The Silver Beast Rises Again

The Silver Beast Rises Again

Amelia and I gasped again. It was a gasp-worthy day if ever there was one.

Did he just say Zanaffar s sealed in his armor?!

“Z-Zel!” I shrieked. “You didn’t say they could do that!” “Don’t get on my case!” he shot back. “How was I supposed to know?!”

He had a point. But it was still way, way too weird.

It’s taking me awhile to get my head around this, folks. Excuse me for a minute.

If Zanaffar was nothing more than a deflecting suit of armor against attack-spells, that was good news for us. An evil breastplate was a lot easier to deal with than some super chimera capable of sneezing destruction on entire cities.

But right then, the gang of attacking beast-men left little time for contemplation. I figured we probably wouldn’t be able to kill Duclis, but we had a chance of wiping out his buddies and then hightailing it out of there.

Gripping my sword again, I glanced over at Xelloss. He was pretty much running circles around his attackers, using his staff to parry their blades and dodging between their numbers. The man was poetry in action. The exasperated beast-men shouted things like, “Die!” and, “Stay still so I can kill you!” but it obviously didn’t help. They weren’t having as good a time as Xelloss was, that was for sure.

To be honest, I was a little embarrassed for the guys—all ten of them. I know I would hate getting my ass kicked by a guy half my size when I’d brought nine of my buddies along. I was just glad to see Xelloss was not using his magic; fried beast- man was good, fried village was not.

Amelia and I had it easier than Xelloss, but the odds against us were still three to one—and we were stuck with Duclis. At least none of the guys in the group compared to Vedur; I found I could go toe-to-toe with pretty much any of them.

“Yaaa!” roared an insect-headed beast-man as he charged me with his sword.

I parried his strike with my own blade. “Think again, ugly,” I spat out as I pushed him off.

My goal was to back out of sword range, but the beast- man pressed in tightly and didn’t give me the chance. I was contemplating what to do about that when yet another unexpected detail livened up the party.

“Nngh!” One of the beast-men grunted as an extra pair of hands emerged from his sides and brandished their very own shiny daggers.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was ready to call it a day.

“Ew!” I yelled, kicking the extra-handed beast-man in the stomach and using the force of the kick to propel myself backward. Finally, the distance I needed. One of the hands had managed to slash my right foot, but it was more annoying than painful.

Handy little buggers.

After quickly ducking out of the way of another beast- man’s attack, I chanted a spell.

“Oh, no you don’t!” a different beast-man shouted. He ran and took a slash at me, and I barely managed to evade it.

Amelia leapt through the air and slammed her foot between the guy’s eyes. He fell to the ground with a dull thud.

I threw her an appreciative glance just before releasing my spell. “Vu Vraimer!” I cried.

The ground began to shake and rumble; huge chunks of earth heaved up from a particular spot and began molding themselves into a new form. Moments later, I had a golem.

Vu Vraimer employs low-ranking earth spirits floating about in the air to transform hunks of ground into a possessed, controllable form. My lovely new golem was twice the size of any of my opponents.

“Wha—?!” cried a startled beast-man.

“Golem!” I commanded, enjoying the spectacle of a group of beast-men about to wet their pants. “Go!”

The golem lurched forward, swinging down its huge fist on the nearest enemy. “Ba!” it boomed.

Squish!

The beast-man slammed against the ground. Unsurpris­ingly, he didn’t get back up.

Duclis took a step back. “Well,” he said slowly, “I’m certainly impressed.”

With that, he crouched and charged the golem at full speed. Here we go, I thought, bracing myself for the oncoming collision.

“Hang in there, golem!” I called.

“Ba,” the golem grunted. As per my command, it wound its arm back and swung its fist in an upward arc for Duclis, who sidestepped the blow, hoisted his battleaxe high above his head, and whirled around on his heels like a top.

“Nice try!” he shouted. “But I’m afraid you’re too slow!” The axe, glinting in the sun, fell on the golem with a whoosh and a clang.

BOOM!

My golem shattered into a pile of rubble and a haze of dust.

Damn.

With the golem out of service, Zelgadiss suddenly and inexplicably decided to charge straight at Duclis. I was about to call out his name and add an unflattering epithet when I realized he had a plan.

Just before slamming weapons with Duclis, Zelgadiss slipped past him in a blur and made for the half demon standing nearby. Not a bad psych-out, I had to admit.

“I saw right through that!” the half demon cackled, swinging his sword up for a slash. But Zelgadiss had one more trick up his sleeve.

“Ra Tilt!” he shouted.

As soon as the words hit the air, blue flames consumed the half demon. As his former body crumbled to the ground in a neat little pile, Zelgadiss slipped past it and cut down a dumbfounded beast-man that was watching the spectacle. Zelgadiss’ sword hewed through the onlooker like a knife through butter.

Three down!

Not to be outdone, I spread my feet and began chanting my next spell. I’ll be damned if he comes out of this looking cooler than me.

That’s when the insect-headed beast-man decided to take another swing at me. I parried his strike then jerked back to avoid his kick. Blue flames engulfed him before he could regain his balance.

Amelia could be pretty handy with Ra Tilt, too.

That’s four!

Just then, a bunch of the beast-men fighting Xelloss took notice of us. They snarled something to each other before running in our direction.

That’s when Duclis got freaky on us.

“Hmph!” he huffed as he sent a swift kick toward Amelia. She managed to step back and evade the kick, but then Duclis planted his foot on the ground, whirled around, and—

Crash!

Amelia flew back and tumbled onto the street. I blinked in amazement.

Was that a tail?!

The instant Amelia had avoided the kick, she’d been slammed across the chest with something long and thick. I wasn’t sure if the thing was Duclis’ or if the Zanaffar sealed within his suit had magically lashed out.

Amelia scrambled to her feet, but I could tell the kick had knocked the wind out of her. Duclis advanced, raising his battleaxe again, just as Zelgadiss ran up from behind.

“Hmph!” huffed Duclis as he whipped around, his axe glinting.

With a severe metallic clang, Duclis cleaved Zelgadiss’ broadsword clean in half.

But… we needed that!

I wondered if Duclis knew how to wield Zanaffar in ways we couldn’t even fathom. I considered bringing my talismans into the fray, but there were still too many variables with amplification that I couldn’t predict. Besides, what good would amplified powers have if my target was impervious to whatever I could throw at it?

“Damn,” Zelgadiss murmured as he stared, wide-eyed, at his freshly broken sword. He turned and ran for the powdery ashes of the half demon he’d Ra Tilt-ed earlier; the dead demon’s sword was half buried in his remains.

“Think again!” snarled a wolf-man who stepped into Zel’s path. The wolf-man swung his sword, which Zelgadiss barely managed to parry with the broken half of his broadsword. Amelia and I were too busy with the new beast-men from Xelloss’ share to help.

