1% LIFESTEAL - (Volume 2)

©2025 ROBERT BLAISE

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ALSO IN SERIES

1% Lifesteal - Volume 1

1% Lifesteal - Volume 2

1% Lifesteal - Volume 3

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1

THIS MAN IS NOT MY SON

Kraven Industries Faralethal Mercantile and Information Agency

Excavation, Foraging, and Spelunking Department

Faralethal Activity Excavation Site: Camp Violet: Destruction Investigation Report

REPORT: CVDCSR-00056

*This is a transcribed comprehensive summary of all reports and report sections in reference to Subject and their involvement with the Camp Violet Destruction Incident. The reports referenced in this summary are: CVDR-00003-07, CVDR-00367, CVDR-01154, CVDR-01794, CVDR-01832, CVDR-01837.

Report topic: Rescue and Recovery of Subject: Peter Vane.

Section from CVDR-00003-07:

Subject was discovered in Red Zone R-CV214 by a three-man mercenary team on the third day of the rescue mission, fourteen days after Camp Violet Destruction Incident. Due to severe upper-body disfigurement, Subject was misidentified by a scout, who prematurely used an ability—Stage One: Stone Bullet—and severely injured Subject, causing muscle contusions, internal bleeding, and rib bone fragmentation. First-aid efforts stabilized Subject’s condition. Subject was returned to Starhold for further treatment.

Section from CVDR-00367:

After extensive medical examination, Subject was deemed to not be in a life-threatening situation. Subject was left with debilitating sequelae from damage suffered during Camp Violet Destruction Incident. The sequelae included, but weren’t limited to: severe third-degree and second-degree burn scarring on the upper torso, arms, neck, and general head area; severe sensorimotor function impairment, including sight impairment, hearing impairment, total loss of olfactory function, and extensive nerve damage along area affected by burns; lung damage, severe loss of lung capacity; and total vocal cord destruction. The final recovery prognosis was “partial, with low chances of regaining independent function.“The treatment required was judged to be “extensive and prolonged.”

Section from CVDR-01154:

After three weeks of treatment efforts, clinic personnel speculated that Subject might be suffering from extensive damage to critical cognitive faculties. Repeated failures to communicate with Subject had shown him to be highly unresponsive, and, during exceptions, he failed to convey coherent information, regardless of the medium employed. The treatment effort was progressing slowly; much of the damage was untreatable through any means other than supreme-quality healing or ether medicine with equivalent effect. Due to Subject’s inability to consent to costly treatment, the department filed an official request to proceed without consent, arguing necessity due to the severity of Subject’s condition.

Section from CVDR-01794:

The approval to proceed with treatment was granted. Subject’s condition started to improve. The burn damage was mitigated, much of the damaged nerve tissue was restored, and some degree of sensorimotor function was regained. Subject’s recovery prognosis was updated to “partial recovery likely.” Subject’s recovery prognosis in regards to mental function was updated to “uncertain.”

Section from CVDR-01832:

Subject started exhibiting signs of PTSD on the twenty-eighth day of treatment. Subject committed acts of extreme self-harm, showing likely suicidal intent. Through the use of sharp objects, Subject inflicted upon himself total eye destruction and severe lacerations along face, arms, and torso; through the use of cleaning chemicals, Subject inflicted upon himself poisoning and acid burns along lacerated skin and muscle tissue. Subject’s life was preserved through timely intervention. Subject’s recovery prognosis was updated to “highly unlikely.”

Section from CVDR-01837:

Subject’s eyes were reconstructed, and his vision was partially recovered. A portion of the self-inflicted damage was treated; scarring and loss of function remained. Subject was physically in a stable condition. On the thirty-third day of treatment, the court-approved audit of Subject’s assets revealed that the cost of treatment exceeded Subject’s net worth. Psychiatric evaluation deemed Subject unstable and unable to return to a workplace environment. The insurance firm refused to cover the treatment cost, arguing that the self-inflicted nature of Subject’s injuries preceded the psychiatric evaluation of mental instability. Family members and acquaintances refused to cover further treatment costs. Kraven Clan and Kraven Industries refused to cover further treatment costs, citing all signed documents between Kraven Industries and Subject. All applicable governmental bodies refused to subsidize further treatment costs.

At stable but severely physically and mentally debilitated, Subject was discharged from the clinic. The courts judged there was no less restrictive alternative and appointed Subject’s closest living relative, his biological father Matthew Vane, a full-rights guardianship over Subject. Subject was discharged from Kraven Industries. Matthew Vane received full compensation.

End of report summary.

On a clear, sunny spring day in the countryside near Pittersville, next to a small town by the name of Imperta, a black vehicle traversed the old, decaying roads, driving past a lightly forested area and large swathes of verdant, golden, and muddy farmland.

Inside the vehicle, which more and more resembled what had once been called a “car” on Old Earth but with more than five times as large wheels, a man wearing sunglasses sat in the driver’s seat, with a heavily restrained person sitting in the back.

The driver kept eyeing the mirror; the creepy bastard he was driving had a scarred and disfigured face, with mangled tissue instead of hair on his head. Apparently, he did that to himself. Shaking his head, the driver turned his eyes back on the road.

Luckily, he had refused to work anywhere in Faralethal. The pay simply wasn’t worth the risk.

After around twenty more minutes of driving, they reached what seemed to be their destination—an old, dingy house in the countryside.

An obese, messy, balding man sat on the wooden porch, wearing a dirty wife-beater and cargo shorts—perfectly fitting the description of Matthew Vane.

After parking the carriage, getting out, and walking over to greet the man, the driver took off his sunglasses and shook the man’s hand. “You must be Mr. Vane, am I correct?”

The man nodded in response, not taking his eyes off the car. “Did you bring him?” he said in a deep, nasal voice.

“Yes.” Then, the driver hesitated. “I will warn you, though; you should prepare for the worst.”

Matthew nodded.

They reached the doors, and the driver gently opened them. Sitting on the backseat, partially shrouded by the darkness of the vehicle, was Peter Vane, lightly turning his mangled face in their direction.

Matthew remained surprisingly calm as he dragged the tied Peter out by his arm. He turned to face the driver and nodded. “Thanks,” he said while dragging his son away.

“Well…” the driver mused, feeling a great sense of relief wash over him as he finally offloaded his baggage. “I guess there’s no good way to react to something like that.”

Matthew walked into his house, dragging his—no, this fucking cripple—by his arm. The hallway was tight, with a shitty old brown carpet he hadn’t washed in twenty years and dirty-white walls he hadn’t painted in even longer. Past the pile of well-worn, unused shoes and the broken door leading to the toilet, he dragged the tied creature along to what used to be his room but now acted as a storage for all sorts of crap.

But between the piles of empty boxes and bottles was still a bed. The only reason why was because he had been too lazy to throw it out.

He aggressively threw the boy on the dirty, stinky mattress, kicking up a cloud of dust, then turned around and slammed the door shut, unable to keep looking at him.

Going back to the living room, he walked past the old, hole-ridden, deteriorating sofa and walked over to the fridge. Opening it, he pulled out a beer. It was barely even cold, given how weak the refrigerator had gotten. No worries, he thought, remembering the silver lining of this shitfest. At least he had the money to replace it. But the thought wasn’t enough to even make him smirk.

Sitting down on the creaky couch, he stared at the broken BC—the last remaining sign of the easy-going life he had once lived. Eventually, his gaze drifted to the heavily moldy and smoke-damaged walls.

What would his late wife think of this scenario?

Their piece of shit crotch goblin came crawling back.

Looking like that.

“What a fucking joke.” A sigh escaped his lips as he took a heavy swig of the cheap beer. Not long after, the empty bottle joined the collection of its brethren sitting on the coffee table. Then he drank another. And another.

By the seventh beer, he found himself crying. As worthless as he was, Peter was still his son. So why? Why couldn’t he have returned of his own volition? He felt anger bubble in his chest.

Why did he have to return looking like that?

Getting up, he walked out into the hallway and cracked the door open. Peter was… sitting up, seemingly trying to get up to his feet. For some reason, this left Matthew feeling deeply unsettled.

He frowned and took a step back.

Then he scoffed. “You miserable rat,” he spat venomously. “I don’t recognize you. Even below all those scars of yours, you look nothing like the son I remember. Let me guess, a perk of your lustrous second star, oh mighty archhuman!?” he teased, swinging the bottle around and spilling some beer. An involuntary chuckle escaped his lips. “And look where it got you. After running away, look how far you’ve come…” Then, the bubble in his chest burst. “You shouldn’t have returned looking like that,” he said. “You shouldn’t have returned!” he screamed. “Not looking like that!”

With fury unlike anything he had ever felt in his life, he swung the glass bottle and smashed it against his son’s mangled, unrecognizable head. Instantly, he took a distressed step back, dropping the broken glass bottle. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me…” He rushed to apologize, but his son seemed… fine.

There was already a storm of emotions brewing in his mind, but the dark clouds were instantly pushed away by pure darkness as he witnessed his son flex and then, with a loud tearing sound, rip the restraints apart as if they were nothing but paper.

He took a step back, and then another, nearly tumbling to the ground. His son—or whoever this was—got up. With a clumsy, blind swing, he grabbed Matthew’s face with incredible strength.

“You’re not my son,” was the last thing he said before he felt the back of his head slam against the wall, his skull cave in, and the world turn dark.

Fucking crazy bastard! Freddy thought as he dropped the man to the ground and gripped his bleeding forehead. A notable burst of healing pulsed through his body.

Dressed in nothing but tight, bloody, and beer-drenched underwear and a torn straitjacket, he dropped back down on the filthy bed and got a hold of himself. Drops of blood mixed with alcohol dripped down his forehead. The wound burned. He heard no sounds of movement from the man.

Okay, he thought as he worked to calm himself.

Freddy’s sight was terribly damaged. All he saw were blurry shapes. But the perception of a two-star arch was crazy good. Despite seeing nearly nothing, he still felt somewhat confident about the shape of the room and the general layout of things around him.

He kept his ears wide open—even though he could barely hear anything—to ensure nobody else lived there and then slowly entered the hallway. There, he walked to what he believed to be the exit. Once he cracked the door open and saw nothing but bright, blurry green and yellow, he was confident he was correct.

The supernatural perception of his had a limit, it seemed. He couldn’t tell if there were any houses around or if there were other people.

With squinted eyes, which kind of helped him see better, he slowly stepped outside. After trying his luck in trampling the grass with his bare feet, he concluded that his talent hadn’t evolved into 10% Lifesteal, which he had hoped for. It didn’t even seem to be 2% Lifesteal. But it did feel different. It was hard to say how, though.

Eventually, he tracked down what appeared to be a shed or, well, a blurry brown box, but that could only be so many things in what he hoped was a secluded, rural area.

In there, a cut on his finger discovered a scythe. It was a regular farming tool, nothing fancy, but it was precisely what he needed. Holding it in his grasp was difficult, however. His arms had been damaged a bit more than he intended, and his grip was unsteady. Still, he persevered.

Playing the role of a dutiful son perfectly, he mowed the lawn.

His talent was different. The amount of life force entering his body felt the same, but what it was doing… didn’t. It was faster, kind of, but then it no longer was.

Deciding to leave the mystery of his talent’s evolution for later, he sped up. Gradually, the scattering of miscellaneous pain around his body vanished. His sight was restored, and he felt fine. Yet again, the uncontrollable urge to weep in joy won over, and he cried to get it out of his system. It always felt good to have it all back. It was a relief and joy to an extent he almost thought he could get addicted.

Returning to the house, which was dirty and falling apart in too many ways to count, he located the fridge and grabbed a beer.

“Cheers”—he spoke for the first time in a long month—“to never having to be mangled beyond recognition again!” Then he took a large swig, downing the bottle in one gulp. It tasted like bottled piss, but he desperately needed a drink.

Grabbing a knife from the kitchen, he bent down and looked at his calf, which, luckily, the doctors had left untouched.

Making a rather big cut, he dug into his leg muscles and pulled out a small, golden ring.

It was a storage ring holding the personal belongings of the patriarch of the Kraven Clan.

After putting it on his finger and leaking a bit of essence into it, he looked inside. It was akin to diving into his ethercosm; he embodied his little reaper projection and could appear wherever he wanted.

The space wasn’t that big, only around the size of a large box, a bit bigger than maybe a cubic meter. It was densely packed with all sorts of crap he hadn’t had the opportunity to look over yet. The dagger that radiated a horrible feeling and reminded him of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, as well as the ring that felt crazy dangerous, were both inside the space after he looted them from the dead Kraven patriarch.

The man’s robes had also seemed like some fancy stuff, but they had been torn beyond recognition. Looking at them in the Netherecho revealed that they had been thoroughly destroyed, having none of the aura of a cursed item. So he had left them behind, right on the dead bastard’s body, which was resting at the bottom of that ocean.

The man he had just knocked out weighed heavily on his mind. There was a possibility he would get up any moment now. Should he tie the man up? With brisk steps, he walked out of the kitchen and back into the hallway.

Before he even stepped into the room, he spotted something disconcerting.

Back inside the room where the man lay on the ground, a pool of blood was spreading. A big one.

With cautious steps, Freddy walked over to the room and looked down.

The man’s eyes had glazed over. His skin had grown pale. There was an uncanny eeriness to the way his facial muscles rested on his unkempt face. Grief and horror were still frozen in his expression.

“Holy shit…” Freddy muttered as he finally realized it.

The man was dead.

For a brief moment, a sense of relief flushed his body. Then he caught himself. “What the fuck is wrong with me…?” he muttered, but his self-chastisement felt half-hearted. “Shit happens, I guess,” he decided. “Not the time to worry about it.”

He ignored the corpse and took another look outside. After carefully glancing in every direction, he was confident there were no close neighbors. He could spot a few houses in the distance in what appeared to be a little village, but other than that, there were no major settlements in sight. He grabbed the scythe to heal his injured leg, which was still bleeding.

The moment he swung the scythe, however, he was caught off-guard—his leg stopped bleeding instantly. Then as he continued, it mended much faster than he expected it to, but it was highly unusual. It looked as if some sort of weird, pink, almost scar-like tissue held the wound shut, and after staring at it for a while, the tissue started fraying, slowly falling apart and opening the wound again.

“What the…!?”

That was the effect of first-aid-quality healing! Had his talent dropped in quality? No, that made no sense; he was fully healed, so… how? Why? What was happening?

Grabbing the tool again, he swung, repeating the effect. First, his wound instantly stopped bleeding. Then it sealed shut with this fleshy tissue. Then the tissue started turning into raw skin, which then healed into scarred skin, and finally, the scar vanished.

That was quite different from how it used to work. Before, the wound would be there until the final cell was meticulously reconstructed. Supreme-quality healing didn’t work like this. This wasn’t supreme-quality healing.

Running his muddled mind over what he knew of healing qualities, he soon realized what was happening. “Don’t tell me…” he whispered. “Is this…?”

Did his talent evolve to have dynamic-quality healing or something of the sort? Based on what he knew, that recovery had gone from minimal to first-aid, then natural, supernatural, and finally, supreme quality, adapting to what he needed the most at that time.

For a moment, he was incredibly underwhelmed to discover this. Until he realized something—this wasn’t bad at all.

To say that minimal to supreme-quality healing went from worst to best would be… uneducated. It was like this: Which was better—cheap, everyday food ingredients or high-end cuisine? The latter, obviously, but if one were starving and had only a hundred dollars to feed themselves for the next week, naturally, they would choose the first option.

Healing followed similar principles.

While minimal-quality healing did, well, the minimum, it did it very well. For the same amount of life force needed for an unnoticeable shred of supreme-quality healing, minimal-quality healing could be life-saving.

And all it did was stop bleeding, essentially. Technically, it “suspended deterioration,“ so it could postpone death by poison and stuff like that.

Then there was first-aid quality. It mended tissue back together with a temporary, fragile binding. Again, it was a band-aid fix, but one that could easily save a life.

After that, it was natural quality, which was arguably the worst healing quality. It could do its job about as well as manual surgery, sort of, which naturally meant that it left behind a lot of consequences and rarely did a perfect job.

Supernatural healing was next, and it was basically the little brother of supreme healing. It could do most of the same—regrow limbs, heal the stuff that generally wouldn’t recover on its own, and such—but just worse. Also, this was generally considered the “best” healing quality since it was much more cost-efficient than supreme-quality, which was considered more of a luxury.

True, limbs regrown by supernatural-quality healing were far from perfect. They looked discolored and often had minor deformations. But the difference between supreme- and supernatural-quality healing, in most practical cases, tended to be the difference between slightly extending a stump and regrowing an entire arm. No matter how close to the original the extended stump was, everyone would want an arm back.

Given that his talent evolution fixed the primary problem he had with it—its lack of use in combat—he was thrilled. A small part of him was still a bit miffed, however. Given what he’d achieved, shouldn’t it have become like 50% Lifesteal? Well, he just hoped this was better than he expected it to be.

Well then.

There were various upgrades and new powers to look over, but another issue took precedence.

While there was some merit in arguing that it had been in self-defense… it was undeniable that he had just killed a completely innocent man. To add insult to murder, he hadn’t the faintest clue where he was.

Standing on the lawn, he leaned his forehead on the bottom of the scythe’s shaft and slowly breathed out.

“What the hell do I do now?”

2

REBIRTH

The cool, pleasant wind of early spring caressed the tall wheat, carried clouds of dust across the tilled soil, and rustled the branches of a nearby tree. The tall sun bit with the burning heat of noon, and naught but a few tiny clouds speckled the edges of the distant horizon.

There, in his torn straitjacket and white underwear, splattered in blood and smelling of beer, stood a reaper holding a scythe, carefully observing the house where he had—less than twenty minutes ago—claimed a life.

He wasn’t thrilled to have done that.

His original plan had been to wait until night when he could sneak out. Now he had to run.

In front of the house, there was a toolshed. Behind it was a small stable with two green drakes inside; the domesticated, intelligent animals were used either for transportation or as farm animals. In front of it, there was a tiny, ragged carriage.

Sparse houses marked the nearby area as a rural settlement, and a road led to where they were more densely packed.

Freddy took a deep breath as he carried the scythe to the shed.

While he walked calmly, his mind sprinted.

Did Peter have more family members? What if someone was on their way to visit his father? True, judging from what he had seen, this man didn’t seem like much of a social animal, but the return of a crippled son was something people would talk about.

And then there was the third, most pressing issue—he had no ID. Perhaps this wouldn’t be the biggest issue in the world if his intent was to contact the authorities and tell his story. But that was a stupid idea on too many levels to count—and he was done trusting authorities.

Taking a deep breath, he reoriented himself. One step at a time.

First, he entered the deteriorating house and the horribly filthy toilet. There were piles of cardboard tubes and unwashed clothes, a thick stratum of filth on the floor, heavy limescale on the toilet bowl and bathtub, and layers of rust on the faucets. The only even vaguely clean part of the room was the mirror.

He stepped before it and took a look at himself. He was immediately taken aback at his appearance. There was no hair on his head, as he already knew, but even beyond that, he looked different. Very different. With every star, archhumans developed new notable physiological traits. For him, that seemed to be becoming a lot more handsome—beautiful even. And… taller?

Wow, he thought to himself. Really won the evolution lottery on my looks, at least.

He went to the other room in the house and looked for some clothes. Everything looked four sizes too big for him, and nothing was clean. There was a box on top of the closet. He pulled it down and looked inside.

There were clothes inside, and these were maybe only one size too small. Given how they smelled of mold, they hadn’t been in use for a long time.

The only articles that didn’t look utterly ridiculous on him were the plain white T-shirt and black sweatpants, which he had to tie quite firmly to keep in place around his waist, and he had to curl the pant legs to make them sit above his feet. Speaking of feet, he managed to dig out some old sneakers from the back corner of Peter’s room.

They were his size.

But they didn’t fit.

Looking at his feet, he realized that they too had changed in structure, appearing wider and perhaps even slightly longer. Had his evolution made his feet grow? Sighing, he forced the sneakers on anyway. He needed something.

There wasn’t much room in the storage ring. But, with a flash of essence and a soft popping sound, the shirt vanished and appeared pushed against the upper wall of the small box.

Then he thought. He planned. He stuck to the main points and acted fast.

The idea of burning the house down flashed briefly in his mind, but that would bring too much attention too soon. Should he bury the body in the fields? Finding a good spot and digging an appropriately large hole for the bulky man wouldn’t take just a few minutes of work, and as far as he knew, someone could already be on their way there.

All he needed was to postpone the discovery of the body for a while. Just long enough for him to make an escape.

Although he dropped the idea of burning the house down, he took a lighter with him, just in case.

Then he looked for money. He found a wallet in the living room and a safe in the bedroom. Luckily, the man was a cheapskate, so the safe was rusty trash that blew open with only a single Flowing Strike kick. The wallet had only a couple hundred bucks, but the safe held almost thirteen thousand dollars. Somehow, he squeezed the money into the tiny space left in the storage ring. There was no hope of fitting anything without getting rid of something else.

He closed all the windows, pulled all the curtains, lowered the shades, and went outside.

There, he found the carriage behind the house.

One Flowing Strike after another turned it into a pile of scrap wood he haphazardly threw into the house, where nobody would see it. Then he walked into the stables. Judging by the single set of reins, the small carriage was probably meant to be pulled by only one of these beings.

Both hissed at him once they saw him, and he approached them carefully. For one of them, he changed the dirty water and spilled out a massive pile of food to keep it fed. For the other, he dragged it out, killed it with a few solid punches, walked over to the house, and flung it inside, hiding it in the kitchen where the smell hopefully wouldn’t reach the porch.

Just in case, he dragged a wheelbarrow of manure closer to the porch to disguise it.

This way, if anyone visited, it would look like this man had gone somewhere. That was believable enough. If the ruse worked for just a few days, it would be enough.

Locking the doors to the house and throwing the keys far into the wheat fields, he turned around. He would prefer it if none of the residents saw him.

So, he looked for the direction with the fewest houses and found that it led to a large forest.

Then… he ran.

The thick canopy above allowed a few rays of sunlight to peer through. The forest was dense in low bushes, the ground was coated in leaves, and for the most part, other than the distant chirping of birds and rustling of branches, it was quiet.

This was Freddy’s third day of running.

Sitting on the ground, he lifted a finger above his mouth, and a thin stream of water began flowing a few moments later. Drinking water created from essence was a fool’s errand. It would simply vanish when it entered his body, so he had to condense real water out of the air. Making water evaporate with essence control was a lot easier than condensing it. But he got the hang of it with a few days of practice. Extreme thirst was one hell of a motivator.

If his body was still as densely packed with water as it had been less than two months ago, he wouldn’t need water for weeks, but to disguise himself as Peter Vane, he had to undo Abyssal Depths through the use of a technique he jokingly referred to as Shallow Puddles. It would take him a while of regular use of Abyssal Depths to regain the progress he’d lost.

Abyssal Depths could only increase one’s body weight up to 30% per stage. At stage one, it could do 60%. Given how skinny he was at the moment, it wouldn’t take him long to max it out.

Looking around the woods, he finally felt safe enough to take a break. Although three whole days of running seemed like overkill, there was always the possibility of someone with a specialized talent showing up and tracking him down. The further away he was, the better.

He hoped that this case wouldn’t seem important enough to call on someone like that, but with the disappearance of the presumably disabled Peter Vane, things could get complicated.

With his decreased body weight, he felt as light as a feather, and he could already feel the impact of his improved two-star physique kicking in, even though he was still frighteningly skinny.

Sitting down in a small clearing a few steps away from a tree, he finally looked through the ring. It was packed with a whole load of containers, bags, papers, a bunch of random gadgets he wasn’t familiar with, and a few vials of… blood. Of course.

First, he took out all the papers. They were mostly either documents or personal records of the patriarch. There were a lot of random contracts and stuff. As far as he could tell, most of it was information that would be useful to Kraven or their enemies. But to him, there was little of value. Given that he had no intent to reveal that he was the one who had killed the patriarch, he would be getting rid of these documents.

Although he was tempted to take out the lighter and burn them, he knew that wasn’t a good idea in a forest for several reasons.

Instead, he tore them up, used Create Water to turn them into paper mush, then buried them.

There was what appeared to be some form of contact device hidden among the other stuff. He was paranoid that taking it out for even a moment would clue someone in on his location. Better to stay safe.

Other than the vials of blood and random medicines, there seemed to be a suspicious lack of consumables. No essence recovery elixirs, healing potions, or boosts; it was likely that Janhalar had used them during their fight without him noticing. It made sense.

There were a few random pills and other stuff, but nothing he was willing to gamble his life on trying out.

In fact, he was scared of pretty much everything in this ring. The tech he didn’t want to touch because he was afraid it could be tracked; the pills and stuff he didn’t want to take because he might die; the blood he couldn’t use at all—what if something could smell it? Perhaps it was all just paranoia, but the personal contents of a four-star archhuman weren’t something to be played with.

He could interact with the stuff inside the ring and arrange it as he pleased, and removing all the papers had freed up quite a bit of space, so he split the remaining inventory into two piles. The first was for what he wanted to get rid of. Anything ethertech-related, with any sort of Kraven insignia on it, and all the vials of blood went on that side. The second, however…

First, there were the ring and the dagger. This was all the equipment that had been on the man’s body, other than the robes, which had been torn into useless scraps. The damage it had sustained had completely dissipated whatever aura it had. All the random pills and other consumable stuff was here, too. He didn’t know what they were used for, but they definitely couldn’t be tracked. Probably.

And then there was the final item. This one he took out, fully confident that he knew it was safe to interact with.

After all, it was something he was already deeply familiar with.

Opening the small glass box, he pulled out the prime vestige from within. It was a crimson-red ball with spiked, serrated teeth and wide, wild eyes.

“Who is it, my child,” it said in a feminine voice, “that you wish to see bleed?”

“What’s the talent you hold?” he asked, cutting to the chase.

“If you invite me into your soul,” it answered, “for every unique drop of blood you consume, you will gain more authority over your own.”

“Huh,” he mused. He assumed that meant it was a stackable power-up that enhanced essence manipulation, at least for the blood affinity.

Damn, that’s freakin’ good, he thought. Given the phrasing, he presumed that it meant the essence control would improve whenever the user consumed the blood of a new species. There were a practically infinite number of different animals and monsters, making this an unbelievably potent power.

“What affinity do you hold?” he asked.

“Blood, life, and death,” it answered.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the thing he was holding with his jaw hanging wide open. “Hoooooooooly—” he exclaimed. Then he frowned. “God fucking damn it!” he swore. What a shame. This was an absolutely top-tier prime vestige—and he had no use for it.

But wait. “I want to accept your power into my soul,” he tried. Wasn’t there something about unique primes that Madame had told him?

“You fool! You are clearly already awakened!” it screamed.

Well, there goes that plan. It wasn’t unique, so he couldn’t claim it, and it wasn’t like he could sell it, either. That sounded like a way to advertise to the Kraven faction that he was related to their patriarch’s death.

Still, this was one hell of a freakin’ talent. Three affinities, too, and it had the life and death affinities!? Insane. Had Janhalar been holding onto it for a future successor?

Hmmm…

And if he now had it in his possession… “Heh.” He smirked. He was sure this was a blow the Kraven Clan wouldn’t easily recover from. Served those bastards right.

If his Super Farmer prime was worth at least 70 million, then this…

It must have been worth billions. It made sense. A single little ball like this could easily solidify the future of an entire faction. This made him think—why not give it to his own kid? Or maybe use it as a political tool one day? It wasn’t all lost. There would be a chance to make use of it. Eventually.

Still, returning it into the ring felt like throwing his firstborn into a river. Even just a billion dollars—no, even a million—sounded like it could patch a big, gaping, dollar-shaped hole in his heart. Sighing, he turned his attention to the dagger.

Yet again, when he saw it, he defensively raised his hand to defend his throat. This had also happened the first time he looked at it. It gave off a strong sense of danger and threat to one’s life. And it made his neck feel itchy. Taking it out for a moment, he held it, taking it in. Holding it felt nice, or whatever the bloody, violent version of nice felt like. But something was bothering him.

Its appearance tickled something in the distant back of his mind. Had he seen this somewhere before? The idea seemed absurd, but maybe Janhalar had used it as a torture tool at one point, and he’d simply forgotten about that.

Returning it back inside, he took out the ring.

Now this. This felt strange. The ring was made from dry, almost sticky, red material. It felt like cured meat to the touch, and the pearl on it looked—and felt—unexpectedly cheap. Like it was nothing but a piece of plastic. But the presence this thing gave off was clear on one thing. This wasn’t just a toy.

It gave off a sensation he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he swore that it felt connected to his soul. Perhaps it was resonating with his blood affinity?

Carefully gripping it with his thumb and index finger, he slowly put it on the ring finger on his other hand. It was pretty big, and he was worried that it would fall off, but as soon as he put it on⁠—

The ring suddenly tightened, coiling around his finger.

“Shit!” he screamed and reflexively pulled on it, but it didn’t budge. A sharp pain spread through his flesh as he felt this thing assimilate into his bone. But then, in a moment, the pain vanished as if it had never been there.

“Fuuuuck…” he breathed out. Well, that was a mistake. But it wasn’t the end of the world. With his talent, he could sever his finger and⁠—

“Wait,” he said, going quiet and focusing on the strange object. The sensation he had faintly felt before… He had been right. This thing was connected to his soul. More specifically, it was bound to Bloodshed.

So that was how Janhalar found him. He had been wondering how the hell the man appeared.

“What is that, Master?“ Bloodshed’s voice echoed in its mind.

Freddy was surprised to hear it. The bloody skeleton would speak sometimes, but this rarely lasted long. According to what it had told him earlier, it seemed to have limited energy and couldn’t talk too often.

Rather than waste the rare opportunity with idle thoughts, he asked, “Bloodshed, can you feel anything strange with this ring?”

Instead of answering his question, Bloodshed’s presence suddenly vanished.

“Huh?” he blurted dumbly.

A stream of red liquid flowed out of his ring and fell to the ground, spinning in a vortex. A moment later, the bloody skeleton stood there, at right about the height of his waist.

He blinked at it.

Bloodshed immediately knelt and prostrated itself. “I was content with serving Master through Blood Sacrifice, to be there when he most needed me. To think Master would be so generous…”

Freddy didn’t look at his soul. Whether anything had happened to his ability was none of his concern. The first thing he did was pick up the skeleton and give it a massive hug while laughing like a maniac.

“You’re back!” he cheered. “You’re actually back outside!”

He didn’t think of the benefits, uses, or gains. At that moment, he only saw his friend being set free again. Pretty much anyone would judge him for considering a unique spirit a buddy, but he had no respect for the opinions of others. Nobody deserved to spit on the sacrifices this bloody little goofball had made for him. And the argument that “spirits weren’t people” held no weight, either, since Bloodshed had a genuine soul.

The construct seemed rather confused at his behavior, and his affection made his shirt look like he’d hugged someone to death, but he didn’t care.

Eventually, he put Bloodshed back down and breathed a relieved, satisfied sigh.

Checking his ethercosm, he spotted…

The cage was still there. A part of it was bent, creating an opening, but that didn’t catch his attention.

No. The thing that caught his eye was something else entirely. There was a giant red ring surrounding his first star.

Freddy’s first star was already quite large. Compared to that, his second star was only at around a tenth of its volume. The appearance of this strange phenomenon caught him entirely off-guard.

Immediately, he returned and looked at the ring. Was this the true effect of whatever this item did?

“Master,” Bloodshed called, spotting his confusion. “That ring you have on your finger. If you wish to know, I can tell you what it does.”

Freddy looked at Bloodshed and nodded. “Hell yeah!” he said, offering Bloodshed a fist bump.

“Do you—” it started. “Do you wish to punch me?”

“No!” he denied vehemently. “You’re meant to smack your fist into mine.”

“If that is what Master wishes.” It lifted a bony arm and swung a clumsy fist forward. It struck true.

Freddy grinned.

“That ring,” it said, continuing its explanation, “reduces essence expenditure for blood abilities and increases their power.”

“What!?” he spluttered, feeling excitement bubbling in his chest. “By how much?”

“The expenditure goes from a hundred parts to perhaps ninety-seven,” it declared. “As for the power, it goes from a hundred parts to a little over a hundred and two.”

Well. That seemed mighty underwhelming—3% lower cost and 2% higher power. Well, he was sure that this thing was valuable, but he was expecting more from an item that originated from the patriarch of a blood clan.

“Master,” Bloodshed added.

“Hmm?”

“That ring is deeply connected to the concept of bloodshed. I feel that through bloodshed, its power will grow.”

That made his mind go blank. His mouth gaped as he slowly turned to face the fleshy piece of jewelry. He remembered a conversation he had had with Madame a long time ago. Back then, she told him that the only way for an item to grow…

He gulped. This was a unique item. Although unique items were the least valuable among uniques, this still changed the situation entirely. He couldn’t show it off, so he needed a way to hide it. He had to buy gloves or something as soon as possible.

Before that, he turned to Bloodshed. “Your shell is still in my ethercosm. Does that mean that you have a way to return?”

It nodded slowly. “I can return and leave as long as Master still wears that ring.”

“Just to clarify, you are a spirit now, correct?”

“Indeed.”

“So, how long can you stay in reality?” he asked.

It paused briefly, then answered, “I do not feel any limits.”

Freddy frowned at that. “Shouldn’t there be a limit?” Spirits could leave the Netherecho and enter reality, but it was usually only for a brief time—several minutes at most.

“I do not know,” it said simply.

“Huh… all right. Well then, uh… Would you want to…?” He didn’t know how to phrase his next question, but he tried anyway. “Would you prefer to… ride… in my soul, or like on my back, or…?”

“However Master plea⁠—”

“No,” he interrupted it, waving his arms and wagging his finger. “What ‘Master pleases,’ in this case, is whatever you prefer,” he stated, pointing a finger at it. “So, which will it be?”

“Very well, then. I believe that being in the soul will be more convenient.”

“But… is that really what you want?” he asked. “Or are you just saying that because you want to make it easier on me?”

“I… I do not understand. All I wish is to serve Master,” it said. “I have no other desires.”

“Okay then!” he said. “If you truly wish to serve me, then I command you to get yourself a desire. I want you to want one of the two options for a reason that doesn’t include my personal benefit.”

The skeleton stared at him blankly. A few seconds later, it began shivering, then it started cracking and oozing blood from its bones.

“Whoa!” He jumped. “Are you okay?”

“I… I cannot do that, Master. I have failed you,” it said as it continued its deterioration.

“Okay, okay, I get it, you can stop. You never had to do that; I was really just joking, okay!?” he rushed out, tripping over his own words.

Suddenly, the cracks began mending, and Bloodshed stood tall once more. “I apologize. I misinterpreted your words.”

He frowned, his hands still reaching out for Bloodshed. But his fingers curled a bit, and he slumped back. His gaze softened. “Bloodshed,” he said. “You can come back into my soul.”

The skeleton obeyed, melting into a liquid that flowed through the air and into the ring, leaving a silence in the woods behind. Loneliness.

“Man I really need some friends.”

Well then. It was time to continue his search for civilization.

With a sigh, he turned around and continued running.

It took him only a few more hours to run into a road. From there, it was simple to track it to a settlement. As he passed through the woods, he spotted the shimmering glass buildings in the distance. It wasn’t a large city like Pittersville but more of a medium-sized town, as far as he could tell.

Eventually, a sign revealed the town’s name—Welcome to Imperta.

3

BARGAIN

Imperta was a medium-sized town, with only around fifty thousand people living there. In one of its nicer corners, there was a street. It was clean of dirt, potholes, and other signs of deterioration. Carriages not moved by drake but self-propelled dominated the busy avenue—with each day, they became cheaper and more accessible, even to the mortal folk.

There was a boutique between a small restaurant and a lawyer’s office. The doors opened, and an above-average-height male walked out.

He wore a branded white hoodie with the image of a purple oriental dragon on it and simple, sporty black sweatpants. He had what appeared to be a buzz cut, but it was the early stubble growing from what had only a few days ago been a shiny bald head.

Freddy left the shop and threw the dirty old clothes into the nearest trash can. New but unwashed clothing was itchy on his skin, but he was used to way worse discomfort than that.

The streets were busy, and this included the sidewalk. Numerous people walked about, their clothing just different enough from a year ago to make him feel how much things had changed during his absence. He heaved a heavy sigh, turned, and started walking.

What he needed to do the most was find himself an ID. Not just a fake piece of plastic but an actual, government-registered identification document. There were two ways to get it: legally, and…

The other way.

The only people he had ever called parents were… problematic individuals. Indeed. They taught him a few things no child should ever need to learn.

There was a common misconception. Many who lived in nicer areas believed that crime happened in back alleys. Perhaps sometimes, yes. But for the most part, those were empty.

No, the reality of criminal activity was far more depressing than that. Around half of it happened behind closed doors. And the other half…

He went on a walk through the busy avenue. Then he turned into a less populated one. The pristine buildings, large logos of reputable corporations, and signs of flourishing life gradually vanished. The streets grew more run-down, the buildings older, and the people… poorer.

Half behind closed doors—while the rest happened in plain sight.

He walked past an old, closed shop and glanced at his reflection in the broken glass. There was a problem. His clothes were fit for the job, and his haircut suited the purpose. But the way he carried himself… No, that wouldn’t do.

His posture was too straight, and his face was too calm and clean. He got closer to the glass and took a good look at himself.

Then he frowned, lifted his lip in a half-snarl, and scrunched his nose.

After adjusting his face for a while, he felt that he looked appropriately pissed. Then he turned to the side and adjusted his posture. Hunched over would do. He put his hands in his pockets and even pushed his sweatpants down just a bit.

Good.

There was an immediate change in how people perceived him. Passersby made more space for him. People turned around to keep an eye on him if they were walking in front, and they either sped up to get as far from him as possible or slowed down enough for him to overtake them.

But it wasn’t quite there yet. He walked past a tattoo parlor. A while later, he walked out with three new tattoos. The first was of a spiderweb with a black widow right below his left eye. Then a large patch of snake scales covered part of the right side of his face and neck. And finally, a silver heart was on his right temple.

Cheap, trashy, and precisely what he needed. Out of three, the silver heart would be the most impactful. It referenced a man from the early era of the Rift. Someone who had used their talent to enslave thousands of women into a personal harem. He was among the first three-stars on the planet and had used his power exclusively for personal benefit. A genocidal, psychopathic serial rapist, one of the most despised people to have ever lived—and an idol to the lowest trash society had to offer.

There was just one more tiny thing. He walked into the closest store and bought a pack of cigarettes. There. Perfection.

After a while of walking, he strode past a teenager smoking something. It did not smell like tobacco.

“Hey, kid,” he turned to face the boy. “Who sold you that?”

The kid glanced at him and licked his lips. “Treat me to a round, and I’ll tell you.”

Without hesitation, he kicked the boy in the shin and grabbed him by the neck. “Listen to me, you little shit,” he whispered threateningly. “Tell me who gave you that, or I’ll bust your knees, you hear me?”

The boy panicked hard and dropped the joint, raising his arms. “Okay, okay, geez, let me go!” Then, as he was released, he picked the smoking blunt back off the ground.

Half an hour later, after following the kid all the way there, he found himself on the second floor of a shabby old building, knocking on a rotting wooden door.

A small compartment on the door was pushed open, and someone looked through it. A brisk tch was heard as the man spotted who stood outside. The little opening slammed shut immediately afterward. Seconds passed and added to nearly a minute. It was clear that he wasn’t going to open the door.

Figures, he thought, This bastard is probably only after safe targets like young teenagers.

Then, with a grin and a slight feeling that he was enjoying this roleplay a bit more than he should be, he raised his leg and, with a Flowing Strike, busted the door wide open.

“What the fuck!?” the man inside the run-down apartment yelled. He was a short, heavily tattooed Asian with long, black hair tied in a ponytail. “What do you think you’re—ack—” he groaned as Freddy picked him up by the neck and slammed him against the wall.

“What… do you think you’re…?” He kept trying.

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me,” Freddy said, silencing him and releasing a hint of his two-star aura.

The man’s face instantly drained of all color, and the young teenager bolted and ran away. That was a pretty appropriate response.

Archhumans were a higher class in society. Even with a garbage talent, abilities alone were enough to earn a better living. But regardless of the talent, every two-star was way above the common folk.

Given his current appearance, matched with his attitude and actions, anyone in these waters could only conclude one thing—he was no ordinary goon.

“All right,” the man rushed to say. “Please just don’t kill me. I have a younger sis⁠—”

“I don’t care if you have a dozen,” he said, tightening the grip on the man’s throat. “Spare me the bullshit. Either you do what I tell you, or you fly out that window. Capiche?”

The man nodded.

Sitting in a dark corner of an abandoned warehouse, Freddy casually smoked a cig. He hadn’t had one in a long time. The man he had coerced into bringing him here was a bit away from him, sitting on another old cardboard box. He appeared a bit tense but a lot more relaxed after realizing that he wasn’t going to die that day.

He flicked the man a cigarette, and the man caught it mid-air. They had talked a bit. He had sold the man some bullshit story about having a fallout with his previous boss and how he needed a new identity now.

After a few hours of waiting, three men walked into the dark corner. A Black man and two Caucasians behind him. He was the upper chain link—the supplier who dealt with distribution to several dealers, and while he wasn’t a two-star, he was close to the peak of the first. He was a tall, bulky man with big arms, wearing a clean wife beater accented by the shiny golden necklace.

His manly, chiseled face had a permanent frown on it. The other two beside him wore casual clothing and seemed to be ordinary goons. “What’s this?” he asked the Asian man in a raspy voice, cocking his head in Freddy’s direction.

Before he could get an answer, Freddy interrupted, “This, you motherfucker, is your goddamn client!”

The two goons shifted their posture, and the man raised an arm to stop them. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Information,” he said. “ID dealer. No fakes. Only real, registered documents.”

The man frowned at that. Then, with squinted eyes, shifting on one leg and eyeing him sideways, he said, “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

Unhesitantly, he took out ten thousand dollars, making sure everyone could see he pulled them out of a storage ring and placed the money on a box beside him. “Ten grand.”

“Hey, now,” the man said, grinning widely. “With a storage artifact like that on you, I’m sure you could offer a bit—” But before he could finish his sentence, Freddy lifted his leg, initiated a Flowing Strike, and slammed it into the ground, shattering the ground with a loud crash.

“I could also snap your neck,” he threatened. “Either you take this and give me a contact, or fuck off,” he said, already picking up the money and getting ready to walk away.

The man gulped, eyeing the massive footprint Freddy’s technique had left in the ground. “Wait,” the man called. “Okay, deal. I’ll even take you there myself.”

“Was that really that hard?” he asked as he walked over and handed him the money.

As they started walking out, the man counted the bills and paused. “Wait!” he called. “I count nine.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “There would have been ten if you’d kept your mouth shut. Now lead the way.”

After hesitating for a moment, the man sighed and gave it up.

The carriage ride lasted for quite a while. They left the town and entered the forest. He was slightly worried that they would take him out into the wilderness and dispatch him, but he was confident he’d win if that happened.

Eventually, they reached a clearing in the woods. The road became much nicer, and they entered what appeared to be some sort of out-of-town gated community, kind of like that part of the twenty-fourth district he had been in when he was under Madame. Except here, there were no large residential buildings.

It was primarily fancy mansions, with a few hovering above the ground.

Freddy scoffed upon seeing this. But he became considerably warier. After passing through the gates with some form of identification, they rode into the opulent settlement.

The man eventually parked the vehicle in front of a mansion, and they all got out.

They walked into the building. Opulent, modern, and well-equipped, it had all the luxuries a man could want. They stood in the open lobby, with a few doors leading to the side and a large staircase taking to the upper floor. To the right of the door, a suited bodyguard sat peeling an orange, eyeing them warily. And, from a door on the second floor, someone walked out.

Wearing nothing but tight leggings and a fur coat, a man with dazzling, ear-length golden hair and blue eyes strode into the open space. Both his broad smile revealing his pearly white teeth and the numerous bits of jewelry hanging off his partially exposed body shone brightly.

The part of his torso that the fur coat didn’t cover revealed the chiseled, scarred body of someone no stranger to mortal danger.

“Welcome!” he greeted them cheerfully. “To my humble abode.”

Sighing openly in exasperation, Freddy impatiently scratched the back of his neck.

The Black man to his side walked out and said, “This is the guy.”

“Hmmm?” the coated man smiled and gazed down at them. “Well, come on up,” he invited, then snapped his fingers. “Marcy, bring five cups of coffee to the meeting room.”

Everyone present was invited to the talk.

The meeting room was a relatively restrained, mostly monochrome gray room with a round couch holding a large coffee table in the middle. The coffee soon arrived, and Freddy grabbed the cup placed in front of the dealer who had brought him here and swapped it for his own.

The golden-haired man smiled at that in amusement, and the Black man shook his head as he confidently took a sip, probably already knowing that the odds of it being tampered with were nonexistent. That made him relax, but he didn’t show it outwardly.

The coated man clapped his hands, rubbing them before he offered one in a handshake. “Call me Spike,” he introduced himself. “Nice to meet you…” He let the last word hang.

Freddy thought for a while, then said, “You can refer to me as Slave.”

“Slave, huh?” He giggled. “That’s one hell of a pseudonym. Is there a story behind it?”

“Yeah,” he said, then refused to elaborate.

The man blinked. “All right. So, what brings you here?”

“Fell out with my boss,” he bullshitted. “Gotta change my identity.”

“Fun,” Spike scoffed. “Who were you under? Killean? Jon? You dress like a Crane.” He fired off a few guesses. Then his gaze lingered on the cartoon dragon on Freddy’s hoodie as he cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me… Basilisk?”

None of the names roused any reaction from him, and eventually, the man gave up. “You’re no fun, Slave. Okay then.” He sighed. “Let’s get to business. What do you want?”

“Valid ID,” he stated. “Water affinity on the record.”

“Valid… I… D…” The man let that roll off his tongue as he sucked air through his teeth and made kissing noises. “All right.” Then, with a swing of his arm, a plastic, transparent document folder appeared. Within was a small stack of A4-format papers and an ID card. “If you want it legit,” he said. “This is all I can give you.”

Freddy grabbed the folder and took out the ID. “Liam Cuttingsworth” was the name of the person on the ID. It was a man with very different facial features from his own. But evolutions could be fickle; hell, even he no longer looked like himself after his ascension.

The rest of the papers held what seemed to be the man’s entire life story.

“That was one of my goons,” the golden-haired man said. “Died two years ago. His death was never reported. No living family members. His full life story is right there, including pictures of old acquaintances and basic information about them,” he briefly introduced the contents. “This is premium stuff. You won’t find better anywhere.”

That might very well not have been overly exaggerated. Documents like this were impossible to fake. One would have to have too many connections in the government for it to be viable. The only way to get one’s hands on something like this would be to take over someone else’s life.

Naturally, with so much information, this wouldn’t be cheap.

Obviously, he was hoping to change his legal name. But that wouldn’t be possible for at least half a year. If done any sooner than that, it was likely to rouse suspicion. After having a two-year gap in one’s life history, suddenly reappearing, looking different, and wanting to change one’s name was a series of red flags that could make certain Old Earth regimes shrivel in shame.

In fact, it was likely that he would be questioned once he appeared looking different, no matter what. On top of that, in case anyone learned of his reappearance and tried to step into contact with him, he needed to know all he could to play the role of this person to the best of his ability.

The added information was highly valuable.

He breathed heavily. This would be pretty damn expensive. He hoped to throw some random stuff from the ring at this man and get it over with, but now he was sweating. The only valuables he could give were the consumables that were in no obvious way related to Kraven.

There were random bags of herbs and an assortment of containers holding pills and liquids, totaling nine different items he had at his disposal.

He had no goddamn idea what they were worth, however. There was a possibility that they were worth either a lot more than he thought or a lot less. Just recklessly throwing them out wouldn’t be a good idea.

But what else could he offer? Anything from the no-no pile was a big fucking no-no. Too risky. The prime was off the table. Too valuable. The dagger…

Freddy closed his eyes and crossed his arms, pretending to be in contemplation.

In his ethercosm, he floated over to Bloodshed’s cage and floated right outside. “Bloodshed,” he called. “Tell me everything you know about the dagger in my storage item.”

Bloodshed’s eyes lit up as it answered his question, “It holds an immense aura of blood within.”

He thought about that for a moment before asking, “Can it grow in power the way the ring can?”

“No,” it denied.

In that case, he was a lot more willing to give it up. But. “Anything else?” he asked.

“It is deeply connected to the concept of bleeding.”

Freddy was about to ask whether that was the same thing as bloodshed but knew that the spirit probably wouldn’t have differentiated between them if it was. “Okay.” He nodded. “How valuable is it?”

The bloody skeleton cocked its head at him. “I do not know.”

“Figures,” he said. “Well then, what do you think? Should I keep it?”

“Master doesn’t wield daggers in combat, but I believe that weapon can still be useful.”

“How?” he asked.

“It causes wounds to bleed. The more blood it spills, the more blood Master can use with Blood Sacrifice. And that object holds a truly phenomenal blood aura.”

If the concept of Bloodshed itself said so, he would believe it. He opened his eyes. The golden-haired man before him was staring daggers at him, and he matched the gaze as he pondered how to phrase his next offer.

A couple of seconds later, he opened his mouth. “Here’s a deal for you,” he started. “I’m short on cash now, but I snatched a few things from one of my boss’ safes before leaving.”

That made everyone in the room frown.

“The motherfucker deserved it, okay?” he rushed to defend himself. “Either way, I got some hot goods on me. Consumables. But I have no idea what some of it even is. Given where I found it, though, I know it must be worth good money.”

That eased their mood a bit. While the man didn’t seem to like the idea of such a backstab, he was a bit more lenient as he learned that he could benefit from it.

“So, let me ask you,” he said as he squinted. “Do you have any experts around?”

“Yeah, I got a guy,” Spike confirmed.

“Bring him here.” Then, with a flick of his finger, he brought out a cigarette and a lighter. Lighting them, he inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out. “I’ll bring the items out one by one. You will turn your back while I hand them to the evaluator. Then he’ll say what it is out loud. You can either accept the offer or refuse.

“If you accept the offer, you get the item, and I get the papers. If you say no, I might increase the offer. I’m not gonna tell you how many things I have, though. If I run out, the deal is off, so don’t get greedy.”

The man grinned wryly at that. “Deal.”

4

SOMETHING THAT MONEY CAN’T BUY

The meeting room was around twice as big as a middle-class living room. The gray couch with the coffee table was on one end, and a large meeting table was on the other. In the far corner was a window facing a tree that partly covered the neighboring plot of land, where a large, red mansion resided.

On the table, there were several cups of coffee. Some were empty, and others had long run cold. The doors opened, and the servant lady brought several fresh, steaming cups. Freddy nearly thanked the woman but restrained himself, deciding that doing so would be out of character. He lit another cigarette. This was almost the last one. He pressed it to his lips and pulled in hard, filling his lungs to the brim. Each time he felt the hot, burning sensation, he bought a moment where his nerves could calm ever so slightly, but as the nicotine started kicking in, his anxiety was multiplied.

The semi-bodyguards he had come here with were standing to the side, watching the table. The golden-haired Spike stood a bit further away with his back turned to everyone else.

And right in front of Freddy sat a man. He was pretty tall; his appearance was youthful, but he gave off an aged aura. His clothing and demeanor felt like they came from a different time. The man’s cheeks were a bit sunken but not unhealthily; his skin was pale, but it was a natural hue; his forehead was wide, his chin pronounced, his black, short hair was parted down the middle, and his sharp green eyes seemed like they could pierce through any disguise in the world.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Slave,” the man greeted Freddy. “My name is August. I will be appraising the goods you present for the arrangement between you and Mr. Spike.” He spoke succinctly in a well-practiced, polite, and respectful tone.

The reason why Freddy wanted Spike to face the other direction was simple—he had no idea how well-versed the man was in matters of consumable items. While August seemed like a decent enough person, looks and demeanor could be deceiving.

If Spike saw the goods being presented and recognized them as valuable, August could downplay their function. To minimize the possibility of this happening, the negotiations would proceed as such:

First, he would bring the items out one at a time, after which they would be evaluated.

Then August would describe them. He wasn’t allowed to name the items. He was only allowed to explain what they did and how many doses there were.

Finally, after the evaluation, he could offer the items to Spike or take them back.

He had added a rule, however—if he noticed that, at any point, August intentionally tried to mislead him on the item’s value, he would immediately cut the deal and walk out.

While he could have requested that the man also state the monetary value of the items, there was no point in doing that. Because even if he did, how would he evaluate that price’s legitimacy? The man could undershoot it as much as he wanted, but in the end, the two parties’ knowledge of the value of such items was the only thing that mattered. A price could only serve to misguide—not inform him.

Luckily, from his extensive lessons in foraging, he was familiar with the prices different classes of items went for. He was far from an expert, but he wasn’t oblivious, either.

Finally taking the last breath of smoke left in the cigarette, he extinguished the still-burning butt in the ashtray and made eye contact with August. Then he opened his eyes comically wide, stuck his tongue out, spread his nostrils with his fingers, and made other goofy faces and expressions.

August was bemused—but Spike made no sign that he noticed anything. Good. He probably didn’t have a perception talent that allowed him to see behind his back or something of the sort.

With that out of the way, he sank his consciousness into the ring on his finger. While he had no idea which items were the most valuable, he still tried to pick the stuff his intuition told him was the least costly. There were nine items in total, and he made his first pick.

With a quiet pop, a plastic box filled with numerous round green pills appeared in his hand.

August politely received the box, extracted one of the pills, and then took a long, hard look at it. He pulled out a magnifying glass and ran it over it, then he smelled it, taking a deep breath. After he was done, he placed it in the box and handed the container back.

As soon as Freddy received the item, August started his description. “A potent medicine with a temporary perception-enhancing effect. Repeated usage can permanently increase sensory acuity, but there is a strong possibility of negative consequences to health, which get exponentially more likely with prolonged consumption. Most notably, they cause near-guaranteed impotence, increase the risk of heart failure, and can result in kidney problems. There are a total of 123 doses.”

Freddy thought about it. This was pretty valuable. The side effects were drastic, and that definitely knocked their value down. Still, with so many pills, this surely added up to a lot of money.

“I’m not gonna offer this item,” he said, putting it back into the storage ring. The reason why was simple—he wanted to use them himself. The side effects were no demerit to him due to his talent, and the effect was definitely worth it.

Then he pulled out the next item.

It was a small, white cloth bag with dirt-colored, powdery chunks of substance within. All of it put together could maybe fill an average-sized hand.

August raised an eyebrow when he saw what was inside the bag. He closed it right back up and handed it back, meaning he already knew what it was from a glance.

“The next item,” he started, “is a blood elixir with the properties of a steroid. A single dose is enough to kill an adult mortal man, and it is guaranteed to destroy the homeostasis of one’s body. Its primary use is for raising beasts. There are thirty doses in total.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna take that back,” he said. Whether it was worth using, he had no idea, but he knew that it wasn’t particularly valuable.

The next item was up.

It was a flaky, purple substance stored in a brown silken bag. August grabbed a tiny bit, sniffed it, observed it, then put it back and lightly licked the tip of his finger. “Poison,” he said. “Extremely potent poison.” His words slurred, and he had to pull a potion out of his personal storage ring and drink a sip. “There are probably two hundred or more doses of it here.”

Spike chuckled a bit. Indeed. Even Freddy was wondering what the fuck kind of crazy bastard Janhalar was to be carrying stuff like this around.

“I’ll offer this item,” Freddy said, pushing the bag forward.

Spike pondered it for a while. “I’ll take that, but that isn’t enough.”

“You sure about that?” Freddy called the bluff. “This might be the last item I have.”

“If so, you don’t have enough value to trade.”

A long pause settled between the two of them, and then Freddy snorted. “Hmph.” He pulled the next item out.

It was a cream stored in a round container.

August seemed very impressed by it. “This is a supreme-quality healing item applied to the skin’s surface. There is enough to cover the total skin surface of an average adult male around one and a half times.”

“I’ll offer this as well,” Freddy said unhesitantly. He had basically no use for it.

“Accepted, but not enough,” Spike said.

“Oh, come on, dude,” he protested, shaking his head. “Don’t get greedy. This is supreme-quality we’re talking about. I know for a fact that this has to be worth a fortune.”

“A fortune?” Spike asked with a snicker. “It’s a skin product, Slave. It’s probably the most worthless supreme-quality piece of medicine in existence. Stop stalling and just go on.”

“It’s still worth a fuck ton of money. I’m not a goddamn idiot. Downplay the value of another item and I’m out.”

Spike remained silent for a long second. “Whatever. It still isn’t enough.” The man raised the document file and waved it around. “I don’t have to downplay the value of what you’re offering to know how desperately you need this. So go on, Slave, raise the offer.”

Silence again.

After a few long breaths, Freddy clicked his tongue as he pulled out the next item. Sealed in a bag of synthetic material were thin roots of sorts. There was only a tiny amount of this substance.

August seemed delighted, almost as if this had triggered some form of fond memory for him. “Ah, indeed, this is a highly potent medicine used to calm nerves and reduce anxiety. There are five doses here.”

Freddy frowned at that. That seemed ordinary and mundane, but as the evaluator spotted his frown, he shook his finger. “Do not be mistaken, Mr. Slave. This is a precious item. Many in power use it to function through stressful periods. But there is, unfortunately, little of it left.”

“I’ll be real with you, pal,” Spike butted in. “I already know what that is. That’s milky pink alia root. You use it to make tea. I could take that—I drink that shit all the time—but it’s not gonna make a difference. Five doses is like thirty grand.”

“All right, then,” Freddy said. “I’ll take it back. I’m just gonna drink it myself.”

It was time for the following item. He extracted another small bag. The material felt incredibly fine to the touch, and he knew that he was entering serious-value territory.

August adopted a severe expression as he reached for it. As he cracked the bag open, he sharply inhaled and looked at Freddy with a stricken expression. His hand shook slightly as he handed the item back.

“That…” he started hesitantly. “It is an incredibly powerful medicine. Consuming it can put one in a special meditative state to make… manifesting the next star easier.”

As soon as the man finished his appraisal, Freddy instantly grabbed the two items off the table and put all three back into the storage ring. Before he could turn around, the bodyguards were blocking the door, and Spike was rushing at him. He quickly kicked the table up and pushed it forward, but a mighty gust of wind blew it aside.

He spotted the blond man swinging a shortsword at him. Wind whirled around his body, twirling his fur coat and blowing his hair back.

Freddy nearly got struck by the blow, but he used his bare hand to block it, allowing the sword to stab right through it, and then swung a Flowing Strike at the man. Spike was an air-affinity arch, and with a small burst of wind, his head rapidly moved out of the way of the attack.

Unfortunately for him, the man failed to notice that Freddy had already impaled his hand down to the handle and gripped the man’s fist with a steel clasp—a move that seemed to be becoming a signature of his.

He pulled the man’s arm back, and Spike couldn’t dodge as Freddy swung his leg at the man’s gut. The attack landed, even timing the Flowing Strike flawlessly, but… it was as if he’d slammed a cushion. A thick layer of air protected the man, and without the extra weight from Abyssal Depths, most of the impact was absorbed.

The blond man was knocked back, and his weapon was wrestled away. Freddy made his way to the corner of the room, eyeing the windows, but suddenly, a metallic barrier slammed shut, closing both it and barricading the doors. Spike and his men were already surrounding him.

During his time as a forager, the single most expensive herb in the caverns was the Starfire Mirror Rose.

Its effect?

It could be turned into an elixir that made manifesting the next star easier. In fact, this plant was valued so highly that the staff offered a total forgiveness of debt if it was located—regardless of how significant the debt was.

It made sense, too. Growing a star could be slow, but even if it crawled at a snail’s pace, it was still mostly a matter of time and perseverance. Manifesting the next star, however… That was trickier. The second star was relatively easy, but from then onward, numerous individuals spent practically their entire lives unable to make progress.

An item that could make that easier? Forget about buying it with mere money—its sale was the equivalent of granting a major political favor.

Freddy pulled the sword out of his injured hand and eyed Spike angrily, but there was some understanding beneath his furious gaze. In a world where the number of stars in one’s soul practically put them in an entirely different class, anything that could make progress easier was priceless. Judging by what his senses told him, this man was on the second star—and likely stuck at the peak.

The man was way too powerful for Freddy to face him in direct combat.

So that was why, without hesitation, Freddy pulled out the bag of precious elixir and the lighter. “Take a single fucking step closer, and this baby is going up in flames,” he threatened.

“Be reasonable, Slave,” Spike said. “You’re not leaving this place alive if you burn that.”

At that, he chuckled. Then he started cackling like a lunatic. There was no fakeness or acting to his laughter. After all, he truly found it funny. How many times would he find himself in a scenario like this? Giving the bag up was out of the question. It wasn’t a matter of getting away—his pride wouldn’t let him give it up.

Between getting bullied out of something rightfully his and just outright dying, he’d choose the latter. No more of that shit.

So, he suddenly placed the bag back into the ring and replaced it with another one. Instantly, the bodyguards stepped back, and August paled as he ran to the other corner.

It didn’t take long for Spike to catch on. “Oh, dear…” he whispered.

“Yup,” he said, holding the bag with nearly two hundred doses of extremely potent poison powder. “I might not be able to escape with my life, but I can ensure you motherfuckers go down with me.”

Spike, however, merely chuckled at that. “I have the air affinity. Not a single speck of that will make it to me even if you scatter it through the room.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said with a dangerous glint in his eye. “I have a way to keep you right where you fucking are—and I know for a fact you can’t avoid it.”

That made the blond man frown. There was no way to verify what exactly he was talking about. If he had a talent that allowed him to restrain Spike or, even more likely, an item he stole from his “previous boss,” he could very well deliver on his promise of mutual destruction.

Clicking his tongue and scratching the back of his head, Spike groaned. “Fine,” he surrendered. “Sorry for doing that.”

“Even if you licked my crack clean, I wouldn’t forgive you,” Freddy said. “Now, please, get the fuck out of my way so I can⁠—”

“Wait, slow down,” Spike urged. “Don’t be so hasty.”

“Let me guess,” he said with a sardonic grin. “You want to buy the ascension elixir off me?”

“Slave, my guy,” Spike said as he picked up the documents off the table. “If you leave without these papers, you’re a dead man walking.”

He couldn’t refute that. From their perspective, given that he had the elixir, it probably looked like he’d robbed someone extremely rich and powerful. Which, to be fair, was true. If he left without those papers and his story wasn’t total bullshit, he would indeed be well and truly fucked.

But luckily, that scenario was wholly made up. “I’ll take my chances,” he said.

“August,” Spike called. “How many doses were there?”

“A-around fifteen, I believe,” the man replied.

“What!?” the man spat. “God fucking damn, Slave. Who the hell did you rob!?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It’s entirely my business,” Spike said as a vile grin spread on his face. “If I spread the rumor… well… it won’t take long for the owner to come after you. In that case, I might even get a cut as a reward.”

“Try it,” he said. True, even though his story was made up, if Spike spread the rumor, he’d be in hot water either way. But he was ready to go quite the distance to ensure his safety. Even if he had to live in the woods for years or mutilate himself again, he’d do it until he made it far enough to get out of danger.

Given the frown on his face, Spike could clearly sense the determination in those words. He clicked his tongue. “You’re a crazy bastard, you know that?” he said, sighing. “Okay, I get it. I’ll give you an offer.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Freddy said. “You think money can⁠—”

“I didn’t say anything about money, doofus,” the man said as he pulled a small object out of his storage ring. It was a palm-sized platinum card.

Freddy thought that he recognized the object from somewhere.

“This is a platinum membership card for the Tower of York,” the golden-haired man explained.

Freddy’s eyes instantly widened.

“That’s right,” Spike said. “I understand that the elixir in your possession isn’t something money can buy. But you have a lot. Even if you use all of them on yourself, you’re not gonna need fifteen doses.”

“And you want to trade for it?”

Spike licked his lips. “I can settle for half.”

“And why do you think I want that card?”

“Because this, too,” Spike said, waving the small card, “is also something that money can’t buy.”

5

CAPPUCCINO, FRAPPUCCINO, MACCHIATO, LATTE, AND ESPRESSO, PLEASE!

The world of archhumans was an elusive, mystical place for most mortals. Information was sparse, and the circulated rumors were often grossly exaggerated, if not intentionally misleading.

However, some subjects were too well-known to easily fall victim to misinformation. For example, the vast majority knew that archs had talents and affinities, almost all knew that their power was measured in stars, and everyone knew about the existence of the interspace.

The whats, whys, and hows of the interspace were still mostly unknown, even two hundred years later. This was especially so for passage realms known as Anomalies.

Temporal phenomena, like being stuck in a perpetual loop where the time inside reset every so often; fourth-dimensional aspects, like simultaneous existence in several different instances; and, in many cases, a touch of intelligent design. These were present in most anomalous realms.

Some speculated the existence of gods or higher beings—many even prayed to them, following dubious religious orders, while others suggested that the interspace itself might be sapient. Neither presumption was a stretch. After all, ether constructs were capable of sentience, so who was to say that the interspace wasn’t just a ginormous, overwhelmingly powerful sentient ether construct or governed by beings who were the equivalent of that?

Anomalies, as such, were common knowledge. And more specifically, the Eleven Great Anomalies were known well enough that most mortals at least had a vague idea of what they were.

Among these, the Tower of York, located smack-dab in the middle of what used to be “New York” on Old Earth—Nova York after the Rift—was among those Anomalies, and it was the only one located in the American Empire. Well, unless Faralethal had been declared a Great Anomaly by that point.

Freddy stood in the middle of the meeting room, surrounded by bodyguards and facing Spike. One of his hands bled. The other held enough poison powder to kill everyone in the room ten times over.

As the golden-haired man swung the platinum card around, with every swing, Freddy felt its visage tickling something in the back of his mind. He had spent much time in front of a BC due to his work, so he’d likely seen that at one point. Either due to the low volume or someone interrupting his viewing, he didn’t remember exactly what it was. He just knew that it was precious.

“Indeed,” Spike said, admiring the small rectangle in his grasp. “I got this baby long ago when they were a lot easier to attain. Empress Kaiya has stopped giving them out entirely, but she still holds on to the promise behind them.”

This was the part where he had to be cautious. He really wanted to ask what the fuck that promise was, but he knew that asking would be a mistake. Given how Spike acted as if he should know what this was, giving away his ignorance would let the man make up whatever he wanted.

But he did know one thing. There were five ranks of these cards. Bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and black.

So he asked, “That’s the second-best one, right?”

“Yup,” Spike confirmed. “Twenty percent bonus during the auction,” he conveniently added.

Freddy’s eyes shot wide open. It finally clicked into place. He did know what that was.

Tower of York had a total of 186 slots per day, split between five categories, one for every star. One-star had 100 slots, two-star 50, three-star 25, four-star had 10, and five-star had only 1.

Each day, numerous factions fought in the auction to get a slot in the tower. Having a twenty percent bonus for the auction was no damn joke. Even at the bottom of the list, the price easily went into millions.

It was no surprise, either. The tower had a hundred floors; the higher one reached, the greater the rewards they could claim.

Seeing that object, Freddy gulped. Then he simply stated, “Fuck no, I don’t want that shit.”

Spike wasn’t lying when he said that that card was something money couldn’t buy. To large factions who fought in those auctions on a daily basis, this little thing could save—and earn—an absurd amount of money in the long run. Hell, to countless factions, this object could mean the difference between being unable to consistently participate and finally being able to afford it. So, basically, having this was the equivalent of having a massive target on one’s back. Which was probably why Spike wanted to get rid of it.

“Well, I’m not letting you refuse,” Spike blatantly said.

“Fuck no,” he refused again. “That shit will get me killed.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m not letting you leave,” Spike said. “Go ahead, bitch, kill us both if that’s what you want,” he said teasingly, grinning maniacally as he sang the words. “Throw that fucking powder bag into the ceiling, but I’m not letting you leave this place knowing I have this in my possession.”

The bodyguards and August paled slightly at that. Nobody said anything, but it seemed they knew that if he didn’t accept the deal, their lives would most likely be forfeited as well.

“Why go so far?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“It’s simple, really,” Spike said, smiling slightly. “Having this in my possession is a liability, but I can’t use it either. I’m not cut out for delving. And I’m not big enough of a bigshot to sell it without getting disappeared by someone. On the other hand,” he said while licking his lips, “that elixir you got is exactly what I need.”

Freddy laughed at that. “Cowardly, don’t you think?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” the man confirmed with a cheeky chuckle. “But you’re not at any real risk if you take this. Go far away enough and don’t introduce yourself as Liam Cuttingsworth until you change the name, and you can’t be tracked down,” he suggested. “Also, don’t forget—if you give me the elixir, you have dirt on me too.”

He snorted. “That’s different. I’m looking to become a nobody for a while. I won’t have the rep needed for my word to have any value.”

“True enough,” Spike acknowledged. “So we both walk out of here with minimal risk of getting hunted down. I get what I need, and you get…” He eyed the card. “Well, you get a solid chance to try yourself at the tower. I don’t know how good you are at fighting, but I think it’s worth a shot.”

He scoffed at that. Frankly, that wasn’t a terrible deal. It was far from what he needed at that moment, but he could certainly use it down the line. That platinum card was much like the prime vestige he had tucked away in the corner of Janhalar’s storage ring—too valuable to sell without dire consequences. There was a crucial difference, however.

This… This he could use himself. And it was true that he had no use for fifteen doses of the elixir. Honestly, he didn’t know whether he’d need any. With his talent and special abilities, it was likely that he could sustain his growth without requiring such a crutch. And, from what he knew, that card was definitely worth more than seven doses of the elixir.

After mulling over it, he looked Spike dead in the eye and asked, “How do I know that the card isn’t fake?”

Freddy and Spike stood outside in the middle of the yard. The two men approached each other cautiously. Freddy took out a small bag holding seven doses of elixir. Spike took out the platinum card and the documents.

When they stepped right before one another, they each handed their items with their right hand and took the others with their left. As soon as the trade was finished, Freddy hopped back with Hydraulic Flex and left the yard. Nobody chased after him, and Spike merely waved as he returned to his mansion.

While he had felt Spike do it, he tested the card again, just to be sure. As he imbued his essence into it, it flashed with ether script. The shifting, white characters morphed, and looking at them made him feel infinitely small. Every sign radiated the full power of a five-star archhuman—in this case, Empress Kaiya’s signature, the undeniable proof that this card was real.

The plastic folder held all the documentation Spike had promised, including the ID.

He looked around the opulent district and quickly hid the items in the storage ring. Nobody was around—in general, wealthy archhumans rarely walked around the communities they lived in, for whatever reason.

He walked for a while and reached the gates, where he was allowed to leave without any problems.

Then, as soon as he stepped out into the wilderness⁠—

He ran.

A few days later, he made it out of the forest. Gone were his trashy tattoos. He had burned the skin off and healed it back. His hair was slightly longer, too, and his clothes were quite dirty, even though he kept washing them with Create Water.

He bought a new set of clothes in town—a simple, black, long-sleeved T-shirt and blue jeans. He hyped himself up, and then he located the correct government office. Before stepping inside, he bought a water bottle at a nearby store. Then he took one dose of the milky pink alia root and mixed it in, hoping the water didn’t need to be hot for the effect to kick in.

The concoction immediately eased his nerves. Not as much as he expected, which was probably due to the improper brewing method, but enough. With a calm expression, he headed into the office and registered his—or rather, Liam’s—“ascension” to the second star.

The workers were surprisingly unsuspicious about his sudden change in appearance. Thankfully, the man in the photo was a bit chubby, so the difference could be plausibly half-attributed to weight loss. They did ask him a few customary questions, but he hadn’t spent the last few days studying the documents for nothing. He aced the probing, and after a few hours of waiting, he got the updated ID—now with his face on it.

Heaving a sigh of relief unlike any he had sighed before, he walked out into the streets. It felt as if a massive burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

While he was still relatively broke, with only around three and a half thousand dollars in his pocket, having to find a job was not as pressing as he felt it should be, really.

