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The flesh on his back roiled and churned, mirrors turned to bobbing boats on a stormy sea. His body bulged and twitched as something pressed into it from within. Alex took a step back as Glint dropped to all fours, his bladed fingers cutting into the water beneath.

He lurched and his body bulged, muscle lining his thin frame as he grew by nearly a foot — which somehow ended up leaving him even more gaunt than before. Alex could count each bone in the monster\'s ribcage pressing into his pallid grey skin.

The mirrored shards jutting from the monster\'s back lengthened and ground against each other with a symphony of grating screeches. A dull silver sheen washed over every single one of them and their edges glistened in the dim light, razor-sharp.

Glint\'s arms lengthened, leaving them long and spindly. Thin silver spikes of glass ran down them and jutted out at an angle like the barbs on an arrow. His claws had extended as well and were now nearly as large as Alex\'s entire hand.

The disgusting sounds finally came to a halt. Glint pushed himself upright, falling silent as he rose. Alex stared at him with a mixture of awe and unease. The Shardwalker\'s hands hung low to the ground to the point where his claws would dig into the water if he didn\'t bend his arms.

Glint stood almost five feet tall, though the hunch in his back meant he probably could have given him an extra few inches if he straightened it. His face hadn\'t been spared from the transformation either.

Empty eye sockets burned with dull yellow light and the jagged fangs in his mouth had silvered. His features had taken a disturbing step toward humanoid, though the stretched gray skin and lack of a nose made it quite clear he was anything but.

Glint - Shardwalker (Novice 7)

Holy shit. Glint is terrifying now. I mean, he was terrifying before, but this is just on another level. I love it.

Alex coughed into his fist and took a step to the side. Glint\'s eyes traced him, empty and starving. Something about the monster\'s gaze made his skin crawl. That was great when Glint was pointed at an enemy. It wasn\'t so great when it was pointed at him.

It looks like Glint just consumed the power from the Soul Flames power directly. I wonder if upgrading Monster Medley would let me make more intentional upgrades to him. I\'d imagine it would. Either way, it looks like Glint actually advanced faster than I did.

That has to be because I spent a bunch of my energy building up my Mind Palace. Five levels in one go. Not bad at all. We need to find stronger monsters. I can\'t fart around with this dungeon forever — but I think it\'s a bit arrogant to yap until I\'ve actually cleared the damn thing.

The Shardwalker\'s thin lips pulled apart in what could have been either a smile, a grimace, or simply boredom. It could have been any or neither — Alex was pretty sure the monster wasn\'t capable of emotion at all.

"You there, Glint?" Alex tried. If Glint had magically gained any proper sapience through the experience, the Shardwalker didn\'t show it. Dull yellow eyes just watched Alex expectantly in wait for an order. Alex waved his hand. "Well, I tried. Back to your card, bud."

A stream of dark energy swirled out of Glint and he disintegrated, flowing into the card in Alex\'s hand. He slipped it back into the deck at his side and took a moment to gather himself, making sure he hadn\'t missed anything. Getting into meditation took a while, and he didn\'t want to have to come back right after leaving.

He\'d gotten both of his rewards.

He\'d leveled both himself and Glint up.

Yep. Pretty sure that\'s everything. Only one thing left to do tonight.

Alex let his eyes open, slipping free of his meditation as his consciousness returned to the room of the dungeon he sat in. The scent of blood, dirt, and pollen mixed with sweat in the air in a stew that not even the most optimistic man could have described as tolerable.

His back was stiff and his body ached something furious, but his wounds had all sealed over. He felt oddly rested, in spite of the lingering pain. Claire had been right about meditation functionally replacing sleep.

Alex groaned and rose to his feet, brushing his clothes off as best as he could.

The room was still empty. That was a good thing. He\'d have been dead if it wasn\'t. His eyes drifted over to the dark portal that still, as doorways tended to do, sat in the same spot. The boss of the dungeon laid in wait beyond it.

At least, he was pretty sure it did. He didn\'t actually have a way to know that for sure, but it would have been stupid to have a fancy doorway that just led to a normal room.

He clambered to his feet. Then he paused. Something was off. He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers. As the aches faded away, something else replaced them. He wasn\'t quite sure how to describe it other than energetic.

Feeling more than a little stupid, he threw a punch. His hand blurred through the air with enough force to tug on his arm socket and he cursed, stumbling forward and nearly tripping over his own feet.

There was no doubt about it. He was stronger. Faster.

So absorbing magical energy does more than just unlock new abilities. It gives me some pretty significant changes to my physical body. That\'ll definitely come in handy.

Alex scooped Claire\'s sword off the ground and called Glint with a thought. A portal cracked open amidst the sounds of shattering glass and the Shardwalker stepped out, his claws leaving thin furrows in the ground as he emerged.

Wow, he really looks different. I\'m not sure why it\'s so much more obvious in the real world. I wonder if Requiem to the King is stronger now that Glint is so much more powerful than he used to be.

"Let\'s go," Alex said, pointing to the portal. "Lead the way. As usual, focus survival over landing a blow. I need you alive."

Glint followed his orders without hesitation and stepped into the black archway, vanishing within it. Alex strode after his companion, raising Claire\'s sword and readying himself for the next fight with an eager grin.

The world shifted. His foot hit wet earth with a squelch and the grassy plains vanished, replaced by a large, swampy expanse. Bubbles rose to the top of boggy puddles, popping and releasing sulfurous bursts of gas. Glint stood before him, neck craned back to stare up.

A single, enormous flower rose in the center of the room. It rose nearly an entire story into the air, a several foot bed of gnarled roots stretching out around its base. Its stem was a yellowish green, split at the middle by two smaller stems that drooped low to the ground. The stems were rough and woody, almost like the bark of a tree. At the end of each stem was a half-dead flower, wilting pinkish petals ringing the rows of jagged teeth at the plant\'s center.

