“Are you sure that there’s something over here?” a human player asked, wielding a sword and dagger at her waist as she followed behind Pandora with the rest of the group.

  “Yeah!” Pandora assured eagerly. “I told you, my trait lets me find hidden dungeons. That’s why I came to this area in the first place. According to the information my trait gave me, there should be a hill just up ahead in a clearing. The entrance to the dungeon should be hidden behind a large rock at the base of the hill. Once you find the handprint mark, place your hand on it, and the dungeon will open up.”

  The players seemed to perk up when they heard about that. And, sure enough, they came across the clearing only a few minutes later. When the players in Pandora’s party saw the large boulders at the base of the hill, they looked at each other. One of them, an elf with a longbow, ran forward to inspect the back of the boulders. As he did, Pandora quietly moved to the back of the group.

  “I’m not seeing a--” The elven player started, before crying out in shock as Rimu burst out from the cracks in one of the rocks, spraying translucent goo at his face. The players immediately sprang into action while the unfortunate sacrifice fell back, clawing at his covered face.

  “It’s them!” One called out, causing Pandora’s eyes to widen briefly. Three players turned around to face her, drawing their weapons.

  “W-what’s the matter?” Pandora asked in alarm, holding their hands up in a gesture of surrender. “T-there must have just been a guard on the entrance or something.”

  “Unlikely,” Wisteria finally spoke up, drawing a short sword. She opened her inventory, releasing a dozen stones that clattered to the ground. “The League has been tracking your movements. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come with us.”

  Pandora grit their teeth, suddenly calling out. “Everyone, do it!”

  Knowing that this was our sign, Diane and I sprang into action as I dismissed my Ghost Zone, dropping out of stealth to attack like a normal stealth skill. Black spikes rose from the ground around the player party, but Wisteria shattered them in a blur of motion, her eyes locked on my location. I could see her lips curved into a small smile as she lunged for us.

  Up in the tree, Bella made a grasping motion, and my summoned general responded by making nearby roots lash out in an attempt to grab Wisteria. However, Wisteria nimbly jumped off the roots faster than they could grab her, using them as footholds to get to us faster.

  Seeing that there was no escape, I created a volley of shadow arrows to launch at her, my tail wrapping around Diane to teleport us up into the air. With a grace far beyond what I had seen from her in our first fight, she evaded the vast majority of my arrows, slicing down those that she couldn’t easily avoid.

  “You brought some extra friends this time?” She asked in a firm tone. “Thankfully, we came prepared. None of you are getting out of here.”

  Without even looking, she swept her sword out, sending a pink mist into the air where I had teleported. I could see that the mist was a tightly packed cloud of fine blades, and my eyes widened in shock. She was aware that we were supposed to get away, right?

  With a growl, I erected layers of barriers in front of myself, barely blocking the assault. Or rather, I could tell that she let me block it. The first few barriers crumbled easily, and yet the last one held on with only a few cracks.

  Down below, Dwayne had risen, and was now fighting alongside Pandora and Rimu. Pandora kept looking at us, as if wanting to ask for help, but saw that we didn’t have any leeway to assist as they were attacked by the horde of players.

  Diane stretched her hand out, conjuring an orb of darkness that surrounded Wisteria. At the same time, Bella fired off a charged arrow, and I shot more arrows of darkness.

  Just as the attacks were about to land, a sound akin to a wolf’s howl echoed within the dark sphere. The sphere popped like a bubble, revealing Wisteria standing on a pink platform, her short sword held in front of herself. “Bring them low,” she muttered, lifting her sword to the sky.

  Beams of silver light shot out, forming a giant wolf projection above my body. This wolf roared menacingly, swiping at me with one of its claws. Although I hastily erected a barrier to defend myself, I was sent crashing down to the ground, barely able to shield Diane from the impact.

  After making that strike, the wolf projection disappeared, Wisteria turning to face us. “That’s one down,” she said as Rimu let out a pained cry, bursting into flames when one of the players struck him with a flaming sword. “I think I understand your level now.” Despite her casual tone, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of mockery in it.

  This had better not just be her revenge for that entrance exam fight! I thought to myself, rising to my feet and roaring. “Nyx, work with me!”

  Diane nodded in agreement, climbing onto my back. “I’m going to put everything I’ve got into this,” she said softly. “If this doesn’t work, you know what to do.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Hearing this from below, Pandora’s eyes widened. However, they didn’t have any room to complain. More importantly, we didn’t have the leeway to rescue them even if we wanted to.

  “Oh? One last struggle?” Wisteria asked in amusement. “Go on. Let’s see what you can do.”

  Diane narrowed her eyes, patting my back. “Follow my lead. Combined cast,” she explained briefly, before taking a deep breath. “From the darkest pit, the forge of night, I call.”

  After she said that, she gave my back a light tap, and I followed suit. “From the boundless shadow, the midnight sky, I call.”