Things like having a place to live and money to eat just weren’t a priority to him. Sure, when he was used to comfortable living and a regular food source, it felt like he could never do without it.

But he had just spent the last few days sleeping in the woods and eating goddamn mystery mushrooms, some of which turned out to be poisonous. And he felt perfectly fine. Hell, it was even an upgrade compared to his life in the caves! Or the horrible clinic. Needless to say, he had grown considerably less spoiled in the last year.

But he had no plans to continue living like an animal. It was time to step back into society.

After a brief walk around the town, he found a rather large cafe near the center. The music from within was something he didn’t recognize. Most of the decor was subdued reds and grays, with half the cafe being on a slightly elevated platform. The ceiling was tall. There, lanterns hung low but were turned off as plenty of lighting made it through the large windows facing the street.

The people sat around comfortably. Young girls sipped curious teas, rowdy teenagers sat on couches in the back, loudly talking about stuff or chilling, and older folk populated much of the less comfortable seating in the middle of the room.

The thing that grabbed his attention was the unique design and the large crowd, but other than that, he had no reason to step inside. But just as he was about to walk past it…

His legs froze. The only times he’d ever been in a cafe were either a really long time ago, back when his adopted parents took him, or when his coworkers goaded him into joining them, which happened so rarely he could count all the times it happened on both hands.

Other than that, he simply had no habit of going. To him, it felt like a needless expense. True, it wasn’t too expensive, but he had to pinch every penny until his fingers bled. Or… well, he used to have to do that.

Shifting his shoulders a bit and looking around, he carefully turned and stepped into the cafe. Because why not? He was in no rush to go anywhere.

Walking forward, he found a small section in the back and picked the more comfortable-looking chair among the few empty tables. There, he sat down.

Moments later, a waiter approached. “Hi, what would you like to order?” the tall, brown-haired man asked him.

He paused and thought about it. “I’ll… Uhm… Can I just check the menu first?”

“Sure thing,” the man said with a smile as he turned around to serve another guest.

After checking the menu, Freddy felt dazed. Whenever he sat at a cafe, he usually ordered the cheapest option. Either a simple espresso shot or, like… water.

However, this time, his eyes slowly drifted to the pricier options. He had no fucking clue what the difference between a latte, a cappuccino, a frappuccino, and a macchiato was, but he knew one thing.

He… well… He wanted to find out.

So, when the waiter arrived, Freddy made his order. “I’ll have a latte, a big one, like the big size.”

The waiter frowned. “You mean a venti?”

“Yeah, a… that, and, uh”—he looked at the menu again—“I’ll also have a minty cappuccino.”

“Minty?”

“The, uh, the thing you said?”

“Oh, a venti!” The waiter laughed awkwardly. “You mean instead of the latte?”

“No, no, with,” Freddy corrected.

The waiter’s eyes flicked to the empty seat beside Freddy, and he likely presumed that another person would be coming.

“Yeah, and uh, I’ll also have a venti frappuccino,” he added.

There were only two chairs, and the man seemed confused at the triple order. “Is, uh…” He hesitated. “Is that all?”

“No,” Freddy said. “I’ll also have a venti macchiato. And you know what? Fuck it, give me an espresso as well.”

The waiter was eyeing him weirdly. “Let me just confirm… You are ordering five items?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“We don’t allow dragging chairs over,” the waiter warned. “So if you’re having company, please sit at a table that can seat enough⁠—”

“Oh, no, hahahaha,” he interrupted, laughing. “This is all for me.”

The waiter stared blankly. “All right, then. Uh… Would you mind paying the bill upfront?”

“Sure,” Freddy confirmed. “No problem. Actually, while you’re at it, can I also have a bottle of whiskey?”

“A… whole bottle, sir?”

“Yeah. I’ll also have a large bottle of orange juice.”

“We don’t offer those.”

“Ah, okay. Then just…” His voice trailed off as he glanced at the menu. “Just give me like five of the small ones.”

At this point, the waiter was beginning to sound amused. “You know what? Sure thing; your order is coming right up. Will that be all?”

He thought about it for a long moment, licking his lips. “That will be… all… yeah… for now.”

The man chuckled at that. He went back to the bar and forwarded Freddy’s offer. The woman working at the bar looked amused, and the waiter pointed at Freddy. They waved to him with cheerful smiles, and he waved right back.

Minutes later, his order was on his table. A table of teenagers beside him noticed the pile of drinks.

“Yo, look at that guy!” one of them pointed out with a joyful cackle.

“Motherfucker ordered the whole menu.”

“Goddamn!”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. Then, well, he went to town. After tasting one drink after another and noting the differences, nothing was left to do but finish them. The cackling around him at first got louder. They were shocked that he was actually drinking all of that.

But then, a bit later, the laughter started to die down. Because he was actually drinking all of that. More than… well… a mortal human could tolerate. That meant only one thing. And mortals knew better than to mock archhumans for any reason. They swiftly vacated the shop after they realized who they had been laughing at.

Down the drinks went, and his mood skyrocketed with every gulp. Sure, his stomach hurt like hell. And his heart was beating out of his chest. But he felt so liberated. He had the freedom, no, the power, to do something like this. This was everything he’d dreamed about. This was what he had been toiling for for years—the dream he had been tirelessly striding towards.

After finishing every drink on the table, he walked out. His entire body was shaking, and he was twitching as if his clothes were full of fire ants. An old woman walked by him, and he turned to her, screaming, “Fuck yeah, bitch!” and almost giving the poor lady a heart attack.

Then he turned to face the street and continued screaming like a lunatic as he ran forward—feeling more free than he’d ever felt in his life.

The patriarch of the Kraven Clan was no stranger to prolonged disappearances. While he was a leader, he was a warrior first and foremost, and it was the foundation his personal strength created that their clan built their power on. But he was still a leader. While the elders had full power to act in his absence, allowing him to roam freely if needed, he made it a rule to never be gone for longer than a month.

If a month ever passed and the patriarch still hadn’t returned, he had told them that it would only happen in one of two scenarios—either he was in deep trouble…

Or he was dead.

In either case, when the month of absence passed, they began their search for him. Those who had consumed the blood of the patriarch, under the influence of Janhalar’s talent, could sense the faint traces of his presence, although they were miserably weak after a whole month had passed.

Still, with the large search party, they scoured the surroundings of Pittersville. Eventually, they discovered the buried passage in the dumpyard. In the desert biome the passage took them to, there were more traces of the patriarch. They followed them.

They went through a graveyard, a massive jungle, a desolate wasteland, and a small forest, following the faint traces of his presence as they carried them onward. The passage realms they traveled through were numerous, and the elders couldn’t help but wonder precisely what the patriarch was chasing after so deep in the interspace.

Then, after a long week of searching, they discovered the realm where the trail went cold.

A C-grade passage realm holding a small, dead ocean greeted them. The whole realm stank of death and rot. There was a massive corpse of what looked like a gigantic turtle-leviathan that had an entire island as its shell. After scouring the bottom of the whole ocean, they found a single passage that took them deeper into another oceanic environment.

There were no traces of the patriarch other than the intense presence of his blood they sensed. And there was a lot of his blood here. Far too much.

The rot made the search difficult, and the ocean was filled to the brim with incredibly aggressive and powerful carnivorous fish.

Soon, they had an idea of what had happened here. Judging by the extensive destruction, the patriarch had fought the massive monster. And then he… They wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. But at that point, they had failed to discover any more tracks.

There were four passages in the C-grade realm. The one they had entered through, the one on the bottom of the ocean, another one hidden in a small pond, its destination some sort of underground cave environment, and a fourth, hidden all the way at the back of the forest—a passage that took to a sprawling C-grade realm of floating islands, a sea of thundering mist and darkness below.

Three false suns shone down on them, and the thick mist roiled, spewing large masses of thunder clouds above in wide columns—one of the dense flows of mist brushed over an island, caressing it with its duality of gentle moisture and intense lightning.

Flying creatures akin to wyverns soared through the skies. Golden and green forests covered the masses of land, shimmering with a healthy, vibrant glow.

There was little for them in that passage. They weren’t there to explore.

One of the men who was with them nodded his head. He also wore red robes and had lines over his face, but his disposition was clearly not that of a warrior. He was escorted to where the destruction was the greatest, where he used his talent.

In his eyes, the environment around him morphed from the sickly forest into pure, white sand. There were, however, black spots and trails. Wherever the sand had been disturbed by a sentient being in the last two weeks, the pristine sands were blackened.

His eyes widened as he spotted two pairs of footsteps. They were similar in size, and the footwear that left these tracks seemed to be proper equipment. People…? Perhaps people who had been with the patriarch?

But there was something strange. The tracks went into the sea, diving to the bottom. Then they dragged something out and carried it into the forest. While he wanted to track the trails, his eyes were beginning to dry up. He was reaching his limit, so he canceled his talent.

“Over there,” he said, pointing in the direction of the tracks.

As the elders discovered the footsteps, following them through mundane tracking became much easier.

They followed it, eventually reaching a small cave they had failed to spot during their prior scouting. And in that cave…

The elders gasped. There was a corpse. It lay on the ground, its flesh rotting and mangled, but they all recognized it. At a glance, they knew who those torn robes belonged to.

The chest had been gouged out. That was where the Pool of Blood tempering technique was most concentrated. The heart lay to the side, empty, drained of all its substance.

Fury descended upon them, and the tracker forcefully reactivated his talent. They followed the trail again. It went to the realm with the floating islands.

They didn’t know how the patriarch had died. It was almost impossible to tell, given that it seemed to be well over two weeks ago and given how much rot and destruction permeated this ungodly realm. But they presumed he had died fighting that leviathan.

His storage ring, the precious object holding certain valuables that the Kraven Clan couldn’t afford to lose, was gone, too.

And as they stared at the roiling sea of mist and heard the thunder, they gazed into the distance, eyes scouring the land…

Searching for the thieves who had taken it.

6

FRESH BEGINNINGS

The Rift had changed much about how reality worked. Those changes had made one of the greatest inventions and most commonly used pieces of old technology utterly worthless.

What had once been called an automobile, or, colloquially, a car, simply no longer worked. How it was even possible for such fundamental aspects of reality to change without thoroughly destroying the fabric of the universe was still a mystery to that day.

There were numerous theories, though. Given that computers, and perhaps more notably, old weapons, no longer worked, some speculated that whoever was the creator of the interspace, if such a being existed, deliberately tweaked reality to ensure that newly integrated species didn’t attain any undue advantages. If humanity still had access to the horrible weapons of mass destruction they once had, they would be akin to an invasive species being let loose into the interspace.

Despite even reality itself working against them, humans were a special kind of stubborn. Indeed, even with it being torn out of their grasp, as time passed, more and more of the old was being recreated anew.

Freddy pondered this as he boarded the bus. He was at a station in Imperta, starting his journey to Nova York.

The bus was a gray vehicle that appeared nearly precisely the same as the vehicles of the old he had seen in a local museum. All except for the wheels. While those of old were designed to be small and elegant, those on the bus before him were gigantic. Spanning over two meters in diameter, they were polished smooth, so much so that he could see his reflection within as he moved in the line of people.

Eventually, he stepped inside, leaving the humbuzz of the streets behind as he boarded the vehicle. It was cramped, and people rushed to take the best spots. He slowly made his journey toward the back.

On his way there, he spotted numerous empty seats. And he took none of them. This was his first time on a bus, and finding a place to sit was surprisingly challenging.

He walked past a cute girl who was sitting alone with an open seat beside her. The thought of sitting beside her never even crossed his mind, as her sharp glare made it evident that she had no desire to sit next to him. There was a moment of temptation where he wanted to sit there just to spite her, but spending a week next to a stranger who wasn’t comfortable being next to you would get old fast.

A similar thing happened with an older woman, and he walked past a stinky old man that he himself didn’t want to sit next to. He glanced at the back of the bus, where he spotted a door. For a moment, he thought that might be the entrance to a VIP compartment or the toilet, but as it opened, a… stewardess walked out. Not only that, but he could also smell food. Huh. A kitchen? On a bus? The woman was carrying drinks, pushing past him as he continued his trek. This was one fancy bus.

Eventually, as he reached the back of the bus, he spotted a completely empty seat. As he approached, however, he realized that the spot wasn’t entirely unoccupied. There was a massive suitcase on it.

He looked around, spotting nobody who rushed to declare it their own. Then, without any hesitation, he picked it up and put it in the middle of the row.

“Hey!” the deep voice of a man called.

Freddy turned to face the bulky figure sitting on the seat behind the one he was trying to occupy.

“That’s my suitcase!” the man declared.

“Good for you,” he replied.

But the man grabbed the suitcase again and threw it back on the seat.

Just as Freddy was about to remove it again, the man yelled, “Don’t you dare touch it, punk! They ran out of storage, and I had to buy a second ticket to carry the case with me!”

“Fair enough,” he said, grabbing the case again. “But how about you put it here instead?” Freddy said as he pushed it on the seat beside the man, which was entirely empty. “There you go. That’s two tickets, no?” he asked sarcastically.

Ignoring the man’s protests, he sat down.

The man got up and put his suitcase on the seat next to him. “I dare you to move it,” the annoying prick said.

He could tell exactly where this was going. Either he backed down, or things would escalate. The wise thing to do would be to walk away. Trouble was unwelcome. He could cool this guy down easily, but that would be troublesome if the authorities got involved. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to be the one who backed down.

For a brief moment, he caught a few troubled glances coming his way, and a thought crossed his mind. He subdued the smirk threatening to quirk up on his lip as he opened his mouth and screamed. “Help! This maniac is attacking me!”

“You motherfucker!” the man spluttered incredulously. “You’d better shut the fuck up or⁠—”

“Help!” he kept yelling. “Please, help me!” he screamed with such conviction that the entire bus was getting on their feet and turning in their direction.

And, of course, what they saw was the bulky man making threatening gestures at poor old Freddy.

Minutes later, the man was out on the streets, his seven suitcases beside him.

He cheerfully waved at the fuming brute and started his journey in a smug, self-satisfied silence.

There was no immediate overt destruction when the Earth was first integrated into the interspace. No great beasts came pouring out and wrecking the landscape. In reality, there were very few passages in the beginning, and most of them went to relatively safe realms.

But there was no need for outside influence. The civility of old had been founded on the luxuries provided by technology. As soon as the comfort was taken away, so did the civility vanish. In a matter of days, roving gangs of raiders were looting stores and breaking into houses. Early manifestations of primes started happening, and numerous people acquired magical superpowers overnight.

Guns no longer work, they thought. I can bring ten men to their knees with my bare fists. It was a thought countless ambitious individuals had. So they used that power, marking the start of a world-spanning civil war with casualties that put even ancient Chinese conflicts to shame.

It took a long time for the population to recover from the turbulent period, but once it did, it ballooned.

In no small part, the massive increase in available real estate and resources was to thank for this. Sure, the interspace was a great source of both, but things were dangerous there, and that limited the possible size of settlements. It also made life harsh for those who weren’t archhumans.

What truly made the population boom was something else entirely—the changes that the Earth itself had gone through.

While, geographically speaking, the overall layout of the continents was almost the same, the planet’s total surface area was over ten times greater than before the Rift. Yet, strangely enough, the gravity didn’t change. It was consistent throughout the entire interspace, which baffled the scholars dealing with the subject.

As the bus went from one stop to another, slowly inching out of Imperta, thankfully, Freddy was left alone in his seat. He lamented not having Magic Before Ether with him. That was his favorite book, and he really wanted the comfort of having it in his hands yet again.

He was tired. A bone-deep fatigue had settled in his body, and it refused to go away. It wasn’t a physical exhaustion, either. He was healthy, and he had slept enough.

No, his fatigue was a psychological one.

He had finally reached safety after so long. His instincts demanded that it was time to rest.

The massive buildings of Imperta were left behind as the bus finally escaped into the wilderness. It had been driving at a sedate pace, as he presumed buses usually did.

Then once it hit the open road, it sped up. A lot. He let out an embarrassing yelp of surprise as the bus kept accelerating far above what he expected it to. The trees to the side of the road became a blur, and a sharp turn appeared, but the bus kept its speed up, turning in a gut-churning move that left him holding on for dear life.

Through whatever ethertech bullshit, the vehicle had managed to keep its wheels clamped firmly on the road.

As he got used to it, however, the anxiety swiftly turned to a childish excitement that cast the tired fog away. He knew the world was a massive place, but he hadn’t realized just how far Nova York was. The bus trip would last for over a week. Given how fast they were going, that suddenly made the sense of scale sink in. The most fascinating part was that he was relatively close to Nova York. Just how far away was the rest of the world?

He had to be honest. When the ride started, he felt pretty depressed. Pittersville was close, and he couldn’t risk going there, but still, even with that fact, leaving it behind was… well, it was too easy. After twenty-one years of living there, he had built so little for himself that he could simply go away without leaving anything of consequence behind. Sure, there was Mark, whom he would like to contact one day again, but that was it.

No family, no friends, no lovers. No career, no property, no… nothing.

The bus eventually drove out of the forest. Outside, vast verdant plains of wild pastures appeared, grass stretching to every horizon. The soft clouds tickled the cyan gradient of the heavens, and the silhouettes of distant mountains scattered the far ends of what he could see.

The sight left him breathless. It was as if his heart was being gently held up by hopeful, kind, ethereal hands.

If… if he did have something to leave behind… what would he have wanted it to be? He wondered.

What did he want to build at the place where he would go? Who did he want to become?

He examined his desires and pondered the next step in his life. If he was being honest, he wasn’t the family type. Even though his parents’ absence had left an aching hole in his heart, he never truly cared much for family or relatives. Getting a wife and settling down just wasn’t something he wanted to do.

He wanted to make some friends. He wanted to get filthy fucking rich. Have adventures, make a name for himself, get strong—strong enough that no Madame or Janhalar could drag him by the nose and dictate his life for him. And he wanted to have fun.

His mind flashed back to that night when Madame forced him to attend that party. Gritting his teeth, he lightly slammed his head against the seat.

“Fuck, man…” he whispered under his breath.

The feeling of having a girl on each side, loud music filling his ears, alcohol flowing down his throat, and just that feeling of importance. Shit. That was good. He wanted more of that.

Not even the fact that he had been kidnapped during the party was enough to ruin his memory of it.

The trip continued. Eventually, the sun set and the night arrived. He slept through it, only to wake up to violent rain and thunder. The gloomy, oppressive feeling invaded his bones again. It did so every time it rained. But this time, it felt weaker. Perhaps it was the bus’ AC, but it might have just been that he had changed. He became less soft.

The food served on the bus was no luxury cuisine, but it was plentiful. For breakfast, he had fried eggs and rice; for lunch, it was mashed potato and stew; and for dinner, he had plain chicken and rather depressed-looking veggies, showing tell-ale signs of having been frozen for a long time.

The road took him down many plains, through massive forests, and up into sky-scraping mountains. There, he saw the collection of massive floating islands he had heard about once and witnessed the waterfall that flowed out of a passage high in the sky. The passage itself was above the clouds, so it looked as if the heavens themselves were crying a river.

The giant kelpen falcons, with their striking greens and blues, soared the skies, casting their predatory gaze down upon the land in search of prey. One flew directly over the bus, and he felt his nuts climb back into his body from the scare that gave him. Those things were even bigger from up close; the wing span enveloped the whole bus in its shadow.

Each day that passed, he witnessed more fascinating sights: ruins of old-world settlements, streams of floating rocks ascending into the sky, and rivers that spanned the horizon in both width and length.

They passed by the active volcano on Mt. Ussusurus during the night, an awe-inspiring mountain that reached mind-bogglingly high into the air. The fire raging within and the lava flowing down its sides lit up the night sky in its searing hues, and the flowing magma that cooled solidified into massive fiery avalanches that sparked down the mountainside. He could see the faint shapes of the buildings of the Leffen clan lining the sides of the titanic sight, the home of famed fire-affinity archhumans.

Each sight left him with an aching desire to come closer, see the peaks, dive to the bottoms, and put his damn hand into the lava.

He wanted to ride on a giant falcon’s back and swing from one floating island to another.

Just as he felt that he could ride like this forever, the immense outline of a city with a gray-tinted haze hanging above it appeared, the man-made settlement kissing both ends of where New Earth met the sky.

Nova York.

In another six hours, they would arrive at their destination.

Mark strode down the stone hallway, anxiety filling his every step. Brown, runic patterns drawn in dried blood were scattered all along the walls to his side, and the metallic tang was deeply unpleasant.

Every so often, a Kraven Clansman would walk by him. Most treated his existence with the same indifference with which they treated empty air, but some raised an eyebrow at his presence.

Eventually, he reached the end of the hallway. As he did, he gulped. A few minutes ago, he was invited to the patriarch’s quarters. This was his first time meeting the Kraven patriarch, and he could feel sweat dripping down his back.

Steeling himself, he approached the massive stone door with the drawing of a poshly dressed man on it and lightly knocked. The door crawled open slowly, screeching all the while. Given how smoothly and quickly other doors operated in this building, he knew this was by design. Still, it did its job, adding to the drama of the whole thing and heightening his anxiety.

As the doors reached the height of his eyes, he spotted a figure dressed in red robes sitting at the large desk. A mere moment later, he saw the face, too, but as he did, he frowned. “Nahar?” he asked his direct superior.

Instead of who he had expected to see, the young master, or rather, Janhalar’s son, a crimson-haired man he regularly worked with, was the one who greeted him. His snarky attitude and playful nature were nowhere to be seen, however, and even the sunglasses he wore practically everywhere were gone. Mark shivered under the direct gaze of the man’s blood-red eyes. Whatever was happening was serious.

“Sit down,” Nahar commanded.

“Yes… sir,” Mark complied as he strode forward.

The office was precisely what one would expect. Cold, dry, and dark. The desk was the only thing made from wood, and even that was a deathly pale material that burned with a sinister gloom.

The moment he sat down on the surprisingly comfortable stone chair, the door behind him slammed shut with a loud bang. He winced.

They sat there silently, and Mark could feel the quiet but seething disturbance within Nahar.

“I’ll be direct,” Nahar said, glaring at him. “What you’re about to hear isn’t public news and hopefully won’t be for a while,” he declared, sharpening his gaze. “My father is dead.”

Mark’s eyes shot open. “What?”

Nahar nodded. “Yeah.” He clicked his tongue and pinched his brows. “I always knew my pops was an airhead, but this…” he said with a sigh. “This really sucks.”

He gaped. “Don’t tell me you’re⁠—”

“Yup,” the man confirmed with a nod. “I’m the new patriarch.”

“But you’re—” he started, but⁠—

“Yes, I’m a three-star arch,” Nahar confirmed. “Hell, I’m not even thirty yet.” He sighed again. “Frankly, I was hoping to never become the patriarch. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to. My father hadn’t been grooming me to become one,” he said, smiling bitterly. “But at the moment, there is nobody more qualified. I invited you here to offer you a promotion. Well, you keep the same job, but you know what that means.”

“That’s,” he started but hesitated. “Is there nobody more qualified?”

“There are many old farts in this clan that could replace you if you refuse, but I wouldn’t be a fan of that,” he admitted plainly. “All of them are just power-hungry bastards looking to improve their standing in the clan.”

A storm of emotions was brewing in Mark’s heart. This was big news. Terrible and life-changing—the exact type of news he never wanted to hear.

Nahar, as usual, could read right through him and noticed his concerns immediately. “Yeah, I’m gonna be honest with you; my offer is far from a dream promotion at a time like this,” he said while getting out of his chair to walk around. “Without a four-star, our influence will drop rapidly, and tough times will be waiting ahead.

“The empress luckily offers two years of protection to any clan that loses their head like this, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’ll have to give up a lot of power. By the time these two years are up… the Kraven Clan will be a pale shadow of what it is now.”

Rather than say anything, Mark turned his gaze to the ground. Sweat trickled down his sideburns, and he could feel his pulse in the back of his head. Why now? Why again!?

“Will my…?” he started, afraid to ask the question.

“If you stay by my side, your sister will still have a place in the academy. Don’t worry,” the young master eased his fears.

That answered his question, but the sigh of relief was still stuck halfway up his throat. How good of a thing was that, really? Working to keep things together in an establishment that was falling apart was no easy task. And as a mere two-star, his safety was far from assured as long as he held a position of any importance.

This wasn’t a choice he could make lightly. On the one hand, he would do anything for his family’s safety and his sister’s future. On the other hand… dying wouldn’t secure either of those two things.

“I want to give you time to think about it, but I can’t afford that,” Nahar said bluntly. “I know this is an awful thing to do to you, but you need to make your decision now. Things are already moving, and⁠—”

Three loud knocks interrupted his words. Nahar’s expression immediately became stormy. Indeed, anyone who dared appear unannounced at the patriarch’s office was unwelcome for one reason or another. But Nahar had no choice but to let them in.

The doors slid open slowly, revealing a figure wearing a pearly white suit. The stone rose above the man’s chest and revealed his face. He was extremely attractive, with sharp, appealing features. Both his eyes and hair were a stark black, so dark they appeared to absorb all the light in the surroundings.

The man strode into the room with the confidence of a king, and Nahar looked extremely pale.

Mark recognized this person, but he couldn’t quite tell from where. He knew he didn’t know him personally, so he had perhaps⁠—

His thoughts froze, and a giant lump appeared in his throat. He knew who this was.

It was Harold Maskart.

A man also known as Basilisk

7

DUBIOUS BUSINESS MATTERS

Mark watched the white-suited figure walk confidently into the room.

Basilisk spread his arms and smiled joyously at them. “Hey there, boys! How are you doing on this fine day?” he asked, and Mark rushed to get up.

He tried giving his respects and fleeing immediately, but the man placed a firm hand on his shoulder. The touch sent shivers down his spine, but all the man did was lightly massage his shoulder as he laughed.

“Don’t worry, young man!” he said. “It’s nothing important, you don’t have to leave just because of ol’ me! All I need,” he started, turning his predatory gaze at Nahar, “is to talk to your boss a bit.”

Mark wanted to refuse and leave anyway, but obedience was the wiser choice. For one reason or another, the man wanted him to stay, and he wouldn’t risk angering him by being stubborn.

Basilisk adopted a surprisingly convincing expression of sympathy as he walked over to Nahar. “Dear boy, I am so sorry to hear of your father’s passing.” He gave his condolences as he casually revealed that he knew something that should by no means be public information. “As you might already know, Janny and I had some business dealings between us. Things must be so, so hard for you now, and I was hoping to lend you a hand in getting some of these… ordeals settled before some vultures made things difficult.”

Even Mark could smell the bullshit oozing out of those words. But at that moment, he couldn’t afford to be anything more than a passive bystander. Basilisk finished giving his ‘condolences’ as he sat where Mark had been sitting a moment ago and gestured to Nahar to join him at the desk.

Then the two men started discussing the aforementioned business dealings between them. Basilisk first offered to buy off the remaining 40% of the mining expedition rights that Kraven still held on to. Nahar clearly wanted to refuse, but he seemed to be unable to.

Then the suited man continued offering to buy one thing after another. Mark knew some things about business, but he had no frame of reference for dealing with money on such a scale. The two men casually threw around billions of dollars, and, at least on the surface, Basilisk seemed to be helping the Kraven Clan out by offering to buy off anything they couldn’t afford to protect.

Nahar smiled a lot. It was in his nature. Mark was familiar with this and many of the numerous shades of grin the man adopted. They were usually subtle. But at that moment, anyone could tell just how strained the tight stretch of his lips was.

Eventually, the two men shook hands and got up. Harold whistled cheerfully as he turned around. Before he left, he put an arm on Mark’s shoulder again. “By the way, I believe I owe you a word of thanks. Had you not supplied the Kraven Clan with a certain piece of information, I would have never been in a position to establish such a… fruitful business relationship.” He cackled.

Mark’s expression darkened upon hearing that.

“So, to repay your favor, let me give you a piece of information in return,” Basilisk continued, his eyes narrowing into snake-like slits. “Don’t worry about that boy taking revenge on you.” He grinned. “I believe he’s already dead,” he declared casually, patting Mark on the shoulder as he headed out of the room.

As soon as the stone door closed, Nahar swung his fist full force into the ghoulish wooden table. “That son of a bitch!” he screamed as his punch landed and left a visible dent in the impressively tough wood.

But Mark wasn’t concerned about that. A storm brewed in his chest, and he glared at Nahar, shaking profusely. “You…” he tried, doing his best to restrain his desire to scream. “You said that…”

“Relax!” Nahar commanded. “That motherfucker only said that to get you riled up,” he said with a sigh. “I didn’t lie to you. I only told you what my father told me—Freddy Stern was interrogated and imprisoned for theft of Kraven property. Harold only said what he did to tear a rift between us and put me further out of balance in our negotiation. Don’t fall into that trap.”

Mark’s chest deflated a bit, and his shoulders sagged. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded hesitantly. Internally, he was still resisting the urge to shiver, but at the very least, he believed that Nahar hadn’t been dishonest with him. Mostly. But he had doubts.

They stood there in silence for a while. He was unable to get the thoughts of Freddy out of his head. For a while already, he had been postponing asking about the man’s whereabouts. He had annoyed Nahar enough with the matter, and the young master didn’t have any answers since Janhalar refused to say anything.

Now, the patriarch was dead. And his son must have had access to the information. So he asked, “How bad is it? Your situation, I mean…” Although he wanted to know about Freddy, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not yet. But there was another thing on his mind, too. He worried that he would lose the favor he was promised.

Nahar showed him a bitter, bleak smile. “Bad. Really bad,” he said, chuckling lethargically. “I estimate we will lose over two-thirds of our upper echelon.”

He was left stunned by those words. How?

As he was about to ask, Nahar answered, “Loyalty is a fickle thing. Let me ask you; would you be here if I couldn’t offer your sister a place in the new academy?”

Hesitantly, he paused for a few moments.

“Don’t worry,” Nahar calmed him. “That’s still on the table.”

That made him release a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in. Then, pondering the man’s previous question, he decided to be honest. He shook his head. If that wasn’t on the table, there was no way he would still be working here.

From the very beginning, he had been strongly against allying himself with the Kraven, but it had been the only way to secure his sister’s future, protect him from Madame’s retaliation, and get his injured arm repaired. His arm was healed already, and he was established enough that Madame couldn’t hurt him without consequences.

His sister’s education was the only reason for him to stay.

“The same thing goes for many elders,” Nahar continued, unperturbed by his answer. “Loyalty and personal interest go hand in hand. They are all looking for power and a prosperous future and working hard to earn it.” Then he shrugged. “Money is good, but true wealth comes from rights and property. If being with the Kraven Clan can’t help them hold on to those rights, they’ll take their share and leave. It happens all the time.”

“I see…” Mark confirmed. That made sense. True, the empress would indeed be protecting the Kraven Clan, but such protection only stopped others from annihilating them. It was, in essence, a policy instituted to prevent civil wars from breaking out. But she had no reason to help them hold on to power they had already lost.

His distracted musings were interrupted as Nahar asked, “Do you want to meet him?”

After a moment of stunned silence, he realized who Nahar was talking about. He glanced away, sadness, grief, and regret flickering through his half-closed eyes.

His family’s safety, his sister’s education, the healing for his injured arm—he tried using these reasons to justify his actions, but none of it changed the facts. He had had the option to have his arm amputated. His family would have been poor for a while, but they could have managed to scrounge up the funds and recover from it eventually. His sister could have gone to a less prestigious academy.

But instead of taking that path, he had backstabbed a friend. He had no true justification for what he’d done. So he didn’t know. Was he brave enough to face him again? Was he courageous enough to step before the man and say, “I’m the reason why you were caught”?

His boss’ crimson eyes peered into his soul, peeling away the surface layers. They had spent many drunken nights together, and Nahar knew very well how guilty Mark felt for what he’d done. Until then, he couldn’t do much other than offer him numerous… comforts.

But now there was a choice to be made.

He had the option to push things under the rug and leave Freddy to continue living in ignorance of what truly happened. But that wasn’t the right thing to do.

His gut churned, and the back of his throat felt watery as if he were about to throw up. There would be a price to pay. He owed that man more than he owed anyone he had ever met. And no matter how nicely he put it and how sorely he apologized, the relationship between them would be ruined forever. Pushing through the feeling, he decided. “I want to see him.” Despite all that, he still resolved to do the right thing.

Nahar nodded. The man must have had numerous things to do at that moment, but without hesitation, he put them all aside to indulge Mark’s request.

So they asked around and dug through papers.

What they found wasn’t… quite what they expected to find.

Freddy had indeed been held captive back at the Pittersville compound. But he and all of the captives there had been… sold.

The discovery made Nahar frown deeply. And it made Mark feel nauseous.

The two men returned to the patriarch’s office, carrying the massive stack of papers related to the ordeal. And once the door closed and they were alone again, he couldn’t stop himself from bursting. “Slavery…?” he breathed out, struggling to believe it.

He absent-mindedly sat in the chair, and Nahar stood on the other side of the room, back turned to him.

Affinity discrimination was a common problem. Numerous people discriminated against certain affinities due to the tendency to associate those concepts with evil. This was deemed unacceptable because power had no moral values and all that. But people did.

He already knew that Janhalar wasn’t a good person. But neither was Madame. Nor was Basilisk. Those in power had a pattern of being willing to do what it took to get there, so he wasn’t surprised to learn that many of them weren’t particularly virtuous.

This was another thing he had rationalized away. Sure, the leader might be a damn ghoul of a human being, but that didn’t have to mean that the entire clan was like that.

Now, as he realized there was more to the superficial eeriness and bloody walls, he couldn’t stop all the disgust he had pushed down from bubbling up to the surface.

“Mark,” Nahar called, breaking him out of his internal musings. “I need you to listen to me, okay?”

As much as it disgusted him to be in such a situation, he was too deep in to throw self-righteous tantrums. Being there was in no small part his own fault. It would be stupid to run his mouth now. Nodding his head, he agreed to listen to Nahar’s explanation.

“I… I’ll be honest. While I didn’t know about this specifically, I was already familiar with my clan’s… tendencies.”

“Oh really?” He let his disbelief slip before restraining himself. “Sorry, I…”

“No, you’re… Well, you’re not wrong. I’m not thrilled to discover this, either.” He turned around to face him, scratching the back of his head. “This isn’t good news,” he said, eyeing the massive pile of papers, including a copy of the contracts he had just signed with Basilisk. “If he is with the expedition… we just lost the right to do anything about it.”

With each moment, the hold despair had on his heart grew tighter. He felt as if he were falling into a bottomless pit. What had he done? This whole time, he believed Freddy would be set free eventually.

He knew of the man’s talent and that a few years in captivity weren’t a big deal to him. With an infinite supply of supreme-quality healing, he was immortal. Age wasn’t a problem to him.

But this…

Basilisk’s words suddenly echoed in his ears. Freddy… was he really dead?

The urge to puke finally proved to be too much, and he emptied his stomach on the floor. His breathing was ragged, his heart raged in his chest, and cold sweat covered him.

Suddenly, a series of knocks came from the stone doors.

Nahar intended to ignore them, but soon enough, they came again. They were louder this time. Suddenly, both men froze as they felt it. While Harold had concealed his presence, the person outside released it. It was another four-star archhuman. Nahar clenched his fists and reluctantly pressed the button to open the doors.

They glided up slowly, and the crimson-haired man looked like he wanted to kick his late father for designing them to do that. And then the entrance finally revealed who stood there.

First, her green stilettos; then, her long, beige thigh-highs; her lime miniskirt; her exposed, pale stomach; the baggy, black, long-sleeved crop top; and finally, her cerulean hair fashioned into pigtails.

“Hey there, boys,” Madame Morleppe greeted them cheerfully.

Both men instantly activated their defensive abilities and jumped to the other side of the room. This was it. They were going to die… or so they thought.

But Madame only rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Really? I even tried to dress so I didn’t look scary,” she declared while gesticulating her disappointment at their reaction. “You two seriously have the wrong opinion of me.”

They weren’t convinced. While Basilisk managed to approach them alone, a crowd of anxious clan members warily stood behind her, blocking her path back out. Not that they could stop her if she wanted to simply go through them.

“Oh, please,” she said, seeing that they were still unconvinced. “You should know that Kaiya will have me executed if I touch any of you. Now calm down and let us speak like adults.”

Nahar looked like he wanted to run away, but nothing she had said or done so far showed she was looking for a fight. And she was right. If she dared to attack them, she would invite the empress’ retaliation. Thus, they had no choice but to calm down and hear her out.

The doors to the meeting room were closed after a servant cleaned up Mark’s vomit, and, as per her request, he was to stay with them while they talked.

“First,” she started, looking at Mark, “I just want to say that I hold no grudge against you. Your betrayal was due to my mistake. Had I been wiser, I would have made the decision to sponsor your recovery and sister’s education. A lack of information misguided me, and I blundered. So don’t worry, I’m not here to get revenge.”

“Then why are you here?” Nahar asked directly, his patience thin from dealing with Basilisk earlier.

“I want you to hand Freddy Stern over to me,” she declared bluntly.

Both the men’s eyes shot open at that.

Nahar sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. He was sent to participate in a mining expedition, and we… we have already lost the rights to it.”

“His information is in your records somewhere,” she stated. “Dig it up and hand it over to me. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“What do you—” Mark started, but Nahar shot him a death glare that warned of consequences. Rather than listen to reason, he ignored the man and continued, “What do you want from him?”

“Why should I tell you?” she asked pointedly, amusement playing in her eyes. “You have no right to know,” she teased.

He winced at that. “I…” he tried, but he had no argument. All he could do was ball his fists up in frustration.

She openly laughed at him. “Oh, my, how amusing. What are you getting all righteous about?” she asked teasingly. “You’re the one who got him into this predicament, so how dare you act as if I’m doing something wrong?”

Again, he couldn’t refute that. His sight was turning blurry, and the headache in the back of his head intensified.

Meanwhile, Nahar sighed and started digging through the pile of papers already conveniently located on his desktop. Soon, they found what they were looking for, but it was yet again a surprise.

Apparently, he was sent to Camp Violet—a camp that had been destroyed.

Mark’s vision darkened further, and he felt the world spinning before his eyes. More and more, he felt that Basilisk hadn’t been spouting nonsense. But something was unusual. Madame acted as if this wasn’t out of her expectations.

In fact, she acted as if she knew that he was still alive.

“Can you please give me a copy of all these records?” she asked politely.

Nahar’s eye twitched. That was an absurd request by all means. Even Mark knew she had no right to demand that, but the young master hesitated to deny her.

Nahar put his elbows on the table and rested his nose on his crossed fingers. “If you don’t mind me asking, I would like to know what you wish to do with Mr. Stern. And before you say that you don’t need to tell me, I would beg to differ. Coercing me into handing information like this over could count as an act of aggression against my clan.”

She smiled at him. “Since you asked so nicely,” she said sarcastically, allowing a nasal hint into her voice, “I might as well tell you. I have him signed for an interview, and he hasn’t done it yet.”

Both the men stared at her blankly.

Madame sighed, rolled her eyes, then, with a puffing sound, summoned a fancy cocktail that she took a massive gulp of and then returned to her storage device with a pop of air rushing to fill the vacuum. “Christ almighty,” she muttered as she glanced between them. “You people must stop forgetting that I am a journalist first, entertainer second, and everything else third!”

“No offense, Madame, but…” Nahar started. “Hmmm… never mind.” He dropped the issue. Prying further would just needlessly anger her.

She smiled in response, then touched her lip as she squinted at Nahar. “But I suppose that taking this information for free wouldn’t be very fair, would it?” she said, tapping her lips. “You know, dear, I believe I have an offer for you… if you wish to hear me out.”

8

LIVE, NOT SURVIVE

Sequela was an unavoidable reality for living organisms—one could even call it a symptom of life. Tissue could regenerate. But damage always left a mark. Scarring, fragility, weakness, fatigue—these were only some of the consequences, but two were the most difficult to cope with. The first was the loss of function.

And the second was pain.

“Ugh, fuck man, my back is killing me,” Freddy heard an older man complain.

“Yeah,” another concurred. “My neck is so stiff I can barely turn my head.”

“At least you two can walk,” a woman added. “My knee is locking up.”

Many had become acquainted during the week-long bus ride. As the ride finally ended and people got up to leave, they shared their woes. Indeed, sitting for almost an entire week was one hell of an exhausting experience.

They had occasionally stopped to let everyone stretch their legs, but that could only help so much.

Or so Freddy observed from the sidelines. But he was fine. Sequelae—the long-term health deterioration that others suffered from—had become a thing of the past for him.

Not only that, but he was damn strong, even if he was pretty skinny at that moment. Also, Adaptive Water Body assisted quite a bit, even if he felt it was probably unnecessary.

He waited for the others to leave and clear his path. There wasn’t a need to wait long since he had no baggage, so he was free to leave as soon as he was out.

As he walked out into the streets of Nova York, he was greeted by a rather ordinary sight. They were quite far from the city center. In fact, they were on the outskirts. The buildings, most of which didn’t go over five stories tall, were plain and relatively old. At a few blocks both north and south, there were many newer buildings, those made as the city expanded, but the part he found himself in had stood there for a long time.

The road was relatively narrow, but there was enough space for vehicles to pass each other.

He took a deep breath. It smelled bad—stale. Cities generally did. A lot of garbage was around, and the buildings limited air circulation. But he was surprised at the subtle difference he sensed. Something was missing, or at least lacking.

The previous city he had lived in had a particular issue that most urban areas did. As many used drakes for transport, there had to be designated areas for those animals to take a crap. Some respected this, others didn’t. Either way, it made the streets smell like shit.

But that was absent here, surprisingly. Actually, he felt that there were too few drakes around. Too few? No, there were none at all. He was used to seeing many of them on the streets. In their stead, there were numerous self-propelled carriages. Maybe this was just a Nova York thing. He wouldn’t complain either way.

Without any guide, he simply picked a random direction and started walking. It was still early morning, so he had the whole day to settle himself. Naturally, it wasn’t going to be easy.

First, he was broke as all hell. The milky pink alia root in his storage ring could be sold for some pocket money, but he was slightly worried about the attention that would attract. It wasn’t a big deal, nor a large sum, but it still made him feel uneasy. Everything in the storage ring on his finger was hot goods; if possible, he’d prefer keeping all of it a secret.

Perhaps he was being a little paranoid, but he couldn’t judge himself for thinking that way.

As it stood, he was down to 700 dollars, which was quite problematic. That wasn’t even enough for a rent down payment for a shitty, downtrodden shack, given where he was at. And he still had to eat.

But there was one purchase he had to make before anything else. Walking into a nearby thrift shop, he bought some gloves. They were made of fake black leather and smelled weird, but they only cost him eighty cents, so he wouldn’t complain. The two rings on his left hand weren’t too unusual from a distance, but he wouldn’t flaunt them to be extra safe.

Next, he needed a place to stay, at least for a few nights. A short walk around the streets and a brief interrogation of a couple of residents later, he was directed towards a crappy hotel.

It took him nearly half an hour to get there, and by the end, he walked into an even older and shittier part of town.

Once he found the hotel, every damn cell in his body screamed that he should turn around. There was a giant “HOTEL” sign right above the entrance. It was made of what had once been blue-painted plastic. Now, it was just plastic with most of the dye flaking off, and the E was a little damaged, making it almost look like “HOTFL” from a certain angle.

Sighing, he stepped inside. The lobby was… well, at least it was clean. Sort of. Once upon a time, the walls had been white, and ever since, they had aged into a soft beige where the paint hadn’t fallen off. There was a closed wooden door to the right and a tight stairway leading upstairs to his left.

There, he was greeted by a surprisingly beautiful girl sitting at the reception desk, which looked like it could fall apart at any second. “Hey there! Welcome!” she greeted him in a somewhat deeper voice than he expected.

She had dark hair that reached her shoulders and wore a simple black T-shirt. Her irises were a mundane brown, but they were framed by some of the prettiest eyes he had ever seen.

After catching himself staring, he coughed and responded to her previous question. “Yeah, uh, hi.” He paused as he fought to remember why he was here. “I was wondering if I could get a room.”

“How long are you planning to stay?” she asked.

He pondered, then asked, “How much for a night?”

“Here you go,” she said, handing him a price list. The prices ranged from forty dollars on the low to ninety dollars on the high end. “But!” she added with a raised finger. “You can get a twenty percent discount if you stay for a week or longer!”

That was pretty cheap. Exceptionally so. He had hoped to stay for no longer than three nights if possible. But if he went for the most affordable option and stayed for seven days… he would only pay 224 dollars—not an unacceptable price. If he couldn’t find a better place to stay by the end, he could probably afford another week.

There was no food, but that wasn’t a big issue for him. He had eaten literal slop before. And he knew his way around frugal cuisine. He’d be fine.

He paid the woman upfront and was taken to his room. They walked up the tight stairs, almost bumping into a man who smelled of smoke, beer, and sweat.

The woman brought him to a door with the number “130” on it and opened it.

It was only then that he realized his mistake. He had failed to calculate it mentally. What kind of hotel could one stay at for less than 900 dollars a month?

The answer, even by the standards of someone who had lived in a literal cave, was… that it was terrible. Subhuman, even.

He had always compared the size of his old apartment to a closet. He had had no fucking idea what he had been talking about.

“Here you go…” the woman said, her words petering out as even she couldn’t muster the energy to hype the room up. If it qualified to be called that.

A tight door opened into a, well, closet. There was a futon on the ground. That was all there was space for, yet that, too, barely fit.

There was no window. A single shelf above his head was the only place he could put his things. It also smelled vaguely unpleasant, with hints of piss. The walls had been scribbled on by the absolute shittiest graffiti he had ever seen. Penis on penis on boob stickman. On even more penis. Random proclamations that someone was gay was the most intelligent writing he could decipher.

But he had paid for it, and… it was better than the streets, at least. There were also numerous locks and chains that clattered as the doors were opened, whose purpose was to secure the door from the inside quite tightly. For some reason, that did not inspire a feeling of safety. At all.

With a sympathetic glance at the woman beside him, he asked, “You must go through some shit, huh?”

“Yup,” she confirmed with a chuckle. “Sometimes literally.”

He laughed at that in turn. The woman handed him a rather bulky set of keys and pointedly warned him to ensure he never left anything of value in there if he could help it. Although there was almost no space left, he could at least keep money in the storage ring, so he would be fine.

She also half-jokingly warned that someone might mistake his room for a toilet, so he should keep it locked at all costs. Brilliant. That explained the vague scent of urine, at least.

After thanking the girl and obeying her advice to lock the doors, he left the hotel and stepped outside.

“Well then,” he muttered to himself. Never had he felt so motivated to find a goddamn job.

Among one-stars, many could still be considered relatively common folk. Whether it was those who had retired due to injury, those who were still new to the whole thing, or those who had wasted the opportunities being an arch had provided them with, it wasn’t uncommon to see such a sight. There people were sometimes referred to as “Jupiters”—failed stars.

Among two-stars, however, very few could be said to be living everyday lives.

For the time being, Freddy needed an ordinary wage to get on his feet before he could prepare to start delving, which was why he found himself quite surprised to discover that finding a job was almost impossible.

There were two main problems. The first was the fact that he was a two-star arch.

Yes, really.

The reason why this was a problem was because nobody wanted to hire him for ordinary work. Most cited the fact that it was clear that he wouldn’t stick around for long. And others claimed that they couldn’t afford to pay him. And they were, unfortunately, correct.

There were mandated minimum wages for archhumans. He quite literally couldn’t earn less than ten thousand dollars a month because nobody was allowed to pay him that little money.

This was where he encountered the second problem. Getting hired as a two-star arch was a pretty rigorous process. Any establishment employing two-stars required an in-depth evaluation of his knowledge, expertise, talent, affinities, and abilities. Fuck that, he thought, but it was a pointless endeavor anyway since such organizations were looking for non-combat talents.

So, he gave up on ordinary work and decided to try his hand at joining a mercenary group.

He eventually located a massive building that acted as a hub for independent mercenaries and gave it a shot. Everyone wanted to hire him there, no questions asked. This was to be expected. Unfortunately, they all demanded he sign for at least a year of work.

If he wanted to negotiate better terms, everyone wanted him to display his fighting skills against one of their members and give them a detailed description of his talent and abilities. But he didn’t want to do that—too much risk of getting identified.

There was, of course, the more permanent choice of joining a large organization, but he shelved that option for the time being. Too restrictive, and with his talent, he had considerably less use for such organizations than others might.

Sighing deeply, he walked out, knowing he had only one real possibility left.

He would have to delve into a passage independently.

This was a huge problem.

The usual method for going independent as an arch was simple, if labor-intensive and challenging. Most got a rather ordinary part-time job or something their affinity made easier and did that while training and gathering knowledge during their free time.

There were numerous classes for those who could pay to take them, whether for martial arts, ability use, or any of the innumerable less exciting skills required to safely delve.

After all, if one was on their own, other than just combat, they had to handle resource management, scouting, tracking, first aid, equipment maintenance; they had to know both the area they were delving into and the monsters that populated it, the secondary dangers present, and much more.

Injury, loss of property, or, at worst, death was on the line. The more one knew and the better they were prepared, the lower the odds of making a critical mistake.

As absurd as that might have seemed, the fact that he was a two-star was bad for his circumstances. After all, nobody expected people to get to their second star without getting their shit together first.

Asking around, he discovered that, unfortunately, the closest passage open to independents was a three-hour walk away from where he was staying.

He had already spent the whole damn day running around like a dumbass, and the sun was already setting.

Sighing, he left the pursuit of work to tomorrow’s Freddy while the Freddy of today went to get something to eat. Having waited in several lobbies today, he had pilfered numerous random shitty snacks and candies, but that could hardly be called proper sustenance.

Well, what he got wasn’t much of an upgrade, either. He bought two massive loaves of bread and ate them as he went. Hey, a two-dollar meal was a two-dollar meal; besides, he had 1% Lifesteal, so he probably didn’t need to care too much about his diet.

Wait, could his talent just… spawn the nutrients he was lacking? It could undoubtedly create tissue from nothing, as he’d verified by regrowing an entire body from just a head. Huh. An interesting thought, he decided, as he took the final bite of his second loaf. Soon after, he made it to the hotel, and his mood instantly dropped as he remembered where he would be sleeping that night.

“Welcome to the piss-shack,” he mused sarcastically as he stepped inside.

What greeted him was the sight of a very drunk man leaning over the reception desk and getting quite close to the receptionist. He eyed the situation with a raised eyebrow. She handled the man quite well, actually. An icy attitude, pointed threats, and some fascinating manipulation skills had the man walking away back to his room.

After the sleazy dude walked away, he gave the woman a short applause, which sounded rather damp due to the gloves on his hands, and shot her a cheeky smirk. “Well done, miss. I couldn’t have handled him any better myself.”

She squinted at him and crossed her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, help out in these situations? Hello!? Damsel in distress!?” she asked sarcastically.

Approaching confidently, he looked down at the small woman. She was pretty attractive. He liked her. He was far from the most charismatic dude in the world, but he approached anyway, determined to test his luck. What was the worst thing that could happen?

“Well,” he said as he walked over and leaned against the counter. His mind rushed to think of anything charming to say. “I’m afraid of karma, you see. Wouldn’t want someone to interrupt my attempt, now, would I?”

She couldn’t stop the small burst of laughter at that.

Was that a success? Probably. He mentally high-fived himself and straightened his posture a bit.

Shaking her head, she reached for some papers. “You know, I’ve been wondering ever since you walked in here… Uh, why?” the receptionist asked with a frown.

“Oh?” he chirped inquisitively, raising an eyebrow. “Not sure what you mean.”

The receptionist rolled her brown eyes at that. “Come on.”

“What?” He shrugged defensively, trying and failing to catch on.

“You know, if anyone walks in here looking even vaguely normal, the illusion is usually dispelled as soon as they open their mouth,” she informed him. “I just can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with you.”

He snorted. “Okay, wow. Uh… where do I begin?” he pondered. “How about that time I lived in the caves, surviving off nothing but mushrooms and grit?” he suggested jokingly.

She snorted at that. “Sure thing, pal. Start at the part where you discover fire while at it.”

For some reason, he found himself swallowing rather heavily. “Well,” he said leadingly, feeling a bit of trepidation in his chest. “If you’re done with work soon, I could perhaps take you… out for drinks and share more.” It wasn’t the most intelligent way to use his money, but he wasn’t that broke.

“Uhm… Let me think about it…” she said, tapping her temple with her finger as she pretended to be considering it. “How about… no?” She rejected the offer.

There, he found himself leaning against the counter, staring at a cute girl. A mere moment ago, while it had been waning slightly, he had felt pretty confident. Yet, all of a sudden…

“Ah,” he thought out loud. “I guess you’re, uh”—he scratched the back of his head—“not done with work any time soon?”

“No, that’s not it,” she said, putting the papers she had fetched into a different drawer.

“Then, uhm… what’s the problem?”

“Sorry,” she said, “but I’m just not interested.”

“Oh… All right. Well, sorry for bothering you,” he apologized as he walked away, almost stumbling as he took the first step on the stairs.

What the hell was happening? Okay, well, he got rejected, but that wasn’t that big of a deal. For Christ’s sake, he’d gone through half a year of torture! So why was this hitting him so hard?

There was a tightness deep in the back of his throat, and a faint pain pushed at the corners of his eyes. He felt a bit ill, and his heart rate was elevated.

Wow, that really sucks, he decided, unsure of what to make of what he was feeling.

As he finally approached his “room” and settled himself, discovering that he was too tall to lie down and stretch his legs out, he stared at the almost entirely dark ceiling. The door wasn’t fully sealed, so light still trickled in from the hallway, blinking briefly as someone walked through the hallway. For half a moment, he appreciated the light source, thinking it would help him find the bugs faster when they crawled on his body. Then he remembered that he wasn’t in the caverns anymore. Well, there might still be bugs here, but… He sighed.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen, my ass,” he self-ridiculed.

He felt rejected. It was such a normal thing to experience that it felt weird. After all that he’d gone through, all the terror and fear and… The tightness in the back of his throat intensified, and he found breathing difficult.

Emotions became nothing but a blatant weakness for him. So he suppressed them. Shut them off in self-defense.

But he was trying to reintegrate back into society, wasn’t he? Nobody was chasing him now. The threat of death and indefinite captivity no longer hung above his neck like the blade of a guillotine. Perhaps it was still there somewhere, but it was far removed from the problems he faced at that moment.

What hurt the most in that shitty little room wasn’t the burning cut of blades shredding his skin or a hot rod pressing against his back. There was no severing of body parts, no patriarch standing above him like a devil, plans of how to make his agony worse playing behind his pale, ghoulish eyes.

No. What hurt the most at that moment, as he repeatedly failed to make himself comfortable, was that he tried hitting on a cute girl and she wasn’t interested.

How pathetic. How ordinary.

How relieving.

Suddenly, two streaks of tears appeared, running down the sides of his head. The joy that he was okay, the relief that he was safe, flooded him, and he was powerless to stop it.

What had plagued him the most, without him even realizing it, was the never-ending sorrow of having been broken—shattered into miserable, unfeeling pieces, reduced to a base animal.

He thought of the people he had killed. He thought of the people he had injured. Every single thing he had done on his path to making it out of his predicament had felt justified to him. Too justified.

The image of the bald bodybuilder who assaulted him in the back alley interposed with the image of the drunk father who couldn’t come to terms with his son’s fate. On a surface level, in both cases, he had merely been protecting himself. But that wasn’t really the case, was it?

The danger to his life had become an all-too-convenient excuse, and with it, darkness had snuck into his heart—the willingness to do the unforgivable. Anything to survive.

But now he could live.

And he was so frustrated and sad yet happy and excited to feel that, indeed…

It appeared that he was still capable of doing so.

9

$299 SOCKS

For as long as he could remember, Freddy hated walks. When he had no money, no time, no energy, friends, hobbies, or really any reason to leave his room, the only time he went for a walk was when he was forced to do so.

His steps would always take him past attractions he was too poor to enjoy, and as the reward, all that waited for him were annoying chores and responsibilities. Needless to say, nothing about walking had ever been gratifying for him.

Thus, he woke up frustrated.

There was no shower in this hotel, only a sink where he could at least wash his armpits, and coupled with the fact that he had to walk past the receptionist, it simply felt like his day was off to a horrible start.

And then he stepped outside.

The city of Nova York was a gigantic place. This wasn’t just a coincidence, either. The density of ether was integral to archhumans, and there was much of it here, as could be seen by the numerous wisps flickering through the Netherecho as he took a look.

This had many consequences, and among them was the fact that many passages were around. Naturally, most of them were private or had otherwise limited access, and the closest one he could enter with his qualifications was far away, which was why he had to walk so long.

Every so often, he bitterly tore his gaze from something that seemed fun. It was just a habit of his. He had learned to reject and scorn anything interesting because hating it was better than pining for it when he knew he could never afford it.

That was when he finally realized it. That was when he finally opened his eyes.

There was a massive, fancy building in the distance to his left. He had no idea what it was. But if it was just a residential building, he suddenly felt like it wasn’t some area he would never have access to. Maybe he’d even live there eventually. Perhaps he would own a place somewhere even fancier.

With a hungry gaze, he scouted. With each new sight, every new attraction he spotted, his steps quickened. As he saw a club, he thought of… reserving a table. Buying bottles, treating friends. Dancing to the motherfucking music. There was a restaurant, and he could eat there. A cafe. He could sit there, sipping on coffee or whatever he pleased to his heart’s content.

As he stepped into an even wealthier area, his eyes sharpened. There were some damn lovely carriages. He wanted one. Libraries, miscellaneous treasure shops, equipment stores, and so much more appeared before his eyes, and now it truly felt like it stood right before him. The shimmering glass outside, the well-illuminated interiors, the opulent people walking in and out. Finally, it all existed in the same world he was living in.

Not long from that moment, he would be among those people.

Throughout his walk, he felt good. There was no fatigue or pain in his legs. The miles vanished below him before he realized it, and he arrived at his destination.

It was a large, well-fortified building with no windows. He wasn’t allowed in without an ID proving that he was an archhuman, and as he showed it, he stepped into yet another world foreign to him.

The first thing he noticed was that almost everyone in the room was armored, more or less. Numerous independent archs sat around the massive lobby, many in groups either chattering away about mundane topics or discussing delving strategies.

The second thing that caught his eye was the advertisement. There were so many ads. For classes, instructors, insurance companies, equipment, and supply merchants, there were so many different products that he was dazed by how much his attention was being bounced around.

The fact that all that contact information was so readily available was a pleasant surprise, but reality shot him a painful reminder. The contact information was in codes that could only be used through communication ethertech. The high he had been riding on his way there subsided rapidly. After all, dreams of wealth were one thing—earning it was another.

He took a deep breath and centered himself. He mentally checked his budget. He was at around four hundred and fifty dollars, a paltry sum that couldn’t afford practically anything.

Some of the ads flashed numbers like “ONLY $999! SPECIAL PROMOTION FOR insert random reason” and then the product was like… a shitty leather hat or whatever. That was the standard for prices he was dealing with.

The thing about the world of archhumans was that nobody held anyone’s hand. If he wanted to charge into the passage utterly ignorant and with nothing but the sweatpants covering his unwashed ass, most anyone would do was tell him that it wasn’t a good idea. But nobody had the right to stop him if he wanted to do it anyway.

It was his own responsibility to handle himself and stay alive. And it was his privilege to throw that caution to the wind.

He didn’t have enough money. And the first thing he needed was information. So, he rubbed his hands and anxiously blew air out his lips as he mentally prepared himself.

It was time to beg strangers for help.

Like a needle, yesterday’s failure had popped his confidence bubble. The worst thing anyone here could do was refuse to share info. Yet he had learned the hard way just how awkward and uncomfortable that refusal could be.

He lightly slapped himself on the cheek. He wasn’t here to pick up pretty girls. He was here to ensure he didn’t die from something he should have been prepared to deal with.

Archhumans from the second star onwards naturally emitted a sense of pressure. It wasn’t easy to tell, though, and most had to focus to perceive it. But it was also possible to suppress this phenomenon and hide one’s power from those weaker and, to an extent, from those at the same level.

Two-stars could hide from one another with relative ease. At three stars, concealing one’s presence against the senses of another three-star already required quite a bit of proficiency. And four-stars couldn’t really hide from one another without a designated talent or extremely pricy equipment.

Thankfully, he was dealing with two-stars at most here, who all publicly broadcasted their presence as if it were a badge of honor. If he was asking for help, he should ensure he looked like he needed it. There was the whole idea of going, “Hey, I’m a two-star big shot; help me out, and maybe you’ll get something in return,” but he didn’t feel that that was a wise choice. Namely, because he had nothing to actually offer.

From a cursory glance, he estimated that two-stars comprised less than five percent of all the people present, making them a notable minority there. Every two-star arch he saw truly looked like one, with an air of experience and severity around them. The way they held themselves, the equipment they carried—those who made it to the second star didn’t do so without getting their shit together first.

And then there was him. A skinny, pretty boy without a damn clue as to what the fuck he was doing. If anything, actively showcasing the fact that he was a two-star arch would just invite unwanted attention, and those who “worked hard” for their power could possibly interpret his image as being that of a pampered rich boy who never had to labor to get to where he was. His scars were no longer there. He had no evidence that he had ever been in a fight.

So, he closed his eyes and entered his ethercosm. There, the two three-colored stars, one much bigger than the other and surrounded by a red ring, swirled in their eternal orbit. They shone brightly, broadcasting their existence to the world like the sun shining on the earth from above.

Focusing his authority over his soul, he flexed his will, and the light dimmed. Breathing out a small sigh at the exertion, he felt like the world around him was muted slightly. This was the downside of suppressing one’s presence—losing some of the supernatural perception.

He adjusted his posture a bit and felt as ready as ever.

With a consuming glint, he scouted the lobby. The entire first floor was just a large open area. There were a few clerks along the wall on the other side of the room and a large door to the underground, where the passage was located; next to it were stairs that took to the second floor, where one could get their equipment fixed and injuries treated.

Throughout this room, red sofas surrounded wooden coffee tables, with a few colorful chairs beside them. Many groups of people populated these, and he saw only two empty tables.

His eyes traveled to the party closest to him. Three people were seated on a red sofa, the chairs occupied by heavy rucksacks holding their equipment. Judging by the faint sense of suppression he felt coming from them, they were undoubtedly two-stars.

The first thing he thought when he analyzed them was that he almost regretted having a talent that removed injuries so efficiently.

The entire group was heavily scarred, showing many signs of battle and experience. He had seen how others looked at him when he was the one walking around, looking like he’d lost a fight against a sadistic blender-toaster duo, but seeing terrifying scars on others really put it into a different perspective.

A tall, bulky man with a large nose and trimmed brown hair sat to the left, with an even taller but skinnier man beside him, whose hair was blond and his mouth spread in a broad smile, revealing a line of bright teeth. Further to his right was a blonde woman, also quite tall, strikingly resembling the guy in the middle.

The man on the left had a massive red mark all over the right side of his face, stretching into his hair, which was considerably less dense along the red area, showcasing that he had probably lost half his head at one point. The one in the middle had two ugly marks on both his cheeks, almost as if something had speared right through one and out the other, and the woman had a long scar over her left eye, the blue iris of which was a bit paler than its counterpart.

All three had a bunch of other minor marks interspersed throughout their skin. These people clearly had experience. He would approach them first.

The instant he took a single step in their direction, all three turned their eyes to him, immediately spotting his advance with the reaction time only razor-sharp instincts honed in danger permitted. That made him temporarily halt his steps before he regained his resolve and continued his approach.

As he reached their table, the blond man who sat in the middle was the first to call out. “Hi there!” he greeted cheerfully. “Do you have business with us?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “I was just wondering if you know where I can find some information on the passage here.”

“New here?” the woman asked, eyeing his clothes. He wasn’t wearing anything fancy. In fact, he still wore the purple dragon white hoodie he bought for his hoodlum disguise. Either way, he wasn’t here to delve but to scout the situation and check things out. And he preferred that that detail was evident to others.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m new to town, just looking to get myself oriented.”

“Yeah, good idea,” the woman continued. “If you want information, you should go to the clerks and request the guide. They give those away for free to those who register.”

“Oh, okay, thanks!” he said and almost turned to follow their advice.

But the man to the left stopped him. “Wait,” he called. “You’re a beginner, right?”

Freddy nodded. “Yeah.”

“You should definitely read the guide, but if you have time, we could share some advice!” he offered. “We’ve been delving here for years.”

“Yeah!” the woman concurred. “I’d be happy to do that!”

“Fine by me,” the man in the middle agreed, too.

That left him stumped. He hadn’t expected to receive that much help, not for free. “What do you want in return?” he asked cautiously.

In response, the man in the middle intervened. “None of that talk,” he chastised. “It’s a few minutes for us, and you get to…” the man started, but he suddenly frowned. “Wait, you’re a two-star?”

His eyes shot wide open. How did this man see right through him? A perception talent? His mind rushed to find any excuse, but the trio had already changed their demeanor considerably.

“Ah, sorry,” the blond man apologized. “I presumed you were a beginner, so I ran my mouth. No offense.”

“Yeah…” the woman started, but she didn’t look quite as apologetic. “I didn’t notice it at all.”

“Me neither,” the man on the left said, glaring at him with a frown.

“Uh…” he tried but struggled to form any words. “I uh… Yeah, I’m new here, so I… I just… You know, just for privacy’s sake.”

“Not cool, man,” the heavily scarred man said with a shake of his head. “Why are you pretending to be a beginner? There are plenty of information vendors; just cough up the money and buy the advanced guide.”

“No, he doesn’t deserve that,” the blond man rebuked his companion. “He offered us repayment, so I don’t think he’s that type of person,” he said, then turned back to Freddy. “I apologize for intruding on your privacy. My talent caught it, and I yapped before I thought. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“It’s… fine,” he offered tentatively, unsure whether to leave and try with someone else.

But before he could decide, the blond man continued, “If you’re looking for information, my offer still stands.”

He stared at the man, feeling somewhat conflicted. On the one hand, perhaps taking the offer was an acceptable option. But on the other hand… what if he offered to repay them anyway? That was an amicable, friendly thing to do, and it could perhaps segue into a mutually beneficial relationship. Or just a friendship. Either would be much help to him.

But… as he thought about it further, he decided against it. He had no money, and everything else in his Storage Ring, which he didn’t want to reveal anyway, was too expensive to give away. And besides, if a stranger offered mystery medicines, would anyone just take them and believe they were safe?

No.

The answer to that was a resounding no. Unless they were insane, that was.

So, he sighed and sat down. “I accept your offer, and… thanks.” He felt a bit bad for not repaying them anyway, but he refrained from saying stuff like “I can’t currently do so.” The fewer lies he made, the lower the odds of them talking shit behind his back when he showed just how capable he was.

It was frustrating, but no matter how irritated he felt, that was no excuse to do something stupid. No more of that.

The three adventurers shared their experience delving into the passage for the next half an hour. The two beside the blond man seemed slightly uncomfortable initially, but the atmosphere grew more relaxed as they kept talking.

First, while the passage realm here wasn’t an Anomaly, it was a hub—which was to be expected. Every non-anomalous passage realm held at least three passages within, but they weren’t always easily accessible.

They could be like the one he saw on those floating rocks in that ocean realm. Or, they could be at the bottom of a large body of water, on a tall, sheer cliff, on a floating island, or even lay undiscovered, located somewhere inaccessible or difficult to find. Hell, there was a precedent for passages being too small for an adult to push through. There was also the fact that some passages led to insanely dangerous or inhospitable realms, and such portals were usually sealed.

Thus, there was a differentiation. Passages that took to so-called “blind realms”—spaces without other easily accessible passages within—were called blind passages. While those that had other passages within were called step-passages, or, colloquially, hubs.

This realm had seven others within, of which three were usable and two were also step-passages. The difficulty of this realm was rated at D-, which basically meant that one needed to be either in a party of one-stars or a beginner two-star to enter at acceptable risk.

They admitted to having already advanced to a more difficult realm but promised their experience wasn’t outdated.

For the most part, this realm only had a single monster species. It used to have more, but overhunting resulted in most of them being exterminated.

The realm was coded as C-899923, an upper medium-sized C-class realm. For the most part, it was made up of heavily forested areas, but rocky parts with more sparse growth were scattered around, with harsh, sheer cliffs surrounding the outer perimeter.

“Now, the creatures…” the woman started. “Hmm, how do I put it? They look sort of as if a monkey and a sloth had a mole-faced kid that just entered their ‘it’s not just a phase, Mom.’”

The two men chuckled at that, nodding in agreement, and Freddy raised an eyebrow at the colorful image.

“They are black-furred, vicious beasts,” she continued, “who mostly dwell underground. They have a hierarchy sort of like ants or bees; nine out of ten are workers with spoony nails made for digging, while roughly one in ten makes up the sharp-clawed guards. They’re as big as dogs, but the fighters are a bit bulkier. Still, even the workers can easily beat a man to death with their incredible strength and earth-affinity strikes. Don’t get complacent.”

He nodded. They shared some other stuff about the flora and geographical layout of the area. Apparently, the rocky parts got pretty extreme, which created a limited-visibility environment in some places. It was easy to get surrounded or even swarmed from above, and according to them, if their team leader didn’t have his talent, they would have gotten screwed over many times.

Well, they had gotten screwed over many times. They had lost people in the realm before. And all of them had narrowly skirted death at least once. Freddy didn’t need any proof—their scars were more than enough evidence.

“Be careful where you go,” the man in the middle warned him. “Anywhere you can’t see more than 180 degrees of your surroundings should be treated as if it were a trap. You will get cornered. You will get surrounded. A stampede of them could appear on top of you way faster than you think. Always remain cautious.”

After a few more bits of advice, they concluded their lecture. He nodded and shook their hands, the two parties separating with a few non-committal see-you-arounds and hope-we-meet-agains. With that out of the way, he walked over to the counter and registered.

The process was straightforward; they just wrote down his personal ID number and name, noting him as a registered delver for this area. He would have preferred not using his ID, but it was unavoidable. Thankfully, establishments such as this one were quite tactful when it came to privacy. They based much of their business on trust.

He was handed the guidebook, entirely free, and even a catalog of nearby stores and equipment providers. That was the first time he ever appreciated being given an advertisement.

The list of stores was for later. Now, it was time to read.

He made himself comfortable in one of the few free spaces he could sit alone in and started chipping away at the extensive guide.

Not much new information was discovered, and after finishing it, he scanned the catalog. On the very first page, he found $299 socks.

“What the fu—” he exclaimed before restraining himself, remembering he was in a public place.

The ads made it pretty clear already—arch equipment was expensive. But socks? Fucking socks? Really? Although, as frustrating as it was, the sales pitch in the catalog was clear about why they were so costly.

First, they were designed to be puncture-, slashing-, and tearing-resistant, ultra-comfortable, liquid-repellant, and resistant to both acid and fire. And, on top of that, the cloth was interwoven with thread that blocked essence flow and prevented stuff like life-affinity abilities from pushing through the fabric.

Given how much they did, their price was unsurprising. But this was just the minimum. While they indeed had all those functions, it was only technically the case. These were graded as appropriate for one-stars. The ones for two-stars started at over a thousand dollars.

“Okay then,” he whispered as he slammed the catalog shut. “I guess I’ll go ask more people for advice.”

By the time he returned to the hotel, it was already nighttime. Actually, it was night by the time he started walking. The receptionist waved at him somewhat sarcastically, but he frankly couldn’t be bothered to care. Once he was in his room, he breathed out heavily.

What should he do?

Strictly speaking, he didn’t need two-star-grade underwear or most of the random fiddly doos or whatever. But he did need armor. He did need proper gear. And he needed experience.

True, the difficulty rating of D- meant that a solo two-star should be able to delve there with acceptable risk, but while he did have two stars in his soul, he didn’t really fall under the traditional definition of a two-star warrior. By this level of power, he should have had his shit together. That difficulty rating considered that he should have at least several years of experience and all the equipment he needed under his belt.

But he didn’t.

So what should he do? Join a party? He didn’t like that idea, not yet. He had too many secrets, too much that he wasn’t comfortable showing to others. Selling anything in his ring was out of the question, too. Too much risk, too much unknown. The Kraven had lost their goddamn patriarch—who knew what all they were keeping an eye out for? Maybe even just having the ring on him was a risk he shouldn’t be taking.

