Sune felt herself smash into the stone wall. The barrage of arrows kept coming, many smashing into the back of her head. Luckily for her, even with her body frozen, she was able to keep her mana circulating around herself in order to protect her flesh.

Unfortunately, that did very little to block Garon's attack, which dug into her body. The snake's head kept attacking, frosty mist gushing out of its maws as it tore into her side, freezing part of her stomach and tearing a chunk off. She tried to cry out again, but she couldn't. Just as her body was about to be able to move, the other arm lunged out and rammed its dagger into her shoulder, freezing her up again.

If given enough time, her body would be able to build up an immunity to the effect and not freeze up, but the monster wasn't giving her the chance. It just kept attacking.

It was kind of a terrifying fact to know that she was about to die, but Sune was also able to stay calm and keep her emotions in check. This wasn't the first time she had been nearly killed, but it was the first time her body had been ripped apart in such an ugly way.

With the state of her arm, it was next to impossible for it to be recovered through healing magic, meaning it was likely gone forever. Healing magic could reattach limbs, but regrowing them from nothing was something only people in Haru's time could do. Her days as a swordsman were over.

This mission should have been simple. She and the other Knights were supposed to serve as guides for the new recruits and go on a simple mission. She didn't know what quest she had been given, but she knew it had been a fake one in order to test the recruits out properly. She should have known something was wrong the moment she entered the dungeon and saw that it was that damn castle.

It was a dungeon only Father had ever seen, and one he had preached about, for it was where the four Rulers used to meet during the times of old. This mission was anything but simple.

Sune often wondered if her life would have been better if she had remained in her homeland. She hadn't been born in Estiria and instead came from Gallenth. As a kid, she worshipped the Titans, much like most of Gallenth's people did, and she had the desire to become a Sovereign Philosopher and pilot her very own Titan, but her dreams were cut short, like many in her nation, when she learned she didn't have the spark of Prince Sylas, meaning it was impossible for her to become a Sovereign Philosopher.

Instead, she did what many did when they weren't able to join their nation's group. She lashed out and ran away from home and pledged her allegiance to the kingdom that openly accepted strays. Haru's mana could rival any Titan, any spirit, or any magical sword that any of the other nations might try to unleash.

Somehow, Sune had been able to join, and she served on the Knights for years. She didn't have any Knight gear, but she was soon going to be promoted, from what whispers said. She just had to be patient.

Now, as she lay dying, the monster looming over her, Sune couldn't help but wonder if she made the right choice. In a lot of ways, the Kingdom of Estiria was corrupt, but it was still far better than the other lands. Still, was betraying her home country the right move? Would her life have been better if she had stayed where she was and joined Gallenth's military instead?

Unlikely.

It hadn't been the best time, but she had fun as an Arcane Knight. She laughed, she played, she made friends, and she lived. The monster might kill her, but Sune was confident that she would have managed to get everyone the time they needed to escape. So, even as the beast began to loom over her and aimed for her head, Sune did not falter.

"Row Spatial Clearing!"

The arrows suddenly flickered and twisted, all of them ramming into the monster. The head of the snake twisted, Garon's limbs jerking around as it roared. From up above, Ash and Emma landed.

"Row Wind Barrier!" Ash jumped in front of Emma and lifted his wand up, forming a barrier of compressed wind around himself and Emma. While he did that, Emma pulled her guns out and pressed them directly into Ash's back. She began to pull the trigger, but bullets never hit Ash and instead reappeared behind the snake monster, jamming into its spine. It was insanely enhanced, though, and she was crazy weak, so her attack did less than nothing.

The snake hissed, and it fired forward, heat launching out of its feet. Its knife jutted out and rammed directly into Ash's barrier, shattering it, but before the knife could go further, it was stopped by a second barrier!

Up above in the air, Ash's bird flew around, and so when he put his shield up, he had actually used two, each one stacked on top of the other.

"Row Wind Blast!" Ash jutted his wand out and canceled his barrier, sending two blasts of air that didn't damage the monster but did shove it back. He was only able to do this thanks to Emma, who kept her other spell going, causing more air to funnel into his attack, making it far stronger than usual. It still wasn't enough to damage the enemy, though. "Row Wind Barrier!" He put his two shields back up, and once again the monster charged.

