Chapter 77

"Luci?" Stone asked his delirious servant slash friend slash teacher, while completely ignoring the Universum. Maybe he shouldn't…

"Sia? Is that you?" Lucifer asked after he stopped spasming, seeing a beautiful woman with green eyes and wearing a green dress.

"No. I am Stone!" Stone would frown if he could.

"Oh… hi, Tia…" Lucifer grimaced at the beautiful woman dressed in a red open-back evening gown, her features dainty but for her piercing red eyes.

"Stone! I. Am. Stone! Remember that! Who are Sia and Tia?" Stone asked, confused.

"Lucifer! Jarka! There you are!" A known voice echoed before them.

"Meatbag! You brought experience bags too! You are a good minion!" Stone welcomed Dafur who was accompanied by a unit of goblins.

"Platypus! RUUUUN!" Lucifer yelled and began to struggle under Jarka's body.

"What platypus?!" Dafur cowered. He did not know what platypus was but the urgency in Lucifer's voice spooked him.

With the cleared view behind 'the platypus', Stone prepared to massacre the goblins.

His technique already increased his casting speed by a whopping 450%. And as he was not in battle…

The barrage of Stone's spells ploughed through the unprepared greenskins like a hot knife through butter. It even pushed him to another level.

<39.00% experience is split according to talents Subordinate and Parasite>

Stone felt the great feeling again, but now… it was somehow dulled. After the mass-level ups, this was too weak.

The faint light receded, and Stone was once again returned to the realm of mortals.

"Stone? Why did ya kill those goblins?"

"Experience."

"But they're here to protect mea."

"Experience."

"But…"

"Deal with it," Stone ended the conversation.

"Fine… Shaman-Ganra sent me to find Jarka. What happened?"

"Dwarfs. They attacked us."

"Out of nowhere?"

"Yes."

"That's strange. What they're doin' here?" He mumbled.

"Oh. One survived."

"What?! How?!" Dafur was seriously interested. He had never seen a survivor of this little murderous… stone's rampage… Just how strong the survivor had to be?

"Lucifer said something about the fourth rank runemaster. He was a Stone-Breaker. I tried to punish him, but…" Stone let the sentence slip to nothingness. He would punish the Stone-Breaker later.

"Is the platypus gone?" The said Devilish Sorcerer peeked around.

"I… Where is he?"

"Here."

"What?!" Dafur jumped up, frantically turning around, looking for the runemaster. After he saw there was nobody except them, he composed himself. "Ehm…" He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "What did ya mean by here?"

"In the next shaft," Stone answered. He would grit his teeth if he would have them.

"In that case, let's go. Jarka? Why're ya so silent?"

"Oh. She is unconscious."

"Platypuses! Everywhere! Run!" Lucifer unsteadily stood up but fell almost immediately if not for Dafur who caught him.

"Dornus ass! What happened to ya?"

"Platypuses! And Tia! You bitch!" Lucifer yelled.

"What are platypuses?" Stone asked.

"How should I know… What happened to Jarka?"

"Hmm… That the Stone-Breaker," he uttered that world with all the hate there was, "smacked her in the head when she struggled."

"Fuck! They wanna prisoners… Shaman-Ganra was right! Mae people really wanna war. But why? Why now? The crystal mine is naet that big!"

"The Stone-Breaker is coming near." Stone informed him.

"Platypuses!"

"Luci! What is wrong with you?" Stone worryingly asked.

"Tia! I should have known…" He grunted as he hatefully stared in the empty air, ignoring Stone.

Dafur grabbed now-single-bodied Lucifer and Jarka and put them over his shoulders.

"Don't ya have anything that woulda help mea?"

"No. Now go, meatbag!" Stone ordered and himself conjured the 5 ants' souls, still refusing to even touch the levitation.

Stone noticed that the messages changed again. "Uni?"

<...>"Uniiiiii! You there?"

<...>

"Universum! Uni! Hey!"

<...>

"I won't stop until you answer me!" Stone learned this from Lucifer. When someone ignores you or refuses to listen, just annoy him long enough.

The Universum growled, clearly annoyed.

"Why are my messages different again?"

"Oh… Okay!" Stone accepted it easily. It did not matter to him. "Dafur?" He turned his attention back to reality.

"Yea?" The dwarf huffed and puffed.

"The Stone-Breaker disappeared from my sphere. Is it good?"

"How big is your sphere?"

"67 metres."

"In that case… No!" Dafur picked up pace however the two on his shoulders were too heavy. "Why did ya have to kill those goblins?!"

"Experience," Stone's single-word answer made the dwarf desperate. Was this really the… the… entity he had to put his future in its hands?

"Haaah…" Dafur felt the frustration Lucifer was feeling every day for the first time.

"We outran platypuses! Yaaaay!" Lucifer greatly enjoyed his ride.

Something bugged Stone. Something about Dafur had changed. He was too… happy.

"Luci?"

"WHO SAID THAT?! Sia?"

"Luci! Wake up!"

"Aaaaah! I am possesseeeeed!" Lucifer yelled. The irony of that sentence completely eluded him.

"Loud! Luci!"

"It speaks in my head! Platypuses! Uaaaaa!" Lucifer struggled against Dafur and the beardless dwarf was forced to drop him with Jarka who groaned but did not wake up.

"Come ooon! Platypus!" Lucifer jumped up directly into a boxing stance.

"What's yar deal with those platypuses?" Dafur asked as he evaded the thrown punch and hit him directly in the jaw.

Lucifer collapsed and Dafur picked him up again with a sigh.

