Using the momentary cover created by the shattered pieces of the Colossus' leg, Draga sprinted to the other. Even in a mad rage, Thrak figured out where he went, breaking his way through that one as well.

By the time he'd done that, Draga had already left. His soul was active, buffing his speed twice over as he sprinted as far away as possible- yet he deliberately avoided using Acceleration to actually outspeed Thrak.

He had two attacks that could do any meaningful damage to Thrak- Pale Lightning and Mana Burn. The Destruction element was an option, but the charge time was far to long to be of any use here. However, in order to rely on either of those he'd need one of two things- distance or a supply of mana.

Thrak was fast- slightly surpassing him when he'd used one stack of Acceleration and his soul earlier- which meant he was about 33% faster than him right now. Unfortunately, with nowhere to go, actually passing him with Acceleration didn't mean much, but he could maintain some distance without it and rely on his training to dodge any incoming attacks.

If he lasted long enough, he could either use Acceleration to 'appear' at the other side of the room and Pale Lightning him to death or just Mana Burn him. The way the latter was described, though, it sounded like the worse option.

Draga skid to a stop right around the middle of the room, relying more on Sense Danger than any actual instincts when he lept to one side.

He rolled back to his feet, already running again, and for good reason. From the roar behind him, the maneuver had only earned him feet at best.

Okay... Something a little more.

Acceleration was too expensive- he could do it, but he'd have to keep this up for minutes. His MP could handle it, sure, but he wouldn't put it past a game like this to have a stamina system of some kind. With his life on the line, it wasn't a risk he was willing to take.

Perhaps it was time he actually used Pale Lightning.

As he sprinted across the rocky ground, Draga extended one of his palms back towards Thrak. Aiming wasn't difficult, with both the sound of his approach and Sense Bloodlust/Danger ringing in his head, so he didn't even need to turn to point it at him.

A hundred mana was nothing, but the attack likely wasn't going to be as strong as what he'd hit the turtle with anyway. As such, he didn't cast it once, but rather stacked it three times over.

The flash of light was visible, even facing away, and the sound as it arced through the air was equally clear. It landed- because really, was he gonna dodge lightning from a few feet away? - and Thrak staggered a step.

One.

There's goes that idea. It probably did some damage, but not enough to really matter, leaving him with his original plan- save up for one devastating attack, as with all things. He was gonna need distance- somewhere to run outside the cavern, as there was no way he could run circles around Thrak for that long without screwing up somewhere. Compared to his MP regen, his HP regen was piddling, as a glance to his status screen confirmed his HP as still around 12%.

Fortunately, he'd always been good at thinking on his feet, and a plan came to mind almost instantly.

Running brought him straight to the wall of the cavern, with Thrak right behind him. Back on Chelnephus, he'd never been fast enough for it, but that wasn't really a problem anymore.

When he hit the wall, he simply moved along it instead.

Without any way to cling to the surface, he only went a few steps upward, but that was enough to let Thrak pass underneath him and crash through the wall. Draga fell down- landing in a crouched position before shooting off in the opposite direction.

Unsurprisingly, Thrak was fine. He had a few scrapes and a bit more dust on him, but he'd pulverized plenty of stone in the last few minutes. Anyone who expected that to stop him would be left sorely dissapointed.

It did anger him further, though, which was actually a good thing. Why? Because Thrak stopped to roar his anger out.

The sound that passed through his mouth was painfully loud- but really? When compared to the invisible bird or the step from the Colossus, it barely registered.

The added time let Draga cross the entire cavern, giving him a wide berth of nearly a hundred and fifty feet. With the speeds they were moving, it only represented about five seconds of safety, but a lot could be done in that time. Even in normal fights, without time manipulation or magic, five seconds was an eternity. It was even moreso for him, with the chance to prepare.

He recalled a line from one of his abilities- Elemental Awareness.

User is assumed to have an affinity of 1 in all affinities they haven't unlocked.

In most video games, affinities that low would be inconsequential, but Lightning had been all the proof he needed for the contrary. While he could sense electricity- vaguely- and couldn't do the same for the others, it just might be possible to...

YES!

The Game had already increased his strength, with both his Awakened Soul and Tet's Blessing raising it. Still, he'd been more or less average before, so he still couldn't easily toss around heavy weights. With the Earth Affinity augmenting his strength, by manipulating the ground directly, however?

