The sound of King Scalea’s mighty roar was so powerful that Vetica’s hair rippled in the wind. Though the scaler king was close to them, the sound didn’t hurt their ears. Charlie and the others could hear it, but despite their proximity to the deafening roar, it didn’t harm or affect them.

  The same couldn’t be said for the sin bear scorpions. The remnants of the first wave of bears shrunk back in agony. The second wave of bears growled, more annoyed than pained.

  But the ability was never intended to affect either Charlie and the others or the bears. It was intended for the komodon scalers. The gashes, wounds, and scorpion tail sting marks on their body started to heal. Scalers were naturally good at recovering from injuries, but this healing was far too fast, even for them. The exhausted scalers appeared full of energy again, and many of them stood tall, having regained their strength. But Charlie realized the komodon scalers weren’t just recovering. They were growing even larger.

  Their muscular bodies swelled, and their tails thickened. They were still much smaller than the bears, but the komodons were definitely bigger than they had been before. King Scalea and Bonehead were already larger than the others, and rather than growing larger, the ability seemed to affect them differently.

  The lines of bone along Bonehead’s side slowly protruded further. More bone emerged all over, creating a wider bone exoskeleton around his body until it was completely covered. The small horns on King Scalea’s head grew until they were each a foot in length and more imposing than ever before. They were horns that truly befitted the scaler king.

  Vetica’s eyes widened. Her head swiveled as the komodon’s grew around her.

  Merlin appeared just as lost. His jaw nearly hit the ground. “What’s going on?” he stammered in Charlie’s direction.

  Orb bounced in the air. “What the heck? He did all of that just by yelling? I mean, even their muscles look bigger! I wish it worked on more than just the scalers. Imagine if it could make Charlie buff too? A buff baby Charlie. That would be sick!”

  The three strange stone hands pointed their fingers in different directions, as if they were watching the scaler transformations take place.

  Notice

  The ability ‘Roar of the Scaler King’ has activated. At level one, the overgrowth affect applies to all scalers temporarily. The effect will remain until King Scalea runs out of magic potential or is defeated.

  “Oh, hell yeah! This is it. It’s fight time!” Orb said. He rolled from side to side and made a telepathic cracking noise in their minds.

  Merlin looked up at the floating dungeon core with a dumbfounded expression on his face. “Did you just pretend to crack your neck?”

  When the leader of the bears finished studying the changes in the komodon’s, he roared his own ear-splitting response. He’d stayed out of the fighting thus far, luckily, but now it seemed he was ready to join. That wouldn’t be good. A bear of that size would be hard enough to deal with on its own. With the others at its side, things might start looking even worse.

  When Bleedy had first tried to come to Charlie’s aid during the first wave, the bear’s leader had stopped the racooneever. This time, however, it was Bleedy that turned to block the bear’s path. Even in his wolf form, the way Bleedy looked standing in front of the giant bear was comparable to the way Mousifer would look if he stood in front of Marvin the horse. Charlie hadn’t worried too much because the bear hadn’t seemed interested in harming Bleedy before.

  But this…might change things.

  “Bleedy, no!” Charlie cried out telepathically.

  Bleedy turned back and flashed a toothy grin towards Charlie. With the jaws of a wolf, the effect was perhaps not as cute as intended. Bleedy turned back and faced the bear.

  He howled.

  Charlie reacted as soon as he saw the bear’s hand twitch. But his reaction wasn’t quick enough. He held a hand up, hoping to do something, anything, to protect his friend, but it was too late. The powerful bear's paw flicked through the air and smashed into Bleedy.

  A cut-off whelp escaped the hybrid as his injured body was sent spiraling through the ring of dead trees all around them.

  Charlie’s breath caught. “Bleedy! Are you okay?” he asked.

  Bleedy didn’t respond. Either he was too far to respond telepathically with one of his trademark nicknames, or he was seriously hurt. Charlie wouldn’t dare imagine any other outcome. He turned back toward the bear with an overwhelming sense of hatred burning inside him. His body felt hot. His muscles tensed.

