The two stood in a tense standoff. Tars finally succeeded in casting Feather Step, but even with his layered buffs, he didn't believe for a second he could outmaneuver Bahunt's blade.

  I'm going to die here today, he thought.

  That wretched half-man. He had promised help, but there was still no sign of him. "Help" was a generous word anyway; the entity was simply using Tars to achieve his own ends. Tars was just a passenger on this ride—at best, a passenger who had jumped into the driver's seat by mistake.

  He quietly channeled a Frost Ray.

  "A strange spell that can bypass my Air Armor... I should have finished you outside. Perhaps I could have found a way to turn you into a book," Bahunt said, his voice cold. His silver longsword began to vibrate, ripples of force condensing along the edge.

  BOOM!

  Tars kicked off the ground and lunged to the side. A massive fissure was carved into the arena floor. Bahunt still hadn't entered the range of Fetid Skin, yet he was capable of unleashing such an absurdly powerful ranged strike.

  Several more slashes followed in rapid succession. Tars scrambled away, his heart hammering as he recognized the pattern of the overlapping gouges. If Bahunt wasn't wary of the Fetid Skin and simply charged, Tars wouldn't stand a chance.

  He stopped hesitating. Reaching into his pocket, he palmed the Demon Dice. Simultaneously, he pulled a heap of storage bags from his Abyssal Bedroom, frantically hanging them all over his body and even clenching one between his teeth.

  "Guess which bag the Black Book is in? I'm just a lowly kobold, I'm not worth nearly as much as that manual," he mumbled through the leather strap. "Better not miss. If a bag breaks, most of the contents will be sucked into the void, lost forever. You know how that works."

  Tars prepared to say more to stall or provoke a surge of malice, but the world around them suddenly twisted. Melodic music filled the air. Flowers bloomed, applause thundered, and the air grew sweet with the scent of ripening fruit.

  The black Arena vanished. They were now in a magnificent palace, surrounded by rows of exquisite stone pillars so thick it would take two men to span them. Crowds of people appeared out of nowhere, dancing gracefully. Silk skirts whirled into umbrella shapes under the guidance of their partners. In the blink of an eye, Tars and Bahunt were swallowed by a sea of dancers.

  Through the swaying hair of a faceless girl, Bahunt's sharp eyes locked onto him. The Ball had begun.

  Tars hit the deck, rolling through the crowd to hide his silhouette. These dancers were far more detailed than the figures in the tavern or the arena; he could see the patterns on their skirts, the tips of their ears, and strands of hair. Only their faces remained blurred.

  A flash of silver!

  One of Tars's small horns and a chunk of his scalp were sheared off despite his desperate evasion. Bahunt had abandoned his caution regarding the Fetid Skin; he was a man of immense courage, and he was done playing games.

  Tars snarled in pain as he scrambled under skirts and between legs. He grew desperate. If the sword was aimed at his head, it meant Bahunt was indeed wary of destroying the storage bags. Tars reached up, jammed a storage bag into his bleeding scalp wound, and kept moving. It was a grisly, desperate gambit.

  Finally, he found an opening to fire his Frost Ray. No matter how he hid, Bahunt found him with terrifying speed. As the blue-white beam shot out, a deep voice echoed through the hall.

  "Dance, whirl, rise on your toes! Move your feet to the rhythm of the Eternal Dance. Become immortal."

  The music swelled. The dancers grew more vigorous, their movements filled with a supernatural power and grace. Tars had no time to admire the art. His Frost Ray had been a trap; the "opening" he saw was exactly what Bahunt wanted.

  He gritted his teeth and hurled the Demon Dice.

  As the silver blade closed in on his neck, Tars stared wide-eyed, but the dice rolled to a stop at his feet with no effect. None of the chaotic debuffs had triggered on Bahunt.

  THUD! Bahunt was suddenly intercepted and sent flying backward. A towering, red-and-black demon had manifested right in front of Tars, shielding him from the strike. Tars looked down at his shoulder; his arm was gone, lying at the feet of a nearby dancer. He lunged for it, stuffing it into a storage bag.

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  "Argh! What is—"

  POP!

  The demon's head exploded before Tars could even see its face. It didn't turn into a book; the headless corpse simply collapsed. The Demon Dice forbade malicious harm between parties, but this had clearly been a "thinking" demon—perhaps a scholar of the Abyss. The sheer influx of knowledge from the city had caused its brain to detonate. It wasn't an attack; it was an "overdose" of truth.

  Tars scrambled for the dice, but Bahunt, though bruised from the collision, was already diving back in. A silver crescent of light flew toward him. Simultaneously, a burst of invisible force erupted from Tars's own body. The decoy storage bags he had draped over himself were torn away by the force, leaving only the real one hidden in his waistband.

  How is he this strong? Tars despaired. Is there any apprentice who can match this man?