A boulder, weighing easily half a ton, rose up from the ground as he hauled it up. There was no incredible strain on his arms, though only because he was cheating- and planned to do a lot more of that in the coming moments.

Throwing it in the path of Thrak- if only to block line of sight- Draga slipped down into the tunnel it had been covering- the place they'd originally entered from. There was a lot more rubble inside, but it flowed around him to form a makeshift barrier while he continued past.

Quaking steps followed behind him, loose bits of earth shaking as Thrak stomped after him, but he ignored it- focusing only on sprinting up the tunnel. Six minutes of walking at a sedate pace, compared to his current speed... It was still a long time, and he didn't have much to waste.

A crashing sound behind him announced the arrival of his opponent, as though it was necessary. The sheer rage he felt was palpable, and he might have actually been afraid if not for Gamer's Mind.

Instead, the lengthy uphill run was almost casual- having more the air of when he'd explore the caverns of Hell as a child. It wasn't safe to go alone, so he'd typically go with Kirase, and that was the part which broke away his nostalgia.

Thrak made a poor substitute for the shapeshifting demon.

With the occasional slip into Acceleration to keep ahead, the lengthy run came to and as he emerged from beneath a knotted oak.

He'd maintained a lead of sixty feet or so for the last stretch, giving him a few seconds to escape detection. On any other day, he might have ran into the middle distance or climbed a tree, but he didn't really know the full extent of Thrak's senses.

Instead, he ran a circle around the tree, arriving at the other side and promptly faceplanting into the dirt. It hurt, but not enough for him to care as he set about his work.

As he'd noticed on arrival, the place was barren. Outside the trees themselves, no plants or animals laid claim to the soil, leaving it an almost trivial task to command it over himself.

At least, in theory. As smart as he was, even before enhancing it through The Game, he knew that the surface of the ground would be a different shade. If he simply rolled it over himself- which wouldn't be that hard- it would be visibly distinct. Thrak had already seen him manipulate lightning and earth, though the latter might be attributed to raw strength, so it wouldn't be a large leap in logic to assume I had something to do with it.

Even if Thrak didn't know what it meant, he'd probably destroy it as matter of course- or perhaps an expression of anger at having lost his target. Either way, bad news for him.

To bypass the problem entirely, he instead pictured the earth as having two sections- the topsoil and the dirt beneath that. From the entrance to the tunnel, he'd seen the transition from dirt to stone at about twelve feet, giving him a lot to work with. from such a small distance from the entrance, he would only have four or so feet to move through before he fell back into the tunnel.

It wasn't a very precise task, and he wasn't going to be competing for any beauty awards, but as he sunk into the ground with no time to spare, and almost made the mistake of sighing in releif.

Thank Tet for having faster thoughts than mouths. Any sound he made now could alert Thrak, so he held back on his sigh and waited. As he did, though, he continued to move down- a lot slower, to keep the volume next to nothing, but to where he would reach the tunnel back to the cavern before he suffocated. He hadn't really tested if he needed to breathe yet, but he'd much rather try it in a setting when he wouldn't die from failure.

Any sound coming from above was muffled by more than a foot of dirt, leaving him with only the sounds of Thrak's angry and confused roar and his footsteps. He was standing over him- with only two-feet (now) of earth separating them.

Perhaps it was a scent thing, since he had stopped moving. Draga wasn't in a position to tell if he was sniffing the air, and whatever species Thrak came from certainly seemed to have large nostrils.

What should have been a tense and dangerous situation seemed almost laughable in his head. That was probably Gamer's Mind, keeping him calm despite the panic he'd initially felt. Yet again, he found himself thankful for the power.

He was equally thankful that Thrak didn't take notice of his location. Whatever tracking mechanisms he had, they didn't work now, leaving Draga free to slowly seep down and plop out into the tunnel below. He could even tell that Thrak was calming down- while Sense Danger stopped the instant he left vision of Thrak, Sense Bloodlust had held firm, but was weakening even now.

"That won't do."

Ah... That voice again. It was inhuman, for sure, and some incomprehensible rubbish accompanied a short chuckle that followed. A spectator of The Game, perhaps? Tet had never given any specifics, and it wasn't even unlikely that such a thing existed. Still, Draga tensed, ready to move at a moments notice despite the relative safety of the unlit tunnel.