Zelgadiss’ problems doubled when Duclis came at him from behind.

“Zel!” I yelled.

I knew Zelgadiss heard me, but he was still locked in combat with the wolf-man; he didn’t have the slack to shift to Duclis, who raised his battleaxe over Zel’s head.

No!

CHUNK!

Duclis grunted in surprise as the giant blade of his battleaxe went whirling away in a random direction. Duclis lowered his arms to stare at what was left of his weapon: a splintery, broken-off stick.

“What?!” cried the wolf-man, his beady little eyes darting to Duclis’ destroyed axe. A streak of blazing light suddenly sliced across his chest; with a bloodcurdling howl, the wolf- man hit the dirt and proceeded to bleed all over the place.

Zelgadiss turned to his light-bearing ally. “Glad you could stop by,” he remarked smartly, his rocky fist reaching up to tap at a golden blond head.

Gourry!

My exceedingly late protector smiled and gripped his Sword of Light again. “Yeah,” he replied sheepishly. “Pretty good entrance, though, huh?”

It was Gourry, all right.

“You first!” Gourry cried, leaping for Duclis. Duclis, clearly in possession of a brain, hurried to retreat.

Gourry was unfazed—he simply shifted directions and began slicing through the ranks of attacking beast-men. As the chimeras screamed and fell and tripped over themselves around him, he made up for his late arrival by racking up quite a body count.

Ah, it was good to be kicking ass again.

Duclis scowled. “I won’t stand for this!” he boomed as he chucked aside his sheared axe haft. He thrust his right hand high into the air.

VMMMM!

A streak of light sprang out from within his closed fist.

My jaw dropped. Is that another Sword of Light?! I thought frantically. Whatever it might have been, it was long, solid, and he held it like a weapon.

“This’ll put a stop to you!” Duclis shouted as he charged. Gourry whipped around to confront him and brought his own blade up to parry.

The two light swords clashed…

… and Duclis’ shattered into a million tiny sparks.

“What?!” Duclis cried.

Gourry didn’t waste time. He swung his superior blade in a gleaming arc and sliced deeply into Duclis’ chest.

That pretty much ended the battle. With Duclis reduced to a bleeding, dying wreck, the beast-man force quickly fell apart. The few that ended up surviving the next several minutes fled into the hills, leaving their dead and wounded behind.

The main street of the village had turned into a graveyard of hacked and slashed beast-man corpses. The remaining survivors included the fading Duclis; he knelt in the dirt, panting, and slowly shook his head.

“What,” he breathed, “what was that… weapon?” He lifted up his pained face to get a better look at us. The guy obviously had no idea what had hit him.

“That,” I said quietly, “was the legendary Sword of Light.”

Duclis smiled weakly at my reply. “I see,” he panted. “If Z-Zanaffar exists, then it should be no surprise that the Sword exists as well.” He closed his eyes. “But w-what kind of weapon stands a chance against Light? That’s not very… fair.” He coughed again and blood dripped down his chin.

I shifted uneasily. Okay, folks. Nothing to see here.

“You’re going… after Master Krotz?” Duclis asked.

I nodded.

“He d-drew you off. The new hideout is south of Mane… closer to the lake.” He took a long, shaky breath. “We got ahead of you… using a shortcut.”

“Why are you telling us this?”

Duclis shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe because… I’ve taken… a liking to you?”

Yeah, that made me feel pretty rotten. Duclis spat out more blood and I noticed his silver eyes growing dim.

“Be careful,” he whispered. “Grouj’s… Zanaffar… is more powerful than…”

Before he could finish, Duclis fell forward onto the road with a dusty thud. He heaved one more breath then stopped breathing altogether.

Nobody said anything for a minute. When Amelia spoke at last, it was to murmur, “Did you know him?”

“Mm.” I didn’t have a straight answer to the question, so I just gave her a tentative shrug.

I wondered about Duclis’ last words. Grouj’s Zanaffar… Did that mean there was more than one type of Zanaffar? And was “Grouj’s Zanaffar” stronger than the one in Duclis’ armor?

Like one Zanaffar wasn’t enough!

“So,” Gourry suddenly said, breaking through my thoughts. “Everyone in one piece? Nobody missing any limbs?” He smiled at Xelloss, Zelgadiss, Amelia, and me, and then casually reached out to tousle my hair.

CRACK!

My uppercut landed squarely under his jaw. Gourry’s head snapped back like one of those spring-necked dolls; it was really pretty funny.

“Wha—?!” he spluttered, grabbing his chin. “What was that for?!”

“Don’t you dare play innocent with me!” I shrieked, ready to finally vent my anger. “Where the hell have you been all this time?!”

Gourry stroked his bruised jaw, his disheveled hair catching in his fingers. “I was looking for you and Amelia, duh.”

“Oh really?” I snapped, my hands at my hips. “Then let me ask you this.” I took a step closer. I clearly had him more than a little scared, which thoroughly satisfied me.

“Before we got separated,” I grated, “I told you that Mane Village was the enemy’s stronghold. Why the hell didn’t you just go there? Why’d you wait to suddenly show up all the way out here?!”

Gourry blinked. “That was it!” he cried, smacking his fist into his palm. “Mane Village!”

I had the strong suspicion that his excuse was fantastically stupid.

“Look,” he blurted. “After I shook off the beast-man group in the woods, I looked everywhere in the forest but couldn’t find either of you. I figured I had to go back to the village where you said the group’s hideout was, but… um…” He trailed off.

“Let me guess—you forgot the place’s name.”

He nodded somberly.

THWACK!

I whacked Gourry’s face with the slipper in my hand.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble we went through just because you got lost?!”

“W-wait a minute!” Gourry cried, holding his palms out. “You’re not talking your way out of this one, buddy!” “It’s not that! Look, wait!” He paused, staring at the slipper in my hand. “Where the heck did you get that slipper?”

I glanced at it, then back at Gourry. “I took it out of my pocket!”

“Um, why do you have a slipper in your pocket?”

I admit it was a valid question.

“I got it at an inn awhile back,” I replied shortly. “Remember? I said the slippers were nice, and that I liked nice things, so I swiped them.”

“Nice things?” he repeated.

A long, awkward silence hung between us. I couldn’t think of a comeback.

“Um, Lina,” Amelia offered at last, “this isn’t exactly the time for a lovers’ quarrel.”

I whipped around to her, my eyes blazing and my cheeks red. “Who’re you calling LOVERS?!” I roared.

“Let’s get back to Duclis,” she suggested, ignoring my rage. “He said something about Krotz’s hideout being somewhere south of Mane, right? Somewhere near a lake.”

Before I could reply, Xelloss took a step back. “Yes,” he said politely. “And that marks my exit. Thank you for the memories, everyone.” He bowed graciously then turned to leave.

We stared dumbly at his back. “H-hey, wait!” Amelia called. “Where are you going?”