The dimly lit, tiny room spun above him as his mind whirled. What was the risk of striking out into that passage by himself? As in, what were the odds of dying? One in ten? One in twenty? Throughout his investigation today, he had heard several stories of people getting surrounded, encountering a deviant monster, and just a lot of shit going wrong. And he knew damn well that if anything like that happened to him, he would be screwed.

That night, he barely slept. The day after, he woke up late and felt terrible, still unable to get his mind off everything. Yet again, he traveled to the passage hub and asked others for advice and help. Many rejected him outright. It stung. His heart tightened every time he saw disapproving, uninterested expressions turning away from him, but he pushed through it each time and tried again.

Eventually, two parties of one-stars shared their tales. Both had lost people. Both had encountered life-threatening scenarios, and even to that day, they had things go wrong on a semi-daily basis.

He filled the rest of the time rereading the guide, and, yet again, he returned late, having spent the whole day trying to gather intel. Once more, he had a restless night and woke up feeling even worse than yesterday.

“Goddamn cities,” he muttered under his breath. “Not enough plants to murder.”

Maybe he’d feel better if he could use his talent a bit, but there was nothing to hit. Everything in the city was either dead or nonliving, save for the people and the few animals that passed by. Well, there were trees on some streets, but punching those would be the actions of a total lunatic. And violation of public property.

He groaned in frustration as he dropped back down on the futon.

Rather than leave the hotel, he pondered his options for most of that day. Perhaps he could start working on his blood affinity, but that wasn’t a good idea. He had no knowledge of how to do anything related to blood abilities, and he knew from the stories that experimenting on his own could get really dangerous.

Raising his finger, he focused, and without much effort required, his blood seeped through his pores and pooled on his index finger. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t make it float. Doing so with water was one thing—blood was extremely difficult to manipulate when not making contact with one’s body.

But.

With a small burst of will, the tiny droplet of blood turned into a sharp needle. Or, well, at least it took the shape of one. Trying to pierce something with it instantly made it collapse, and… He should probably stop there. That already cost him a few drops of blood.

Without the Pool of Blood tempering technique, using the blood affinity was dangerous. It was easy to get carried away and lose more blood than one could afford, and a coma was the best-case scenario in such situations.

But there was still… the other affinity.

With a slight exertion of will, he focused and appeared in his ethercosm, staring at the dark blue part of his stars.

10

CLEAR MIND, SOUND DECISIONS

Standing in his ethercosm, Freddy stared at the dark blue part of his core, mesmerized. And afraid. There was a reason why he hadn’t tested this affinity yet—because it felt dangerous. And not in a good way.

It gave him a sensation of both being unable to tear his eyes away from it and desperately wanting to look behind himself to ensure nothing was there. It was suffocating and anxiety-inducing, sort of like diving into the ocean and taking a look down into the darkness below, only to see squirming shadows closing in. His ethercosm, the center of his soul, was safe… but even that bit of common knowledge fell apart when facing the ominous affinity.

He gathered himself.

Floating through his ethercosm, he approached the shell that Leviathan was trapped within. The same deep blue color forged the runes that kept it contained, and, just like with Bloodshed, the cage was shaped nothing like any of his other ether shells.

It growled at him as he approached, and he had to force himself to calm down. It was trapped with no way of escaping. Probably. Still, he knew that there wasn’t much reason to panic.

“Leviathan,” he called. “Do you…? Do you know what that deep blue affinity is?”

“No,” it said curtly, doing the bare minimum to answer his question.

That made him pause. It didn’t know? Wasn’t this supposed to be its affinity?

So he asked, “Isn’t that your affinity?”

“No. My affinity is to water,” it declared. “My nature might have helped twist it, but it is your soul that formed that thing. Now get out of my sight!” it demanded.

Twist it…

His mind flashed back to something Madame had told him once. Upon absorbing a unique, you will acquire the affinities it holds a connection to, and if you already have one of the affinities, it will evolve into a unique affinity.

His eyes traveled to the discolored blue in his stars. So, that was a unique affinity?

He left the ethercosm and breathed out slowly. Then he raised his hand. His essence poured through the layer of dark blue and converted into whatever affinity that was. But it couldn’t leave his body. Well, that wasn’t unexpected. To manipulate something with essence, he needed a target. And if this was a unique affinity that was created from water…

With a burst of will, he used Create Water and manifested a bucket-worth. With his essence control, he kept it afloat and then tried to imbue it with the other affinity. He felt like his manipulation would collapse for a moment, but surprisingly, he found it just as easy to manipulate water with this other affinity.

But something immediately changed once he did. Apparitions akin to morphing shadows flickered within, and he reflexively dropped the water. It splashed over his legs and the ground.

“Ow!” he screamed. “What the f⁠—”

Something stung his legs. Not only that, but the futon seemed slightly torn after what he’d done.

Taking his pants off, he found several thin cuts, stings, and scrapes, as if he’d spawned a rabid cat and a nest of wasps directly into his pants. Thankfully, there was only minor bleeding. But that didn’t stop him from feeling incredibly confused.

Creating just a tiny bit of water again, he imbued it with the strange affinity. Yet again, blurry, floating shapes manifested within. He carefully brought the water closer to the wall and pressed it against it.

What looked like numerous tiny stingers, claws, jaws, and other nasty appendages attached to phantasmal, ghoulish creatures crystallized and started attacking the wall. He observed it for a few moments, mesmerized, and then allowed the water to evaporate. The wall had thin, shallow cuts, bite marks, and cracks.

“What the hell is that?” he whispered.

He sank back into his ethercosm. Having used manipulation with a brand new affinity, he expected to see an entire backdrop of dark blue specks in his soul. There were many red ones already since he tested the blood affinity. Those were the seeds of ether shells, still unformed and attached to an idea, a singular, specific function that the affinity could perform.

But what welcomed him was something that he hadn’t expected at all. Instead of a scattering of tiny, undeveloped specks, he saw two dark blue ether shells, already nearly fully formed, that shone as brightly as any he had seen. They were highly complex and intricate, with countless shifting runes along their surface.

There was no clue as to what those were, so he tried his luck by asking Leviathan.

It snarled at him with an evil sneer. “If those are the only two shells to have appeared,” it proposed, “then that is all your affinity can do.”

That was… He floated back to the two shells. That was it? Those two shells were the entire power set of a whole affinity!?

He left the ethercosm and grabbed his head in frustration. So… basically… they did… what exactly? With some more experimentation, he pushed the limits of his new affinity.

Apparently, the bigger the blob of water he held up, the greater the attacks and the exponentially larger the essence consumption needed to infuse it. The huge maws, stringers, and claws were not something he wanted to test against the walls—or anything in this room. Not that there was much else there. So he washed the water out with ordinary water essence to make the spooky phantoms go away.

What surprised him the most was that, no matter how much he tried, this affinity seemed limited to a single function. It just turned regular water into… whatever this was. Spooky water? Dangerous water? What about abyssal water? While that seemed fitting, it made for a confusing overlap with Abyssal Depths, which was tied to the regular water affinity.

“What about perished water?” he mused. That sounded cool enough. “Maybe these are the souls of the things that perished at my hands? Muahahaha… God, I’m losing it.” While that was a cool idea, it definitely wasn’t the case. But it would be kind of funny to see old man Janny swinging his stick in there.

Even after all that experimenting, the status in his soul didn’t change. The two shells stood there, the same as when they were first created. So… he crystallized them.

The first of the two was effectively the exact same thing as what he had been doing with essence manipulation. Upon using it, it turned regular water into perished water. But the exciting part of it was that it was really, really easy to use. It hadn’t been difficult to use before, either, but now it required virtually no effort.

“Don’t tell me…” He tried using the ability together with Create Water. Both shells lit up at once. With utter ease, he manifested a blob of perished water. The essence consumption was a bitch, though—at least twice as much as just using Create Water on its own.

Huh. Neat. That basically meant that he had received an augmentation ability of sorts. Realizing this made him breathe a slight sigh of relief. At least the affinity was going to be useful. While it would be far more valuable to him if he were a caster, he still desperately needed something like this. After all, he had no way to attack from range, barring, like, throwing a rock.

His attention drifted to the other ability. If the first one augmented external techniques, transforming the water… Did the second one do the same thing, just for internal abilities?

“Oh hell no.”

There was no way he would test that out without supreme caution. There were too few targets for him to use his talent, so he’d be in a tough spot if he got severely injured.

Luckily, there was a relatively safe way to test it. He carefully focused on Hydraulic Flex. For all intents and purposes, it should count as an internal technique if this ability worked the way he presumed it did. He tried using it with his index finger. He failed. There were no muscles in fingers, after all, because the muscles that moved fingers were in the palm and forearm.

Thus, he focused on his palm, moving his thumb slightly and trying to imbue that movement with Hydraulic Flex and the other ability.

Nothing.

Well, Hydraulic Flex triggered, but there wasn’t even the faintest response coming from the other ability. That made him frown. Perhaps he had to use a proper tempering technique.

The mere thought of that made him ill, but he wanted to go through with it. Even if it was a sort of tempering empowerment, he’d live. He had used Hundred Wet Hells enough to survive something like that. But he wouldn’t try it with Hundred Wet Hells; instead, he would use Adaptive Water Body.

But again. Nothing.

It was as if some sort of prerequisite needed to be satisfied for him to use this ability. But what? He tried everything he could think of. Using it on genuine water didn’t work. Using it on perished water didn’t work either. It didn’t activate when he tried using any of his abilities, even when testing it with Hundred Wet Hells.

Actually, calling that ability Hundred Wet Hells no longer seemed appropriate. A few seconds of use left him dazed and gasping for air. It had become genuinely frightening after the upgrade. Thus, he decided to rename it to Thousand Wet Hells.

After finally testing that, too, all he knew was that he had no clue what this ability did. Well… he’d find out eventually, he hoped. Perhaps he was missing the obvious but failing to see the forest for the trees or something.

Either way, although having a ranged attack was reassuring, that didn’t magically solve his problems. He needed equipment. He needed money.

Worst-case scenario? He would have to go in alone and unequipped to get started. But he was only on his fourth day there. There was still time to figure things out. So, he got up again.

Freddy traveled the three-hour walk to the hub and stepped inside, sitting on the couches again. There, he waited, scouting the room for anyone willing to help him out. But he saw very few groups he hadn’t asked already.

For most of that day, he sat there, hoping that someone would approach him with an answer. The fear and anxiety piled on him like a cave-in, and he walked back home with his head hanging low, unsuccessful in achieving anything but gathering information and testimonies that informed him of little that he hadn’t already heard.

On the fifth day, he got desperate. He asked one of the parties whether they could possibly lend him some money, but the looks they gave him… The shame he felt at that moment killed all desire to try that again. In fact, he was so embarrassed that he left and spent the day in a cafe instead.

On his sixth day, he took a jittery walk around town. Numerous ideas floated in his noggin, most of them incredibly stupid. He thought of robbing someone. Hey, if he stepped into the back alleys and someone attacked him first, it would be fair game, no?

He even considered visiting loan sharks, but his former adoptive parents had warned him to never deal with loan sharks. Ever. Even if he seemed entirely out of options.

Maybe he could sell an organ instead, he thought, but where? How? To whom? The odds of getting himself into deep shit were too high.

Waking up on the morning of the seventh day, he was visited by the receptionist, who was more of a hotel manager than anything. He was supposed to leave that room by the evening. Begrudgingly, he paid for three more nights. For the rest of that day, he decided to rest. But that turned out poorly.

The tight walls felt like they were pressing against his body and squashing him. It made him feel like he was back in the cell they kept him in between torture sessions, waiting uncertainly until his fate was decided. His heart raged in his chest, and he felt as if every moment that passed was another moment where he sank further into a bottomless hole.

Thoughts of the massive head of the leviathan rising far into the sky flashed in his vision. These mole-sloth-monkeys, named “gorels,” lived in colonies like ants or bees. Knowing his luck, he’d get eaten by the queen, who just happened to decide to take a stroll outside while he was there.

He knew it was stupid to think like this, but he couldn’t help it. It felt like the entire world was conspiring against him, and just like so many times before, a single slip-up or another bout of absurd misfortune could cost him everything.

By 6 p.m. that day, he felt so goddamn exhausted and stressed that he was getting frighteningly close to running away into the woods.

“That’s right…” he whispered. He had that milky pink alia root, didn’t he?

Judging by what Spike had said, a single dose was roughly six thousand dollars. Should he just stop being a coward and sell it? What were the odds that this shit would be tracked?

Groaning in frustration, he left the room. After visiting the receptionist, he asked her for a cup of boiling water. She obliged, and he brought it back to his room.

He had already had a cup of this once. But he prepared it haphazardly—only cold water in a plastic bottle. This time, he wanted to have a dose properly. If it cost that much money, it’d better be good.

The first difference that he spotted was the color. While last time he prepared it, it looked vaguely green; now, it was a vibrant pink. And instead of smelling herbal, it had a sweet scent, like ripe fruit.

As soon as he took a sip, feeling the taste of warm milk, his eyes shot wide open. There was a vision of a stormy, downcast day. But the rain suddenly stopped, and a single ray of sunshine broke through.

Images of a comfortable bed, a warm soup, a motherly embrace, safety, and everything soothing he could think of flashed in his mind as if dragged up to the surface by merciful hands. Cold water definitely wasn’t the correct way to prepare it. Perhaps it hadn’t even done anything, and he had just been under the placebo effect.

Although it did taste milky, it was slightly bitter, which almost made it taste spoiled at first before he got used to it. It was possible that he had again prepared it somewhat incorrectly, but it was no worse than unsweetened instant coffee, even as it was.

All thoughts of gloom and doom were snapped away as if they hadn’t even been there.

“Jesus Christ…” he groaned, feeling disappointed in himself.

It happened again.

Too many times did he get it into his head that he had to do something and then ignore all the reasons against it. Selling the prime he manifested, signing with Madame, fighting that guy from the gym, joining the Wastes arena; each and every single fucking time, he focused on the possible benefits of doing something while completely and utterly ignoring the consequences.

No more. None of that.

He couldn’t enter a passage alone and unequipped. And he wouldn’t.

After thinking that thought, it was as if a mountain slid off his back. He could finally breathe again. So what if he couldn’t do it yet? He had been too eager to get started. As it stood, he was alive and well. Hell, he was basically immortal. His talent provided him with eternal youth. Just because he couldn’t see a solution immediately, that didn’t mean that one didn’t exist.

There was no need to go play delver roulette and kill himself like a moron. Even if he had to live in the woods, be homeless, or move to a rural area where he could trim lawns or something while hiding his identity.

It wasn’t even 7 p.m., yet all he wanted to do was sleep. So he did. He slept peacefully and dreamt of soft pastures and flowery fields. It was easy to tell why milky pink alia root was so popular among leaders dealing with a ton of stress.

Once he woke up, he felt well-rested and peaceful. He washed up, got dressed, and stepped out into the streets. There, he walked around, looking for inspiration. Walking past a bank, he noted that he needed to open an account again.

His steps halted.

He slowly turned, facing the building with thick glass panels in the front.

Then he walked inside.

Banks were quite strict with whom they gave money. It made sense, too; they had to ensure that whoever they provided with a loan could repay it.

A stray thought had crossed his mind. Two-star archs were generally considered to have their shit together. So, he entered the bank and made an account. Before he could even ask, the lady helping him open his account made him an offer.

Half an hour later, he walked outside. It would take a few days for the account to open, but once it did, he would be the proud borrower of 100,000 dollars. He had taken out a loan.

Two-star archs could get that much just like that; no need for credit scores or proof of employment or anything. Granted, that wasn’t a particularly significant sum to a proper two-star, but it would be enough for him to get started.

After a few days of waiting, the day finally arrived. He received his card and bid the hotel goodbye, feeling like a new man as he stepped out into the streets.

“Well then,” he said. “Time to go do some shopping.”

11

GEARED TO THE GILLS

“You don’t have to pay immediately, sir,” the landlord said amicably, rubbing his hands. “You can stay for two weeks and then decide.”

Freddy stared across his new rental apartment and nodded his head. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you in two weeks, then.”

They shook hands, and the man left, looking rather pleased. It was easy to tell why he was so happy. A two-star in this run-down building was probably its single biggest mark of prestige.

Not that it was horrible, either way. The building he was renting the apartment in was ten times better than his old place. And the space itself was clean, tidy, and well decorated. There was only a bit of mold in a small corner of the bathroom, too.

He stood in the small living room of the one-bedroom home and looked around, breathing out in contentment. It was criminal to rent something like this for over five thousand dollars a month, but the area was highly competitive, so it was hardly a surprise.

With his new windfall, he could have probably rented out an even nicer place, but he had no intent on recklessly spending loaned money. Still, he didn’t want to live in a shithole, either, and he had good reason to rent closer to the hub. No sense in wasting several hours a day walking.

It was already afternoon, and there was much on his schedule that day, so he started immediately. First thing first, he went grocery shopping. Less than an hour later, his new place was stocked with essentials. Soap, shampoo, toilet paper, basic food, and so on. It amounted to less than a hundred dollars.

If he was being honest, he had absolutely no idea how to cook. Luckily, there was no need for anything fancy.

He was the furthest thing from a picky eater, so until he started earning a stable income, he would refrain from letting lifestyle inflation consume his finances. Thankfully, he had a lifetime of frugal habits and experience to help him out.

He locked the apartment, set out into the streets, and walked to the primary destination for that day. There was a mall near the building holding the public passage. But this was no ordinary shopping center.

The white building looked clean, windowless, and generally non-descript from the outside, but, to get inside, he had to show an ID to prove he was an archhuman. Although he would have scoffed at such social barriers before, in this case, he fully understood why mortals had no place there.

As he pushed through the suffocating mass of people entering and leaving, he finally stepped inside. “More spatial expansion,” he mused. “Haven’t seen that in a while.”

Indeed, the mall was at least thrice as large as it seemed to be from the outside. This wasn’t his first time entering a place like this, but last time, it was clearly more aimed towards either non-combat archhumans or just rich people in general.

But this mall?

Every single store inside sold some form of equipment. There were weapon shops, all sorts of resource suppliers, equipment vendors—hell, he even saw a shop dealing in ether constructs. This was the warrior side of things.

The people inside were split half-half between those dressed casually and those armed to the gills in full gear—weapons in plain sight and all.

During his repeat visits and day-long lounging at the passage lobby, he hadn’t just been sitting around and wondering what to do.

He had also been watching.

Many times, he saw people remove their equipment, often to treat immediate but relatively benign injuries and sometimes just to take suffocating articles off and allow themselves to breathe. People used a wide range of tools, clothing, and armor, and by cross-referencing what he saw with the catalog he was handed, he had a pretty good picture of everything he needed to get his hands on.

First, his eyes scouted the shops for something everyone needed. He was looking for underwear. Not just any type of underwear, but this one-piece bodysuit thing he saw rather frequently.

It didn’t take him long to find the shop selling it.

Given all the affinities and the virtually unlimited number of different talents, it wasn’t a surprise that people had a varying spectrum of specific needs regarding underwear. Fire archs needed their fireproof, some needed skin exposure or direct contact to make their abilities or talents work, others needed every inch of their body covered, and so on.

After walking past the female underwear section, he approached the men’s one-piece department. There was yet again a wide array of clothing to choose from. He glanced right past those that left feet, hands, and the head exposed and went straight for the full-body protection.

With only a single opening for the eyes that could be widened to fit into it, this one-piece bodysuit covered everything from his individual toes to the tippity top of his head and, as advertised, only left a single, small gap to see through.

He had seen scant few people wearing something like this. Given what he read in the article, it was rather bewildering that it was so rarely used. The main advantage of such a bodysuit was that it covered everything. It was designed to be liquid-repellant and only allowed air to pass through in a single direction, which made it an excellent way to protect from harmful substances, be they liquids or gases. It also filtered the air it let outside, lowering the odds of something catching the scent of one’s body odor.

The thing with passage realms was that, even with all the information one could get their hands on, there was always a risk that simply couldn’t be accounted for—deviants.

Monsters weren’t like the so-called ‘enlightened species.’ While creatures like humans used prime vestiges to acquire a talent, monsters had an inborn, species-specific trait and naturally possessed an ether star in their soul from birth. In some cases, deviants appeared.

Deviants were, well, deviants. They weren’t like their common kin. Their talent and affinities were usually different, and sometimes they just had an extra affinity on top of the ordinary stuff the other members got. There was no exact number for how often they appeared, but for the gorels of the passage he would be delving into, it was roughly around 1%. While this seemed rare, it really wasn’t. If he encountered only ten on a given day, he’d meet a deviant once every ten days on average, but it was likely that he would be seeing way more.

They ranged in power, some being way weaker than ordinary members of their species, while others could become an absolute nightmare that a special team would have to be formed against.

But then, given that life, nature, and death all had abilities that could produce some form of lethal substance and that these affinities often appeared in deviants, why wasn’t everyone wearing complete protection?

It was simple—it looked weird.

While that might have seemed like a terrible reason to compromise one’s safety, it wasn’t. At all. Because when human interaction became a currency, vanity stopped being vain. People’s perception of others mattered.

Freddy had firmly been in the “screw reputation” category of things. And where did that take him? Six men appeared to beat him to death while he was sleeping. He had failed to do his part in setting expectations, so others made their own. There were no friends to stand by him, and everyone was free to paint him to be whoever they wanted him to be. And they wanted him to be an asshole snitch they could vent their frustrations on.

Viewed through this lens, it wasn’t weird at all. How would people see someone who appeared overly cautious? They would be seen as either a coward, a tryhard, or as if they were lacking experience. Neither of those three things was desirable for parties looking for members. Thinking further, he concluded that people took seemingly unnecessary risks for the sake of image all the time.

Many refused to take medicine when sick, performed all sorts of dangerous stunts to impress others, got tattoos that could make employment difficult, and so on. It was always for a reason, though. It was always with a motive in mind. They decided their reputation so it wouldn’t be decided for them.

But, this time, things weren’t like they were in the caves. This wasn’t a place of the desperate and angry; it was the home of dreams and adventure, of hope and aspirations. If someone dressed weirdly or appeared weak, they would just be left alone. Outcast, perhaps, yes, but who cared? He sure didn’t.

For him, being a loner was preferable for the time being. Not only was his identity fake, but too many secrets of his couldn’t be used in front of others, including his two most significant trump cards. Recklessly showing off would be the real way to invite trouble. Thus, repelling others and getting extra protection was obviously the correct choice.

What mattered was that, this time, he was the one choosing his own reputation.

When it came to appearance, he had a few options for the bodysuit. First were just ordinary colors, like white, black, beige, and so on. Second was camouflage, ranging in shades depending on the type of environment. And the third was pitch black. Not just ordinary dark, but void dark. It was so black that the fabric looked like someone had cut out a bodysuit-shaped chunk out of reality. The price made his stomach drop, though.

“Seventeen thousand, geez…!” he noted. “I’m too poor to be even looking at this stuff.”

And besides, he didn’t strictly need something like that. Camo was good. Besides, most, if not all, of the bodysuit would be covered in other gear anyway. So the color wasn’t that important.

It still wasn’t cheap, costing him almost four thousand dollars, but the quality justified the price.

Not only was it liquid and gas repellant, it was fire-proof, tearing, slashing, cutting, and piercing resistant, wouldn’t split apart even if it was damaged a bit, was super comfortable, provided a full range of motion, and even promised to act as a partial barrier to touch-related abilities and talents. He was sure that the higher-priced models provided way better versions of all those things, but this was all he could afford.

Also, apparently, he was meant to wear socks and boxer shorts over and not under the suit. That didn’t make much sense, and it looked goofy as fuck, but he would obey. A pair of so-called “flatulence filtering” elastic trunks and knee-high defensive socks later, he was down another seven hundred dollars.

Next up was footwear. Shoes were important. Not only were there numerous abilities that could strike from under one’s feet, but he was a martial artist, too, so his shoes had to tolerate quite a beating and provide solid footing. Footing was important. Crucial, even, for any martial artist.

As soon as he walked into the shop, he saw the collection of footwear offered. What stuck out to him the most, both here and back at the hub, was that all the footwear had extremely wide toe boxes. At first, he wondered why, but once he asked the worker there, he was stunned at the answer. Apparently, this was the only shape that was actually good for the foot. Tight cleats were just wrong, as they pushed the toes too close together.

Yet another sacrifice people took for the sake of appearance. But a rational one. Because these were just so damn ugly to look at.

Duck feet–lookin’ ass shoes, he thought jokingly. Well, everyone wore these, so they weren’t out of the ordinary.

The model he had to buy was the single priciest piece of gear he would get that day, costing him almost twenty thousand dollars. Again, good shoes were quintessential to him. With his heavy body and intense Flowing Strike, he would need his shoes to tolerate a lot of damage.

He had to buy a highly resistant model that was easy to maintain. That combo didn’t come cheap with any piece of equipment. As for the looks, he decided on camo for everything. It was a rather popular choice for obvious reasons. And it looked cool as hell.

He got thick leggings, a tough shirt, a thick, mail-reinforced turtleneck, a defensive vest, shoulder guards, metal bracers, thick leather gloves with hard knuckles, knee guards, and shin plating; then, after that, he purchased a reinforced synthetic jacket and pants that could be tightly secured to his shoes through standard hooks built into both articles of clothing. And, last but not least, a full helm with a synthetic, shatter-resistant visor.

Weapons weren’t his thing, at least not for the time being, so there was little to get in the way of that, but he did fetch the standard hunting knife and a machete just short enough to fit into his storage ring. As for other gear, he bought an ethertech torch, a canteen, and a first-aid kit, which he almost definitely wouldn’t need but got just in case he couldn’t use his talent for whatever reason.

For the final thing he purchased, he got a large rucksack. There wasn’t enough space in his storage ring for some of the miscellaneous equipment, and it would be best for others to not know that he had a storage ring.

Once he was done shopping, he was down by over 70,000 dollars. The mere thought of the money he’d spent sent a trickle of sweat down his spine. For Christ’s sake, he bought low-to-mid-tier equipment on average! Just how damn pricy would a complete high-end set be?

With shopping out of the way, he returned home. There was a large mirror in the living room of his new rental apartment. So there was only one thing left to do, he thought, as he proceeded to put all his gear on. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to tightly secure all the straps and tie all the knots. Once he was done, he witnessed his reflection.

“Pfff!” he snorted. “Goddamn, I look like a total dweeb,” he groaned but was smiling nonetheless. Honestly, he looked pretty dang cool. Like a sweaty try-hard with an army-slash-medieval-warrior fetish, yes, but cool nonetheless. The full helm was particularly edgy. Just the cherry on top he needed.

For the rest of that day, he just took a break. He had been too stressed over the last week, and he had to start his delving career well-rested and clear-headed. To that end, he also took another dose of milky pink alia root. A big investment, but a necessary one.

While he was scared, he was also buzzing with excitement. As he knew from experience, he’d be too jittery to sleep without assistance. Pushing aside the thought that this might be developing into an addiction, he downed the tea and clocked out early, dreaming of rainbows above green pastures, teddy bears and warm blankets, and unicorns flying above the clouds.

Once he woke up, he was as fresh as could be. After his humble breakfast of slightly charred eggs, courtesy of his lack of experience with an actual stove, he donned his tryhard gear and set out to the hub.

People made space for him as he walked past them in the streets, and eventually, he reached his destination. Once he stepped inside, many eyes turned to him. Too many, in fact.

“Oh, boy,” he whispered under his breath.

Some people laughed and lightly bumped their companions’ arms while drawing attention to him. Not many, though. Among the crowds seated in the lobby, he spotted only two people that directed any attention his way.

It would have been fine if it had stayed at that, but a brunet man got up and stepped before him. “Yo, spec ops, where you headed?” he teased with a smile.

The man was clearly experienced, showcasing a few scars over his cheeks, and his gear, although seemingly high-quality, was rather ragged and worn out, showing many signs of rigorous maintenance and repair work.

Freddy remained silent as he stared at the man. What to do in this scenario? Stay silent? Play pushover?

Before he could settle for a plan, the man swung an arm around his neck and leaned in, wagging his finger and whispering, “You’ve got some good gear on you. I can tell you know your stuff. Not my style, but practical. You waiting for your crew?” the man asked.

He just stared at him, trying to think of what to say.

“No? Ah, so you’re solo?” he concluded, sucking air through his teeth. “Not the best situation to be in. How about this; my boys and I are gonna delve at ten when we all gather, and you can come with us. I can’t promise you a spot on the team, but we do need someone to guard our equipment and maybe help us bring back the meat. You’ll get a good share! There are six of us in the party. I can offer you five percent of the cut. What do you say?”

He had no clue whether that was a good deal or not. Although he was strictly against partying with others, playing helper… It certainly circumvented some of the biggest reasons why he would prefer to remain solo. Given how the man phrased it, he wouldn’t be expected to fight beside them, only keep their gear safe while they fought and help them carry stuff.

The experience was valuable, and it was much safer than going in alone. This would give him an excellent chance to see how delving was done by others, and he was optimistic that he would learn several things that guides couldn’t teach him, no matter how much they cost. If worse came to worst, he could always bail on the deal and prioritize his own safety.

But.

“Ten percent,” he demanded. There were six of them and one of him—five percent was just too small a cut, even for what he would be doing.

“Pffff—” the man spluttered. “Hell no, man.” He frowned and shook his head, looking over to his teammates in a “get a load of this guy” kind of gesture. “Those aren’t helper rates; I’d pay that to a new member of the team. I can give you six.”

“Eight,” Freddy said.

“Six or no deal,” the man stated. “You won’t be in the fighting force, you’ll only⁠—”

“I still might end up fighting,” he interrupted the man. “It isn’t like I’m safe just because I’m staying back. Besides, I can carry a lot of weight.” He decided to keep the fact that he was a two-star out of the argument. One bastard trying to weasel him into helping out was enough.

“Like I said, six is all I can give you,” the man gave his final offer.

With that, he simply shrugged, turned around, and started for the stairway. There wasn’t even a shred of hesitation in his steps. He walked the walk of a man genuinely giving up on a deal. Because, well, he was.

The man called again several seconds later. “Okay, fine!” he shouted. “But under one condition. You said you can carry a lot, right?”

He nodded.

“Let’s see it then!” he said, pointing at one of his team members. The man was somewhat muscular but wasn’t exactly someone who gave off the presence of strength. Still, given the other guy’s attitude, the dude probably had a strength-enhancing talent. “If you can beat him in arm wrestling,” he said, “I’ll give you eight percent; no, fuck it, I’ll give you ten. But if you lose, I’ll give you six as promised.”

Whether he could beat that man in an arm wrestling match, he had no clue. But he didn’t care either way. “No,” he refused outright. “We are about to delve, and you want to risk your party members injuring themselves?” he asked with a scoff. “Forget it; I don’t want to delve with you.”

“Okay, fine, you pathological fuckhead,” the man surrendered. “Eight percent.”

“Nine percent,” he shot back, smiling beneath his full helm. Just a bit over half the rate everyone else would be getting. That should be fine.

The man rolled his eyes so hard it looked like he was trying to find a pesky hornet flying above his head. “You’d better be the best goddamn helper I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Freddy smiled beneath the helm. “We have a deal, then.”

12

PREPARATIONS

Freddy sat beside the people he had made a deal with; there were only three of them there so far, with their leader sitting on the small chair and the other two seated on the couch beside Freddy.

The man whose strength the leader had much faith in was the quiet type, sporting a buzz cut even shorter than his own, his longsword resting in its sheath and his black synthetic carbon helm placed on the table before them. The man wore black—not pitch black like those items Freddy had seen in the equipment store, but dark enough to be near-invisible during the nighttime.

Three bags, all in a similar style to his own, were piled beneath the coffee table.

The three party members chatted idly, refraining from any talks about the delving itself until the other three members of their crew arrived. They talked about the weather, shared stories about their outings and parties they’d been to recently, and generally stuck to mundane, day-to-day stuff.

“So,” the third man, a guy with long black hair, wearing a thick green coat and carrying a bow over his back, called and turned to face him. “What’s your name, soldier?” he asked snarkily.

“F—” He bit his tongue. He had come really close to introducing himself as Freddy. Then he realized that he had actually forgotten the name on his ID.

Oh, shit, what was it again? he wondered. Leonard?

That didn’t seem right.

“My name is Liam,” he said, suddenly remembering it. “Liam Johnson,” he added, sharing the fake surname he had settled on.

Once half a year or so passed, that would be on his ID card, so he started introducing himself as such ahead of time to make sure that that was the name he was known by and not the actual name on the ID. He wanted to avoid leaving such a trail out in the wide open if at all possible.

“Well, nice to meet you, Liam. My name is Robert,” the archer offered, nodding his head.

“Oh, right,” the swordsman remembered. “I’m Kyle.”

“My name’s Theodore,” the leader added, raising his hand with a smirk on his face.

“So, tell me honestly,” the archer continued. “Are you new to delving?” the man asked bluntly. The other two seemed interested as well.

“Honestly?” He hummed. “Kind of? I’ve fought monsters before, but it wasn’t in delves like these,” he fully admitted. “What, did the new gear give it away?”

The leader’s eye twitched. “Dude… you have no experience?” he asked, looking absolutely scandalized and seemingly preparing himself to renege the deal they had made.

But he was quick to shut that down. “Don’t worry, I have enough experience to handle myself.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Tell me about your skill set,” he demanded.

Freddy hesitated. It would be best if they knew his basic abilities for the safety of everyone involved, but he would refrain from sharing everything. “I have the water affinity, and my Flowing Strike is at stage one,” he stated. “I also have a rather advanced Hydraulic Flex, and I use Hundred Wet Hells as my primary tempering technique. I’ve been training unarmed martial arts, although, admittedly, I’m not the most talented at it, so I’ve been focusing on growing my abilities to compensate.”

“Pffff—” the leader snorted. “Come on, I get hyping your resume, but be realistic!”

“What?” he spluttered confusedly.

“An advanced Hydraulic Flex and Hundred Wet Hells. Hah!” he snorted. “Get a load of Young Master over here; do you think we were born yesterday?”

“Uh…” he muttered. “I mean, if you want me to demonstrate, I’d be happy to…” he offered but didn’t know how.

“Okay, then,” the man said, amusement crawling over his face. “If you have Hundred Wet Hells, you shouldn’t be afraid of an arm-wrestling match with my buddy.”

Freddy rolled his eyes at that. This man must really like watching arm wrestling.

“Hell, with Hydraulic Flex,” the man continued, “you might even win!”

He wanted to retort, but… he realized that saying, “I’m not the one who’ll get hurt,” would sound just a bit too arrogant. Sighing, he turned to the swordsman. “Which is your dominant arm?”

The man answered, “Right.”

He nodded at him. “Same. So let’s both do left, then. That way, even if I break your arm, it won’t hinder your swordsmanship.”

“Ooohohohoho,” the archer cackled, clapping his hands. “Those are some fightin’ words. I like this guy.”

“Okay then,” the leader said, shrugging with an expression that betrayed his anticipation. “Let’s get it on. Move all this shit,” he requested, moving the miscellaneous bottles and papers off the coffee table.

“Uhm,” he started, raising an eyebrow. “Is this all right? Won’t we get into trouble if we break the table?”

“Nah, don’t worry,” the man waved an arm. “They have nature-affinity personnel who can fix broken tables in seconds. Idiots like us are an everyday occurrence in these parts.”

Although he was pretty strong, he was damn skinny. He had recovered a bit but was still quite far from his bodybuilder era. A two-star physique had nearly twice the physical potential of a one-star, but he hadn’t tapped much into it.

Still, he was a hundred percent confident in his victory, even if the man had a powerful strength-related talent. The reason why was simple—he had a second star. Although his overall essence capacity was still only around 110% of the maximum a one-star could have, given that his star added only another 10%, he could now double the essence consumption when using an ability. All he had to do was engage both stars at once. A Hydraulic Flex at double power would be more than enough to close the gap. He just had to make sure it wasn’t too noticeable.

The two adversaries got into position. Freddy tightly gripped the table with his right hand and clasped his left with the other man’s. The two men stared each other down, both doing a few tease pulls to psych their opponent out and lightly test their strength, and the tension around them grew.

People started whispering. Quite a few bystanders made their way closer, gathering into a small crowd of spectators.

The party leader got into position. A few moments later, he swung an arm down. “Begin!”

Both men pulled.

“Gah!” Freddy groaned, instantly having to resort to full physical exertion just to keep his arm from getting slammed down. No wonder they were so damn confident.

But… even without Hydraulic Flex, he was actually holding on. The man’s face was growing red, and he appeared sweaty, not that he was doing much better himself—if anything, he regretted not taking the stupid helmet off.

As the match progressed, it became increasingly evident that he would lose. But it was happening really slowly. Although the man had already gained full advantage and brought leverage under his control, the rate at which his arm dropped wasn’t particularly fast.

He wasn’t surprised; his endurance and willpower were extraordinary, so he could keep going unhindered even in the face of the pain and discomfort. But winning without Hydraulic Flex wouldn’t be possible.

Just as his arm was about to fall a bit too low for him to stand a chance of recovery, he activated his ability, using only a single star. It was as if the man suddenly became weightless. As the essence flowed through the water in his limb, it compressed and tightened his biceps while his grip on the table grew strong enough to make the wood crack.

The man’s entire body was rotated, and he was thrown bodily to the side as the back of his hand slammed into the table’s surface, shattering it into splinters.

For a long moment, the room turned deathly silent. Then the cheering began.

For the fifteenth time, Freddy profusely apologized to Kyle. Given his talk about “risking party members’ injuries,” he felt like the biggest goddamn hypocrite. Now, the man’s hand was being wrapped up in bandages by a rather angry-looking blonde woman, a water-affinity caster named Petra.

The other three party members had arrived, including a tall, bald Black man, Lance, who was an earth-affinity brawler; Petra, as mentioned above; and Beatrice—a red-head fire-affinity caster and Theodore’s wife—who was in the middle of an argument with him because he hired help without consulting the entire party.

He looked down at his left hand, deep in thought. He had absolutely no idea that Hydraulic Flex was that powerful. The time in the caves hadn’t provided him with enough opportunity to truly test it. But even without it… even as a freshly ascended two-star and martial artist… should he really have strength comparable to someone with a dedicated talent for it?

No. The answer to that was no. Definitely not. Maybe if he had more muscle mass, he could justify it, but this⁠—

“Excuse me,” Petra called, lightly tapping his forearm.

“Huh?” he said, turning to face her. “Oh, sorry; what is it?”

“We are starting the meeting,” she said blandly, eyeing him with blatant dislike. “So you should probably pay some attention if you’re still going with us.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Right, I’m so sorry.”

“Hmph,” she snorted, turning back to face the others.

As they settled in their seats, there were many signs that their minds were still on the arm-wrestling match. Robert sneered at Kyle teasingly, Theodore tried not to under the baleful glare of Beatrice, Lance shook his head at them in disapproval, Petra still looked quite annoyed given that her fiance had just gotten needlessly injured before a delve, and Kyle seemed deeply ashamed.

But as soon as Theodore opened his mouth and started the meeting, all that vanished instantly. Lives depended on solid preparation. There was no room for drama.

The realm they were delving into was a tricky one. Many realms were underground or had permanent nights or days, while others had some form of day-night cycle that might or might not resemble New Earth’s. Where they were delving was the latter, but it was the worst type imaginable.

The night was nearly pitch black, while the days were searing hot—and neither lasted a set amount of time. Both could last between fifteen minutes and over fifty hours, with no way to predict their length. When it was time to swap, it happened in a snap. Bright days turned to pitch darkness, and depths of the night turned blindingly sunny in an instant—and if it happened during a fight, one better adapt fast.

Gorels lived underground, so they didn’t rely on their eyes much either way.

To make things even worse, the Crimson Twilight would appear every half-year to two years. Neither night nor day, it was a state where the sky grew blood red and the gorels went insane. It was the only time the royal guards made their way to the surface, and an outright war between the hives happened.

Thankfully, the last time the Crimson Twilight appeared was two months ago, so there was minimal risk of it occurring for quite a while longer. But, unfortunately, that came with a significant downside—the cycles had been disrupted.

Gorels had queens that lived short lives, anywhere between two and three months, depending on the size of the hive—shorter in bigger ones and longer in smaller ones. Things got quite hectic when it was time for a new queen to be born.

Different monster species treated deviants differently. Some followed their species’ mightiest members, deviant or not. While others… got rid of them. For gorels, it was complicated. They tolerated deviants most of the time, but in the few days when they swapped queens, the guards grew hyper-protective, resulting in all the deviants being chased out of the nest or killed.

The interesting part was that, in larger hives, while there were more deviants, the tunnels were too long for most of them to escape, while the smaller hives, which had fewer deviants, had far more of them make it to the surface due to the shorter escape paths.

Being around small hives who were swapping queens was insanely dangerous. It was also quite popular. Why? Because deviants, upon death, had a chance to manifest a prime vestige. Killing them was among the few ways primes could be acquired, and as Freddy had learned the hard way, primes could fetch quite the price.

The first few months after a Crimson Twilight were always tricky. Hives sporadically lost their queens, and the cycles got more complicated to track. Fighting deviants might have been lucrative, but it was high risk, high reward. They could be all sorts of tricky, and for less experienced parties, it was best to avoid them with a wide berth.

That was their party’s plan, and he had no objections. It was a sound decision. The chances of getting a prime were in the low single digits—an unwise gamble, given the danger involved.

Planning their route and dividing roles took them less than twenty minutes. Both Beatrice and Petra were furious to discover that he was on his first delve, and the only reason they hadn’t outright chased him out was that he was at least fully equipped and had proved himself capable enough to outmuscle their main muscleman, as well as considerate enough to use the non-dominant arm.

Still, even though they decided to let him stay, they rigorously instructed him on what to do.

“Never go out of sight,” Petra repeated herself. “Always inform us of anything coming, even if you think we saw it. Don’t fight anything; you’ll only get in the way; even if you think we’re losing the fight, you shouldn’t get involved. We can’t use our abilities freely without all our members knowing the right cues and having the training to react to hearing them. If you still wish to act, expect to be hit by Beatrice’s fireball or Robert’s arrows. If something, or someone, goes for the bags, it’s your job to delay it until we can react. Fail to do this, and you’ll lose your cut. Do I need to repeat anything else?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Okay,” she said. “Well then. I think we should get going.”

While he had been concerned about the earnings split, it turned out that his worries were for naught. They all had to confirm that they were in the same party, and the leader presented the shares with their consent while the clerk wrote them down. For a brief moment, he was scared that this process would reveal the name on his ID, but that was also something he didn’t need to worry about. While he did have to give his ID, it was only to document everything, and the name wasn’t shared with his party members.

As soon as they finished that, they walked down into the room. Almost immediately, an unpleasant tang in the air struck his senses. He recognized that smell. It was the stink of blood, and he could even sense the faint hint of charred flesh.

That brought up extremely unpleasant memories, but he showed no outward indication that it had upset him. It was easier to hide things when nobody could see his face. Eventually, they finally entered the lobby that directly connected to the passage.

The first thing that caught his eye in the main room was the massive portal on the other side. It was the most prominent passage he had ever seen, wide enough for ten people to walk side by side without much problem.

And, through that passage, several people dragged monster corpses. Most of them were contained in transparent plastic bags.

They looked slightly smaller than he expected them to, but their description as edgy sloth monkeys was on point. Their fur collected into black spikes, and hints of red adorned their chests.

There were no cozy couches here, only hard benches and wooden chairs; on some of them, injured individuals were having their wounds treated out in the open. One of them had a massive gash along his stomach, and a part of his intestines was falling out.

Thank fuck that I decided to handle equipment before coming here, was the only thought he had on his mind as he winced in sympathy as the person screamed at having their viscera shoved back into their guts.

“Nasty day,” Theodore said. “Stay focused.”

Kyle, who looked more intimidating in his work mode, gradually shifted towards Freddy until he stepped beside him. “So… you also have a strength talent, then?” the man asked as if the answer was already evident.

His lips tightened as he thought his words through. He had already prepared what he would say to others ahead of time. “Actually, no,” he denied. “I have a regeneration-boosting talent.” Which was close enough to the truth that nobody would question it.

Even if someone noticed that his talent worked harder while he was fighting, he could always say that killing things or fighting made his talent go into overdrive or that he could manually boost the effectiveness sometimes or whatever. As long as he stuck close enough to the truth, it would be easy to justify discrepancies.

“Wow!” the man said, frowning in bemusement. “How the hell are you so strong, then?”

“Steroids,” he said simply, again stating a half-truth. “A lot of ’em.”

The man winced at that. “Yeah, that makes sense. You weren’t kidding about that Hydraulic Flex, though,” he conceded, chuckling. “That thing must be close to stage one, right?”

His lips yet again stretched into a line upon hearing that. It was actually only at around 30% complete. “Yeah,” he confirmed anyway.

“Man, you must have had—” The man tried continuing the conversation, but Petra intervened.

“Quiet back there. We’re entering the passage.”

Thus, they stepped through the massive entrance. It was day, luckily, and they walked out into the clearing. The sun burned intensely, shining from almost directly above. Trees had been felled, and a wide area had been cleared of growth. It was quite rocky, with many bushes covering the stones and medium-height trees jutting sparsely through the rough terrain. The heated air swiveled above the stone quarry around them, twisting and morphing with the heated air coming off them.

Without hesitation, Theodore turned down their planned route, and they started their hunt in absolute silence.

13

PROS IN ACTION

Green, yellow, red, and black. These were the color codes used to mark the danger of areas in passage realms. This was the first time Freddy realized that this system wasn’t unique to the mining expedition.

As they stepped into the green zone that marked the starting area, he couldn’t stop himself from looking around in wonder.

This realm had a rather unique geographical layout. Stone dominated most of the terrain, and hardy wood and low brush were right about the only thing that could survive there. Through the rocky soil, numerous paths had been carved, each clearly marked, their beginnings adorned by a highly informative sign stating where the road headed, with a chunk of a larger map printed out beneath the signs detailing nest locations, entrances, hotspots, and more.

“Wow…” he breathed out. As someone who had spent so long working in caverns where such signs carried considerably less information, he couldn’t help but appreciate the value of these markings.

He carefully observed the sign beside the road they were heading down. There were no red areas. Good. Only two nests, and both seemed to be of medium size.

The road they headed down was paved in flat stone, and its surface was so smooth that it glistened. The sheer number of shoe-bottoms that had graced this surface had polished it over the ages.

Eventually, the rocky terrain grew smoother, and the trees grew taller. Their walk was primarily silent, without much conversation between them, but the occasional, distant noise broke the quiet. It was vague, but it sounded like smashing or clanging or something, and in one direction, he could even spot a plume of smoke rising into the air.

Then they walked past another party. It was a five-man crew carrying tied-up bundles of gorel corpses, all wrapped in plastic bags, and they waved at them as they passed by, cheerfully carrying their bounty away.

Not long after, they approached the edge of the green zone, and the distant noises became clearer. It was the smashing of abilities going off, clanging of metal meeting claws, sounds of explosions, and shouting—so much shouting.

The calm walk there hadn’t given him an illusion of safety, but it had been deceptively quiet. The sounds around him cleared it up—they weren’t on a walk through the woods—they were entering a warzone.

The forest grew denser, the trees becoming tall and lush enough to plunge their path into darkness beneath the canopy.

Suddenly, the visor on his helmet felt stifling, and although most of his vision was intact, having even just the edges of his sight cut off made him feel blinder than he wanted to be.

An unexpected hand landed on his shoulder, and he jumped, facing the man who put it there.

Theodore, the brunet party leader, nodded at him and lightly patted his shoulder. “Are you nervous?” the man asked in a whisper.

He decided to be honest and nodded his head. Indeed. This was serious. He had thought he would be more prepared, that his time working in the caverns and the experience of fighting and killing a leviathan would allow him to be calmer, but he hadn’t walked into those situations ready to fight.

And, if he was being honest, the memories of his battle against the sea monster and the patriarch made him, if anything, want to retire and never face another monster again. He had no delusions of greatness—the only reason he had lived through that situation was because he just happened to have had the right tools at the right time. It had mostly been luck.

Regular delving, actually fighting with his life on the line where he relied on nothing but his knowledge, skill, and capabilities, was something he was entirely new to.

“Don’t worry,” the man said, smiling at him. “All of us here started somewhere, too, and we’re still alive.” He laughed a bit, pulling on Freddy’s jacket. “The first time I walked in here, I was wearing my grandpa’s old jacket and three pairs of jeans stacked over one another.”

Some among the others chuckled at that.

“And you had us—don’t forget that,” the man’s wife, Beatrice, said.

“Sorry, you’re right,” he acknowledged. “I even managed to survive despite having them!”

“Hey!” the woman protested, and he chuckled mirthlessly.

“Relax,” he said again, tapping him on the back. “You’re strong, well-equipped, and, hopefully, won’t be directly engaged in a fight. It’ll be fine.”

“Man, don’t say that kind of stuff,” Robert butted in. “You’re gonna jinx us.”

“Okay, enough chatting!” Petra interrupted. “We’re already in a danger zone! Keep your eyes peeled and your mouths shut.”

The man’s mood visibly soured, and he shook his head. He bowed his head and whispered into his ear, “Don’t get the wrong idea about her. She isn’t a total… uh… you know… Just during delves. Her sister died during one, so…”

“Ah, okay,” he said, but honestly, nothing the woman had done so far had irked him. All she had really done was follow safety protocols and rightfully tell them to stay silent. Gorels primarily relied on their hearing, after all.

“Movement,” Theodore said, suddenly turning serious as he whirled to their right. “Two-thirty.”

The group silenced. Everyone instantly took their bags off, cradling them in their left arms while holding a weapon out in their right, if they had one.

Theodore and Lance were the only two among them to, at least at first glance, appear unarmed. But the leader’s white gloves were clearly not an ordinary clothing article, and Lance had metallic gloves that were more like gauntlets. Robert held his bow, Kyle held his sword, and Petra and Beatrice held small staves.

They hadn’t told Freddy exactly what this meant, but he mimicked them and did the same thing, cradling his bag in his left arm. Nobody chastised him, so it at least wasn’t a mistake.

Their group went deathly silent as they stepped off the paved path and into the forest. It became instantly apparent what Lance had been calling out. There was a small group of things scurrying around a freshly dug-out entrance, gathering dead branches, pulled-out bushes, and mushrooms into piles. The small tunnel they were moving through was coming out of the side of a large stone formation.

Once they got within maybe fifty meters of their targets, Theodore raised his right arm, pointed a finger into the air, and swirled it around.

He knew what that meant. This was where they would leave their bags. All of them, including himself, threw their baggage into a large pile. He took a length of rope out of his rucksack and tied all the bags together. He tied a small weight they had provided him with around the rope’s end, threw it up and across a tall branch, and then pulled, raising their baggage above the ground.

Lance had moved to help him but stepped back when he realized that he had no trouble lifting this much by himself.

After tying the rest of the rope around the tree, he nodded, and the rest of them took off toward their targets, sneaking closer.

Robert climbed up into a tree, showcasing incredible agility with his air affinity, moving as if the air was dragging him along rather than providing resistance. Lance and Kyle split up, both men closely followed by one of the two casters, and Theodore stood right where he was, only tentatively hiding behind a tree.

Once they all got into position, the man raised an arm forward. He made a finger-gun gesture with his right hand and then, suddenly, fired a beam of light at one of the creatures.

The gorel was startled, but the attack did no harm. All it did was leave a white, glowing mark on the creature’s fur. Then another ability triggered, marking another beast, this time with a red color. The gorels were warily eyeing the direction the attacks were coming from. Multiple such abilities triggered, marking each gorel with a different color.

Not long after, the monsters clearly had enough and rushed into the woods, searching for whoever was doing this.

“Lance!” the leader yelled out.

The brawler immediately grabbed a sizable nearby rock and threw it at immense speed toward the tunnel entrance. The projectile smashed above the hole, collapsing it and preventing reinforcements from arriving.

“Robert! Red, blue, cyan, shoot!” Theodore yelled, and then the archer shot at the monsters marked in red, blue, and cyan, respectively.

The first two were caught clean in the torso, and the third was hit in the leg, but although the arrows had quite the power behind them, it was still barely enough to slow them down.

“Petra, green, bubble! Beatrice, red and cyan, firewall!” the man commanded.

Over the next few moments, the one with the green mark was trapped in a floating bubble of water, and the monster group was split right between the cyan and red gorels by a blazing hot firewall.

Theodore kept calling out names, colors, abilities, and sometimes numbers, using a 360-degree system to communicate where something was coming from or where it had to go.

Kyle’s sword slashed with such finesse and precision that it rarely, if ever, took more than a single swing to end a monster. Petra, who had the skill set of the other most common path water archs took, used her support abilities to debilitate opponents by trapping them in floating bubbles or turning the soil beneath their feet into mud puddles.

Lance showcased the true power of the earth affinity, pummeling the creatures with rock-hard punches and kicks, raising the soil and shifting it to break the monster’s footing up and gain the upper hand. Beatrice, although she avoided using her abilities directly on the monsters, likely to spare their bodies from being destroyed, could easily control the flow of battle by segmenting areas with a Firewall.

There had been around a dozen gorels there, outnumbering the party two to one, but after only a few minutes and without any apparent hiccups, the creatures were dead, and their party was victorious.

The teamwork, the planning, the setup, the synergies—it painted the picture of an efficient and deadly group of experienced hunters. And Theodore, despite not even inflicting a single injury on any of the creatures, had easily contributed the most. His marking ability made it effortless to pinpoint the exact enemy he was talking about, allowing him to quickly and clearly communicate information in battle.

“You guys are amazing,” Freddy couldn’t stop himself from saying as they reached him.

Theodore laughed loudly. “First time seeing a pro party in action?”

It wasn’t. Not really. He had seen a lot of combat footage while working as a cashier. But the memories of that—from a period where he knew little to nothing about the world of archs—were blurry and hazy. The footage wasn’t filmed to be clear to mortals, and nobody invested effort into explaining what was happening. It also didn’t help that most of the footage he saw was from the news; thus, it was chaotic and unfocused.

“Yeah,” he said. “That was pretty epic.”

“I appreciate the compliments,” the leader said, “but you should probably keep an eye out for anything that might be coming and not watching us all the time.”

“Don’t worry,” he said nervously. “Trust me, I was glancing around… a lot.”

The man chuckled and asked him to put their gear down. Once the bags were back on the ground, they took out plastic bags and gloves. Then they gathered the corpses and some pieces that had fallen victim to Kyle’s sword or a particularly nasty punch by Lance and placed them into the bags, trying to keep them to one body at a time.

The bags could be sealed by pulling on a small thread. Then, through the use of plastic hooks and racks, they could be tied into bundles.

“This is where your work really comes in,” Theodore said, turning to face him. “You’re gonna have to carry a lot of these. We’re not done hunting until we take at least another party this size.” Then, pointing at the rope the bags had been tied to, he added, “Just for the record, you’re guarding the bags so that no pricks would try to snatch a bag or two while we’re distracted.”

He then pointed at the bags of monsters. “These are the goods that’ll really be in danger. Gorels can smell the blood of their kin, and they tend to gather the corpses to drag them back down into the hive. There is a rather high likelihood that you’ll have to defend the bodies from an attack.”

He winced at that.

“So you’ve seen them in action now. I’ll give you a choice,” the man said. “You can help us drag these corpses back to the hub to sell and return or guard them while we fight another group. If you choose the first option, as per our agreement, you must carry most of the burden so we can stay in shape for another fight. But if you pick the⁠—”

“Let’s take these back first,” he answered unhesitantly. He was confident in fighting; he really was, but there was no need to take the risk. And if there was anything he excelled at, it was hauling heavy stuff around on his back.

Theodore shrugged. “I prefer that option, too.”

Everyone agreed with that. Hauling two dozen monster corpses wouldn’t be an easy task.

So, without hesitation, he lifted one of the bags. These things were quite heavy; judging from experience, he could tell that the bag weighed around 40 kg, a bit over half the weight of an average adult male. Grabbing the rack, he hooked together six bags.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Theodore said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, pal. Those things aren’t light, and we have a while of walking to get back to the passage. That’s over five hundred pounds you’re trying to haul. Are you trying to kill yourself?”

He was about to hook another two for a total of eight, which he assumed himself capable of doing but stopped upon the man’s request. Indeed, he had lost a lot of muscle mass since the peak of his strength. Perhaps he was getting a bit ahead of himself.

“I’ll keep it to six, then,” he said, attaching the two bands that would wrap around his arms, allowing him to wear the rack like a backpack. He also tied his rucksack over it. It did add another fifty pounds to the weight, but he should still be able to do it. If not, he’d take a bag off.

Before Theodore could stop him, he hauled the weight onto his back… and got up. It was pretty heavy, indeed, and he could tell seven would already be too much.

“This much is fine,” he said.

Theodore raised an eyebrow at that. “Okay, Spartan.” Then, with a cheeky smile, he added, “If you can carry that all the way to the passage, I’ll add another 1% to your pay.”

Freddy nodded at that. “Deal.”

And thus, they began their journey. On their way back, Theodore remained hyper-vigilant and, a few times, redirected their path, stating that there was danger up ahead. With the man’s guidance, the party always took the safest path.

As for the rest of the bags, all of them carried one each. It took them around an hour to make it back. Every few minutes, they threw inquiring glances his way and seemed more and more surprised that he was handling himself just fine.

Theodore was getting somewhat tired from hauling his weight, and even the girls showed signs of slight wear, albeit less than their leader. While that much wasn’t particularly bad, they were all one-stars. Only Kyle had a dedicated talent to help him carry his share; everyone else had to rely on their bodies.

It was also unsurprising that Theodore was struggling. After all, the man was a light-affinity arch—and the light affinity had very few tempering techniques. Light-affinity archs were nearly guaranteed to get the holy affinity upon ascension, and that at least provided them with a few options. Until then, however… they had little to rely on.

By the end of their journey, Freddy was pretty exhausted, but not nearly as much as he should have been. At least not according to them. They praised his strength and endurance as they dropped the bodies off at the counter and returned to the passage.

After another hour of walking, rehydrating themselves, and eating some snacks, they all recovered their energy.

And so did he. But while some slight signs of fatigue were on them, he was perfectly fine. To him, this came as no surprise. He had used Adaptive Water Body much while hauling massive boulders on his back. To the others, however…

“What the fuck kind of juice are you on to be so damn tough!?” Robert asked, eyeing him with evident bemusement in his expression.

He chuckled at that. “Trust me, if you knew the type of training I’ve gone through, you wouldn’t be surprised.”

If anything, that only made the others more curious, but Petra quickly cut their interrogation off as they again set foot into the forest, raising her even further in his eyes.

After not even ten minutes of searching, they came across another group of gorels. But this was different. The last group was only workers. This one wasn’t.

“Three guards and six workers,” Theodore said, using an ability to scout from afar. “What do you guys think?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Petra said, surprisingly enough. “I can keep a guard contained in a bubble, and Beatrice can blow another one up. We lose a body, but that makes things minimal risk.”

Theodore nodded. “My thoughts exactly. But instead of Fireball, I think we could get away with Robert’s Negative Pressure. If we really need it, Beatrice can ease our load later if things get too hectic.”

After a few seconds of thinking, they nodded in agreement.

“You heard it, chief,” he said to the archer. “Aim for the head.”

Robert nodded.

They approached the position again, starting the fight with Theodore marking all the opponents. Petra trapped one guard in a bubble, as promised, and another guard was struck by an arrow traveling impossibly fast, which resulted in half its head being blown wide open.

Freddy kept an eye on the fight, but this time he took his role of lookout more seriously, observing the forest surrounding them. Suddenly, the sound of something clawing its way down a nearby tree reached his ears, and he turned to face the noise.

A very angry-looking gorel stared at him from behind a tree beside him.

Judging by its large build and sharp claws, it was a guard. And judging by the green stripes running all across its body…

It was a deviant.

14

PITCH BLACK AURA

There was no time to think. Freddy stood, facing a green-striped guard, unsure of what to do. The creature was clearly after him, and not the bags, so he made the wise choice of backing away while yelling “Devia—!” but that was all he could get out before the creature launched a bundle of slithering vines and wrapped his body up from head to toe.

The guard charged at him fearlessly, readying its claws to disembowel him.

Hydraulic Flex triggered, tightening his muscles and straining against the vines tying him up.

With a tearing sound, he managed to free the upper part of his body, and with a mighty grip, he started removing the vines around his legs, but the creature was nearly upon him, forcing him to jump aside and roll back up to his feet. The monster whirled, preparing to tie him up in vines once more, but the attack struck empty air as he tumbled to the side again, finally setting his legs free.

The monster charged at him again, preparing to swing its claws at him, and this time, he could clearly see the glistening shine of a liquid—likely venom. Gritting his teeth, he focused.

His first star lit up, shining brightly as the essence from within flowed out, and the second star joined it as the guard reached him, doubling the essence output. His leg swung up with a Flowing Strike.

The gorel didn’t dodge. Gorels in general had a tendency to not dodge attacks.

Big mistake.

His foot landed on its jaw, slamming its nasty mouth shut, crushing the teeth, cracking the skull, and snapping the neck with the visceral sound of vertebrae popping apart and flesh tearing. As the force of the strike was transferred through his leg, the creature’s momentum was completely halted, forcing it to a stop as blood gushed out its eyes and mouth. Not even a whimper came out as the guard dropped lifelessly to the ground.

He followed soon after, unable to stay on his feet. “Fuuuuuu—!” he cursed, holding his hip, which, together with his knee and ankle, hurt like hell from the backlash.

Activating both his stars with Flowing Strike had not been a good idea. Using it in action for the first time was stupid. Given that he used Abyssal Depths, he had to be extra careful to ensure he could handle the force of his attacks. Thankfully, he landed a solid blow, ending the fight before having to face the consequences of his mistake.

Lifesteal flowed into his body, undoing some of the damage. It was enough to let him stand up on his feet, but it left him confused. Even with only 1% Lifesteal, was smashing this creature’s head and killing it on the spot really not enough to offset the backlash? That had him worried.

But it was no big deal. Injuries suffered as a consequence of ability use recovered at almost supernatural quality. That was the crutch—Ethereal Mercy—the phenomenon that made using abilities without completely destroying one’s body possible.

His combat shoes… They were fine. Other than the smattering of blood on them, they had held firm, withstanding the force of his attack without any hiccups. Good. His decision to splurge extra on them had been a wise one.

His eyes glanced at the body before him. There was no prime vestige anywhere. It would have manifested by that point if it was going to.

He sighed and then looked at the others. The party acted as if nothing had happened, entirely focusing on their fight. For a brief moment, he even thought that they hadn’t noticed he was in trouble. However, as their final opponent fell, they instantly turned around, sprinting toward him.

Ah… he thought, finally realizing something. They had noticed. But they focused on ending the fight first.

A wise decision.

As expected of professionals.

“Are you all right!?” Theodore asked, rushing forward. “Don’t move! People often get injured without realizing it…” he said, trailing off as he carefully checked his clothing for cuts, tears, or any signs that he was bleeding anywhere.

Once he confirmed what Freddy already knew—that he hadn’t gotten struck anywhere—the man closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

Before Freddy could even finish asking himself why the man was doing that, Petra stepped up to the man and slapped the absolute shit out of him. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” she screamed. “Why didn’t you check the trees!?” she demanded, furious at the man’s apparent slip-up.

Indeed. With the light affinity, he should have several ocular and scouting abilities. It was his job to ensure that something like this didn’t happen.

“I’m sorry,” was all the man could say. He looked distressed, and Freddy caught the man glancing at him warily, only to tear his gaze away immediately after meeting his eyes. He must have felt guilty about his error.

“Shit, man…” Robert said, staring at the deviant’s corpse and raising an eyebrow. “What the hell did you hit this thing with?”

“Flowing Strike,” he eked out with a pained groan. “I landed a pretty good one but put too much weight on my leg,” he lied as he prepared to get up. He did not land a good one. In fact, he mistimed it pretty drastically, and the only thing that saved him was the fact that it had two stars of power behind it.

The pain in his leg had significantly subsided, but he was still visibly favoring his other foot. The lifesteal had offset a lot of the damage, which helped hide the extent of the backlash he had suffered.

“Wait,” Petra said. “Take it easy.” She approached him and placed an arm on the thigh of his injured leg. A soothing pulse entered his body, and he immediately realized what the woman was doing. It was a healing ability.

For any form of long-term healing, the life affinity was vastly superior. But when it came to first aid, water had the upper hand. It could undo internal bleeding with ease and help set things straight.

Although it was rather soothing to the touch, as soon as the ability stopped, the pain returned, utterly undiminished. He pretended he felt great relief and simply endured the pain, acting as if it wasn’t a big deal. It was easy to convince them. Nobody there believed he was a two-star, and a normal Flowing Strike should by no means cause an injury as severe as the one he had suffered.

They gathered the bodies in silence. They insisted that he should take it easy this time, but he demanded to carry most of the load, using his “regeneration talent” as an argument for why they didn’t need to worry. Ultimately, he ended up carrying the three guards they had taken down.

Although he still felt great pain, it was by no means debilitating.

On their way back, they walked past several other parties. Nobody said anything throughout their journey.

Once they stepped back through the passage, they offloaded the bodies and sat down to wait. The payment for the regular gorels was quickly and easily calculated. They weighed the bodies and assessed the damage to valuable parts. As for the deviant, it was put up for auction on one of the ethernet channels, where it waited for only five minutes. There were numerous individuals whose entire job was to retrieve deviant corpses from such auctions.

He was given a slip. He looked at it and quickly noticed it was a receipt.

The paper listed the number of bodies retrieved, both workers and guards, the average value per kilogram, and had a separate part where it just said, “Deviant x1.” In the end, the total payment they received as a party was… 9,100 dollars.

What proceeded was an absolute gutting of that number. First, there was the fifty percent fee.

Jesus Christ… he called internally. But that was the price of delving into “free” public passages.

Then it deducted the ninety percent that went to his party members and, from the sum that remained, five percent for taxes. Apparently, that was it. As a two-star, that was all the taxes he had to pay.

Ultimately, the number at the bottom of his receipt was four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Before he could think much about it, the others approached him.

“Hey…” Beatrice called. “We talked about it, and as an apology, we’d like to give you the money for the deviant corpse. You’ve earned it, and it’s this idiot’s”—she punched Theodore in the arm—”mistake that you had to fight in the first place.”

He stared at them, briefly looking at the paper in his hand. Indeed, that was nearly two thousand dollars, but… his eyes yet again flickered to the final amount he would be paid.

Four hundred and thirty-seven dollars… The number bounced around in his head, rolling around like a dirty stone on his tongue as he quietly mouthed the words.

He was conflicted. There was a part of him screaming in elation. By all means, that money had been easy to make. What happened to him with the deviant was an implausible scenario, to the point where he was starting to think he might be genuinely cursed.

And even then, he had walked away without suffering real damage; even his equipment was unscathed.

But there was another part of him. A part that wanted more. A beast who had hungered all his life now drooled liberally as a massive pile of food appeared before its eyes.

“I can’t accept that,” he said, rejecting them.

Just as they were about to argue, he raised an arm and said, “In return for that mistake, I’d like something else.”

They eyed him patiently.

“I would like to repeat this a few more times,” he requested. “I’ve learned much today, and if you could show me around and teach me all you know about delving here, at least until I find a more permanent solution, I’d really appreciate it.”

Suddenly, Theodore asked, “How about you join our party?” He seemed a bit too eager.

Freddy laughed at that awkwardly. He had already half-expected to be given an offer like that, so he used the response he’d prepared. “You guys already have a rather balanced composition; adding me would be⁠—”

“Thirty percent,” Theodore said, not even blinking.

“Excuse me?”

“If you join us, I’d be willing to pay you thirty percent of all we earn.”

That was… an extremely generous offer. To the point where he was sure the man was getting some strange idea. “Listen,” he said, “I got pretty lucky dealing with that deviant. I can hardly say that’s representative of my⁠—”

“Fifty percent,” the man offered. Everyone around him stared at him with wide eyes, but nobody said anything to stop him. They had complete faith in their leader and likely a good reason to believe he was making an educated decision.

Uh-oh, Freddy thought, suddenly keenly aware that the man might not be as misguided as he believed him to be.

Theodore glanced around. “Let’s move to the sofas upstairs.”

So they did.

Once they sat down, Theodore sat beside him. “I am the leader of our group for several reasons,” he said. “The biggest of which is my talent. With a glance at most living creatures, I can see the relative threat they pose as an aura of sorts.”

Freddy froze.

The man continued, “When I look at you, I see…” He took a long look at him. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” he said. “That was why you caught my attention. Usually, those invisible to my talent either have a talent preventing me from perceiving such information or expensive equipment doing the same thing. I don’t believe you have either, yet I still can’t see what you’re worth.”

Numerous thoughts spun through his mind, but he simply waited, not showing any of his turbulence outwardly. Thankfully, his face was hidden.

“Now, I would be a liar if I said I knew everything about my talent,” the man said. “But I think that the reason why I can’t see your worth is because my talent simply can’t determine it. You’re an unpredictable variable, something that can’t be measured through straightforward means. You probably have very situational abilities or thrive under particular circumstances. I’ve encountered something like that already once before.”

That was precisely the case. Under the right circumstances, he could defeat an elite four-star archhuman—an unbelievable feat. But in a straightforward duel? He wasn’t even sure whether he could stand up to an average two-star warrior. Hell, he’d probably struggle against elite one-stars with his lack of skill.

“I have some fun theories of who you might be or what you’re doing here,” the man continued. “But in any case, I have no doubt that you’re talented. In fact, I’d bet anything that you’re far stronger than any of us. When I say join the party, what I’m really saying is we’ll all support you. I’ll even sign an NDA if you want to keep your abilities a secret. What do you say?” the man said, keeping firm eye contact as he waited for the answer.

That was a good offer. An excellent one, in fact. But this didn’t sit well with him. This man was cunning, ambitious, and decisive. He had been acting with an ulterior motive and, in hindsight, had been trying to get a read on his abilities from the very start.

“I apologize, but I’d like to continue as a helper.”

“I see…” Theodore said, sighing. “I’ve already arranged to have the money for the deviant sent to your account,” he added. “So you can’t refuse that much.” He gave him a cheeky wink.

Freddy laughed at that. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“And I want to say sorry again.” Theodore sagged. “I promise something like that won’t happen next time.”

Theodore watched Liam Johnson get up and walk away. Rubbing his hands and biting his fist, he sighed. “Do you think he’d agree if I offered seventy percent?” he asked the others.

“What did you see?” Beatrice asked knowingly.

He hadn’t lied. He honestly couldn’t see the man’s aura…

Not until he saw the man fight.

That deviant hadn’t been a coincidence. Of course he had seen it. Even camouflaged, that creature couldn’t hide its aura from him. But it wasn’t like he was trying to kill Liam. The entire time, he had had Piercing Ray and enough essence prepared to intervene in case the man needed saving.

He just wanted to test him. If his hunch was correct, Liam was the son of someone powerful. Many families sent their kids off to fight and make their way up themselves rather than coddling them with unlimited resources and privileges. Getting someone like that on their team, even temporarily, could drastically boost their standing and finances.

At that moment, however… In the second Liam swung his leg to strike the deviant…

He saw it.

The aura.

“Pitch black,” he said to the others, feeling tingles running down his spine as he vividly recalled the sight. “It was violent and roiling, like an electrified fire, and it manifested into a large image of a dripping skull peering directly into my soul. I’ve never seen that happen in my life,” he said, whimpering slightly. “We need to get that man on our team. Even if we have to beg him to join.”

Freddy made his way back to his apartment. When he stepped inside, he quickly regretted having bought so many complex layers of armor. All of it needed to be carefully taken off and washed. Thankfully he had the water affinity—without it, drying his clothes would be a nightmare.

His dinner was a dozen scrambled eggs and white bread, and as soon as he ate, he went to the room, lying on the bed.