  To Charlie’s surprise, the bear leader looked…troubled. It stared in the direction Bleedy had flown off in before staring back down at its own paw. As if it had done something it regretted. The creature shook its head and locked eyes on Charlie.

  Charlie stared back. This was it. This beast had hurt someone Charlie cared about because he hadn’t been fast enough. Because he hadn’t gone all out from the start.

  Charlie was going to kill them. All of them.

  His powers activated, and large boulders emerged from portals in the ground. They floated upward all around him. “I want them all dead,” Charlie said so all of his allies could hear. King Scalea normally relayed his orders, but the scalers didn’t need a translation this time. They all knew. They’d all spent plenty of time with Bleedy. He might be furred instead of scaly, but he was their friend. Their brother. An honorary scaler.

  The boulders floated high above in the air. The komodon’s tensed, getting ready to fight. Vetica’s blade shimmered as her double layered hexes covered it. Even Merlin readied his hands in preparation.

  The bears had made a fatal mistake. It was time to teach them that.

  Charlie threw his hand forward the and the boulders shot forward as if launched from a catapult. They soared through the air directly at the large sin bear scorpion in charge of all the others. Any of these boulders should be enough to take it out on their own, but together, it was almost certainly overkill. Charlie didn’t care.

  This was for Bleedy.

  There was a flash of movement just before the first boulder connected. It exploded and dust filled the air. The other boulders shot forward after it and pounded into the dust. Charlie glared at the scene, waiting for the smoke to clear. When it did, he saw the silhouette of the bear’s leader standing on its hind legs. Three long scorpion tails snaked through the air behind it. Dust covered the small tufts of red hair just below their tips. The bear had been hiding its two extra tails from them. Tails capable of repelling an attack of this caliber. The bear stared at Charlie, as if challenging him to attack again.

  Charlie sucked his teeth. This was going to require a different approach.

  “Can you handle things here?” Charlie asked, turning his attention to King Scalea.

  King Scalea turned back to look at Charlie. His lizard eyelids briefly connected in the center of his eye before the king of scalers nodded understanding.

  Charlie smiled. His eyes locked on Vetica. “Help them. Keep them safe. I’ll handle the big one.”

  She frowned but nodded quickly.

  The bear leader roared at the top of its lungs and the bears charged ahead. King Scalea roared orders as well, and Charlie quickly rolled to the side and fell off of the scaler king and onto the earth. King Scalea leapt forward as soon as Charlie was clear, and the fighting erupted again.

  Charlie had to trust his friends to handle the fight here. He had a bear to kill. He’d been seconds away from enacting his offensive when two things happened in quick succession. First, he noticed the three strange hands had broken away from the main fight and were now surging towards the leader of the sin bear scorpions. He thought that odd, considering he hadn’t given them any orders to do that, but they had pretty much been odd from the start.

  The second thing was a message from Parent.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Charlie, I’ve finished my analysis of the dungeon and the anomalies regarding the hands. It’s imperative you hear this,” Parent informed him.

  Charlie focused his attention on the interface.

  His eyes widened as Parent updated him and Orb. The information passed between them in an instant and it was in horror that Charlie watched the strange stone hands surging towards the bear leader. He focused on his mental connection with them and called out. “Wait!”

  But the hands were moving as if they had a mind of their own. They moved that way because they did.

  The three hands hurried forward. The leader of the bears didn’t sit idly by, though. It reached over and wrapped one of its long, powerful tails around a blackened, lifeless tree and pulled its trunk from the ground. The tail reared backward and then surged forward, flinging the tree at high speed.

  Very high speed.

  The tree was on a direct collision course with two of the hands. But there was a problem, Charlie realized. At this angle, the tree would likely barrel through the hands and right past toward the battlefield where King Scalea was already engaged in battle with several sin bears.

