Attracted by the guardian’s gravity, Dallion split into a hundred instances, each using a combination of athletics and acrobatics to spread out in a larger area. It was outright impressive how well an awakened could move on their own—almost as much as when swimming.

A titanic wing formed a second horizon on the left, slamming into the cloud of instances. Upon being hit, though, there was no immediate damage. It wasn’t like any attack Dallion had experienced before. Rather, he found himself falling onto a forest.

All of Dallion’s instances hit the forest running forward. Fighting without weapons wasn’t something he had done often, but that didn’t mean he couldn't. One of the things Euryale insisted on when they were living together was that they trained unarmed fighting in case there ever was a situation in which he couldn’t use his weapons. At the time, Dallion didn’t think that could ever occur, but humored her nonetheless. Now, he was thankful for her insight.

Taking a deep breath, Dallion swung the arm of one of his instances, then performed a line attack. The force was considerably less than when he used a weapon, but it still managed to cut down a few trees. Dallion rushed to grab one and use it as a makeshift weapon, but before he could grab hold, the entire landscape changed, turning into a prairie. The trees, respectively, had transformed into blades of grass.

Cute, Dallion thought. In future, he was going to have to be much faster.

Several seconds later the prairie changed into a rocky mountain, pushing him up into the air. This, Dallion had already experienced from the time he was walking around. Rapid changes in altitude tended to be quite deadly if one wasn’t prepared for them. This time, the guardian chose a different approach, having the landscape change into an ocean.

If that’s the way you want to play it, Dallion said and burst again. The major difference was that he didn’t burst into instances, but echoes of himself. Two dozen Dalions emerged from him, all pushing away to increase the distance between them. And then, Dallion performed his first attack. In perfect sync, all twenty-five of him struck the air in the direction of the ocean and performed a point attack.

A cluster of destruction dots flew forward, drilling through the ocean itself like a spread through wax.

MINOR STRIKE

Damage dealt is increased by 10%

A purple rectangle emerged. To an observer it would seem that Dallion was back to doing minimal damage again, but he felt pleased. At least he knew he could do damage to the creature. All his echoes had popped out of existence due to the stress caused by the point attack. It seemed that was too much for them to handle, at least in such an environment. Dallion made a note to keep that in mind when creating so many echoes. Meanwhile, he continued forward through the massive hole that had formed. As expected, the environment changed again, but the hole didn’t.

You’re nasty! the firebird chirped. Most probably this was the first time it had been dealt damage.

For a moment Dallion hoped that would be enough to make the creature quit and end the fight. However, he was wrong. Pain alone wasn’t enough to dissuade it.

“Interesting effect,” Eleria said, floating by him. “Good to know that point attacks have such an effect.”

“Don’t all Moon laws still have an effect on magic?” Dallion asked, no longer surprised why she was here or how a simple echo had managed to survive such an attack.

“Those of the Purple Moon, definitely. The rest are more like guidelines. They have some effect, but not always what you’d think.”

“Any advice you can give now?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why? We’re already engaged in combat with the guardian. How can it get worse?”

“You’re still in the feather’s realm, dear boy. As much as the aetherbird is annoyed with you, it’s also amused. If it stops being, it’ll just throw you out and never let you back in.”

“So, what am I supposed to do? Kill it?”

“That would be one possibility. More realistically, though, I’d say just survive as long as you could.”

After about a dozen seconds, the hole came to an end. Dallion suddenly found himself flying up towards the black sky again. The only difference was that this time he could see the Purple Moon in front of him.

This wasn’t the first time he had met a Moon, but there was something to be said about the Purple Moon being different from all the one’s he’d seen. For one thing, its surface too constantly shifted, creating the impression that it was spinning at weird intervals. In one instance, Dallion could have sworn that the Moon winked at him.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to wonder about the deity. Gravity grabbed hold of him once more, pulling him back to the guardian. Twisting around, Dallion found that this time he was flying towards the beak of the guardian; or more specifically, the beak was moving towards him, quickly transforming into a sharp mountaintop. Falling there wasn’t going to end well. That was why Dallion created six echoes, split into a dozen instances, and did another point attack straight at the beak of the approaching mountain. The damage done by seven point attacks was too small to merit a rectangle appearing. However, it did exactly what it was supposed to.

Having just had a taste of pain, the aetherbird wasn’t eager to feel more. The slight brick caused by the latest round of attacks made it flinch, moving its head—and the mountain linked to it—away, letting the Dallions fall into a soft field of trees and bushes. Just to be on the safe side, Dallion created another echo from which he could push away, to a tree. Scholar, acrobatic, and athletic markers combined showing him the way to reduce his momentum so as not to get hurt.

Go for the neck! Dallion thought, creating more and more echoes.

Capable of reading his mind, they instantly did what was asked of them, performing a simultaneous power attack on the ground.

MINOR STRIKE

Damage dealt is increased by 10%

The ground shook as a painful scream filled the air. The attack had clearly missed its target, but at the same time, it had caused a substantial amount of pain, judging by the guardian’s reaction. Once again, though, all of Dallion’s echoes had disappeared.