Although it had mostly recovered, he still felt hints of pain in his hip. How the hell had that strike hurt him so badly? Even with all the lifesteal… It was concerning. Very concerning. The first thought that came to mind was that it was Abyssal Depths. And he was probably right.

He had already regained the progress he had lost—30% extra weight. That was around the maximum value of stage zero Abyssal Depths. Utilizing that much excess water with Flowing Strike and even using two stars… He had felt it. It was as if a siphon had been directly connected to his essence pool, draining a shocking amount on just that one ability.

The more mass in his body, the more essence Flowing Strike would consume. After all, it had more water to move. He had decided to use Abyssal Depths haphazardly, and the more time passed, the more he began to assume that he had made a mistake.

It was well past the time for him to get his abilities in order. Now that he was properly delving, he needed to know what all he was capable of. Money wouldn’t be a problem, either.

It was time to join a training compound.

15

LIVING WEAPON

The apartment Freddy was living in was a five-minute walk away from the hub. And given that the entire district was built around the hub and the passages within, that meant that he was a five-to-ten-minute walk away from everything.

In fact, the training center closest to where he lived was only two minutes away—all he had to do to get there was leave the building and walk down the street.

All told, added with what he earned earlier that day, he only had another twenty-seven thousand dollars. With the exorbitant rent and belief that it would be wise to have some savings, he had decided against paying for a membership when he first moved in.

After all, the monthly membership here was over ten thousand dollars a month. There were many cheaper ones around, but they were severely under-equipped compared to this establishment, at least according to the ads for this place.

As he stepped before the mega-gym, he blinked. The outside of this place had the gaudiest, most ostentatious facade he had ever witnessed. The entire surface was plated in gems, gold, and art, mostly of powerful-looking warriors and stuff.

It was such a childish exterior that he was utterly bemused. The ads had been wack enough, but this… Still, from what little conversation he had overheard, people only had good things to say about this place. Well, mostly.

Sighing, he walked inside.

The first thing that caught his attention was the noise. It was loud; groaning, yelling, smashing, and cracking echoed throughout the building. In contrast, there was no smell at all. It was as if the air was totally pure, leaving a dizzying sensory void in contrast to the smelly city outside.

The interior caught him by surprise. First, there was none of the opulence here, replaced by the clinical, cold white of the walls and gray of the ceiling and floor, with only the wooden reception desk and, further down the hallway to the left, the red, synthetic cushions on the workout machines, as well as the people using them, standing out.

The inside wasn’t as open as he expected; it was segmented into distinct areas, with numerous pointers and area markers noting which paths down the hallways went where.

The male receptionist didn’t even look at him as he walked inside; he seemed busy writing something.

So he approached him. “Hi,” he greeted.

The man looked up briefly. “Hello, welcome to the Santorio Training Center,” the man said dryly. “Is this your first time here?” he asked, briefly glancing at the gloves he was wearing to conceal his rings.

“Yeah, I’d like to get a membership,” he answered.

The man handed him a paper. It seemed to be a short contract.

It took all the will he could muster not to curse at the absurd pricing. Apparently, that whole “prices start at ten thousand dollars a month” thing was a cheap marketing trick. Because while prices did indeed begin there… that wasn’t where they ended.

Ten thousand dollars a month, and I get to come here only once a week!? he screamed internally, unable to wrap his head around what he saw.

He had no idea what the hell kind of equipment these people had, but there was no way that it was worth this much.

“Uhm…” he started, frowning and glancing at the man while preparing to ask what warranted such a price.

Rather than let him speak, the man simply rolled his eyes and sassily handed him a small catalog. It was a detailed guide on what each tier provided and all the services one could get at the training center.

“Uh… thanks.” He grabbed the catalog and walked away, sitting on a small bench beside the gym’s entrance.

As soon as he started analyzing the pricing, he cringed. For several reasons. First, what the hell was up with this naming convention? The tiers were Knight, Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, and Duke. Talk about pretentious. And the prices were absurd! Knight was ten thousand, Baron was twenty thousand, Viscount was thirty, Earl was fifty, Marquess was a hundred thousand dollars, and the Duke tier cost two hundred thousand dollars a month.

Massive discounts were provided for those who purchased yearly memberships, which was probably precisely what this pricing aimed at. Still, even then, Duke cost a staggering million dollars a year.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed and looked at the benefits.

All that the Knight membership provided was access to the facility once a week. More specifically, it offered three hours of access to the workout equipment area, a measly ten minutes in the gathering chambers, fifteen minutes in the ability testing area, and twenty minutes in the combat simulation room.

As for what the areas other than the workout equipment area even were, he had no idea. There were extra benefits further down the list, given to higher ranks, with Duke simply saying “unlimited access to all facilities.”

Rather than dwell on it much, he got up, awkwardly returned the catalog, and walked out. While he was hella curious about what the testing area and combat simulation chambers were, he wasn’t ten-thousand-dollars-a-month curious. Not yet. The cost-effectiveness of paying for a membership here wasn’t worth it. Instead, he made his way down to another gym, one that was about five minutes away from his apartment, and entered.

Ten minutes later, he angrily stomped out. As for why he was furious, it was simple—they had rejected his application! Apparently, this gym wasn’t accepting two-star archhumans; they legally weren’t allowed to because their equipment wasn’t up to the standards two-stars required.

It made sense. If a barbell snapped under the sort of weight a powerful two-star could handle, it could lead to severe injury. Hell, even death. But that was the second time he was barred from accessing something just because he was a two-star. There was something to be said about that.

Soon enough, he reached the gym that was fifteen minutes away from his place, but whatever, he just needed a damn place to lift and punch something.

Although it was much cheaper than Santorio, Tackman’s gym was still a pricey thousand dollars monthly for full access. As for its interior, it heavily reminded him of that place he and Mark had trained at.

There were slight differences, however. While that place had catered more to non-combat archhumans, this was made for warriors.

The first floor was nearly identical, but the second floor, other than the section with dummies, had an entire area added for practicing parkour, with many monkey bars, ropes, and obstacle courses several people trained at with impressive skill.

As for the third floor, it was similarly oriented toward cardio and endurance exercises, but other than treadmills, there was also a rock-climbing course and a pool that could simulate raging waters.

He signed up and headed to the crowded locker room, ignoring the several half-naked men. Unfortunately, this place wasn’t quite as fancy as Kargon. There were no free gym clothes. He cursed under his breath but resigned to his fate. Not a big deal. He was already wearing casual clothing anyway, and it wasn’t the end of the world if he got a bit sweaty.

Once he stepped out into the gym, his mood instantly changed. It made him… nostalgic. In that brief instant, he returned to a simpler time, a place where an innocent, young kid trained to look good for a show.

That person was long dead.

In his stead, a bitter soul walked out.

He had just realized he had no way to use his talent. There were no convenient flesh blobs in his gym bag, nor was there a forest he could eco-terrorize. He’d have to do something about that.

For the time being, however, that wasn’t a priority.

Walking up to the second floor, he faced the dummies. A few people were already using them, and as far as he could see, none of them could hit quite as hard as he could. The dummies themselves were roughly man-shaped constructs of solid material, but he wasn’t sure exactly how tough they were.

Then he walked back down and looked for a staff member. He asked the man how much those dummies could handle, and the man simply said that he was only forbidden from using external abilities. No throwing fireballs or stabbing them, and even at two-star power, he should be fine.

Good.

He walked back up to the second floor. The sounds of the people around him were an unwelcome distraction. Several men and women were using the dummies beside him, throwing punches and kicks enhanced by all sorts of internal abilities.

A fire-affinity woman was using the Ignited Muscle technique. It was an ability that boosted one’s physical prowess by artificially speeding up the metabolism. It could be compared to Hydraulic Flex because it triggered in the muscles that were being used. The key difference was that this version was easier to use than Hydraulic Flex and more powerful, but also consumed far more essence. It also exhausted the user far faster.

How it looked externally, however, was entirely different. Sweat evaporated off her red skin, and he could feel the heat from where he was. Her punches and kicks landed with a solid thump, and their speed was impressive.

Right beside her was an earth-affinity man using Tectonic Strike. This ability was similar to Flowing Strike but had one key difference. There was no need to time it. It simply added momentum to the attacks. Conversely, it was far inferior to a perfectly timed Flowing Strike, but it was so much more consistent that it compensated more than enough for that discrepancy.

On Freddy’s other side was another man, this time an air-affinity arch. He raised an eyebrow at the fact that all four elements were arranged side by side. A fun coincidence.

As for this man, he was using Wind Strike—a simple ability that used the air around one’s limbs to boost their speed. As for its power, it was by far the weakest of the four elements, but it was unrivaled in agility. More often than not, it was used paired with a weapon.

Well then. It was time for him to fill in the missing link.

He got into a stance. It was nothing special. Frankly, if someone who had trained in actual martial arts saw him, they’d probably ridicule him. With his current body, he estimated his base weight to be around seventy-five kilograms—with Abyssal Depths, he was at almost a hundred.

He took a look at his two stars. They were fully topped off.

Pulling his fist back, he used Flowing Strike.

After much practice, as long as his target was stationary, he could time Flowing Strike without much difficulty. His arm stretched out, carrying the compound momentum of the wave moving through his body.

Just as all the force gathered at the end, his knuckles met the dummy’s torso.

The impact made a thud, causing the people around him to jump in surprise at the sudden noise. He pulled his fist back and swung it again. The dummy’s torso deformed under his strikes, but it was designed to do that. It would go back after he was done.

One strike after another depleted his reserves, and by the end, he had used all of his essence.

Fourteen Flowing Strikes. That was all he could muster. That wasn’t much. It was far too few, actually, but he wasn’t surprised to see that.

He stepped away, walking to the middle of the room and sat down. He dove into his ethercosm. He saw his two dim and pale stars there, with only the red ring around his first glowing brightly. Added together, his total essence capacity was at around 110%.

That meant that a single Flowing Strike consumed a bit under 8% of his total reserves.

At this moment, he couldn’t help but ask himself—was using Abyssal Depths with Flowing Strike a mistake?

With each new star, archhumans could double their essence output. But their total capacity only increased by one more star, and that was at the peak. Freddy could double the essence expenditure, but, at the moment, he only had a bit more essence than a peak one-star.

At the start of the third star, this would get much worse. Quadruple output, but only 210%.

Once he gained four stars, it would be octuple output but 310%.

It wasn’t like there were no ways around this. Equipment, such as the ring on his finger, could work to reduce expenditure, and there were also satellites, but he was far too poor to even dream about getting one of those.

He bit his lip.

With every bit of extra weight, Flowing Strike would become more expensive. With every star, that price would double.

He had no delusions about his talent as a martial artist. He had the power, but his mastery over it was… underwhelming, to say the least. And it wasn’t like Flowing Strike was an easy ability to use.

At his current trajectory, that ability was becoming more and more of a trump card. While he could use it fourteen times, it was far from his only ability, and with two extra affinities, it would only get more competition. Soon enough, he could only afford to use it a few times; he had to be confident in his ability to land it. Otherwise, he would be throwing away a good chunk of his reserves for no reason.

Things only got worse with doubling his essence output.

The more his Abyssal Depths grew, the more the ability would cost. When he became a three-star, he could see the ability reaching as much as 30% essence expenditure. Quadrupling that number would make for an ultimate move, not something one would throw around willy-nilly in combat. At four stars? Shit, he could possibly go over 200% of total output. But at that point, the ability might make his entire arm explode under the stress.

He had swaggered into most of his choices regarding his path, but now that he could take his time and think things through, he was beginning to realize that his foundation was all over the place.

It was practically a miracle that he managed to develop Hydraulic Flex and upgrade his Hundred Wet Hells—and speaking of which, Thousand Wet Hells was something he had little confidence in using yet. The few times he tried, he genuinely nearly died.

There was also the still-undeveloped shell for Pressure Jet. He would have to think deeply about whether that was even worth working on.

But that was for later.

Now, he had to decide whether to continue developing Abyssal Depths and using Flowing Strike. It was a lethal combo, but it came at a cost.

Honestly, he really wanted to keep it and just see where it took him. He could technically just work on Abyssal Depths up to a point and stop when he was happy with his weight, but that wasn’t an optimal solution. At that point, it would be better to undo Abyssal Depths and start working on Flowing River. Those two tempering techniques couldn’t be used simultaneously because they clashed in their function. Both aimed to compress water—one into channels, and the other just in general.

The other solution would be to drop Flowing Strike and rely on Hydraulic Flex in combat. That wasn’t an option he wanted to choose. Hydraulic Flex just wasn’t as good for unarmed combat as Flowing Strike was.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. He tried gathering, but the air was void of water wisps, as was to be expected in a place with so many archhumans. Instead, he manually collected some of the loose wisps he could get his projection’s scythe on and returned to reality when he had enough essence.

He approached the dummy again. Focusing on his core, both his stars lit up, and he swung his fist. The Flowing Strike landed with a deafening bang that shook the floor beneath his feet.

The people beside him once more eyed him strangely, and they made some distance this time.

He gritted his teeth as he stepped away once more. He slowly peeled the glove off.

His arm hurt like hell. The veins along his forearm had bulged, turning purple; the skin on his knuckles was slightly darker, and he was clearly suffering from internal injuries, including cracked bones.

It was already this bad at just 16% output. Just how much worse would it get later?

Taking a deep breath, he clenched his injured fist, basking in the pain. Was he really prepared to walk down this path?

Maybe not. But he lost nothing if he just gave it a try. The training he would have to undergo to make this combo usable would be utterly hellish, incomparable to anything he had done up until that point.

But he had his talent. He had both Leviathan’s Fury and Blood Sacrifice.

And an affinity he hadn’t touched yet.

An affinity considered unrivaled in making one’s body into a living weapon.

16

MOTION

Ethereal Mercy. It was a phenomenon that single-handedly made most abilities possible. The supernatural recovery from ether backlash was the only reason tempering techniques even existed, and some affinities, like fire or death, would be utterly unusable without it.

Freddy carefully observed how his arm recovered from the Flowing Strike he had used against the dummy. The cracked bone, burst veins, torn muscle—it all slowly reverted, almost as if time itself was being rewound. After not even a few hours, it healed.

But he felt it. The consequences still remained. He had grown used to having a practically perfect body, and now even the tiniest of imperfections stood out.

For a while, at least, he would have to live with them.

During the time he had been recovering, he had made a quick trip to a nearby library. The clerk had eyed him and his clearly severe arm injury with a curious expression on their face, but it wasn’t like it was an uncommon sight in the world of archhumans.

As for what he went to get, it was a book, of course. It cost him only a few hundred dollars. As for what it was, it was much like the guide for water abilities he purchased back in the private neighborhood, just way less fancy—The Blood Affinity: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners.

There were no ether imprints, essence flow guides, moving pictures, or anything other than plain, boring text. And for a good reason. He was done using crutches like that for his development. The more an archhuman developed their power, the greater the need for a unique understanding of their affinities and the synergy with their talent.

One day, he might stumble upon an interesting, promising idea for a tempering technique. But it would hold no value if he couldn’t develop it himself.

As he paid the bill, he walked into a quiet corner of the library, sat between two dusty bookshelves covering old history, and started reading.

The book was enlightening in many ways. He didn’t get too far into it, but he quickly learned what he needed to get started.

First was the Pool of Blood tempering technique. This was the ability that was effectively the foundation of the entire affinity. Without it, in all but the most peculiar cases, using one’s blood as a weapon was virtually impossible.

Ethereal Mercy did apply to blood loss due to using the affinity, but it couldn’t stop that blood loss from killing the user.

In came the Pool of Blood tempering technique. It was an ability quite similar to Abyssal Depths, with one key difference. While Abyssal Depths worked to compress liquid into the body, Pool of Blood aimed to increase the volume.

At stage zero, it was called Puddle of Blood; it dilated the veins and could increase the overall volume of blood by around 25%. That was very little. So little, in fact, that blood archs were considered virtually useless before upgrading the ability to stage one—when it officially turned into Pool of Blood.

The key difference at stage one was that the ability conjured something akin to dimensional storage inside a blood arch’s heart through concepts like internal storage or increased capacity.

While Abyssal Depths worked in increments of 30%, the blood capacity of the Pool of Blood grew exponentially. First, it was 25% at Puddle of Blood, then doubled at Pool of Blood, quintupled at Lake of Blood, and, finally, at Sea of Blood, it could increase up to twenty times in capacity. The book only speculated on what the fourth stage looked like since the only people who could even get stage four abilities had to be at least elite four-star archhumans, and few among them readily shared the secrets of their abilities.

As for using both Abyssal Depths and Puddle of Blood, there should be no issues with that. Interestingly enough, the abilities wouldn’t interact at all. It wasn’t as if there were no cases of tempering techniques from two different affinities clashing, but it wasn’t as common as within a single affinity.

Reading further, he discovered that the blood affinity had what could be roughly defined as three main paths, barring peculiar exceptions. All three paths were determined by a single tempering technique, and since they all aimed to change the properties of the blood within the arch’s body, only one could be picked.

Rich Blood, Red Venom, and Crimson Mercury were the three primary tempering techniques of the blood affinity.

Rich Blood made one’s blood, well, rich. It enabled incredible physical performance through Blood Rush, an ability that consumed one’s blood for a power boost. It was a rather one-note path, but it wasn’t a bad one. Its potency couldn’t be reasonably compared to water and earth affinity when it came to overall utility for martial arts, but when it came to raw strength and endurance, it was the best there was as far as basic affinities were concerned.

It was also the path that held the most compatibility with taming monsters through blood pacts. But that was rather rare to see, even if most people tried it if they got the opportunity to.

Red Venom turned one’s blood incredibly toxic, starting with just making it poisonous, then acidic, then necrotic, and ultimately… explosive. Which seemed out of place, but it fit the path perfectly. This was the most popular path for most blood archs, as it focused on casting and long-ranged abilities. Such routes were generally more popular, as few people wanted to get close and personal with the things they were fighting.

And, finally, Crimson Mercury, which was also the path that Janhalar had been following. As for this tempering technique, one’s blood became metallic, making it incredibly easy to coagulate into weapons or projectiles. It could be used pretty well at both short and long range.

As for which ability he would take… he was partial to Rich Blood. It synergized the best with his style. It even stated in the book that the choice was a trendy one when coupled with another affinity since it greatly simplified the path of blood, reducing it to a single tempering technique and only one core ability.

Of course, most who only went down that one path had other abilities, too, but when one had several affinities to work with, it was best to keep one as their primary and the others as secondary, lest they overburden themselves with too many undeveloped skills.

But… he wondered. Red Venom was definitely too beside the point for his current path unless he wanted to fully respec himself as a caster, but there was a solid argument for him to go with Crimson Mercury—it was the most essence-efficient.

True, Rich Blood sounded great. But Blood Rush—the core ability of the path—while really powerful, was an essence-guzzler like no other. Crimson Mercury, on the other hand, mainly relied on weapon-conjuring abilities. The blood itself became like metal; thus, shaping it into the form of a weapon didn’t require all that much essence, just a relatively small burst to make it coagulate.

But that had a whole different problem—which weapon would he use? Weapons weren’t really his thing since he never quite had a teacher, formal education, or any other opportunity to learn how to use one.

The choice wasn’t easy.

But for the time being, there was no need to rush.

Once his arm healed, he started walking back to the gym. On his way there, he suddenly remembered something. Taking a quick moment to dive into his soul, he consulted his good friend Bloodshed on what he should do.

“You should temper your blood into a metal,” it advised immediately.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Why?” Naturally, he appreciated the spirit’s advice but was curious about its reasoning.

“The dagger you possess,” it started. “Its power will transfer into any weapon you conjure as long as you’re holding it.”

That made him pause. “Seriously!? Will it still work if I turn those weapons into projectiles?”

“No, it will not,” the spirit clarified.

That did suck a bit. He still vividly recalled the spears that Janhalar had thrown at him during their fight. That was a damn powerful ranged attack, and it depended on one’s physical strength, which was a massive advantage of his. It wasn’t like he still couldn’t do something like that, but it was a bummer that the boost only applied to weapons he was still holding.

“Is there any other reason you want me to go with that path?” he asked, just in case. Basing his choice on a single weapon that wasn’t even unique wasn’t the greatest long-term decision.

“I can only advise you on the best path if you wish to spill more blood,” it said. “I have no input on anything else.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

Although he could eventually lose the dagger, just knowing that the effects of weapons like that could translate to weapons he conjured was enough to elevate Crimson Mercury in his eyes. There was still the question of exactly what weapon he would use if he decided to go down that route, so he decided to mull it over some longer. He didn’t have to make a choice until he finished Puddle of Blood.

With his injury nearly gone, he walked back to the gym. Then he started his workout.

He eased himself into it, sticking to a bit below his previous best. As always, he first thoroughly warmed up, then prepared to bench, squat, and deadlift. It wasn’t a wise schedule for anyone who couldn’t swiftly recover from such exercise, and the risk of getting injured was relatively high, but training full body every day was something he was comfortable with.

He first started with the bench, setting the weight to 120 kg, around twenty below his previous maximum. He had lost much muscle mass and wouldn’t risk it by overestimating himself.

As soon as he placed his hands on the barbell, he could tell—this was going to be light. And once he pushed, he confirmed it. In fact, it was so easy that he dropped the set halfway through it and added another 10 kg.

Again, it was too easy.

So he added another ten.

And another.

And once again, another.

By the time he was benching 180 kg, he was just starting to feel the burden.

In the end, he did ten reps at 200 kg, and he didn’t push himself further because the previous test sets had exhausted him.

Feeling quite confident, he started the squat at 200 kg. In the end, he did 250. As for the deadlift, he did 300. Neither of those felt quite there yet for the most he could do, and he could knock out ten reps without even breaking a sweat.

“This is insane,” he muttered under his breath. How the hell did he possess such monstrous strength? By all means, he should definitely be weaker than he had been at his peak, but it didn’t feel like that was the case.

And the fact that he was a two-star wasn’t a valid explanation, either. He was still at the beginning, far from realizing the full potential of his improved physique.

With every subsequent exercise, he tested himself as he inched closer to what he felt was his limit. While he wasn’t the strongest person in that gym—far from it—he was definitely above the common rabble. And this was just the beginning.

He ended his workout in a pretty solid mood. Once he returned home, he showered, ate two dozen very-hard-boiled eggs and a massive pot of overcooked potatoes, and went to bed.

When he woke up the following day, he started his new daily routine.

First, he got into his gear, then he went out to the hub. There, he joined Theodore’s party and worked as their helper. After that was finished, he went to the gym. He first trained his abilities, working on growing Flowing Strike and Hydraulic Flex. As soon as he exhausted his essence, he worked his muscles and used the breaks between sets to dive into the Netherecho and recover his essence.

Once done with that, he returned home. Back home, he worked on Puddle of Blood.

Surprisingly, it only took him a single day to perfect the shell. It was pretty easy to do, actually. All he had to do was synchronize an essence pulse with his heartbeat, temporarily spiking his blood pressure and stretching his cardiovascular system.

While it caused a killer headache, compared to the difficulty of creating Hydraulic Flex and the pain of using Hundred Wet Hells, it was child’s play to develop.

Given that it had been surprisingly easy, he slotted the tempering technique right into his regular schedule. He hadn’t made up his mind on the path he would take, so he postponed the decision further until he could upgrade Puddle of Blood to Pool of Blood.

First, he briefly used Adaptive Water Body. Then he worked on Abyssal Depths and Puddle of Blood, replenishing his essence reserves between every session.

Eventually, he felt that he had done enough, so he ended the day by doing some plain old gathering.

While the ether density in Nova York at large was quite great, that didn’t mean that there were all that many wisps to go around. There weren’t even any vestiges in his apartment. It made sense. Countless archhumans lived in this part of Nova York; all of them had to gather.

In the end, all he could settle for were loose wisps of miscellaneous advanced affinities that didn’t have enough archhumans around to suck them up. As expected of a city, glass, metal, rust, fabric, and wood were the most common.

Although he hadn’t thought much about it until then, he realized that he was growing incredibly slowly. That was highly concerning. Given his relatively recent achievements, shouldn’t he have been blazing through the early stages of his second star?

It was a problem that bothered him enough to walk out of his apartment and go to the library to find an explanation. There, he paid for a membership, allowing him to borrow one book at a time that he could take anywhere. The tier he subscribed to, which gave full access to all basic and intermediate texts, cost 8,000 dollars a month, and he spent that much without hesitation. If he came here daily, as he intended to, the membership would pay for itself soon enough.

After a bit of browsing, he relatively quickly discovered the explanation for his current problem. This was another one of those things he had heard of but never quite knew what it was—aura.

Aura was most easily seen by observing cursed objects in the Netherecho. It was ether taking form by attaching itself to an object. In this case, an archhuman’s soul was the object in question. And this could be seen most easily by observing the inside of the ethercosm.

Stars were, in essence, aura constructs. But they weren’t all the aura there was in the soul.

There was also latent aura. It could be seen as a counterweight to the star, existing invisibly beneath the surface layer of the soul. It was this form of aura that permitted the growth of a star by acting as a foundation for it.

Latent aura grew whenever an archhuman performed a notable feat. Be it creating a powerful object, defeating a mighty enemy, overcoming their limits, consuming a potent treasure, or any other demanding, improbable event. The more latent aura there was, the bigger the star could be.

This was why fighting, or at least some form of profession, was crucial for developing one’s power. Without the latent aura, growth stagnated and slowed until it stopped altogether. This was also the most significant cause of bottlenecks in an arch’s development.

So what happened? Couldn’t his actions so far be counted as pretty incredible? Frankly, given what he had accomplished, he simply couldn’t believe that he was lacking latent aura. But as he read on, he realized that, unfortunately, that was precisely the case.

With every ascension, all of the latent aura in the soul was consumed, wiping the slate clean. This wasn’t to say that it was wasted; it actually went into improving one’s talent, which was why many people postponed their ascensions until they could gather enough latent aura to significantly impact the quality and power of their talent.

This begged another question⁠—

“What!?” he scream-whispered into his chin as he angrily scratched his head.

If that was the case, shouldn’t his talent have changed far more than it had?

So he read on. Eventually, he stumbled across a paragraph that made him raise an eyebrow.

Talents are not created equal. Some hold considerably more power than others, and as such, the amount of latent aura required to trigger a significant evolution increases proportionally. If enough latent aura isn’t supplied, the talent will either change minimally—or not at all.

After he read this part, he slowly closed the book. A frown hung on his face. He walked all the way back home in silence.

As he got ready to go to bed, he couldn’t help but finally ask himself—just how powerful was 1% Lifesteal?

The next morning and the rest of the day played out much the same as the last. Wake up, delve, train, temper, gather, read, and sleep.

Theodore kept making absurd offers, all of which went ignored. Freddy wasn’t who the party leader thought he was. And frankly, he wanted to break out alone as soon as he was capable of doing so.

As for the money, he made some. Most days fluctuated between 200 on the low and 600 dollars on the high end, with few exceptions. Still, he was slightly outearning his spending, and for the time being, that was enough.

Not a single time did he encounter a crisis like the one with the deviant. In fact, he was never attacked by anything at all. But a few times, he spotted people suspiciously loitering not too far from where he was guarding the bags. If he hadn’t been there, it was likely that they would try stealing them.

Judging by the rumors he heard, this sort of thing was relatively common.

The cluttered, dangerous environment of the realm made chasing such thieves difficult, and it made getting away with the crime easier.

Numerous times, he had also witnessed the night suddenly turn to day and the day suddenly turn to night. It was terrifying. When the day turned to night in the middle of a battle, that was enough to put most parties in mortal peril. Gorels didn’t need sight; they mainly relied on their other senses, so to them, it was as if barely anything had changed.

Thankfully, their party had Theodore, a light-affinity arch who could instantly alleviate the problem by using his ability—Scattered Starlight—to throw out numerous floating orbs of light and illuminate the entire battlefield.

While it seemed like it shouldn’t be the case, when the night suddenly turned to day, that wasn’t optimal either. It took a few crucial moments for a human’s vision to get used to the sudden change in brightness, which could be pretty disorienting in the middle of a life-or-death scenario.

Not even a few days into his work with them, he started carrying the machete around and smacked random plants whenever they delved. When they asked him what he was doing, he refused to elaborate. He wasn’t hurting anyone or doing anything of note, really, so they simply let him be, chalking his behavior up to a strange habit.

This was one of many reasons why, as time passed, he grew increasingly distant from the party of six instead of getting closer to them. His weird behavior, Theodore’s persistence, his refusal to show his face, and the gap in power between them that grew more and more obvious as he displayed greater and greater feats of strength fed into a rift that made it clear—it was only a matter of time before they parted ways.

His training at the gym progressed smoothly. While he never fully healed with how little he got to swing the machete around, it was more than enough for him to see consistent progress.

He grew bulkier. His skinny physique grew rapidly as it caught up to where it used to be. Several times, he had to get his equipment adjusted to suit his growing body.

After a while, his Hydraulic Flex finally grew to the peak of stage zero. Rather than rush to upgrade it, he took his time, carefully reading up on abilities and the water affinity to ensure he didn’t make a suboptimal choice.

Flowing Strike, on the other hand, didn’t grow at all. He would need to use it in combat more often to see it improve.

As for his tempering techniques, Abyssal Depths increased to 40% bonus weight, and Puddle of Blood neared the peak of stage zero.

He still hadn’t discovered anything about the mysterious second shell from the perished water affinity.

Surprisingly, Adaptive Water Body didn’t change at all. And he knew why after some reading at the library.

Evolution was something called a grand concept. Vestiges holding such concepts were rare but nothing too exceptional.

Grand concepts only existed as vestiges. They couldn’t grow into remnants. And, as a consequence, any ability upgraded through them… couldn’t grow, either. This wasn’t necessarily a terrible thing; it just meant that the ability did what it did and would always do only that. Abilities upgraded through grand concepts couldn’t be evaluated on a linear power scale as their utility was often miscellaneous. This was the case with Adaptive Water Body, too.

Eventually, after following this schedule for a month, he finally reached the peak of Puddle of Blood.

He upgraded the ability with a vestige of “inner expansion” that he found in the forest while they were resting during one of their delves.

And with that, his Puddle of Blood was upgraded to Pool of Blood.

It was enough. He knew most of the safer areas in the passage by heart at that point. Although he trained daily, his growth had slowed noticeably, and he stagnated.

On that day, as he walked into the hub, he smiled at the slightly disappointed look in Theodore’s eyes as the man said, “Very well. You’ve been the best goddamn helper I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m sure we’ll see you around often enough.” Then, with a smile of his own, he cheekily added, “If you ever decide to take that damn mask off, I’d love to take you out for drinks.”

He chuckled at that. “Maybe one day,” he said noncommittally.

Then he waved at everyone else, saying his goodbyes, turned around, headed down the stairs…

And started his first-ever solo delve into a passage.

Three figures stood at the cavern entrance into the ruins of what had once been called Camp Violet. All of them were dressed in expensive combat uniforms, black with hints of dirt-brown camouflage.

The first was a tall, blond, bearded man with a concerned expression. He looked into the mouth of the cave with evident fear in his eyes as a mess of feelings wrestled in his heart.

The second was a young man with striking red hair and eyes, with thin lines of crimson making their way down his face. He stood impassive, curiously staring forward.

And the third was a woman, her cerulean hair tied back into a practical ponytail. The serious uniform stood in sharp contrast to what she usually wore, but the relaxed smile still hung on her face nonetheless.

Finally, after waiting so long for the last of the scouts to abandon this place, they received their opportunity.

“Madame,” Nahar offered as he gestured with his right arm. “Let us begin.”

It was time to start their search for Freddy Stern.

17

MASTER ABUSER

Freddy had focused entirely on growing Puddle of Blood. As he neared its completion, his dilemma was resolved—he decided to go with Crimson Mercury. There were many reasons to choose it over Rich Blood, but the one that mattered the most to him was the essence efficiency.

Although he had made up his mind, he still didn’t have Crimson Mercury and, thus, couldn’t truly use the blood affinity for anything of value. But after a month of observing the party in action and seeing numerous others fighting the gorels, he was confident that he wouldn’t need it either way.

Stepping out into the passage realm by himself distinctly differed from being there with the others. Thankfully, it was day, but if anything, that made him anxious, as that meant there was a risk that it would suddenly turn into nighttime at any moment.

There was an air of danger and uncertainty; his back felt more exposed than ever before. As soon as he made his way past the beginning of the green zone and stepped out of range of anyone’s sight, he took a small ball out of his storage ring.

It was the perception-boosting pill. This thing was quite big, so swallowing it wouldn’t be easy. This was also his first time taking one, and he hoped it wouldn’t cause any problems for him. Still, even if it did, there was always his talent to make those problems disappear.

He pulled a bottle out of his rucksack and took the pill. Nothing happened. He looked around, trying to see whether anything about his perception had changed. The path he was walking down had the signature smooth stone beneath his feet and was surrounded by tall, jagged rock formations. The boulders surrounding him were large and looked unstable, with numerous cracks and small protrusions that cupped dead leaves and had patches of grass sprouting scattered around.

He observed the moss near the bottom, combing his fingers through its tender, furry surface as he took it in. He didn’t feel much due to his gloves, but he did hear the smooth scraping sound of rugged fabric rubbing against the surface.

The changes came slowly, but as they did, they arrived in sudden bursts. The nondescript mossy surface grew clearer, even through the touch of the glove. He jumped back as he suddenly heard metal clashing and gorels screaming. It was distant. So distant that he usually wouldn’t hear anything from that far away.

As he backed off and looked around, he found all his senses cranked up. The loamy soil, verdant, fresh gust, and weak notes of burning fur, flowing blood, and rotting corpses filled his nostrils. The sounds in the distance grew increasingly pronounced, and he felt more confident that he could tell which direction they were coming from.

There was a party of three—no… a party of four—heading down another path just behind the rock formation he stood before. He could hear their armor clanking, the cloth rubbing, and weapons clattering.

The stone before him suddenly looked more textured—just looking at the surface made him keenly aware of which parts were more fragile than others.

He gulped.

That was… a lot more potent than he expected, in more ways than one. His back and ass were sweating profusely, and he felt severely uncomfortable in his armor. Each imperfection, every bump and turn that didn’t perfectly sit against his sensitive skin, was like a hotspot on the surface of his body, making him shift awkwardly as he tried to make the feeling go away.

The back of his head suddenly started hurting, and soon enough, it felt as if drills were piercing his temples. His breathing sped up. A high-pitched buzzing filled his ears. His eyes shifted around involuntarily, making him lose his sense of direction and worsening his dizziness.

He swiftly pulled the machete from the storage ring and ran to the closest plant. The poor sapling never knew what hit it. One moment, it was growing up to become a mighty tree; another, it was not.

But his wanton slaughter didn’t end there. He cut grass, trampled moss, and brutally plucked flowers from their lofty perch upon the stone walls surrounding him. After a while, the side effects subsided, and he could finally breathe.

Thinking back on that man, August—the person who had told him what this medicine was—the man hadn’t actually known what this pill was immediately. He only figured it out after taking a good whiff and analyzing it, likely through his talent.

He did say that the medicine was potent. He also clarified that it had severe side effects. But Freddy hadn’t been expecting something this intense. It was possible that these pills either weren’t meant to be consumed this way or that he needed to become at least a three-star to safely take them.

Well, that was none of his concern. But it was good to know that he was right to take them somewhere safe where he could remove the side effects. Now that he felt fine, he couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on his face.

Their effect was truly magnificent.

He got up and continued down the path. Soon enough, he heard rustling. He climbed up a nearby rock and looked in the direction the sound was coming from. Not too far from where he was, right past the rocky formation and inside the woods, a gorel guard was scouting the area, kicking up leaves and sniffing around.

He would have never spotted the black fur of the creature lurking in the shadows under normal circumstances.

So, without further ado, he started walking toward it. Moving across the uneven rocky areas wasn’t recommended due to the danger of rocks crumbling beneath his feet, which could easily result in a broken leg or two, depending on how unlucky he got.

But as he traveled forward, he found it trivial to distinguish between rocks that “seemed” unstable and ones that didn’t. It was hard to tell exactly what his perception was going off when he sensed this stuff, but he felt pretty confident. Too confident, in fact, as he stepped on a rock that wasn’t entirely stable and nearly tripped as it shifted below his feet.

Okay, this pill might have been potent, but it was no perception talent. Naturally, it had limits. So, as he proceeded, he did so with caution.

Eventually, he passed the unstable ground, stepped onto firm soil, and walked into the thicker forest beneath the shadowy canopy.

He immediately took the flashlight from his storage ring, making it appear in his hand with a quiet popping sound of air rushing out of its way, and turned it on to scout the area for other gorels. He couldn’t hear or see anything else, but the gorel guard was already sniffing the air, clearly having sensed his approach as it shifted around like a hyperactive, bulky dog and checked every direction, wheezing and growling.

Freddy put the flashlight in his left hand, keeping it turned on in case the day suddenly became night, and pulled out the dagger, holding it in his right. The weapon was highly menacing, looking jagged and uneven. It was clear that getting stabbed by this thing would leave complex, nasty injuries, and that was likely intentionally done to further attune the weapon to the concept of bleeding.

If he was being honest, daggers weren’t his thing. Weapons weren’t his thing in general. But he could easily hold the handle in a reverse grip and still punch stuff. He didn’t have to use the dagger just because he held it in his hand.

And there was another thing he had realized. This wasn’t really a weapon. Thinking back on his fight with Janhalar, equipped with the knowledge that it could transfer its effect on any weapons conjured, he quickly realized that the man had never used the dagger directly. In fact, Freddy had barely even realized that the man had been holding the dagger at all.

This likely meant that this wasn’t meant to be used to stab but as more of a glorified dagger-shaped wand.

With the flashlight and knife both in reverse grips, ready to be used, he stepped forward until the gorel finally pinpointed his position and started running at him.

When it reached him, he kicked it, not even using Flowing Strike or Hydraulic Flex. The thing took his foot head-on and was knocked back. As soon as it reoriented itself, he kicked it again, this time in the back of the head. It didn’t get up this time, merely whimpering and howling as he brought his foot down and cracked its neck. A rush of ether flowed into his star, making it grow just a tiny bit.

That whole thing about not needing Crimson Mercury? Yeah… After a month of watching others fight these things, he had made an undeniable conclusion. He was way overqualified for this realm.

The thing with danger assessments and recommendations was that passage owners aimed to protect themselves legally. “Acceptable risk” for a party of one-stars and a beginner two-star meant that if one satisfied that requirement, one was mostly going to be fine unless they really fucked up or got mega unlucky. People still got injured daily because, well, the world had no shortage of idiots aching to seriously fuck something up.

Even then, his power wasn’t that of an average two-star. Not only did he have great equipment, but he also had fantastic abilities and an honestly overpowered talent. If there was anyone who didn’t need to be afraid to delve here alone, it was him. He picked up the dead, primarily intact gorel and dragged it back. The way there had taken him around twenty minutes of walking, and the way back was roughly the same.

When he left it on the counter, with just that, he had already earned almost what his average daily wage had been for the past month.

And then he headed back in. For his next prey, he came across three gorel workers dragging branches. He picked up a giant rock. Activating Hydraulic Flex, he threw it with the might of god, smiting one of the poor things before it could even react. The other two hissed and growled, immediately rushing at him.

The thing with gorels was that they had the earth affinity. But these things were dumber than the rocks they should be able to manipulate. As for their essence control, the most they could do was add some momentum to their hits in a sort of quasi-Tectonic Strike. It was important to remember that their attacks could still break human bones like dry twigs. Well, other humans. Not his.

As soon as the first one reached him, he used Flowing Strike and slammed it right in its face. The force transference kicked in, sending the chunky worker flying like a football and slamming into a tree twenty meters away.

Once the third arrived, he grabbed it by its swinging arm, casually taking the brunt of its strike, picked it up like a toddler, and slammed it back-first against the closest boulder.

It wouldn’t be correct to say that he was perfectly safe here. There was always a risk of something going to shit. All it took was one deviant and a bit of arrogance to snuff out any overzealous delver.

But… yeah.

He had seen enough of this realm.

He knew which places were perilous and which parts were to be avoided. As long as he stuck to places slightly off the beaten path, where there weren’t enough gorels for parties to bother, his experience delving would be akin to walking into a kindergarten and beating the ever-living shit out of a bunch of toddlers.

He took his backpack off and opened it.

The foldable racks he would use to carry the gorel corpses were placed aside as he pulled out a snack.

It was bread. In fact, his giant rucksack was mostly just full of bread. Why bread? Because bread was cheap and relatively nutritious.

Ever since discovering that powerful talents changed minimally with evolutions, he had taken a much better look at 1% Lifesteal. And, frankly, while he had already known that the talent was powerful, he had still been way underestimating it.

Since then, he had had a long month to think things through and read up on supreme-quality healing and just healing in general.

As he pulled out a big loaf of bread and took a bite, he pulled out a can of energy drink from a twelve-pack and downed it. For a while already, all he had been eating was bread, and all he had been drinking was either coffee, milk, or energy drinks.

Was this a healthy way to live?

That simply wasn’t a question he ever had to ask.

The concept of healthy living simply didn’t apply to him.

He could be drinking pure oil for all he cared, and he’d still be golden. Adaptive Water Body helped a lot with speeding up and improving digestion, and as long as he removed any unhealthy side effects of his stomach terrorism, his diet simply didn’t matter.

His month of working as a helper had been incredibly fruitful. Not only had he gotten the opportunity to thoroughly familiarize himself with the realm, but he also got a closer look at how money was actually earned.

For the most part, the single biggest profit bottleneck was fatigue. After all, it wasn’t like continuously carrying big-ass monster corpses back and forth was easy. It was tiring, and tired archs were significantly more susceptible to making a critical mistake at the wrong moment. At one time, he saw Kyle take a nasty hit to the knee. The treatment cost the man well over two thousand dollars. The risk just wasn’t worth it.

For others, that was. Not for him.

He finished drinking the energy drink and took the last bite of the loaf of bread. And, with that, he picked up the bodies, and, this time, he ran while carrying them back. He wasn’t all that tired from the journey, but he downed another energy drink anyway.

Then he returned to the realm and found another small group of worker gorels, kicking them to death and carrying them back again. And then drinking another energy drink. He repeated the same thing over and over.

Soon enough, people noticed.

“Wasn’t this guy a helper for Theo and his gang?” his enhanced perception allowed him to overhear one person ask. “What the hell happened to him?”

He ran past a group of four on his way out again. They laughed at him, taking a few jabs and saying he’d probably die by the end of the day. Once they saw him haul back eight workers on his back, adding up to a total of fifty-seven for that day, they found themselves without any further comments.

And with that, just as he was about to head out again, the day blinked out and night set. In contrast to what many had grown to believe that day, he wasn’t actually a suicidal dumbass. He still felt pretty buzzed from all the energy drinks, but he could tell that his focus was waning. His attention was drifting more and more often. Even though he could heal the consequences of abusing his body, it seemed his brain could only take so much work for one day.

As he clocked out for that day, he waited a bit and got his tally.

A fat grin spread from ear to ear as he saw the number on his receipt.

$12,571.

“Twelve K… oh yeah, oh yeah, tweeeelve K… Oh yeah, oh yeah,” he sang on his way to the gym.

“Tweeheeeeeeleleleleve fuuuckin’ K…! Ah, ah, ah, twelve mothafuckin’ K! Uh!” and continued as he started his workout.

A massive plastic container rested beside the bench he was working out on. It was a once-empty milk jug that he had repurposed, filling it to the brim with energy drink that he sipped on as he worked out.

He kept singing to himself as he placed his weights on the barbell. After placing 625 kg, he finally started the set. Lifting it once, then twice, he gathered the willpower and strength to push it a third time, finally overcoming his limit.

While this was impressive, he hadn’t let it get to his head. After all, Mark could lift more than this, even back when he was a one-star. He really missed that guy sometimes.

Still, he was making steady progress, and as long as he kept at it, he’d keep growing. The beast steroids were still in his Storage Ring, but he hadn’t gathered the balls to try those.

As he moved on from the bench, he went to the squat rack, where he could easily knock out 900 kg already. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah,” he kept singing, clearly annoying the guy who was working out near him. But he was in too good of a mood to let that stop him. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah,” he continued. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah.” And just kept going. “Twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K, yeah yeah, twelve K…”

“Will you please shut the fuck up!?” the man beside him yelled. “You shithead!”

“Oh, sorry,” he said apologetically. “I wasn’t…”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!? Huh!?” the man yelled, getting up and angrily throwing a dumbbell to the ground, rushing at him and getting well into his personal space. “Do that one more time,” he threatened while pointing a finger at his face, “and I’ll shove my foot up your ass!”

“Okay, I’m seriously sorry, and I’ll stop, I promise,” he said again, but he really couldn’t stop himself from still smiling. It wasn’t like he felt threatened by this guy.

The man, however, clearly didn’t enjoy the look on his face. “Do you have a problem with me?” he asked, getting even closer. “Meet me outside, and we’ll fix things up; how’s that sound?”

“No, I’m…” he started, suddenly deflating a bit.

“What, now you’re scared?”

“Relax,” Freddy insisted. “There’s no need to get violent. I said I’m sorry,” he reminded the man, his expression darkening as his right hand twitched.

“Stay in your fucking lane, pussy,” the man shot one final time as he finally retreated to continue the exercise.

He merely shrugged and walked over to the squat rack. There, he took a damn big gulp from his energy jug as he prepared himself for the set. One weight after another went up on the barbell. 300 kg… 400 kg… 500 kg…

The man paused a bit as he glanced at what he was doing.

600… 700… 800… 900…

1,000… 1,100…

1,200 kg.

He took yet another gulp from his jug and got under the bar. Then he started the set. He immediately felt like buckling under the insane weight. After all, this was 300 kg above his maximum… when he wasn’t using Hydraulic Flex.

As he triggered the ability, it appeared like his load had halved. With all the focus he could muster, he dropped into a low squat and pushed himself back up. His muscles sounded like rubber gloves being stretched to their breaking point, and he did it again, finishing the set on the sixth rep.

By the time he put the barbell back on the rack, the guy was nowhere to be found.

His body hurt like hell, and he felt thoroughly exhausted. Still, he couldn’t stop chuckling. “That was so worth it.”

After finishing the workout, heading home, and cleaning himself up, Freddy had a massive dinner and decided to rest a bit. He was tired. His body ached due to his dumbassery, and he had no way to use his talent, so he’d have to cope with it.

The time gradually passed, and he had to take another energy drink to kick himself back into focus. While he would never grow sick by abusing these things, there seemed to be a limit to the utility. Time gradually passed as a reluctance to do anything seeped into his bones.

Soon enough, the clock ticked to 9 p.m. It was already an hour past the time he usually visited the library. That was a good habit he wanted to keep up, so he forced himself to get ready, get up, and walk outside.

As he left the building to visit the library, he suddenly changed his mind. That day… frankly, hadn’t he just achieved something he had been dreaming of for the longest time? He had come mighty far from his days back in the small studio apartment, and if that Freddy could see him now, he’d spit in his face.

Fuck the library. No nerd shit for that evening. It was time to celebrate, he decided, as he went for a quick shopping trip.

A thousand-dollar slim-fit white shirt? Why not? Tacky, honestly ugly torn jeans? They cost two thousand dollars, and the logo of Habuji, a massive luxury clothing company, was front and center. Into the shopping cart they went.

Wrapping the trip up with the relatively frugal $500 sneakers, which were a slight backtrack when he realized just how much he was spending, he put the stupidly wasteful clothing on and headed to a place he had been aching to go to for the longest time.

It was as if a kaleidoscope of butterflies was fluttering around his heart. He felt nervous and had to psyche himself up.

Soon enough, he appeared before the nightclub.

And then awkwardly shuffled into the long line.

18

OOPS

Not many people had survived the destruction of Camp Violet. As Mark walked right beside Nahar and Madame, he witnessed its annihilation himself. According to the reports, the camp had been attacked by some form of fire-affinity entity. None of the people who had directly seen what had attacked the camp survived to disclose what it had been.

The most prevalent assumption was that it had been some sort of fire concept–related eidolon, but there was also the worst-case scenario that this had been a deliberate attack, either by some form of human party or an unknown sapient species. Regardless of precisely what happened to the camp, the result was harrowing.

The destruction was so thorough and horrible that none of what had been destroyed had been recovered or even cleaned; barely intact corpses littered the premises of what had once been the residential area of the camp. Mark felt his stomach drop as he witnessed the destruction; this was where Freddy had been?

Again, he had no idea precisely what Madame was basing the presumption that he was still alive on, but no more thinking about that. All he knew was that she was confident, and they were on a mission to find him.

According to the report, a few survivors had managed to hide away in the surrounding caves, but Freddy Stern hadn’t been among them. Madame claimed that he was still alive, and the most likely scenario was that he was hiding in the caverns somewhere. With his talent, surviving even in such conditions wasn’t an unbelievable possibility. Thus, they began their search.

For the most part, Nahar and Mark weren’t here to help look for him; Madame could handle that part just fine, and she sure didn’t need any bodyguards.

But they had made a deal with her; Nahar had promised to represent the Kraven in compensating Freddy for the injustice he had suffered from their faction, while Mark, on the other hand, was only there to admit guilt for his betrayal and apologize. They would first sit him down and explain the situation from every perspective as soon as they found him.

Mark had no idea why she was going this far out of her way for Freddy. It wasn’t like he was against it, but it was unusual that somebody of her station would be going this far out of her way for someone who seemed so far below her. Her motives and intentions weren’t his to judge. His part had been getting the poor man into the situation to begin with, and whatever she intended to do to him wasn’t something he really had a right to speak about.

“Stay close to me, boys,” she said. “If we come near him, I’ll know.” That was all the instruction Nahar and Mark received.

For the first few hours of the search, all they had come across were just a few loose monsters and a couple of animals. Eventually, they finally came across the zone they had been looking for. It was a barren area utterly void of life. The only thing of note there was what had once been the dueling arena.

The Kravens still had a copy of every report made before the immediate destruction of Camp Violet. Regarding reports mentioning Freddy, they found one mentioning him running away deep into the Wastes, where a group of scouts was sent after him. If he had indeed done so and was still hiding in this area, it would make sense how he managed to survive.

It was quite unlikely for him to still be in the actual Wastes; this area truly lived up to its namesake. The walls appeared to be nothing but plain dirt and barren stone.

The most likely possibility was that he had temporarily hidden away in the Wastes and then returned to the caverns. However, there was no actual confirmation that this was the case, and judging by the circumstances of why he ran away in the first place, the most likely scenario was that he would have just continued running, either leaving through the other side or, in the most likely scenario, by locating a passage somewhere within.

As they continued their search, however, something immediately stood out.

“There seem to be no passages in this area,” Mark commented.

“Indeed,” Madame confirmed.

This area was incredibly unnerving. It was quiet, calm. There was a bizarre sensation flickering at the edge of their perception.

Eventually, it seemed that even Madame herself was beginning to share this sentiment. “This area is truly unnatural.”

Suddenly, she stopped; her eyes squinted, her gaze sharpening. She closed her eyes, and once she opened them again, she appeared distressed and concerned. Both Nahar and Mark reacted immediately. If she was acting like this, then there was definitely danger ahead. Mark made his giant sword appear, and Nahar conjured bladed blood whips. She didn’t tell them to put their weapons away.

As they made their way forward, a distinctly chilling sensation could be sensed in the air around them. Eventually, they spotted it. A small opening was close to the top of one of the caverns.

There, they spotted a circular passage embedded into the ceiling, emitting a cold light.

It took quite a while for Freddy to get into the club. The line he was waiting in was one of a few. It was also the longest one. He stood there for around forty minutes and eventually reached the entrance.

Once he approached, the bouncer asked for his ID. He pulled it out and handed it to the man, who immediately reacted by raising his eyebrows. The man pulled a device out of his pocket and pressed it against the ID.

The device beeped, glowing green, and the man met his eyes. “Uh, sir,” the bouncer started. “The waiting line for two-stars is over there,” he said, pointing at the far shorter waiting line Freddy had believed to be for VIPs.

He winced at that. “Nah, man.” He laughed awkwardly, dismissing the bouncer. “I’m the humble type. I prefer waiting in line.” He cringed at his own words.

“Well…” The man hesitated. “If that’s what you want, it’s certainly well within your rights,” he stated, moving aside to let him through.

“Yeah,” he confirmed awkwardly, stepping past the man and walking into the club.

The bouncer stopped him again, grabbed his hand, and pressed a small cube against the back two times. When he lifted it, there were two small logos of the club left behind, marking his skin.

Freddy had no clue exactly what that was, but it was probably a confirmation that he entered legitimately.

Once again, he was assaulted by blaring lights and music so loud that it was blasting his eardrums open. He had no idea where to go or what to do, so he just strolled forward, pushing his way through the mass of people as he looked for a seat or a spot or anywhere he could settle.

A series of lounges lined the side of the crowded club. Most were empty, even though the club was highly crowded. So he made his way toward them and sat down at one.

“Sir, are you here for a reservation?” one of the waiters asked almost immediately as he sat down.

Freddy froze, wanting to bite himself at his stupidity. “No,” he said. “I was wondering if I could buy one of these lounges.”

“Buy? You want to reserve a lounge?” the man asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

“Sorry, sir, but all of these are already taken for the night,” the man said apologetically, glancing at the logos pressed to the back of his hand. As soon as he spotted them, his gaze changed slightly. “But we do have one of the VIP lounges still open…”

“How much would that cost?” he asked the man.

“The lounge? Nothing. But you have to buy at least a premium ten-man bottle service.”

“And how much would that cost?” he asked him again.

“It’s 35,000 dollars,” the man answered.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “You know what; could you just show me to a table or something?”

The man smiled. “Sure thing, sir,” he said. “Please follow me.”

The man guided him through the mass of people, moving through the area and reaching one of the abandoned corners, where he pointed him to a few round tables with nobody standing at them.

He thanked the man, taking his place at the table as the waiter asked him what he wanted to order. Although he had no idea how he wanted others to join him, he didn’t intend to stand there alone.

As the waiter patiently waited for him to make his order, he tried thinking back to his previous outing into a club. What did the people drink there? He remembered an assortment of miscellaneous drinks made of all sorts of fancy ether ingredients, and as for the regular drinks…

“I’ll have one bottle of vodka, one bottle of whiskey, and a bottle of cocktail,” he said.

“We don’t sell cocktails in bottles,” the man said, seeming amused at the request.

“Give me like ten glasses, then,” he said instead.

“Do you have any preferences? If you don’t, I could just bring you ten random drinks,” the man added helpfully, already catching on to the fact that Freddy was a fucking moron.

“Sure thing.”

The man nodded at him with an amused smile, winked, raised a thumbs up, and mouthed, “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” he mouthed back. As soon as the man walked out of sight, he buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Just relax,” he told himself. “Take a moment to think before you speak. Breathe. And relax. Just relax. Chill. It’s all good; it’s cool; you’re the man. You’re the man for tonight. Yeah, that’s right; you’re a man. Now act like one!”

Thankfully, nobody overheard him.

It took a surprisingly short time for the man to fetch him the drinks. Not even ten minutes later, he was no longer standing there like an idiot; now, he was standing there like an idiot with a table full of drinks that nobody was drinking, not even himself.

A few people walked around and passed him, and he glared at them expectantly. He glared a bit too hard, it seemed, as most people interpreted his gaze as one of a warning, not an invitation. Minutes passed, and the bucket of ice slowly turned into a bucket of slush. Eventually, he finally caved in and grabbed one of the cocktails. “Mmm, sweet,” he hummed.

As he put his drink down, he turned around and spotted two familiar figures walking around. The first was Robert, the lanky, pale-skinned, long-haired archer with a scruffy beard, and the second was Lance, the tall, bald Black brawler.

“Hey!” he yelled, waving at them.

The two men glared at him with a frown and then at each other, seemingly utterly oblivious as to who he was. It was no surprise, either, since not a single time while dealing with them had he taken off his helmet. After waving at them a few times and calling enthusiastically enough, the two men finally caved in and made their way forward.

“Hey… man,” Robert greeted him cautiously as he gave him a handshake. “Do we know you?”

“I’m Fre—” he started but interrupted himself. “I’m Liam,” he said instead.

“Liam?” the man yelled, clearly bewildered. “Oh, you mean that Liam!?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “That’s me!”

“Yo, what the fuck is up, my man?” Lance greeted him enthusiastically, causing him to raise an eyebrow. “What?” the man asked as he laughed and clenched his hand harder. This wasn’t how the man usually behaved. At all.

“What happened with the whole mask thing?” Robert asked. “I thought you were hiding your identity?”

“Well, it was never really about my identity,” he said, scratching his head. “I don’t really care if people see my face; I just… Well, if I’m being honest, I just didn’t feel like getting close to anyone at work.”

“Ah, I see, okay,” the man said. “I get that.” Then he seemed hesitant for a moment before asking, “Then, uh… Is it cool for us to join you?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure,” he said enthusiastically. “You guys have been, uh… upgraded from colleagues to acquaintances!” he joked. “I’m a lot more chill with that.”

“Makes sense. By the way, you’re so much cuter than I thought you’d be,” the archer added jokingly, elbowing him slightly. “I thought you’d be one ugly motherfucker.”

“Yeah,” Lance concurred with a chuckle. “Same.”

“Sorry to disappoint?” he stated in a questioning tone, shooting them a cheeky grin. “Okay, so,” he said while trying to think of what else to say. “Feel free to take anything you want. I’m treating tonight.”

“Sure thing, my man,” Lance said as he reached for the whiskey. “God knows we need a drink.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah,” Robert said. “Actually, our party disbanded today.”

“What!?” he shouted. “How the hell did that happen? I was with you guys just this morning!”

“Theo and Beatrice are getting a divorce,” the brawler said.

“Well, that came out of nowhere,” he said, taken aback.

“For you, maybe,” Robert commented sarcastically. “Not for us. They weren’t really acting like themselves around somebody who’s, well, kind of an outsider. But yeah, they fought a lot. I think you even saw them do that a few times. Theo is kind of a manipulative asshole, and Beatrice is a control freak, so those two never meshed particularly well.”

“Wow,” he breathed out, genuinely bewildered. “I’m shocked to hear that.”

“Yeah,” Lance confirmed. “Those two are major pieces of work.”

“So wait,” he started. “Your party is breaking up because of a divorce?”

“It’s simple, really,” Robert said. “If we had to pick between Theodore or Beatrice, or any party did for that matter, everybody would pick Theo because he’s just so much more useful. For me and Lance, he is the obvious choice, but Beatrice and Petra are best friends, and Kyle and Petra are engaged. I’m sure you can put two and two together.”

“Ah, yeah. So are you guys just… Is it just the two of you and Theo now?”

“No,” the man denied. “Just me and Lance. Theo took an indefinite break from delving because he isn’t really in the right mind space right now.”

He blew some air through pursed lips. “Makes sense. That really sucks, though; I’m sorry that happened.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Robert said. “Our party has been a little dysfunctional for a while already. In fact, this is the perfect time for us to break up. I’m gonna be honest—since you’ve been working with us for the last month, we’ve literally doubled our income. I have so much more money now than I’ve ever had in my entire life. Thanks for that.”

“I should be the one thanking you guys for doing all the work,” he joked.

“By the way,” Lance interrupted. “Did you really bring back fifty-seven motherfuckin’ gorels by yourself today?”

“Yep,” he confirmed, smiling.

“You fucking beast!” Lance said with a grin, offering him a fist pump. “We always knew you were something, but man…”

“Okay, okay, enough delving talk,” he said, taking a glass and pouring himself some whiskey. Frankly, he wanted another fruity cocktail, but this seemed like the manlier thing to do. “I’ll be honest with you guys. I haven’t really gone out like this before, and I have no clue what to do,” he said with a hint of shame hidden behind laughter. “I mean, I’ve been at a party before, but it was a private setting. So yeah, this whole thing is a bit tough. I already embarrassed myself like ten times since I entered here, so, you know… got any advice?”

“Actually, you seem pretty damn young,” Robert said. “How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-two,” he said.

“Twenty-two!?” Lance yelled. “No way, man. I’m like forty, and this motherfucker is thirty-five. How are you already so strong? Do you come from a rich family? Come on, you can tell us.”

“Look, I don’t really care about keeping my identity private, but I do have some shit I’d like to keep for myself, so I’d be grateful if you could respect that.”

“Aight, no problem,” Lance said. “Sorry for asking.”

“Don’t sweat it. So”—he returned back to the topic—“about that advice…”

The two men grinned as they briefly looked at each other.

Robert grinned. “Just relax, man,” he said, nudging him with an elbow. “You already have the most important part covered.”

“And what’s that?”

The archer’s grin widened. “You’re paying for the drinks.”

Freddy woke up the following day with a searing headache and a notable gap in his memory. “What the fuck happened, man?” he asked himself but suddenly froze as he heard breathing next to him.

There, he spotted a person. A naked person. A naked female person, to be exact. For a moment, a mix of anxiety and elation bubbled in his gut. Then he felt his stomach rapidly sink as he recognized who it was.

He knew her relatively well, given the previous month of working with her.

Because it was Beatrice, Theodore’s ex-wife.

19

COMPLICATED SITUATION

“Oh god fucking damn it,” Freddy whispered under his breath as he slowly shifted his naked body out of the sheets, got up, and snuck his way out of the room. He slowly cracked the door open to take another, more careful look at the woman lying in his bed.

“Yep,” he confirmed. That was indeed Theodore’s wife. “Fuck my life,” he scream-whispered as he slowly closed the door without making a sound. His mind whirled as he tried to think of what to do in this scenario.

Should he just leave the apartment? He was completely naked, and his clothes were in the room, in the closet, conveniently right next to the naked woman sleeping in his bed.

Lovely.

Since leaving was impossible, that begged the question—what the heck should he do? Should he wake her up? But if he did so while being completely naked, that probably wouldn’t go so well. So should he put his clothes on? He would probably wake her up by doing that.

That only left him with a single possibility—silently crawl back into bed and pretend that he was asleep. Every single muscle in his body protested the action as he opened the door and carefully snuck his way toward the bed, doing his best to hide his private bits as he hunched over in a highly awkward position.

Then he carefully reached out and grabbed the corner of the sheet as he prepared to lay down.

Then he heard a woman’s voice. “What the fuck!?” she screamed as she got up, clearly panicked, and conjured a fireball, preparing to throw it at him.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled. “Don’t throw that thing at me!”

“Oh my god,” she said as she extinguished the ball of flame. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this can’t be happening.” An expression of abject agony flashed through her face as she turned around, concealing her body. “Please leave the room.”

He obliged, as he had no desire to be burned alive. As he left the room and closed the door, he heard the woman audibly cursing as she hurriedly put her clothes on. Eventually, the noises quieted, and he found himself standing in awkward silence. Still butt naked.

He briefly peeked into the bathroom and took out a towel to cover himself. The seconds of waiting soon turned into minutes, and just as he was starting to get tired of standing there and wondering whether she was even planning to leave the room, the door suddenly burst open.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, pushing past him with a strained smile. “Please put your clothes on.”

As he got dressed and left his room, he was fully prepared to find that she had left the apartment.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t that lucky.

The woman was sitting at the small table in the living room, on one of the two chairs. Her face was firmly buried in her hands, and she did not even as much as peek at him as he walked into the room.

So he waited, unsure what to do, as the awkward silence between them continued.

“Hey,” she finally called. “You’re… Liam, right?” she asked hesitantly, clearly afraid of the answer.

“Yep, that’s me,” he responded awkwardly.

“Oh god.” She released a pained groan of agony as she started crying. “You’re just a kid, and I—oh god, what did I do?”

Okay, he thought to himself. That doesn’t bode well for my ego.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he interrupted. “I think there’s some sort of misunderstanding here because I’m not underage!”

That didn’t seem to comfort the woman at all. She continued sobbing, muttering sorrys and apologies for what she had done. Freddy would give literally everything he had to not be in that situation.

Time passed, mostly in silence, occasionally interrupted by the woman sobbing. From what he could barely decipher, the woman seemed to feel incredibly guilty about “using him.” Although he was young and relatively inexperienced with interpersonal relationships, he didn’t feel terrible about what had happened.

Did he feel ashamed? Everyone probably would in those particular circumstances, but did he feel used? Hell no. In fact, he didn’t even feel particularly guilty about what happened. While, emotionally speaking, it wasn’t that straightforward, it was true that the woman was technically divorced. It wasn’t like he bagged some guy’s wife or anything. Technically.

As he awkwardly stood to the side, the last night’s events slowly returned to him, one cringy piece at a time. It all started when he, Lance, and Robert started drinking. Those two old bastards quickly plummeted from semi-respectable individuals to two horny old men in his eyes. They wantonly called everyone around them, inviting young girls with some of the cheesiest, grossest one-liners he had ever heard in his life.

He started the night rather heavy on the booze to drown the shame he felt and mute the cringe he was experiencing. The worst, most embarrassing part of the whole situation was that some girls actually came over. And he thought he lacked self-respect.

At some point, right about the time his memory started becoming patchy, Beatrice and Petra materialized out of nowhere. Apparently, they had stumbled upon the three men by accident. Petra had taken the initiative to take Beatrice out to help her forget about the day’s events. Honestly, a surprisingly irresponsible move from a woman who put such emphasis on caution.

Apparently, the divorce was a hundred percent Theodore’s fault. The others had no clue what had happened, but apparently, he had made a rather big decision without Beatrice’s input. When she confronted him about it, he got super defensive, telling her to fuck off. The whole situation spiraled out of control, and Theodore eventually said that they clearly weren’t made for one another and cut things off.

The first half of the night was spent with them comforting her while she cried her eyes out, while the second half of the night was utterly dark in his memory.

As the awkward silence continued, he glanced at the clock hanging on the wall; it was already past 2:00 p.m. Frankly, he had no plans for that day other than just resting or doing something for himself, as he had been working pretty damn hard for a while already. Now, it was only a question of what exactly he would do with this whole situation.

“Hey,” he called awkwardly, trying to think of what to say. “Don’t take this the wrong way; it’s not like I’m chasing you out or anything. It’s just, you know, do you really want to be here, and⁠—”

“I’m sorry, but, uh,” she interrupted him, “can I please stay here for just a bit?”

At that moment, he really wanted to say “hell no” and chase her out, but he decided to at least ask, “Uhm… can you tell me why… exactly?”

“Well,” she said, taking a moment to sigh, “I was supposed to be staying at Petra’s place because, you know, Theodore kind of kicked me out, and I… I don’t know, I just… I’m afraid that he will come over looking for me. I don’t wanna see him.”

He had to hold himself back from asking why that was his problem, but he shut his mouth. He was no sociopath, and he wouldn’t kick the girl out if she wanted to hide there for the day. Besides, this whole situation was partially his fault.

There was just one tiny problem, however. “Wouldn’t you… uh… Wouldn’t you prefer to stay at a hotel instead?”

“I lost my wallet,” she said.

He winced. “If you want, I can, uh… I can lend you some money?”

She briefly glanced at him with red eyes and then looked away again, guilt and shame playing on her face.

“I, uh… Look—we can both agree that this is pretty damn awkward. Like I’ll just… I’ll give you the money; you don’t even have to pay me back.”

She chuckled at that a bit. “So you want me out?”

He cringed at that. “No, it’s not… Come on, don’t do that to me. We both know that this is not going to turn into anything, and, uh…” He aggressively scratched the back of his head as he searched for words.

“I get it. Thanks,” she eked out. “Just give me a bit and I’ll go.”

“Yeah… I uh… Sorry. Again, please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“It’s fine.”

It felt like every single word that left his mouth made the situation worse, so instead of continuing to ramble, he sat on the small couch on the other side of the room and remained quiet.

He tapped his fingers as he desperately tried pretending like he was thinking about something important. He’d kill for a newspaper to at least pretend like he was reading something. Or a book.

Frankly, it almost seemed like the woman wanted to stay there. Or was she just afraid of leaving? Freddy did live pretty close to the hub, and there was a good chance that she would stumble upon Theodore somewhere outside.

A few times, he inadvertently glanced at the woman. Her profile was turned to him, and she was staring at the wall with her head slightly turned away from him.

Fuck, she is so damn hot. His mind betrayed him as the thought came uninvited.

If he was being entirely honest, he had… noticed the woman throughout his time working with their party. Well, he had also noticed Petra, but… well… taken women and all that. He wasn’t a degenerate, nor did he fancy adultery. Hell, until yesterday, he had been a virgin.

A very shameful thought crossed his mind. There was the whole thing that… well… a lot had happened, and he had no memory of it

It was a stupid thought.

This is absolutely not the time to make a move, Fred. Calm the fuck down, he chastised himself.

That begged yet another in a series of complicated questions—what should he do now? She said she’d leave in a bit, but the situation was becoming more awkward by the second. While he could just sit and wait, he wanted to… help… maybe?

Although he seemed to be good enough for the other thing, he definitely wasn’t a decent shoulder to cry on. What was he supposed to do—advise her? He didn’t even know how to talk to a waiter properly, let alone what to say in a situation like this.

Suddenly, he heard a knocking coming from the door. Both he and the disheveled woman glanced at the small hallway leading to the entrance, then at each other. It was at this moment that he remembered—or rather, didn’t remember—how exactly he and the woman made their way back to the apartment.

Did the others know where they went? Did somebody see them coming there?

He glanced at her, and all she did was shrug anxiously, as she seemed to have no idea either.

Suddenly, he remembered that it was most likely the landlord. They had set up automatic rent payments through the bank, but there might have been a problem, and he might have come here to check things out to ensure everything was okay.

He walked out of the small living room into the even tinier hallway, closing the door behind him to give the woman some privacy and to give himself some, too, just in case whatever happened was in any way embarrassing. When he semi-confidently walked over to the door, he peeked through the peephole and took a look.

“Oh, fuck my life.” He exhaled. There was a brunet, sharp man with several scars along his face standing right outside the door.

It was Theodore.

How the hell did the man even know where he lived?

Did he come here to kill me?

There was no way Freddy would open that door—was what he thought, but then Theodore started knocking louder and was about to yell. Just as the man opened his mouth, he quickly opened the door, walked outside, and closed it behind them. Frankly, he was geared for a fight; it seemed like this would probably turn into something nasty—or so he had presumed.

But the man didn’t seem angry; if anything, he only seemed vaguely surprised at the somewhat aggressive exit from the apartment.

“Hey there,” the man cautiously greeted him. “You’re, uh… Liam, right?”

“Yeah… That’s uh… That’s me. I’m the… Yeah. Mhm.” He nodded as casually as he could manage.

“Oh, well, phew,” the man said as he wiped his forehead in a mock gesture, imitating wiping sweat off. “For a second, I thought I got the wrong guy.”

“How did you know where I live?” he asked hesitantly, fully expecting the man to say something like “Robert told me” or “Lance told me” or “Petra told me.”

But no.

“To be honest,” the man started his explanation, “I already knew who you were for a while. You know, my whole job is to be observant, and I walk around a lot. I saw you a few times in the neighborhood, and, you know, tall guy, similar build, no visible aura coming from my talent. It was pretty obvious, actually. I just had to put two and two together.

“I saw you walking into this building once, and I asked the landlord, ‘Is there a Liam living here?’ and yeah, ever since, I’ve known where you live. I’m sorry; that is, you know, pretty intrusive, but it was, well, yeah.”

“Uh huh… okay,” he said slowly, beginning to suspect that the man had no clue that Beatrice was in his apartment. Another thing he noticed was that, when he first met him, the man had been at the peak of the first star.

Freddy could tell this because it was challenging for someone from a lower rank to hide their progress from someone of a higher rank. Back then, he could tell how powerful he was. But now he couldn’t. This could only mean two things: either the man had acquired some sort of treasure to help hide his power, or he had ascended a star.

Which begged yet another in an excruciatingly long series of increasingly complex questions—if he wasn’t here to get his ex-wife, what the hell was he doing here!?

So he asked, “Can you tell me what this is about?” He tried being polite, but he was clearly on edge.

Although this situation was quite a bit better than the man walking in here with a knife, prepared to stab him to death, it was still really freaking weird why he had tracked him like that.

“I’m here to give you another offer,” the man said.

