Exhaustion washed over Vance like an avalanche when he arrived back at the house. He made his way straight to his bedroom, opting to leave the rest of the evening's conversation to Nathaniel and whoever else persevered until this horrific hour. Vance deposited himself into bed messily. Although he was tired, it took him a little while to get to sleep. He found himself absentmindedly scratching at his left hand a little and he had restless feet.

Eventually, sleep took him and he was happy for it. Unfortunately, that wouldn't last.

Vance awoke with a start, with that feeling of falling that sometimes wakes you in the night. When he felt a sudden impact and collided with something hard and unfamiliar, he knew something was wrong.

If all had been well, Vance would have discovered that he had simply fallen out of bed. He'd have a good laugh at himself and that'd be the end of it. Maybe in a few days, it'd make good material for a joke with his friends at his own expense.

The impact had winded him, but he felt around while trying to catch his breath. He felt cold, smooth material. Some were broken and jagged, but it conformed largely to shape. To Vance's untrained hands, it felt like ribs. The next sensation to hit Vance was the smell, of blood and oil, decay and filth and he could hear quiet dripping from somewhere nearby.

All of this took just a moment, and in the next instance, his mana sense flooded him with new information. Most concerningly of all, he felt that familiar source of dark mana not fifteen feet away from him. It seemed weaker, diminished somehow, but terrifying. Its constant radiation of dark mana had slowed and its form smaller.

This close, Vance could tell discern more of the creature before him. The shape that its mana took was that of a liquid behaving as gas should. It was viscous and slow to move, its size fluid, and it hung in the air with chunks of dense, isolated mana membranes moving through the horrid mixture. It didn't seem to act immediately, so Vance took the moment to quickly take in his surroundings a little further.

He was underground. The walls were primarily composed of earth mana that stretched out in all directions. The room had trace amounts of dark mana throughout, and Vance discovered that he wasn't alone.

There were two other people in the room with him, identifiable by their mana membranes. Both were slumped against the rock walls on the other side of the chamber. One was short and thin, the other tall, but equally thin.

Before Vance had any more time, he heard a raspy, old, broken voice whispering its way through the room. The sound grated against his ears as the thing before him made an attempt at speaking.

"That one who sees cannot has found me humour is not lost upon we..."

The creature formed words, but the order was all wrong, like someone speaking a foreign tongue for the first time. It barely made sense and was a perfect reflection of the madness Vance had found within the creatures dark mana. While it spoke, Vance didn't stop his examination. His flight response was kicking in fiercely and he was searching his environment for exits, advantages and anything else.

He noticed that the room contained a mana construct. It was almost impossible to decipher, but it was constructed of primarily dark mana. The other mana type among its construction gave Vance a strange feeling like he was standing outside in a vast, open area. A feeling of freedom, like no matter how far he ran, he'd never run out of room to keep running.

"You fed have eaten of our energy and have been target made, interesting. You are of we like energy but are broken. Delights have I wonders to show you."

The strange, hateful thing spoke with such malice behind every word that Vance no longer held any doubt. This thing was the demon they'd be looking for. The logical part of Vance's brain was trying to figure out how he ended up here, but it was absolutely dwarfed by his survival instincts.

Vance took stock of himself. He couldn't sense any remaining dark mana inside, but he supposed that didn't mean there wasn't a little, so small that he couldn't detect. His core was full of flame and ready to go. His will had recovered somewhat, so he'd at least gotten a few hours sleep. That'd have to do.

"How did I get here?!" Vance exclaimed, a little louder than he'd intended.

He thought that the thing laughed, or something like it. It made a crackling, popping sound that sort of seemed like it was amused, though it was truly impossible to tell.

"Funny thing, simple spell brings closest, the wrong target. Problem no, we use can wrong target to try again, red flow will be much good for next, correct target. Convenient flesh clean up we leftover energy, make targets less." As it spoke, the demon approached slowly, that strange crackling sound never stopped throughout its speech.

Vance did his best to translate the madness in his head. Best he could tell, the demon's spell was supposed to summon something but summoned Vance instead. It sounded like its "target" was anything that contained dark mana, which was basically nothing. Nathaniel had been removing dark mana infusions from people in the city.

Unfortunately, Vance had been taking in bits here and there over the last few days, so the "spell" or more accurately, the construct, probably latched on to the closest source of dark mana other than itself and the demon. Vance. For a moment, Vance wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Vance finally stood, the demon still approaching.

"Hello?" Vance asked aloud, towards the other side of the room, backing up carefully step by step.

That same crackling, popping sound rang out loud through the room.

"Delights see they, many feelings, same time all. Gift very generous from we. Same gift have we wrong target."

Vance didn't want to hear any more of it. Vance had long since identified an exit that led into the unknown, but it was better than staying here. It was at this moment that the demon's patience seemed to run out, and it expanded outwards, like a net of liquid hatred and flung itself in Vance's direction. Fortunately, Vance hadn't been sitting idle and had instead, gathered as much fire mana to his hands as he could.

Vance hadn't really put a lot of practice into combat magic, but he'd put a lot of work into his willpower. He wasn't confident, but it was all he had.

Flames burst forth with ferocity, crashing into the oncoming storm of dark mana. Membranes amongst the demon's form had changed shape, forming into curved blades and teeth, serrated and malicious.