  One hand scrambled out of the way. The other braced itself and surged forward toward the tree. It opened its palm to catch the flying trunk. The trunk crashed into the open palm and the stone arm body of the hand scraped against the ground as it was pushed backward. Both tree and hand grated and lost momentum. The tree fell, crashing into the ground. The hand turned back to look and check on the komodon scalers behind it.

  A long crack formed along the hand. It turned upward to face its fingers towards the sky for just a moment.

  And then it crumbled.

  It had protected the scalers.

  Both remaining hands pointed fingers back to check on their companion for only a second before continuing their assault. The bear’s scorpion tails shot out to intercept them. The first hand received the brunt of the attack. Two of the scorpion tails connected with it, destroying large chunks of the rock arm. But the hand stretched out its long fingers and wrapped them around each of the tails. It yanked suddenly, pulling the tails, and the bear they were attached to off balance. Just as the hand crumbled to dust from the damage.

  Its sacrifice was just enough to create an opening for the third and final hand. The third scorpion tail attack missed as the bear stumbled and the last hand seized the opportunity. It launched forward and gripped the bear’s hind leg. It squeezed the leg so hard that an audible crack could be heard even as far as away as Charlie was. The bear swiped at the hand with a claw.

  The last of the three hands crumbled to dust.

  Charlie shook his head, playing back Parent’s words in his mind.

  “Orb’s Greater Sentience ability did something to the dungeon. The dungeon is…it’s alive. It’s alive in the same way the human body is alive. In the way the human body works to achieve many functions that are necessary for a person to live and exist. Orb has granted consciousness to the dungeon, not unlike the way he granted consciousness to myself. This, somehow, has manifested in your abilities as well. You can now summon sentient dungeon material. Those hands are acting unusual because they are alive. They have minds of their own. Feelings. Personalities. The hands are alive. The dungeon is alive.”

  Charlie shrieked and a pillar shot out of the ground underneath him. It rocketed him upward and forward towards the giant bear. The bear had already anticipated him making a move. It readied itself once more, still standing on its hind-legs, despite the injury it had sustained. The tail floated in front of it, ready to deal with whatever Charlie threw at them.

  Charlie had already seen the tails in action. He knew he needed to take a roundabout approach. A new pillar shot out of the ground to his right and smashed into Charlie’s side. It sent him further upward to the left this time.

  Another appeared and sent him to the right.

  Up. Down. Left. Left. Right. Left. Up. Down. Right. Charlie shot around like a baby sized ping-pong ball, picking up speed and momentum as he moved. Each pillar emerged quicker and pushed him faster through the air. Each hit slightly reduced his dungeon integrity. Charlie’s body could handle it, but he was basically throwing extremely dense earthen pillars at his body at increasingly dizzying speeds. Of course, that would take a toll on his dungeon integrity.

  It was worth it. Sometimes you have to take down an enemy with your own hands.

  To Charlie’s surprise, Orb was keeping up with him. Each time Charlie bounced off a pillar, Orb maneuvered through the air to keep up with him. He was glowing brightly, and the dungeon core radiated an intense aura of power.

  “I want to help too. Are we trying that new move we talked about?” Orb asked.

  Charlie nodded. “Yes!”

  A pillar shot Charlie straight into the air. Orb floated beside him. Charlie reached out and grabbed his dungeon core companion, locking his fingers around Orb. Another pillar appeared above. It sent Charlie rocketing downward at an angle that put him right on course for the bear at high speed.

  He felt the portal open in his palm. The dungeon material wrapped itself around Orb, layer by layer. Charlie reared his baby fist back as he shot toward the bear. The scorpion tails shot upward to intercept him. He knew they could wreak havoc on his body. He knew this was risky. But right now, he couldn’t afford to stop. He had to hope he was moving quickly enough to speed past them. Charlie had put all the dungeon integrity he could spare into this one attack.

  There wouldn’t be a second chance.

