In this time, Wisteria prepared something special. A shot blessed so heavily the light could be seen down the length of the barrel. Lining up the shot with the aid of her mana reticle skill, she fired into his chest at an angle ensuring the bullet stayed inside and didn't blow out his back.

This one got to him. He started screaming immediately, grasping at his chest where the bullet remained. The flesh, rather than heal, began to singe, then burn.

After a few moments, wherein she began to load another shot like it, he thrust his hand deep into his own chest. Grasping the bullet shards, he ripped it out viciously, the few he missed still burning bright inside him. "You! FUCKING! BITCH!"

In an impossibly short time, everything fell apart.

Now that he was actually angry, he stopped toying with Neth; the assassin's blows were fiercer and faster, striking at weak points not on Neth’Rehxis, but his katars. They broke one after another, leaving him scrambling to produce a new weapon. He managed to make a spear and get enough space to level it at him, but the naga didn't expect him to simply… ram his way down the haft, allowing himself to be impaled so that he could get a shot at the snake himself.

The attack he launched was brutal, but simple. The axe head became a mace, which struck like clockwork at all four arms. A chorus of sick cracks were hard as they broke, all at nearly the same time. This left the naga wide eyed, unable to respond for a moment with the sheer volume of pain he felt. He never got the chance to process it into a scream.

Another crack was heard as a lightning quick uppercut came in, knocking him out cold. It had fractured a vertebrae, right where his skull met his neck.

Wisteria and Alister both let out a simultaneous "Neth!" and began trying to hurriedly put a new plan together. But there was no time. Wisteria had begun to mutter a prayer, beseeching the gods to use her as a vessel, but there was no time. He had already crossed the room before the fourth word left her mouth.

The crystal mace struck her square in the face, breaking her nose in one fell swoop. This was followed up by a hook from his hand, slamming into her eye. She went limp, barely conscious as a final kick connected to her sternum, launching her first into then through the wooden wall of the warehouse. A great many bones were broken, leaving her half-dead and limp on the ground, amidst the splinters and broken wood.

Before he could finish her, two things happened. The first was an intense gravity spell, stacking with the seemingly ineffective slow curse to leave him open. The second was Neth awoke, his hardy naga body clinging to awareness. A lash of his long tail sent a spray of spikes forward from the ground, nearly knocking the assassin over with the force of it.

The assassin didn't even make a response, letting out a furious snarl and ripping the gun out of Wisteria's limp grip. With barely a sign of effort, he fired the thing one-handed into Neth's chest, once again putting him down for the count.

"No!" Alister screamed, desperately searching his mind for a plan, trying to think of what he could do with his limited and injured mana core, "Let air shake and water ripple, my voice shall carry across the lands and unto the sky… Let the largest mountain crumble-”

He began chanting but the assassin charged across the room. Not nearly as fast as before, but still too fast for Alister to finish his chant. One square blow across the jaw shut him up, the maniacally grinning assassin breaking his jaw.

"There. Now be a good boy and shut up for me," he said with a sadistic smile. "I can't kill you, but I can break you. I'm going to enjoy doing just that," he said with a smirk.

A scream echoed from the boy as two crystals pierced his hands, shredding the tendons if not outright destroying them. They began to lift, raising Alister off the ground as he faded in and out of consciousness.

No… no, Alister had done this before.

The crystalline monster thrust a hand forward, and the spikes now lifting Alister up in the air launched back into the wall, pinning Alister to it with his arms spread wide. The boy attempted to say a spell, struggled to form words but his jaw just wouldn't cooperate.

No… this wasn't happening again. This wasn't going to happen for a second time. It couldn't! Because if he fell here, got captured, his friends…

His friends…! A foggy glance towards Wisteria was all he needed to shake off the daze.

He might not be able to cast spells silently with the amount of pain he was in… but he was exceptional at energy control, and that required no chant.

The pain multiplied as Alister ripped his hands forward, de-crucifying himself from the wall. "Aww, little baby has some fight left in him, huh? Well don't worry, I can change that," said the assailant, but he didn't have time to act on it before things went white… or more accurately, silver.

