Starry Resonance

Dark turned to light and Yvain was now standing in the same great hall as before. At least, that's what it looked like at first glance.

What was the entrance to the dungeon, was now the broken window with skeletons starting to pour out of it. The paintings on the walls, having more space than before, were now neatly set around the room. Everything was also much, much wider. Wide enough to comfortably fit the beast now growling behind him.

What was the next course of action? Was he supposed to fight everyone here? Yvain didn't mind the skeletons now that he had this much space available to him. But if the beast behind him attacked, forget the baby, currently laughing in his arm, even he would not survive. This beast wasn't just big, one of its eyes alone was bigger than Yvain's measly seven feet stature. He was confident in his strength, but their muscle mass was just much too different. Not to mention that his greatsword was a toothpick compared to its claws.

The skeletons, ignorant of Yvain's predicament, kept moving toward him. Hand on hilt, he slowly walked backward while deciding on what to do. Then a light lit up behind him.

With an increasing heat enveloping him, Yvain looked back to see the gaping maws of the beast wide open. There was a blinding brilliance coming from its throat that immediately turned into an incandescent pillar of solid white heading straight for him. He pushed off to the right as quickly as possible, shielding the child in his arms. Yet even while managing to dodge the brunt of the attack, the sheer heat coming off of it made the back of his leather armor burst in flames and his sword melt. Holding back a scream of pain he quickly discarded the weapon.

To make matters worse, in his haste to get out of the way, Yvain tripped. His body was about to fall flat on the defenseless child when he shifted his center of gravity and landed on his pack, sliding across the floor for a few meters before a pile of gold cushioned his crash. Coins burst out at every angle before falling down in a downpour of gold.

The sliding against the ground had put out most of the fire on his armor, but his body was still smoking.

"What the hell was that?!?" Yvain couldn't help himself from screaming out at the beast in an accusing tone, more to suppress the pain and the shattering of his understanding of the world than to attempt a scolding.

Was this part of the hated monster race? It couldn't be. Images of his friend's beautiful ex-fiancée came to mind. She was part of what humans would consider monsters, but she looked nothing like this. It had wings spanning all of its body, a long lizard-like head, sharp red scales that could probably grind anything to paste, and a tail that looked both powerful yet nimble. Yvian had never seen anything like it, neither had it ever been mentioned in books. He was inside a dungeon though, so maybe that had something to do with it.

He thought of the promises of power made by guilds to those at the peak of mortal strength. Yvain and his friend had thought of joining them, but their rules proved to be a bit...constricting, and so they created their own at the sacrifice of a fast track to 'unimaginable power'. "Maybe we made a mistake," Yvain thought.

That attack would have obliterated every single member in Draconian's Tavern even if they all fought together at full strength. That's what it did to the skeletons that had been gathering. All that was left in the aftermath was a wall of lava where the window had been.

A hiccup caught his attention. The baby was looking at him with round, innocent eyes that had a glowing yellow sheen to them with the same type of pupils as the beast that had just attacked them. A soft excitement started building at the pit of his stomach. They were different from his own human ones, and that could only mean one thing. He couldn't think much about it though. The beast was coming for him, and every step it took formed a small earthquake.

Standing up, Yvain ripped off the rest of his ruined clothing with no shame and started to scan for anything he could use to fight. With only ornamental weapons available he grabbed the first sword he could find and started to run. As long as he didn't engage and fought defensively, he and the baby could survive while he found a way to get out of this predicament.

The plan was short-lived as the beast covered an impossible distance in seconds and, in one fluid motion that betrayed its size, spun forward in the air to crush Yvain with its tail.

It was too predictable, all Yvain had to do to dodge was speed up. But the tail disappeared from view. Stunned, he slowed down enough to see out of the corner of his eye that the tail was now coming from the front. With a fraction of a second available, Yvain forced his body down with his back facing the floor and, muscles screaming in pain at the shift in force, slid forward. He saw the tail pass over him, and using the opportunity, attacked it with his new sword. The weapon simply broke in half. It was no different than striking the tail with air.

Yvain's surroundings suddenly acquired the same reddish color as when the beast shot its breath. Looking up in trepidation, his body still mid slide, a hole filled with dozens of sharp teeth and a mini ball of fire in the middle was pointing at him. This was it. He had no time or way to move.

A fireball burst out of the beast's mouth and crashed close enough to send him flying with the force of the impact, but not close enough to hurt. The damage came when he was once more forced to use his back as a shield for the child in his arms, and crashed against a pillar, forming a tiny crater.

Yvain could feel his facial muscles twitching. He didn't know if he was smiling or frowning, but he knew that the thing he hated the most was someone stronger playing around with him. It was an insult to his efforts. It had caused no small amount of friction between him and his master in the past.

The baby cooed and reached out for Yvain's hand as he set it down behind him. He felt disgusted with himself, adding to the already growing anger. Yvain knew they would both die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was a new experience for him.