While that happened, Olivia and Nori landed next to the injured Sune. "Vil Glass Bug." He held the tip of his finger up, but nothing happened, causing him to curse. "Shit. I can't even use a spell on the level of Vil?"

"We are being weakened." Olivia winced. "Just do what you can."

Nori nodded and used a weaker spell. "Row Glass Bug." This time, his molten glass twisted off his finger, and two ants, molded out of clear glass, dropped to the ground. Normally, he could make four, and with Vil, they'd be a lot bigger, but he was being hindered by the dungeon. "Row Glass Mold." With his two ants, he was able to use his spell three times in a single instant, but doing so instantly made him feel sick. He was already almost out of mana just from that. It made him wonder how Ash was doing so well and how Sune had been able to use so many high-level spells while under the same effect he was. "Okay. I'm healing her."

Glass shards danced out of Nori's flesh as well as the two tiny ants, and they began to piece themselves into jagged cuts and wounds along Sune's body. He was too weak to properly heal her, and even at full strength, he couldn't recover her missing arm, but he could, at the very least, ensure she didn't instantly die.

While he did that, Olivia looked down at Sune. "Sorry, Ms. Sune… This is gonna be kind of awkward and weird, but… Anyway." Olivia got on her hands and knees and hesitated for a moment before forcing her face forward and sinking her teeth into Sune's gut wound. She shivered from how gross it was but forced herself to drink, consuming some of Sune's blood. Her body suddenly twitched for a moment, and Olivia could feel a new substance taking root in her veins. She pulled away and wiped her mouth and placed a hand over her heart, focusing. "Row Blood Recover."

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For once, using a spell didn't actually drain her. When she used Blood Recover, she would use her own blood up to an equal amount of the blood she recovered. Because of that, the spell was useless for the most part since she'd use a pint of blood to regain a pint of blood. That blood she would remake, though, was a perfect replica of the blood she was trying to recover. This was good for when she was healing other people. She could give up a bit of her blood and recover that person's blood equal to the amount she gave up, but if she ever used it on herself, it would basically do nothing, as if she were damaged and bleeding, she'd be using her own blood to restore her blood.

Maybe if she were better at the school of Restoration or could cast the spell at a higher level, that wouldn't be the case, but she couldn't do that.

Today was a very rare exception, however. She used her blood to restore and multiply the blood she had just consumed from Sune. In a single instant, a pint of her blood faded away, and a pint of Sune's poisoned blood refilled that gap.

Filling her veins with someone else's blood likely wasn't healthy, but she was a blood mage, and it should be fine.

Probably…

Olivia kept the spell up over and over again until at least half of her blood was filled with the venom. She had already built up a tolerance to it and had an exceptionally high poison resistance, so she could handle it. Her body still shuddered, and she turned just in time to see Garon's body launching itself at Ash and Emma again.

The monster's arm struck out. It shattered the first barrier, and Ash tried to do the same thing he did last time, but Garon learned his lesson and dodged to the side, totally avoiding the strike. He struck out again and shattered the second barrier. Ash would have had his head torn clean off, but Emma wrapped her arms around his waist and yanked both of them down just in time.

Olivia jumped forward and landed on Ash's back. "Row Blood Scythe!" The snake looked startled to see her, and the arm wrapped around its own body dozens of times, covering it in a layer of scales right as she brought her scythe down. Her weapon did nothing. Her plan had been to aim for the neck where it was wounded, but the snake blocked Garon's neck off by filling in the gap with its arms and its body. She couldn't pierce it. Her attack failed.

Olivia gritted her teeth and tried to muster up all the mana she could, but it wasn't enough. She pressed down on the scythe with everything she had, but the scales were just too tough for her. The other arm struck out, and she nearly cried out in pain as the knife rammed into her stomach. She felt her arms weaken, and it began to twist the weapon, spilling her blood down her stomach, but she didn't stop; she kept trying.

She couldn't do it, though. She just wasn't strong enough to get through the scales. Maybe if the dungeon hadn't been a double dungeon, she could have done it, but she was just too weak. The knife began to dig into her stomach, getting further in, and Olivia felt tears of frustration pierce her eyes, but she still didn't stop.

There had to be something she could do, right? Luckily for her, there was. She just needed to keep her weapon steady.

"V—Vil Gravity Pull."