Freddy was about to reject it, expecting another shady deal about a party or something.

But the man raised his hand and interrupted him before he could. “This time,” Theodore said, “I’m not the one making the offer.” Then he handed him a letter of invitation.

Freddy cracked it open, checking its contents. It was yet another offer to join a party, but this was different.

The man hadn’t been lying; this offer wasn’t from him. It wasn’t even an offer to join a party outright; it was an offer to participate in an interview-slash-evaluation.

Even then, he wasn’t particularly willing to accept the offer.

Not only was he not interested in working with others, but he was also particularly reluctant to work with this man who had been shady from the start.

Since Theodore had told the others that he would be going on a prolonged indefinite break, he was looking a lot more suspicious suddenly showing up at his door holding something like this.

But the man could sense his intent to refuse, already getting quite a bit of practice receiving refusals, and yet again interrupted him. “You won’t be able to continue delving like this.”

“What?” Freddy exclaimed. “Why?”

“You’re incredibly talented and extremely overqualified for this realm,” the man clarified. “Do you think that the owner is going to allow you to exterminate the entire population of gorels?”

Now that made him seriously angry.

Yet again, Theodore spotted this and cut in. “If you’re worried about a cut in income, don’t be. If you can pass this interview, anything you could earn delving like this will pale in comparison. You don’t have to give me an answer immediately, but do know that if you continue hunting like this, the owner will intervene, and you will either have to limit your hunting or move to a more difficult realm in the hub. The interview is in a week, so you still have some time. Take a while to think about it.” And with those parting words, the man turned around and left.

He closed the door, turned around, and whispered under his breath, “Yeah, screw that.”

The reason why he didn’t want to work with others wasn’t entirely arbitrary. He had secrets to hide, and shady situations like these were ones he wanted to avoid at all costs. The only thing he would think about in the next week was how to prevent the owner from limiting his income.

He walked back inside, went to his room, and hid the invitation letter. The woman didn’t ask him about who it was, and she clearly hadn’t figured out that it was her ex-husband.

Although the distraction made him forget for a moment, he was still stuck in an incredibly awkward situation.

Sighing and taking a moment to calm himself, he sat back down on the couch.

Minutes passed.

After a while, he started getting frustrated.

What was she waiting for? Divine intervention?

Now that he thought about it, there was no way in hell that her fear of running into Theodore could possibly outweigh the unbelievably awkward atmosphere.

Could she just be paralyzed due to all that happened?

While he hesitated to say anything, the clock was ticking. If he wanted to make anything of his day off, he had to chase her out. But how the hell was he supposed to do that?

As the silence finally stretched for a bit too long, he decided to just be upfront. “Hey uh… Beatrice?”

“Hmmm?” she hummed as she turned to face him.

“Look, uhm… I’ll be honest with you; I would like you to leave.”

She looked surprised for a moment, but he didn’t give her the time to react. “I don’t know what’s keeping you here, but this is getting more than a little awkward.” He got up, pulled out a couple hundred dollars from his wallet, and put the money on the table before her. “Take that and pay for a hotel room.”

The woman scowled at the money, then glanced up at him. She turned her face away in disgust and got up. “Sorry for bothering you,” she said, leaving the cash on the table and rushing toward the exit.

Freddy’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He simply watched in a stunned silence as the woman marched out of the apartment, leaving him in a deathly silence.

Absolutely bewildered, he scowled at the door for a long minute. “What?” he spat.

“What the hell did I do wrong?”

Theodore made his way home, still feeling somewhat distressed. Liam was a monster. Once he had gone up to the second star, he had been confident that his talent’s evolution would finally let him peer through Liam’s aura. But it didn’t.

However, his talent had changed in more ways than just becoming more powerful and capable of detecting presences. Now, whenever he stared at the surface of a creature’s body, even if he couldn’t see their aura, he could sense weak points, seeing them as glowing spots on the body. The brighter those spots were, the greater the weak point was.

This time, it wasn’t the case of talent negation; his talent still clearly worked on the man, but the man looked dim. Barring the obvious, such as significant arteries and eyes, the man seemingly had no weak points on his entire body.

“So he wasn’t lying about the Hundred Wet Hells, either, huh?” he mused.

Judging by the man’s behavior, Theodore presumed that Liam would likely refuse to show up.

“Oh well…” he said, sighing. “I’ll have to ask Jacob to send someone else.”

20

MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES

Mark gulped as he stared at the circular passage embedded into the stony ceiling.

“Fall back,” Madame said in a severe tone.

Both he and Nahar obeyed without asking any questions. After a few minutes of cautious but hasty retreat away from the passage, they finally left the unnerving area.

Mark’s gaze sharpened as he glanced at Madame. “Could that passage be related to why you’re looking for Freddy?” he asked.

“Mr. Afronte,” she barked, none of her usual joviality in her tone. “Please—shut up.”

He lowered his head a bit, silently apologizing.

The next few minutes passed in silence. They didn’t decide on what to do next; well, they couldn’t. The passage complicated things. It was clearly anomalous, and there was a non-zero chance that it might have been related to the destruction of Camp Violet.

When they read through all of the reports that summarized what happened to Camp Violet, one of the things that stood out was what had happened to Freddy Stern. The whole case surrounding him had been a bit of an anomaly.

On the same day the Camp Violet destruction incident happened, he ran off into the Wastes. Then scouts were sent out to search after him. Not some random pushovers, either; elite agents. Peak professional two-stars with many years of experience. But they hadn’t returned from their mission. Even their corpses had never been identified.

The thing with this whole case was that although a search of the surrounding area had been done and survivors and equipment had been retrieved, the investigation of what precisely had happened, well… it hadn’t been that thorough. It had only aimed to accomplish one thing—disprove that the camp had been destroyed by a rival faction. In the end, this was the only thing that actually mattered.

The investigation had ended the moment they made the conclusion that some form of a hostile entity from the caverns was the thing responsible. As for what exactly it was, it didn’t actually matter; all it meant was that this area was too dangerous to continue excavation. A consequence was that the investigation had left behind many loose ends that nobody had any interest in tying.

Mark couldn’t stop his gaze from slowly moving in Madame’s direction. Her back was held straight, her expression was stony and stern, and her arms were crossed. She was silent; she was thinking something through.

Why was she looking for that man?

The mysterious circumstances behind the man’s disappearance grew more bizarre with each new discovery. Mark suppressed the feeling of sickness that bubbled in his gut. What now? Where was this leading to? What kind of horrors was he guilty of inflicting upon that man? But he pushed it down.

This was no time for a mental breakdown.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of footsteps making their way towards their location. All three of them, including Madame, immediately got into a stance and turned to face the sound.

So far, they hadn’t encountered a single living thing within the Wastes. As the trio observed the figure of the decaying body of a woman appear before their eyes, they realized that that still hadn’t changed.

“An undead!” Nahar exclaimed. “There must be a death-affinity deviant nearby,” he concluded, keeping his calm as he glanced around, passively scouting the area.

The woman’s body was already severely decomposed, and the undead could barely walk. Nasty pus dripped down the side of the armor, and its steps sloshed with the mangling of rotten flesh on its feet.

“Wait,” Mark suddenly breathed out as he raised an arm. “Look at the equipment. Wasn’t that worn by one of the three scouts sent after Freddy?” he recalled.

“Indeed,” Nahar confirmed. “That’s Jenny Walker.”

The undead woman was still awkwardly shambling towards them. Such an undead should have been no threat to their party—but it was at this moment that both Mark and Nahar noticed that Madame hadn’t dropped her guard.

“Where… Where am I?” a low, gurgling voice sounded from the undead woman.

Mark took an involuntary step back in surprise. “That thing can speak!?”

“Thing?” the undead asked. “Speak? Who are you? What… Where am I?” It moved its bloodshot gaze to stare at its rotting arm. Its eyes shot open, revealing the faint outline of black, square pupils.

Suddenly, a twang echoed through the caves as a bolt pierced straight through the zombie’s skull. Madame’s arm had morphed into a crossbow of tendons and bone, and she was already regrowing another piece of bone ammo.

The undead did not drop to the ground. Madame fired again. Plucky twangs and wet thuds sounded repeatedly as bolt after bolt embedded into the undead’s rotting flesh, but the attacks failed to take it down.

“Insolent!” the creature screeched. “Blasphemy! You dare raise an arm against the High Priestess? Intolerable!”

Yet another shard of bone flew out, but the undead dodged it this time. Neither Mark nor Nahar could sense it until that moment, but as the creature released its full power… they realized that this was a three-star opponent. And it was powerful.

The undead screamed bloody murder as its body began to morph. It grew, replacing its rotting, mangled flesh with solid limbs wrapped in gray skin. The tight armor stretched to its breaking point, shattering with pieces flying into the cavern walls, where they embedded themselves with metallic clangs and ricocheted with high-pitched clinks.

Suddenly, with a burst of movement, Madame flashed forward and impaled her entire right arm through the center of the undead’s torso. The creature initially seemed unperturbed, but then Madame backed off.

Her right arm, however, the one she just embedded into the undead, stayed where it was, detaching from her body.

Then it started glowing.

The two men swiftly fell back, hiding behind the nearest obstacle as the shining limb ignited. After the deafening burst, the sound of rotting flesh splattering all over the walls soon followed. The explosion echoed through the cavern, circling through the empty space and sounding as if dozens of other explosions were going off.

“Holy shit!” Mark breathed out.

Madame suddenly appeared right before the two of them, her entire right arm and all the equipment on it missing.

“You may come out now,” she said. “It’s dead for good.”

“Was that really necessary?” Nahar asked as he pointedly stared at Madame’s missing limb.

Indeed. Although those with a life affinity could relatively easily regrow limbs, returning them to their perfect state was costly and time-consuming. And she should have been able to overpower that creature even without such a sacrifice.

“That is for me to worry about, dear,” she said as she grew out a fleshy appendage to replace the lost limb. Her expression appeared turbulent as she stared at the scattering of stinky, rotting gore. “This is the first time we’re ever seeing anything like this.”

Mark and Nahar immediately knew what the woman was talking about. Both men were highly educated and had immediately noticed the same thing. Mindless undead could be created through death-affinity abilities, but making them sapient just wasn’t possible. Let alone creating an undead with not just a star but three. If someone—or something—with such a power existed, the implications were immense. This was escalating fast.

The two men waited to the side while Madame examined the corpse. Whatever she was looking for, she wasn’t pleased with the answers she discovered. “Follow me,” she said. “We’re going back to that passage.”

So they did. They retraced their steps and found the eerie circular opening embedded in the ceiling. Its aura was as nauseating as the first time they saw it. The woman closed her eyes, likely examining the Netherecho. Both of them soon followed cautiously, taking a look for themselves.

Almost as soon as they closed their eyes, they shot them back open, yelping and taking a few frightened steps back. “What the hell is that?” Nahar shouted.

Mark silently echoed that statement. He had never seen wisps like those in his life—pitch-black, square-pupiled eyes surrounded the passage, staring deep into their souls.

Madame clicked her tongue, turned around, and started running back. The two men followed, asking her what exactly she was running towards, but she refused to elaborate.

After almost half an hour of travel, they finally made their way out of the Wastes. Once there, the men saw Madame rushing at the first monster she could find, a fat lizard thing that she grasped by the back of its neck and then abruptly started running back.

The two men followed her; eventually, they returned. As soon as they did, Madame abruptly snapped the lizard’s neck and threw it right in front of the circular opening. Then she closed her eyes.

Unable to restrain their curiosity, the two men also took a look. The wisps gradually gathered around the corpse; they rushed at it, but most simply bounced off. This continued for a long while—all that really happened was that more and more of them were ramming into the body.

Suddenly, as the wisps grew dense enough, some bounced off and started floating towards them, aiming at their bodies. Mark reacted instinctively and left the Netherecho; Nahar soon followed. But Madame had decided to stay, likely manually defending her body from the invasion of these freaky, abnormal wisps.

After a very anxiety-inducing half-hour of waiting, Madame’s eyes finally shot open, and she glared at the lizard’s corpse as it fumbled and started getting up to its feet. She conjured a dense fireball in her left hand and threw it at the monster, creating a violent explosion of gore.

As they stood there silently observing the charred remains, they all had the same thought—what the hell was going on?

Rahal had only one thing to say about his older brother’s death—it served him right. Janhalar had always been selfish, focusing on himself using the excuse that he was doing it for the clan. And look where that brought him. He died, and his body had been defiled. Critical treasures he kept in his personal storage ring—where they were the “safest”—were now lost, putting the future of their entire clan into jeopardy.

And, as was the case with every stupid error his brother committed, Rahal was the one who had to ensure that they weren’t lost forever.

Surrounded by three elders on each side, with their scout following behind them, Rahal led the eight-man group on what felt like a wild goose chase through the interspace. His long, white hair trailed down his back, and the red lines on his face made concentric circles. He looked much like his brother, the only notable exception being his striking blue eyes.

Thankfully, they had Larem’s help; otherwise, they couldn’t track these people. Whoever they were, they were highly proficient at covering the evidence of their passing. Well, at first, at least. For the first ten passages, they had left close to no tracks, but then, likely deeming themselves safe enough, they stopped bothering.

It had already been more than a month, and the most their search party had been able to achieve was keeping pace with the fleeing individuals. This deep within the interspace was dangerous. Lethal. Difficult challenges and frightening monstrosities lurked behind every corner, and as such, they had to make their way forward carefully.

The people they were following, however, seemingly weren’t limited by the same obstacles. And they didn’t seem foolish or rash, either. Not one nasty predator was disturbed in their wake, and they hadn’t unwittingly walked into a single hellish environment so far. These people were experts at navigating the interspace, and with each passing moment, they grew more convinced that they weren’t human at all.

Their search was no question of revenge for the defiling of their patriarch’s body. No, they had more important reasons to go after these people. There had been two treasures in Janhalar’s possession that needed to be retrieved at all costs. First was the starfire mirror rose extract. And the second was the prime vestige. Both were crucial enough that even their deaths would be a worthwhile investment to get them back.

Which was to say that they had come prepared to die.

They trodded through a jungle environment. Mud coated their uniforms, and the sounds of abominable parrot-esque monsters screeching their lungs out echoed all around them as the plants themselves moved to assault them and slow their progress.

Although they made sure to confirm that they were safe enough to travel, they couldn’t afford to take things slow. It was uncertain whether their quarry knew they were being tracked, but either way, they were moving fast.

Yet again they found themselves at a loss for where to go next, and Larem had to use his talent again. The man kept his talent going until his eyes started bleeding, and ultimately, he spotted the next trail, quite a bit away from the direction they had been heading in.

But that wasn’t all he witnessed. “Take care,” he said in a slightly nasal voice. “I believe they are close.”

Rahal prepared himself for combat.

He was a caster by specialization. Although his blood-manipulation-enhancing talent wasn’t patriarch material, he was mighty proud of it. Power-wise, the only person in the entire clan who could outdo him was Nahar. That kid was a true monster.

He pulled a wand out of his Storage Ring and grasped it tightly. It was made of bone, with a red crystal on top. All the others got ready, too, and they made their way forward.

Indeed, Larem had been telling the truth. Their quarry wasn’t far—the two individuals they were chasing were… resting, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were being attacked. Initially, he believed that they could potentially be powerful enough that they simply didn’t care. Until he and all of the elders surrounding him finally felt the duo’s power.

“Wha—!?” he couldn’t stop himself from yelping in shock.

Although surprisingly well concealed, these people’s presence was that of… two-stars!? He didn’t know whether to smile or frown. Something was off. They could clearly hold their own even in the depths of wild passage realms—so how?

“Don’t drop your guard,” he told his party. “You never know what they could be hiding.”

They coordinated their strategy and surrounded their enemy. Once they got close enough, Rahal could see their faces. The two people appeared to be a short man and a tall woman, crouched and conversing. Their hair was black, and their equipment was decent but nothing special. They appeared to be little more than two ordinary Caucasian archhumans.

What caught Rahal’s attention, however, was their eyes.

Their pupils were in the shape of eerie squares, and a general air of wrongness surrounded the two.

Eventually, all the combatants got into position. With a flash of his will, Rahal revealed his power, and the others took the cue to jump out of the bushes and surround their quarry.

Their targets didn’t panic; instead, they swiftly but cautiously raised their guard and prepared for combat.

“It appears that we have been surrounded,” the man stated the obvious with a thick accent, sounding almost Middle Eastern, but not quite.

“Do not engage, Kaefalge,” the woman commanded, much to the man’s chagrin. She also had an unusual way of speaking, but it was less her accent and more the fact that she overpronounced her words and spoke slowly but clearly. “Diplomacy always comes first.”

“Do not school me on diplomacy, Firrita,” the man responded.

Rahal cautiously observed their exchange as he evaluated the situation. Everything about them was odd. Their stance was unusual, but he could sense great experience oozing from how these two held themselves. There was no fakeness to it—their power was on full display. They were truly two-stars. But their experience didn’t at all match their power.

Rather than beat around the bush, he decided to cut straight to the point. “You two looted the corpse of a man with an appearance similar to ours. Hand back everything you took.”

21

IMPOSTOR

In the middle of a forested realm with a suffocating, humid jungle environment, two people knelt half-naked before the eight people surrounding them. The first of the two—a short, black-haired man—held himself firmly as a figure in red robes scanned his body.

The other person, a tall woman dressed in nothing but her underwear, waited for them to finish as she kept eye contact with Rahal.

They had surrendered rather easily. That was a wise decision. Not only had they been surrounded, but Rahal and the elders had brought specialized tools to help restrain them, and they hadn’t been hiding them either.

Rahal glanced at the scout who he had tasked with searching them. The man shook his head.

“Curses!” he swore under his breath as he turned to the short man. “You. What is your talent?”

“I can make fire burn fiercer with nothing but a glance.” The man surrendered the information easily.

Rahal called the name of one of the elders, and the woman pulled out a lighter. As she flicked it, the man displayed his talent by making the small flame rise rapidly. The elder flicked her lighter closed, and the fire petered out.

“And you?” he asked as he turned to face the woman.

“Put a weapon in one of my hands,” she requested.

“Jahir, plastic fork.”

The scout nodded as he extracted a piece of plastic cutlery from the bag on his back and placed it into the woman’s hands. She clenched and, with ease, created an ethereal copy of the fork in her second hand.

That means that neither of them had a storage talent.

Barring circumstances too extraordinary to realistically expect them, these two didn’t have any way to hide the items if they were in their possession. He sighed and pinched his brow. A headache settled right on the top of his scalp and made its way down. Absolutely fantastic; they had just spent a godforsaken month running around the interspace like idiots!

“We told you we don’t have it,” the tied-up woman said. “The only thing we did was take the heart essence. My companion is the one who consumed it. I know the spiritual value of such an item to those who walk the path of blood, and if you wish for satisfaction, you may take my head.”

She offered as she bowed, and surprisingly, her companion looked greatly amused at her words.

“I don’t need your fucking head,” Rahal swore angrily, his eyes turning bloodshot. He bit his thumbnail so hard that a big chunk of it detached. He spat it out as he marched forward and leaned in to stare into the woman’s eyes. “I need information,” he barked. “Tell me! What were you doing in that realm!? Who are you!?”

The short man perked up. “Ah, that would be a bit of a long story. But we did see who killed your patriarch,” the man shared, sneering.

Rahal spun wildly. “What!?” he asked. “Was it not the leviathan!? Who was it!? Do you know their location!?”

“I have no idea,” the man said, grinning gleefully.

He kicked the man in the face, pushing him over to the ground as he turned to the woman. “Are you more willing to speak?”

“My companion is telling the truth,” she said. “We have seen the beginning of the battle where your patriarch perished, but we fled immediately after. We only returned after a long time had passed, and even that was only due to my companion’s curiosity.”

“Bullshit!” Rahal spat. “What I think really happened is that you took the items on his body and returned later when you remembered the heart essence!” he accused as he jabbed a finger at the woman’s collarbone. “Now tell me what you did with it!”

The woman merely shrugged. “We have no way to prove our innocence,” she said. “Do with us as you wish.”

“All right,” he said as he kicked the woman in the gut. She buckled over as he started walking. “You will tell us everything you know,” he continued as the woman spat blood. “If I ever have any reason to suspect you’re lying, I will kill you both without hesitation.”

The man started laughing at that. “You will never believe us when we tell you,” he said. “So you might as well kill us immediately.”

“That’s for me to judge,” Rahal said. “Now speak!”

And spoke, they did. Their story was the single most confusing, nonsensical piece of information Rahal had ever received. And it wasn’t because it was a blatant lie, either. At least parts of what they were saying made sense.

The patriarch had been in the middle of chasing a blood-affinity ether construct tied to the concept of bloodshed. The beginning of their story lined up. But the details were… frankly absurd.

Rahal had established himself as likely the most important among the elders purely due to how well he wielded information. His memory was eidetic. So he could tentatively put the pieces together. There was a small problem—even children’s cartoons had a more believable plot than the tall tale these two shared with him.

The first thing they encountered was a one-star archhuman slaying a leviathan. This was the creature they had presumed to be the true culprit behind their patriarch’s death. And, apparently, it had died to a damn one-star.

Then the spirit of bloodshed appeared to save the man’s life. As for why he needed to be saved? Apparently, killing a creature so far above one’s level overwhelmed one’s soul. The “usual” way to avoid it was to use a talisman of sorts. The problem was that he had never heard of this. Nobody had ever killed something so far above them at the first star. That was impossible. Or, it should have been.

Who were these people to speak of such things with such confidence? That didn’t feel like a deliberate detail they dropped to throw them off the trail.

There was another problem—the blood spirit’s arrival. They claimed that it hadn’t already been with the man but that it had come out of nowhere, only for the patriarch to soon follow after it.

That lined up with the fact that the patriarch could track the blood spirit. The issue with their story was that too many details lined up.

Afterward, several things led to giant skeletal heads rising from the ocean, which was when the patriarch started fighting them, and these two ran away.

It was rather uncharacteristic of members of the Kraven Clan to laugh. But the cackling of the elders was understandable.

Rahal, on the other hand, wasn’t laughing.

The woman stood still, her expression serene as she awaited their judgment. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of humor, even after the absurd story. The man, on the other hand, seemed to bask in its absurdity, openly cackling at them, so much so that it threw Rahal off.

He sighed. They had underestimated these two. While they were two-stars, they weren’t rookies. Ordinary methods of interrogation simply wouldn’t work on them. And he was confident that even torture would fail. Whatever it was about them, it had to be connected to their strange identities.

So it was finally time to ask the question that had been hanging above everyone’s head from the moment they first saw these two. “Why are the two of you wearing square contact lenses?” he finally said. “Is that the mark of some sort of cult?” he asked more himself than them. Then he turned around. “Anyone here know of any organizations with such a thing as their signature?”

“Actually,” the male said, looking mighty pleased with himself. “I believe that the way we got these was by—” Midway through his sentence, the space around the man’s mouth morphed, and his words turned into high-pitched squeals and whistles.

The surrounding elders readied their weapons. But there was nothing to fight.

After not even a second, the man stopped talking. His mouth was bleeding openly, his lips looking as if they had been cut apart. “Oh,” he said, “I see.”

Mark and Nahar boarded the floating ship that would take them back to Starhold. The gray, utilitarian, metallic interior reflected Mark’s mood quite aptly as he sat there, unable to get his mind off the subject.

It was frustrating. More than Madame’s silence and the confusing nature of the entire case, he was frustrated that, essentially, he didn’t deserve to know. His role there had been to take the blame he rightfully deserved, to confess his sins so that the man wouldn’t unjustly direct his anger at Madame.

Speaking of whom, she finally boarded the ship, too, and stepped into a small room to the side, leaving the two men by themselves.

Nahar moved over to sit beside him as he patted his shoulder. “What are your thoughts?”

Mark’s eyes momentarily slid to face the man, only having enough strength to raise high enough to side-eye Nahar’s knees as he dropped them to face the floor again. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“Understandable,” Nahar said. He let the moment hang for a while as he patted Mark’s shoulder again. “But you’re being greedy.”

That startled him into finally looking the man in the face. “In what way?” he asked.

“You’re taking all the blame.”

That… That sounded like an excuse. Indeed, it wasn’t he who had sent Freddy to that camp, but he was the one who had sent him down that path. He hadn’t done everything, but he’d done enough. As scared as he had been to meet him, the fact that they failed to find that man was infinitely regrettable. More than anything, he wanted to come face-to-face and apologize. But he most likely wouldn’t get the chance to do that.

While the body might still be alive… the owner might no longer be the same person.

Narcisse walked past the two young men and into her private compartment as she breathed out. Her breath was shaky, and her mind was racing. With a shivering hand, she extracted a notebook out of her storage ring. It appeared with a pop of the air being displaced to accommodate it.

The notebook was a frilly pink item with numerous hearts and flowers drawn all over it. She flipped it open.

Her eyes scanned through the notes she had taken. All of her speculation and guesswork, all the details she had believed had come together perfectly. The timing of the camp’s destruction and the sporadic life force signature she felt, the specifics in the reports they had scoured through, and her own intelligence gathering unit collecting information beforehand.

Slowly, almost fearfully, she reached the ultimate conclusion of her speculation.

FREDDY STERN DESTROYED CAMP VIOLET.

Her talent was something that worked best when absolutely nobody knew about it.

It was Life Signature. It acted as a quasi-tracking ability she could put on a target and, if the target remained close, could sense its position. If someone was right before her, she could feel the intricacies of how that person’s body worked, both in general and at that moment.

She could tell when someone was preparing themselves to attack because she could sense the tightening of their muscles. It was even possible to partly infer whether someone was lying or telling the truth purely based on their physical reaction.

The further away the entity being tracked went, the weaker the ability became. It didn’t take much for the tracking aspect to stop working altogether. But the connection couldn’t be severed. Not even by entering another realm. Well, not through any means anyone had discovered yet, but nobody had even found out what her talent did, let alone how to counter it.

Although she couldn’t put it on infinite targets, she could use it enough times at once to always have a tracker on every individual that was important to her at that moment. One of those people was Freddy Stern.

One of the most valuable aspects of her talent was that she could tell the general health of anyone she used it on, even if the connection was fragile. She had maintained her connection to Freddy in case she was ever handed an opportunity to retrieve him.

Because how dare those bastards? Their heinous act had tarnished her reputation, and the amount of trouble she got into for allowing someone under her protection to get kidnapped was astronomical.

They would pay for this, she had vowed back then. Given enough time, she would get her revenge. The story of poor old Freddy, the victim of a nasty conspiracy, would air before millions of people, showing the city lord and clan patriarch as the monsters they were.

It would have been a hit at their reputation that only she could deliver, probably enough to stain it for the next hundred years, if not forever.

Until Janhalar, that crafty old bastard, decided to ship the poor man into a mining expedition on Faralethal. She had believed that it was over back then. Not even she could save someone in that situation. The whole expedition was set up in a way that made it functionally impossible for anyone to escape. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to sever the bond with the young man.

His life, even through the one-dimensional hole she was viewing it through, was a bloody spectacle. His physical condition suffered the types of ups and downs and lefts and rights that would leave anyone flabbergasted as to what the hell was happening to him.

But nothing he had gone through prior could even begin to compare to what she felt on the day that camp was destroyed. That man had had an ocean of life flowing into him while he himself kept nearly dying over and over.

It was only after her spies caught wind of the news that she made her conclusion. Freddy Stern had found some form of unique treasure and acquired the fire affinity. Then he proceeded to wreck the camp, nearly dying to the defenders in the process.

Everything lined up perfectly. Well, it mostly did. As to how he received such a massive burst of power so suddenly, it could only be attributed to the X variable—or, rather, the hypothetical treasure.

She took a deep breath and let the exhale wash some stress out of her body. Well. There went that hypothesis. Apparently, he had actually discovered what seemed to be another Great Anomaly and had his body stolen by some form of horror beyond comprehension. Wonderful. Whether he had been fully or partially overtaken by those things was still a mystery, but one thing was certain—according to her talent, his body was still alive.

But… They had run around enough to conclude that that body was nowhere nearby. As it had been lost in the caverns, it no longer really mattered. This cave system was so far away from Starhold that that creature would likely never again interact with another human being. With some sadness at the unfortunate turn of events, she focused on her connection to the man, ready to sever it and move on.

However.

A frightening possibility wormed its way into the back of her mind—what if he hadn’t run off into the caverns? Even that undead seemed to be intelligent, so it was unlikely that the man had been possessed by a mindless beast.

It also must have had the same, or a similar, talent as he himself; otherwise, the influx of healing would make no sense. Her mind blanked out for a moment.

For a while, at least, whatever was in the man’s body had spent a prolonged period in a seriously damaged state. She had tried analyzing it and had concluded that he was likely suffering from severe burn injuries, most likely as a byproduct of an untrained body using the fire affinity-slash-treasure so liberally.

But why hadn’t it healed? She had first concluded that it might be related to whatever he was using to get that power, either backlash or a trade-off that he couldn’t simply nullify with his healing. A spirit ability could justify such a phenomenon.

But what if that wasn’t the case?

What if the man, or the thing possessing him, had pretended to be one of the survivors and waited for the rescue team?

Hastily, she rushed to the stack of papers in the corner of the room. She skimmed through one report after another. Eventually, she spotted something suspicious. One of the people rescued was a severe burn victim; apparently, an employee. On what basis had they concluded this? What evidence did they use to prove the man’s identity? She dug deeper.

What she found chilled her to her core. An ID…? That was it?

Surely, they must have tried harder than that; she needed to know.

And eventually, she discovered what she had been looking for:

Faralethal Activity Excavation Site: Camp Violet: Destruction Investigation Report

REPORT: CVDCSR-00056

Report topic: Rescue and Recovery of Subject: Peter Vane.

But it didn’t hold the answers she wanted to hear. “Oh dear…” she breathed out as she put the papers down. There was no more room for doubt. She would confirm it by paying a visit to this man named Matthew, but she had a feeling she knew what she would find.

This ordinarily wouldn’t be her concern. But this was an opportunity. She couldn’t destroy Basilisk by airing his dirty laundry out for the world to see…

But he was the sole owner of this expedition. He was the one who would be held responsible for the risks that the reckless slave camps had taken. They only needed to be this far away to ensure none of the prisoners could escape and that nobody could rescue them. Had they been closer, it would have been easier to prevent something like this from happening.

A small smile appeared on her lips.

She had to compile her evidence first. But it would no doubt be enough.

It was time to give the empress a little update.

22

STRANGE ENCOUNTER

After watching his one-night stand march out of his apartment, Freddy looked around his apartment.

The small living room was illuminated by the late spring early afternoon sun, and the world was his oyster.

His mood had been fouled, but alas, he had made a decision. Today, he would rest.

It took him roughly thirty minutes to get bored. Eventually, he stopped lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

He didn’t feel all that tired. If anything, he felt restless.

There was no rush per se, but Theodore’s warning weighed on his mind.

The main issue with delving was that there was always risk involved. Even when overqualified, the danger was there. He had heard stories of the Crimson Twilight—the event that happened every once in a while in that realm. Not once had it gone without casualties.

If he was taking risks, it must be for enough profit. He was safe enough doing ordinary delving in this realm for a while longer. But what if he got restricted? Hell, what if he was forced to take on a more difficult realm instead?

If that happened, he needed to get strong enough to handle it.

Taking a seated position in the middle of the living room, he did some breathing exercises to calm himself. He had been studying how to best create tempering techniques, and now he was putting his knowledge into practice.

First, he took his time. He focused on his breaths. Inevitably, his mind wandered. As it did, he acknowledged the distraction and let it go, bringing himself back to the present.

Growing distracted when making a tempering technique slowed progress drastically, so it was advised to do some meditation before beginning.

When he felt focused enough, he dove into his ethercosm. The first step to making a tempering technique was to permit the tiniest of trickles of essence into the body part one was trying to temper. In this case, he allowed the essence to flow into his blood.

He gradually started reabsorbing it, taking some of it back while replacing it with fresh essence. Then he simply observed. Listened to what the essence was telling him. It was a mess. It told him stories of how the blood flowed, how thick it was, how much there was, where it went, where it was created, what it was made of, and what purpose it served.

He kept listening, focusing on the information he wanted to discover. Eventually, he heard it. The story of a metal. It was jumbled and indistinct—for now, but he released that piece of essence back into his blood and listened again. Through numerous cycles, he heard enough.

Iron coursed through his veins, carried in red cells that helped transport oxygen around his body. Then, by mimicking the flow of essence he observed, he primed those cells to take on even more iron.

It was an exhausting process that required far more focus than Pool of Blood. Eventually, he decided to take a break and realized that he was quite hungry. That was right—he hadn’t eaten anything that day.

Then he looked up, facing the clock on the wall.

His eyes widened slightly. It was already 9 p.m.? He’d been sitting there for so long without noticing…

He chuckled, getting up. He prepared himself to make his dinner as he failed to notice the ether shell for Crimson Mercury in his soul, already formed enough to be crystallized, and Bloodshed, staring at its master’s work with reverence.

“I don’t believe such a rule exists,” the woman told him.

It was the day after, and Freddy stood in the hub, fully armored and talking to a receptionist. He had just asked her if there were any rules about overhunting.

“However,” the woman continued, “there are cases where the owner manually stepped in to prevent certain people from delving when their styles were too destructive.”

“Go on…” he urged.

“A poison expert and a certain fire caster are the two primary culprits as to why gorels are the only remaining living species of monster in the realm. And there have been cases where severely overqualified parties were banned from entering because they were chasing the other delvers away. As for you… sir,” she said hesitantly, “you are at the beginning of the second star. As long as you’re in the recommended range of power and you don’t destroy the bodies you collect, you will not have any limits imposed on your delving,” she assured him.

He hummed at that. “Thank you for the information,” he said, then turned around and walked to one of the empty couches in the lobby.

Well then. That complicated things.

He fished the letter out of his pocket and opened it. He hadn’t read the whole thing yet. This time, rather than just skimming the contents, he took his time and read through everything.

The letter was a formal invitation from a man named Jacob Santorio. The text stank of corporate copywriting, so full of platitudes and humblebrags that it made him feel sick reading it.

To sum it up—Jacob, the son of Leonard Santorio, was creating a new party. Leonard, as was mentioned at least thrice in the text, owned the entirety of the gorel hub, which he just learned was actually called the Santorio Hub…

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he remembered the name of the biggest nearby training center. So these bastards pretty much owned this entire district, didn’t they?

The letter continued into a politely phrased invitation to participate in an interview that would take place in a week. There were no threats or warnings or any sign that he couldn’t just refuse to show up.

But he knew better than to lower his guard. It would be bizarre for Theodore to warn him like that without proper cause. He was likely “instructed” to “subtly hint” at “restrictions” if Freddy “failed to show up.”

So, in summary, he was being softly coerced into joining a newly formed party through threats of petty retaliation if he didn’t. As for why they wanted him, Theodore had likely shared pretty much everything he knew about Freddy. Based on how he had presented himself and how he had acted, it was evident that he was powerful, cautious, and hard-working.

Tough, too, which was desirable for a close-range brawler.

Although he would usually get angry at such bullying and power abuse, he had to admit it was hard to get mad at such a damn good offer.

Life in a penthouse with all living expenses covered, full access to their training facilities, which he already knew were immensely pricy if he wanted to pay for access himself, and a fair, merit-based share of profits, which would be free from the insane 50% fee that everyone else suffered under.

Naturally, this didn’t come for free. He wasn’t being offered a place in this party—he was being invited to an interview. He still had to pass to join.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he pondered his options. While joining the party was tempting, it wasn’t a good idea. His unique affinity, Blood Sacrifice, and Leviathan’s Fury were all something that shouldn’t be revealed willy-nilly.

Something like an ice affinity would be easy to blow off since it’s common enough for water archs to get it after ascending, but this perished water business was obviously more complicated than that.

The two special abilities were even more bizarre, and their discovery could invite unwanted curiosity.

There was always the possibility of just keeping them a secret—but how viable was that? Were there methods they could use to check his soul? He didn’t know enough about the subject to take the chance.

He almost missed the Freddy of old, that naive little dumbass that didn’t think for even a moment before rushing into stupid decisions. As much as actually using his brain improved his quality of life, it was also pretty damn tiring at times.

For now, he decided to ignore the threat. There was no reason to limit himself while he still had the opportunity to maximize his profits. As for whether he would take the interview… he’d decide by next week.

He subtly made the letter vanish into his Storage Ring, where it wouldn’t rustle and cause noise, and headed down into the basement.

“Oh boy.” He sighed as he made his way down.

The lobby was crowded as all hell, and numerous less experienced parties were sitting around and waiting. A glance at the large passage confirmed it. It was nighttime in the realm.

While more experienced parties didn’t care, newbies tended to retreat when the night fell. Although it was hazardous, he didn’t hesitate to push past the crowds and walk out through the passage.

Nighttime was too frequent for him to sit around and wait for it to pass. Not to mention that even when it was day, it could flip to night whenever. Avoiding it made people less prepared to face it at an inopportune time.

The glow of the lobby lights shone through the passage, illuminating the surrounding area like the light coming out of a garage in the dead of the night. In contrast, the realm was like a moonless night with stormy clouds in the distance—pure darkness, barring the intermittent flashes of colorful light coming from the many spots where the delvers were fighting.

Sighing deeply, he started walking, taking his flashlight out and turning it on.

He had already taken one of the perception-boosting pills. It felt stronger for some reason, as if the lack of light made his body compensate by boosting his hearing. The soft rustling of leaves and the distant, muffled echoes of combat filled his ears, giving the realm an eerie backdrop that lingered along the length of his spine, preparing him for danger at any moment.

Twisting a part of the flashlight, he turned the light down to the minimum. He could see well enough with just a bit of light, and the weaker he kept it, the lower the odds of a monster spotting him and rushing him before he was ready to face it.

Hunting at night was a lot less convenient than during the day. Even with enhanced perception, it was near-impossible to see the monsters in the dark, even if he could hear them.

After a while, he heard the sounds of distant rustling. He climbed a rock and tried looking in their general direction. They were around fifty meters away. During the day, he could easily identify the number of gorels and their types, even from that distance.

But at night? Their dark fur blended into the shadows almost seamlessly, and he could barely even catch a glimpse of movement. If he shone the flashlight, they’d see him and rush him. Without knowing what he was getting into, attacking was stupid.

What if one of them was a deviant? He’d been rather lucky the day before, as he hadn’t encountered any deviants, but they were an ever-present danger. Sighing, he climbed down from the rock.

He’d keep heading out, and eventually, he would hopefully find a group where he could reliably identify that there were one or two through hearing alone.

His steps carried him forward, and as time passed, he became more and more anxious.

A bad feeling bubbled in his gut, as if his intuition was trying to tell him something.

But he heard nothing. He saw nothing. Yet, he listened to his guts.

He stopped, taking a moment to check his surroundings with the flashlight. The light shone across the nearby rocks, but he found nothing there. Still, he decided to oblige his instincts and changed course, backtracking slightly to take a turn down a safer path.

But the feeling didn’t go away. If anything, it grew more intense. Something was deeply wrong. As if on cue, just as he had the thought, his surroundings lit up as day overtook night. He couldn’t help but sigh in relief, but a moment later, that proved to be premature.

A misplaced foot knocked a stone over behind him. Freddy whirled, turning around to see what it was. Not even three meters away from him, standing on the top of a rock, was a small, blood-red gorel with nearly half-meter-long claws of blood, looming over him and preparing to strike.

“Son of a—” he screamed as the gorel lunged at him, and he raised his guard, blocking the swing of its claws with his bracers, but like a hot knife through butter, the attack shredded his armor and dug deep into his right arm, drawing blood and causing him to partially lose feeling in his fingers.

He groaned as he dodged another swing, and just as it was about to take a third, he kicked with a Flowing Strike, but the gorel dodged and pulled back, making some space between them.

The absolute greatest priority in dealing with a deviant was determining their talent. But in this case, the answer was readily apparent—this thing could conceal its presence, which was why he had failed to hear it as it was stalking him.

Its blood affinity seemed to be founded upon Crimson Mercury, as was evident by the long, metal-like claws.

And there was a tremendous problem. This thing was powerful. It was a worker by nature, it seemed, as could be seen by its small form. The claws were produced by an ability, and its spoon-like fingers could be seen beneath, curled into tight fists.

This thing was trouble. Big trouble. It didn’t move like the other dull, clumsy gorels. It had finesse and was clearly an experienced hunter. Judging by its power, which was at the second star, he was far from its first victim.

It didn’t growl or posture needlessly, simply evaluating him with the cold, merciless gaze of a killer.

Too bad, however. He knew its talent, and as he had been studying the Crimson Mercury path, he knew damn well what tricks it could pull.

But it had no idea what he was capable of.

“You’ll pay for wrecking my armor, you little shit,” he declared as he started moving forward.

It swiftly dodged to the side and lunged at him, using its long claws to get a swing in on his vulnerable legs. It clearly didn’t expect to suddenly find itself enveloped in a large bubble of dark water.

A gurgle escaped its lips as a massive, ghastly stinger plunged into its eye, sharp phantom jaws bit its leg, and a massive, shadowy claw tore its back apart. As the essence behind the attack ran out and the water vanished, leaving the bewildered creature momentarily stunned, it was warmly welcomed by a punch straight to its face, one that blew half its head off and killed it instantly.

A rush of lifesteal filled his body, and he let out a breath, feeling a sharp sense of relief as the wounds on his forearm closed and stopped bleeding.

That had been enough to trigger almost natural-quality healing, which meant that his wounds wouldn’t suddenly open back up any time soon. But he still had to recover further. It could wait, though. He had to bring this thing back to the hub before any of its comrades smelled its blood.

Just as he was hooking the creature on the rack, he heard the rolling of stones behind his back and a surprised, girly yelp. He turned around, spotting a barely armored—no, barely clothed—woman tripping over the rock formation and barely regaining her balance before she followed the stones on their way down to the ground below. She was dressed in more or less ordinary clothing, wearing a filthy, torn white T-shirt and sporty black sweatpants. Her hair was a bright shade of blonde, and her eyes were a piercing purple.

There were strange spots on her skin, and she generally gave off the impression that she had some form of nasty illness. Her cheeks were puffed—her left eye had a dark patch in a corner.

For a long moment, Freddy got the impression that this was someone who needed rescuing. However, her tone and behavior didn’t match that assumption.

She blew air out of her lips and groaned. “That was close…”

His eyes closed into slits as he watched the arch make her way down the formation. As far as he could tell, she was weak. Pathetically so. Pretty much at the beginning of the first star.

This was incredibly suspicious. Purple eyes were uncommon, making them a feature one usually got due to an ascension. Not to mention that hers almost seemed to glow slightly. But this woman, at least from what he could tell, hadn’t ascended yet. Either that, or she was hiding it.

Shifting the gorel corpse behind his back, he called out, “Who are you?”

“Oh, crap!” she cursed. “You already killed it!” she spat without any shame.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” she said, sighing despondently. “I’ll be on my way. Sorry for bothering you,” she said.

Then she started walking past him. He moved the gorel corpse again and made space for her to pass.

“What!?” she asked angrily. “I’m not here to rob you! Some people…” she spat indignantly as she shook her head. But then, just as she was about to walk past him, she stopped and took a long breath through her nose.

For a brief moment, her eyes flicked to the gorel corpse he was hiding behind his back, opening wide in surprise. “Wait a minute,” she said, and then she looked at him. Her purple eyes had a radiance behind them—a sort of gluttony that put him on edge. “It’s you.”

He reflexively took a step back and raised his guard with one arm. Did this woman recognize him?

The woman moved, and he prepared to defend himself, but…

“Please!” she begged, prostrating herself on the ground before him. “Give me one of your arms!”

23

A SUITABLE WEAPON

Freddy stared at the sickly woman sprawled out on the ground before his feet. “Uhhh…” he muttered, mind uncomprehending.

The gorel corpse hanging off the rack behind his back dripped blood on the ground behind him. The sun roared up above, and the sounds of distant combat grew louder with each passing moment as more and more parties engaged, using the day as a cue to finally ambush gorels they had likely been stalking for a while already.

“Excuse me… What did you just say?” he asked, unsure of whether he had heard the woman correctly the first time.

“Please!” she begged. “I’ll do anything for it! It doesn’t even have to be a whole arm! I can do with just a fist! Or even a finger! Please!”

What is this crazy woman talking about!? he reeled in his mind. “Look, lady, uh… I’m not sure exactly what your angle is, but I don’t intend to donate my body parts to anyone.”

“Please! It shouldn’t be a problem for you!” she insisted. “You can heal them back eventually!”

That took him aback. For some reason, he got the impression that she didn’t mean that he could pay for the healing. “What makes you think that?” he probed cautiously, keeping his voice flat.

“Huh?” She raised her head, seemingly confused. “Your talent, of course.”

His eyes shot wide open beneath his helmet, and a light sweat broke through his skin, pooling beneath his armor and drenching his one-piece underwear. He worked not to let any of this show outwardly. “I can’t do that,” he denied outright. “And I do not know how you landed on that conclusion, but I’d like to ask you to⁠—”

“Please!” she yelled again. “Do you want that to remain a secret!? I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I swear on my life!” The girl crawled forward and pushed her forehead further into the soil. “Just one finger!”

“Stay away from me!” he shouted as he jumped back and raised his guard.

This woman was incredibly suspicious. As far as he knew, she may have some form of illegal, sinister talent. Talent manifestation didn’t follow man-made rules. But men made rules nonetheless.

Some forms of talents had to be forfeited immediately if one manifested them. There was some truly insane stuff, like the infamous Infant Bomb talent a certain terrorist destroyed half a town with.

People usually gave them up willingly as the reward tended to be a lot of money. But some didn’t.

Whatever this woman was playing at could very well be the requirement to activate some form of curse or something. He didn’t doubt that it would help her in some way—but what would it cost him in return?

“All right! I’ll… I’ll…” she muttered as she got up to her feet, looking quite defeated. “I won’t bother you any longer. Sorry for my shameful behavior. But…” she started again, raising her piercing purple eyes to face him. “Please consider it. My offer still stands. I’ll do whatever you want in⁠—”

“Please just,” he interrupted her. “Can you please just leave, miss?”

Her mouth opened slightly as she nodded, her eyes falling to the ground and her shoulders sagging. Without saying anything else, she turned around and left.

“What the actual fuck just happened?” he whispered under his breath.

That was… certainly an interesting encounter, to say the least. He felt discombobulated at the utterly bizarre sequence of events.

Regardless of her situation, she was still a one-star, completely unequipped, running around a passage realm. And given the tearing on her clothes and telltale signs of natural-quality healing beneath, she had made it out of at least one fight alive.

As he observed her form, despite the light sagging of disappointment, he could see firmness in her step, a balance in her gait. She was well trained. She was strong. And on top of that, she was headed deeper into the passage realm, likely looking for another fight.

Releasing a heavy breath, he hoisted the deviant gorel up on his back and started running back to the lobby.

As he ran, he could hear the noises of several nearby groups of gorels running toward him. The natural rock formations surrounding the path slowed their approach, and his determined run was enough to lose them every time. Still, the effect of this deviant’s corpse on others of its kin was undeniable. He had to hurry.

A few minutes later, he finally returned and dropped the deviant off at the counter. He couldn’t help but sigh when he realized it didn’t drop a prime. Well, there was no point in lamenting the nature of luck.

That run left him feeling rather exhausted. Before heading back in, he sat on one of the benches to drink water, eat bread, and down a can of cold-brew coffee.

He used Adaptive Water Body for a while to regain his inner balance, did a few minutes of meditation, another few of gathering to replenish his lost reserves, and then went right back to hunting.

For the most part, the hunt went well. The day stuck around, and he could hunt as efficiently as he did on his first day. Whenever the fatigue began setting in, he staved it off with either a canned coffee or an energy drink.

Rather than cutting his delve short, he decided to stick around longer this time. The gym could wait. Profits were his priority.

He worked to keep his essence consumption to the minimum, but it became increasingly difficult the more he hunted. Even as healthy as he kept it, his body had its limits. Before long, he had to rely increasingly on Hydraulic Flex to dodge effectively, and he couldn’t muster the strength for a solid attack without Flowing Strike.

His body felt weak and exhausted, and his breaks grew longer between fights—both to recover his strength and to replenish his dwindling essence reserves.

A headache slowly crept up his forehead and towards the back of his head.

Stalking like a predator, he set his sights on a small group of three worker gorels. Unhesitantly, he ran toward them, already confirming that the surrounding area was empty of other threats.

The gorels hissed and growled at him, but he lunged in, taking a Flowing Strike–fueled punch… and missed, stumbling and tripping on the ground.

Just as he regained himself, he had to use Hydraulic Flex to dodge a heavy fist that was flying down on his head, and a pang of pain shot through his leg as a gorel bit him.

He grabbed the overextended fist of the gorel that tried smashing his skull and, with a Flowing Strike, swung its body, timing the ability to use the force transference to send the creature flying at a nearby tree, but it wasn’t enough; it slammed with a meaty thud and bounced to the ground, howling and limping, but it wasn’t down for the count.

It was time to get desperate.

He swung down to kick the one biting his leg, activating both his stars to blow its skull into bits. A jolt of agony shot through his right hip and knee, and his foot felt as if the ability had detached its skin, turning it into a loose bag of blood.

The third gorel came, and he used Create Perished Water to stave it off. The ability was enough to injure the creature grievously, but it persisted, and he was forced to use it again. Both times, he felt a rather substantial flood of lifesteal, and the second time, one of the phantasmal jaws took a nasty bite out of the creature’s cheek; with that, it was chased away, making an escape together with the one he had flung at the tree earlier.

He gulped air heavily, feeling as if he were drowning. Thankfully, he didn’t have to resort to Leviathan’s Fury. Sweat and blood covered most of his body, and his arms shook.

It took him a good while of swinging the machete at the grass to fully heal himself, but even then, something felt off. How did he tumble like that at the beginning of the fight? He didn’t remember what happened. It was as if, for a moment, the world turned dark when he swung his fist.

He worked to rack the one gorel he had managed to kill. In the middle of attaching the hook to the thick skin behind its neck, everything blacked out, and he regained himself only after he had fallen over to the ground.

“What the fuck?” he whispered. He was healed. There shouldn’t be anything off about his body. And, as far as he could tell, he didn’t feel bad. He didn’t even feel tired. He felt wide awake⁠—

Yet again, another pang of weakness overwhelmed him, and he kept his presence of mind long enough to realize what was happening. He was falling asleep!

He reached for his bag and pulled out an energy drink. Deciding to leave the gorel corpse behind, he ran back to the lobby—only for day to suddenly shift into night.

“Oh… shit!” he screamed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

This was bad. Really bad. He strained his brain to its limits as he worked to keep himself awake. One energy drink after another went down his throat, and at one point, he had to stop to puke his guts out.

The bursts of fatigue came more and more frequently. But eventually, he spotted the dim light of the passage leading back into the lobby. When he came close enough to be well and truly within the green zone and out of danger, he breathed a sigh of relief—one that pushed him over the edge. His eyes closed, and he tumbled to the ground, just a bit in front of the passage.

I need to stop letting myself get into situations like these, he thought tiredly, at least relieved that he would fall asleep somewhere where he was unlikely to get robbed.

He didn’t know how long had passed, but he eventually woke up. He found himself lying on the bench inside the lobby. As expected, someone had found him and taken him back inside. Getting up with a jolt, he looked around. People sat around him, but nobody even looked at him as he woke up.

He took note of his belongings, feeling both the rings still on his fingers. All of his equipment was still on his body, even if much of it was heavily damaged and drenched in blood. His bag was leaning against the wall. Looking inside, nothing was missing. Not that there was much in it to begin with.

Just to make sure everything was all right, he turned to face the group sitting to his right. “Excuse me,” he called to the man in the front.

“Hmm?” the man hummed. “Is there something you need?”

“Did anything strange happen to me while I was asleep?”

The man seemed confused by the question. He took a glance at his comrades; they all shrugged in turn. “I don’t know,” the man said. “Nobody touched you, if that’s what you’re wondering. We’ve been sitting here for maybe two hours, and you’ve been out cold since we arrived.”

“Two hours!?” he shrieked. Turning around, he spotted the clock on the room’s far end.

9:57 p.m.

“Jesus Christ…” He had started that last hunt at around 3 p.m., maybe half an hour before he passed out, meaning that he had been out of it for… what… almost seven hours?

He tried asking several other groups, but they all said the same thing. Nobody had seen what happened.

Eventually, he made his way to the clerks. There, he was told that someone had dragged him inside after finding him passed out not too far from the passage and that the person who had brought him back requested that they remain anonymous.

The clerk also gave him a bill for an emergency medical examination that had to be performed because he was found bloody and battered. His body was naturally perfectly fine, which resulted in them simply leaving him to sleep it off on the bench, but that didn’t stop them from charging him 5,000 dollars for the service.

Although that made him want to punch someone, there wasn’t much point in fighting them over it, so he simply let it go and asked to have his profits tallied for that day. The receipt included the cost of the medical bill, totaling 20,913 dollars after the costs and fees. That was a lot of money. The deviant alone had gone for almost ten thousand. Well, the corpse itself was 5,000, but it apparently had a nearly 5,000 dollar bounty on top of that.

Despite the impressive profit, he was dissatisfied.

After all, it seemed that he had hit a limit, and he had a hunch that he knew what it was. Although he could prevent permanent damage, it appeared that abusing energy drinks and coffee could only take him so far.

His talent could heal from the damage, but, well… it seemed that the simple need for sleep didn’t count. He wondered about that.

He knew that his talent could undo the damage from a lack of sleep. But it seemed that it couldn’t stop his brain from simply shutting down due to running out of energy. Speaking of which, despite the hours of sleep he had, he felt dead tired.

There was a shop on the second floor of the building where one could get their gear fixed. It was where he had gone to get it adjusted previously, and the damage to his equipment was more than severe enough to justify another visit. He went to one of the stripping rooms and took everything off, placing it in a small basket in the corner. The basket retracted into the wall, taking his clothes with it.

He waited butt-naked for roughly fifteen minutes, and his gear was returned to him. Fixed, but… clearly battered.

The bracers had notable marks where the gashes had been filled in, and the underwear had new patches of cloth added to where it had been torn. His pants and jacket were also sewn back together.

The fixes were relatively crude and straightforward, so it only cost him a few hundred dollars. While they could charge whatever they wanted for medical services, gear maintenance had to remain affordable for one simple reason—if the cost of repair was too high, people would just buy new equipment instead.

Frankly, the visible maintenance was welcome. If he had no scars to show, at least his equipment would be proof of his experience.

On his way back home, he bought ten kilograms of beef liver at a store. When he returned, he stashed most of it in the freezer and made dinner with the rest. Liver was a great source of dietary iron, and he needed a lot of it to grow his Crimson Mercury.

Once he was done with his meal, he decided to use an hour before sleep to work on the tempering technique. As he started, he found himself quite surprised. The shell was pretty much already done.

“Huh…” he mused. That was a surprise but a damn welcome one. That meant that he could have been done with it yesterday. After doing some extra work to polish the shell, he finally crystallized it.

The poor scattering of wisps couldn’t fuel his essence for long, unfortunately, so after only ten minutes, he finished his day, sprawling out on the bed and instantly falling asleep.

Freddy arrived at the hub the next day, coming in late after sleeping in.

If the previous day had taught him anything, it was that if he wanted to hunt more, he would have to hunt more efficiently. And if he wanted to do that, he needed to both rely less on essence and conserve his stamina.

Usually, a good way to do so was to use a weapon. It took much less energy to plunge a spear into a gorel’s eye than it did to punch it to death.

He walked out into the realm, facing… night again. Brilliant.

As far as the whole spear thing went… he had to admit it; he couldn’t really see himself wielding a weapon. On that note, he took the dagger out of the storage ring. It appeared in his grip. Frankly, he barely knew how to hold it properly.

Numerous ideas had gone through his mind while researching everything he did about the blood affinity. Among the first was the idea of manifesting a direct extension to the dagger, either extending it or turning it into a sword. This idea was all right, but from what he had gathered, it wouldn’t make the dagger’s effect more efficient than just conjuring a whole sword in his second hand.

But swords weren’t easy to use. And frankly, they didn’t really fit with the style he was creating.

A slight grin formed on his face as he felt his knuckles itch.

While ordinary weapons wouldn’t suit him…

He had found an ability that would.

24

TRACKING PROGRESS

The fact that it was nighttime made things rather difficult for Freddy. He was supposed to form a new ability that day, but if it was nighttime, there was no way he could afford to use something experimental in life-or-death situations.

Thankfully, he had a solution on hand.

Taking a turn down a path he usually avoided, he started his journey. He was passed by a group of three people wearing the shiniest equipment he had seen in a while. They thoroughly ignored him, and judging by the fact that he couldn’t even detect their power, it was likely that they were peak two-stars.

He hadn’t seen them around anywhere before, but either way, they were of no interest to him.

It took him quite a while to reach his destination. He kept a brisk, hurried walking pace without breaking into a run, mostly to ensure he stayed as quiet and unnoticeable as possible. He only ran into one guard gorel that he swiftly dispatched with a kick to the head. Just to be polite, he threw the corpse over the wall and into the woods to ensure that a squad of gorels didn’t gather there.

It could prove to be a minor inconvenience to the type of people heading where he was going.

After around an hour of travel, he finally reached it—the border of the realm. Tall, jagged cliffs surrounded the outer perimeter, and right at the end of the path, there was a metal door embedded into the wall.

Behind it was another passage, one leading into a far more dangerous area. To both sides of the entrance, two guards stood at ease, eyeing him cautiously. He waved at them and turned left instead.

As was the case with the first passage, the surrounding area of this one was desolate. That was because all of the gorel hives had been manually collapsed, and any attempt to build a new one would be stopped immediately.

There was still the risk of a stray deviant wandering around these parts, but he wasn’t particularly afraid of that happening. In the same way most people avoided passages like the plague, monsters, too, instinctively knew that nothing good would come from lurking around the entrance to a dangerous area.

After around five minutes of jogging, he reached where he wanted to go. It was a clearing right beside the cliffside. Nothing interesting or unique about it. But to him, it was invaluable.

Because it was a patch of pure wilderness.

It wasn’t a perfect solution to his lack of access to a forest. For starters, plants were few and far between here, and it wasn’t like he was the only arch that needed some privacy.

But it would do for the time being.

First things first—he found a nearby stone, sat on it, then pulled out a notebook. He could just barely see the writing in the darkness of the night, courtesy of his two-star eyesight and the perception-boosting pill, so he refrained from attracting attention by using his flashlight.

There, written on the notebook’s first page, was his new habit.

He had started more carefully tracking his progress; that way, he could tell how he was growing and where he was lagging behind. It also worked to give him a better idea of what he had access to.

He squinted his eyes as he read his writing.

GATHERING:

Second star—112% essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Pool of Blood: Stage 1—3% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 0—2% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—1% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—9% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

None

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—15% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 0—Ready to upgrade

Create Water: Stage 1—20% Progress

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage ?—? Progress

That Other Ability: No idea

UNIQUE (?) ABILITIES (No clue what these are exactly):

Blood Sacrifice: Stage ?

Leviathan’s Fury: Stage ?

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -3% essence cost, +2% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed.

CURSED ITEMS:

Dagger of Bleeding: Melee attacks cause extra bleeding

The first thing that stood out was the lack of active blood abilities. That was the main reason he was there on that day. But it wasn’t the only thing of note. He also hadn’t upgraded his Hydraulic Flex yet. Although it would take a while to find the exact vestige he needed, he knew exactly what he would do with it.

Other than that, there was also the gap in knowledge regarding his perished water affinity and the tentatively named “Unique Abilities.” No matter how hard he looked, he found no mention of anyone ever doing what he had done with Bloodshed and Leviathan.

His ring also hadn’t grown in power yet, despite the gorel slaughter he had committed. Thus, he had no idea what to expect. Maybe it would take ages to see a notable increase; maybe he would get a massive power boost from it soon enough. Time would tell.

Returning the notebook to his Storage Ring, he focused. It was time to begin the development of his newest ability. It took him a literal second to notice a major problem: his gloves didn’t allow blood to flow freely through them. That… Yeah, that would have to change.

Taking his gloves off made his hands feel vulnerable in a way he couldn’t describe. He wore those things everywhere since he didn’t want anyone to see his rings. Unfortunately, he needed his hands free if he wanted to use the ability he had decided on.

Weapons weren’t his thing. For him, his body was the weapon. And with the ability he was about to create, that wouldn’t change much.

Blood pooled around his knuckles, pouring out of the skin around his fingers on his right hand. As he balled his hand into a fist, the surface along his fingers between his knuckles was eventually fully covered in blood, turning into a sort of thick red plating. Focusing on his essence control and taking it slowly, he made the blood slowly form tiny spikes along the surface.

It was quite damn difficult. Making one or two spikes was relatively easy, but the blood was still liquid—he had to manually maintain its shape until it was ready to coagulate. Three small, or, hell, even three large spikes, was easy. But he wasn’t going to settle for that.

Gradually, as he got more comfortable with manipulating blood outside his body, the spikes grew in number. They were quite jagged and nasty, but thankfully, that wasn’t at all detrimental to the ability he was trying to form.

Eventually, his right fist was covered by around two dozen spikes, thick enough to not break easily and nasty enough to cause severe damage. With that achievement, the ether shell was complete enough to crystallize into his new ability—Gore Knuckles.

As far as Crimson Mercury abilities went, this one was pretty rare. There were many better, less bizarre options to pick from. But this suited him perfectly. He barely had to change his style, and such a brutal appendage was perfect for maximizing the effect of 1% Lifesteal.

He shed the blood he had formed on his right hand and flexed his fingers. Then he used his new ability. Immediately, finger-length spikes of coagulated blood formed on his right-hand knuckles. A massive smile spread on his face. The essence expenditure had been minimal—so small he barely even felt it leave a dent in his reserves. This was another advantage of this ability.

Not only did it use little blood, but it also cost minimal essence due to the low volume.

His predatory gaze sought the nearest tree. He got up and approached, taking a swing at it. Immediately, all the spikes crumbled into bloody slush upon impact. As was to be expected. It was stage zero, an entirely new ability.

It was only natural that it would suck.

And his Crimson Mercury still did close to nothing, meaning that his blood was mostly just ordinary. Still, he was quite satisfied. Speaking of Crimson Mercury, while the night still lasted, he decided to spend some more time working on the tempering technique.

Out of habit, he entered the Netherecho to do some gathering and to replenish his essence⁠—

“Jesus—” he screamed as he dodged the attack of a rocky remnant and rushed back into his body.

“Oh yeah,” he spluttered, breathing heavily after that jumpscare. “Kind of forgot that I’m in a passage realm.”

Not a major problem, however.

He had access to something of a bodyguard.

“Greetings, Master,” Bloodshed said, saluting him as soon as it appeared before him.

“Bloodshed!” he greeted enthusiastically. “So nice to see you outside again!”

It cut to the chase. “Do you need me for anything, Master?”

“Yeah,” he said, a massive grin appearing on his face. “Can you clear the surrounding Netherecho for me? Oh, and please gather the wisps around my body so I can collect them more easily.”

“As you wish,” it said as it vanished from reality.

He soon followed it into the Netherecho, just in time to witness it punch the rocky remnant’s head off.

“You go, Bloodshed!” he cheered it on. “Oh, and by the way. Just in case you find a vestige of fluidity, don’t kill it and bring it back to me in one piece, okay?”

It nodded and returned to its slaughter.

There were no above-ground sources of water in this realm, but there was a slight possibility that it could encounter a fluidity vestige somewhere on the surface.

With that, for the next few hours, he spent his time merrily growing his new tempering technique and basking in a flood of wisps. Slowly but surely, his Crimson Mercury skyrocketed from a measly 2% to 39% progress. By that point, he felt quite uncomfortable, almost as if his blood was burning the inside of his body. That was because his blood cells were primed to take on more iron, but there just wasn’t any iron to take on.

Not a problem, however. He had accounted for this earlier that day. He shuffled around his rucksack and fished out a small bottle of iron supplements. Then he downed the entire bottle. Problem solved! In a way that was considerably easier to consume than a massive pile of beef liver.

Just as he was about to continue working on his tempering technique, the world blinked into white, and the pitch darkness was replaced by warm sunlight.

He got off the ground and suddenly realized that he sensed Bloodshed’s presence quite far from where he was. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen the skeleton for a while already. Moving with a hint of panic, he rushed in the spirit’s general direction, and a few minutes later, he reached it.

Entering the Netherecho, he found the bloody skeleton pulling a frightened vestige by its leg. The creature it was pulling was a genie-esque floaty mass of transparent, shifting gas.

“Hello, Master,” Bloodshed greeted him. “I have caught the vestige of fluidity as you ordered.”

“Fluidity?” he asked, turning to face the erratic vestige. “Huh…”

Well… air was a fluid, he supposed. It wasn’t what he expected to see, but for all intents and purposes, it would do just fine.

“Excellent job, Bloodshed!” he said. Then he rushed forward and assaulted the poor vestige. “Keep that thing restrained,” he commanded.

A few seconds later, the helpless ether construct was on the verge of dissipating. Just as it started unraveling, the ether shell for Hydraulic Flex shot out of his soul and trapped it, pulling it back inside.

Indeed, this was the best choice for his first Hydraulic Flex upgrade. There was the possibility of using hydraulic pressure, but that would have simply repeated the mistake he had made with Flowing Strike and Abyssal Depths.

When one thought of viscosity, one didn’t think of water. They thought of honey, syrup, oil, soap, or some other thick liquid. But that didn’t change the fact that there were things more fluid than water. Air was one example.

Using the concept of fluidity on Hydraulic Flex lowered backlash, increased speed, and reduced the essence expenditure. There was no increase in power, but that was perfectly fine. Power came at a cost. And for him, he was already paying a bloody price for Flowing Strike.

If he continued down the route of ridiculously expensive Flowing Strikes, other abilities would need to be as cost-efficient as possible.

As he left the Netherecho, he gave his newly upgraded ability a test run. The change was immediately apparent. It used to have an awkward lag to it that made him stiffen up. Now, that was a thing of the past. In fact, he could keep the ability active at all times, and it felt perfectly natural as a passive improvement to muscle performance.

Obviously, that was a no-go if he wanted to keep his essence reserves from evaporating into thin air. Keeping it active while moving consumed around 0.5% essence per second on average. This meant he only had a few minutes total before running out of juice.

Using it felt damn good. It didn’t strain his muscles as much, either, leaving him feeling almost like he had a nice stretch after using it.

So this is the power of not being a dumbass? he thought jokingly while staring at his hand in awe.

Still, it really put things into perspective. No wonder this ability had the reputation it did.

He finished his little training session by topping off his essence reserves. Then he headed into another hunt.

His third day of hunting went far better than his first two, finishing the count at 14,429 dollars. It was less money than the day before, but it was earned with fewer complications. He had kept his energy drink consumption to a minimum this time and tried a bit harder to maintain his stamina. No longer did he run across the quarries or sprint back to the lobby to sell his goods.

He did climb trees, though, keeping a meticulous track of all that was happening in the nearby area. Rather than sprinting back and forth repeatedly, he took his time to properly bag the corpses and carried up to ten at a time instead.

On that day, he saw two deviants—white and orange, likely light and fire affinity.

He stayed a respectful distance from both. The white one could possibly use Blinding Flash, which was a nasty thing to get hit by, and the fire one could use… fire. And he had no clue what their talents were. Either way, fighting them wasn’t a good idea.

His upgraded Hydraulic Flex was a joy to use in combat, and Gore Knuckles, while still pretty useless, were becoming less and less fragile every time he used the ability. And it grew rapidly, making 52% progress in a single day of fighting. Most stage zero abilities grew swiftly when used by a two-star, and given how far he was pushing himself, the progress came as no surprise.

After dragging his final load, he walked over to the nearest bench and sagged. He was damn tired. Mentally more than physically. It had been a hard day of work, and he had no intent to exercise or study.

He reached into his bag and then pulled out his notebook. In reality, he pulled it out of his Storage Ring. He was just trying to make it seem like it had been in his backpack.

Just as he was about to write down his progress for the day, a person approached him. It was an average-height part-Asian man. At first glance, he appeared somewhat nerdy with his neat hair combed to the sides and bulky armor. At second glance, it became evident that this man was powerful.

His equipment was in excellent condition, but it didn’t look new. There were many signs of repair, but they were subtle, clearly high-quality work. A lot of work, too. He wore a thick black jacket with a puffy vest over it, dark pants partially covered in scales, and boots that Freddy knew had to have cost at least a hundred thousand dollars. There was also a helmet hanging off his back.

He returned the notebook back into his bag and cautiously greeted the man, “Hello. How can I help you?”

“I apologize if this is a rude question,” the man started in a clear, well-spoken voice, “but were you the man found unconscious outside the realm yesterday?”

“Why does that concern you?” he asked with a slight edge to his voice.

“Please, take no offense,” the man insisted. “I’m simply here to ask about the woman who brought you inside.”

His eyes narrowed. “What woman?”

“Excuse me?” the man asked. “Ah, you don’t know?”

“The clerks told me that the person wanted to remain anonymous,” he responded.

“That’s a bummer,” the man said, sighing.

“Can you at least tell me what she looks like?” He still had no clue who the man was talking about.

“Oh, right, sorry. It should be easy to recognize her—her skin is flaking off, and she looks swollen. Other than that, she is blonde and has purple eyes.”

His eyes widened beneath the helmet as he nearly choked.

That’s who brought me in!? That crazy bitch!?

He immediately feared that she might have done something to him, but… well, all of his limbs were still there. And he hadn’t felt anything alarming.

The man talking to him suddenly turned around and shouted, “Hey! Miss!”

Freddy raised his head and spotted the woman they had been talking about. She looked considerably worse than she had when he’d seen her the day before and been in the middle of walking into the passage.

The man rushed after her, and she stopped, turning to face him. They were quite far from where Freddy was, so he had to strain his ears to hear the conversation. Without the perception-boosting pill, he probably wouldn’t have understood anything.

The two of them had a quick conversation. The man introduced himself as Phillip Parker and told the woman to stop delving into the passage. She wasn’t being banned necessarily—well, not yet. Apparently, she hadn’t been bringing the corpses of the monsters she was killing back to the lobby. It wasn’t forbidden to leave some bodies behind, per se, but she hadn’t brought back a single one.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal if she was giving the corpses to other delvers, either, but apparently, whatever she was doing to them made them rapidly rot away and decay in a matter of hours.

This was basically vandalism. Access to this realm was free because the hunting fee covered the price. Her style of hunting wasn’t allowed.

She apologized profusely, saying that she would start bringing corpses back. The man gave her a stern but polite warning and walked away, advising her to take care of herself and telling her to treat whatever condition she had before it got worse. What a nice guy.

The woman sagged as she started turning around. Her eyes flickered in his direction for a moment, but she merely sighed and turned around, walking through the passage.

Freddy’s fists clenched. What the hell was her deal? Had she not helped him to ask for whatever she needed in return?

A fury bubbled in his chest. This wasn’t his problem, he told himself. She was incredibly suspicious, he argued. But his anger only grew. Because despite all the effort he put into stopping himself, his legs stood him up and carried him forward.

Moments later, he grabbed the woman by the arm. She turned around with a start, surprised at his appearance.

“Tell me,” he barked. “What the hell do you want?”

25

LIFE SPARKS

Phillip made his way out of the Santorio Hub, sighing deeply. He jostled his rough fingers through his neatly combed hair as he made his way back.

He wasn’t having the best day of his life. The entirety of last week had been awful, actually.

Just a few minutes ago, he had finished an errand that should have by no means been his responsibility. Not only did he feel terrible for ruining that woman’s day, but he had lost several hours looking for her.

“That man is truly outrageous,” he whispered, shaking his head.

Slowly but surely, his steps took him back to the Santorio Training Center. There, he greeted the flamboyant clerk and made his way down the right corridor, walking past most of the facility until he reached the elevator.

Four buttons were on the side, including the one for the floor he was on. The rest were for the three upper floors. Rather than touch any of them, he took a key out of his storage ring and lifted a small, near-invisible hatch. He inserted the key and turned it. A pleasant ringing sounded from the crystal embedded into the wall, and the elevator started. But it didn’t go up—it went down to the private part of the facility.