  A growl came from the right side of the bear. The sound of paw prints on dead leaves caught the bear’s attention. The sin bear leader turned just as a wolf-like creature shot up directly toward its face. It growled and swatted the wolf away. The distraction lasted only a moment, but it was enough. The bear remembered Charlie and quickly spun to face him. But its injured hind leg gave out from the sudden turn.

  It roared in pain.

  Charlie smiled, shooting right past the tails. He threw his hand forward to strike the bear.

  Despite his hard body, Charlie was still a baby. The momentum would certainly make the bear sore in the morning, but it wouldn’t be a killing blow.

  That was why he and Orb had used their new technique.

  They screamed the name of the attack in unison moments before Charlie’s fist connected.

  “Dungeon Ball!”

  Charlie’s fist landed. He opened his fist and released the hard, densely packed ball of dungeon material in his hand. It shot forward and into the bear’s pelt.

  The bear spat blood as it was hit by the equivalent of a dungeon-born bullet. Charlie quickly reached his other hand back and aimed toward a nearby dead tree.

  “Tendril!” He borrowed Koi Levi’s powers and tendrils shot out, attaching to a tree branch, and pulling Charlie away.

  Orb floated beside him. He’d teleported outside of the dungeon ball at the moment of impact.

  The bear clutched at its chest where the ball had penetrated it. It was trying to remove the piece of dungeon inside it. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have the time.

  “Ready Charlie?” Orb asked.

  Charlie nodded as the tendril pulled him away from the danger zone.

  This was for Bleedy.

  “Release!” Charlie shouted in their minds, focused on the telepathic connection he had with the dungeon.

  The ball of condensed dungeon material exploded outward. Sharpened spears emerged, tearing their way through the bear’s body from the inside. One spear nearly cut off the bear’s left arm. Another emerged with a tiny ball of red wriggling around it that Charlie could only imagine was some kind of organ.

  The bear roared in agony.

  To be honest, Charlie had been aiming for the creature’s heart, but the technique didn’t exactly require precision. The blow was fatal. The bear might not have died instantly. But it would certainly die.

  The tree that the tendrils were pulling Charlie toward suddenly collapsed under the strain. Charlie went tumbling forward, somehow catching Orb in the process with his body. The two of them spiraled and landed hard on the ground.

  Charlie looked up and noticed Bleedy where the bear had knocked him over. He looked hurt, but he was alive. That was good.

  He turned back to inspect the fight that was still raging on. The battle was far from over. Scalers and bears still fought ferociously. Many hadn’t noticed that Charlie had won his own fight. Merlin’s hexes appeared, creating blind spots for the scalers to take advantage of. Bonehead shot around, throwing his hardened body into enemies. King Scalea was cutting down every opponent that approached him, eviscerating them with both horns and claws. But the one who stood out the most was Vetica.

  She jumped from enemy to enemy. Leaving a trail of decapitation and blood in her wake. With each kill, the blackness of her dagger’s hex grew more ominous. With each kill, the void grew. Vetica cut down one bear, nearly cleaving it in two with the power of her hex before surging forward toward her next victim. Halfway there, in the middle of a jump, her body curled. She plummeted from the sky at high speed and crashed into the ground.

  Vetica's dagger sank into the ground right beside her head.

  An ominous power filled the air.

  Vetica screamed.

  Air rushed past. Charlie’s hair ruffled in the wind.

  “Vetica?” he called out to her mind with widened eyes.

  Merlin and King Scalea were on it as well. They both hurried over to her.

  “Uh, Charlie…” Orb said. “Doesn’t this remind you of anything?” he asked.

  Charlie turned to look at the floating dungeon core before the memory came rushing back.

  They’d seen this twice before, both times in the dungeon of Sirra. Tirille and Geron had moments just like this.

  Tirille’s had almost gotten Axel killed. Geron’s had taken the life of his own son.

  Orb was right. They had seen this before.

  These moments were known as Hex Outburst.

  Vetica screamed. As she spoke, another voice spoke alongside her.

  It was a deep, grating, demonic voice.

  “Astral Hex—”