"I've come for a show, little one. 'It's not very fun if you only run', or so my brother says. A rare moment of wisdom from him, really."

Okay... An observer with preferences. Not exactly unexpected, from the first sentence, and one with friends- or at least a family. That wasn't a lot to go on, but stalling was the right choice either way. Learn more and prepare a bit of extra mana? Perfect.

Annoyingly, the voice didn't answer right away, instead keeping to the background as Draga sat crouched in the dark.

"Ugh... Of course you're like this- a beacon of patience, aren't you?"

Truthfully? No- definitely not. This wasn't really patience, though. He was waiting, sure, but waiting with purpose. To many, the distinction might not matter, but not even Gamer's Mind could stop him from feeling the tension inherent in the situation. It just... Prevented him from being bogged down by it.

"Welp, I gave you the opporunity. Never let it be said that I am not a just and benevolent God."

Another God? It made sense, given what Tetral was, that he would leave The Game in the hands of someone of similar status, but there shouldn't have been anything stopping Tet from just handling it himself. Was this entity secondary, someone not officially involved but simply taking part of their own choice?

He could have asked, and would definitely have done so if the dirt above his head hadn't suddenly slammed downward and buried him.

Fortunately- or unfortunately- he wasn't in it for very long. Not from personal choice, but instead by a meaty fist wrapping itself around his throat- having casually broken through the ground surrounding him to reach its target- and subsequently hauling him into the air.

Thrak didn't look any different, but he felt different. Sense Danger and Bloodlust had been running wild the entire fight, only cutting off once he'd ducked underground (which was a strange word to use when they both were still under who knows how many miles of earth). Now, though, neither so much as flickered despite the gleaming red eyes staring into Draga's own much paler orbs.

It took him a second to realize exactly why that was, even if the actual cause was apparent from the word go. He wasn't bloodlusted, and he wasn't attacking- despite the hand clenched around his neck.

Well...

At least part of the answer came in the form of his new nameplate.

[HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE]
Thrak, The Breaker

The change to his senses? He could have rationalized that. The level description? Yeah, no.

Still, Sense Danger wasn't ringing in his head, so there was at least a chance this could work out without becoming paste on the forest or cavern floor. As the fear washed away, Draga returned to Thrak's gaze.

"Hello...?"

Thrak didn't answer- neither did the telepathic God- and instead turned him to either side to inspect his head for... Something. He honestly didn't know, and didn't care much either way. Thrak had him in his grip, and that was the primary concern at the moment.

A simple swing of his legs- something Thrak would probably mistake as a futile attempt to struggle out- confirmed that he could just barely touch the ground from his position.

It was enough for him to prepare an escape, should it be neccessary.

Which it thankfully wasn't. Thrak set him down, seemingly satisfied with whatever he saw. Draga, too, was satisfied with not having to fight someone whos hand was already milimeters from crushing his windpipe.

"Human," Thrak greeted, and Draga internally sighed at the label. Thrak probably didn't mean it that way, but it was an insult directed at him for years in the underground. "Where are we?"

That's something I'd rather like to know myself... Caelem and Xander had known, but they were both indiposed at the moment- one more permanently than the other. That didn't seem like the kind of answer that would please the eight foot tall behemoth, so he said "The Enchanted Cave," instead.

Thrak narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze flitting about as he wracked his brain for that name. When he didn't come up with anything, he frowned down on Draga. "How do we leave?"

Shit... The idea that they traveled up was fairly simple, given that they were in a cave system, but that could be any number of floors up through any number of passages. Even ignoring that problem, the exit for the forest area had never shown on his map. Admittedly, he'd been looking for a way down at the time, but they'd have looked the same on a top-down map.

For the sake of preservation, he went with the option he could at least actually accomplish. And hey, if all else fails, he had most of his mana back and could simply Accelerate into the middle distance.

"We need to find Caelem- he should be further down."

Quest Created: [Two Steps From Hell]

Two Steps From Hell
Objective: Descend through the Enchanted Cave + Find Caelem Argenti.
Reward: Skillbook [Iblis], New World
Failure: Death

Really giving me a lot of choice, there. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could almost imagine a chuckle. Still, he would have done it without a quest, so he wasn't going to complain about a free skillbook and a ticket out of here.

Besides, at least he had an Orc beside him- or, as Jak would say, he had Thrak at his back.

Oh Tet, he infected me.