It took half an hour for Dallion to find the entrance to the ruins. The lack of wyverns in the immediate area made discovering it a bit more challenging. The infants that had served as direction markers so far had flown out days ago, leaving the strong ones safely below.

According to Eury’s guardians, the really tough ones were still in the ruins, keeping the gorgon and her client trapped for over a week. Apparently, the count’s son had stirred up the first batch of eggs, without exploring the rest of the ruins. It had turned out that in addition to the eggs and infants, the lair had a large number of fully grown wyverns as well. Half of them had amassed to protect the wyvern queen, while the rest had blocked off the corridor leading to the exit. Given with no choice, Eury had retreated to more defendable sections of the ruins further in. From there, she had made several attempts to find alternative routes to the surface. So far, all the corridors had ended up either collapsed or quickly blocked by wyverns determined to keep them from escaping.

With supplies depleted, Eury had decided to go for one all-out-attack in an attempt to break through the wyverns. The gauntlet guardians claimed that things were doing well, although they hadn’t gone into details.

“Have you fought wyverns?” Dallion asked the Dark.

The dragon looked away.

“Get smaller and stick close by,” Dallion drew his harpsisword. “And don’t do any splitting. I’ll be doing the splitting if needed.”

“Okay.” Dark agreed suspiciously, easily. “Want me to take human form? Or something else?”

“Human form is good.” Dallion nodded. “Also, don’t do any magic. Just close melee attacks. We don’t know where the others are.”

The dragon‘s body glowed green for a moment, then took a humanoid form. He looked suspiciously like the mortal embodiment of the Green Moon, only much younger and with long hair. To no surprise, Dark didn’t have any weapons with him. Even in this form, he remained a dragon and, as such, preferred to use hands to fight. Finding that stupid, Dallion gave him his hammer.

Bits of rope hung from the corner of the entrance. The flocks of infant wyverns must have cut them off while flying out. That the distance to the bottom of the opening seemed greater than the previous nests.

Here we go, Dallion thought, and jumped in.

Splitting into three dozen instances, he leapt from wall to wall as much as the ruins would allow. A few of the instances didn’t make it, stepping on a loose piece of rock and falling helplessly to the ground.

At the bottom, Dallion split again and shot a few bolts of blue flames to get a basic layout of his surroundings. As a precaution, he was quick to disregard the instances that did the shooting—there was no point in letting the wyverns know he was here.

There were three corridors continuing in different directions into darkness. The larger one seemed like a covered roman road, probably leading to the heart of the ruins. The other two were smaller tunnels, large enough for two people to walk side by side. One of them was blocked with stone remains. The other went on for several hundred feet. Beyond that, Dallion wasn’t able to see.

Dark floated to the ground several seconds later. Just because he had changed, his appearance hadn’t removed his ability to fly. In this world, like in the realms, abilities were transferrable, at least as far as awakening powers went.

“What now?” the dragon whispered.

Logically, the smaller tunnel was safer. Wyverns were large creatures and small tunnels would make it difficult for them to fight. The wider tunnel was more direct, and given that Eury had been in the ruins for a week, time was more important than Dallion’s safety.

“Let’s go.” He went forward.

The whip blade went out on its own accord, extending in front of Dallion as it floated onwards. Gripping his harpsisword, Dallion followed along with Dark.

“What will happen when we come across wyverns?” the dragon asked. “Will you try to convince them to give up?”

“I don’t speak wyvern,” Dallion whispered back.

“Can’t you learn?”

“From infants? Seriously?” Not to mention that Star-touched weren’t known for their linguistic skills. The term “functional zombie” was more appropriate. That made them considerably more dangerous, though not very imaginative.

After a while, Dallion heard the unmistakable sound of scales sliding along stone. It was difficult to tell for certain, but it appeared that the creature making the sound was rather large and—by the sound of it—not alone.

“Get ready,” Dallion split into instances.

I’m coming along the main corridor, Dallion told the gauntlet guardians. Where are you?

Further down, came the response. Eury has taken the fight to one of the main buildings.

Tell her that I’m on my way, Dallion said. I’ll be the distraction. That should give her a chance to punch through.

Just don’t use any line or point attacks, the other gauntlet guardian said.

I didn’t plan to. Holding the dartblade in his offhand, Dallion shot two bolts of light forward. The tunnel lights up. For the most part, it was full of dirt and debris, but near the end a black silhouette glinted. Light bounced off of hard scales of void, providing Dallion with his first glimpse of a full-grown wyvern.

To say the creature resembled a dragon was both correct and insulting. Entirely covered in scales, the creature had wings attached to a scrawny body of bones connecting a long neck to an even longer tail. While dragons could be scary at times, wyverns were grotesque, as if someone had stretched a dragon and dehydrated it until nothing but skin, scales, and bones remained.

Upon spotting Dallion, the creature paused, hissed, then dashed forward, keeping its wings closed.

Dallion’s natural instinct was to do a point attack along the corridor. However, he was smart enough to know that doing so risked having the entire tunnel collapse on top of him.

Gleam. Leaving the dartblade in the air, Dallion played a chord on his harpsisword. They’re all yours.