  Spheres of darkness began to form around our bodies one by one. Seeing that her idea was working, Diane grinned broadly. “Become my blade, become my spear.”

  “Become the star that streaks across the sky,” I added next.

  “Bestow pain.”

  “Bestow death.” The spheres condensed into long, jagged blades, glistening in the light that leaked through the canopy above.

  Diane held her hand forward, pointing at Wistera, and uttered one final word. “Fire.”

  As soon as she said that, the combined cast launched, lines of black energy tracing through the sky towards Wisteria. For her part, Wisteria’s eyes narrowed slightly. She held her sword forward, slicing vertically once to create a silver shield. Each spear that impacted the shield caused thick cracks to form, and Wisteria grit her teeth slightly.

  While we were focusing, my ears perked up, hearing the roar of pain from Dwayne as a dwarf wielding a hammer crushed his back. At the same time, other figures could be seen emerging from the forest, including one that looked eerily like me. “Do it, Cassium!” Diane shouted.

  Without hesitation, I used Glancing Steps-X to appear in the air, with my general doing the same to bring Bella to me. For a brief instant, another platform was created beneath my foot, just long enough to teleport away again. With Ghost Zone active, no normal monster could see us at this point. Well, Wisteria was far from normal, having been able to see through my Ghost Zone when she first arrived.

  “Is it over?” Bella asked with a long sigh, resting on my back as I flew us to the edge of the forest.

  “Let’s wait for Wisteria’s message, just to be sure,” Diane smiled, maintaining her shadowy form.

  “Sure, sure… by the way, what was that last thing you two did?” Bella asked curiously, looking between Diane and I.

  “Combined channeling,” Diane shrugged her shoulders. “I saw a thread about it on the forums a while back. Basically, if two people have compatible skills, they can channel them together as long as they meet certain requirements. In this instance, Drake was using Shadow Forge, and I was using Dark Intent. As long as we had the same idea for the skill’s effect, it would combine our power to amplify the result. That’s why we did that chant, as a way of reinforcing the image in each other’s head.”

  Bella blinked, nodding her head. “Right. So, if you two practiced enough, you could do it without any of that?”

  “Possibly,” Diane admitted. “However, that kind of thing is really situational. Without implicit understanding between two parties, the image will almost always differ if done without proper communication. Mostly, combined channeling is used when casting barrier or healing skills, rather than offensive ones. Or when multiple casters are preparing one big siege skill.”

  “Still, that was impressive for your first attempt,” a voice called out from the edge of the forest. The three of us turned to see Wisteria, leaning against a tree. Aside from a small cut on her arm, she seemed completely fine. “I figured you had something big coming, but I didn’t expect that. That was two master-class skills, right? If you had coordinated better, the combined might could have reached the grandmaster level.”

  “Is everything taken care of?” I asked, noticing that the others hadn’t returned with Wisteria.

  However, she nodded her head calmly, pushing off from the tree. “I left one of my scouts when I chased after you. They just finished up with the shapeshifter. Although three innocent players were also killed in the melee, we can release them from the League prison and compensate them for their losses.”

  The three of us let out a collective sigh, simultaneously reverting to our normal forms. Diane looked over at Wisteria curiously. “What should we do in the future? If there is a need to use these disguises again, I mean. They were probably going to ask to add us to their friends list after we got to the dungeon city, but if we meet again, they’ll probably ask right away. Just in case something else happens.”

  “I’d like to say that such a thing shouldn’t be needed, but you never know,” Wisteria admitted with a grunt. “There aren’t many ways to fool the friends list. At the very least, the Status Charm won’t cut it. You’ll need a grandmaster level disguise skill known as Many Faces, or a charm enchanted with the specific effect from that skill. Many Faces would let you set up a true alias, one that could even fool the friends list.”

  Diane glanced over at me, but I shook my head. “I’m still thirty levels away from evolving False Identity-X. Maybe in another month or so, if I’m lucky.”

  “Handling the final stretch of a skill like False Identity in a month is already broken as all hell,” Wisteria complained. “Anyways, your part is done for this. If we really need to have you use those identities again, we’ll make a consumable item. It’ll be cheaper, and with a much higher success rate, but still costly to produce. For now, you guys can head back. Drake, you still need to set up the entrance for the League in Fallcry. Especially now that we know you have a gate to a dungeon city nearby. The master will want to prioritize setting up the branch now, once I report to him.”

  I gave a firm nod at that. “Got it. I’ll take care of that as soon as we get back. Anything else that you want?”

  “That’ll be fine. We’ll handle the new prisoners delicately. Can’t have them thinking we already know about the dungeon city, or they’ll do whatever it takes to close the gate,” Wisteria said with a tired sigh. “Instead, we’ll try to get other information out of them, just to see how much they’re willing to share. You never know, some players crack under very little pressure. Hell, some even seem to be looking for an excuse to spill their secrets, as if it’ll unlock some special quest.”