After almost a minute of waiting, he entered the underground chamber. The arrays of hyper-specialized machines and other equipment sat empty as nobody was using them at that moment.

Unhesitantly, he turned and walked over to a door at the far end of the room. He pressed a finger to the scanner, and moments later, the door raised. Before it was even fully opened, he was already moving his head to the right to dodge the projectile that would no doubt come.

As expected, he got out of the way just in time to avoid the 10 kg dumbbell that would have bashed his face in.

“What did I say about bothering me when I’m training, you fucking nerd!?” Sitting on the ground of the combat simulation chamber with his legs crossed was a tall man with his shirt off, showcasing his rippling physique, scattered with a few faded scars, and his long, lush, blond hair tied into a ponytail behind his back.

This man was Jacob Santorio. A twenty-three-year-old brat who had no respect for anything or anyone.

Jacob’s family was just powerful enough that Phillip couldn’t use his own as a shield against him, so he had to tolerate whatever the man threw at him, be it literal projectiles or stupid errands that should be the responsibility of a hub employee.

“Sorry for disturbing you, Jakes,” Phillip snarkily said. “As per our agreement, though, I do have the right to come in here whenever I want, even if your royal highness is busy posing on the ground.”

“Watch your mouth, cheese steak,” Jacob retorted. “I still get the final say on whether you stay or not.”

While kicking Phillip out of the party would anger at least three people who shouldn’t be messed with, that didn’t mean Jacob was smart enough not to do it anyway.

With gritted teeth, he swallowed bile and decided to be the bigger man. “Yes, I apologize.”

The blond man scoffed, “Stay quiet. I’m working on a new ability.”

It took the patience of a saint not to break at that moment and scream at the man. First, why was he making a new ability in the combat simulation chamber? Second, why didn’t he move to a gathering chamber and do it there instead, as was proper? And third, why should the background noise of combat simulation even bother him? There was no way he was working on something delicate enough that it required absolute silence.

He knew why, of course.

Because Jacob was a spoiled ass.

Holding back another sigh, he obliged the man. He had been planning to do some practice against the dolls, but he was all right with tempering a bit until Jacob was done with whatever crap he was doing. He sat down on the ground and focused. His essence flowed into his bones. With his metal affinity, he focused on the metallic properties of calcium as⁠—

A sudden pain burst through his head and neck as a metallic clang echoed through his skull. Opening his eyes, he spotted another 10 kg dumbbell clink to the ground nearby as a small stream of blood flowed down his head. “What the fuck, Jacob!?” he screamed, his patience finally running out.

“What the hell are you doing!?” the man yelled as if Phillip was the one who had done something wrong.

“What does it look like I’m doing!?” he asked, plugging his bleeding head with a hand. “I’m trying to temper!”

“You can’t do that in the combat simulation chamber!” the man said.

He dared… He dared say that!?

A fury bubbled in his chest, but before he could say anything else, the man retrieved another dumbbell from his storage ring, flung it at him, and yelled, “It’s my gym!”

Phillip barely dodged as the man continued screaming, “My rules! You can do whatever you want at home, but here, you listen to me!”

The two men stared each other down. Eventually, Phillip looked away with an angry grunt as he got up and walked out of the room.

Just six months, he told himself. Just six months, and you never have to see him again.

He was raised to always be the bigger man. Rather than throw a tantrum that would result in a conflict between their families, he swallowed his pride and walked away. Phillip unlocked the exit while keeping an eye on the snickering man-child.

Just as the door opened, a short-haired brunette woman wearing a skimpy outfit entered. “Hey, guys—whoa, what happened to you?” she remarked as she eyed the blood flowing down the side of his face.

This was Rachel Black, the second of the three other people in their party. So far, his impression of her was that of an easy-going… Hmm… Was there a more respectful synonym for “hoe”?

He more snarled than smiled at her as he cocked his head in man-child’s direction.

“We were sparring, and he fumbled a bit,” Jacob said in a jovial tone. “No big deal, right, Phillip?”

His strained smile vanished. Just this once, he decided to not be the bigger man. “Your boyfriend over here threw a dumbbell at my head,” he informed her.

To his lack of surprise, the woman merely laughed and said, “Why didn’t you dodge?”

What a lovely girl.

Nodding, he smiled a bit. “Maybe if the inside of my head was as lightweight as yours, I would have been a bit faster,” he spat as he looked away and turned to the exit.

She gaped at him, muttering, “What a prick,” under her breath, while Jacob’s searing gaze burned a hole into his back.

He was interrupted as yet another person walked in. It was a brunet man this time, his moderately aged face showing numerous scars all over it.

Theodore Osborne.

Out of the three teammates he had, he hated this man the least. He was a bit of a suckup, but at least he was an equal-opportunity asslicker.

“Hehehey there, kiddo. Things got a bit rough during practice?” the older man asked as he playfully slapped his shoulder. “Here you go; I’ve been working on it a bit; maybe it’ll help,” he said, raising his arm and channeling his holy affinity.

A basic healing ability flowed through the man’s fingers and drastically eased the pain Phillip felt. It was at supernatural quality, as all holy-affinity spells were, but it was weak, just strong enough to stop the bleeding for the time being until he applied a more permanent solution.

“Thank you,” he said as he walked past the man and strode off into one of the gathering chambers.

“Hey, Theo!” Jacob greeted the newcomer. “Did you hear from that guy yet?” he asked just in time for the doors to slam shut and for Phillip to be left in silence.

What an exhausting bunch. He desperately hoped that whoever passed that damn interview wouldn’t be a total asswipe.

Theodore walked into the room, walking past Phillip and Rachel.

“Hey, Theo!” Jacob greeted him. “Did you hear from that guy yet?” the man asked just as Phillip walked out of the room, cradling his bleeding head. The doors closed.

He paused for a moment, pursing his lips. He hadn’t heard anything from Liam yet because… well… the two of them weren’t really friends. But frankly, even with that…

“I haven’t heard anything from him,” he said, shrugging. But he knew what to expect from dealing with the man for a while. “Don’t get your hopes up, though…

“That guy is probably too stubborn to show up.”

Standing just a bit inside the realm, practically right in front of the large passage, Freddy tugged on the woman’s arm, keeping her in place and waiting for her to answer his question.

She looked back at him. “What?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

“I said,” he repeated himself, “what do you want?”

To his absolute bewilderment, the woman suddenly teared up. “I’m… I’m sorry! Did I offend you somehow?” she asked meekly.

“You are the one who brought me inside yesterday, correct?” he asked.

“Sh-should…” she stuttered. “Should I not have done that?”

“No, I mean—” He suddenly found himself struggling to find the right words.

“I’m sorry!” she apologized again. Then she started sobbing.

He abruptly let go of her arm and took a step back. The parties around them looked in their direction and stared daggers at him. Frankly, he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

“Please,” he started, placatingly raising his arms and softening his tone as he worked to salvage the situation. “Stop crying. I just want to know why you approached me the other day.”

Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes, shining with a bright spark of hope, lifted to meet the two holes in his helmet. “Are you gonna give me⁠—”

His finger instantly shot out and pressed to her bloated lips, stopping her before she could finish her question. “Let’s go somewhere private, okay?”

The woman, now silent as could be, swiftly nodded.

The two of them made their way down one of the safer paths, then climbed over the rocky terrain until they found a small, hidden hole, perhaps five meters in diameter, located between several bigger boulders. They made their way down, where he sat on the nearest stone, placed his elbows on his knees, and crossed his fingers.

The woman looked uncomfortable under his stare.

He hadn’t asked to talk to her simply out of the goodness of his heart. The primary reason he was there was because of the woman’s conversation with that man. He said something about her making gorel corpses rot and wither away.

Normally, most people would presume that meant she was a death-affinity archhuman. But that didn’t make sense. Death-affinity casters could do that, sure, but definitely not at her level of power.

His guess was that she was a life-affinity archhuman. And if his hunch was correct, he had a rough idea of what her talent did.

“You…” he started, squinting his eyes beneath the helmet. “Your talent has something to do with life sparks, doesn’t it?”

The woman’s eyes briefly widened, but she wasn’t too surprised. She nodded. To anyone who knew what life sparks were, it was pretty obvious.

That thing Madame had given him after killing the doctor was, in essence, a captured life spark. All the vitality, or rather, the “life force” a living being held in its body, was part of its life spark. Things didn’t truly die until all the cells in their body were dead, so if someone forcefully removed a life spark from a recently deceased corpse, it would immediately start rotting as all the cells ceased functioning at once.

The only reason he had this knowledge was because he was researching ways to get his hands on something like that doctor’s heart. That had been one of the best tools he had ever had in his life, and this woman might just be the key to getting his hands on it again. Because there was no hope of getting it otherwise.

It wasn’t like he could buy it at a store. Only four-star archhumans had the power to capture life sparks without a designated talent, and stepping into contact with a Lord, let alone getting one to do what he wanted, just wasn’t possible for him.

He took a deep breath as he pondered his next words. First, he had to know what exactly she wanted from him and why. “I’m going to ask you again—what do you want?” But before the woman could answer, he added, “First, tell me why you approached me.”

The woman swallowed. “Because you have a supreme⁠—”

“You’re wrong,” he denied instantly. “I don’t have a supreme-quality healing talent.” Frankly, he knew that he couldn’t truly hide it anymore, but if he kept denying it, the woman could possibly reveal how she found out.

“You do!” she yelled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell… uhm…”

“Why do you want a part of my body?” he probed, but immediately spotted hesitation on her face. “I know for a fact that it has something to do with whatever illness you have. I don’t know if you’ve seen a mirror, but you look way worse today than you did two days ago.”

She winced at that.

“You can choose to hide whatever you want,” he said, “but don’t expect me to cooperate with anything if you aren’t going to be honest with me.” That much was only fair. Unless she proved that her talent wouldn’t hurt him, he did not intend to deal with her.

Taking a deep breath, she sat on the ground and crossed her legs. The action appeared painful, given her wincing and hissing. Then she raised her palm before her body, and a moment later, a small, pink light shone above it.

His eyes widened when he saw that.

“My talent,” she started her explanation, “is Life Spark Manipulation.”

He swallowed. That was something, all right. A life spark existing detached from a living creature was absurd enough and already something only a talent could achieve. Now, depending on what she could do with it, it could either be a godlike power or, judging by her current condition, a mostly useless one.

“I can manipulate life sparks in certain ways,” she continued. “But there are conditions, and it’s far from as straightforward as I hoped it would be when I got my talent. First, I can ‘steal’ the spark of any living organism without a soul. This includes plants, small bugs, recently killed creatures, or fresh body parts. Then,” she said as she lifted her second arm and manifested another, slightly brighter spark, “I can merge them.” She immediately demonstrated.

But the caveat was instantly apparent. Once the two sparks fused, the resulting one wasn’t as bright as both of them combined, but somewhere in the middle. “As you can see”—she sighed—“this is relatively useless. But there is another function.” There was a small plant growing to her side. It was a leafy, dull green bush. She reached for it and tore off a handful of leaves. Then she extracted its spark.

While slightly weaker than the others she had shown, the biggest difference was that this spark was flickering. “When a living being is injured or sick, their life spark grows unstable. Once the affliction heals, the spark will stabilize again. But while it’s still unstable”—she brought the other spark closer to the unstable one and fused them, but this time, the result was different: the spark didn’t grow at all, but it did stop flickering—”I can ‘feed it’ another spark to stabilize it.”

She turned around again and tore off another handful of leaves, this time from an entirely different plant. “I can also do that while the spark is still part of a living organism.” She proceeded to insert the newly combined spark into the damaged plant. The missing leaves grew back instantly, springing into being with such speed that it left him shocked for a moment. But again, the downside was readily apparent.

While the plant was whole again, it was now sagging slightly, with signs of discoloration appearing along the leaves’ surface.

His eyes went from the sagging plant and flicked over to the woman, whom he found sighing sadly. So that was what happened to her. She must have healed an injury through such a fusion and was now suffering the consequences.

But something else was on his mind. “Is your talent illegal?” he asked bluntly. If the reason she had approached him was what he thought it was…

“What?” she asked, clearly bewildered. “No! Why would you think that!?”

“That side effect,” he pointed out. “Is it because the spark is from two different species?” If that was the case, then she could only heal herself with the sparks of other humans.

“No!” she denied, but then frowned and thought of it. “Well, no, not really. There would be a problem if I tried using a plant life spark to heal an animal, but as long as it’s two animals, two bugs, or two plants, there shouldn’t be any problem with that… specifically…”

“So what’s the catch?” he asked.

“Well… an unstable spark digests the stable one. It uses the digested life force to fill its cracks, but that isn’t a perfect solution. A life spark is everything an organism is. All of the imperfections and flaws are built directly into the life force. And if imperfect life force is used to heal an injury⁠—”

“The healing will also be imperfect,” he finished the sentence for her, finally catching on to what she was looking for.

She nodded. “When living things get injured, the spark loses life force. I can sense this, and back when I met you, I thought that the gorel you were fighting was the thing I was looking for, but it… It wasn’t; it was you,” she said, eyes burning intensely as she stared at him. “If what I sensed was the life force lost during a minor injury, I can’t even imagine what your life spark looks like. If I took it out of your body, it would probably blind me!”

He didn’t appreciate that phrasing, but he let it slide in favor of continuing to deny it. “But that doesn’t mean that I have a healing talent.”

“Well,” she started, “it is either that or you’re the richest person on the entire planet,” she said, laughing a bit with an awkward smile on her face.

He nodded. He knew about her talent to confidently say that she wasn’t a real threat. Thankfully, she still didn’t know how his talent worked⁠—

“Also, I saw you step on a plant on our way here. From the life force that was released, a very small part of it was filtered and absorbed into your body. Is that how your talent works!?”

He grabbed his helmet and sighed deeply. “Fuck my life…” he whispered.

Now then. How should he shut this woman up?

26

NEW ALLY?

Freddy sat on the boulder, holding his helmet with both hands. The woman he was talking to rambled on and on about the possible ways his talent worked, all far too close to the truth for comfort.

There was no evidence that “luck” or “fate” existed. But if they did, his were trash. He had long stopped betting on things simply working out for him.

The thing about talents was that most, around 60-70 percent, were just straightforward boosts to some form of physical or mental characteristic. They differed in the finer details, but there were many cases of countless people possessing pretty much identical talents.

His talent technically fell into the second most common category: straightforward boosts—in this case, regeneration, but with a condition for activation—in this case, doing damage.

There were many talents like this. A boost to strength that only activated against several opponents or a regeneration boost that got stronger the more damage one suffered or a speed boost that activated after parrying a blow—but that single additional variable made a tremendous impact.

A far greater number of such talents was unique. Sure, many people had a regeneration talent with a condition related to killing or fighting, but it was likely that nobody else had 1% Lifesteal with supreme-quality healing attached to it.

This woman knew more or less exactly what his talent was. If she spread the word, a piece of information that acted as a more or less unique identifier for him would get out into the world.

Information was power. As such, it was no surprise that many people earned money by collecting it. What seemed like a mundane rumor of what his talent did could end up in an information package one of these dealers sold to large organizations. And basically every large organization purchased such packages by the thousands.

Then their employees sorted that information and reported anything of note to their superiors.

The odds of this becoming a problem were tiny. Minuscule.

But not nonexistent.

There was a non-zero chance that such a rumor could reach either the Kraven Clan or Madame.

Madame was more likely.

Not only did she know precisely what his talent did, but she was also more adept at collecting such information.

Tiny as it was, the possibility was there.

And if possible, he didn’t want anyone to ever discover that he was still alive.

“Hey, are you okay?” the woman asked as she probably finally caught on that he wasn’t paying attention to a single word of what she was saying.

“Yeah, I’m just… I’m just getting some ideas,” he vaguely stated.

“Oh… All right… So are you⁠—?”

He got up, rushing to his feet. The woman was caught off guard and stepped back as he straightened his bulky body and looked down at her. “I think our talents might synergize really well.”

She nodded slowly. “Does that mean that⁠—”

“What do you say about forming a team with me?” he suggested.

Her eyes widened, and she spluttered. “I’d… I think that would be great. But shouldn’t we first⁠—”

“Great!” he cheered as he reached for her hand and pulled it into an enthusiastic handshake.

He didn’t really have a way to keep her quiet. But keeping their synergy a secret would be in her best interest if they became party members. This was a temporary solution at best, but it would work until he thought of something else.

Worst-case scenario, he’d have to change his identity again and⁠—

His thoughts were interrupted as the woman suddenly puked all over his jacket. She released a nasty, wet burp and coughed. “I’m so sorry!” she apologized. “Oh, that’s so embarrassing. I just felt a sudden burst of sickness, and I…”

He used Create Water and washed most of the puke off. Right. She was dying, wasn’t she? For the briefest of moments, the thought that he could just leave her alone and let her die, taking the truth of his talent to her grave, crossed his mind.

He instantly crushed that thought. That willingness to do anything still lingered in the back of his mind.

That wasn’t who he was—not who he wanted to be—danger to his life be damned.

There were enough unintentional bodies left in his wake already. He had to stop adding more before it turned into a habit.

There was just one more thing to ask. “Are you a member of any formal organizations?”

The woman looked at him and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m independent.”

“What about family?” he asked. “Friends? How established are you in this area?”

That question seemed to upset the woman a bit, but she answered, “I have a few friends, but I haven’t really been in contact with them… and probably won’t be any time soon.”

“Good,” he said. That was all he wanted to know.

Once the woman got a hold of herself, he took the glove off his right hand, the one without any rings on it, and asked, “Do you have a knife?”

She nodded enthusiastically as she pulled one out of thin air, recklessly revealing that she had a storage item. Well, not that she was working particularly hard to hide the suspicious ring on her finger. He sighed again. Yup… this was a woman who should never be trusted with keeping a secret.

The knife she handed him was super sharp, so cutting a finger off would be easy enough. Just as he was mentally choosing which one to sacrifice, she said, “Wait! I’ll need two fingers, actually.”

He raised an eyebrow beneath his helmet but obeyed anyway, cutting off his pinky and ring fingers with a single, smooth swing. He also unintentionally nicked his middle finger a bit, unskilled with weapons as he was. He made the blood coagulate with a small burst of blood essence, and his wounds were closed shut. A small benefit of having the blood affinity.

The woman caught the flying fingers out of the air and then proceeded to… put them together? The two bloody holes were connected, and before he could ask what the hell she was doing, they lit up with a small burst of pink light and fused.

Her half-pained expression slowly morphed into one of genuine mirth as she lit up like a candle. “Hahaha…” she chuckled. “It worked,” she said as she started crying. “It worked!” she screamed in joy.

He wasn’t feeling quite as enthusiastic as he observed the crooked double-ended finger-fusion in her hands. He watched it twitch and felt his lunch churn in his stomach.

She breathed out. “Okay, now to see if this will work.”

Again, before he could ask what, she poured life essence into the finger. He knew what she was doing, well, tentatively at least. Overloading living tissue with life essence mutated every cell into a less specialized one. This would make the fingers less fingers and more just a large mass of strongly interconnected but independent single-cellular organisms. This was how that heart Madame had given him could feed on meat.

He knew what she was doing and why she was trying it, but… he wasn’t sure that it would work. Both of them watched in trepidation as the fingers appeared to melt, fusing into a ball of nondescript pink tissue. Once the fusion was finished, the woman looked up at him. “Can you please bring back a gorel corpse?” she requested.

He had been expecting her to ask him to do that. Without hesitation, he jumped up the nearest boulder and shot out. Not long after, he found a small group of workers. With Hydraulic Flex, he dashed in, smashed the nearest gorel’s skull in, and dragged it back to where the woman was waiting.

With the corpse in hand, the woman used the knife to chop large pieces of meat off and feed them to the small ball of pink tissue, one piece at a time. The little ball greedily devoured them, slowly growing in size until it doubled in volume.

Gulping, the woman nervously pressed a finger to it. Moments later, her grin returned. “It didn’t lose any quality!”

That was huge.

That pile of tissue couldn’t live longer than maybe six months, but during that period…

Numerous chunks of meat made their way into the ball of tissue until the entire gorel corpse was gone. Then the woman used her essence manipulation to delicately separate a small chunk of the tissue that she put aside.

Pressing her fingers to the bigger chunk, she made the large mass of meat shrivel and stop squirming in a single instant. Then her body started to change.

Her flaking skin shed its excess, dangling bits, and the discoloration rapidly vanished. Her bloated face started oozing liquid as it shrank, and the near-constant frown of pain vanished from her brow as she slowly breathed out.

They both stared at the display, mouths hanging open in disbelief.

Her vibrant, purple eyes looked up at the two holes in his mask. She was quite the beauty now that her face didn’t look like it had lost a fight against a wall.

For a long moment, a creepy expression played on her face. She almost had the look of an addict who had just taken an extra large dose of their drug of choice. It was a look that sparked nasty memories for Freddy.

A melodic chuckle escaped her lips as she pressed her hands to her face. “Bring me another gorel,” she said.

He didn’t move.

“Uh…” She hesitated. “Please?”

Freddy slowly lifted his hand and used Create Water. A flood of liquid washed over the woman, rinsing the expelled fluids off. “You smell like shit,” he added helpfully.

The woman blinked rapidly. “Thank you… I guess.”

He sighed and climbed the nearest boulder, looking for yet another gorel to bring back.

Freddy stared at the two regrown fingers on his hand. If the target had a soul and agreed to it, the woman could use these sparks to heal them. She had just done so to him, and he stared in wonder.

They weren’t quite as perfect as they would be if his talent had grown them back; he could feel that, but it was good enough to make one thing evident.

He watched the woman produce her seventh blob of flesh and drain its life spark. “That’s it,” she said. “I can only store five at a time in my body.”

“Only?” he asked, snickering. “Do you have any idea how powerful that is?”

She nodded. “Hell yeah! I probably just became the best healer, like, ever!”

“Best healer, huh,” he repeated with an edge to his voice.

“What?” she asked. “Is there a problem?”

“No… no, I’m just wondering,” he said. “You know, it’s just that we have officially become a team, and I think it would be best if you kept me informed about what you want to use this power for.”

She stiffened at that, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve just saved your life, no?” he asked.

Her expression darkened. “Yes… and?”

“Relax,” he urged. “I’m not gonna be creepy about it or anything. I just have one request. Don’t let anyone know about this,” he intoned slowly, leaning in threateningly to make his point as clear as possible. “Nobody. Not a single person should know how the synergy between our talents works.”

That didn’t seem to be the thing she was expecting to hear. “You want me to keep this a secret?”

“Yes,” he said. “We’d be in some deep trouble if people knew about what we can do.”

“Of course,” she confirmed, relaxing a bit. “That goes without saying. We’d probably be locked up like animals and drained of everything we had.”

He raised an eyebrow under his helmet. Well then. She wasn’t a total lost cause, it seemed.

“I wasn’t going to say anything about it, anyway,” she said. “That being said, uh…” she trailed off. “Hi?” She waved at him. “If we’re going to be working together, shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?”

He chuckled. “My name is Liam Johnson,” he said.

“I’m Sophia Summer,” she introduced herself in turn.

“Pleasure to meet you, Sophia.”

“Same, Liam,” she said. “Do you mind taking your helmet off so I can see your face?”

“I’d like to keep it on,” he refused. “For personal reasons.”

She nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

He eyed her carefully as a small smile curled up on his face beneath the mask. “How do you feel?” he asked her.

“Better than I’ve ever felt in my life,” she said with a chuckle, stretching her arm over her head. “Seriously, I feel great. Is breathing always this easy?”

He chuckled. “All righty, then.” He got up. “How about we go and see what you can do?”

A single worker sniffed its way through the leaves, looking for mushrooms and grubs in the dirt.

After confirming that there were no other gorels in the surrounding area, he nodded at the woman, and she stepped forth.

She insisted on fighting bare-handed. That caught him by surprise. Had she been going around fighting gorels unarmed as a one-star? Even with a weapon, that was an insane feat. And this woman, too, might be a bit off her rocker.

The worker immediately noticed her and rushed at her, balling its spoony fingers into weighty fists.

It swung an overhead strike, but she deftly dodged it, sneaking in a kick from its blind spot and hitting it right in the jaw. The creature screamed, pretty pissed at the sudden attack as it whirled on her.

What followed was a display of martial arts prowess unlike anything he had ever seen in his life. The woman fought completely unarmed, displaying insane levels of competence as she landed one strike after another. Soon enough, she landed a solid kick on the creature’s eye, turning it into a bloody mess, and before long, the other eye was blinded too. This didn’t stop it from rushing at her, as it didn’t really need its eyes to orient itself, but it did make it impossible for the creature to predict her next move.

One kick after another landed on the monster’s head until it eventually finally ran out of energy.

She landed an axe kick on the back of the creature’s neck, and it stopped moving.

By the end of the display, Freddy was left with a sour expression. First, this woman was good. Way better than he was. While she claimed to be entirely independent, one didn’t get that good without training from early childhood.

That meant she had a background—one that she was keeping hidden.

He’d be a hypocrite to criticize her for keeping her background a secret. But that didn’t change the fact that an angry family might come to look for her and “take care of him” in the process.

“How long have you been an arch?” he asked.

“For about three weeks,” the woman said.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty new to this,” she said, gulping for breath. “But I’ve been practicing martial arts for almost fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years, you say…” he commented. “Seems like an awfully long time to spend without a prime. You could have been at least a peak two-star by now. Any reason why you postponed it for that long?”

She looked a bit stricken by the question for a moment, but she got herself under control rather quickly. “Eh, long story.”

He stared at her.

“Uhm…” she started. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, yeah… I’m just wondering, you know,” he said. “I’m just assuming, but you probably waited that long by choice; well, someone’s choice, at least, am I right?”

She met his gaze. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

“No, no… No… It’s nothing really; just tell me one thing: What’s the likelihood that an angry clansman might kill me when they come to pick you up?”

She froze at the question, staring at him with wide eyes. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I’m not from that kind of background.”

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he placated her. “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I just want to make sure I don’t get caught up in someone’s family drama.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said.

“All right, all right,” he said. “Well then, uh… Let’s go find some monsters to kill.”

They couldn’t find another lone gorel for him to fight, but it didn’t take long for them to stumble upon a small group of three, with two workers sniffing through the leaves while a guard sat lazily to the side.

He simply walked up to them, and when he was within twenty meters, they noticed him. The guard reached him first due to its superior speed.

His ego was slightly bruised, and he felt an urge to show off a bit. Thus, when the monsters came, he made extra sure to make it seem like he was exerting as little effort as possible.

Unceremoniously, he started a Flowing Strike and raised his leg. The dumb beast practically impaled itself on his foot, eating the kick with its chin and dying instantly. The other two weren’t much better, as they took a punch to the head and fell with a stream of blood rushing out of their cracked skulls.

“W… Wow…” Sophia said. “That’s uh… That’s some power. Isn’t there a lot of backlash?”

He raised an eyebrow at that. She could tell that much just from watching him use Flowing Strike once?

“I have a talent for healing, remember?” he reminded her. “I can take the burden without much trouble.”

She scowled briefly, then bobbed her head side to side as she pondered the logic behind it. “A bit extreme if you ask me, but hey”—she glanced at the gorel corpse that took the brunt of Freddy’s attack— “it definitely works.”

He smiled under the helmet. Plus one point for Team Freddy.

On that note, they started their first hunt together, seeing no reason to stop there.

However, it seemed that she had an ego on her, too.

“Whoa, what are you doing!?” he asked as he spotted her rushing at a group of five.

“Don’t worry!” she said. “I just want to see how I do against them.”

“This crazy…” he whispered.

She did not do well against them. At all. There were two guards and three workers. Within the first two minutes, the woman received two lethal injuries—the first was a nasty cut across her neck that nearly decapitated her, and the second was a long gash along the length of her arm that would have bled her out.

She healed both wounds instantly and merely continued the fight. Seeing that she had no chance of coming out on top, he stepped in and killed the gorels before they ended her.

“What the hell!?” she yelled. “Why did you interrupt me?”

“Why did I—” he stuttered. “Do you have any idea how close you were to dying like five times just now?”

“Yeah,” she said, blinking innocently at him. “I’m pretty weak at unarmed fighting, so I’m trying to improve.”

He blinked at her. “You’re what?” He scoffed. “Okay, sure.”

“Yeah, I have a few of these bad habits I’m trying to knock,” she declared

“And this is how you choose to do it?”

She raised an eyebrow at that. “What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “My talent can heal up to five massive injuries; why wouldn’t I use that to my advantage to train in high risk?”

“Yeees,” he agreed, somewhat condescendingly, “but it can’t grow your head back if a gorel claw takes it off. Get it? So maybe cool the ‘high risk’ down a bit, okay?”

Something about how she looked at him at that moment didn’t sit right with him. “Okay,” she said as she sat on the ground. She pulled the little blob of flesh out of her Storage Ring and started feeding it chunks of gorel flesh as she worked to restore the two sparks she had lost in the fight.

Freddy shook his head as he bent over to bag and rack the corpses they had just downed.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“I’m packing the bodies?” he answered with some confusion.

“Why?” she asked.

He blinked at her. “To sell them? To earn money?”

“Oh! Yeah, I forgot.”

His jaw clenched. Yup. That, right there, was someone who had never worked a day of their life. Shaking his head, he finished gathering the corpses.

The two of them returned to the lobby in silence and left the bodies.

As they stepped back into the realm, the woman pointed in a direction. “Hey, we should go over there this time.”

His legs froze. “That path leads to a few major hives,” he said. “I think it would be best to avoid those.”

“Nah, don’t worry,” she said. “I was hunting in that area, and it’s not too bad. Most of the more powerful parties hunt there, so, if anything, there is less of a risk since most of the deviants get culled.”

He squinted at that. Frankly, the same idea had crossed his mind. It was true that that area had a lower risk of encountering deviants, but there were too many gorels there. Entrances to the bigger hives were scattered all over the place, and those were like a never-ending fountain of prey.

He wasn’t particularly afraid of big groups of gorels; in fact, the lower risk of deviants was probably a fair trade-off in his case. But for her… He glanced at the woman at his side and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I told you, I’ve already been hunting there for a while. Besides, are you forgetting about the… you know?”

Well, she did have a point. It wasn’t like injuries were a big risk to either of them, and with him at her side, it was unlikely that anything would get the chance to take her out before he could step in to prevent that.

They made their way down the path and steered into the woods. He carefully tracked where they were going, constantly mentally referring to where they were on the map.

They were near one of the bigger entrances to a large hive, but that entrance was located within a depression. If they wanted to reach it from where they were, they’d have to jump off a small cliff, and the gorels didn’t have a habit of climbing like that, so the place they were at was relatively safe.

“Hey, come over here!” the woman called as she rushed over a large boulder.

Where the hell is this woman going? he asked himself, feeling drained by Sophia’s energetic, carefree attitude.

He made his way across the boulder and glided down. His eyes widened as he realized where they were and ducked. “Shit!” he swore. They were right at the edge of the cliff, hidden behind a few flimsy bushes.

“Come!” she called. “Come see!”

“Come see what, you crazy…!?” he scream-whispered. He groaned as he crawled through the bush and made his way next to Sophia, who was looking down into the depression. “Jesus Christ,” he called when he saw the sight for himself.

Hundreds upon hundreds of workers made their way down a series of paths carved into the depression, heading into the woods like a stream of ants.

They found themselves right on the edge of a red zone, peering down on an army of foes.

“Isn’t it cool!?” she asked. “Let’s go down a bit. They’re a lot less coordinated in large groups when on the surface. It’ll be easy to run away,” she declared as she turned to face him, a bright light shining in her purple eyes.

She had to be messing with him… right?

“Come on,” he spat. “We don’t have time for this.”

“You’re right!” she yelled as she got up to her feet. “The day could turn to night at any moment; we should hurry.”

“Keep it quiet!” he requested. “What if the—” His words were interrupted as she pulled him by the arm…

And threw him right off the cliff.

27

BLOODSHED IS ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE

After slamming into the incline, Freddy landed on his rucksack and spun, sliding down the rest of the short hill as the baggage on his back prevented him from rolling, eventually grinding to a halt behind a large boulder, obscuring him from the gorels just ahead.

Thanks to his durability and thick armor, he didn’t suffer any significant injuries, but his jacket was slightly damaged by the scraping and had heated up considerably from the friction.

Sophia followed soon after, sliding down elegantly as she landed right beside him in a crouch.

“What the fuck are you—” he scream-whispered at her, but⁠—

“Shhhh!” she silenced him. “They’re going to hear us!”

“No shit!” He gesticulated at her, choking an imaginary neck as the visor on his helmet hinted at the furious expression beneath.

She ignored his open threat and peeked over the boulder, taking a sneaky look at the mass of monsters ahead.

He, on the other hand, was staring at the cliff, looking for any place he could go back up. But it was hopeless. It was too steep, and the rock was too smooth. Perhaps a professional climber could do it, but he didn’t like his chances. The most likely outcome of trying to climb up would be tumbling into an angry mass of gorels that spotted his escape attempt.

Taking a deep breath, he silently worked himself up into a crouch beside the unhinged woman. Her eyes scoured the gorel-dominated stone depression, god-knows-what going through her mind. Was she planning an escape route? The fact that she was the one who got them into this situation hinted at something far less reasonable.

Still, they had gone unnoticed. The hordes of gorels actually worked in their favor, masking the noises they made in the terrifying sounds of hundreds of angry sloth-monkeys dragging their spoon-nails and claws across the dusty soil.

It was exactly as she’d said.

The monsters were adept at maneuvering the tunnels, as their senses were almost entirely designed to handle just that. Out in the open, with the vast number of the things marching in massive lanes, they couldn’t immediately recognize intruders, even if those intruders walked right up to them.

That didn’t mean that things wouldn’t get nasty if the creatures did spot them. But it did mean that their chances of walking away without triggering a stampede were higher than might be readily apparent.

As he was trying to puzzle out a way out of the situation, the woman’s body shifted as she started getting up. The single fastest reflex reaction he had ever experienced made his arm lunge at her like an angry snake, grasping her forearm in a vice grip and pulling her down. “Don’t you fucking dare!” he barked the warning, making extra sure she could tell that he wasn’t making an empty threat.

“Don’t worry!” she placated with a grin. She raised her untrapped arm, and with a puffing sound, a fancy shortsword appeared in her grip. “I believe in you!”

Then she slammed the flat end of the metallic sword into the boulder, producing a shrill ding.

Instantly, the sounds of gorel movement quieted. The army of monsters near them crawled to a stop, all of them aggressively sniffing the air and keeping their ears peeled for whatever had produced the sound.

Unspeakable terror crawled up his spine as he watched the woman raise the sword again, bringing it down before he could do anything to stop her from doing so.

Ding, the sword rang.

A moment later, a deafening cacophony of hissing, growling, and screeching thundered around them.

“Why!? Why!?” he begged as he released the madwoman and got up, looking around for any escape. What he saw stunned him. “Oh… shit!” he yelled as he swung his fist to knock away one of the many gorels in the middle of jumping at him with their claws out, ready to tear him to pieces.

The woman laughed joyously, leaping into the crowd of monsters as she swung her sword, sneaking it through tiny openings with impeccable technique as she swam through the mass of bodies, somehow avoiding the numerous attacks flying her way.

He barely blocked an aggressive swing by a guard, which left deep rents along his bracers, and leaped back, trying to make space between him and the thickening crowd of creatures aiming for his life.

His Hydraulic Flex activated with a warm flow coursing through his legs as he kept jumping back, but there was nowhere to run—with a sheer wall of stone behind him and a tsunami of monsters ahead of him, all he could do was stand his ground and fight.

Without the time to remove his gloves, he cast Gore Knuckles through them, tearing them apart. The jagged dagger appeared in his left hand, held in a reverse grip. A Flowing Strike kick flew forward, crushing a gorel’s skull as his dagger hand punched another, the Gore Knuckles cracking and splintering, fragile as they still were; then he slit a clumsy slash across yet another one’s face.

The weapon drew blood—so much of it, in fact, that the gorel backed away and collapsed, likely falling unconscious due to the sudden drop in blood pressure.

Within moments, the mass of monsters grew far too thick to manage; the only thing providing any defense was the quickly accumulating wall of gorel corpses, but that wouldn’t keep him safe forever.

In less than twenty seconds of fighting at full power, liberally using Flowing Strike and Hydraulic Flex whenever necessary, he was at a mere 34% essence, and with just another four Flowing Strikes, he would be out.

He groaned. “Blood Sacrifice!” he yelled as he resorted to his last-ditch effort.

But Bloodshed didn’t respond.

“Why!?” was all he could muster as a pile of gorels swarmed him. Their claws and teeth tore his armor to shreds, but his body didn’t take much damage past the surface layer of skin; even that was quickly sealed by the rush of lifesteal as he retaliated.

His dagger barely stayed in his grip as he tore one gorel apart after another, and relatively quickly, he found himself buried beneath a literal pile of corpses, ironically safe as the dumb beasts kept piling on him. But this sanctuary was temporary at best.

The mass of monsters above kept piling on until there were so many of them that he was suffocating. Their attempts to claw past the dead only hastened this, as he was literally bathed in blood that flowed past the pile of bodies.

“Blood Sacrifice!” He tried again. “Blood Sacrifice!” And again. “Why doesn’t it work!?”

“Master…” Bloodshed’s voice suddenly echoed in his voice.

“Bloodshed!” he called. “Where are you!?”

“Calm yourself, Master…” it said.

“Not the time for—aaargh!” he screamed as his legs were finally reached and several gorels scraped at them, leaving deep gashes and nearly shearing his feet off.

“—never come first,” it continued. “I am a consequence of your existence; I am the terror of spilled blood.”

“Gaargh!” he kept screaming, trying to pull his legs back.

“Don’t worry, Master… Bloodshed is always by your side—” Its voice suddenly cut out, its presence seemingly vanishing.

He had no time to think about the cryptic words. After much struggle, he finally mustered the power to tuck his legs back into the mass of corpses where they couldn’t be reached by the other monsters.

The stench was overwhelming. Everything around him stank like a wet dog dripping in blood. But in the moments of panic where he lay buried beneath a pile of bodies, barely able to move, he suddenly found himself calming down. This wasn’t his first time in a situation like this, was it?

Shedding the cautious delver, he allowed the instinct-driven animal who got him out alive last time to take over. His left hand gripped the dagger tightly as he started slashing. The jagged blade carved through the mass of gore as he slowly shifted forward.

A small but continuous stream of lifeforce trickled into his body, patching his bleeding form almost instantly and sealing his flesh back up with a layer of temporary tissue created by first-aid-quality healing.

It didn’t take much for him to dig himself back out, where a gorel slammed bloody claws right into his helmet, nearly piercing through it, but a swing of the dagger left its arm bleeding profusely as it barked, squealing and backing away.

Several others rushed to fill the gap, crowding like bees before his vision, making it difficult to tell them apart. Merely ensuring that his grip on the dagger didn’t slip, he carved away. Eventually, he created enough space.

With a burst of as much essence as he could muster, he pushed himself out, just barely breaking past the vast mass of monsters gathering around the pile of corpses. The chaos played in his favor as many of the creatures failed to keep up with his location, continuing to search for him in the pile of gore.

Among the cacophony of screeching, finding a lone man who smelled of little other than gorel blood was almost impossible for the dumb beasts.

This would be his way out.

The spikes on his fists had been ground down to nothing more than a cracked, thin coat of blood, so he used a bit of his essence to reconstruct them. It was incredibly essence-efficient, costing him a minuscule sum to build them back up, even if he wasn’t fond of losing more blood.

They wouldn’t last long, but the added roughness to his punches made them effective enough that he didn’t need to repeatedly use Flowing Strikes to do damage.

Every gorel he killed replenished a tiny portion of his essence. Killing monsters resulted in a rush of ether that pushed his star further, and just like with any other form of gathering, a small portion of that ether was converted into essence—very little, however.

Every kill resulted in only around 1% essence return, making it nearly impossible to do anything other than slow down his dwindling reserves—or so he thought.

There was a massive crowd of gorels running after him, but in front of him, they were relatively scattered. If one jumped him, he did his best to dodge and kick them aside, leaving most with at least a slight bleeding injury.

It was enough to slow him down, and several times that cost him a nasty slash on his legs or back. Even though minimal-quality healing swiftly stopped the bleeding and first-aid-quality healing patched him up, at that level, the recovery couldn’t preserve the function of his body. He felt his legs growing weaker; his balance was wobbly, and his steps were uneven.

Although his gore knuckles cracked apart with every punch he landed, they still transferred the dagger’s effect, making his attacks result in excessive bleeding.

At a certain point, he started feeling seemingly random rushes of ether flowing from somewhere back in the crowd behind him.

Are the ones I hit bleeding out!? he wondered.

The state of his body was worsening, and with the saving grace of recovering some essence, he allowed himself to swing a Flowing Strike at the head of one of the creatures. The blood knuckles shattered with the impact, together with the gorel’s skull, and the influx of lifesteal finally brought the healing quality up to natural, where it could at least somewhat recover his function.

His legs felt less numb, and his back stiffened. Another Flowing Strike crushed the knuckles on the other hand and a guard’s chest, pushing the healing quality even further.

The thrill kept him pushing forward and attacking anything he came across. His moves were clumsy, and he often failed to do much, but he kept pushing, emboldened by the seemingly unceasing flood of essence flowing into his soul.

Just as he regained his confidence, he spotted that lunatic fighting a different crowd, and seeing her in action made his breath catch in his throat.

She made it seem so easy.

Weaving in and out of action, using their limited senses to herd them like a shepherd herded sheep. Whenever they gathered, she pulled back into a nearby clearing, always ensuring she was somewhere where a wall wouldn’t cut off her path of escape.

Although she was impressive enough without a weapon, her swordsmanship was something to behold. She performed fancy jumps and flips with minimal effort, slipping her sword through the smallest of openings to cut into her opponents’ bodies. He watched her take a nasty slash across the back and heard her screaming, but a mere second later, she used her talent to heal the injury and kept fighting, remaining unshaken.

What a monster, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking.

As an archhuman, she was incredibly weak—yet her talent, skill, and physical capabilities allowed her to close the gap enough to stay alive even against overwhelming odds.

His distraction cost him as he tripped over a small worker and tumbled across the ground. “Shit!” he screamed as he watched the horde descend upon him.

Out of desperation, he used Create Water at maximum output, activating both stars and turning it into Perished Water.

His soul screamed in agony at the immense output of essence as he felt every last drop drain out of his star like juice from an orange crushed by a hydraulic press, causing nearly 53% to vanish instantly.

But the results were spectacular. Several barrels worth of water manifested above him just as the crowd of gorels descended. Not even he was spared by the attack as numerous stingers, bites, and scratches assaulted his skin, some leaving deep lacerations, but the rush of lifesteal was more than enough of a sign that his attack was doing more to his enemies than to himself.

The water washed over him and the surrounding monsters, flooding the area and pushing him away. Once he finally left the hellish substance, feeling every inch of his skin dripping in blood, he heard it—every gorel in the surrounding area was screaming so loudly that it nearly deafened him. Throughout the next few moments, he felt his essence gradually trickle back up to 20%, marking around twenty kills.

“Holy shit…” he breathed out.

As the water disappeared, all that was left was the accumulating river of blood as he watched dozens of gorels bleeding from their legs and cut feet.

At that very moment, the sun blinked out as the day suddenly turned to night. Rather than curse or yell, he remained quiet. His sight was severely compromised, and he didn’t even see the gorel that bumped into him, but as it kept screaming and running, it was likely that it hadn’t noticed him either.

The chaos his stunt had created manifested a cascading effect of screeching and panic, causing the monsters to scatter in every direction. The vibration beneath his feet and distant thundering hinted at a veritable horde of them returning to their nest to either see what was happening or to rush into their comrades’ defense.

He didn’t see anything. The darkness of the night in this realm was near-absolute, and without a light source, his eyes had zero feedback. He couldn’t move. For the time being, the gorels were too disorganized to pinpoint his location, but it wouldn’t take long for order to reestablish itself and for them to track him down.

This was pretty close to the worst-case scenario. If it was still day, their sight would be worthless at tracking him down, but at night, he would have to use a flashlight, which would put a spotlight on him, resulting in most of the nest flooding him and tearing him to shreds.

He breathed quietly as the seconds turned into minutes, and the wild screaming gradually quieted into scattered yelps. His careful breathing slowly turned into panicked gasping for air.

Suddenly, he noticed something. It was the ether shell for Blood Sacrifice. He felt it quietly resonate, and he felt confident that if he used the ability at that moment, it wouldn’t fail him like last time.

Then he heard the sounds of footsteps. They were quiet but undeniable. One of the gorels was approaching him. He mentally locked onto the shell for Blood Sacrifice, prepared to use the ability at any moment. It was far from a guarantee of victory, but it could create a distraction while he escaped. He was a hundred percent confident that the monster would scream out any moment and attract the others to⁠—

But it instead whispered, “Hey… Follow me!” It was the lunatic. She grabbed his hand and pulled him along somewhere, and he decided that he had no alternative but to follow her.

Every hair along his skin raised as he heard the occasional gorel stop near them and sniff the air. But every time, he heard the sound of a rock landing somewhere twenty meters away, likely thrown by the woman to create a distraction. It worked, and before long, they stepped onto an incline and climbed their way up, leaving the sounds of shuffling behind them.

“Wooo, that was close!” she said, taking something out of her Storage Ring with a pop of air. It was a flashlight, he noticed, as she turned it on just in time to illuminate the fist flying directly into her face.

He punched her with everything he had, only holding back on using Flowing Strike, and sent her tumbling across the ground. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” he screamed. “Are you out of your goddamn mind!?”

28

CONFLICT

In the pure darkness of the night, Sophia tumbled to the ground, thrown back by the forceful blow. The flashlight that fell out of her hands clattered to the nearby soil and landed in a way that illuminated the crumpled form of the injured woman, part of the light falling on the crusted, bloody, torn armor covering Freddy’s body.

He watched her bleeding nose rapidly reconstruct itself as she burned another spark, all while doing his best to restrain himself from forcing her to use another one. “I asked you a question!” he yelled. “Are you out of your mind!?”

“Why did you do that!?” she screamed as she moved into a seated position.

“What the hell do you mean, why!?” he shouted, uncaring of who or what might hear them. “You just tried to fucking kill me!?” he screamed while gesturing behind them to the still-echoing screams of gorels looking for them.

She looked scandalized by the accusation. “What!? No, I didn’t!”

“What else could you have possibly been trying to accomplish by throwing me off a cliff into a horde of monsters! What did you think was gonna happen?”

“I expected you to know how to fight!” she argued. “If you hadn’t cornered yourself at the start, you would have been fine!”

His jaw dropped beneath the mask of his helm. An incredulous grin of pure disbelief stretched his lips as he barked out a bewildered laugh. “You wha—that’s your excuse!? So it’s my fault!? We’ll see how the authorities feel about that, you goddamn—” His words caught in his throat as he felt a sudden, searing pain spread through his back and stomach.

Sophia’s eyes bulged as they locked on to the pitch-black claws protruding from his torso.

He turned as fast as he could, gritting his teeth in anger at his stupidity as he faced the ghoulish form of a pale-furred deviant that had overheard their shouting. A cold, sickening feeling radiated from its claws as the creature focused, and he felt his entire body grow numb as his guts rapidly rotted away at the inpour of death-affinity essence flooding in through the attack.

With a furious growl, he reached his arm behind its back, catching the deviant off-guard, as it had likely expected him to be unable to move under the paralyzing flood of essence. His hand landed on the creature’s skull with a mighty grip as he pushed Hydraulic Flex to its maximum output, trying to crush its head. It wasn’t enough.

It roared with pain as it doubled down on its attack while swinging its other claw at his arm. Its clumsy, reflexive swing was blocked by the metallic bracers while he ignited both of his stars and used Flowing Strike; the force of the raging wave of water reached his hand, transferring into his grip as both the tips of his fingers and the deviant’s skull exploded under the pressure, splattering the nearby area with blood and brain matter.

His shaky arm grabbed the creature’s arm and yanked it out of his back as he collapsed to the ground, barely staying conscious. A bone-piercing cold invaded his bloodstream, and the sound of distant ringing echoed with the woman’s screams as she rushed to help him out.

“Stay away from me!” he yelled with all the will he could muster. “I don’t need your help!” He watched her face turn into an expression of awed horror as he forced himself back up to his feet. With a moment of focus, he pulled the machete out of the storage ring and started cleaving away at the nearby grass. His talent barely managed to stop his bleeding.

“You can’t heal from this!” she yelled as she grabbed his arm. “The death essence has invaded your body, and⁠—”

“Shut up!” he shouted stubbornly, pushing her arm away. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!”

With frightened steps, she backed away, and he waddled forward, continuously swinging at the grass below his feet.

The sense of time passing grew distant as he kept swinging his machete. A constant buzzing, blurry vision, and patches of pure black made seeing straight almost impossible as he wandered into the darkness. Several times, he found himself lying on the ground, not even knowing how he made it there, but each time, he forced himself up, fighting the weakness building up in his soul, body, and mind.

There was a light. Someone was shining a flashlight before his feet. It was that lunatic. She kept trying to help him, but he pushed her away, refusing to accept assistance from someone like her.

“You spoiled brat,” he found himself saying, feeling more like he was remembering a conversation from the past than having one in the present. “Fifteen years of martial arts training?” he asked deliriously. “What a lax life… you must have had,” he accused. “You must think I’m so far below you… I’ll show you when I’m done healing… who you’re playing with.”

The woman said something, but it sounded like nothing but distant buzzing, like the sound of a mosquito flying around his ears.

“Shut up,” he demanded. “Just watch.”

Time blurred.

He felt the comforting sensation of tears streaming down his face. He was crying? Why was he crying?

Images of happy moments from his life interspersed with the sudden realization that he was fighting gorels.

Ignoring their bites and scratches, he swung the machete at them the way he cleaved the grass, feeling intense pulses of life force flashing through his body as they brought him back from the brink of death and dispelled the sight of his life flashing before his eyes.

At some point, daytime blinked the night away. Either it had come back surprisingly quickly, or he had been wandering in that state far longer than he was aware. The woman was also gone.

Be it grass or stray monsters, he kept cleaving and healing, feeling himself avoiding what he was sure should have been an inescapable death. Eventually, as if he’d suddenly woken up, the delirium dispelled, clearing his mind.

He couldn’t help but snicker. “I didn’t pass out this time,” he said proudly.

Although his body was in one piece, the death essence hadn’t been expelled from his body. He felt cold, and the feeling of sickness and weakness didn’t go away even as he healed back to effectively perfect health.

Slowly raising his hand, he observed the way it shivered. He balled his fingers into a fist.

He still felt tired, and his mind felt foggy. Despite that, he forced himself to walk onward, willing his feet to take him down a path leading back to the passage. Although he was entirely lucid, he kept blanking out, as if he were failing to commit new experiences to memory.

The only emotion he felt was a cold, simmering anger. Once he got his hands on that woman, he’d wring her neck and bury her body deep in the realm, somewhere where nobody would find it. Her actions were inexcusable. She wouldn’t get away with it.

Eventually, he made it to the second floor of the lobby. But he had no recollection of how he got there. Making his way into the stripping booth, he removed the loose pieces of armor that still clung to his bloody form and put them over the counter. They were so ragged and torn that most of them were garbage, but he wasn’t thinking about that.

As he waited for it to be repaired, he sat down on the bench in the stripping booth right before the mirror showing his reflection. His skin was deathly pale and sagging—his eyes were sunken, and his hair looked flat, almost as if it had thinned.

“Maybe I could take a short nap…” His words trailed off as his eyes slammed shut, and he fell asleep.

Freddy woke up and opened his eyes. The cold ceiling of the infirmary welcomed him, its gray, joyless luster perfectly reflecting how he felt. “Fuck my life…” he muttered as he raised his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes and sighing deeply.

Looking around, he spotted the few dozen beds reserved for those who returned injured from a delve, roughly half of them filled with other recovering delvers.

He sighed. So much for not losing consciousness. Even if they hadn’t treated him for anything, the mere fact that he was there meant he would be slammed by a hefty bill.

But he just couldn’t muster the energy to feel angry at that for some reason. No, he merely felt tired.

His hand looked ghastly and deflated, and his nails were purple. He felt as if his entire body was sagging, like meat that had been tenderized.

A nurse walked into the room and spotted that he was awake. The woman told him that he was in a stable condition and allowed to leave if he wanted. He was handed a paper detailing the medical examination and… a bill, of course. But it wasn’t what he expected to see.

The total cost was $34,586. Only around $15,000 was the hospital bill, the most considerable cost of which was the extensive tests they had put him through to see what was wrong with him, while the rest was the price of the armor repair. He didn’t necessarily need to pay for the latter, but if he didn’t, his equipment would be auctioned off to cover the cost, with excess money being returned to him.

Again, he faced something that should have infuriated him, but he couldn’t muster the energy to feel that way. He merely signed the form and authorized the payment, then waited for his equipment to arrive. Once it did, it looked battered as hell.

The helmet looked as if it had been hammered back into shape after getting crushed, the jacket and pants had dozens of patches on them, and one of the bracers was just new, likely having to be replaced entirely. His footwear was mostly fine, though, proving its value once again.

Sighing deeply, he put the armor back on, replaced the hospital gown, and stepped back outside.

Once he left the room, he found himself in the second-floor lobby. There, he saw the lunatic who was guilty of all this sleeping on a nearby bench. This time, he could muster the energy to feel angry.

He marched over to her and flicked her forehead to wake her up.

“Ouch!” she yelled. “What the—” she started as she turned and came face to face with him. “Oh… Hi?”

“Don’t you ‘hi’ me,” he spat coldly.

Although he’d been fantasizing about the ways he’d get his revenge, for some reason, now that he was faced with the woman standing before him, he felt some of the anger deflate slightly. He was still livid, but now, with a clear mind, he saw a much more acceptable way to deal with her.

“We’re going to report what you did,” he declared, leaving no room for debate. “Either you cooperate, or I get my due myself. Your choice,” he threatened.

“Before that, can I⁠—”

“No.”

“Just hear me out!”

“Get up and—” His words caught in his throat as the woman raised her hand and, with a puff of air, summoned a pitch-black prime vestige.

His eyes narrowed. “Where did you get that?”

“It manifested when you killed the deviant,” she said as she raised her arm and handed it over to him.

“Are you trying to buy my forgiveness? This belongs to me anyway, you know?”

“I just want you to hear me out,” she said.

He snatched the prime out of her hand. Looking at the prime’s cat-like, black eyes, he asked, “What are your affinities?”

“Dark and death,” it said, cackling with a shifty undertone to its voice.

“What talent do you hold?”

“If you accept me into your soul,” it started the explanation, “you will be granted the power of haste upon the demise of a foe.”

On-kill speed boost, he mused internally. Double affinity and a combat talent… He had read about the value of primes and how it was usually calculated. With these characteristics, it would sell for between one and three million dollars.

He looked back down at the woman. While he still held on to his anger, now it felt like trying to squeeze a bar of soap. Joy, that wretched thing, was competing for the limited emotional space he had in his mind at that moment. Well… she didn’t seem to be intent on running away, he thought, sighing as he sat next to her.

“Speak.”

She looked back up at him and then down, her shoulders visibly relaxing as she released a breath. “Thank you.”

“You have nothing to thank me for,” he stated as he slowly sat beside her, his actions resembling those of an old mortal man trying to take a seat. “I’ll still report what you’ve done after our conversation.”

“What!?” she yelled. “But⁠—”

“But what?” he interrupted, turning his head to face her, the two holes in his helm revealing the tired, ghoulish eyes beneath. “Are you trying to insinuate that not stealing my prime counts as repayment?” He sneered. “Hurry up and speak. I want to go home and sleep. The fact that I nearly died because of you,” he intoned slowly, “made me rather exhausted.”

She bit her lip as she looked away, her hands clenching the hem of her filthy, torn shirt.

For a few long minutes, the two of them sat there in silence. He wanted to tell her to just hurry up and speak, but the fatigue dominating his body made even opening his mouth exhausting.

Finally, she spoke. “Have you ever heard of acute pain relief syndrome?”

He scowled at the bizarre question. His fatigued mind crawled over to the corner where he stored information on subjects like that, and once it retrieved the relevant info, his eyes widened slightly. “Shit…” he whispered.

Popping a pimple.

Cracking one’s back.

Pulling out a thorn.

All three actions had one thing in common—they felt good. Doing any of those was frequently accompanied by an acute sense of relief. That relief flooded the body and mind with pleasure chemicals.

While this could result in bad habits, like a tendency to pop pimples whenever they appeared, it was rarely ever detrimental to human beings.

However, things became slightly different when ether healing was involved.

When a person suffered from some form of affliction long enough for the body to acclimate to it, an extreme dose of healing applied in a short period of time had a similar effect—with just one small difference: it was way more extreme.

Freddy had experienced this exact thing twice already. Once in the caverns, when he finally healed the last of the aftermath from getting tortured for so long, and once briefly after killing Matthew Vane.

He had read up on many subjects related to healing during his time in the library. One of those subjects covered acute pain relief syndrome—APRS.

Freddy himself had a relatively minor sensitivity to APRS. His reaction manifested with an uncontrollable urge to break down and cry, with a brief but intense feeling of euphoria immediately afterwards.

Not everyone reacted the same way.

Some people passed out, others shit themselves instantly, and some people… well, some people reacted the same as if they’d taken a large dose of hard drugs.

He thought back to the moment after Sophia healed herself. The gross way her face flushed with ecstasy and the way she shivered with the sensation. It was clear which category she fell into.

He scoffed once he finally put the pieces together. “Yeah. I know what it is. What are you trying to say?”

She hesitated as she shrank slightly, looking quite remorseful, at least on the surface. “I wasn’t entirely in control of my actions when I did what I did.”

“Mhm… I’m sure you weren’t.”

“I’d like to apologize. I wasn’t thinking straight when I⁠—”

“While the effect can be quite disinhibitory,” he cut her off, “it’s not like you were possessed by a ghost who made your decisions for you. You had your reasons, and you made your decision.” He turned to look at her. “I’ve seen regular people take some hard fucking shit,” he declared, a brief flash of pain flickering through the flinch in his eyes and a downward tug on his lips. “Some stuff makes people go crazy, but the effect of APRS would be closer to a speedball. I’m sure it affected your thinking, but it didn’t make your choices for you. So why, and be honest with me here—why did you do that?”

She paused as she looked at him, a hint of fear playing through her eyes. She averted her gaze. “When I threw you off the cliff, I wasn’t expecting you to be so… inexperienced.”

“Let me ask you a question before you continue. Is your explanation just going to be you insulting me? Because if you plan on blaming me for it, just tell me now, and we’re heading straight to moderation to report you.”

She made eye contact with him through the slits in his armor. Her mouth opened, but the tired, dead look in his eyes shut her right up. She took a deep breath instead and slapped her cheeks. “Okay,” she said. “I know that anything I say will sound like an excuse, but⁠—”

“I don’t care,” he said. “If you want to make excuses, make excuses; if you want to insult me, insult me; just please get it over with.”

Taking another deep breath, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “When I threw you off the cliff, I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“I’m sure you weren’t.”

She winced at that. “Yeah… Things went quite differently in my head.”

“Mhmmm,” he kept responding sarcastically.

“I thought that, right, you’re super strong, but for some reason, you seemed overly cautious,” she rambled. “Then I realized that, right, duh—you only saw me as a beginner! Maybe you felt responsible for my safety, so I wanted to prove that you have nothing to fear!”

His eyebrow raised beneath the helmet.

She continued. “My plan was to show my skills off and prove that we can take anything on! Even if we mess something up, we can recover perfectly if we don’t die instantly. If you think about it, the synergy between our talents makes it only logical to take risks since the actual danger is minimal, relatively speaking, of course, but still.”

The longer he listened to this woman speak, the stronger his headache became.

“When I saw you get surrounded…” she continued. “How are you so bad at fighting?”

He snorted. “That’s none of your business.”

“Look,” she said. “I… I can help you! I know a ton about martial arts, and if you let me mmmmh⁠—”

Finally, he could no longer tolerate listening to her. His right arm shot out, and he slammed her mouth shut. “Please stop talking.” He sighed.

She looked at him, and her eyes opened wide. Likely believing that she had failed, she flailed her arms and tried to remove his hand, which was closed in a steel grip around her mouth.

Now that his fury had worn off, the longer he listened to her ramble, the more obvious it became—she wasn’t malicious; she was just stupid. Well, stupid was harsh—it was better to say that she was inexperienced. Sheltered, maybe. Spoiled.

Her thought process was selfish and clearly from an entirely different worldview than his own. She was no doubt used to seeing elite two-stars, people who knew how to use the power they had far better than he did.

Still…

Malicious or not, she was a massive liability. Delving with her after the stunt she had pulled was out of the question. But she was privy to one of his biggest secrets.

He couldn’t just let her go.

As he glanced at the squirming woman trapped in his grasp, he felt a pang of disgust shoot through his gut. In so many ways, this woman embodied everything he hated about archhuman society.

She was so privileged and out of touch with reality, willing to do whatever she pleased with the lives of others. His anger resurged when he had a thought—would she even get punished if he reported her? What were the odds that whoever her clan or family was would hear of this and pull some strings to set her free?

Or worse…

What were the odds that they would retaliate against him?

The very thought made him tighten the grip on her mouth. She squealed.

Should he just… take care of her?

He froze.

The thought had come so easily to him. Hell, it took no effort to come up with a full-fledged plan. Pretend to forgive her, take her out on another delve, and just… take care of her.

And just like that, the problem would go away.

But… he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to stoop that low. If he stepped on the path of doing whatever it took to further his goals… he would simply slot right in. Just another archhuman with a penchant for cruelty. The image of the pool of blood widening around the corpse of a grieving father flashed in his mind.

No… he didn’t want to do that.

That wasn’t who he wanted to become.

But the same problem still stood. He couldn’t just let her go. Even if she didn’t babble about his talent, there was a chance she’d reveal her talent and he’d get caught up in the situation by proxy.

The woman seemed to finally give up on her attempts to free herself, and just as her eyes teared up, he released his grip.

She gasped and rubbed her red cheeks.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to report you.”

She froze. Her piercing eyes turned to him with a “Really!?” shining in them like a star.

He rolled his eyes as he leaned his helmet on his hand.

“But,” he said, “our little party isn’t going to work out. You’re not the type of person I want to delve with.”

Before she could open her mouth, he cut her off. “That doesn’t mean we can’t still cooperate.”

There was still some use for this woman.

Although her reasoning was silly, she wasn’t wrong. He was horrible at fighting. It was his greatest weakness. All he had focused on until that point was growing his power, but his ability to use it was lacking, to say the least.

His mind flashed over the details she mentioned. Indeed, he had royally messed that fight up. While she pushed forward, making her way into the mass of monsters before it could descend upon her like an avalanche, he froze until he was literally buried beneath a pile of bodies.

She knew how to fight. This was a rare chance to get his hands on tutelage by someone who was born and raised with a powerful background.

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his crossed arms. “Our talents synergize. Also, you can⁠—”

“That’s right!” she yelled, smacking her hands together as she seemed to remember something. She turned her piercing purple eyes at him with a gleaming madness shining through as she declared, “I think I can make us immortal!”

29

POSSESSION

Freddy stared at the woman, feeling more tired than ever before in his life. “We are already immortal,” he reminded her.

“No,” she said, correcting herself. “I’m not talking about that kind of immortality.”

His brain was too sluggish to catch on to what the woman was trying to say, and before he realized what she meant, she raised her hand and manifested a life spark—but it wasn’t pink. It was a ghoulish, flickering gray.

His eyes instantly shot wide open. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

She grinned. “The corpse of the deviant you killed.”

There was no such thing as the strongest tempering technique. They each had their functions and goals. But when people thought of notable ones, most remembered the Spark of Undeath.

Affinities weren’t made equal. This was perhaps most evident with the death affinity. While the stage-zero generic tempering technique of the water affinity was Water Body, a relatively unnoteworthy boost to the balance of liquids in one’s organism, the generic technique of the death affinity made the user unkillable.

Well, not really. But it was close enough. When death-affinity beings flooded their own bodies with their essence, they made their life spark resistant to death itself. Simply put, the cells in their body no longer died from anything other than being directly destroyed.

The only way to “kill” them was to destroy the brain, which made the soul vacate the body, and even that didn’t stop the body from simply living on, at least until it was fully devoured by fungi and bacteria.

This came with numerous demerits. So many, in fact, that some countries had banned the Spark of Undeath tempering technique entirely.

The first significant downside was the fact that the user would have to live through unimaginable agony if a big part of their body was destroyed.

For this reason, it wasn’t too uncommon for undead archhumans to be reduced to a state where they were begging for death.

Or worse, in the case of the other major downside, as well as the main reason why so many cultures outright banned the technique, the user was driven so insane that they were functionally reduced to a monster.

His fatigue was magically cast away once he realized what he was looking at. The numerous implications and possibilities flooded his head to the point where he got a headache.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he pinched his forehead and raised a hand to stop her. “No,” he said. “Not now. We can talk about this later.”

Nodding, she said, “Tomorrow morning, then?”

“What time is it anyway?” he asked.

“It’s 1 a.m.,” she answered, pointing at the massive clock on the other end of the room that he hadn’t noticed.

He sighed. “Just go home for now. See you tomorrow at noon if I can wake up on time.” He started getting up. “If I don’t, wait for me in the lobby.”

“Wait!” she called.

Stopping, he turned to face her. “What?”

“I…” she started, blushing for some reason. “I’m uh… I’m currently homeless. Can I crash at your place?”

He blinked at her. “What?” he asked dumbfoundedly.

“Well, I uh… I’m kind of broke at the moment…” she explained.

That left him stunned. Clenching his jaw slightly, he rubbed away the incoming headache. This blasted death essence coursing through his body wasn’t making his life any easier.

He was about to say that she should just rent a place somewhere. He’d even give her the money. But would she even know how to do that? Not to mention it was 1 a.m. He did not have the energy to help her find a place to stay.

For a brief moment, he entertained the idea of giving her fifty bucks and the directions to the shithole he’d camped at when he first arrived in Nova York, but…

Sighing dramatically, he turned around. “Sure,” he said. “Just… Never mind. Follow me.”

“Yes, sir!” she shouted cheerfully, mock-saluting him as she got off the bench.

Freddy had been hoping that the late hour would mean avoiding people as much as possible. Unfortunately, in such a major city, attention was unavoidable.

It turned out that when a massive, masked man wearing full combat gear dragged along a small woman wearing filthy, ragged clothing, people got strange ideas. The looks he received on that walk were some of the nastiest he’d ever witnessed in his life, and the masked helm was the only thing keeping him from dying from embarrassment.

It also really didn’t help that Sophia appeared relatively young. Supreme-quality healing removed any signs of aging, so outwardly, it was impossible to tell how old she was. She just looked young.

His steps froze. An anxious feeling bubbled in his gut as he turned to face the strange woman. “How… How old are you?” he asked. If she had been studying martial arts for fifteen years, she had to be at least… twenty… right?

“I’m thirty-two years old!” she replied cheerfully.

“Pfft—” he spat. “Excuse me!?”

“What?” she asked. She put her arms on her hips and raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so surprised? Wait, how old are you?” she returned the question. “No, wait, let me guess! Uh… forty… four?”

He chortled. “Close enough. You’re only off by a factor of two.”

She paled. “You’re eighty-eight!?”

“What? No, dumbass, I’m twenty-two!”

She gaped. “Ooooh…” Then she frowned. “Wait, what!? God, you’re such a geezer, though.”

“Says the thirty-year-old teenager,” he retorted, shaking his head.

She must be from one hell of a strange place, he mused idly.

Throughout the short walk back to his apartment, he felt some life return to him. He couldn’t do anything to banish the death essence from his body, unfortunately, so he would have to wait until it slowly drained through the clash with his life force.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about becoming deathly ill. Usually, something like this could leave a human bedridden for months.

In a matter of minutes, they made it to his place. As soon as he walked inside, he realized that there was a major problem—where would she sleep?

The small armchair sofa wasn’t big enough to sleep on, and as far as he knew, there were no spare sheets in the bedroom. There was only a single blanket on the bed.

Sighing, he walked into the bedroom and grabbed his one and only cover. He folded it in half and placed it on the floor in the living room, making an improvised futon.

She peeked into his room with squinted eyes and then looked back at him.

He sighed. “What?”

“You know, a true gentleman would offer his⁠—”

“Unfortunately, I’m not a true gentleman, and I will kick you out on the streets if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

“Duly noted,” she said jokingly, saluting him again.

He shook his head. Now that they were indoors, he noticed that she smelled… well… exactly how she looked. His own body had at least been wiped clean at the infirmary while she radiated the stench of dried blood and sweat.

“You can shower first,” he offered.

“Oh, now you’re being a gentleman?” she mocked. “I’ll need a change of clothes, at least.”

He sighed, walking into his room. As far as clothes were concerned, he had close to nothing. As he became bigger and bigger, he constantly outgrew his clothing, and whenever something became too small, he donated it to a nearby charity he walked past whenever he went to the library.

All he had at that moment was a giant gray hoodie and the luxurious slim-fit white shirt as far as tops were concerned, and his sweatpants were gigantic. The torn jeans he bought were also way too big. Technically, he also had his gym clothes, but they were stashed away in his private locker in the gym.

“Wooow…” she chirped, leaning over him and staring into his closet. “How can men live like this?”

“Rich coming from a woman who has nothing.” Sighing again, he threw the slim-fit shirt at her. It was still approximately seven sizes too large, but that was all he could offer.

Her frow burrowed slightly as she brought her nose to the shirt. “This smells like smoke,” she said, leaning even closer. “Oh, and women’s perfume. Ugh. Gross.”

Growling in frustration, he tore the shirt from her hands and walked into the toilet. After squirting a few drops of hand soap on the shirt, he used Create Water on it and scrubbed it over the sink. After thoroughly washing it off, the manifested water rapidly evaporated back into water essence and disappeared, leaving the shirt completely dry.

“Here you—” he started, turning around to hand her the shirt, only to find her staring at him with an absolutely mortified expression. “What?” he asked.

“You did not just wash a fancy shirt with hand soap! You animal!”

He rolled his eyes. “Better than women’s perfume and smoke, isn’t it?” he said as he threw the shirt back at her.

Squinting, she asked, “Any chance you have a hidden closet with extra bottoms?”

“Nope,” he said. “You can take the sweatpants if you want.”

She groaned at that. “If that’s how you wash your clothes? Hell no, thank you very much,” she said, moving slightly out of his way so he could leave the bathroom.

He left and sat in the living room while she finished. What he wanted more than anything at that moment was sleep. Interacting with this woman was more exhausting than the death essence that was literally killing him.

Eventually, the doors of the bathroom opened, and she⁠—

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, staring at her.

She had squatted down and pulled the shirt over her knees, and now she was waddling forward like a fat, white penguin. “I don’t want you to see my legs,” she declared.

He watched her slowly make her way to the improvised futon. Then she rolled over and lay down. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing a bit as he shook his head and took his helmet off. He turned to face the woman, who was now looking at him with wide eyes. “Hmm?” he hummed at her. “Is there something on my face?”

“Yikes,” she said. “I thought you were hiding your face because you’re ugly… and now this is really awkward.”

“For the record, I wasn’t ‘hiding my face.’ I was protecting my head. And thanks for the compliment,” he said with a smirk. “Please do keep your hands off me, though; I know you have some trouble controlling yourself.”

“Ha-ha. Don’t worry, your personality will keep me at bay.”

“What’s wrong with my personality?” he asked. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Where do I begin…?”

“Oh, what’s that? You want to sleep on the street?” he asked as he cupped his ear.

She shut her mouth and shot him a petulant glare. Then she rolled over to the other side. “Good night.”

“Good night to you, too,” he replied in a saccharine-sweet voice as he walked over to the bathroom. After finally properly cleaning himself and getting ready for bed, he walked into his room and moved the nightstand in front of the door to block it off.