Nothing but void could be sensed within the wyvern, chilling Dallion to the bone. The strands of music bounced off like peas off stone.

Switching his grip again, Dallion split into a dozen instances. The wyvern attempted to do the same, but quickly had a reality imposed on it.

Gleam struck first, attacking the entire side of the creature. Indestructible metal hit thick scales, then bounced off, barely making a scratch. The wyvern didn’t even bother to stop, continuing forward.

“Don’t let it through!” Dallion drew the armadil shield from his back. A split second later, the creature struck.

Fighting full grown wyverns was very different from facing infants. Once a person went over the shock of seeing a cloud of hungry, carnivorous flying reptiles, killing them was no issue. Their scales were as soft and efficient as paper, and their bodies weren’t capable of withstanding even minor injuries.

The current specimen was not only fast and capable of splitting, but its scales were as hard and solid as imperial armor. Even with his full strength, Dallion was barely able to cut off a few scales of the hand that struck his shield. A few steps away, Dark also joined in, aiming at the same spot with his fist. The strike managed to push the wyvern a step back, without doing any significant damage.

To make matters worse, several more wyverns were approaching from behind. Limited by the dimensions of the corridor, they couldn’t charge straight out, but were ready to join in at a moment’s notice.

The tactic was clear: the leading creature aimed to get on the other side of Dallion, potentially wounding him in the process, then turn around and attack from behind while the other two wyverns pressed on.

What’s their weak spot? Dallion asked.

Usually the underbelly and the throat, Vihrogon replied, as sharp claws slammed into him. Haven’t seen this breed before.

“Go for the eyes!” Dallion shouted. It was the only area he hoped the membrane was weak enough to let a blade pierce through.

A bolt wrapped in blue flames split the air right at the right eye of the front wyvern. Once again, the creature tries to split into instances to evade the attack. That proved to be fatal. In one of the six cases, the bolt pierced its eye membrane, burying itself deep in the creature’s brain. Naturally, that was the instance Dallion forced to become reality.

A high-pitched scream tore the air. The monster staggered a few steps back, then fell on the ground, forming a lifeless pile.

Inspired by the success, both Dark and the whip blade charged forward. Dallion was quick to grab the dragon by the shoulder, pulling him back.

“What’s wrong?” Dark stared at him. “We know how to kill them.”

“So do they. They won’t make the same mistake twice.”

If the wyverns were so easy to kill, Euryale wouldn’t have spent so long trapped here, especially since she had the ability to transform creatures to stone. Moments later, Dallion's fears were confirmed. Gleam had tried using his approach to kill one more of the wyverns, but instead hit a scaled eyelid.

A long tail covered in sharp scales slashed across the empty space of the corridor, striking Dallion in the armadil shield. The attack was powerful enough to push him ten steps back, though thankfully, it didn’t damage the shield itself.

Euryale says you’re an idiot, the left gauntlet said from a distance. But also give her your thanks. The rows have thinned a bit.

How many adults are left? Dallion asked.

Difficult to say. Probably around a dozen. Maybe a few more.

A dozen wyverns… With the one Dallion had just killed, that left eleven. So much for the tried-and-true tactics. From here on, combat had to get creative.

Splitting into instances, Dallion combined his athletic and acrobatic skills to charge along the walls and ceiling. Sensing his approach, the wyvern struck the wall, erasing two of his instances. Stone fractured as Dallion kept running.

Five steps from the wyvern, Dallion leaped off, heading straight for its head. His left hand drew the Nox dagger, driving it right in its eyelid. A spider web of cracks formed, covering the entire scale. A strike with the harpsisword followed, slapping onto the hilt of the dagger, driving it in.

Spark, Dallion thought.

Two screams echoed simultaneously: one belonging to the wyvern, and the other to Nox. This was the reason Dallion avoided using spark in the real world. Lux seemed to handle it without issue, others not so much.

Quickly, Dallion pulled it back out, leaping backwards.

You okay, Nox? He asked, landing on the ground.

The crackling hissed, causing the dagger to tremble. Yes, it said, after a few seconds. Clearly, it didn’t appreciate the experience. Once this was over, Dallion was going to have a few words with his familiar. Right now, he still had one wyvern to deal with.

I can’t do anything against them, Gleam said, returning the whip blade to Dallion. Not at my current level.

“You get stronger every time,” Dark said, his voice words soaked with envy.

“Guard up!” Dallion said. “We still have—”

Several screams echoed from the distance. In a fraction of a second, the wyvern facing Dallion was thrust forward. As terrifying as that was, it didn’t compare to the realization of what had caused the creature to act this way. Scales flew off the monster, torn off by some far greater force.

Damn it! Dallion rushed to the side, pushing dark along with him, just in time to evade the blast of a point attack to fly past. Had his perception of reaction traits been any lower, he might have joined the wyverns on the ground. At the very least, Dark would have.

“What‘s that?” Dark split into instances to take a look down the corridor. “Wyverns have magic?”

“It wasn’t magic,” Dallion said. “It was a point attack.”

“Wyverns have those?”

“No.” The gauntlets had warned Dallion not to be so reckless underground, but there was one person neither they nor Euryale could order to do so: the noble paying for the entire thing.