Immediately, Dallion split into a dozen instances of himself. Each instance was a possible future occurring simultaneously while doing something completely different. More feathers appeared from the other side of the chamber, targeting Dallion’s general area. Some flew through instances of Dallion, slicing through them like grass.

Careful not to harm the eggs he was carrying, Dallion grabbed the shield from the ground, covering as much as he could of his torso. Several seconds later, Dallion split again.

“Blind them, Lux!” Dallion shouted, closing his eyes.

The object on his belt flashed incandescent white. Screeches filled the chamber. Cracking one of his eyes open, Dallion was able to see two fully grown griffins flapping their wings furiously. Unused to light of such brightness, the creatures were clawing at everything nearby in a bit to protect themselves. For one thing, they were definitely a lot less majestic than Dallion imagined them to be. Back on in the fantasy novels back on Earth, maybe that was the case. Here, they were more vicious and aggressive than intelligent, and definitely not in a mood to converse.

So much for knowing Zoology, Dallion thought as he rushed at full speed towards the tunnel that had brought him into the chamber. The sound of screeching behind him continued for a few seconds more, after which it was replaced by the flapping of wings.

They’re after you, Gleam said as she extended the whip blade behind him. I’m not sure how good I’ll be against claws.

Toss me on your back, the shield said.

Dallion did so without thinking. Normally, this would have ended with a certain miss, but the shield managed to twist and turn in exactly the right fashion so as to be caught by the end of the whip blade.

Just be careful, the shield added. I’m not as indestructible as you are.

Gleam growled. She didn’t particularly like dryads, but since the shield was part of Dallion’s gear, she was going to make an exception.

“Lux, go for another flash!” Dallion shouted, splitting in six instances.

A sad chirp coming from the firebird let him know that the creature didn’t have the strength to light up the tunnel just yet. While it was possible to use its power in the real world, emitting such an amount of light wasn’t… at least not all the time.

Screeching behind, the leading griffin flapped its wings, releasing a dozen more feathers at Dallion. One of Dallion’s instances turned around to look back. The action caused him to slow down considerably, but that didn’t matter since Dallion had the information. Taking advantage of the fact, all other instances leaped in the direction of the walls, twisting in acrobatic fashion.

Guard and acrobatic skills combined. Twisting and turning, Dallion evaded all the feathers one after another and, in doing so, completed a full guard sequence. As a result, time slowed down slowly. It wasn’t much, but enough for him to combat split again and have the shield deflect one of the feathers, sending it flying back towards his pursuers. An ordinary person would have relied on pure luck. Dallion relied on his awakened skills and combat splitting to achieve the same result, the feather hit the griffin in the wing, causing it to abruptly lose speed, blocking the path of the one behind it.

Aggression ran wild. Already in an agitated state, the griffins found a new target for their viciousness—each other—quickly engaging in a fight that filled the corridor with sparks as their wings and claws scarred the stone walls. Dallion didn’t even look back.

I must say that was rather sloppy, dear boy, Nil said from within Dallion’s realm. I thought you would be far better prepared.

Not the time, Nil! Dallion kept on running. Corridor changed into chamber, then stairway, then cave. On and on he went, not pausing to look back. Every now and again he would combat split to see if there was anything behind him, but with each next combat split, the number of instances decreased.

By the time Dallion reached the surface, the pain in his temples was too intense for him to split at all. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. Shade griffins detested the sun. There was no way they were going out in the next six hours and by then Dallion was going to be long gone from here.

“Took your time,” a female voice said.

Sitting on one of the many rocks in the valley were a group of five. Each of them was dressed in common adventurer clothes and unimposing leather armor. Most of the people were human, but one—the same one who had addressed Dallion—was a gorgon.

“What happened?” she asked with a smile. “Did you decide to take a nap?”

“Very funny,” Dallion managed to reply as he tried to catch his breath. “You didn’t tell me there were three.”

“Three griffins?” the gorgon asked.

“Three eggs.” Dallion tapped his shirt. “All of them in the same nest.”

“What do you know?” The gorgon mused out loud, the snakes on her head moving about. “Shade griffins are thieving creatures. Guess they took a few more than were expected. We were only hired to save one, so we’ll have to renegotiate the deal.” The gorgon stood up. “I’ll let Jiroh take care of that. By the looks of it, I need to take care of you.”

At first Dallion didn’t know what she meant. When he looked at his hands, he saw that he was bleeding. Clearly the nest had done more damage than he thought. The sensation of joy while holding the eggs must have masked the feeling.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Lux will take care of it.”

“Not if you need stitches,” the gorgon approached. “We can’t have you go back to Dherma in such a state.”

“Yeah…”

Despite still holding three griffin eggs, it was clear that Dallion wasn’t too thrilled to be going back. Or rather, he was afraid. It had been a while since he had last been here, not to mention he’d had a rather nasty argument with his close friends from there.

Four months real time was a tremendously long period for an awakened, ranging decades or more. However, he still wasn’t sure that it was enough. Even so, he was determined to go back. There were a few things he needed to do in his home village before he moved on to what was next.

“It’ll be alright,” the gorgon said. “Besides, you don’t need to go if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks, but I’ve delayed it long enough.”

The gorgon nodded.

“Don’t worry, I’ll only be there for a few days. You go ahead and release the eggs. I’ll catch up to you in Halburn.”

“Two weeks,” the gorgon said. “If you’re not there in two weeks, go back to Nerosal. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“Two weeks. Got it,” Dallion said, then looked down at the golden griffin eggs in his shirt. It was fun getting them, though now the less enjoyable part of the day was to follow.