  He knew that if he dropped his buffs, he'd die instantly. The mutation of Demonic Body had turned him from a scrawny kobold into a lithe, powerful warrior; otherwise, he'd be a corpse already. He felt a wave of powerlessness. Every time that invisible force manifested, it tugged at him, sabotaging his movements. Now, he had no decoys left.

  The Demon Dice slipped from his fingers one last time. Bahunt seemed frustrated, his malice finally beginning to sharpen.

  Suddenly, Bahunt froze. He dropped his sword and began to dance.

  SHLICK!

  The half-finished swing still tore through Tars, leaving a bloody trail from his head to his toes. It nearly split his skull, nearly turned him into something more "half" than the half-man.

  He lay on the floor, trembling as he fumbled for a deep green potion and poured it down his throat.

  "Let us welcome our new guests. Let us dance the Eternal Dance together. When the song ends, we shall be immortal."

  Tars's hand shook, and the half-empty bottle fell. He tried to pick it up, his mind racing. Would Bahunt really be trapped here by a dance? Would the dice last long enough?

  "He won't become an immortal," the half-man's voice spoke.

  Tars craned his neck. The entity leaned down, his fingers nimbly retrieving the potion and bringing it to Tars's lips to finish the dose. "If you haven't lost too much of that arm, you should take it out and reattach it now."

  The half-man then stood and walked toward the dancing Bahunt. Tars clutched his shoulder and began to crawl backward, inch by agonizing inch. If Bahunt broke free and the half-man couldn't stop him, he needed every second of a head start to find a sliver of hope.

  The half-man stopped in front of Bahunt, his dead, expressionless face watching the warrior dance.

  "I am standing right in front of you, and you've lost again, Bahunt," the half-man said.

  Tars blinked. That didn't sound like the half-man he knew. The entity reached down and picked up the silver longsword. The moment the dance ended, he thrust the blade upward, piercing the Air Armor and driving it through Bahunt's jaw into his brain. Blood sprayed from the warrior's mouth.

  Bahunt's eyes bulged. He looked at the expressionless man, his gaze filled with terror, then utter confusion.

  "Who... are you?" Bahunt wheezed, his hands gripping the blade. Blood muffled his words.

  The man remained silent.

  "Who are you! You aren't Karyu..."

  Bahunt's legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees, but he still forced his head up, staring at the man and clutching the steel. After a moment of silence, the light in his eyes began to dim.

  The half-man suddenly let out a soft chuckle. His frozen mask melted into a subtle smile; he blinked, and a genuine, lively voice came from his throat.

  "I am Karyu. Who else could I be?" Karyu said.

  In the distance, Tars watched with a numb expression, though his heart was thumping against his ribs. Bahunt suddenly turned his head toward Tars, his eyes wide with a final, dying accusation: "You... what have you done? What did you let out!"

  With that, Bahunt's eyes went dark. His hands slipped from the blade.

  Karyu turned to Tars with a warm, gentle smile. "Let's start over. From now on, you can call me Karyu."

  He looked like a handsome, sunshiny guy from next door—the type who spent his days doing good deeds. Tars sat frozen as the man who used to be the half-man, now Karyu, picked up Bahunt's storage bag. With a wave of his hand, he erased the secret imprint and tossed a transparent vial to Tars.

  "Pure Blood Potion. Add the dragon blood you prepared, and you'll have a dose of Pure Dragon Blood," Karyu said lazily. "This was originally meant for a familiar, but that brute snatched it. Fortunately, I no longer need to walk the path of a Beast-King wizard."

  "Hmm? Don't look at me like that. I'm not some villain from a storybook. Believe me, you haven't done anything wrong."

  Tars let out a nervous chuckle and nodded awkwardly.

  "We should go. The other apprentices have likely left already. If we don't move now, it'll be too late... Hmm, let me see..." Karyu began rummaging through two storage bags.

  Tars took a deep breath and tried to stand. His reattached arm was still paralyzed.

  "There's only one Return Stone, but I should be able to bring you along."

  Tars paused. "Return? To where?"

  "Do you really think wizard apprentices travel across the vast caverns on foot? It would take years to get anything done," Karyu laughed.

  Tars's breath hitched. Does this mean we're going to a civilized world?

  He hesitated, glancing toward the palace exit. But he couldn't see anything from where he stood. Karyu didn't pressure him, seemingly giving him time to think. The apprentices were gone. The half-man was gone. Karyu was leaving. There was no more magic to be found in this barren den, and if he missed this chance, how would he ever find his way to those distant lands? The hesitation was only born of the suddenness; the answer had already taken root in his heart.

  "Is it far?"

  "Very far."

  "Then I'll trouble Master Karyu to take me with him," Tars said.

  Karyu smiled, grabbed Tars's shoulder with one hand, and crushed the Return Stone with the other. Several mana stones in his palm instantly turned to ash. The two figures vanished from the palace just before the music ended.