Stone was in an unprecedented situation. His guts told him something was wrong. So, he dropped the shield and even used refined mana to leave a trail. The Stone-Breaker would surely find them.

He would not abandon Luci. He could. But he wouldn't. Never.

They ran through a few caverns to an entrenched large cave with an entrance guarded by several 2nd-tier goblins.

"Kulbu!" A 2nd-tier goblin raised his arm, but Dafur pulled up the token and they were let inside.

When they saw the boulder on the ants' souls' backs, their eyes bulged out.

"Krukula! Krukula!" They surrounded them and pointed spears at Stone.

Stone abandoned any kind of stealth and conjured a bluish above him.

But before he could do anything else, a large rune appeared out of nowhere and covered them in a bloody mist. The collapsed and Stone could not properly cast another spell, which confused him.

He wished to ask Lucifer, but he was completely out.

"Ah, ya're here! Finally! Where're the goblins?" Shaman-Ganra

"Master!" Dafur happily exclaimed and unceremoniously dropped Lucifer on the ground, while Jarka was carefully handed to two goblins with stretchers. "They're dead, master. This pebble did it. It's as I told ya! See!" He picked up Stone and enthusiastically shoved him into the shaman's face.

The shaman squinted his eyes. He saw the leaking mana and from before, the basic spell but from refined mana. It intrigued him.

Stone did not move even an inch and waited for an opportunity. He was good at that. The Stone-Breaker was angry. Surely, he was still following him.

The shaman pulled a silky glove embroidered with runes. He wore it and transferred a bit of mana to the rune. The rune faintly glowed and a covered his hand. He did not want to be blighted and could not activate another skill rune as the area was still thick with the bloody mist.

The shaman then grabbed Stone and carefully examined him, turning him up and down. He even chipped him a bit and put the shard into a vial.

Stone's lifeforce decreased by a whopping 55 points. He was glad he could not feel pain.

Dafur told Shaman-Ganra it did not like loud sounds. So he shouted, "who're ya?!"

Stone did not answer, but instead intensely focused on him with his sphere.

He was loud. Too close and too loud.

It took everything in Stone for him not to complain.

But he made it! He did not say it!

After a while, Shaman-Ganra asked with a questioning stare, "are ya sure, slave?"

"Yea, master! He was speakin'! And ya saw the spell too!" Dafur answered, not even being angry to be called 'slave'. One of the worst insults for the Dwarven race.

Before the shaman could reply, a bolt hit a goblin standing next to him.

The poor greenskin incredulously glanced down at the shaft lodged in his chest. He collapsed and all hell broke loose.

The goblin screeched as they threw spears at the ambushers, while the dwarfs were shooting bolts back safely behind the .

"Platypuses!" Lucifer woke up and proclaimed, still out of his mind.

Stone realized Lucifer was not pilfering his refined mana like usual.

"Luci! Refined mana! Take it!" He yelled in his mind, but the Devilish Sorcerer kneeled with his head between knees and palms over his ears loudly humming and occasionally yelling something about revenge against platypuses.

The shaman handed Stone to a goblin 'assistant' and focused on the mist. The sphere battled with it for every centimetre and was even slowly winning over.

"Master?" Dafur saw his dwarven master. His eyes cleared for a bit and the surging memories gave him an opportunity to fight whatever the shaman did to him.

"Dafur?!" Baelgin exclaimed, his focus slightly wavered and the bloody mist reclaimed half of what it lost. He turned his attention back to the mist that attacked with renewed efforts.

The bloody mist shifted and the suppression was lifted.

Meanwhile, Stone felt he could cast again.

So he used the chaos and easily killed the goblin who was holding him. After another two normal and two dead goblins, from which he did not acquire any experience to his displeasure, he conjured a full-powered 27-RM and shot it at the shaman.

The shaman was sharp and made an attempt to dodge. Instead, the missile hit him in the shoulder, the explosion deeply lacerated it, even almost blowing it off. Shaman-Garza's bloody mist thinned as he screeched in pain and rage and stumbled.

The shaman activated a rune tattooed on his body. A film of refined mana spread around his body and the mist thinned even more.

However, it was enough for Stone to realize he did not stand a chance.

The runemaster, using this opportunity, expanded his sphere, gaining metres.

The shaman did not have another option than to turn his attention back to the ambushers and let Stone run away.

The small camp held around 50 goblins from which already half were dead. However, they were good cannon fodder and gave Stone an opportunity to tactically retreat.

He would never admit he was just running away like a beaten dog. Nor that he was tense from the two 4th-ranks. As a Mana Crystal, he could feel their mana. How it coiled. How it expanded and retreated. It was much, much more powerful than what he ever felt before.

Also, it took him most of his will and focus to not go berserk from the permeating refined mana. Fortunately, it was too thin. He would have to thank Lucifer for teaching him how to resist it.

"Dafur!" Stone yelled and the blighted dwarf looked at him, disoriented and muddled.

"Stone? What happened? Where're we?"

"Grab Luci and Jarka and let's run!" Stone knew he did not have a chance. The goblin, even though winded from his ambush, would not be an easy opponent. And mostly he needed him to slow the Stone-Break down.

Dafur nodded and did so. He trusted Stone. After all, the odd rock saved his life.

Stone disposed of a few stragglers from his moving soul throne and they ran and ran.

Stone wanted to give Lucifer some refined mana through their link, but could not. Well, it entered the body, however, it began to wreak havoc inside. The rotting even accelerated at some unspeakable places. Meh… he would just say it was the bloody mist. Otherwise, he would be loud again.

During another 'tactical retreat' Stone contemplated his life up to this point... It was the first time for him. And he did not like it.