and released it at once, creating a massive spike headed for Zeeths head. Black watched it coming in, 'I can't avoid this entirely. It's going to hit my arm.'