Xelloss glanced back with his cool, unchanging smile.

“Don t misunderstand,” he said quietly. “Though you and Zelgadiss are comrades, I am merely not your enemy.”

Silence. His smile had never looked creepier.

“Until now, Master Krotz had rather significant forces at his command—and I did not know the location of his new hideout, as you did not.” His gaze fell on Zelgadiss. “But that is no longer the case. You must remember that my objective is the Claire Bible, and I have no intention of handing the manuscript over to Mister Zelgadiss, just as he has no intention of handing it over to me.”

Zelgadiss paused. “That depends on the contents of it,” he said after a moment, his tone noticeably sullen.

Xelloss nodded slightly. “In other words,” he noted, “we’ve become competitors, and our continued collaboration has therefore become mutually counter-productive. Don’t you agree that it’s better to part at this juncture?”

When none of us answered, he shrugged. “Then I shall be off.”

He made a blessing motion as he turned, then calmly walked away. We watched him go, dazed and uncomfortable, until he vanished around a bend in the winding path ahead.

“Hey!” I called out. “Hey, hold on!”

I found myself suddenly running after him, out of the village, stopping only at the bend in the path where I’d seen him turn. But there was nobody there. All I saw was an empty trail bordered by thick groves of trees winding its way along the foot of the hills.

After a while, I heard the faint crunch of footsteps behind me. I turned to see Zelgadiss.

Silently, he gazed in the direction Xelloss had gone. After a moment, his eyes shifted to me and I saw something very dark hanging behind his pupils.

“It’s possible,” he murmured, his voice grave, “that he may prove the most difficult opponent of all.”

* * *

It took another two days to get back to Mane, since we had to travel through villages, mountain passes, and pathless forests to get there. By the time we arrived, we were six days behind Krotz and extremely cranky. It didn’t take long after that to reach the lake Duclis had mentioned; it was just south of Mane, and we were anxious to get the party started.

We crouched behind some bushes and held a strategy session. An ancient building stood not far from our hiding place, likely another remnant from the age of Letidius. As with the first hideout we’d blown the crap out of a week or so before, we didn’t notice any guards patrolling the build­ing. Krotz either didn’t believe in security or he was setting us up.

“I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Krotz is hurting from his recent losses,” Zelgadiss said in a low voice. He sighed, peering through the concealing plant life at the compound that loomed ahead. “Of course, that could be even more reason for him to spring a trap.”

Gourry shrugged. “We’ve still gotta go in,” he pointed out. “Trap or no trap.”

I was suddenly struck by a brilliant idea. I beckoned them closer.

“How about this?” I whispered. “First, we get Gourry to charge in on a suicide mission. If he doesn’t come back out after a little while, we assume he’s dead and start lobbing Dragon Slaves into their hideout.”

“Okay!” Amelia flashed a thumbs-up.

“Sounds good to me,” Zelgadiss agreed.

Gourry sighed.

Before you start judging me, we all needed a tension breaker and Gourry had done the least work We were only kidding! Well… half kidding.

After we finished having a chuckle at Gourry’s expense, I got serious. “We won’t be able to use very big offensive spells inside,” I murmured. “Everyone understand that?”

They nodded. I was about to continue when I heard the fireball.

FWOOOM!

A flaming sphere arced toward us and detonated, its red- and-orange plume expanding as it exploded. Of course, by then the four of us had figured out what was happening and had long since scattered.

Five figures in flowing red robes stood nearby. Four of them, based on their hulking frames, were obviously beast- men. The fifth looked suspiciously like…

Not him again!

“I regret to inform you that trespassing here will not be tolerated,” declared Balgumon.

Amelia shook a fist. “So,” she called, loud and clear. “The evil cult’s sub-leader has finally come out to face justice!”

“There is neither justice nor evil among humans,” Balgumon retorted shortly, “only weakness and strength. But life forms as low as yourselves—vulgar vermin that you are— are incapable of understanding that.” With that, he narrowed his eyes, swept his robe aside, and charged.

Straight at Gourry.

For a second, I thought it was a joke. As the skinny, pasty little man ran at our hulking swordsman, I wondered if Balgumon was insane. What sorcerer in his right mind physically charges someone three times his weight?

Suddenly, something silver flashed from Balgumon s hands.

“Ow!”

To my surprise, the sound came from Gourry. As I watched, Gourry doubled up from the force of the blow and staggered back a few steps.

What the hell?!

Balgumon clutched two swords in his hands. My brain skipped over the ridiculousness of it for a second, then quickly tried to process. Had he hit Gourry? With double blades? Gourry’s sword skill was pretty much the best I’d ever seen, and Balgumon didn’t look strong enough to lift two swords, let alone wield them.

I’d always just assumed, considering Balgumon’s skinny arms and robe-intensive wardrobe, that the guy was a sorcerer. But Balgumon was a swordsman.

“I know of Duclis’ failure!” he shouted, slashing his blades to and fro. “I know that it was he who informed you of our location. I also know that you bear a most troublesome sword!” Balgumon jabbed, whirled, and pressed in on Gourry, his robes twirling around him as he moved. “However,” he sneered, “if I give you no opportunity to draw your blade, I’ll be no danger at all!”

Balgumon was frightening in action. He moved so quickly that the blades in his hands became just blurs of motion; I could barely keep track of him as he and Gourry bounded from one spot to another. Don’t get me wrong— Gourry kept pace with his opponent’s lightning-quick movements just fine, but Balgumon stayed right in Gourry’s face and refused to give him the distance he needed to draw the Sword of Light.

I would have liked to give Gourry a hand, but Amelia, Zelgadiss, and I were a little preoccupied: the four beast- men had pounced on us like flies on you-know-what.

Even if I hadn’t been busy with my own fight, there would’ve still been very little I could do for Gourry. My skill with a sword wasn’t nearly good enough to face Balgumon, and the fight was too close for me to cast a spell and not kill them both.

Unless I can create a distraction…

“Amelia!” I shouted as I parried an incoming beast-man’s blade with my short sword. “Zel! Buy me some time—I’m gonna blow up their hideout with a Dragon Slave!”

Hearing that, Balgumon screeched to a halt. “W-what?!” he stammered.

The momentary pause was enough for Gourry to take a giant leap backward and finally get some space. But before they could continue their battle, they were interrupted.

KA-BOOOOOM!

There was no mistaking it. It was the sound of an explosion—a very big one—from within the cult’s compound. And I didn’t even do anything, I marveled.

Balgumon looked visibly shocked. “What?!” he exclaimed. “What’s the meaning of this?!”

Balgumon hurriedly backed away from Gourry and scanned our group. It didn’t take long for him to realize that one of us was notably absent.

“Where is he?!” he cried. “Where’s that infuriating priest?!”

Xelloss. If the explosion was actually his doing, then he had excellent timing.