Splitting into a hundred instances, Dallion prepared for another terrain shift. That didn’t happen, or least not in the way he imagined it would. The first thing that he felt was a slight floating sensation. The ground separated from him, moving an inch away. For several seconds it kept that distance, after which it started to shrink. Trees shifted to barbs, then whole feathers, as the aetherbird reduced its size to a point that it was merely three times larger than Dallion.

PHOENIX

Species: AETHERBIRD

Class: MAGIC

Health: 0%

Traits: MAGIC

Skills: SPELLCRAFT

Weakness: NONE

The usually white rectangle appeared above the guardian’s head. It, too, was magenta like every other one in this realm. It was also quite confusing. The level of Dallion’s perception trait allowed him to view all the information there, but what he was seeing confused him even more. Having one trait and one skill was strange, but theoretically understandable. Having a health of zero, though—not so much. Could it be that he had managed to defeat it with two attacks? And if so, what followed now?

At first Dallion considered whether all of his echoes hadn’t dealt just as much damage during the attack. if that had been the case, there hadn’t been any other damage rectangles. More importantly, he should have received a bonus for cooperative actions in combat.

“You’re strong,” the aetherbird chirped with the same admiration the Lux had shown early on. That seemed to be a characteristic of such creatures: even when aggressive, they continued to be extremely attachable, almost lovable. “How did you get so strong?”

“Through lots of training,” Dallion replied. “There are a lot of others who are stronger than me.”

“Nah. They’re just pretending to be strong. They couldn’t even enter the realm. You did, and then defeated me with one strike.”

“Defeated you? I don’t think I did much..” Dallion began.

“You probably killed him with the first hit,” the echo of Eleria appeared, floating gently through the darkness. “In his case, it just likely took a little longer to take effect.”

“How does that work?”

As a hunter, he had seen a number of unusual things, even by local standards. However, the after-death existence of magic creatures still confused him profoundly. The fact that magic creatures in the real world created a crackling shadow version of themselves was enough to stretch his understanding of the world. Learning that within the realms, creatures—be they guardians—could continue in the exact same fashion after death, as if nothing had happened, was more than he could picture.

“It’s not something you’d understand.” The mage shook her head.

“I could have gone on for days,” the aetherbird boasted. “But the pain was too much.”

“So, what now?” Dallion asked.

“Now?” The firebird grew smaller still until he was the size of a hawk. “I’ll give you a gift. Not her though.” The guardian flapped its wings, glancing at Eleria. “She didn’t do much, just followed you in here.”

Clearly, Dallion wasn’t the only person who didn’t like mages. Hearing that from the embodiment of magic sounded more than slightly funny.

Chance of a gift, Dallion thought. One thing that this world had taught him, when offered something from non-human creatures, the best course of action was to ask the impossible.

“Can you give me magic?”

Upon hearing Dallion, the mage stifled a chuckle. In general, traits weren’t something that could be acquired. The creation of skill gems changed that allowing people to obtain the empathy trait. However, when magic was concerned..

“No,” the aetherbird replied in a slightly sad tone. “Anything else?”

“How about the location of your home?”

“My home?” The aetherbird sounded both surprised and curious.

“Where you usually like to stay. Do you have a single favorite place? Or maybe a few?”

“I used to stay in the forest off Erekol. It was nice, but then it became noisy, so I moved.” The bird flapped its wings again, then landed on Dallion’s shoulder, expecting praise.

You’re really vain, aren’t you? Dallion thought. The real aetherbird was probably hunted, but the feather was admired, treasured, and highly sought after. It was natural for it to become like this, especially with what it was capable of. From a certain point of view, Dallion was probably the first person who had stood up to it.

“Thanks, phoenix,” he said, patting the creature gently on the head. “You did well.”

There was a chirp of joy. The aetherbird remained several seconds on his shoulder, enjoying the pampering. Then, when he felt he had enough, he flapped off of Dallion’s shoulder. As he did, fragments fell off of him, as if leaving a trail of fine glittering dust.

“You were fun,” the guardian said.

Within seconds, the rest of it faded away, taking Dallion back into the mage’s chambers. The room felt small, cramped, as if someone had stolen the entire space and ticked it away somewhere. Looking at the box, the feather was no longer there.

“Not what you expected?” Eleria asked. She seemed particularly calm. “Well, it’s not over yet.”

No sooner had she said so, when a dot of light emerged in the empty box. Slowly the dot grew, forming the phoenix feather just as it had been before.

“As I told you, you cannot kill the aetherbird, just as you can’t destroy its feathers. The only way is to have it become consumed by a non-awakened.”

Slowly, Dallion placed the ring he had been given on the desk.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Dallion asked.

“To a point. Did you?”

That was a good question. The city mentioned wasn’t one he had ever heard. He didn’t know its location or even in which country it was in. Still, it was a start.