The stone giant turned to me and Lillian. It's level was now significantly lower than before, being at 36, but it was still too high for me or Lillian to he able to damage it alone. Looking around the corridor I saw Lillian breaking apart the scattered rocks before they could rejoin the event monster.

I de-equipped my sword, to save it's durability, and equipped an obsidian dagger. "Lillian! I think I see a weakness!" I jumped up and struck at a niche in the armor. The monster cried out and a sizable chunk of it's HP gauge dropped away.

Lillian was quick to switch, striking at another opening. The monster couldn't retaliate. Behind us we could hear footsteps running to our location. "Zycron! One blow to go! It's all yours!" She jumped behind me, and using my dagger I activated a sword skill and somehow sliced the rock monster in half. Once I heard the crystalline shattering sound, I sighed out of relief. Lillian ran over and hugged me, catching me by surprise. "We did it Zycron! We beat it by ourselves!"

I sighed and just patted her on the shoulder. A familiar voice spoke up. "Hey, are we interrupting something? I thought there was an event monster to kill." It was Renold, the dagger wielder smiling at his friends.

Lillian jokingly pushed me away right as my reward screen popped up. I had gotten a Divine Stone of Returning Soul. "A revival item? But Kayaba said-! Woah!" Lillian roughly pulled me up. "Zycron worry about it later! We can go home to Algade now!"

"Yeah but-!" I sighed, knowing there was no arguing with the girl. "Well, now the event's over I guess we can use the crystals. Teleport Alga-!" I stopped suddenly seeing Renold's face change from a friendly smile to an evil grimace. I dropped the crystal and drew my dagger I still had equipped, about to block Renold's strike.

Renold sneered at me. "Too late." Before I could block it he plunged the dagger into Lillian's neck. She cried out and I struck without thinking, plunging my dagger through his head. He didn't even cry out as his body shattered into crystalline fragments. I went over to Lillian. "Lillian, we've got to heal you. I have a healing Crystal here somewhere-!" She grabbed my arm.

"Zycron, Let me die. I never should have met you in the first place." I blinked, seeing he really health bar deplete rapidly. I shook my head. "Lillian, you can't die! We are partners! One of us Falls, the other falls!"

Lillian shook her head. "Too late..." her life bar reached Zero. Before she could fully dematerialize I scrolled through my items list and pulled out the revival item. I used it on Lillian, praying to whatever god that watched over this cursed game would allow me to save her this one time.