Balgumon glared at us. “So that was your plan, you…!” He was too busy sprinting toward his hideout to finish whatever insult he had in mind. The beast-men watched him go, looked confusedly at each other, and then scurried off behind him.

“Master Balgumon?” I heard one of them squeak as they disappeared into the building.

We’d caught a lucky break, it seemed. And Zelgadiss wanted to take full advantage of it.

“Let’s go!” he yelled.

At his signal, we followed Balgumon and the four beast- men into the hideout.

* * *

“Damn,” Zelgadiss muttered under his breath. With his foot, he carefully rolled over the beast-man corpse lying just inside the building’s entranceway.

The beast-man had probably been on guard duty. He couldn’t have been very good-looking alive, but his death almost seemed like a cruel joke on his appearance—his head had been blown off, and pieces of it were smeared across the floor and splattered against the walls.

I knew that run-of-the-mill magic spells didn’t work on Krotz’s beast-men, so whoever had killed the guy had a special set of powers under his belt. If it was Xelloss, then I wished I knew what his secret was. Amelia obviously wondered the same thing.

“What’s his technique?” she murmured.

“I don’t know.” Zelgadiss frowned. “I’ve never seen it firsthand.”

Personally, I’d only seen Xelloss’ skills on two occasions: the amplified Blast Bomb when we’d first met and the giant gale back in the village. How the hell did he do what he did?

“Anyway,” I suggested, shaking my head, “let’s just go. We’re wasting time here.”

We stood in a small room with only one exit: a small doorway directly across from the entrance to the outside. The doorway was open, so we could see the long, downward- sloping corridor beyond it. From the look of things, the place was a fairly large and elaborate subterranean structure.

The passageway was warm, its walls hot to the touch and largely scorched. As we proceeded down the corridor, our senses straining for any sign of a trap, we heard a continuous clatter of footsteps and the occasional rumble of explosions from deeper within. Every room along the corridor lacked a complete door and radiated heat and smoke, as if it had just been set afire. We obviously followed in the wake of a very destructive spell-caster—one who went a bit overboard with the fireballs.

“Damn him,” Zelgadiss growled as we took in the carnage. “What the hell is that nutcase thinking?”

Xelloss had obviously wanted to cause as much confusion and alarm among Krotz’s forces as possible. It seemed to me that he was being awfully stupid about it, considering that we were searching for an ancient and probably highly flammable manuscript.

BOOOOOM!

Yet another explosion, this time much closer.

We’re catching up!

“This way!” I called to the others, breaking into a run down the passage. A lone figure, silhouetted against the flickering wall lights, suddenly crossed our path.

Balgumon.

The four of us stopped in our tracks and prepared to fight—or, more likely, start a fight and then get interrupted in the middle of it—but he barely paused to acknowledge us.

“Curses,” he hissed before darting away down a nearby side corridor. Obviously, there was something on his mind that took precedence over dealing with us.

Something more important than dealing with us? That sounded like just where we wanted to be.

“After him!” I shouted, and we all chased the man. He reached a door ahead of us, dove inside, and managed to lock it before we could get there.

“It won’t open,” Gourry grunted as he tried the knob. “It’s locked.”

Thank you, Gourry!

“Out of the way,” Amelia ordered. As she began chanting a spell, Gourry, Zelgadiss, and I quickly left what would shortly become a blast radius.

“Dam Brass!”

CR-RACK!

Amelia’s spell not only shattered the door, but also destroyed the doorframe and a lot of the wall around it. We peeked through our newly created hole and into what looked like a small chapel.

The interior of the chapel looked like it had recently been altered. The statues of old gods on pedestals had been hacked off, and on a small altar in the center of the room stood a statue of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu. It wasn’t a particularly accurate statue, though; the real thing was uglier.

At the opposite end of the chapel was another door. That’s where we spotted Balgumon, fiddling around with its lock.

“So this is where you’re hiding the manuscript,” I growled. The four of us stalked toward him, trying to look as menacing as possible.

The lock under Balgumon’s hands opened. He turned to us, a triumphant smile on his thin lips, and pulled open the door.

A shadowy form blocked his escape route. Balgumon’s expression went from confident to terrified in an instant.

“You!” he shouted.

As far as last words go, his was pretty unimpressive.

Splonk!

With a sound like a ripe tomato being violently popped, Balgumon’s head burst off his body. The grizzly missile flew a surprising distance across the room, splattering the Demon Lord’s statue with an appropriately gruesome red.

Balgumon body’s remained balanced on its legs for several seconds, then unceremoniously collapsed in a heap like yesterday’s laundry.

Xelloss stepped out of the doorway. He clutched a single sheet of yellowing paper in his hand.

“Hmm,” he hummed as he stepped over the headless corpse and into the room. He studied the page for a while, ignoring everything else, then finally looked up.

“A page from the manuscript,” he said with a satisfied nod. “No question about it. Let me thank you for the diversion you provided; it came in quite handy as I searched for this.”

That’s when I realized his strategy behind fireballing the place left and right. Xelloss knew that any attack on the enemy was, an attack on the manuscript, so if the enemy felt threatened, their first priority would be to protect it—which also meant leading any observers right to it. Still, it had been a dangerous gamble; he could’ve easily set fire to the manuscript by accident during his first attack.

Zelgadiss, for the first time since I’d met him, actually seemed to lose his nerve. “Would you… please hand that over?” he asked quietly.

Xelloss shook his head. “Can’t do that,” he answered. “Even this incomplete piece is far too important.”

No one dared take a step toward Xelloss. We had no idea what method he’d used to kill Balgumon, but whatever he’d done had finished the guy abruptly and gruesomely. None of us had any intention of learning his secret firsthand.

Xelloss seemed to notice the troubled look on my face, because he leaned toward me.

“Ah, Miss Lina,” he said, gently but ominously. “You seem so concerned. You’re wondering how I intend to use this, are you not?”

Well, since you brought it up…

My stomach churning, I slowly nodded.

Xelloss crumpled up the piece of manuscript in his hand. “This,” he said simply, and the parchment burst into flames.

My mouth opened, but whatever I’d hoped to say died in my throat. We all watched, morbidly rapt, as the invaluable manuscript became a worthless pile of ash before our very eyes.

That’s when it came to me. The rumor of someone burning a copy of the manuscript in the Kingdom of Dils.

“Y-YOU!” Zelgadiss shrieked.

Xelloss’ serene expression remained unchanged. “Misfortune befalls those who use technology that they don’t understand.” He then casually spun around and vanished through the doorway.

Zelgadiss was still in a state of shock. “W-why that—!” he stuttered, too mortified to form a coherent thought. “I can’t believe he—!”

Zelgadiss made a sudden move to pursue Xelloss, but then froze.

We heard someone approaching the doorway Xelloss had just gone through. Before we could even think of an escape, Krotz and two beast-men appeared, the three of them cloaked in their ominous red.