There were no keys on the bedroom door, unfortunately, and he wanted to ensure that she couldn’t sneak into his room and slit his throat or something. He didn’t think she would do that, but she had proven herself dangerous enough to warrant caution.

She must have heard the sound of him moving the piece of furniture as she suddenly started laughing in the other room.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Laugh all you want, you crazy… You already tried killing me once. I ain’t taking any chances.”

Rather than respond, she just laughed harder.

He shook his head and lay on the bed. Moments later, his eyes slammed shut, and he fell asleep.

Rahal walked into the underground section of their compound. The gray concrete walls dimly reflected the weak light from the ether lamps scattered through the hallways.

He slowly made his way forward until he reached the end of the path he was heading down. There, he turned around and walked into the elevator.

There were seven buttons, each taking to a different floor. Rather than press one of them, he held 5, 6, and 2 simultaneously for three seconds. They glowed yellow upon being pressed and, after being held, turned red.

The elevator went two floors down and then turned right, traveling to the secret prison chamber.

When he stepped out, he walked into a small room, which was nearly empty other than the four people who were in it, with its only notable feature being the large, one-way glass window that looked into the chamber where their heavily restrained prisoners were held.

Three guards stood to the side with their weapons in hand.

And in the middle of the room, sitting on a fancy office chair, was Nahar, the young patriarch of the Kraven Clan.

Rahal stepped forth and knelt before him. “Greetings, Patriarch,” he greeted his nephew.

“Yo, uncle,” Nahar greeted him in turn. “Any news about the blood samples?”

He tried not to sigh. “Nothing. As far as the tests can conclude, these two are ordinary human beings.”

“I see,” the young patriarch said, sighing. “What do we do about this…?” he asked nobody in particular.

The two prisoners trapped in the room both hung off heavily reinforced metallic chains. The chamber itself was warded to prevent any possibility of an escape.

The first among the two, the man who introduced himself as “Kaefalge,” was resting with his eyes closed. Both he and the woman—Firrita—had numerous small scars around their mouths.

The two had been questioned endlessly, and some questions were… forbidden. That was the only way to put it. Whoever was their backer had placed some form of curse on them, and if they tried sharing information about certain things, a blocky, strange phenomenon would manifest around their mouths, censoring any sound coming out and leaving lesions over their tongues and the general mouth area.

Frankly, it creeped everyone out.

As far as their story of what happened to the former patriarch was concerned, either they had perfectly synchronized a made-up story or they were telling the truth. Rahal had been convinced that they were almost definitely lying. But things, unfortunately, weren’t so simple.

Questions about their origin or any information on their background seemed to be censored through this strange curse. The most unusual part about that censorship was that they themselves didn’t seem to know that it had been placed on them, and they had seemingly no idea what they were allowed to say and what they weren’t.

Things only got more complicated with the details they inadvertently let slip through. Mentions of strange cultures and mysterious locations, information about the nature of ether that seemed more advanced than what humanity had, and the total lack of knowledge about modern society stood out the most.

They had only returned from their hunt after these people earlier that day, and as soon as the young patriarch saw them, he demanded they be put into the highest-security containment unit they had.

After Rahal heard the details of the patriarch’s mission with Madame Morleppe, his reaction was instantly justified.

These two were the ones responsible for the destruction of Camp Violet, an incident that happened at roughly the same time as the patriarch’s death.

That discovery didn’t perturb Nahar at all. He merely asked them a single follow-up question: “Did the person you claim killed the patriarch also have square eyes?”

They said no.

“If I may ask, Young Patriarch,” Rahal started. “For what reason did you ask whether that one-star they claim to have seen also had square eyes?”

Nahar clicked his tongue, tapping his index finger on his leg as he stared at the two hanging prisoners. “Because the person they describe might be the person Madame was searching for.”

Rahal’s eyes widened as he lifted his head. “Do you mean…”

“Indeed,” Nahar said. “Freddy Stern.”

That made him freeze. If that was the case, the ridiculous story of their two captives just became more credible. Rahal’s eidetic memory was one of the main reasons why he held the position he did, so it naturally took him a mere moment to recall the man’s connection to the bloodshed remnant.

And, if not outright explain, it would at least justify Madame’s interest in the man.

“How is that possible?” he breathed out.

He wasn’t willing to believe it, though.

A one-star had killed his brother, the patriarch? That was simply too absurd to consider.

“I don’t know,” Nahar said. “But the massive skulls they claim to have seen might also be connected to this somehow. The anomalous realm we found was populated by strange wisps that invaded bodies. That is most definitely the origin of these two.”

“Do you suggest that the man who killed the patriarch was also possessed?”

Nahar pondered it. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But if his eyes hadn’t changed, it could be a different type of possession. Or maybe he turned it around, absorbing some form of power by overcoming a trial?” the man mused. “In either case, this spells trouble. The man Madame was looking for is still alive. She seemed to be sure of it… And if that’s the case, there is an ungodly monster capable of fighting way above his rank somewhere out there.”

Rahal’s expression hardened. “Do you think he’ll come looking for revenge?”

Nahar pondered the question. “I hope not,” he said. “We already have more than enough trouble to deal with.”

30

AUCTION

Mark found himself walking in a dark forest, a muted moon barely illuminating his path.

It was the darkest night—where the worst things happened.

He had no recollection of this place—not at first, at least. But as his steps moved him forward, past the trees and low, scattered brush, he eventually smelled a note that tickled the far back of his mind. It was a swampy, unpleasant smell.

He had been here before. In a distant time, when things were simpler. A time when he had been innocent.

As the image of the trees overlapped with a memory, his breath hastened. Sweat pooled over his body, and his hands shivered. He knew where he was. Slowly, with unspeakable terror, he turned to face the small patch of marsh.

The small pond stirred. It bubbled and boiled, overflowing with putrid liquid as a figure clawed its way out. The muck and algae dripped down the man’s body as he straightened his back. Although his body was obscured by a profound darkness, shadows concealing his features and hiding his eyes, Mark recognized him immediately.

“Hey, dude,” Freddy greeted him. “Long time no see.”

“S—” Mark started, finding his words catching in his throat. “Stay the hell away from me!” he screamed as his legs suddenly gave out and fell to the ground, pushing his way back.

“Hmm?” the man hummed, cocking his head slowly until it leaned at a ninety-degree angle. “What’s with the reaction?” he asked, stepping forward. “What, did you become too rich to talk to me?”

Mark shouted and sobbed, trying to apologize with every breath he took, but it was as if he were swallowing barbed wire.

The image of Freddy slowly moved into the pale light, dragging the swampy growth behind him. With heavy steps, he exited the darkness as the moon illuminated his square eyes. “Come on, dude, it’s not funny.”

Mark woke up shouting, whirling as he looked around, seeking a phantom in the darkness of the night. Nobody was there. His shouts gradually turned into pained wails as his throat gave out. He couldn’t calm down.

He curled into a ball, hugging his knees as he sobbed, the image of the ghoulish eyes seared into the back of his mind.

“Oh, god…” he muttered to himself, shivering and sweating as he pulled the covers over his head. “I’m so sorry…”

“What’s for breakfast?” Sophia asked Freddy as soon as he stepped out of his bedroom.

“Good morning to you, too, freeloader,” he answered, shaking his head in amusement. Where the hell was this woman finding all this energy this early in the day?

Granted, it was already past noon, and her being hungry didn’t really come as a surprise. He himself felt quite a bit better, although he still felt kind of ill. The death essence had all but vanished from his body, leaving plenty of damage on its way out. Yet again, he found himself blessed to have 1% Lifesteal, a talent that could make the awful feeling go away.

She kept staring at him with expectant eyes, and he sighed. “Sit down. I’ll bring the food.”

Sophia cheerfully obeyed, plopping herself down on one of the two chairs placed beside the small table. She hummed a tune, bobbing her head to the left and right. It took him a long moment to recognize the alien grunts as an attempt at singing.

“How tone-deaf can you be?” he called teasingly.

The woman simply ignored him, continuing her nonsense.

He walked over to the fridge and opened it. Barring a few eggs that had been sitting there for almost a month, the scattering of random crap that had gone bad a while ago, and the massive packets of canned coffee and energy drinks, he found nothing edible in the fridge. He was supposed to go to the store yesterday, but that had slipped his mind, given all that happened.

Shrugging, he walked over to a cupboard instead. He opened it and pulled out a bag containing three-day-old bread. It hadn’t gotten moldy yet.

He stared at the bread for a long moment, then turned to face the freeloader sitting at the table. Technically speaking, the woman had access to the same advantage his talent gave him. A small smile curled up on his lips.

Walking over to the table, he plopped the bag of stale bread and opened it. For half a second, the woman looked expectant, only for her expectation to turn into confusion. “This is just bread. Where is the food?”

“This is the food,” he said as he took a piece of bread out and put it into his mouth. It was dry and chewy. “Mmmmm, nutrients.”

She smiled and stared at him as she crossed her arms. “You’re seriously going to eat that?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He nodded and continued to chomp on his meal.

“Okay,” she said, her smile widening as she gestured at the bag. “Go ahead,” she challenged. It seemed that she believed he was simply messing with her. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t.

To really hammer it in, he got a large glass of water. Then, without a hint of humor or reluctance in his movement, he dipped a piece of stale bread to wet it and put the soggy pastry into his mouth.

At first, her smile grew a bit strained. But as he kept eating, an expression of pure terror descended upon her. “You’re seriously going to eat that!?” she asked, looking thoroughly disgusted.

“Well, this is all I have.”

“Order something,” she commanded more than suggested, gawking in disbelief. “Don’t you know how important your diet is?”

He smiled ear to ear. “We have an infinite source of supreme-quality healing,” he reminded her, smiling widely. “As long as we supply enough nutrients, our bodies will remain perfectly healthy no matter how we get our energy.”

“And you think bread alone is enough for that?”

“Why’d I waste my money on anything else?”

“Uh…” She blinked at him. “You do know your body needs more than just empty carbs, right?”

His smile widened further as he got up and opened another cupboard. He pulled out another small bag and spilled it out on the table.

Numerous crappy supplements and multivitamins fell out, some rolling over the side of the table and falling to the ground.

She watched in abject horror as he proceeded to fill a bowl with numerous pills, fill it with water, and then eat it with a spoon as if he were eating cereal.

“Oh my god…” she whispered. “Oh! My! God!” she screamed. “I’m actually going to puke!” She put an arm to her mouth and made retching sounds.

He swallowed another spoonful of pills as he grinned toothily at her.

Freddy cheerfully waved Sophia goodbye as she left the apartment, holding a borrowed $100 bill she would use to buy new clothes and get something to eat. As soon as she left, he sprinted to the toilet, unable to contain the disaster he had brewed in his stomach. Eating supplements like that wasn’t a good idea.

A sweaty, exhausting half-hour later, he crawled out, looking pale and clenching his stomach. “Totally worth it,” he said, stumbling over to the exit from the apartment.

Sophia and he had arranged to meet in the evening, as he had a few things to take care of. The first of which was something he was itching to do as soon as possible—selling the prime vestige.

Usually, he would be too paranoid to sell it, fearing getting scammed, but being a two-star came with many privileges those of lower rank in society didn’t have. One of these privileges was access to certain special services.

Given that he was actively delving, he had accounted for the possibility of finding a prime. And he had naturally researched the best way to sell it. Although there were many options, he realistically only really had two. The first was the same as what he did with the Super Farmer prime—sell it to a trader.

This was a risky option, and traders naturally wanted the odds in their favor. But they could also lose money during such a deal. They were the ones who took the risk of auctioning the prime, so if it went poorly, they suffered a loss.

When dealing with suckers like Freddy, it was easy as hell for them to crack a profit, so if they could, they always went down this route. But as their clientele increased in personal power and decreased in naivete, they were forced to get a bit more… flexible.

This was where the second option came in—a service he could only get as a certified two-star archhuman or a member of a reputable organization. He was going to commission a trader to sell the prime for him. Sure, it would cost him 10% of the total profit, but it removed the risk of getting utterly scammed.

Freddy walked over to the local branch of the ATA, which was only a ten-minute walk from where he was renting. The building was quite a bit smaller than the one he saw back in Pittersville, and while it had a similar style on the inside, it looked considerably more worn down.

He went to a trader’s office and walked inside, where he was greeted by a chubby, balding man.

The two of them talked, and he decided to commission the trader. The trader offered him a million dollars upfront, and it took every bit of willpower he had to refuse. The man was insistent, claiming this was the safer option for him, but he remained stubborn.

Even if he ultimately earned less money, he could live with that far easier than he could with getting scammed again.

There were three different types of auctions in which they could participate. The first was the bullet auction, which lasted only an hour; the second lasted a day, and the third lasted a week. The longer ones were better for more exotic primes since they gave the right buyers more time to find them and start competing.

The bullet auction was the best choice for the prime Freddy was selling. It was a desirable prime with many prospective buyers, and it wouldn’t struggle to reach a reasonable price, while it would most likely get buried deep in the longer auctions. He took the trader’s advice.

The more money he earned, the more money the trader earned. Their interests were perfectly aligned.

Both men signed the documents, sealing their agreement in formal writing, and without further ado, the prime was up for sale.

What proceeded was the most intense hour of his life. At first, he sweated as the prime struggled to break through fifty thousand dollars. Only around fifty minutes in did it step past the hundred thousand mark.

A deep pit was forming in his stomach as he watched the price inch forward. Was he about to suffer a massive loss? Had his hubris come to bite him in the ass once again? But then, as the timer ticked to below five minutes, he watched the price instantly soar above two hundred thousand. He nearly jumped out of the chair in excitement, and yet again as the price leaped by another fifty thousand dollars.

The price no longer increased in small increments, but when it jumped, it soared by tens of thousands at the very least. He cheered it on, biting his knuckles anxiously as he watched the price rise.

Five hundred thousand.

Six hundred thousand.

Seven hundred thousand.

The timer dropped below ten seconds, and he waited for the final push, anxiously anticipating a massive series of jumps… One that never came. The price went up a few more times, ending the auction at 780,000 dollars.

He sagged in the chair, watching the countdown reach zero. 10% went to the trader, so his final tally was 702,000 dollars. He would have earned 300,000 more had he sold the prime up front.

Rather than rage and throw a tantrum, he simply smiled and shrugged. Whatever.

It genuinely didn’t bother him. In his own eyes, this was merely one of who knew how many primes he would sell in his life. If he kept bearing the burden of risk, he would come out on top in the long run.

And, by all means, this sum was more than enough for his current needs.

Freddy sat in the Santorio Hub lobby, arriving thirty minutes earlier than the arranged meeting with Sophia. He was clad in his full gear, but even despite that fact, his body language alone made it easy to tell that he was in an excellent mood.

After paying his taxes and closing his loan with the bank, he was left with a total of 649,412.12 dollars in his bank account. It wasn’t a particularly impressive sum for a two-star warrior, but it was a solid safety net nonetheless.

Eventually, Sophia finally showed up, and they headed towards the passage.

“How much money did you earn?” she asked him.

“None of your business,” he answered.

She pouted at him but didn’t ask a second time.

As they walked into the realm, they found that it was daytime. They made their way to the hiding spot where they had their first meeting and climbed over the boulders as they made their way into the small hole.

He sat down, crossing one leg over another. “So,” he started, looking up at her, “let’s talk about that spark of undeath.”

31

UNDEATH

Freddy stood beside Sophia, frowning at the tiny blob of flesh on the ground. At first glance, the chunk of meat looked no different than any other captured life spark, with its vague squirming and pinkish hue. But not only was it not the same thing, it was something that, theoretically, shouldn’t even exist.

“You’re sure that your talent isn’t illegal?” he asked the woman, his gaze burning a hole into the back of her skull as she sweated.

“I… Well… I never actually got it evaluated, so…”

Freddy sighed, pinching his brow. What a shitshow. “I can’t believe that actually worked,” he said. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that thing is?”

She slowly nodded.

There were two main reasons why Freddy couldn’t get his hands on a captured life spark before meeting Sophia. The first was that, under ordinary circumstances, only four-star archhumans could create one. But there was another reason, too.

It was because openly selling these things in a store was absolutely illegal.

A captured life spark was, in essence, a pile of parasitic, flesh-devouring microorganisms that had a powerful symbiotic relationship between them due to the life spark they shared.

Naturally, the life spark still needed to feed so the cells could stay alive. But as it fed, so did it proliferate, creating new batches of cells. However, not all these cells were perfectly integrated into a singular life spark, with a small number becoming more independent and some becoming more similar to cancer or scar tissue.

This was why a captured life spark existed only for around half a year. That was how long it took, on average, for the singular life spark to fall apart into a bunch of smaller ones that devoured one another until there was nothing left.

It didn’t take a genius to deduce a rather important detail—eating a captured life spark was really, really dangerous. Upon consuming a life spark, the microorganisms split up and entered the bloodstream. Having a body full of microscopic flesh-devourers was not the best for one’s health.

In fact, the survival rate for mortals was less than 1 percent, and for one-stars, it was only around 10 percent without treatment. Granted, with proper treatment, every archhuman could recover from this affliction, but that was only if they knew what was happening to them and sought the appropriate care on time.

To put it simply, life sparks could be a potent bio-weapon that could cause massive damage if deployed by a malicious party looking to infect many people. And the piece of flesh sitting on the ground before their feet…

It was no ordinary captured life spark.

Sophia had successfully fused the spark of undeath into a regular life spark, creating a captured spark of undeath—possibly the first time any human had created one.

Even five-stars couldn’t do what Sophia just did since, technically, a spark of undeath belonged to the death affinity and not the life affinity. However, the death affinity simply didn’t have the power to manipulate life sparks—even if they were sparks of undeath—causing the feat to fall outside the purview of all known affinities.

The implications of this thing’s existence were numerous and highly problematic. First, what would happen if someone consumed such an object? Freddy knew that being undead would make these cells entirely immune to most common forms of treatment used to handle such a situation.

But that wasn’t the first thing on his mind. His gaze slowly moved to the spark and then back to Sophia. “When you say you could make us immortal… You aren’t suggesting fusing this thing with our life sparks, are you?”

She scratched her head. “I was so excited that I could extract one that I hadn’t thought about it… but yes, that’s my plan.”

“That’s fucking insane,” he spat.

“I know,” she said, but she didn’t seem apologetic. In fact, she turned around to face him with a grin. Her hand moved over to the spark of undeath, and almost like she was separating clay, she split the mass of meat into two pieces. “I can make as many as I want, too.”

“You do realize that the thing you’re holding in your hands,” Freddy started, “is basically the equivalent of a super bio-weapon that could possibly be used to kill an unfathomable number of people?”

She nodded.

“And you’re okay with playing around with it?”

“Look,” she said, turning to face him. “If I merge our life sparks with a spark of undeath, it should do the same thing that the Spark of Undeath tempering technique does.”

“It should?” he asked. “Sure then, you go first.”

She winced at that.

“What?” he asked again, chuckling. “You aren’t scared, are you? Of the possibility that something might go wrong?” he teased, snorting at her.

To his absolute horror, her expression steeled into one of resolve as she pulled one of the sparks out of its ball of flesh and pushed it into her own body.

“Jesus Christ!” he screamed, leaping back, hearing his heart hammering away in his chest. For a long few moments, he simply watched as the woman’s body started morphing. It changed bit by bit, her flesh wriggling and squirming as she stood mutely, her mouth too deformed to say anything.

But then, a spark of life lit up within her body as she burned it to heal herself, and then another, and another, until finally⁠—

Her body morphed back into the image of a young woman, no different than it had been before.

He observed her, worried that the process might have destroyed her mind or driven her insane.

A few seconds later, she opened her mouth and laughed. “It worked!” she screamed. “I’m undead!” She cackled, ignoring that a pack of gorels might hear her.

Freddy dropped his guard, but his apprehension didn’t vanish.

“Well?” she said, smiling cheekily at him. “What are you waiting for? Are you too proud to admit that you were wrong?”

“What are you suggesting?” he asked cautiously.

She rolled her eyes. “Come over here! I’m gonna do the same thing to you!”

He scowled at that. “Will the same thing that happened to you happen to me?”

Cocking her head to the side, she frowned. “I… What do you mean?”

“Will I also start morphing like that?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, realizing what he was getting at. “Don’t worry, boss!” She saluted him. “I’ll be on standby to heal you.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you’re chickening out?” she asked incredulously. “Come on! There is being a coward, then there’s being a fool.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He approached her and pulled the machete out of his storage ring. With a deft swing fueled by a flowing strike, he cleaved half his arm off and swung the blade at the nearby grass to stop the bleeding. “Make my arm undead first, then stabilize it, and then fuse it with my body.”

She clicked her tongue. “I could have done the same thing! Why didn’t you suggest that earlier?”

He scoffed, “You began the fusion before I could even start thinking about safer ways to do it, you idiot. It’s not my fault you have no instinct for self-preservation.”

After a few more moments of frowning at him, she looked away in shame, realizing he was right.

Over the next few minutes, she repeated the same process on his arm. It went the same way with her body, first morphing into an ungodly mass of wriggling flesh, then recovering as she used several life sparks to stabilize it. Once it did, she put his severed arm back in place and, with his consent, fused it back to his body.

It was a sensation unlike anything he had ever felt. First, his arm felt utterly foreign, as if she were trying to fuse the limb of an entirely different species to his body. Then a cold feeling invaded his body as warmth swelled in his arm. He felt a distinct firmness embed itself deep in his core. One would think that having their life force firmly attached to their body would give a sense of security and comfort. It didn’t. It instead almost made him feel trapped within his own body.

It was scary—terrifying, even.

But as the feeling faded, all that remained was a clear, distinct sensation that he felt with his entire being. “I’m undead,” he realized, suddenly aware of how Sophia was so certain that her experiment had succeeded. He could feel it, but it didn’t feel how he thought it would.

He had expected undeath to feel… cold… ghoulish…, and sickly, perhaps, like when she first initiated the fusing. But it felt secure. It was almost as if his life force was glued to his body, whereas it used to feel like water in a fragile container. “Whoa.”

Then he lifted the machete and stabbed it right through his heart. It took a lot of force to push it through the layers of armor, but with his immense strength and Hydraulic Flex, he could just barely manage it.

It startled Sophia slightly, but when she realized what he was doing, she calmed down and simply watched.

Blood poured out of the massive wound like water out of a faucet, draining his entire body of nearly all the blood it had. But as the pressure dropped, he felt no urge to pass out. There was dizziness and an intense headache, sure, and the wound on his chest hurt like hell, but he didn’t panic. The instinct that would be screaming at him just a few minutes prior was deathly silent as he stood with absolute certainty that the hole in his torso wouldn’t kill him.

And he was right.

He pulled the machete out. The blood loss still made him feel a bit weak. Not that weak, but the feeling was still there. There was very little blood left in his body, but that wasn’t a major concern as he could still move. For a mortal body, the lack of oxygen meant death. To an undead body, it just meant a moderate lack of energy.

“First self-recovery and unaging, then undying… How much longer until I become completely invincible?” he jokingly asked, chuckling a bit. Then he looked over at Sophia.

She stared at him with disgust. “Ew, that’s so cringy.”

Throughout the next half-hour, the two of them discussed a few things. The most important thing they agreed upon was keeping their immortality an absolute secret. Neither of them had a death affinity, so walking around with undead bodies would be mighty suspicious.

Everyone would want to know how they achieved this, and if a powerful faction caught wind of Sophia’s talent, well… anyone could guess how that would turn out.

Freddy also asked her to give him one of the captured sparks of undeath. For pretty obvious reasons, he wanted to carry one in his storage ring. These things were far superior to ordinary life sparks; to him, they were a way to utilize his talent pretty much anywhere.

A tiny, unhinged part of him wondered what would happen if he took a bite from one of these things. The fact that the answer was almost definitely “a fate worse than death” meant he would refrain from trying it out.

Taking a deep breath, Freddy got up as he prepared to leave. Just as he was about to wave Sophia goodbye, he smiled at her instead. “Hey…” he called, smiling a bit. “Would you be interested in going out with me tonight?”

“Oooh, the hunk is shooting his shot, I see?” she proposed teasingly, but he waved her off.

“Don’t flatter yourself, you maniac,” he said. “I just thought it would be appropriate to celebrate a bit.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“You aren’t wrong.” He turned to face her. “But we share a pretty big mutual secret,” he pointed out. “I’m gonna be honest—I don’t like you. You are immature, impulsive, and honestly, you’re batshit insane. I have no intent to ever again put my life in danger by trusting you with our combined safety.”

“I don’t get it.” She glared at him with slight hostility. “So why even pretend this is anything but a mutually beneficial business relationship?”

“There is no pretending,” he declared. “That’s exactly what it is.”

“So what’s with the invitation then?” she asked him. Before he could answer, she continued, “Let me make something clear—I don’t really like you, either; what gives you the impression that I want to hang out?”

“Well, there you go,” he said, shifting his posture. “If we can’t tolerate one another, how long do you think our partnership will last?”

For a long moment, she seemed to be contemplating. Then she sighed and raised her head. “Sure. Whatever,” she said. “As long as you’re treating, I guess I could make time for it.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t have invited you if I expected you to pay, Miss Homeless.”

She promptly threw a small chunk of flesh right at his face. He dodged.

The two of them agreed to meet at 11 p.m. that night in front of the club he had gone to the last time.

Freddy decided to head out immediately, while Sophia wanted to go try her new body out in action, so he left her to her crazy antics while he jumped over the boulder and made his way over to the paved road.

Although he had the time and energy to go for a hunt, there were several things he wanted to do now that he had an undead body. For starters, the risk of dying from experimenting with his powers was almost entirely eliminated. Thousand Wet Hells and the scary bag of beast steroids in his storage ring immediately came to mind.

But there was something he needed to remember—he wasn’t immortal. Not truly. Severe damage to his brain would still kill him or perhaps leave permanent consequences, and he didn’t know how much his talent could help him deal with that. Besides, if he was ever left in a mangled state where he couldn’t move or get help, bacteria, bugs, and fungi would slowly devour his body, killing him eventually anyway.

Honestly, he had been seduced by the power of an undead body and hadn’t taken the time to properly consider his decision. But now that he was thinking straight, he knew that he would have decided to take it anyway.

Undeath was the single most significant advantage of the death affinity, and it had just been served to him on a silver platter. Not to mention that his talent was a direct counter to the most prominent downside undeath had.

He was all smiles and cheer as he practically skipped out of the realm. On his way back, he was assaulted by a group of three gorel workers, but dispatching them took almost no effort. He took a moment to hook the corpses to a rack, not bothering to put them in the plastic bags as he continued his journey.

Within less than fifteen minutes, he returned to the passage and walked back into the lobby.

As soon as he did, a muscular, tall man with long, blond hair approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey there,” the man greeted him. “You’re Liam Cuttingsworth, right?”

“Yeah, that’s—” Freddy started but paused as he realized the man was referring to him by the name on his ID… and not the pseudonym he’d been using.

“My name is Jacob Santorio. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

32

THE INTERVIEW

Although it hadn’t been outside the realm of possibility, it had been far outside Freddy’s expectations to find himself sitting beside Jacob Santorio, the son of the owner of the Santorio Training Center and the Santorio Hub.

Despite his own intimidating size, he looked damn tiny next to the towering figure that was Jacob. The man must have been almost seven feet tall, and the sheer mass of muscle covering his body, dare he say, put even Mark Afronte to shame. On top of that, the man was a two-star well above his level, doing nothing to conceal his power.

It was difficult to precisely evaluate those above oneself because of the suppression, but purely based on how suppressed he felt, the man must have been at around 50 to 70 percent along with his second star.

It wasn’t that far above his own level, but for someone like this, it was likely that the man had waited many years to ascend to his second star. His body alone was evidence of many years of intense training.

Freddy was pretty nervous, and even though he was trying to hide it, it also became rather evident when placed next to the man who was sitting with his right arm leaning against the couch they were sitting at, his legs crossed while he smoked a massive Cuban cigar, flicking its ashes on the floor like he owned the place. Well, he did own the place, but still. His actions served as a rather poignant reminder, no doubt intentional.

Eventually, almost precisely fifteen minutes after sitting down, Jacob finally turned to him. “You were given an invitation to an interview. It’s in two days. Are you coming?”

He showed no outward indication that the question bothered him, but he felt short on answers when confronted like this. By all means, he would prefer not to lose the right to delve here, or at least, he’d want to avoid getting hit by a severe restriction. He could find another place to delve, but losing a hunting ground he was so familiar with was still a blow nonetheless.

After thinking his answers through, he conjured one he was pretty satisfied with. “I apologize. It’s a tempting offer, but working with a party isn’t my style.”

“You’re confident,” the man noted. “It’s an interview, not an open invitation. What makes you so sure you’ll pass?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I pass or not,” he said, shifting his posture, “when the reward is something I don’t want to compete for.”

“And what if I threaten to ban you from delving here?” the man asked, flicking the cigar again. “Does that make it worth your time?”

He gritted his teeth. There were two big reasons he didn’t want to go to the interview—his unique skill set and his stolen identity, both of which would likely be compromised when surrounded by people interested in knowing as much about him as possible. It also tied him to other people in a way that he didn’t feel comfortable with, and if this was the person he would be working for, he had even less desire to join.

“And what exactly do you get from banning me?” He finally turned to face the man. “I wouldn’t make for a good team member, and as you said, I’m not even guaranteed to pass.”

“Oh, I’m not doing it to get something out of it,” the man declared, grinning ear to ear as he puffed the cigar. “I’m just an asshole.”

Freddy scoffed, “Charming.”

“Look, kid,” Jacob started. “I don’t like seeing pricks like you abusing the hard work my father puts into keeping things running. If you can’t do us a simple favor, we can’t do one for you, either.”

“Is taking 50 percent of all the profits I earn by risking my life not enough for you?” He snorted. “Next time I pass out from exhaustion, maybe you should scam me harder.”

Jacob showed no signs that the jab had gotten to him, instead taking another puff of the cigar. “At any given time, two to three hundred people work to keep this passage safe enough to stay open. You are paying for their services.”

“Oh really?” He chuckled. “If that’s the case, tell me how much money actually goes to the workers.”

“They’re paid what they earn,” Jacob said, flicking ash directly at Freddy’s face.

“You know what?” He got up as he prepared to walk away. “Your passage, your rules; do whatever you want. If you don’t want me here, I’ll move somewhere else.”

“I changed my mind,” the man suddenly said, chuckling. “I’m not going to ban you.”

Freddy’s steps halted. He turned around.

Jacob got up from the couch and approached him. “I don’t know what the fuck that bastard saw in you,” he said as he extinguished his cigar on Freddy’s helmet. “I take back my invitation.” The man walked past him, snickering. “I don’t want a coward like you by my side.”

And with that, the man simply walked away, leaving him in a frustrated, dissatisfied silence.

“What a goddamn asshole.”

On his way home, Freddy stopped by a butchery to buy a giant bag of unwanted meat waste. It was incredibly cheap.

As soon as he returned to the apartment, he threw the bag of refuse on the ground, pulled out the captured spark of undeath, and placed it beside it. Then he sat down and focused.

He took several deep breaths to calm himself, and then he triggered Thousand Wet Hells.

Pain shot through his entire body, so intense that he could barely stay conscious. Every time he used it, he felt a profound fear of death creep into his soul. Now that he had an undead body, he thought that would change.

It didn’t.

Because the risk of death wasn’t truly gone. Thousand Wet Hells was insanely powerful. So powerful that there was a genuine risk that using it could destroy a crucial part of his brain and leave him completely incapacitated.

If that happened, there was a non-zero chance that he would… simply die. Because who would heal him? Who would save him if he found himself in that situation?

A thought appeared in the back of his mind.

With a small burst of will, he released Bloodshed from its shell. The skeleton immediately knelt before him, leaving a giant bloody stain on the carpet. “What do you need of me, my liege?”

He got up and brought a serrated kitchen knife, handing it to the small skeleton. “Can you try swinging this at that blob of flesh?”

The skeleton nodded, taking a swing at the spark of undeath. The knife stabbed right into the spark, but nothing happened. He didn’t feel his talent trigger from that. He sighed. It seemed that if he wanted the damage Bloodshed did to count as damage he was doing, he needed to summon it through Blood Sacrifice and not just release it from its shell.

Speaking of Blood Sacrifice, he remembered something. A few days ago, he tried using the ability in combat, only to fail. Bloodshed whispered some cryptic bullshit into his ear, but he wanted a more detailed answer as to why he wasn’t able to trigger the ability.

“Bloodshed,” he called. “How much blood do I need to activate Blood Sacrifice?” He suspected that he couldn’t use the ability because he didn’t spill enough blood to trigger it. But⁠—

“Any amount would suffice,” the skeleton declared.

He froze. “What? Wait, so… back when I was fighting those monsters, why couldn’t I use the ability?”

Bloodshed raised its head. “Because there was no bloodshed.”

Freddy scowled at that. “Was that not a bloodshed?”

“Not yet,” the skeleton answered.

“What do you mean?”

“Bloodshed only exists as a consequence of slaughter. It ripens when the slaughter ends.”

He took a moment to consider its words. “So… what you’re saying is… I have to stop fighting first to be able to use the ability?”

The skeleton briefly appeared offended at the oversimplification, but Freddy’s guess seemed to be close enough. “That is correct.”

“Ouch. That really sucks. Can I just, like, pause the fight? Would that count?”

The skeleton froze for a few moments but eventually nodded in confirmation. “If you can disengage, yes, that would work.”

That was… better. But he wouldn’t always have the luxury of disengaging during combat.

Sighing, he looked at the skeleton. “Bloodshed,” he called, but then paused. He wanted the skeleton to help him if he found himself in dire straits. But how? If his brain was damaged to the point where he couldn’t wake up on his own, he would need external assistance if he wanted to get back up. In the worst-case scenario, he could genuinely just straight-up die.

“Okay, we’re going to try something,” he said as he took the serrated knife and put it beside his body. Then he lay on the ground next to it, posing as if he’d fallen unconscious.

“Master… what are you doing?” Bloodshed asked.

“Bloodshed, I need you to take the knife, put it in my hand, and then move my hand to stab this blob of flesh. Can you do that?”

“Anything you wish,” it said as it moved over to follow his instructions.

It picked up the kitchen knife and placed it into his hand. Then it proceeded to close his fingers one by one as he did his best to resist the urge to move on his own. For a brief moment, he was surprised at the spirit’s strength. It was definitely stronger than an adult mortal man. But on second thought, that should come as no surprise.

The skeleton was rather clumsy when it came to stuff like this, and it struggled mightily to lift his arm while holding the knife in place. After a few tries, it managed to do it, then dropped it down on the blob of flesh with the blade facing down. A tiny pulse of lifesteal coursed through his body, and he sighed in relief.

It could take the skeleton a few hours of fumbling to heal him enough to wake up, but that was far superior to being left at the mercy of… nobody, pretty much. Maybe the landlord would break the doors down after a few weeks, but he couldn’t imagine anyone entering his apartment before that point.

“Thank you, Bloodshed.” He got back up. “Please stay right beside me. If I pass out, do what you just did for as long as it takes for me to wake up.”

Bloodshed nodded.

Freddy fed the spark of undeath a few chunks of skin, fat, and a large piece of bone as he placed it on his lap. Gripping the serrated knife, he prepared to start stabbing. Then he triggered Thousand Wet Hells.

A strangled groan escaped his lips as he frantically swung the knife, but after only two seconds of use, he failed to maintain it. It was still the longest he had managed to keep it active. Gulping for breath, he grabbed his head. A piercing headache threatened to blow his skull apart, but he endured as he healed himself back up and prepared to start again.

Once more, he failed to last longer than two seconds. And again. And again. But each time he tried it, he managed to last a fraction of a second longer.

But after the fifth try, he suddenly found himself unable to continue. “What the fuck?” The ability refused to trigger. He dove into his ethercosm to take a look.

The shell for Thousand Wet Hells had progressed by roughly 1%, increasing to 2% completion, and the turbulent vestige within rested idly. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it. But as he turned his focus on his star, he immediately discovered the problem.

Are you kidding me?

The dull shine of his stars noted that both of them were empty. He was entirely out of essence. At that moment, his maximum capacity was at 114%, having gone up by 3% after his risky encounter with the gorel horde. But still, after only around ten to twelve seconds of use… Thousand Wet Hells had drained every last bit of it.

That meant that it consumed around 10% essence per second of use, making it easily the single most expensive ability he had, even compared to using Flowing Strike with both stars activated.

He hadn’t used the ability long enough to notice, but that was a massive problem. He gritted his teeth. If only he hadn’t been so stupid with his upgrade choice. A sense of frustration overwhelmed him, but he refused to give up.

He left the ethercosm and took a deep breath. Then he dove into the Netherecho, harvesting wisps with his scythe until he regained enough essence to go again.

The lack of wisps around him made it a long and frustrating process. It took him nearly twenty minutes to be able to go for just another few seconds, and by the time it was 10 p.m., he had only made another 2% progress with the tempering technique, reaching 4% completion.

His entire body was sweaty, and his headache persisted even after fully healing himself. The bag of waste meat was empty, but the captured spark didn’t grow even a tiny bit. He frowned.

A similar thing had happened with the life spark Madame had given him. It did grow with time, but that didn’t correlate to the amount of meat it was fed. Most of the mass seemed to vanish into thin air. The same thing seemed to be happening here, but the effect was far more pronounced.

Whatever undeath did to the blob of flesh clearly prevented its ability to grow. The first thing that came to mind was that it usually likely grew through mitosis. Technically, the splitting of a cell could be seen as the death of one so that two could be born.

Could undeath be preventing that from happening?

At the very least, that heavily reduced the potential threat these things could pose to humans at large. A not necessarily great, but also not an insignificant burden lifted off his shoulders with that realization. Hurray for not being guilty of creating a pandemic that destroyed humanity.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. He had to get ready for his night out. He had honestly thought that, with all that had happened, he wouldn’t be in the mood to leave his apartment, but if anything, the opposite seemed true.

He had a burning desire to get out there and have some fun, to get his mind off everything, and to celebrate his successes.

It didn’t take him long to get ready. Within half an hour, he was out on the street, walking to the place he had agreed to meet with Sophia.

For a moment, he nearly walked right past her. Then the beautiful woman wearing a red dress, whom he had been trying not to stare at, waved at him. “Uhm… Hello? Earth calling Liam?”

He paused and turned to face her. “Wow,” he said, sneering at her. “You look so civilized that I almost didn’t recognize you.”

She snorted. “Ha, ha.” Then she approached him. She was much shorter than he was, even with stilettos, and with his bulky physique, she looked like a kid next to him.

The two of them waited in line, and he was amused by the strange looks people gave him.

He jokingly patted her head. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll find your parents in no time at all!”

She lifted her head and bit his hand full force, holding nothing back.

Unfortunately for her, that did pretty much nothing. The skin on his hands was tougher than tanned leather.

This time, he had stepped into the two-star waiting line, where the wait was far shorter. It took less than a minute to reach the end. He got two stamps, while Sophia, as a one-star, got only one.

She seemed pretty comfortable in the club, showing no signs of being out of her element. They walked around for a while, with Sophia seemingly looking for a spot they could take.

It was Friday night, so the club was packed. They hadn’t arrived late by any means, but most people seemed to have come early to make sure they had a spot, leaving only a few shitty tables open all the way in the back close to where the toilets were.

Any other night, he would have just shrugged it off and tolerated it, but on that day? He didn’t feel like letting himself be shoved to the back.

The waiter eventually reached them.

Freddy raised his hand to show the two stamps on it. “Are any of the VIP lounges open?” he asked.

“There is one left,” the waiter said. “But you will have to pay in advance. Is that all right?”

“Got my card right here,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

For a long moment, he thought that Sophia would criticize him for throwing his money away like that. But she seemed impressed instead. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d have the balls to spend that much money on a night out.”

“You don’t know shit about me,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Sophia raised her arms. “Okay, wow. Hurt your ego?”

“Someone wants to lose their VIP lounge privileges, I see?”

She mimed zipping her mouth shut and quickly saluted him. “No, sir.”

“Didn’t you just zip your mouth shut?”

“Oh, right.” She closed her mouth. Then she muttered something completely unintelligible with her lips closed. It was probably “No, sir.”

He chuckled at that and shook his head.

Freddy had expected that the VIP section would be in a private corner. But no. It was actually those flashy seats smack dab in the middle of the club. Well, it made sense that those who would spend ridiculous sums of money on vanity like this would want it to be somewhere where they could flex their wealth as hard as humanly possible.

He knew that he preferred it this way.

The VIP lounges were separated by small walls and placed around a massive circle in the middle of the club. The bar was inside this circular formation, and there were small windows, although they were slammed shut. He saw one of those windows open as a medium-sized tray floated through it and landed on the table in the middle of the lounge to the right of where they would be sitting.

The assortment of drinks and the artistic way they were arranged beside artisan glasses attracted his attention, and he failed to look at who was sitting at the table.

His gaze slowly drifted to the image of a massive blond man. He immediately recognized this man as Jacob Santorio, but that was hardly worthy of his attention.

Instead, the people he looked at were the man and woman engaged in a fierce fight, standing just outside the lounge and arguing. They noticed him when he got close enough. And judging by the horror-stricken gaze Theodore and Beatrice gave him… he had a pretty good guess what they were fighting about.

Oh fuck my life.

33

SABOTAGE

Freddy sat in the private booth, his face buried in his hands, as Sophia hollered beside him, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

“You… You…” she muttered. “You dog!” Despite the harsh words, her amusement at the situation remained as clear as day. She took a sip of the drink and let out a small moan of pleasure as she giggled again, nearly spitting her drink as she forced herself to gulp it down.

He honestly didn’t know why he had told her about what he’d done. Yes, she had pestered him for roughly half an hour, refusing to drop the subject until he spilled the tea, but he was still surprised that he’d actually caved and shared his tale of borderline adultery.

“Can we please drop the subject?” he begged. “You’ve sated your curiosity; now either shut up, or I’ll kick you out.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Just one more time—bahahahahaha!”

He flicked her forehead, and she reeled back. “Ow!” she yelped. “That frickin’ hurts!”

“You think I could time a Flowing Strike with a flick?” he threatened. “Do you want me to find out?”

“Okay, I get it, geez.” Sophia took another gulp of the drink. “So… do you just plan to sit here alone all night?”

“What?” he scoffed. “Does your company not count?”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “You seriously spent this much money just to what, treat me? Do you have a secret crush on me?”

He rolled his eyes. “My plan was to find some people to join us; some cute girls maybe.”

She grinned ear to ear. “Well, what happened, big guy?”

His hand reached for the glass of fancy champagne, and he gulped it down in one swing, shuddering as it went down. “I don’t feel like it anymore.”

She snorted a bit, but her amused smile vanished as she nodded. “Yeah. I get that.” She took a sip and put her glass down. “Were you friends with the guy?”

“Who? Theodore?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “Hell no. That guy is a fucking prick.”

She stared at him with a discerning gaze. “But it still bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Sighing, he poured himself another glass. “I’ve accidentally hurt many people in my life. And it only seems to be getting worse.” He downed the entire glass in one gulp again and immediately poured himself another. “Every time, I had an excuse.” He downed the glass again. “They hurt me first. I had no choice. I didn’t mean to do it.” He chugged again. “But no matter how justified, it always hurts me in the end. And if it keeps going like this?” He tried drinking again, but⁠—

Sophia’s hand firmly gripped his wrist, making him stop. She was leaning forward, her blonde hair covering her eyes. “Don’t,” she said softly.

He tore his arm out of her grip, spilling some of the drink on the floor, and downed the rest of the glass. He put it back on the table as he shot her a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be fine. You don’t even know me. Don’t pretend like you care.”

The two of them sat there in silence.

His eyes scanned the dancing crowds, watching the mass of people having fun and enjoying themselves. The lights flickered through the dance floor, and the music filled his ears, deafening even his thoughts but doing nothing to lighten his sour mood.

The glass he was just about to take a sip from touched his lip. He pulled it back and placed it on the table, shooting Sophia a quick glance.

Eventually, he opened his mouth. “Do you feel guilty about nearly getting me killed?”

She appeared frustrated at the inquiry, so he disclosed. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, sighing. “I’m just curious.”

After a long moment of silence, she answered the question. “Not exactly guilty, no…” she said. “But… I do acknowledge that mistakes were made. And I resolve not to put myself or others in a situation like that again. Do I pass the test, Professor?”

He scoffed, “And what would you feel like if I had died in that situation?”

“Oh, please,” she said. “It didn’t come to that, so why does it matter?”

“Just humor me for a bit, will you?”

She groaned. “Yes, obviously, I would feel guilty.”

Yet another bout of silence descended between them.

As the minutes passed, nobody even offered to join them. The unpleasant atmosphere between them was quite obvious to anyone who took as much as a glance.

Rather than allow the mood to get any more sour, he resolved to change the subject. They had come there to get to know each other better, didn’t they? Naturally, he would not be telling her particularly specific details about himself, but still, even something vague was vastly preferable over the suffocating silence.

“Okay.” He clapped his hands and rubbed his palms. “Come on, enough of this. Let’s talk about something.”

“All right… What would thou wisheth to talk about, sire?” she replied sarcastically.

“Tell me something about yourself.”

“Hnngh,” she groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Come on.”

“How about you go first?”

He snapped his fingers into finger-guns and pointed them at her. “Okay, sure, sure, uh… You know what, how about this—ask me something specific.”

Even without sharing his real-life story, he had memorized the whole biography of Liam Cuttingsworth, the man whose identity he had taken. He had no qualms about borrowing some details from those documents.

“Okay, sure… Uhm… Hmm. Give me a moment to think.” She cupped her chin and narrowed her eyes as her brow danced along with her inner contemplation. “Cats or dogs?”

“Never had pets, so… But yeah, uh… if I had to say, I’d probably choose… neither.”

“Wow. Do you hate animals?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he scoffed. “I just never understood the idea of having animals as pets. Why let yourself care for something that will live such a short life?”

“There’s ways to make your pets live a very long time.”

“Costly ways. I’d rather spend my money on something else. Anyway, it’s my turn,” he said, changing the topic. “Uh… Did you go to college?”

“No,” she said.

He waited for a long moment, and when it became clear that she wasn’t going to continue, he gestured with his hand.

“What?” she asked. “You gave me a yes or no question, and I gave you the answer.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” he conceded. “What were you like as a⁠—”

“I believe it’s my turn?” she interrupted him.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sure, go on.”

“Okay, uhm…” She tapped her lips with her index finger. “Oh, okay, I got a good one; why are you so afraid all the time?”

He froze at the question. “What do you mean?”

“Well… When you first met me, you jumped back like you saw the devil. Then there is your obsession with keeping everything a secret. Hell, you even blocked your frickin’ bedroom door with your nightstand to, what, stop me from killing you in your sleep?”

“Those are pretty rational things to be afraid of, thank you very much.”

“Oh really?” She side-eyed him. “Come on, at least admit that the nightstand was a little paranoid.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen the world for what it is, Sophia,” he said. “The world is a terrible place of horrible people itching to make it even fucking worse. So yeah, that’s why I’m afraid. I’ve been on the other side of that equation.”

“Projecting much?”

“Excuse me!?” he shouted.

She shrugged. “You were just talking about hurting people and stuff. Did you ever consider that the world isn’t that terrible and that it might be your own fault, just a tiny bit?”

“Fuck no,” he said, feeling anger rising in his chest. “I wouldn’t even call it an exaggeration to say that this world is hell. I’ve lived through some shit your spoiled ass couldn’t even imagine.”

She paused. “You don’t know my life.”

“You’re goddamn right I don’t. Come on then, enlighten me. Prove me wrong.”

“About what?”

“Prove to me that you aren’t just a spoiled fucking princess.” He leaned in.

She gaped at him. “Okay, how about you back off a bit?”

“While I don’t know you, there’s one thing I’m absolutely certain of: you are completely new to the real world. You wanna know how I know that? Because you clearly”—he jabbed at the exposed skin just below her neck—“haven’t learned that you can’t just do and say whatever you want.”

“Don’t touch me,” she said with a scathing glare as she leaned back.

He cooled off a bit and pulled back. He grabbed the glass again and took a sip. “Okay, my turn to ask a question. Who the hell are you?”

Her eyes met his for a long moment. “Ask me something else.”

“No,” he refused. “Either tell me or get the hell out of my sight.”

For some reason, it almost sounded like the music grew louder at that moment. The air became more suffocating, the crowds more deafening, and the lights blared brighter.

After a few long seconds of staring, she smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Okay.”

Then she got up and walked away.

He watched her figure slowly move out of sight, blending into the crowds and vanishing. He bit his knuckles and threw the glass in his hand to the floor. “Why am I afraid, huh?” he chuckled. “Spoiled brat.”

This whole idea suddenly felt so stupid. Why was he trying to keep her close? Why did he bother with trying to, what, forge a connection? Build rapport? He saved her from dying a horrible death, and she gave him a captured spark of undeath. He didn’t need her any longer, and she didn’t need him.

For a brief moment, he worried that she would get herself in trouble and, by proxy, get him in trouble as well. As soon as he realized he had the thought, he barely resisted the urge to kick the table over.

She wasn’t wrong.

And he hated that.

He hated living in a world where he needed to be so paranoid—where he needed to be so cautious and calculating. Take a wrong turn and he was suddenly a survivor of a monster invasion. Sign the wrong contract and he was suddenly a liability. Own the wrong thing and he was suddenly a thief.

Make one wrong move and he’s suddenly either a dead man or a murderer.

He finally realized why the thing with Beatrice bothered him so much. He had made Theodore an enemy. And the man was friends with Jacob, who had shown himself more than willing to abuse his power to make Freddy’s life difficult.

That was the kind of world he lived in. A world where, without the power to back it up, any, even the tiniest mistake, was enough for a minor issue to escalate into serious trouble.

If he couldn’t even go out for drinks without having to worry, then…

“What exactly am I working towards?”

Total invincibility?

Absolute power?

And what until he reached that point?

Was he always going to be scared?

…

Was he always going to be paranoid?

A couple of girls walked up to his table. “Hey,” one of them called. “Do you mind if we join you?” she asked, yelling over the loud music.

“Feel free to sit down,” he said, getting up and leaving the club.

Over the next few days, Freddy focused on earning as much money as he could while spending each free second on training.

He pushed back his library and gym visits while focusing on growing his abilities.

The day of the interview came and went, with nobody looking for him or telling him anything.

Sophia seemed to be avoiding him whenever he came across her in the hub.

Good.

The world seemed to have finally left him alone for the most part. At least for the time being. Still, he was already making concrete plans to move to another hub. He even had a target in mind and was already studying up on the details surrounding it. Things were, at least on the surface, looking all right.

Yet he felt more bothered than he had for a long, long time. A constant sense of… emptiness permeated his body, and no matter how hard he worked to distract himself, as soon as the next quiet, lonely moment arrived, he sank into the same pit of despair.

A week passed, and he sat in the lobby of the Santorio hub, watching the crowds pass by as he casually sipped on a coffee. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and, as he probably should have expected… nobody cared. He was reading a magazine on famous archhumans.

Some of those people had talents, even as one-stars, that would obliterate him before he could even think about fighting back. Instant Teleportation, Holy Sword, Telekinesis—hell, there was a guy whose talent allowed him to create semi-sentient metal golems that could independently grow in power over time.

He couldn’t help but feel infinitely bitter at this. Would he ever stand a chance against someone like that? No, but really? It was a power that felt like it existed in a separate world from his own, like something he’d hear about in an ancient myth and not read in a fucking newspaper.

Even with the strange, unique abilities in his soul, he just couldn’t compete with the true elites of society.

That thought made him more and more uneasy with every passing day.

He closed the papers he was reading with an angry slam and threw them on the table, pulling his notebook out of the backpack instead.

Only one thing consistently improved his mood—tracking his progress. Fantasizing about the peak of power was one thing, but even if he wasn’t the most powerful person in the world, the stronger he was, the more freedom he had.

GATHERING:

Second star—116% essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Pool of Blood: Stage 1—57% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 0—98% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—13% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—23% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 0—95% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—24% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 1—7% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—23% Progress

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage ?—? Progress

That Other Ability: No clue

UNIQUE ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice: Stage ?

Leviathan’s Fury: Stage ?

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -4% essence cost, +3% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed.

CURSED ITEMS:

Dagger of Bleeding: Melee attacks cause extra bleeding

He was focusing most of his effort on growing Thousand Wet Hells, Gore Knuckles, Pool of Blood, and Crimson Mercury, so those were seeing the most significant growth. Although Thousand Wet Hells appeared to be progressing painfully slowly and was only getting slower with time, its effect on his toughness was already quite noticeable, even at 13% completion of stage one.

It made sense, too. With this ability, he had created something that, under most circumstances, couldn’t even be used by ordinary humans. Needless to say, it was unsurprising that it had such an enormous impact.

His Gore Knuckles were still pretty brittle, and whenever he used them against gorels, they cracked apart like fragile stone. This wasn’t unexpected, given that he hadn’t yet upgraded either Gore Knuckles or Crimson Mercury. Once he upgraded both the tempering technique and the ability, the spikes should have the properties of wrought iron.

That still wasn’t the toughest substance in the world, but it would be a great improvement on the near-useless trash it was at the moment.

Create Water and Abyssal Depths had grown far less than they could have, but that was mostly because he was investing little to no effort into developing them.

And finally, to his surprise, the unique ring had grown in potency. It had taken so long that he had started to suspect that it would take forever to grow in power, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Frankly, he had severely underestimated the value this ring provided. The power boost, although seemingly relatively small, actually worked to help grow his abilities a lot faster, and the essence cost reduction allowed him to work more on his abilities, compounding into extra growth with time.

The item’s value would grow exponentially with each additional percent in either the cost reduction or power.

Then there was his star, sitting at 116% essence capacity. He had to admit he was severely disappointed with the speed of his growth. But he could at least sort of understand why it was taking so long.

First, he had zero access to any kind of growth treasure. If he tried buying some to use semi-regularly, he would rapidly exhaust his savings, even with how much money he was earning.

He also didn’t have access to a proper gathering ground. Moreover, whenever he gathered, he mostly focused on replenishing his essence rather than pushing his star forward.

Perhaps most importantly, he was just not achieving much of note. The gorel pit incident, true, had pushed him a bit, but other than that, he was just picking low-hanging fruit, grinding out the powers that were simply waiting for him to invest some time into them.

Sighing, he put his notebook back, overall pleased with his progress.

He continued sipping on his coffee as he watched the people walking by.

Before long, he spotted Sophia. She avoided looking at him as she hurried along, rushing into the passage. He scoffed at that.

Not too long after, he spotted another person. It was Theodore, walking side by side with four other individuals. Every single one of them carried equipment that likely cost millions of dollars. Their weapons alone looked like their price was in the seven digits.

The first among them was Jacob, the blond giant of a man, wearing light armor that revealed a good part of his body. Was the man a fire-affinity arch? Come to think of it, Freddy had no idea what the man’s powers were about, but he had presumed that the man fought in melee. No weapon was strapped to his side, but the fingerless gloves he wore looked made of exquisitely fine, silver metallic scales, likely indicating that the man was either a caster or perhaps a brawler. Maybe a mix of both.

The second was Phillip, the Asian man who approached him to ask about Sophia. He was surprised to see the man in the group, but it made sense that he would have ties to the administration if he was in the same party as Jacob. The man wore full plate armor, with a helmet hanging on his back, and he carried a large shield with a shortsword strapped to his waist.

He didn’t recognize the final two—a short, Black woman with curly hair tied in a practical ponytail clad in what appeared to be pearly white martial arts robes, and a slightly taller Caucasian, brunette woman wearing pitch-black leather armor. Both women carried blades, with the woman in white robes carrying a curved saber and the woman in black holding a sheathed dagger.

As for Theodore, the man seemed to have upgraded his style considerably. He used to carry a dagger by his side, but now he seemed to have shifted to using an elegant shortsword instead, upgrading his light armor to one that provided medium protection.

Nobody from the group even glanced at him—not the three strangers, not Jacob, not Theodore. The latter two were probably ignoring him, but to the first three, he was an absolute nobody.

He felt frustrated. He didn’t believe that his reasons for avoiding the interview were just excuses, but he would have been afraid to attend the interview even if those reasons hadn’t been there.

He was afraid of failing. He wanted to believe that he was at least becoming someone special and was deathly afraid of having that perception shattered. The day he tested himself against a serious challenge, he wanted to be ready. He wanted to have no excuses. He wanted to be prepared—both to succeed… and to fail.

Taking a deep, shivering breath, he downed the last drop of his beverage. He let a few more minutes pass, and then he walked down into the passage, entering the realm.

It was daytime, so very few people were waiting in the lobby. When he first arrived, the realm was still in turmoil after the last Crimson Twilight. But ever since, the gorel hives had stabilized, making the realm safer to delve into as the delvers finally managed to track the queen cycles.

He walked inside and swallowed one of the perception-boosting pills. They did little to boost his perception anymore, as he seemed to have built a lot of resistance to them. But in return, his perception was considerably sharper even when he wasn’t consuming them.

There were still nearly 80 of them left in his ring, and he contemplated selling them for extra cash, as he had mostly gotten his use from them and saw more value in freeing up some space in the storage.

He also still had three other medicines in his ring that he had no clue about, and he planned to get them appraised soon.

He proceeded down one of the paths he had been frequenting as of late. It was a relatively obscure hunting spot between two smaller hives. Reaching it was a pain in the ass as there were no carved paths leading to the section, and that was precisely why he liked going there.

Nobody wanted to haul the bodies over tall, unstable boulders. Thus, nobody would bother him while hunting.

Before long, he tracked down three gorel guards scouting the area. At that point, dealing with these things had become trivial. They were highly predictable, and their behavior rarely varied.

Each time he approached one, it would hiss and growl once it spotted him, rushing at him and trying to tear him apart. They did nothing to parry or brace themselves against attacks, primarily relying on their bulky physique and wild swings to break their opponents’ defense.

All he really needed was one well-aimed attack to end them. Moments later, he had three dead gorel guards at his feet, and his Gore Knuckles were thoroughly shattered. He recreated them with a small burst of essence, marveling at how little reconstructing his weapons cost.

They weren’t just cheap essence-wise; due to their construction as relatively thin spikes, they didn’t really consume much blood, either. With his Pool of Blood at 57% progress and his undead body, he didn’t have to worry about running out of blood.

Once the Gore Knuckles stopped breaking so frequently, he would have quite a bit of extra blood, and he wondered what other abilities to develop to use his reserves. Mentally, he was still toying with the idea of creating throwing javelins or spears for a more reliable form of ranged attack, but learning how to use them properly might turn out to be tricky.

Swiftly racking the corpses, he made his way back to the lobby. Once he arrived at the passage, he discovered something he didn’t expect to see there.

A few parties were standing outside the massive passage, arguing about what was happening.

For some reason, a blurry barrier of sorts, looking almost like opaque glass, blocked entry back into the lobby.

He approached the group of people. “Hey,” he called. “Can someone tell me what’s happening here?”

“You tell us,” a lanky man said. “We came back and found this thing here around ten minutes ago. I say it’s probably maintenance-related.”

“You dumb fuck!” a short, ginger man swore. “Why would they block us off for that?”

“I don’t know!” the man retorted. “Why would anyone?”

“Can you please step aside?” Freddy asked.

The men complied, moving so he could approach. He placed the racked gorel corpses on the ground nearby and struck the barrier with his fist without using any abilities.

It didn’t feel tough per se, but the barrier had clearly absorbed the force of the impact.

He pulled his hand back and tried using a Flowing Strike. The impact landed with near-perfect timing, but the barrier didn’t even shimmer.

“Okay…” he said, warming his shoulders up. Gore Knuckles appeared on his fists as he activated both stars and landed another strike. The red spikes shattered into bits, and the barrier shimmered a bit, undulating like the surface of a lake someone had dropped a stone into. The effect only lasted a few moments before it calmed again, looking as if nothing had changed.

Freddy felt a much lesser impact on his arm, courtesy of his growing Thousand Wet Hells, but he had no time to admire his growth.

For some reason, someone had blocked the passage. Stuff like this did happen occasionally with public passages, and almost every single time, the cause was the same—sabotage. As long as it was closed, the Santorio Hub would lose money.

Sighing, he picked up the racked corpses and moved to a nearby boulder, sitting down on it.

What should I do now?

It could take a while for someone to crack the barrier open. The associated risk would hardly be worth it unless someone could keep the passage closed for at least a few days.

He could just wait around, but that seemed like a waste of time. If he was already trapped, he might as well use the opportunity to train in the passage.

He caught the image of a blonde-haired woman from the corner of his eye and turned to spot Sophia carrying a gorel corpse on her back. She suddenly dropped it as she just stood, staring at the passage.

Hmmm?

Her reaction was a bit strange.

Could it be that she was scared?

He nearly snorted at the thought, but she really did seem to be afraid, and not just a little.

Whatever, he thought as he turned his head away.

He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at her a few seconds later.

Her reaction was getting weirder.

Her nostrils flared as she breathed rapidly, and her eyes were wide open, with her mouth slightly agape.

He scowled. Did she know something about this? Usually, he’d take that as a sign that he shouldn’t get involved, but for some reason, something about her reaction was triggering alarms in his head.

Fuck it.

He got up and slowly walked towards her.

Once he stepped within a few meters, the woman turned to face him briefly, then looked at the opaque barrier again.

“Hey there,” he greeted awkwardly.

“Liam,” she called. “We have to run.”

He scowled. “Do you know something about that barrier?”

“Just… go and hide somewhere, okay?” She turned around to leave, but he grasped her by her wrist. “Let me go!”

“Okay, first of all, calm down,” he said.

“No!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

“Tell me what’s happening!” he demanded. “Do you know what that is?”

“Liam, listen to me,” she said, staring at him with a crazed gaze. “That barrier won’t go down for at least another three months, and by the time it does, this whole realm will be swarming with monsters!”

He scowled. “What?”

“That’s going to create an artificial break! Liam… listen to me…

“We’re in the middle of a terrorist attack.”

34

SOPHIA SUMMER

Freddy followed Sophia through the woods. They moved cautiously as they slowly approached the outer edge of the passage realm.

Frankly, he didn’t want to follow her, but she clearly knew more than she had shared. He wanted to know what was happening. “Where the hell are you going?” he asked her in an angry whisper.

“The outer edge,” she whispered back.

“And what are you gonna do there?”

She didn’t look back at him, but she did slow down a bit. “I’m gonna bury myself in the ground.”

“What?” he spewed, but⁠—

“Shhh,” she hushed him. It was still daytime, so they had a clear view of their surroundings, but she acted as if she was expecting danger to jump at them at any moment.

Anger bubbled in the depths of his gut. With each second that passed, he felt more and more ready to break off and stop following her, but through sheer stubbornness, he kept following her while thinking up ways to convince her to speak.

The outer edge was quite far, and combined with Sophia’s sudden hypervigilance, it took them a while to reach her destination. They left the woods and entered a clearing void of all growth, right beside the massive, jagged cliffs surrounding the passage realm’s outer perimeter. All that stood below their feet was dead, dry soil.

“All right,” she said as she pulled a small knife from her Storage Ring. Then she knelt and dug into the ground, using the dagger as an improvised trowel.

He stood to the side, watching.

Eventually, she paused. She took a deep breath and aggressively rubbed her face. “You think I’m insane, don’t you?”

“I know you’re insane,” he corrected her. “I just want to know what you’re hiding,” he said, remaining upright as he squinted down at her.

“Are you gonna leave me alone if I tell you?”

“Gladly.”

The day suddenly blinked out, and night descended on the realm. Both of them merely glanced at the sky, already used to dealing with this phenomenon, having seen it happen quite a few times.

She suddenly started chuckling. A mixture of laughter and disbelief rang through her body as she looked around. Then tears began streaming down her face. “Why?” she said, gulping and sniffling as she sobbed. “Why did they have to come here?”

Why did who have to come here?

He watched the woman sob her heart out in the darkness for a long few minutes. Then she picked up the dagger and continued digging. But it didn’t take long for her to stop again. “You asked me about who I was.” She turned to face him. “Do you really want to know?”

“Is it related to what’s happening?”

She nodded.

“Is knowing going to help me?”

She paused at that. “At the very least… you’ll know just how bad the situation really is.”

The darkness around them suddenly felt stifling, and Freddy felt a chill move down his spine. He took a breath to calm himself. “Tell me. I want to know.”

“I…” she started, swallowing heavily. “I grew up in a cult.”

His eyebrows jumped. That was… not exactly what he was expecting to hear. It suddenly clicked. “They’re the ones behind this attack.”

She reluctantly nodded. “Yes. I recognize that barrier.”

He felt a bit of anger bubble in the back of his mind. “Did you know that they would do this?”

She stared at the ground for a few seconds. “No,” she said. “If I had known they would come here, I… I…”

A few long moments of silence passed. Then he sighed and walked over, kneeling beside her as he took out his own hunting knife and started digging.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“What does it look like?” he asked. “I’m digging a hole to bury myself.”

She stared at him, her mouth quivering slightly. “Do you⁠—”

“Do I what!?” he spat angrily. “Do I trust you? No, I don’t fucking trust you!” He angrily threw the dagger into the ground, where it bounced off and skittered across the dry soil. “Give me one goddamn reason to believe you aren’t a part of whatever is happening.”

“I don’t want to be,” she said, her expression hard to see in the dark. “I would rather be anywhere else right now, Liam.” A shiver crawled into her voice. “I would rather be dead.”

He froze at those words, and he felt his anger deflate slightly. He was scared. He was so damn scared.

But… so was she.

He could tell better than anyone just how dense the terror in those words was.

As he looked upon her, the weight of how foreign she was was like a wet blanket pressing against his back. This was a stranger. Someone he truly knew nothing about.

Why would he hear her out? Why would he give her a chance? He’d done it once already, which might have very well been the exact reason he was in this situation to begin with.

Maybe if I had killed her back then… he thought, remembering the moment after she dragged him out of the ravine. Just adding a Flowing Strike to his punch would have been enough.

Darkness descended on him, and he found himself biting the inside of his cheek.

“If you don’t want to hear me out,” Sophia said, “I understand.” She picked up her dagger again and continued digging.

The sound of her blade scraping the ground in the darkness was like a fork scratching a plate in his ears. “Are you trying to spite me?”

“I’m not doing anything,” she said, whimpering. “You won’t believe anything I say. And if I’m being honest, I don’t want to end up being one of your ‘mistakes.’”

Those words were like a stab to his stomach. He gritted his jaw so hard that he heard a tooth crack, sending a wild pang of pain down his jaw. His fingers twitched as he felt the urge to pull his hand back and swing at her. He felt the urge to get violent. “Go on then,” he said, burying his fingers into the earth instead. “I’m listening.”

She stopped digging. For a long minute, the two of them did nothing but stay as they were, both simmering. But the darkness of the false night swallowed it all up. The danger encroaching upon them took precedence.

“I have lived as a pawn for my whole life,” she said. “I don’t even know who my parents are.”

“Me neither; you aren’t special.”

She shot him a stern glare he could feel even through the darkness.

“What?” he spat. “I never said I’d keep quiet.”

She met his gaze for a long moment, then shook her head and continued. “Remember when I said I’ve been training in martial arts for fifteen years?” she asked. “That was a lie. But you probably wouldn’t have believed me if I told you I started thirty years ago.”

“Thirty years ago, wow,” he commented snarkily. “Must have been one hell of a rich kid.”

“There is no wealth in the cult,” she said.

“Ah, so everyone is equal then? What, you grew up in a communist utopia?”

“Not at all,” she said, a hint of trepidation and anger playing in her voice. “But at the very least, everyone has the same starting point.”

He wanted to make another snide comment, but he could tell that if he opened his mouth again, she probably wouldn’t continue her explanation. Snorting, he looked away.

After a few tense moments of silence, she continued, “My life started as that of a child soldier. The cult simply referred to us as ‘Children,’ even though some of us were in our forties. They trained us to the bone from the moment we could walk, and once a Child became skilled enough, they were sent to fight monsters. None of us were archhumans. All we had was a single weapon of choice. The monsters were on the weaker side, but that didn’t make the occasional deviant any less lethal.

“Only once a year would the strongest member of the Children be allowed to accept a prime and ascend into an archhuman, and then they would be allowed to join the cult as an elite member. Anyone who failed to make it by forty years of age became a Servant. If anyone manifested a prime or acquired one by killing a deviant, they weren’t allowed to take it and had to surrender it to the cult.

“I manifested a prime vestige four times during my life as a Child, and I got one from killing a deviant fifteen times. And every single time, I had to give it away.”

Freddy simply stared at her. For a long moment, he wanted to call bullshit. It sounded too sappy, too tragic. It was just too much. Yet, as he stared into her eyes, he spotted zero hesitation. And he saw a hint. A small hole deep inside her soul, the same he saw whenever he looked in the mirror—a wound that would never fully heal.

Unable to bring himself to acknowledge it, he looked away.

She smirked, grim amusement at his reaction dancing through her eyes. “If you want me to be entirely honest, I threw you off that cliff because you pissed me off,” she confessed. “You patronized me and acted like I was nothing but a naive kid. Meanwhile, you were acting like a total coward, and honestly, I was beyond shocked at your lack of skill.”

He snorted. “Ah, I see, so it isn’t your fault for trying to kill me; it’s mine for being so weak?”

“I know you can’t see things through my eyes, but I still lived a life very different from yours. I’m not used to dealing with people outside the cult,” she said, sighing. “You seemed so much more powerful than me that I thought you would be completely invincible against those dumb beasts. All I wanted to do was prove that I didn’t need to be babysat.”

“There are other ways to prove that,” he said. “Like by not being an idiot.”

She groaned.

“Okay, sure,” he said. “We’re putting that aside.” He turned to face her properly, his eyes squinting. “So let’s talk about something else; you say that you grew up in a cult as a child slave forced to fight from birth, but I’m not sure I buy that. From what I’ve seen of you, you give off the impression of someone with a pretty spoiled upbringing.”

She snorted at that. “What, you think we were kept in cages in a dungeon?” she asked mockingly. “For the record, I only learned that I had been living in a cult after I escaped. From what I can tell, we lived pretty ordinary lives there. We only spent around two to three hours a day fighting in the passage, then maybe another two to three training. I’m not sure you understand what kind of place I grew up in. It’s an entire community the size of a large town.”

He snorted at that. “Seems pretty cozy for a cult of terrorists.”

“Because it is,” she admitted. “I didn’t hate living there. We were given a purpose and every comfort we could imagine. It wasn’t like the leader had any use in forcing us to live in misery. That would have defeated their entire message.”

“That being?”

“That the outside world is full of degenerates, and those who rise to the top are nothing but greedy, selfish tyrants who use their power for their personal benefit while trampling over those below them as they please.”

The whiplash of hearing those words coming out of her mouth physically knocked him back. “And how does terrorism fit into that!?”

She snorted. “That’s a very good question. One I wish more of my friends had asked themselves.” She continued her story. “Although what we were allowed to view was heavily regulated, there was a movie theater we could go to. There were also cafes, restaurants, boutiques… and there was even a club. The entire cult thrived on being a community.”

“I’m assuming you left because of the, uh… the terrorism?”

“No, actually. I left because of the price we had to pay for that life. I never got over the deaths of my childhood friends. We were told to believe we were living with a purpose, but I never saw the point in all the bloodshed,” she said. “They claimed that those who died for the cult’s prosperity were reborn as guardian spirits looking over us.” She snorted. “I never believed that for a second. So I ran away.”

“How?”

“Jumped a barbed fence,” she answered. “The guards attacked me, but I was slightly faster and just a bit more suicidal than they expected. The fence cut me up, three stone bullets hit my back, and a shard of blood nearly cut into my spine. Frankly, I barely remember how I made it out of the forest, but by the time I reached civilization, I was nearly dead already. A police patrol spotted me and brought me over to a hospital. When they realized that I had no real identity and no way to pay them, the clinic only did the bare minimum to stop me from dying and sent me to be interrogated.