As the two forces collided, Vance felt a fleeting glimmer of hope. The fire burned away at the already weakened creature, certainly harming it, but it was pushing through. It crackled and popped in amusement or fury as it got closer and closer to Vance's outstretched hand. Vance was doing everything he could to back away from his foe, that glimmer of hope fading as quickly as it came. Fear had a firm hold of him now. Vance desperately thought back to what Nathaniel had told him about demons, looking for an answer.

Light mana was the most effective. Failing that, fire mana was another good option. If he gave the demon a chance, it would inflict untold misery on him by subjecting him to horrid nightmares, physical agony and emotional torment the likes of which he had never experienced. He found no answer, but to run.

Vance waited for the right moment, then broke off his stream of fire mana and dived to the right, crashing into the ground. He hadn't had time to properly scout out his landing zone, luckily he didn't land on anything sharp.

The demon flung forward, propelled by its own powerful momentum, slamming into the space where Vance had just been. Vance quickly scrambled to his feet and ran straight out of the 'room'. He had no plan to fight this thing, nor did he think he could win if he did. Vance wasn't accustomed to running, it was something he avoided at every opportunity, but now he had no choice.

His mana sense gave him an idea of where to go, but his feet caught repeatedly on loose, cold rock and uneven ground. Even with a little headstart, he'd only turned two corners before the demon was on his tail, and it was far, far too fast. Vance felt his heart sink and his throat dry up. Unconsciously, Vance wondered if he'd have a better chance had he actually been able to create his second core.

This one, wandering thought was the last thought that passed through his head as he turned to face his pursuer. It was faster than he could've ever expected and had closed the distance. Vance felt the sting of one of its terrible claws tearing the flesh of his right arm, which he raised to defend himself.

Vance screamed in pain. Nathaniel had warned him about this, but it wasn't enough to prepare him. A demon's claw inflicts a much more painful wound than it should. Yes, it cut through the flesh, and that hurt, but it felt like someone was perpetually pouring fresh acid into the wound from thereon. Vance became specifically aware that the wound was simply infected with a tiny concentration of dark mana that constantly assaulted the host.

Unfortunately, that was simply the start of his misery, as Vance felt the terrible, oily substance of the demon wrap around him and drag him closer, enveloping him and pressing him against numerous sharp, pointed protrusions that lay shallow cuts across his face, chest arms and back, each of which roared with new agony.

He tried to fight back physically, but he was outmatched. This thing, whatever it was, was a natural killer, and he was a boy. It had no flesh for him to harm, simply more mana. It had membranes which he could assault, but they were amongst its everflowing field of dark mana, protected and amorphous. He simply didn't know how to kill it.

He felt some of that dark mana pressing against his membrane, trying to find its way in. If it did, he was done for. His body, to its credit, was doing its best to fend off the intrusion, isolating portions of the dark mana and ejecting it, but it wasn't enough. Without thinking, Vance began ejecting fire mana from his core and letting it flush out around him, which caused the demon to retract a little. It was instinctual, and the fire surrounded Vance like armour for a moment, coating him from head to toe.

It lasted for all but a few seconds before Vance lost control of it. Simply put, something like that was still beyond him. His defence was crude, short-lived and expensive, but it bought him a precious moment.

Vance pulled on and compressed all of the fire mana he had remaining as much as he could. He didn't really pay attention to how much he compressed it, just until he couldn't anymore, then he let it fly. He flung both of his arms forward in a wild, desperate flail and released all of the mana he had left in his fire core, which came out as a burst of flame so terrifyingly powerful that Vance was glad he'd left the previous chamber, or he'd had burnt the other two alive.

The demon shrieked in pain and was flung backwards. Its form sprawled across the ceiling and walls of the tunnel they were in, retreating from the flames that scorched the place in all directions. Among his agony, Vance felt strange vindication.

"Hurt you too, bastard." For the first time in his life, Vance felt something like bloodlust. This thing, whatever it was, he hated it. It was instinctual, and base. There was no reason, really. Something in his bones, his blood, his...left hand...hated this thing. Now that it had come to a fight, there was a small part of him that was happy to see it harmed.

He didn't like it but didn't dwell on it. He simply had no time. Right now, it was useful, it helped with the fear. Under his control, the flames danced through the hallway, constantly assaulting the demon, pushing it back and burning away portions of its dark mana body.

Once more, he ran. The shrieking of the demon behind him continued as he turned another few corners, making random decisions as he reached intersections. The tunnels became thinner and were barely enough for him to run through. Then, he felt it coming up behind him once again. He'd brought himself more time but still couldn't outrun the beast.

At the worst possible moment, disaster struck again. Vance turned a corner, ran a little way down it, and discovered a dead end. In a panic, he turned but he sensed the demon making its way towards him. He had a matter of seconds and only one very, very bad plan.

Vance spread out his mana sense, desperately searching for wood mana. Thankfully, he found it, and it was close. He reached out to it, and seized control with his will, he directed the mana to move and pulled it closer to the tunnel. At the top of the tunnel, the roots of a nearby tree grew into the tunnel, showering Vance with tiny pieces of stone pushed free of the walls. The roots moved in, forming a lattice across the ceiling of the tunnel above him. He bid the root dig into the stone, and hold it firm and he directed it to build bridges across the top of the tunnel to support it and make it strong.

Then, he reached out to the earth mana in the ceiling of the tunnel as he heard the shrieking of the demon become more direct, it was close. His mana sense was too focused on his task to know precisely where it was, but if this worked, it wouldn't matter.

Then he pulled with every remaining ounce of his willpower on the earth mana in the roof of the tunnel between him and the demon, and, in what was probably his greatest, desperate manipulation of natural mana yet, he collapsed the tunnel.