As Krotz passed through the doorway, his gaze fell on the corpse at his feet.

“Ba—!” he cried in a strangled voice. He fell to his knees and touched the headless, red-robed figure. “Balgumon!”

It wasn’t hard to figure out that the corpse was Balgumon, even without the head. The red robes, the markings on it, and the gaunt physique all gave him away.

Krotz knelt there for a moment, his lips parted in shock, then darted his grief-stricken eyes up to glare daggers at us.

“It was you!” he exclaimed, pointing very rudely. “You did this to Balgumon!”

I shook my head. “Get over it, Krotch,” I snapped. “It was not us. The guy you just saw leave through that door”—I pointed it out to him—”he was the one who did it.”

But Krotz kept his hateful gaze fixed on me, unconvinced, as he rose to his feet. “An abominable lie,” he hissed. “We saw no one leave through here.”

Why am I not surprised?

“What has become of the manuscript?” he demanded.

I shrugged my shoulders in response. What was I supposed to tell him? That the parchment was turned to toast by the same guy he didn’t see?

“Very well,” Krotz said slowly. “Vileus! Rudia!”

The beast-men flanking him stepped forward in military unison. “Sir!”

“Go awaken Grouj!”

The beast-men gasped and glanced at each other with horror-stricken faces.

“M-Master Krotz!” cried the one named Vileus, trembling. “We mustn’t!”

“That isn’t Grouj anymore,” Rudia whimpered. “If we aren’t careful…”

It was unsettling to see two huge, fearsome beast-men so terrified at running what seemed like a simple errand. I figured that the Grouj character had to be one frightening guy.

Krotz turned away from the beast-men and began scanning us with his withering look. Then he pointed to us and addressed them again.

“Fine, you sniveling fools! Hold them off here, and I will awaken Grouj by my own hand!” He stomped back through the doorway and disappeared.

“Master Krotz!” Vileus entreated. The two beast-men stared after him with completely stunned expressions. After a moment, they both made for the door.

“Hold it, you two!” I shouted. It was my chance to get the whole scoop, so I squared my shoulders and tried to sound as tough as I could. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Silence!” Rudia snapped, glaring at me. “You’ve no right to speak—”

Vileus quieted him with a raised hand. “You,” he said, look­ing our way. “You’re the ones who slew Duclis, are you not?”

Gourry nodded. “Tiger guy?” he asked. “Yeah, that was us.”

Vileus considered the fact for a moment, then said, “Come this way.”

Nice!

Rudia’s jaw dropped. “Vileus!”

Vileus ignored his comrade. When he reached the doorway, he paused to glare back at me.

“Are you going to follow or not?”

“Sure,” I replied casually. “Let’s go. We can talk on the way.”

I approached the beast-men without hesitation, not wanting to give them the impression that I was nervous or suspicious. “Miss Lina!” Amelia cried, but I ignored her warning plea.

I followed the beast-men down the corridor. Although I tried to exude all the confidence I could muster, I was still relieved to note that Zelgadiss, Gourry, and Amelia kept in step not far behind me.

“Let me get to the point,” Vileus said as he strode down the passageway. “I want you to deal with Grouj.” He paused for a moment. “Or rather… Zanaffar.”

“But isn’t Zanaffar just a piece of armor with magic sealed inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know all the details,” he grunted, quickening his pace. “But all I know for sure is that Grouj started acting strangely soon after he began wearing that armor.”

Grouj… Grouj… I realized that was the name Duclis had told me before he died. And hadn’t someone mentioned him during our first attack on the cult?

Vileus continued: “Master Krotz told us that the armor assimilates its wearer and then begins to grow. He said the worst that can happen is that the wearer’s mind will become a little unstable.”

Hang on now; back up!

“Did you say it begins to grow?!” I blurted. “So the Zanaffar-sealed armor is alive?!”

Vileus nodded grimly. “So it seems.”

I glanced over at my three companions. While Gourry looked as lost as usual, Zelgadiss seemed absorbed in thought and Amelia’s lips tightened with worry.

“Master said that, to be on the safe side, he was putting Grouj to sleep until he stabilized.” Vileus’ voice became a low hiss. “But I don’t think that thing is Grouj anymore.”

Between his head-shaking and his nervous breathing, it was obvious that something had really freaked the guy out.

“Before that,” Vileus continued, “Grouj had a number of… episodes. From time to time, he completely lost his mind. Once, he even went berserk without warning; he ended up killing quite a few people.”

“Master Krotz told us it was nothing to worry about,” Rudia tentatively added. He cast a quick glance at Vileus, who reacted to the remark with a snort.

“Listen,” Vileus growled, his brows furrowed as he leaned closer, “Zanaffar is complete. I overheard Master Krotz announce it yesterday. I think he wants to awaken it immediately!”

Rudia’s eyes widened. “But that’s—”

“Think about it,” Vileus interrupted. “If the armor lives and grows, then what is it feeding on that allows it to grow?”

Not something I want to think about.

“Are you telling me,” I asked slowly, “that Zanaffar is feeding on the flesh of whoever wears it?”

Everyone gasped, except Gourry. He was observing a crack in the wall.

He turned to us. “Did something happen?” he asked. “Sorry, I think I missed it.”

GOURRY!

“Zanaffar, “ I grated, using every ounce of my will to not murder him, “is a type of parasite, apparently. It starts in a suit of armor that protects the host’s body, but then it slowly consumes the host’s flesh in order to grow. When the host’s body is entirely consumed, Zanaffar is complete.”

Gourry stared at me, and we all waited for the information to process. Finally, he came to a conclusion.

“I still don’t get it.”

Where’s my slipper?! I need my Gourry-beating slipper!

After a few moments of seething fury, I burst out with a fast, hard, extended metaphor.

“Okay! Pretend that Zanaffar’s a sketchy guy who sweet- talks a girl—that’s Grouj—by saying things like, ‘I’ll always be there for you’ and ‘I’ll take care of you forever’ and all that.

But then, after he’s won her trust, he eats her food, steals her money, and kicks her out of her own house!” I threw my arms up. “You get it now?!”

Slowly, Gourry began to nod. “I think so. Sorta.”

Good enough!

Gourry put his hands on his hips. “So we just have to kill this guy, right?”

Someone please get him out of my face!

I swallowed my rage and forced myself back on track. “What about Duclis?” I asked Vileus. “Did he know about Zanaffar? About how it fed and grew?”

“As far as I can guess,” Vileus replied somberly. “He must have known what would happen to him when he volunteered to ‘bear’ the second Zanaffar.”

“In any case,” Rudia interjected, “I have one request. When you finish off Zanaffar, do not harm Master Krotz.”

I wanted to tell him to piss off, but Amelia cut in. “You guys sure do make a lot of demands!” she accused.

“What do you mean by that?!” Rudia snapped, lurching toward her.