Floraking (Novice 6)

The flowers on the huge monster\'s head rustled. The teeth within them rippled in a hypnotizing pattern as three simultaneous roars split the room. The ground rumbled as roots ripped themselves free, rising up like the heads of striking snakes.

"Go!" Alex yelled.

Glint blurred into motion. Roots whistled past his lanky body as he bounded past them and leapt into the air with surprising strength, clearing several pointed spikes and landing on the ground near the base of the flower.

More roots erupted and swirled up to grab him, but the Shardwalker\'s deadly sharp claws carved through them like paper. Alex was forced to pull his attention away from Glint as a root twisted up from the ground and snapped around his ankle, trying to pin him in place.

He swung his sword, splitting the growth with a crack. Alex stumbled back just in time to avoid being impaled by two more spiked roots that jutted out. They brushed across his chest, ripping across his shirt and leaving thin cuts on the skin beneath.

Alex swung his sword once more, carving through both in a single strike. At the same time, a cacophony of screams split the air once more. Glint had carved his way all the way through the room and up to the flower\'s base, where he was locked in a fight with the bed of roots — a fight he looked to be winning.

One of the flower heads shot down, its maw splitting open and aiming to devour the Shardwalker whole. Roots swirled up to grab at Glint, binding his limbs and working between the blades of glass jutting from his body as they tightened.

More roots emerged with every second and quickly bound around the Shardwalker. Alex grit his teeth. The energy churning within his own body rose in response to the thoughts that flicked through his head and he thrust his hand toward Glint.

He used Rift Flood.

A river of ice tore down his arm and pushed out of his fingertips. Swirls of silver mist streaked through the air and pierced into the growing cocoon of roots enveloping glint. There was an instant of silence.

Several loud ripping noises split the air.

Glistening blades sprouted from the woody growth without so much as a sound.

Then Glint twisted his body.

The roots were shredded to pieces in an instant. They fell all around the Shardwalker as he unfurled to his full height, easily a foot taller than he had been before.

Every single blade on his body had gained several extra inches. His mouth was forced open by the rows of expanded glass fangs filling it, and crackles of reddish-purple mist swirled in what had once been yellow eyes.

The same energy pulsed within the mirrors on the rest of his body. Coils of smokey mist roiled off Glint as the transformation finished.. The Shardwalker let out a wordless screech of victory and ripped the last shreds of bindings away from himself before flinging himself toward the Floraking once more.

A huge flower head slammed into the ground with enough force to make it quake. Alex and Glint both stumbled, but the Shardwalker raked his claws deep into the flower as it rose once more.

Confetti\'d petals rained down around him. The other two heads lurched into motion. One extended for Alex, while the other joined the first in trying to kill Glint.

Alex slashed the roots that rose up to grab him and flung himself back. He hit the ground in a roll, wet dirt squelching and sticking to his body. The flower\'s head slammed into the ground behind him and he slipped as he went to rise, nearly getting himself impaled on a rising root but managing to twist out of the way at the last second. The root ripped across his side, sending pain searing into his body along with mud and sweat — neither of which he suspected were ideal things to be inside a human body.

Glint can definitely kill this thing, but I need to end the fight as fast as possible. It\'s got too much range and I don\'t have anywhere to take cover. Cutting the roots is only a stopgap. One of them is going to really get me if we don\'t win soon.

Alex felt a continued draw on his energy, almost as if someone was drawing blood from his soul. It was running out at an alarming rate. He couldn\'t keep Glint empowered for much longer.

He ran to the side, bounding over grasping roots as he fought to keep out of the flower\'s reach. The massive heads weren\'t all that fast, so he could outrun them. It was the roots he was worried about.

He skidded to a stop as he came up on a large puddle and hopped out of the way of a root hidden beneath a big rock near its edge, cutting it in half with his sword as it rose up to grab at him.

Two thuds shook the room as the Floraking tried and failed to crush Glint. Its heads started to lift back into the air — and in it, Alex spotted an opportunity. There was an even longer delay right after the flowers hit the ground. One he could take advantage of.

He poured his attention into running, still keeping ahead of the Floraking\'s third head, and threw a glance back at Glint. The bed of roots at the flower\'s base was completely ravaged, but not without cost.

His body had taken several nasty cuts and he was limping slightly. Even though Glint was a rank up on the Floraking, they were fighting on the massive monster\'s home ground, not Glint\'s. It had had who knew how long to grow and flood the room with roots — but Glint had something it didn\'t.

The heads crashed down again. Alex grinned, the adrenaline running through his body suppressing the pain in his side and muting out the rancid smell of the room.

"Grab onto it!" Alex yelled.

Glint lunged to obey and latched onto one of the huge flower heads as they rose back into the air.

At the same instant, vines whipped out from the ground at the base of the flower. Alex\'s eyes widened in surprise, but they were far faster than the roots. One of them shot around his legs and yanked him into the air with enough force to send his sword spinning from his grip.

The ground vanished as Alex was lifted up and flung into the sky. His arms flailed as he flew up dozens of feet into the air. For a brief instant, he could nearly touch the ceiling. Then he started to plummet back down.

One of the Floraking\'s heads moved directly beneath him. There was nowhere for him to dodge. No way for him to dodge.

The flower\'s maw split open, large enough to swallow him whole and leave room for more. Wind screamed in his ears and stung at his squinted eyes as he plummeted down to meet it. There were only seconds to react.

"Glint!" Alex screamed, his voice nearly completely lost to the howling wind. He had an idea, but he wasn\'t sure if there was enough time to pull it off. There was only one way to find out. "Kill yourself!"