Alister, in his moment of rage, did the one thing he could do. Push out every scrap of energy he had left, ripping the energy channels throughout his body wide open, shattering his core into pieces once again.

This went just according to the rough plan Alister came up with in a moment of blind fury. The mana crystal in his body may have been a powerful tool, but it was still a mana crystal and could only hold so much.

It sucked up every drop of energy Alister released, beginning to glow brighter and brighter as it filled with mana.

"Aww dicks," the assassin said before letting out a howl of incomprehensible pain. The crystal shattered into a million tiny shards, peppering the entire area in sharp slivers.

Much mass was lost from the madman, losing his entire right arm, half his right leg, half his skull, and his entire right pec and ab… as well as his head blasting off his shoulders.

The boy fell to the floor, entirely unconscious like his friends as the man cursed, screamed, and laughed. "You know what?! To hell with orders! You're a dead man!!" He said frantically, staggering closer to the boy.

The nameless assailant froze, sensing another presence and hearing a soft "hmm" from behind him. Turning around in a rush, he stared at the approaching figure.

The figure had long, jet black hair tied back in a loose ponytail, tan skin with a smattering of black scales covering his skin like heavy freckling. Most attention grabbing was his opal eyes and fancy black suit with beautiful embroidery that looked like something worn to a ball. Upon his back were massive black leathery wings, and across his head were horns that curled back over his brow. The figure’s opal eyes flashed, towering above the 5'8" assassin by a good two and a half feet… and soon more as his arms and legs just seemed to fall off. There was no blood, no mess, just a pile of limbs and a torso on the floor. "They did better than expected," said Takrok with a slight smirk, "Honestly, I didn't expect them all to live. Well, it's not what the king asked me to do, but I suppose I should save them too," he said with an exasperated sigh. Another flash of opal lit up the room as the assassin slowly came to, just half a head on the floor, unable to even speak.

"You. You're coming back with me," he said sternly to the assassin as if scolding a child, "Alliana?" He asked the air, awaiting a response for a moment.

"Yes, Takrok?" said a tearful voice into the area, words from out of thin air.

"Send someone to take care of the kids. I'll fly the meat nugget back," he said, gesturing to what could only be described as half a torso sitting on the ground.

"Of course. I'll get a teleporter there… but aren't you going to heal them the rest of the way?" She asked, concerned.

This just got a snort from the dragon. "I took care of their lethal wounds. Let the rest heal naturally. The scars will remind them of their foolishness," he said with an offhanded wave.

"But-"

"I said. Let. Them. Heal. Naturally," he said with a scowl, eyes flashing again.

"What did you just do?!" She demanded from empty space, panic rising in her tone.

"I hexed them. No magical healing will work until these wounds are taken care of. Let the boy learn his lessons the hard way," he said casually, shifting forms back to that of a full dragon, this time a good fifteen feet tall. He barely fit in the warehouse as he grabbed the head and torso in one claw each, before taking off into the air, simply busting through the roof.

Once higher in the air, he shifted again. This time to an even larger form easily three times his previous size. Every flap of his wings buffeted the ground with a heavy wave of wind as he gathered speed.

It wasn't long before an order was issued, and the unconscious children were collected. They weren't woken, though they let out uncomfortable groans when one of their open wounds were jostled.

Takrok spoke true, no magical healing seemed to fix the remaining wounds. The only thing that would help was herbal medicine and time. They would all wind up walking away with scars to show for their struggle.

They awoke hours later, laying in a field hospital, surrounded by the wounded. Takrok had spoken truly, and they were just as sore and injured as before. Wisteria’s face was one big bruise, though thankfully Takrok had repaired her eyes and spared her being half blind. As well, his jaw had been repaired, and one of Neth’s arms.

By this point all the fighting had died down outside, with all the would be rebels captured or dead… or so they hoped at least. But the risk couldn't be taken that others had hid and blended with civilians, so a city-wide lockdown was ordered. No one inside the walls, noble or peasant, was going anywhere until they were sure every bit of rebellion was uprooted.

He wasn't fully debriefed of everything that happened except he forcibly ascended his core, but he did know one thing.

His mother was going to be far scarier than any undead crystal assassin could ever hope to be.