I decided to intercede before things descended into really stupid violence.

“Look,” I said flatly. “We can’t make any promises. If we go after Zanaffar, I’m sure that Krotz will use any means necessary to keep us from ruining his plan.” I shook my head. “If you dance close to the fire, you’re gonna get burned, know what I’m saying?”

While Rudia mulled that over, possibly trying to figure out what fire dancing had to do with battling Zanaffar, the ground beneath us began to tremble. The beast-men crouched low, expecting something.

“We’re too late,” Rudia moaned.

The rumbling only lasted a few moments, then an ominous calm settled over the building. The beast-men urged us to run for the surface, so the six of us sprinted through the corridors and made our way outside via the quickest possible route. Soon enough, we found an exit and emerged into the daylight.

Everything looked just as calm and peaceful as when we’d arrived; the only sound I could hear was the wind rustling in the trees. The scenery had a distinct lack of world-destroying chimera monsters.

“Nothing’s happening,” Amelia said.

“Maybe he just farted in his sleep,” Gourry suggested. “That can happen.”

None of us were willing to dignify that with a response.

A few more uneventful minutes passed. Zelgadiss, finally fed up, strode angrily over to Vileus.

“Hey!” he yelled at the beast-man, “is this some kind of a game?” He unsheathed his blade and pointed it at the motionless Vileus. “Did you make all that garbage up about Zanaffar just to buy time for Krotz? You did, didn’t you?!”

Instead of answering, the beast-man looked across at the hideout’s entranceway.

“If only that were so,” Vileus whimpered. “You may have beaten Duclis, but do not underestimate what Zanaffar can do once he is unleashed.”

At that instant—

VMMMM!

A streak of light ripped across our view of the lake.

The Laser Breath!

There was no question about it—it was the exact same light that shot at us the night we fled from the cult’s first hideout, only now it was way meaner. The beam had emerged from beneath the ground, ripped through the earth, and hit the lake with such force that the water boiled, hissed, and sprayed violently in all directions. The vaporized water created a cloud of mist over the entire area.

“GRAAAAAAAA! “

An ear-splitting roar shook the ground under our feet. In front of the hideout’s entrance, a giant, gaping hole had opened in the earth.

“It’s coming,” I heard someone squeak.

Then again, that might have been me; I was definitely freaked out enough. As I watched, an enormous silver claw emerged from the hole and pierced the earth around the rim. The claw scraped for a moment, then the creature slowly dragged himself out into the daylight.

It was the Silver Beast—Zanaffar!

The thing was huge. He stood on four legs, but the more I stared at him the less I could discern what sorts of creatures his various parts had originated from. The only thing obvious about him was his head; it was clearly like that of a silver­maned wolf.

The wolf-headed, four-legged, dragon-sized beast scanned the area with his glittering eyes. Whip-like tentacles thrashed from his silver torso.

I wanted nowhere near those hideous things.

“Master Krotz!” Rudia cried meekly.

“Master Krotz?” Vileus joined in, calling in the direction of the hole. “Are you all right down there?”

The Beast craned his head in our direction.

VMMMMM!

We all screamed and scattered as the Laser Breath shot through. The beam crystallized the sand and scorched a trench­like scar in the earth.

Even scarier was what happened next: the Demon Beast charged straight at us! He fired another Laser Breath, jogging behind it, when suddenly—

Gourry deflected it.

Zanaffar halted in his tracks, stunned as his one-shot, one- kill attack swept through the earth at an angle away from his target. Gourry, his feet spread and the Sword of Light blazing in his hand, silently waited.

I saw realization dawn in those giant silver eyes. Zanaffar, his teeth bared under silver lips, made a low and cautious growl.

That’s when I noticed something. Near the Demon Beast’s right flank, a pathetically small figure crept over to the monster. On closer inspection, I realized it was Rudia, who was taking advantage of Zanaffar’s distracted state to sneak up for a surprise attack.

I had no idea what Rudia intended, but there was no way in hell anything he could do would hurt the Beast. I wanted to yell at him to back away, but I knew that would just draw Zanaffar’s attention to him and get Rudia killed even faster. I was forced to watch the beast-man’s defining moment of stupidity.

The moment he was close enough, Rudia swung down his blade with everything he had.

Clang!

The sword recoiled with a hard metallic sound, knocking Rudia off balance. He hadn’t even marked Zanaffar’s hide.

“Damn!” Rudia shouted as he caught himself and tried to leap behind a rock.

Too late.

One of Zanaffar’s silver tentacles shot out of nowhere and skewered the beast-man clean through. Rudia’s body convulsed a few times, then hung there, limp. The tentacle flicked once and discarded the beast-man’s corpse as if it were a dirty tissue.

Zanaffar had managed to do all this without once taking his eyes off Gourry. The Demon Beast was completely and utterly lethal.

Slowly, carefully, Zanaffar began to advance.

Gourry wasn’t one for careful deliberation. Without sparing another second, he launched himself toward the Demon Beast.

“Don’t approach recklessly!” Vileus shouted. But it didn’t matter—Gourry was already in too deep to stop and too clue­less to know any better.

Holding aloft the Sword of Light, he deflected another onslaught of the Laser Breath and closed the gap between himself and the Demon Beast. “Haa!” Gourry cried, swinging at Zanaffar’s front foot.

But Zanaffar wasn’t only extremely tough, he was ex­tremely fast. Gourry swung, but he sliced through nothing but air. Zanaffar had avoided the attack by jumping straight up!

It surprised me how high Zanaffar’s jump carried him. His enormous body became a tiny shape silhouetted against the sun, hung high in the air for a moment, and then plummeted downward—straight for Gourry. As he dropped, the Demon Beast shot a nonstop succession of Laser Breaths; Gourry had his hands full deflecting Zanaffar’s attacks, robbing him of the time he needed to dodge the Beast himself.

I scrambled for a rescue plan, but Amelia was already on it.

“Fireball!” she shouted.

FWOOM!

The ball of flame arced up and slammed into the Demon Beast. It didn’t do any damage, but it did manage to push him off course.

The Demon Beast landed heavily a short distance away, his impact with the earth shaking us all. The instant his claws dug into the ground again, he let loose with another salvo of Laser Breaths, all of which Gourry deflected.

I decided it was time to let loose with some magic myself.

“Blast Bomb!” I shouted.

It was one of the spells I’d been working on with my newly amplified magic. As far as I knew, I was only the third person in the history of the world to actually cast it: the legendary sorcerer who invented it; Xelloss; and now that I had Xelloss’s talismans, me. Even in Sairaag, at the height of its power, I doubted that there were any sorcerers able to cast such a powerful spell. My plan in unleashing Blast Bomb was to raise Zanaffar’s surface temperature above what his hide was able to tolerate.