All his life he had been at the top. He lived in a peaceful kingdom with a loving family, trained under a powerful master, was popular despite facing a lot of backlash over his peculiar thoughts. He was even going to be the right-hand man to the future king, who also happened to be his best friend. A laugh escaped Yvain when he realized that even after being banished he didn't face that much adversity in his path forward. Now he was going to let an innocent child die and get killed in the process

Well, if it was inevitable, then he would at least give it his all before they both perished. A viscous blue light started pouring out of Yvain's body with millions of minuscule lights shinning inside and outside of it. They spun around as if being held in place by a celestial object, unable to shoot out and destroy everything in their path.

The beast stopped in its tracks when their gazes clashed. Its eyes squinted, and Yvain could swear it started grinning at him.

As if in synch, the beast stood on its hind legs just as Yvain lifted his left arm, pointing straight up. The bright dots around him spun faster and faster, s.u.c.k.i.n.g in all the light in the room and plunging the surroundings into darkness. The bright dots looked like stars.

The darkness didn't last though.

The beast gave a deafening roar up to the sky and with its wings and forelegs stretched out, as if holding all of creation, started creating a ball of fire in the space above. But calling it a ball of fire would be a disservice. It grew to such a size that the beast itself was a pebble in front of it. Yvain could only see a mixture of flames the color of crimson, night, and silver before his eyeballs boiled and burst instantly.

Combining his scream of agony with his own roar at the beast, Yvain concentrated all of his power on his stretched arm and created a simple pillar of light taller than the beast he was facing, but not tall enough to reach the miniature sun. It was the only move he had managed to learn that was outside of mortal arts. He hadn't even mastered it yet. A part of him was glad he couldn't see anymore, as he knew how insignificant it looked in front of his adversary.

"Skyfall!" Everything went black.

----------

When Yvain opened his eyes, he found himself back in the baby's room. He gingerly touched his eyes to confirm they were actually there.

"So it really was an illusion," he though. But when he stood up he realized he was still n.a.k.e.d and his weapon was gone. The burns he received from the fire, the fractures in his ribs, strained muscles, and eyes were all healed. His energy was also around the same level from before he jumped out that window. The only wound that still remained was the hole in his right hand and his slightly uncomfortable elbow.

Yvain wondered if the child, like him, had survived the beast's attack. The crib was empty and he didn't hear any crying or giggling. Neither were the skeletons there.

With no other options left, Yvain left the room with a sense of loss behind him. He walked through a cave with a ceiling that almost reached his head. Torches lit his path up until an opening that gave way to another room made of finely cut stones. Before Yvain could look at any more of its details, his understanding of reality faced its biggest challenge yet.

"Welcome, Yvain. You've done well to make it this far." A smirking Selt was relaxing on the ground throwing the leather pouch up and down.

"Wh-wha-how? What's going on?"

Pushing himself off the ground and standing straight, Selt menacingly reached into the leather bag and took out a wooden wand. He pointed it at Yvain, imitating how Roesia usually attacks, and spoke with smug mockery, "Little did you know, young fool, that I was the final boss all along." A brilliant red light shot out of the wand toward Yvain.

"If you don't tell me why you are here in the next five seconds, whatever god is protecting your miserable life won't be able to stop me from smashing your head into the ground," Yvain said with barely contained anger and shaking fists.

Selt raised his hands in surrender. "Chill man, just having a bit of fun. Look." He pointed to the left of the room and Yvain saw a door similar to the ones at the great hall.

"There's no way," Yvain said.

"Why don't you see for yourself," Selt said, trying to hold back his laughter.

Yvain had to force himself to move forward. The weight of the truth had him on a tight rope on the precipice of helplessness. And as he feared, behind the door stood the great hall he had left Selt in.

"Don't blame me now, I told you to go left," Selt couldn't contain himself anymore and burst out laughing, sometimes snorting when he couldn't breathe anymore.

Not knowing whether to express anger, disappointment, or embarrassment, Yvain decided to move things along, but not before expelling what he felt was so far the biggest sigh of his life. "I get it, I'm sorry. So what have you been doing all this time?"

"Waiting for you, what else?" Selt said innocently.

Yvain took a deep breath and spoke, "Just wait? You didn't think to check this room?" Walking back in, he saw that there wasn't really much to find. There was only a set of double doors. These were smaller and of a different shape than the ones at the entrance to the dungeon. No design could be seen on them.

"Alright, well, the doors at the entrance are still closed, so it seems we aren't done with the trial yet." Yvain jogged to the great hall and picked up the first ornamental sword he found. Before going back, he looked at one of the golden pillars in the room. It was so similar to where he left the child that a part of him wondered if he'd just find it lying where he left it.

Dispelling the depressing thoughts, he went back to where Selt was waiting. "I'd tell you to be careful, but I guess I'm the one that's about to have a tough time," he said.

"That's my secret, friend. I'm always careful," Selt said.

"Maybe I'll try that from now on," Yvain said, opening the double doors to see an open sky and a forest currently on fire.