In an instant, Olivia felt her scythe suddenly double in weight. Then it tripled. Then quadrupled. More and more, her weapon grew heavy and dense, and her arms gave out, unable to hold it. But it had gained so much weight that the snake scales could no longer withstand the tip that was pressing into them. The snake hissed as several of its scales cracked and twisted, and then the weapon pressed further into it before fully stabbing down and ripping into its throat.

The beast roared in pain, but Olivia yelled and shoved on her weapon even harder. It wouldn't be enough to kill the monster, but that was okay. She wasn't aiming to kill it. Just halt it.

She used a lot more blood than she normally did to create her scythe, pulling out all the venom that she could. Of course, the venom came from the snake, and so it was only natural that it would have a tolerance for its own substance. Still, she forced all the venom along her weapon to enter the wound she created, pumping it full of its own substance, and then she used her final spell for the day.

"Row Blood Recover."

She used as much blood as she could without dying and forced the blood in the snake to rapidly double. Her own body had already been pumped full of such a ridiculous amount of venom that it should have killed her, and now all of that substance was shoved into the snake and then further doubled. Snakes had evolved to be resistant and immune to their own venom, but if more of their blood was poisonous, then they'd eventually fall victim to it.

The snake's eyes suddenly went wide, and it dropped back, collapsing to the floor. It didn't freeze up, but the amount of poison in its veins was definitely having an effect because it began to spasm and twitch, shaking all over the place. It was even foaming a bit, having a seizure, but it wouldn't be long before that ended, and it recovered. Maybe only a few seconds max.

Olivia slid off the knife and dropped to the ground, smacking her head on the stone floor. She vomited her guts up and nearly blacked out. That was four spells. Two uses of the scythe and two uses of the recover, one of which didn't actually drain her. What little blood she had left was leaking out of her through her stomach wound.

Ash quickly jumped up and managed to scoop her up into his arms. Emma had been using the same spell over and over again to keep the arrows from hitting them, but it was clear she was getting low on mana because she also wobbled. Ash cursed, called his bird down, put Olivia and Emma on it, and caused it to fly up. He reached up and grabbed it by the talon, letting it pick him up as well, but the construct was awkwardly slow and barely able to lift above the arrows.

Nori regrew his wings and grabbed Sune, also lifting into the air. The five of them rapidly began to head for the exit.

"Why did you come back?" Sune groaned.

"Blame the Face." Nori sighed. "She somehow managed to convince us to help. Came up with this plan as well. You said the monster can't escape the dungeon, right? So all we have to do is get to the exit."

Sune gave a weak nod. "Yeah. I guess all of us living is better than one of us dying."

They were just about to make it to the stairs when the roar pierced out. Due to Ash carrying three different people with his construct, the group was moving a lot slower than usual. The snake came crashing down from the sky right as they got to the top step. The beast had already recovered and was more pissed than ever before. It rammed down into the bird and shattered it, sending Ash, Olivia, and Emma to the ground.

Nori also landed, but only because Sune forced her way out of his arms and landed on her feet. The entrance was right there, but she lunged for the monster instead.

The snake ignored her, though, and wrapped Garon's body around the downed Olivia. Then it began to glow and pulse, sparking in a bright orange glow as fire started to radiate off of it. Olivia weakly glanced at the monster, knowing what was about to happen.

Just like how Garon blew himself up the first time, the monster was planning to do the same. Sune was trying to make her way over, but the woman wasn't going to make it in time. The corpse of Garon would have killed one or two of them, but with how close they were to the door, several of them would have been able to escape, but the monster didn't want that. It wanted to take them all with it, because that's what Garon had wanted.

Everything seemed to slow down. Olivia couldn't move. Her body was way too weak. Her regeneration was working overtime, going faster than it ever had before, and some blood was returning, but not enough to cast a spell without dying. If she did anything, she'd die. If she did nothing, she'd die.

She was already dead. If she was dead, then she failed. She wouldn't be a Knight. So, in other words, she had nothing to lose. Olivia wrapped her arms around the waist of the snake and held it close.

"Row Blood Barrier."

It was small and pathetic. It was barely able to cover her and the snake up. Her blood formed a tiny dome over herself and the monster, pressing them further into the ground. It appeared just in time as the creature exploded into a hail of fire. It didn't matter to Olivia, though. That had been the last of her blood.

She was already dead.

Everything faded away in a blinding flash, and for her, the third exam came to an end.

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