The Blast Bomb exploded very impressively and right on target. But when the smoke cleared, the Demon Beast wasn’t fazed at all.

Hey!

There still wasn’t a scratch on his shiny, silver hide. I’d never seen skin so tough in my life.

Fine, I thought quickly. Time for a new plan. It was clear that applying heat to the Demon Beast’s body wouldn’t damage it; I doubted that cold would have any effect, either. I considered trying to get around his impenetrable hide by launching a fireball straight into his mouth, but he moved too fast and released way too many Laser Breaths for me to get a clear shot. Add to that the fact that he didn’t seem the least bit interested in anyone but Gourry; despite our spells, the Beast hadn’t even glanced in our direction.

Gourry tried to outmaneuver Zanaffar by sliding along the Beast’s massive flank, but he didn’t have much luck. Zanaffar was just as quick as Gourry, so he twisted his body as. much as was necessary to keep Gourry firmly in front.

“Dammit,” Zelgadiss snarled. “He doesn’t even have to look at us.”

Amelia threw up her hands in frustration. “He doesn’t have to bother with us,” she pointed out. “And why should he, right? That Sword of Light is the only thing that can kill him.”

That’s when the thought hit me, like a thunderbolt out of the blue. “Maybe it is,” I mumbled, “and maybe it isn’t.”

“What do you mean by that?”

But I didn’t reply to Zelgadiss’ question; I had some serious chanting to do. I had one spell in mind that, with the aid of my talismans, could possibly get Zanaffar’s attention. It was a spell for summoning darkness and converging it into the shape of a blade.

Sounds cool, huh?

I’d tested out the spell several days earlier and found its destructive potential to be, for lack of a better word, ginormous. Of course, I hadn’t deployed the spell in real combat, but it was still a hell of a spell. Powerful enough to give the Sword of Light a run for its money.

I knew it would be difficult to pull off, since the blade that the spell formed was only the size of a short sword. The spell also consumed magic energy while it was being cast, which meant that even if I used all my magic power, I still couldn’t keep it going for very long before it burned out or my body did. Once activated, all my physical energy would go into the spell and leave me little mobility for dodging incoming attacks. My only hope was a surprise attack—a fatal, single blow, so he couldn’t live to retaliate and make me very dead.

By the way, the spell I had in mind falls within the realm of what fuddy-duddies call “forbidden sorcery.” It’s true that it originates from the same source as my most secret of spells, the Giga Slave, and that that source just happens to be the Lord of Nightmares. Okay, so maybe the “forbidden” tag is there for a good reason. Cut me some slack—I was going up against a Demon Beast!

On the plus side, I knew it was easier to control than the Giga Slave, so I didn’t foresee any (serious) problems keeping it reined in. The only problem, really, was that there was no guarantee it would hurt the Beast at all.

I hoped we could lop off one of Zanaffar’s feet first, since I knew that would slow the thing down and seriously help me out. Gourry seemed to be thinking the same thing, but he wasn’t having much luck getting close.

“Argh!” he cried. In a rare display of rage, Gourry scowled and charged forward with a curse. Unfortunately, Zanaffar sent a swirl of lashing tentacles out to meet him.

“Outta my way!” Gourry fumed as he moved to slash the tentacles. The moment he tried, streaks of light sprang from the tentacles’ tips.

What?!

I don’t think Gourry expected it, either. Despite his acrobatic ducking and the deflections of his sword, one of the streaks caught the side of his thigh; he cried out in pain and rolled across the ground.

I remembered just then how Duclis—wearing his Zanaffar-sealed suit of armor—had summoned light out of his bare hands. It had probably been an application of the Laser Breath—and that meant the tentacles’ shots were, too.

Gourry grunted, tried to get up, and promptly slumped to his knees. Zanaffar laughed in his low, growling voice.

“Warrior of the Sword of Light,” he boomed, “it seems you have taken this mere beast too lightly!”

My jaw dropped. The thing talked!

“He can communicate using human speech?!” I heard Vileus cry from somewhere.

“I have consumed my host, Grouj,” Zanaffar explained with a wicked snarl, “as well as his knowledge and experience. Is it so mysterious that I am capable of communicating in your human tongue?”

He fixed his glittering, wolfish eyes on Gourry. “You indeed have treated this mere beast with disrespect. You underestimate my deadliness even more than the hosts I consumed.”

He growled and crouched lower on his haunches. “Now set your sword aside,” he ordered. “If you do, your lives shall be spared. Consuming you is of no use to me, for the defensive capability that protects me from magic denies me the power to use magic myself.”

Really? I thought. So the astral seal interfered with spells both ways—it gave protection against incoming attack spells, but then prevented Zanaffar from casting his own. I wondered how Zanaffar had come to know that. Grouj wouldn’t have possessed such extensive knowledge on astral seals. Krotz would’ve, but…

Wait a sec!

“What’s all this about?” Zelgadiss shouted. “Is your goal to destroy the world?!”

The Demon Beast turned a bored glance in his direction. “Not particularly,” he replied. “I wish merely to add to my kind. That lit sword, though it may inflict minor wounds to my flesh, is nothing but a mild hindrance.”

“Add to your kind?” I asked. I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. “And how exactly do you plan on doing that by yourself?”

The Demon Beast had that one covered. “I shall make followers of those humans who seek power,” he bellowed. “There are many humans who seek strength and will even worship Demon Lords to attain it. I shall command such a group to create more Zanaffars. It won’t be difficult, as I know the procedure.”

“What?!” Vileus broke in. He gripped his sword and began trembling with anger. “W-what did you do to Master Krotz?!”

Zanaffar smiled wickedly. “I,” he drawled, “consumed him also.”

Wow! Eating someone that important. That’s hard-core.

Vileus wasn’t too happy to hear that. The rage boiled up inside him ‘til the lid just flipped.

“DIE!” he roared, raising his sword. He charged Zanaffar with a passionate war cry.

Um, hello?! Use your brain, doofus!

“Hey!” I yelled. “You’re just gonna get yourself killed!”

But by the time the words came out, it was already too late.

ZAP!

The tentacles unleashed their deadly streaks of light. Vileus was promptly seared in half; his top and bottom portions divided evenly and thumped to the ground like hunks of ham.

Ew.

“I will say this once,” the Demon Beast declared, a little too late for Vileus. “I will not hesitate to slay those who defy me.” His eyes fixed on Gourry again. “Make your choice. Set aside the sword, and you may leave this place alive.”

The situation only left me with one option: to give my crazy plan a shot. I wasn’t too keen on ending up as pork roast or living in a world full of Zanaffars.

I leaned in close to Amelia and Zelgadiss and laid out my plan. “All right, guys. Listen up.”

A few moments later, Zanaffar turned his head to Amelia and me. He’d noticed Amelia grab hold of me and take to the air with Levitation.

“Hmm,” Zanaffar rumbled. “You’ve wisely chosen to run away.” He turned his attention back to Gourry. “Now. Give me the sword and—”

“Gourry!” Zelgadiss interrupted. “Pass!” He jumped up and down and flailed his arms.

Gourry understood instantly. He hurled the Sword—its column of light still blazing—to Zelgadiss.

“What?!” Zanaffar roared. He had a reason to be mad— after all, it was the Sword he was afraid of, not Gourry.

“Run!” Zelgadiss ordered. Gourry got himself up on one leg and stumbled off the battlefield, dragging his wounded limb behind him.

Zanaffar’s lips curled with hate. “Humans are such stupid creatures!” he snarled. With a deafening howl, he shot a beam of Laser Breath straight for Zelgadiss.

Zelgadiss somersaulted out of the way, the Sword of Light still clutched in his hand. With Zanaffar thus distracted, Amelia and I had managed, in the meantime, to float directly over him. I’d also finished chanting the amplifi­cation spell.

Let’s do some damage!

Zelgadiss dropped to one knee and slammed his hand against the ground. “Dug Haut!” he shouted, and the earth began to ripple.

“Fool!” Zanaffar roared, bracing himself while the ground beneath him rumbled. “What do you think you’re—”

Before Zanaffar could finish his words, the entire area under his feet collapsed.

BOOOOM!

The spell had caused Krotz’s one-time hideout to crumble under Zanaffar’s feet. Huge plumes of dust and smoke choked the air below Amelia and me, so we covered our mouths and waited.

When the air did clear, we could see the Demon Beast slumped in the earth—unharmed, of course, but restricted. Zelgadiss looked over the rim of the hole to inspect the damage. Even with his legs buried in rubble, Zanaffar abruptly arched his head up and sent another furious stream of Laser Breaths at Zelgadiss. Zel, smart boy that he is, ducked back behind the rim.

It was time to make my move.

…Sword of cold and darkness,
Free yourself from the heavens’ bonds;
Become one with my power, one with my body,
And let us walk the path of destruction together.
Power that can smash even the souls of the gods…

“Ragna Blade!”

At my call, a jet-black blade of darkness formed in my clenched hand. Exhaustion suddenly dragged at me (That spell takes a lot out of you.) I knew I couldn’t keep it up long, so I had to make it count.

I gave Amelia a quick nod as a signal to let me go. I looked down in my freefall and saw my target directly below me— Zanaffar s hulking, ugly back. I braced myself for impact.

“GRUAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Zanaffar roared as I plunged the blade of darkness deep into his hide.

YES!

The sword sliced through Zanaffar’s flesh easily—so easily, in fact, that both my arms plowed through the wound right up to the elbows. While the thrust didn’t quite kill Zanaffar, it sure as hell hurt and confused him. Grimacing with pain, he craned his head around. If I saw a girl with her arms lodged in a gaping wound in my back, I’d be con­fused, too.

“Y-you!” he roared, his silver mane bristling. “What have you done?!”

By then I had already released Ragna Blade and begun chanting my next spell. I had no time to waste—I had to move fast for the payoff, so there was no time for amplification.

“No!” Zanaffar roared. “I, defeated by a mere sorceress?!”

Several tentacles writhed toward me. It was too late, since I already had my deathblow ready to go, but I wanted to get a comeback line in first.

“You’ve taken this mere sorceress too lightly, Zanaffar!” I shouted. “I hope you like your ribs… well done!

“FIREBALL!”

FWOOM!

Zanaffar’s midsection rumbled as tongues of flames shot out from his ears, nose, and mouth. He couldn’t even scream as the fiery inferno devoured him from within.

As I fell to the ground nearby, exhausted, I watched the bastard burn. The acrid smell of cooked flesh singed my nostrils and burned my eyes.

Ahh… the smell of victory. It was less than appetizing, but still oddly sweet.

* * *

“Mmm.” I slumped and sighed with relief. I held up both my hands and inspected them carefully; they looked and felt a million times better, thanks to Amelia’s resurrection spell.

“You rock,” I told her, glancing in her direction. She was in the middle of casting a recovery spell on Gourry’s injured leg, but she still managed to nod a quick “You’re welcome.”

At the end of every major battle, it’s the healers who save the day. Remember that the next time you form your adventuring party.

“Lina?” Gourry asked, then grunted in pain as Amelia poked his leg. “Can I ask you a question?”

Explanation time. “Shoot,” I replied.

“How’d you kill Zanaffar?”

Right. Who called it?

I stretched out my arms and took a deep, satisfied breath. “Maybe you didn’t see it,” I explained. “I used my big spell to punch a hole in him, right? Then I just kept my arms in there and cast a fireball. It barbecued the sucker from the inside.” “Huh,” Gourry replied, nodding vaguely. I was a little annoyed that he didn’t seem impressed by my death-defying heroics. He thought a moment then frowned.

“Maybe I’m not thinking about this right,” he added, “but wasn’t that, like, really reckless?”

“Very reckless.” Amelia finished tending to Gourry and got to her feet. “Actually,” she said, gesturing to my hands, “Lina’s hands were in worse shape than your leg, Gourry.”

I shook my head, pushing my palms into my eyes. “Ugh,” I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

The fireball, you see, had gone off in my grip. So even with Zanaffar’s inner body tissue providing protective padding, you can probably imagine what my hands had looked like when I’d pulled them from Zanaffar’s incinerated carcass. I’d known the risks of the Ragna-Blade-plus-fireball strategy, of course, but that hadn’t made torching my flesh any more fun.

Zelgadiss stood nearby, silently looking out at the horizon. I walked up to him and gingerly patted his shoulder.

“You gonna be okay?” I asked carefully. “Sorry we didn’t end up getting the manuscript. You must be pretty bummed, huh?” Zelgadiss shrugged. “Eh.”

Eh?

I swallowed. “So, um… you’re not angry because this ended up as a great big waste of time?”

“It wasn’t a waste of time,” he countered. “Think about it. We’ve proven the existence of the Claire Bible; all that’s left now is to find it.” His eyes caught mine, and I saw his pupils glitter with purpose. “And I will find it. You can count on that.”

It was a surprisingly optimistic viewpoint, though it was a little weird, coming from him.

I thought Zelgadiss was the angsty one.

“Well,” piped in Amelia. “I’m glad we can put this whole mess behind us now.”

“Except for the fact that we dug ourselves into a deeper hole, you mean.”

The others halted and shot me quizzical glances.

“This mess is done,” I explained. “But what about all the huge loose ends?” They shook their heads, not quite getting it. “Xelloss?” I offered. “The Claire Bible?”

“Oooooh.”

Whatever. There would be plenty of time for all that later. I never backed down from a challenge—not then and not now.

As I stared off into the distance, I felt an iron resolve fill me. I was determined to face the next day and every day that followed with my middle finger raised high.

Hello, world—make way for Lina Inverse!