“I told them everything, and after around two days, I was released with a new identity. But my injuries weren’t healing,” she said, clutching her stomach. “I still vividly remember the night I spent in the rain, hiding under a bridge, my back so inflamed I could barely think straight. Back home, as long as we survived, we were given free treatment. Finding myself without that luxury, I just wanted to go back.

“Then I saw a flash of purple light envelop me as a small ball dropped on my lap. I had seen that happen a few times already, and without hesitation, I accepted the prime into my body before I even knew what it did.

“The natural-quality healing of ascending to a single star saved my life, but my back wasn’t healed enough to stabilize. Then I saw it. My eyes had changed from my ascension, going from a dull brown to a vivid purple, and it wasn’t just a cosmetic change. I could see life force. I could smell it. Taste it. And I instinctively knew that I could tear it out of the bodies of living things. I killed a stray cat and used its spark to heal myself. That was also when I learned that there were consequences to doing so.

“I realized I needed a spark with stronger vitality to fix my mistake, and I knew only one way to get my hands on one. So I hitchhiked for days and eventually made it here. Ever since, I’ve been living inside this passage, sleeping and hunting every day in my search for a deviant with enough vitality to help me fix my wounds. And that was when I ran into you,” she said, staring at him. “There you go. Happy?” she asked, trying to smirk, but it looked strained.

“Just one more thing—where did you get your Storage Ring?”

“Oh, that?” she asked, raising her hand to admire the piece of magical jewelry. “I found it on a corpse buried under a pile of rubble.”

He smirked at that. “It’s not finders keepers around here, Sophia,” he teased. “You’re supposed to report that.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, where did you get yours?” she asked.

“Hey, I earned mine fair and square!”

She snorted and shook her head.

Honestly, he didn’t know what to say.

At some point, he had started actually listening to her explanation, and… What reason would she have to spout such convoluted lies?

In many ways, she had gone through something surprisingly similar to what he had. He couldn’t bring himself to cast any more doubt on her story, even if his pride made it impossible to admit it.

The moments of silence stretched on.

She waited anxiously, rubbing her shoulder as she looked away, looking so frail and vulnerable in the darkness. He could see her regret like a sticky ooze slathered over her skin. What could she be feeling at that moment? Waiting beside him, hiding from her brethren she had so selfishly betrayed?

At that moment, he felt burdened by her conflict. Would she go back to them if she encountered them? He remembered what she said about the cult’s message. Even if it didn’t justify their actions, that message couldn’t possibly be more correct.

If anything…

He wanted to be an exception to that rule.

“My real name is Freddy,” he said suddenly, surprising himself. His throat tightened.

Sophia looked at him in surprise.

A voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t resist the compulsion to speak.

Then, starting from his childhood, he told her his story. Granted, he kept many details private. He didn’t share his real surname, he didn’t share where he had lived, he didn’t specify Madame’s identity or why she took him under her wing, he didn’t tell her about Bloodshed, he didn’t tell why the Kraven Clan had been after him, and he said nothing about the fight between him and the patriarch. But he shared everything else.

By the end, he felt… good—a lot better than he had for a while—as if a massive boulder had rolled off his back. He didn’t trust her enough to say everything—hell, he didn’t trust her enough to say as much as he had—but he had told her anyway. He had shared his tale with another person.

And he felt… warmer. Just a bit less alone in this cold, uncaring world. As he stared into her eyes, seeing that same hole again, the same pain that resonated with his own, he felt the shell of distrust crack ever so slightly.

Was she keeping some details of her tale hidden, just as he was? Maybe. But he knew. At least in broad strokes, her story was genuine. Because within her eyes, he could see not sympathy—but empathy. She understood.

“Wow,” she said. “When did this turn into a tragic backstory dick-measuring championship?”

He laughed at that. “I don’t know… but I think I win.”

She chuckled at that, shaking her head. “Nah. Mine’s sadder.”

“Nuh-uh,” he responded childishly.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away. “Sorry,” he said, feeling his pride tearing apart in the wake of that word coming out of his mouth. So he backtracked a little bit. “I still think you’re a fucking dumbass, and I’ll never forget the fact that you nearly killed me, but⁠—”

She aggressively rolled her eyes and laughed. “You’ll never let go of that, will you?”

He chuckled. “Save my life once or twice, and I’ll think about it.” He smiled broadly at her.

She shook her head and breathed out, relaxing slightly.

“Anyway.” He clapped. “What do you want to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is—are we sticking to this zombie cosplay plan, or…?”

She looked at the ground. “I don’t know…” she said, sighing deeply. “To be honest, the odds of it working are… not as high as I’d like. We’ll have to get pretty damn lucky.”

“Are our chances better if we confront them?”

“Hell no,” she said, shaking her head and staring at him seriously. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not qualified to face these people.”

“Are you saying that because you really think we can’t do it or because you are afraid to face them?” he asked. “And I don’t mean afraid to fight them, but⁠—”

“I get it,” Sophia said, hesitating. “And I don’t know.” Her shoulders slumped a bit.

“Would you go back to them if you could?” he asked without even a hint of judgment in his voice. “Honestly… I kind of agree with their message. Maybe if we beg on our knees, they’d take us in?” he suggested with a sly grin, but⁠—

“No,” she said. “They aren’t big on forgiveness and second chances. They wouldn’t be doing this if that were the case.”

“Yeah. I guess that tracks.” He paused momentarily, then his eyes slid down to the ground. “What if I were to tell you that I might have a way to fight them anyway?” he suggested cautiously.

She glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re aiming at, but it will have to be something huge.” She shifted a bit as if recollecting a painful memory. “They don’t hesitate to utilize illegal talents, and they have no qualms about using them in fucked-up ways. What do you have?”

He couldn’t stop a small smile from appearing on his face.

It was time to introduce her to his favorite little skeleton.

35

A SEAL TO REMAIN UNBROKEN

The gorel realm was a hub for three other passages.

One was of intermediate difficulty, and two were reserved for elites. Within the realm of intermediate difficulty, another passage took to perhaps the most interesting realm that could be accessed through this hub.

It was an Anomalous Realm—more accurately, a dungeon. Such realms were extremely rare and valuable; the Tomb of Harrkanna was no exception.

Jacob stood beside his party in the middle of the tomb. It was a peculiar realm. The time within reset every 28 hours and 16 minutes, but if someone was inside the realm when it should be reset, it would be postponed until those people left.

Anomalous Realms such as this one were strange in many ways, the most notable of which was what happened when an object from within was removed. For the Tomb of Harrkanna, anything taken from within—barring prime vestiges, given that they manifested—would immediately turn into ephemeral sand and evaporate into thin air.

But there was one exception—the crown of Harrkanna, an item that resided on the head of the monster that waited as the final confrontation at the end of the dungeon. Well, the crown itself, which was made from pure gold, did vanish into thin air if taken out. But one of the jewels embedded in it didn’t. A tiny little fragment of crystalline, shimmering material—a shard of tzenekite, one of the most valuable materials known to humanity.

There were many reasons why tzenekite was valued so highly, but the biggest one was that it was the main ingredient in a particular type of construct. Stars weren’t the only way essence could be stored within the soul. With tzenekite, there was a way to artificially create a secondary, minor core that acted as extra storage—a satellite.

The lowest grade of satellite provided only 1% additional capacity, and the highest ever made contained 5%. This seemed like quite a disappointing increase to many, but satellites were exceptional in one regard—they could regenerate their total capacity in a single second.

Even the lowest-grade satellite could generate enough essence to offset the cost of a minor physical boost or cheaper ability requiring continuous casting.

But, as was the case for anything in life, the greater the power, the greater the cost. Even ignoring the absurd price that started in tens of millions and ended in hundreds of billions of dollars, the overuse of a satellite could seriously injure an archhuman or even kill them in extreme cases. Many thought it clever to endlessly temper themselves with the near-infinite reserves a satellite could provide. Many died doing so.

Just because the satellite could provide the essence did not mean that an archhuman’s body could handle the output.

Essence-replenishing treasures and meditation at least purged a part of the already present reflux essence within an archhuman’s body.

Satellites didn’t.

Jacob paid close attention to his recently upgraded two-star satellite. A small but bright dot illuminated the inside of his ethercosm with the luminance of a distant supernova. The increase in his power was already quite noticeable. He had kept Ignite Muscle active throughout every fight during their delve and only relied on his physical abilities. Thus, he hadn’t spent even a single percent of his 179% essence capacity.

His dad had bitched quite a bit about the 67-million-dollar price tag, but in his opinion, it had been worth every penny.

Besides, his old man was exaggerating. Most of the material came from the dungeon they owned. Not selling something wasn’t the same thing as buying something.

He shook his head and brought himself back to the present.

The small sandstone chamber they found themselves within had disgusting liquid splattered over every wall. The minor enemies within the cave were undead mummies. He would appreciate it quite a bit if they were dry and skeletal, but unfortunately, every single one was as if they had been dipped into black sewage. It was slimy and gross. But at least the enemies weren’t particularly threatening. Not to their party, at least.

Phillip used a small cloth to wipe the excess sludge off his vest before it could dry and damage it, and the new girl—Karen—wiped the blade of her saber with a rag. Much of it had gotten onto her white clothes, and some had even stained her curly hair, but she paid no heed to either. The material her robes were made of wouldn’t be damaged by something so minor.

His eyes flicked to his girlfriend, Rachel. She was screaming at Theodore because he interrupted her talent with Scattered Starlight. Theodore was trying to pacify her, but Jacob knew better than to think the man would succeed. Once Rachel got going, nobody could stop her.

Slowly, his gaze traveled back to the new girl. Her tan skin was smooth, and her body was lithe. She was a bit more muscular than Rachel, and the contours of her robe revealed a rather well-toned body. He licked his lips, mentally comparing her to his girlfriend.

“Jacob,” Phillip called. “Let’s get going.”

The man licked the roof of his mouth as he made clicking sounds with his lips. “We go when I say we go.”

Phillip sigh-growled like an angsty teenage girl and shook his head. “Whatever.”

What a fucking loser.

Another fifteen minutes passed. He wasn’t waiting for no reason. While his new satellite could handle the burden of Ignite Muscle, his body couldn’t. He closed his eyes and relied on his second affinity to cast Rejuvenating Water Body.

It provided some relief, and his satellite covered the total cost of using it. But even this couldn’t last forever. The essence of using a tempering technique wasn’t dispelled immediately. A part of it kept accumulating within an archhuman’s body, and if too much of it gathered, it could cause rampant backlash.

Thankfully, water was among the gentlest essences, allowing him to keep the recovery technique going for nearly ten minutes.

By the end, he felt like a new man.

“All right,” he said as he got up. “It’s time to keep going.”

The others got up and followed him.

One of the best parts of dungeon realms was that they were almost wholly predictable. The only random part was which enemies would become deviants. But, even then, as long as it wasn’t the boss, that rarely proved to be an issue.

In the last few corridors, they had to go through several traps. They circumvented all of them. They waited for the rolling boulder to pass by, threw weighted bags onto the pressure plates, and in the last room, the one just before the fight against the boss, they had to pass over a large pool of sand. The sand dragged anyone who stepped on the wrong spot into it.

Theodore merely raised his hand and cast Illumination in the memorized pattern. A shimmering path of light glowed through the sand, highlighting the exact route they needed to take to safely make it to the other side.

It looped and coiled considerably, so they made shortcuts by jumping over the gaps.

Karen, flexing her impeccable skill as usual, simply leapt across the sand trap and allowed the wind to carry her to the other side.

Finally, they stepped before the massive slab door. It slowly sank into the ground, revealing the intimidating figure of Harrkanna—the eight-armed mummy. The monster stood frozen in the middle of the opulent ancient chamber, which was hewn in chiseled sandstone. It stood around fifteen meters tall and held eight weapons, one in each hand.

The arms, from left to right and up to down, held a platinum whip, a golden axe, a silver saber, a steel longsword, a bronze executioner’s sword, a pig iron mace, a wooden staff, and a sandstone club. And, of course, the golden crown on its head.

Jacob looked over at Karen. “Are you ready?” he asked her. This was the woman’s first time participating in delving into this dungeon. They had prepared her to the best of their ability, but words were hardly enough to properly elaborate on how the boss worked.

Its behavior remained consistent, even if it appeared as a deviant, but that didn’t make it any less frightening.

Yet she nodded. “I am confident,” she said softly—coldly.

“Good. Get into position,” he told the others. Once they stepped into the room, the boss would start moving.

Phillip stood at the forefront. Rachel stood behind him, both feet on a patch of shadow.

Theodore closed his eyes and focused on conjuring Illuminate, and Karen stood just behind Phillip.

Jacob stood to Theodore’s right, waiting for the man to finish his spell. A few moments later, he opened his eyes and threw a ball of white light. It flew with unerring accuracy at the boss and splashed across its body, distributing itself into tiny clusters of stars. Those stars revealed the exact weak points Theodore had seen with his talent. They rested upon the most fragile parts of bone and within joints most weathered by the passage of time.

The boss twitched, and the whip in its upper left arm moved, swinging a bit.

Phillip lunged forward. The boss opened its empty eye sockets and screeched as it swung the platinum whip at the man. With a seemingly effortless flick, the tanker readied his shield and redirected the force behind the immense blow into the soil, creating a massive crater upon impact.

Rachel sank into the shadow she had been standing on and appeared behind the boss. Her dagger was coated in her Red Venom as she attached a Black Whip to the boss’s neck and pulled herself up, swinging her blade and leaving a long, sizzling gash up the length of its back.

The mummy screeched in rage as it twisted four arms behind itself and assaulted Rachel, but the woman jumped back, swinging around a large pillar and vanishing into the shadow.

It was finally Karen’s turn. The woman opened her eyes and ran at dazzling speed, flowing through the air as if it were dragging her rather than resisting her passing. Within a moment, she made it to the mummy’s feet, and with a single swing and the sound of air collapsing before the cleave of her blade, she cut one of Harrkanna’s legs off.

Jacob grinned. Theodore’s prediction was correct. Picking that woman had been the right choice.

Theodore placed a hand on Jacob’s back and cast Holy Blessing. A small but significant burst of power echoed through Jacob’s body as he activated Hydraulic Flex and dashed forward, his body enveloped in a faint mist as his Ignite Muscle blazed within.

With a single, mighty leap, he entered the boss room and jumped on top of Phillip, who used his shield to activate his talent—Redirect Force—to push Jacob straight toward the heart of the collapsing giant—right at a small cluster of bright stars scattered upon the sternum.

Jacob’s grin widened. The rush of power—the exhilaration of a perfectly executed plan—coursed through his blood as he prepared a Titanic Strike. His fist landed, living up to the ability’s name as deep cracks spread throughout the mummy’s body.

With his talent—Shatterstrike—anything he struck acted the same as glass. Like a sculpture of brittle ice, the boss’s torso shattered into large pieces, breaking its ribs apart and cracking its spine in two.

The fight ended almost instantly.

As Jacob and his party left the sandy desert through the passage leading into the realm, the golden crown in his hands evaporated, and a single crystal remained on his palm. Despite its incredibly small size, it was prized at nearly 300,000 dollars, it was quite the reward for a mere three hours of work.

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. Before adding Karen to their team, the boss fight was a lot more challenging. As long as the mummy was still standing firmly, it could fend off an attempt to end the fight early, requiring quite a bit more effort on the team’s part to take it down.

Not only did this frequently result in injuries, but it also damaged their equipment and caused excessive fatigue. A delve’s profits were only as valuable as the contrast to the expenses invested in it.

Thousands of dollars in equipment damage, injuries that had to be treated with expensive medicine, and fatigue that forced them to end their day early for the sake of rest could, at times, swallow up as much as half of the profit. But with Karen on board?

He had to admit, he was getting quite excited.

As they made their way out of the dungeon, they immediately stepped into a lobby. There were no employees currently present, and it wasn’t nearly as large as the one at the main entrance to the gorel realm. Well, that was to be expected. This lobby had been constructed underground in a passage realm of intermediate difficulty.

Its entire purpose was to create a safe room for those leaving the dungeon after a delve and to ensure there was no trouble.

Their team slowly removed heavier pieces of armor and got comfortable as they prepared for a break. Anyone with access to a recovery technique used it, and Theodore made rounds with recovery spells. The holy affinity was quite something.

Eventually, the team was done with their after-battle recovery. They would rest for the next hour and then continue hunting inside the intermediate realm. They were qualified for one of the more difficult ones, but after a dungeon run like this, it was best they took it easy.

Jacob talked to Rachel for a while, but she eventually excused herself and went to the toilet.

Before long, Theodore sat down beside him. “So…” the man started. “What do you think of the new girl?”

“I think she’s hot.”

Theodore snorted. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jacob took a moment to think about it. “Frankly, she’s too much. Her talents, both prime and natural, are top-notch, and her mentality is superb. She might even get the lightning affinity at the third star, and if she does, none of us will be able to keep up with her. Maybe you can, but I can’t. Not unless I get a big opportunity. Either way, we’re just resume padding for her. I’m sure she’ll be out in a year or two.”

“Damn,” Theodore said, snickering a bit. “Surprised to see you so pessimistic.”

“I’m just being real,” he said, shrugging. “I had postponed my ascension for years, hoping my talent would become usable with weapons. If the situation remains the same at my third star, I’m going to be shit out of luck with my options,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, my talent is great, but I’m too slow to fight barehanded. With three affinities, I can’t use an affinity shard to get a wind affinity. Without weapons to extend my range and compensate for my lack of mobility, I can’t keep up with geniuses like her.”

“And you think I can?” Theodore asked.

Jacob snickered. “You rat bastard. With your affinities and talent, you’d be useful even if you were paralyzed from the neck down.”

Theodore laughed, shaking his head.

Both men watched as Phillip slowly approached Karen, who was sitting alone. The man sat down next to her, and Jacob sneered, “The nerd’s got his game on. Let’s watch.”

The scout chortled but then raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so mean to Phillip? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a shit, but I am curious.”

“I never wanted that stupid kid in my party,” Jacob said. “He was shoved in by my dad. I mean, come the fuck on, look at him!” He pointed at Phillip. “Just look at his body language. He’s trying to hit on that girl, right? But read his lips.” Then he repeated mockingly. “‘I am quite impressed by your style, Young Mistress. It greatly showcases both the history of your clan and your personal experience’—ptoo!” he spat to the side. “Disgusting virgin. I prefer people like you and your wife’s boyfriend.”

Theodore choked upon hearing that.

Jacob grinned at him widely. “I actually talked to him the other day.”

“Dude… can we please not talk about this?” Theodore requested nicely, but⁠—

“He was quite the asshole,” Jacob continued despite the man’s pleas. “Dude is so self-centered it’s incredible. And he’s shameless to the bone. He’s a lot like you, you know. Maybe that’s why your wife⁠—”

“My ex-wife!” the man corrected. “Anyway, I don’t give a shit what that whore does and with who. Me and her are history.”

“Can I have a round with her, then?” Jacob asked, prompting Theodore to shoot him a death stare. “Chill, lil’ bro, I won’t touch her,” Jacob laughed as he ruffled the man’s brown hair. “But I might invite Liam to our party.”

Theodore froze. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “We’re already full, and you don’t even know what the man’s capable of.”

“Strange… I think I remember you vouching for the guy just a while ago… I wonder what changed,” Jacob said teasingly.

Theodore stood there in silence for a few seconds.

Jacob, meanwhile, was trying his best not to burst out laughing. “I mean, the dude didn’t even wait 24 hours to—ow!” he yelped jokingly as Theodore punched him in the shoulder. Jacob laughed, and Theodore shook his head, preparing to get up.

“Mr. Santorio!” someone called from the door.

Jacob raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

The person standing at the entrance explained what was happening at the passage to the gorel realm.

Jacob’s blood ran cold.

“A terrorist attack?” Theodore mused. “That’s something, all right. What are we gonna⁠—”

“Get ready, everyone,” Jacob declared. “We have to go.”

“Whoa, hold on a bit!” Theodore insisted. “This could be pretty dangerous depending on who is doing this. Maybe it would be a bit wiser to wait until your father takes care of things?”

“Hell no,” Jacob said, shaking his head. “We have to check things out. We’re the most qualified party within this entire hub. We have to step up.”

Just a bit outside the entrance to the gorel hub, a man wearing full armor sat on a boulder. He rested casually, observing the crowds of confused delvers as they gathered at the blocked entrance. “You poor children,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “I really am so sorry for doing this,” he uttered with pain in his voice.

Then he returned his consciousness to his main body, which was deep underground.

He was sitting cross-legged on top of a massive runic formation. The runes shimmered with ethereal white light, reinforcing a seal on a passage.

His body appeared youthful, but he had an aged air around him. His golden eyes were slitted sharply, and his large forehead was topped by a hairline, forming an M-pattern in his black hair.

His body was skinny, and his left arm was missing.

“I cannot provide you with salvation,” he said, sighing deeply. “But from your ashes,” he said, putting his arm down to the runic formation as it flickered lightly. “From all our ashes…

“We can at least give the children a chance.”

36

BLURSED

In a dingy corner of a small governmental office in a tiny settlement in the countryside by Pittersville, there was a door; behind it, a little room. A small tablet sat in the center, placed upon a deteriorating pedestal, with four face-down photographs and a paper detailing an encrypted report resting upon its surface.

Legally, every settlement with more than a thousand inhabitants had to have a chamber like this one. The purpose of the ethertech contraption was simple—so that any government officials could contact the central. Naturally, this also applied to any four-star archhumans who had accepted the duty and responsibility of lordship.

Madame Morleppe smiled gently as she placed another small note on the remaining free corner of the tablet. The paper held a code that only she was privy to. Every lord got such a code once a year, and if they decided to use it, their message would immediately become the highest priority. And the highest-priority messages went directly to the supreme ruler of the American Empire—Empress Kaiya.

Once she was done placing everything on the surface, she infused it with her essence, and the stone tablet scanned it, projecting a copy to the central, where it would be forwarded to a higher-up.

She collected the evidence, placed it in her storage ring, and sat on a nearby chair, waiting for the response. Pulling out a cocktail from her ring with a puff of air, she sipped on it impatiently and sighed.

Frankly, she wasn’t thrilled with her discovery. Peter Vane’s father—Matthew Vane—had been brutally murdered, as she had dutifully recorded with her camera. The crime scene hadn’t been concealed so thoroughly that nobody would know what happened, but it had been done cleverly enough to prevent discovery for what had been well over a month at that point.

Was any of this proof of her theory that the man by the name of Peter Vane was actually some form of a double impostor? Not quite. But she didn’t need to prove anything—all she needed was to give the empress a valid reason to take a closer look at what Harold was up to.

The only reason the Kraven Clan had gotten a slot for the expedition was that they could prove that the company was being run well enough that their operations wouldn’t pose any undue risk to Starhold or New Earth.

The evidence she had collected was enough to justify an in-depth audit and investigation of their activities, which would undoubtedly reveal the illegal slave trade they were running, and Basilisk would have to take all the responsibility.

The thought of that made her giddy. Oh, how she craved to see that man’s face wrought in agony and despair. If his image fell far enough, she could even possibly justify challenging him to a duel and killing him before he could attempt to seek revenge.

Or, perhaps even better, she might get priority to buy off the rights for the expedition slot. Reselling them could net her some extra funds.

She anxiously waited for the empress’s response. Naturally, the final outcome would be up to that woman’s decision, and heavens knew she hated being used by quarreling Lords.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the tablet’s surface lit up. She walked over to it and spotted the glowing imprint of a response letter.

HELLO, NARCISSE.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU LAST CONTACTED ME. I AM CURIOUS ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF YOUR LETTER. I WANT TO DISCUSS THE ISSUE AT LENGTH. I AM MOMENTARILY BUSY WITH MY WORK IN STARHOLD, BUT I WILL BE RETURNING TO NOVA YORK IN TWO WEEKS.

WE HAVEN’T SEEN EACH OTHER IN QUITE A WHILE, DEAR.

I WOULD LOVE TO CATCH UP.

BEST REGARDS,

KAIYA.

Madame gulped as a nervous smirk quirked up on her lip.

Did I anger her somehow? she wondered and hoped that wasn’t the case.

It was rare to receive a direct invitation to an in-person meeting, and frankly, it was rarely a good thing.

This outcome had been outside her expectations; she would have to cancel her immediate plans. Nobody could reject the empress’s invitation—not if they valued the thing that kept their head attached to their body.

Sighing, she swallowed the stress cramp that was inching up her throat and headed out of the building.

Freddy had been hesitant to reveal Bloodshed to Sophia, but with their lives on the line and her holding much information that could save them from their predicament, he had decided that this wasn’t the time to keep possibly invaluable tools hidden.

But… he had expected quite a bit more from her reaction. Honestly, he had been hoping to see her eyeballs bulge and mouth drop in shock as she spluttered, screamed, and ran away at the sight of a bona fide spirit under his control… but her reaction was quite different.

“Whoa!” she said, inching closer with curiosity. “I had no idea you had a bound spirit! Holy crap, where did you get that ring!? That thing must have cost a freakin’ fortune!”

He stared at her and blinked slowly. “Do you already know what this is?” he asked incredulously.

“Well… duh?” She chuckled. “I’ve spent a lifetime studying in preparation to become a full-fledged cult member. My knowledge of etherology is way ahead of yours, buddy.”

He was immeasurably disappointed that his situation was something others already knew of, but he wasn’t surprised. Countless archhumans had lived and died during the past 200 years. Some people must have seen wilder stuff than he could imagine.

Ignoring the bruise on his ego, he squatted down to pet Bloodshed on the head. “If you know what this is, I’d like to hear more about it.”

This had turned into a priceless opportunity to learn more about the nature of the shell in his soul and its connection to the ring on his hand. The thing he wanted to know the most was how he could evolve the power. Bloodshed was no longer growing in strength, no matter how much stuff it killed. If he had a way to empower it, well…

She frowned at him, lifting an eyebrow and slightly cocking her head in confusion. “Uhm… Do you not know what it is?” she asked. “How did you even get your hands on it?”

“That’s a story for another day,” he said.

She squinted at him and growled in frustration. “Ugh, fine,” she said. “Well, not like there’s much to know about it. That ring on your finger is a spirit artifact. It has no powers attached to it other than the spirit that is sealed within. When you release it, it acts as a familiar that fights for you.

“That thing is completely mindless; if you attack something, it will fight by your side, as you must have already learned. Speaking of that, why didn’t you call for it during your fight with the gorels?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “It could have handled an army of those things without any issue.”

Freddy stared at her, utterly baffled. “Uhhh… What?” he spat, ignoring her question. “No, you’re, like, completely wrong; none of what you said is true.”

“Master,” Bloodshed finally said. “You shouldn’t listen to this ignorant woman’s words.”

Sophia’s face suddenly paled. “Did that thing… just… talk?”

A massive, shit-eating grin spread on Freddy’s face. “Looks like you’re not as wise as you thought, Miss Cultist.”

She slowly got up and walked back, sweat visibly pouring down her face. “Liam… I mean, Freddy… listen to me; that isn’t a bound spirit. If that thing decides to attack us, we’re dead,” she declared, whimpering slightly.

“How insolent,” Bloodshed declared. “How dare you presume that I would assault my master?”

“What the f—” Sophia cursed through gritted teeth. “You’d better explain what’s happening here, or I’m leaving you to your fate.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “Oh yeah… That’s the reaction I wanted to see.”

“Liam! I mean Fre—whatever; this isn’t funny!”

“You’re right,” he said, laughing harder. “It’s fucking hilarious!”

“You idiot!” she shouted, preparing herself to run the other way.

“No, no, no!” he yelled after her. “Stop, wait, let me explain.”

She stopped but stayed at a distance from him and the bloody skeleton.

He proceeded to explain how Bloodshed, as a remnant, became obsessed with protecting him. Then he vaguely explained how it entered his soul and built a shell around itself and how the ring on his finger could release it.

Sophia stared at him blankly, completely dumbfounded. “It’s a spirit ability,” she said. “You have a spirit ability in your soul… and a ring bound to the spirit in the shell!? I can’t believe it; how is that even possible?”

“Spirit ability?” He latched on to what she said, half-disappointed and half-excited that she seemed to recognize what it was.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And if what you’re saying is true, then the way you obtained it is completely unprecedented. And if it can leave the shell, that skeleton can’t be an ordinary spirit…” she noticed.

He grinned. “You’re right. It isn’t. It’s a unique.”

Her mouth dropped, and her eyes bulged.

Freddy grinned harder. “See?” he raised his hand, manifesting Gore Knuckles. “That’s how I got my blood affinity.”

She gripped her head, unable to process what he was saying. “Yup, that’s new.” But her apprehension didn’t go away. “Still, that thing isn’t bound to you in any way. If you can release it, it’s just a wild spirit. Are you really, really sure that it won’t suddenly decide to attack us?”

“It’s already saved my life before,” he said, ruffling its bony head. “I have faith that it won’t threaten me.”

“What about me?” she asked.

Freddy was about to say she had nothing to fear, but honestly… he wasn’t sure. He wanted to believe that he could tell it to behave, but it had a history of ignoring his commands if it found reason to act against them.

“Fear not, Master,” Bloodshed said as if it could read his mind. “I will never do anything against you or your allies.”

He wanted to believe it. But he could sense that a part of what it said had gone untold. Unless my life was in danger… he mused internally. If hurting Sophia meant saving him, he knew for a fact that Bloodshed would do so without hesitation.

Huh, okay, he decided, mentally shrugging. I can live with that.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. I’ve already introduced it to a friend once, and it didn’t do anything to him.”

She didn’t seem entirely convinced. But she sagged a bit anyway, cautiously approaching the two of them.

“Either way,” he said, “I introduced Bloodshed to tell you about the ability it’s attached to.” He then proceeded to explain in depth how Blood Sacrifice worked.

This time, nothing about his explanation surprised her. “That’s an outstanding spirit ability.”

“Speaking of that,” he said. “What the hell is a ‘spirit ability’?”

“Blood Sacrifice is a spirit ability,” she said, shrugging. “Although usually they’re obtained through quite different means. Have you ever heard of prime spirits?”

He frowned. “Prime what?”

“Yeah, I thought so.” She relaxed a bit as she slowly sat on the ground before him. “Spirits can swap between the Netherecho and the real world. Sometimes, if they stay in the real world for too long, they can get trapped there, turning into prime spirits. They’re similar to prime vestiges, but their shape is irregular rather than perfectly round.

“Just as you can with prime vestiges, you can accept prime spirits into your soul. Then you get a spirit ability. Essentially, they’re just abilities constructed around the different concepts related to the spirit. The biggest difference between a regular ability and a spirit ability is that they don’t cost essence to use but instead have an entirely different price.”

He scratched his chin in thought. “I’m surprised I’ve never heard of this.”

“I’d have been surprised if you had,” she said. “Not only are they rare, but only a select few are willing to use them.”

“Why?”

“Freddy,” she called his name as she looked him in the eye with a severe expression. “Your spirit ability is exceptional. Most of them have a far nastier price attached to their use.

“The most common is setting people’s stars back in progress, but I’ve heard of examples of them cutting into the lifespan, costing entire stars, severely mutilating the user upon use, and even costing the user’s life.” She let the last part sink in. “The leader of the cult I grew up in also has a spirit ability, and he only used it once. It cost him an entire arm, and nothing, not even supreme-quality healing, can grow it back out. Do you now get why Blood Sacrifice is so good?”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah.”

“And that’s not even the whole story,” she continued. “Spirit abilities are fundamentally different from regular abilities. They can’t be removed from your soul through any known means, and having a spirit ability in your soul slows your growth by 33%.”

He nearly choked.

“Oh, relax,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s more than a fair price to pay for what you’re getting in return.”

But he didn’t relax. In fact, his face looked like he’d just licked a public bathroom toilet seat. “Yeah… Uhm… What would happen if someone—hypothetically—had two spirit abilities?”

She stared at him blankly for a few moments. “Motherfucker!” she screamed. “What the hell are you!? Seriously, I’ve never heard of someone so anomalous in my entire life! You’re like the most cursed-slash-blessed person I’ve ever met! You’re, like, blursed or something.”

He snorted at that. “Is it what I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re guessing! Your growth is 66% slower! Wow, that’s really gonna suck for you later,” she said. “But now… urgh,” she groaned, blowing air through her lips. “What does the other one do?”

He briefly explained how Leviathan’s Fury worked.

“Damn!” she exclaimed. “That’s also really good. Usually, using that thing would be suicide, but with your talent…” She bit her thumbnail, looking at the ground.

“So…” he started. “What do you think? Do you think Bloodshed can⁠—”

“First, let me ask you something,” she interrupted him. “Usually, bound spirits can’t go into the Netherecho. Can Bloodshed?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

She smiled a bit, nodding excitedly. “That’s great.”

“Do you have a plan?” he asked.

“Look,” she said, getting up and stretching a bit. Suddenly, the night turned to day, marking one of the shortest nights either of them had seen in this realm. “Well, that was short. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” She raised seven fingers. “This realm has seven passages other than the one we entered through. From what I know of the cult, their plan will probably be as follows:

“First, they’re going to try to crack open every sealed passage they can, including those that were transformed into delvable realms. This will take a while, perhaps a week or so. Then they’re going to rile up the gorels, killing every queen until the rest of the workers start running around and causing mayhem. Those gorels will be used as bait for stronger monsters looking for food through the opened passages. During this whole thing, they’ll have kill-squads roaming the area and killing off the delvers.”

Freddy stared at her for a long moment. “You were raised beside some crazy motherfuckers, huh?” he asked jokingly but found no humor in his words. The way she was talking about these cultists, she was confident that they wouldn’t be stopped by a handful of delvers—most likely not even the veterans. “So… how do we fight against that?”

“We don’t,” she said. “My guess is that the strongest member here will be a three-star. By the time they’re ready to open the passages, the more powerful higher-ups will come from the outside to clear out anyone trying to stop the break. But even a three-star is way too much for us to handle, even with your spirit abilities.”

“Are they really that strong?” he asked skeptically. He wasn’t yet willing to share this, but he had killed a four-star elite with Blood Sacrifice, so he knew for a fact that it was capable of taking care of a three-star.

“Freddy, the average age at which a Child becomes a member is twenty-nine. Until then, they spend their entire life training. These are elites among elites, and fighting dirty is their primary weapon. Not only that, but they’re psychotic; any one of them is willing to sacrifice their life for the cult’s purpose.”

“So what do you suggest we do then?”

“Once they’re done with step one, we’ll enter one of the passages they open and hide there.”

“Seems easy enough.”

“We have to make it past the guards first.”

“Can we summon Bloodshed to take care of that?” Freddy suggested. “If the realm is swimming with gorels, we’ll have plenty of blood to sacrifice, no?”

“Sure, but how much blood are you confident in collecting?” she asked.

“I—” He froze. “Shit…”

“Exactly,” she said, sighing. “From what I gather, you will probably also be able to use any blood I spill as long as the two of us are fighting side by side. But even then… we’ll have to fight a never-ending swarm. This will be like the fight in the nest, but ten—if not a hundred—times worse. Theoretically, you could collect enough blood to threaten a good number of the cultists. In practice, we’re going to die in a swarm of monsters before we make it anywhere near that far.”

She was right. No matter how powerful he thought himself, he would eventually run out of essence. Even if he continued fighting without it, his body would give out.

How much blood could he collect before that point?

The last time he used Blood Sacrifice, he had a leviathan’s worth of blood available. Not only that, but that blood was far more potent than gorel blood. No matter how far he made it this time, he doubted he’d have nearly as much juice by the end.

At what point could he say that he’d collected enough? Frankly, he didn’t see himself stopping before the point of near-total exhaustion; by that point, Bloodshed would have to be powerful enough to handle the entire fight on its own.

He blew air through pursed lips and closed his eyes in contemplation. “Bloodshed,” he called the skeleton, “will you be able to fight by our side before I use Blood Sacrifice?”

Sophia perked up at that, looking at the skeleton expectantly.

The skeleton looked at Freddy for a long second. “I could do that, but I believe that will go against your plan,” it said.

“Why do you think that?”

“While I’m outside my shell, Blood Sacrifice is dormant. Any blood you spill during that time will not count toward empowering me when I’m summoned.”

“Shit!” Freddy swore, growling in frustration and scratching his neck. Given what Sophia said, they had a week until this place was swarmed. “Is there any way we can get more powerful in just a week…?”

“Well… It’s a little dangerous, but I can think of one way,” she said.

He scowled. “You want to… run into a gorel hive?”

“Hell no!” she spat. “We’re going to run across cultists there. I was thinking of something else.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You have a pet spirit,” she chirped. “I’m a one-star, and you’re a two-star. I can’t think of a better method to grow our stars but to go fight some things in the Netherecho,” she said with a sly smile.

“That’s insane,” he said. “Even with Bloodshed supporting us, we’ll have to put ourselves at risk to make any progress.”

“True, you aren’t wrong.” She grinned wryly. “But I think I have a way to make it manageable.”

37

STRATEGIES

Sweat pooled down Phillip’s brow as he clasped his hands against the cold metal doors, keeping the passage sealed. Every few seconds, a powerful impact sent tremors down his arms, and he was struggling to maintain the essence reinforcement on the metallic barrier. Thankfully, his talent allowed him to at least partially deflect the force of the impacts, but he didn’t believe he’d be able to keep it up for too long.

Behind him, Theodore was crouched next to a wounded guard. The guard, a man in his late thirties, clutched his side as it bled profusely, a massive bloody gash stretching from his navel and all the way to the back of his hip, nearly cutting his spine in half. Outside the passage, the other guard lay dead, having been bisected at the waist.

Behind them, Jacob, Rachel, and Karen stood, discussing the situation and planning their next move.

It hadn’t been even fifteen minutes since a panicked guard ran up to them to report the terrorist attack. When they heard what was happening, they rushed to the passage leading back to the gorel realm.

They arrived just in time to spot a grievously wounded guard closing the door in the second lobby as four figures wearing black cloaks stood right outside the passage, one of them launching attacks at the man.

Ever since then, Phillip had been doing his best to maintain the integrity of the door the terrorists were trying to tear down. Their attacks weren’t too powerful. But that only made the situation that much more serious.

Their enemy was methodically assaulting the barrier, reserving their energy while rhythmically wearing Phillip down with time. Jacob’s party didn’t have too long before they would be forced into a fight, and the more time passed, the worse Phillip’s condition would be as they started the assault.

Theodore poured every bit of essence into his holy affinity, drowning the severe gash in the guard’s side, trying desperately to help it seal. He cast Heal repeatedly, trying to make progress, but the situation was desperate.

The way things were looking, he would also be weakened when they started the fight.

Every affinity that had access to healing spells healed differently. Water could prevent, or even entirely stop bleeding, and it could significantly accelerate long-term natural recovery.

Life could grow tissue back and fuse it together, even reaching a supernatural healing quality at the upper end of power—in some cases, supreme quality, but that could only be self-directed.

Nature drastically sped up natural recovery, cutting weeks of progress to mere minutes.

The holy affinity was special. The healing quality was entirely stuck at supernatural, from the weakest spells to the strongest, but most of the effect was focused on purging foreign essence from the target’s body. The man’s wound was already pure—and supernatural-quality healing was expensive. Not to mention that Theodore was newly ascended, making all his holy spells stage zero.

Thankfully, they had plenty of healing resources at hand, lessening the burden on their support.

After a few minutes, Theodore dropped down, pulled a handkerchief out of his storage ring, and wiped his sweaty forehead. “He’ll live,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t keep this up if you want me to help in the fight.”

“You did well,” Jacob said. “What’s your name?” he asked the wounded man.

“I’m…” He winced at the pain as he spoke. “My name’s James.”

“What’s your talent and affinities?”

“I… I have enhanced strength,” the man said. “And my affinity is air.”

Jacob sighed. “Close your eyes and rest,” he told the man, deducing that the guard wouldn’t be of any help against their enemy, not in his current state.

“Thank you, sir,” the man said as if he’d been waiting for permission, and he promptly passed out.

“So!” Jacob shouted, clapping his hands together. “Do we let the nerd pass out from exhaustion or fight back immediately?”

“I can buy you ten more minutes,” Phillip said, gritting his teeth. “I think we need at least that much for Theo to recover.”

“Make that five,” said Theodore as he popped a pill. “I’ll be deadweight if you can’t protect me. I have enough essence for a Holy Blessing to get you back up to speed.”

“I’d appreciate that, but…” Phillip shifted his legs, bracing himself harder against the next attack. “Save that for Jacob,” he said. “I’d rather take a hit than⁠—”

“No,” Jacob said, denying him. “Give the blessing to Karen.”

“What?” shouted Rachel, seemingly insulted at the suggestion. “Uhm… I’m sorry, but like…” She looked at the curly-haired woman, glancing at the saber at her waist. “No offense, by the way, but, uh…” She turned back to Santorio. “She’s new to the team. I trust you with the blessing more than I do her.”

“Rachel…” Jacob sighed. “Do me a favor and shut the fuck up.” He massaged his neck, relieving some tension. “She’s both more skilled and powerful than I am,” he admitted. “Besides, I think I have a good plan for what to do.”

Everyone in the room focused on him.

For all the man’s shortcomings, Jacob was an excellent strategist. The man was a born leader, and even though he was a colossal prick, he never let his nasty personality or pride put his party in danger.

First, he asked Theodore for an assessment of their enemy. Even though they had seen their opponents briefly, Theodore had collected an impressive amount of information. “Four were visible, but the way they were positioned indicated the presence of a secondary ranged attacker, likely hidden somewhere in the canopy,” he deduced.

“Their aura,” he continued, “was a deep red—they’re experts, all peak two-stars. Judging by the distribution of weaknesses, I spotted one person with Hundred Wet Hells, one with Stone Skin and possibly Metallic Bones, and a third had all their major arteries muted, likely indicating the blood affinity. The essence in the wound I healed was of blood affinity, and the attack most likely came from that individual.

“Judging from what I’ve seen, one has the water affinity, no visible weapons, likely an unarmed martial artist; another has earth and metal, probably their tanker; a third has the blood affinity with Crimson Mercury, possibly a ranged attacker. I don’t know about the hidden person, but the fourth had no visible irregularities in the pattern of weaknesses, marking a lack of notable defensive tempering techniques or talent.” He took a deep breath and squinted his eyes. “They’re all wearing the same clothing, making differentiation difficult, but I remember their respective builds. I’ll mark them blue, brown, and red for the first three and purple for the untempered one.”

“Thanks for the run-down,” Jacob said, turning to the others. “We don’t know the full scope of this attack, but I think it’s safe to assume that they most likely know who we are and what we can do.”

Everyone nodded at that.

“With that in mind,” their leader continued, “they likely know plenty about our style and party composition. Rachel, Phillip, and I had been together for a while already, and we cooperated with enough other parties that a leak can be confidently accounted for. However…” He turned to face Karen. “She’s new to the party. And so is Theodore. The two of them are wild cards to our enemy, and it would be wise to center our strategy around their skillset.”

Jacob swiftly detailed a loose strategy for their approach. There wasn’t enough time to hammer out a detailed plan, and the more time they spent discussing it, the more exhausted Phillip became. After less than a minute of talking, they got into position.

“Everyone ready!?” Jacob asked.

“Yes!” the others chanted in unison.

“Phillip!” he shouted. “Fall back!”

The armored man jumped aside, clearing Jacob’s path.

With a severe expression on his face, Jacob rushed forth and slammed a Tectonic Strike at the metal door, and immediately after, a thick shard of blood fired straight at his head, but he leaned to the side, avoiding the attack.

As soon as he created a clear line of sight, Rachel vanished into his shadow and out into the woods, and Phillip raised his shield and defended Theodore, who proceeded to fire several high-speed, nearly undodgeable lasers at their opponents. The blasts of light did no damage, but they left clear marks on their opponents, allowing them to quickly identify the attackers.

When he was done marking their foes, Theodore raised his arm and placed it on Karen’s back. With a burst of holy essence, a faint light enveloped the woman.

Karen rushed forward, bursting past Jacob and into the opening like a cannonball as she swung a powerful attack at the man marked in brown, who proceeded to defend himself rather skillfully, orienting his body in a way that would easily deflect most attacks. Unfortunately for him, Karen’s talent—Sword Saint—wasn’t something that made her attacks easy to deflect.

The man’s arms were cleaved right through with close to no effort, and his entire face was chopped clean off, starting from right under his jawline and ending right above his forehead, allowing the man’s brains and blood to scatter through the forest. Karen appeared to flinch at the sight, but she recovered her composure immediately afterward.

Jacob threw a fireball beneath the feet of the mysterious attacker marked purple and rushed at the one marked with a blue patch. His talent excelled at destroying defensive opponents, and he expected his target to fall apart into pieces as soon as he landed an attack on him.

But the momentum of their assault had fizzled out, and their opponents had finally reoriented themselves.

Several thick vines wrapped around Jacob’s leg, and he cussed at the thorns tearing into his calves. “Shit!” he yelled as his attack lost most of its momentum, but he extended it anyway, doing his best to start his confrontation off with an upper hand.

Just as his fist was about to reach, his opponent vanished into thin air.

As a well-timed Flowing Strike slammed into the back of Jacob’s head, he realized that his opponent had an instant teleportation talent. The world swam before his eyes, but he wasn’t so weak as to fall from something as small as this.

Before his opponent could pull his leg back, Jacob grabbed it and swung the man down, but the figure contorted their body in a way that allowed him to wrestle his leg free from Jacob’s grasp and land a powerful punch straight into his midsection, just in time for the figure to teleport again, slamming a mighty kick into the back of his knee while a sharp shard of blood embedded itself deeply into Jacob’s cheek, cracking a tooth.

He spotted a fifth, unmarked figure fall from a nearby branch wrestling with Rachel, who kept her thighs wrapped tightly around their head as she stabbed away at the cloaked attacker’s stomach. This only occupied his attention for a fraction of a second, and, predicting an attack to the right of his head, where the shard of blood was waiting to be embedded deeper into his skull, he raised an arm to defend himself.

Unfortunately, his opponent seemed to have predicted this possibility and had attacked his side instead, which was now entirely exposed.

Karen rushed at the blood caster, flicking their projectiles out of the air as she inched closer. The purple-marked figure suddenly flew out of the mass of fire Jacob had created, covered in a thin sheet of water protecting their body from the heat. As soon as the attacker made their way past the fire barrier, they launched a rain of ice shards at such speed that even Karen took several blows to her torso before she could defend herself, allowing an opening for the blood caster to pin her leg to the ground with a blood javelin.

The Black woman pulled her leg back with cold efficiency, allowing the javelin to mangle her calf as she balanced on the other foot and cleaved right through the massive boulder of ice flying at her, but just as the two pieces of ice fell to her side, a bloody projectile shot at her neck, only allowing her enough room to stop it from piercing her throat or cutting her jugular vein.

Jacob wanted to finish his fight and step in to help Karen as soon as possible, but his opponent was proving too effective against him.

While Shatterstrike was excellent against heavily defended foes, it was powerless when he couldn’t land a direct attack. He cursed the shortcoming of his talent as he took another blow to his other side and a kick straight to his face, one that broke his nose and sent blood flying into the air as the world spun before his eyes.

Suddenly, Jacob raised a leg and slammed the ground with a Tectonic Strike, lighting up both his stars. The attack split the ground beneath him, shifting his opponent’s footing for a second.

The cloaked man was going to teleport. Jacob’s mind whirled as his eyes shot wide open. His mind rushed as he contemplated the possibilities. Where would his opponent go? Would he move behind him as he had several times already? Would the man fall back, creating distance between them to disengage? Soon enough, he realized that it didn’t matter.

His face contorted, widening into a manic grin as he ignited an explosion beneath his left foot. The man teleported somewhere, likely expecting an attack, but Jacob flew to the side, instead launching himself toward Karen. The skin on his foot was burned, and his leg was wrought in agony, but he grinned nonetheless as his massive body flew forward.

Karen seemed to sense his approach, and as he neared, he shouted, “Out of my way!” And the woman complied.

He barreled at the blood caster, turning his back as he got into position to slam into them. The blood caster conjured a shield of bloody spikes, but that was useless. 156 kilograms of muscle, tempered with Hundred Wet Hells and Stone Skin and empowered with Tectonic Strike and Shatterstrike, broke through the spikes like a thin sheet of glass. As the force of his form slammed into the cloaked figure, their body exploded into a shower of bloody pieces, fracturing like a statue of glass.

The ice caster didn’t hesitate, preparing to execute him on the spot, but a brief flash of light blinded them at the right moment, allowing Jacob to throw a quick fireball at their legs. The figure screamed in a woman’s voice as Karen dashed at her, propelling herself on a single foot as a flawless saber swing decapitated her opponent.

The water-affinity martial artist was the only person left standing, and seeing his comrades defeated, he turned around to run.

A second later, a Piercing Beam fired from Theodore’s palm, but the man dodged with insane reflexes, teleporting forward before the ability could touch him. But just as he reappeared a mere three meters away, Rachel, bathed in blood from head to toe, rose from his shadow.

From her left arm, a thick chain of darkness appeared and whipped around the man’s neck, and she pulled back with all her strength as she punched a katar of blood right into his back, penetrating through his rigid body just deeply enough to reach his heart.

The man broke the chain with a Flowing Strike punch and teleported forward again, but a few seconds later, his steps slowed as he tumbled to the ground, dead.

A deathly silence descended upon them, but nobody dropped their guard.

Jacob and Karen had suffered debilitating injuries.

Rachel had lost tons of blood, but her blood affinity ensured she had plenty to spare. Most of her skin had been lacerated by thorns from her confrontation with the figure hiding in the trees. “Fuck me,” she said. “Who the hell were these freaks!?”

Jacob took a deep breath.

Theodore tumbled forward, looking quite exhausted. The man had consumed a lot of essence. Usually, this wouldn’t leave someone in such a condition. But the holy affinity was different. Both the light and holy affinities came with massive strengths and weaknesses.

As for the holy affinity, it had, by far, the most tremendous backlash among all common affinities. Using Holy Blessing twice in a single day and healing that guard had wrecked his body, and the quick and dirty method through which he replenished his essence wasn’t helping either.

Jacob pushed himself off the ground, wincing at the numerous bruises scattered around his body. “We’re in no state to go anywhere,” he said. “Go back into the intermediate realm lobby. Phillip, wall the passage off as best as you can…

“I have a feeling we have a lot more work to do.”

Latent aura was the most critical resource for securing long-term growth. The best way to acquire more latent aura was to embrace risk. However, not all risk was equal. And not all risk mattered the same.

For example, fighting a more powerful opponent was excellent. On the other hand, fighting an opponent of the same or similar power while there was a risk that a more powerful opponent might appear… wasn’t particularly impactful.

Uncontrollable and unpredictable outside variables didn’t matter because they were no indicator of skill or good decision-making—they were entirely dependent on pure luck.

The Netherecho in the interspace was an excellent example of such an environment. There was constantly a risk that a powerful remnant or spirit would just pop up out of nowhere and obliterate an archhuman’s projection, and, often enough, they could attack from entirely outside their range of view, making reacting to the threat almost impossible.

Or, even worse, the threat could simply pop out of the ground. Sentient ether constructs could move through obstacles in the Netherecho.

Freddy had often used Bloodshed to help in the Netherecho, but it had never been an exceptionally reliable way to grow his star.

Well… not until Sophia came in.

He didn’t necessarily feel stupid for failing to recognize Bloodshed’s utility, but damn was he humbled by Sophia’s wisdom.

Their projections stood side by side, his blue reaper holding a massive scythe as her projection took the form of a… princess? It was a small, doll-like projection wearing a fluffy pink dress, and her golden hair draped over one eye, covering it entirely, while her second eye was a massive, crazed orb of purple with small veins along the edges.

And her soul construct… while his was quite peculiar, hers was beyond bizarre. She had four fleshy tentacles growing out of her back—two hung above her shoulders while the other pair went around her waist, almost looking like freaky spider legs.

These tentacles could stretch far and exhibit quite a bit of power. Their unique ability was Bind. If she used it, all four tentacles would wrap around her target, making them an excellent way to restrain foes.

The two of them looked on as Bloodshed pummeled the head of what looked like a friendly earthen bear as it begged for mercy.

The plan was simple—the spirit would scout the Netherecho in the immediate area, making sure that no threats were lurking nearby. Then it would drag a remnant over to them, placing it in the middle of an improvised arena. It would assault the remnant long enough to reveal how it fought and to show if it had any special ways to attack.

This way, both outside interference and hidden powers were utterly ruled out of the equation, making their confrontation with the remnant a function of pure skill and strategy.

It was such a simple yet brilliant way to accumulate latent aura. It irked him, but he had to admit that she knew what she was doing. Granted, it was still quite dangerous, but with Bloodshed nearby, the odds of either of them dying to their foe were much lower than they would be otherwise. That did impact the reward in latent aura, but not enough to justify going against such creatures without insurance.

As Bloodshed finished the scouting and cleaning, it dragged forth their first opponent. It was a massive, hunched figure of black, flaky skin, taking the form of a dog-like creature that stood on two legs. Both its jaws and claws were a forest of sharp, fragmented spikes, and its wild attacks could even lightly damage Bloodshed itself.

Freddy winced. “By the way,” he started, facing Sophia’s projection. “How long do you think we should go at this?”

Her mouth widened into a creepy, wicked, toothy grin. “As far as it can take us, of course. Now, let’s begin.”

38

READY OR NOT

Leonard Santorio—Jacob Santorio’s father and the leader of Santorio Enterprises—looked down across Nova York as he puffed a large cigar.

Despite his perfect skin with zero signs of aging or blemishes, his thick white beard, bulky build, and bushy pale hair gave off the impression of old age. It was hard to tell how old an archhuman was purely by their physical looks, but for Leonard, it was almost as if his evolutions had been subtly guided by how he felt on the inside—old, jaded… tired.

Past his prime.

And even then, with his stage 4 Boundless Vitality tempering technique, he was in as good a health as a person could be. The thin, almost unnoticeable stream of supreme-quality healing that his cells generated acted slowly, but for him, who had lived for nearly 250 years, it had had plenty of time to purge him of all ailments, undoing the damage the world and time alike had done to his body.

He pulled on the cigar, filling not only his mouth but even his lungs, having developed practically absolute resistance to the thick cigar smoke over the years. Then he blew out a massive cloud. The misty mass roiled before him, taking on the shape of two dogs humping in the air.

He chuckled. How silly. How peaceful.

This was it—the thing he wanted to see. These goofy little creations, small acts of joyful vanity, were so much more pleasant than the horrors man was ready to commit when things got bad.

As the animated cloud dissipated into blurry shapes, his vision’s focus gradually swapped again to the city below. It was so different nowadays. So unfamiliar.

He still remembered the day the world went wrong. The sensation of something profound subtly shifting, and a moment later, the image of his car engine exploding, sending the hood flying into the air as the car swerved into a family of four, killing all of them in an instant.

Naturally, that hadn’t been his fault. But he, the proud, haughty businessman who loved his car more than he did his wife of then, now no longer even remembered what brand the car had been. All he remembered was the image of the woman who had tried to save her child, now broken and bloody, as the vehicle pressed her limp body up against the wall.

It was hard to place what he felt as he remembered that image. It wasn’t guilt, not quite. The memory often flashed through his mind, not because it had traumatized him, but perhaps because he’d at one point envied that tragic family who were spared the brutality of the early post-Rift era.

Yet again, his gaze scouted the buildings below. This was no longer New York. It hadn’t been for a long time. The architecture was different, with few buildings that had lived through the hellish war that took place on those streets. How cheerfully the new residents walked upon what had once been rivers of blood, with stray monsters walking around, either having come from portals to another world or having been born in the hearts of those who were driven to madness.

As he stared across the world, with the horizon extending far further now than it had two hundred years ago, he felt in no rush to do anything. With immortality and his fourth star progress stuck at 99%, he was free to peruse through life leisurely, taking all the time he needed to enjoy the little things, like cigars whose smoke morphed into the image of animals having sex.

But he knew better than to grow complacent. Many times, he had decided to relax as the world finally seemed to settle in one place. Every single time, he realized that those early days of struggle had never ended. They sometimes just decided to take a break.

Suddenly, the doors on the other side of his office burst open. His face darkened, and his stomach sank. Only 6 minutes and 51 seconds of his 10-minute break had passed. The only reason the break was ever interrupted was for a dire emergency.

He slowly turned around, facing his assistant, a young, nerdy woman who looked frazzled as she rushed to explain what was happening.

He kept his calm as he heard her out. “A terrorist attack, you say?” he asked in his deep, raspy voice, sighing in disappointment. For a moment, Leonard turned around to look across the city, his jolly mood collapsing.

Indeed.

Those dark days had never truly ended.

And they likely never would.

The strategy Sophia had come up with worked well enough. Freddy hadn’t gathered enough ether to realize the progress that had been made easier for him, but he could tell that the tight bottleneck that had slowed his growth to a crawl was loosening with every remnant they defeated, and… every time he nearly died.

“Fuck!” he shouted as the demonic sunflower remnant grasped his projection’s leg with its root and pulled it back, opening its orange flower bud face, which was just a circular maw of serrated teeth.

Sophia’s tentacle soul construct rushed in, pulling him back while they both screamed for Bloodshed’s help. The bloody skeleton rushed in immediately, clawing the roots apart and tearing the remnant’s head off with the other clawed hand.

“Shit! Fuck!” Freddy screamed again as he felt his projection unraveling. The pain being inflicted upon his soul felt piercingly cold, echoing through his senses with the promise of eternal darkness.

Sophia used her tentacles to gather the small pile of water wisps they had collected to the side, and then she pushed the ball at him. He absorbed it, mending himself back together, but this being the third time he needed such treatment, his projection didn’t heal fully, leaving a deep crack across his robes, starting from his chest and going down his leg.

“Okay, get out!” Sophia shouted.

“I’m fine!” said Freddy. “We can keep⁠—”

“No the hell we can’t! Out, out, out! Right now!”

“Master,” Bloodshed said. “Perhaps you should heed her advice and leave the Netherecho for the time being.”

Hearing the bloody remnant taking Sophia’s side was sobering, and Freddy nodded absent-mindedly, heading to his body and sinking back inside.

His eyes opened, greeting the beige, stony cavern wall in the small nook they had hidden in so they could safely leave their bodies unattended.

The crack across his projection was a crack along his soul. His body was there, and he was attached to it, but there was a slight disconnect. It was as if the world around him was slightly less substantial, and everything from light to sound echoed in his senses, blurring his surroundings and muting the noises around him.

Sophia rose up a second later. Her hands ran across her face as she sucked air through her teeth, clearly frustrated. “Freddy,” she called. “This can’t continue.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “The crack is gonna heal by itself. I’m not gonna⁠—”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“Get off my spine, woman,” he demanded. “Give me some time; I’m new to fighting remnants like this, and I can’t do it perfectly within just a few attempts. Not all of us were raised to become killing machines, you know?”

“Okay, wow, rude!” she yelled back. “But that’s not what I meant either!”

“Then what do you want?”

“You can’t fight!” she asserted.

“I know that!” he said. “I told you, give me some time, and I’m gonna⁠—”

“No!” she interrupted him.

“Give me some time,” he repeated. “I’m listening to your advice, and I’m gonna get better.”

She shook her head. “You will improve in the Netherecho, but we won’t fight the cultists with our projections.”

He knew she was right. That was only their fifth fight, and in three out of five, he had gotten himself lethally injured. Even if he got the hang of it in the Netherecho, his lack of skill with his projection wasn’t the problem—it was the symptom. He simply didn’t understand how combat worked. His general approach was reacting to things as they came and retaliating with overwhelming force, but that was primitive at best.

He heaved the most frustrated sigh of his life as he aggressively rubbed his face, pushed his palms’ heel into his eyes, and then moved his hands to grip his hair. “I know, but what can I do about it?” he asked. “We have a week, Sophia. I don’t have the time to learn anything. We should focus on increasing our power as much as possible.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, “on both ends.” Then she sighed and got up. “Follow me outside.”

He did, and moments later, they pushed past the small blockade they had built to shelter themselves and stepped outside under the searing sun and fake blue sky.

He could swear that the sun sounded like a mosquito buzzing in his ear. His finger aggressively picked at his left ear, but the noise didn’t go away.

It was a lonely corner they found themselves in, but as far as the standards of interspace were concerned, it was a pretty safe one. There was little vegetation, and due to the border of the small realm, there wasn’t enough space underground for gorels to build hives nearby. Those who had tried had been stopped by active interference by the staff.

They stood on an empty clearing, nothing but dry, pale soil beneath their feet, with a wall of stone on either side of the outer perimeter, which took the form of a cleared ring of soil, creating some space between the rocky, forested wilderness and the sheer cliff of the border wall, behind which lay literally nothing.

They faced each other, Sophia’s expression stern. “Take your clothes off,” she said. “Leave nothing but your underwear on.”

He blushed. “What!? Why would I⁠—”

“It’s nothing like that, you dunce,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t see your muscles.”

“I don’t know, Sophia,” he said, taking a mock step back. “Sounds pretty weird to me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just do it.”

He gave a cheeky chuckle as he complied, removing his armor until nothing but his thick, gleaming muscles remained. His skin was perfect, and his physique was so chiseled he looked like an idealized version of what a muscular man should look like.

Frankly, he had half-expected her to blush at least a little upon seeing his impressive body, but her eyes were cold, and her expression was clinical and calculating. She tapped her chin. “Turn around,” she demanded.

He complied.

“You have a pretty decent build,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied arrogantly, knowing well enough just how much work he’d put into acquiring it as he turned back to face her.

“But you’re not well-balanced,” she stated.

His mood soured a bit as he raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“Well, first of all,” she started as she bent over and slapped his leg, “your quads and hamstrings are pretty big, while your calves are a bit small in comparison. This isn’t your fault; it’s genetic, but it does make your lower body a bit imbalanced. Also, your chest”—she got up to slap his left pec—“is huge.”

“Thanks, but can you stop slapping my body?”

“No,” she denied, grinning wryly as she slapped his right pec, too. “Overall, you’ve trained your physique quite well. Your talent has saved you from developing imbalances; purely strength-wise, you have quite the hardware. But this isn’t going to cut it for martial arts.”

He frowned, honestly feeling slightly insulted. “Why?”

“For starters, you’re super top-front-heavy,” she said, pointing at his broad shoulders and thick pectoralis. Then, bringing her arms together, she lowered them to his skinny waist. “Let me ask you a question: Do you feel stable when you’re fighting?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Like… How often do you feel like your enemies are knocking or pushing you around?”

He winced. “Pretty often, I’d say. But I thought that was my fault.”

“It is,” she said. “But your body isn’t doing you any favors.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Train my calves until I balance it out?” He sighed in frustration. “Eat until I get fatter?”

She chuckled. “Obviously not. We have a much better option,” she said, grinning at him. She raised her hand, and the skin on her palm bubbled slightly as pink mist seeped out. It was life essence.

He frowned, not following. “What are you gonna do with that?”

She looked at him side-long, almost as if she were disappointed that he couldn’t tell. “I’m a life-affinity arch, duh!” she said. “I can manipulate living matter like clay.”

“And?”

“And… I’m gonna reshape your body.”

Freddy scowled. “Hell no!” he said, stepping back.

She was right about what she said, but her proposal was crazy. He had read about it in a book once. Clinics existed where people could have their bodies reshaped and their muscles, joints, and even bones readjusted. One small problem, however—this wasn’t particularly helpful for someone who fought for a living.

These procedures were almost purely cosmetic. The readjusted parts had numerous nerve endings irreparably damaged, the reshaped joints grew stiffer, bones more brittle, and the bulk of any “extra” mass added would be incredibly weak, more akin to fake muscle than truly functional tissue.

But…

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sophia said. “But you do remember the main advantage the two of us share?” she asked him.

“I do,” he said, knowing damn well that an infinite supply of supreme-quality healing could ameliorate many of those problems. “But that doesn’t fix everything,” he said. “My healing can’t heal weakness.” He adopted a grim expression. “If my muscle is reshaped, it will cost me much of my hard-earned power. Also, the nerve endings might grow back, but that doesn’t mean they will work perfectly right from the get-go.”

“You aren’t wrong,” she said. “But we might have a few options to address those issues. First, let me ask you something: Do you have any steroids in that storage ring of yours?”

He opened his mouth for a moment but then closed it. He did, but… “I do,” he answered cautiously, “but I’ve never tried them. It’s possible that they’re gonna kill me if I take even a single dose.”

“Damn,” she said, her eyebrows raising slightly as he said that. “Aren’t you forgetting about your undead body?”

He shook his head. “It could affect my brain.”

“If it does,” she started, “there’s always the option of me burning a spark to heal you before it does any permanent damage.”

That did eliminate the most significant risk, but he was still apprehensive.

“Look,” she said, sighing deeply. “I’ve seen you fight, and it’s honestly a pretty critical situation. You said it yourself—we only have a week. I can’t teach you how to become a master in the time we have, but if we’re willing to take a few chances, we can get you in better shape.” She crossed her arms and got closer, looking up at him.

“I don’t get it,” he started. “What exactly does reshaping my body have to do with my combat knowledge?”

“A lot more than you’d think,” she said. “A poorly balanced form makes everything more complicated. Archery is easier with a straight arrow. Swordsmanship is easier with a balanced blade. The same thing applies to martial arts.”

He looked down at himself with a slight hint of shame. “Is my body really that suboptimal?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” she confirmed without hesitation.

He winced.

“Look, I know how they fight,” Sophia said, lowering her head slightly. “Even if we bring you to 99% capacity, it will be no use if you suck using the power you have. Honestly, the way you are right now, the only way you can even dream of taking one of them down is by using Leviathan’s Fury.”

He took a deep breath. “Are you sure you won’t cripple me?” he asked. “I’m trusting you with a lot if I agree to this.”

“I’m sure that, at the very least, I won’t make things any worse than they already are.”

“And what about my equipment?” he asked, eyeing the pile of gear on the floor nearby. “If you reshape my body, it’s not gonna fit anymore.”

“Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That shitty gear barely provides any protection to begin with,” she claimed. “You have Hundred Wet Hells, right?”

He nodded. Technically, it was Thousand Wet Hells, but yes, he had the tempering technique.

“Compared to that,” she continued, “this armor is nothing.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong.” He walked over, bent down, and picked up a bracer. “This stuff isn’t top of the line, but put together, it provides defense against things I’m not naturally resistant to,” he claimed. “Hundred Wet Hells is mostly internal. It’s only effective against blunt force and partially effective against cutting and piercing.”

“No, Freddy, you’re wrong,” she said. “I know where you’re coming from, but if the cultists come at you with poison, acid, or fire, they’ll use the type of stuff this cheap gear won’t be able to stand up to.”

That was something he couldn’t argue against.

“Okay, I get it,” he said, getting back up and dropping the bracer. “I’ll leave it behind.” He met her stare for a long moment and then sighed. “Fine,” he surrendered. “Let’s get started, then. Need me to lay down?”

“Just one thing,” she said. “This is going to be incredibly painful.” She paused for a few moments to let the severity of the situation sink in. “I’m going to be reshaping your body, and my essence control isn’t nearly delicate enough to stop me from tearing your nerves apart. Are you sure you can handle that?”

“I endured torture for months on end, Sophia,” he said, reminding her of his story. “If there is any one thing I can tolerate, it’s pain.”

39

FUCK GENETICS

Freddy had come into this whole ordeal expecting to cruise through the pain quite easily. By anyone’s standard, his reaction to having his nerves scrambled, muscle tissue molded, and bones rearranged was tame, but he was surprised by how difficult it was to endure.

He’d compare the pain to a slightly less painful version of Thousand Wet Hells. But that wasn’t the main reason why it was hard to tolerate. Thousand Wet Hells was equally spread throughout his entire body, which somehow made it easier to handle. It overwhelmed his mind in a way that made the pain grow muted quite quickly, with only the first few moments being the truly difficult-to-overcome part.

The primary issue with what Sophia was doing was that it was localized. It was painful, but not enough to completely overwhelm him. It was a type of suffering that evaded the ability to acquire tolerance for it.

Still, the tiny jolts and occasional winces were barely even a reaction to what he was living through.

And Sophia clearly knew it. “I’m… I’m sorry,” she said at one point.

“For what?” he asked, sucking air as he winced.

“When you told me about your past… I thought you were exaggerating,” she confessed. “I’ve… I’ve witnessed this procedure being done to someone, and… yeah… you’re tolerating it quite well.”

“I’m surprised. Just how much crap do they show the—ow!” he yelped. “—the people in the cult? Was this where you got the idea to do this?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, squeezing his calf with her thumb and finger to pull it down slightly. “Children are taught about everything, pretty much,” she stated. “The cult prizes information and knowledge above all else.”

“If anything, they got that right.”

She nodded. “Anyway, the last time I saw this procedure, it was done to one of the toughest people I knew.” She chuckled. “And he was screaming so bad they had to gag him.”

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why didn’t they knock him out?”

She glanced at him momentarily, as if waiting for him to figure it out.

“Oh, yeah.” He suddenly remembered what she was hinting at. That wouldn’t be possible since the only reason she could even do this to him was because he was giving his consent.

The soul passively interfered with any essence that tried flowing into the body; thus, trying to forcefully inject it was a challenge. If that weren’t the case, the mere touch of someone with the life affinity would be lethal.

For the next several hours, Sophia worked tirelessly on fixing the parts of his body that she found suboptimal. Every time she ran out of essence, she dove into the Netherecho, where Bloodshed usually awaited with a few vestiges it had hunted down. She would then kill those vestiges to replenish part of her essence and then continue the procedure.

Every time she did this, Freddy would spend his time stabbing his spark of undeath to continue healing.

Never in his life, up until that point, had he witnessed his talent be so ineffective. But that made sense. It would take quite the monstrous essence control and knowledge of human anatomy to scramble someone’s cells like this without causing total carnage.

Sophia could relatively easily create the desired form, but as a consequence, she left behind a total mess of mangled tissue.

Thankfully, his talent successfully healed him into perfect shape, but only if she worked her magic symmetrically. She had tried altering only one side of his body, but that resulted in his healing reverting the changes to mirror his healthy side. It was a fascinating process, and surprisingly, despite the copious reading he’d done on the subject, it was a phenomenon he’d never seen mentioned anywhere.

Once they got into the swing of things, the procedure went smoothly.

Emboldened, Sophia worked on implementing more drastic changes: fatter, denser bones, thicker skin, tougher tendons, sturdier, more spread-out veins. She was even confident that, once she became more capable, she could reform his nervous system to enhance his mind-body connection, but alas, as she was, she could do no such thing.

She modified every single tendon insertion she could, drastically increasing the leverage his muscles had on his bones.

Both his hips and shoulders were widened, and his overall bone structure was altered.

If some muscles were too big, she cut them down, and if some were too small, either limited by his genetics or lack of focus during exercise, she made them more prominent.

According to her, there was no such thing as the perfect height for martial arts, so she kept it as it was.

By the end, their work had resulted in more changes than anticipated.

Freddy pulled out the machete and observed his body reflected in the metallic blade. He had to admit, the difference was immense.

His whole form looked more full and intimidating, with rippling, clean muscles and veins as thick as roots and plentiful as cobwebs covering his skin. The once uneven six-pack was now a polished ten-pack. He didn’t even know that a ten-pack was possible. Where there used to be a wide gap in the middle of his chest was now a tight line drawing the separation between his nearly square pecs.

His neck was slightly shorter and as thick as a tree trunk; his feet, hands, ankles, and wrists were more prominent, and just from how he stood, he could tell that his entire form was far more stable. He looked firm yet agile. Strong yet dextrous. Deadly.

“Well,” he said, unable to restrain himself from chuckling. “Fuck genetics, I guess.” He marveled at his form. “Do we even need the steroids with a change like this?”

Sophia wiped the waterfall of sweat pouring down her brow. Her exhaustion was evident, and she struggled to speak through her tightening throat. “Check the…” she whispered between heavy breaths. “Just… try running around a bit, and let me know how you feel.”

He nodded and did exactly that.

Instantly, he noticed that something was off. Very, very off.

It was as if all his acquired muscle memory had become thoroughly useless. He moved less like a person and more like a puppet on strings. It was impossible to even walk straight. “What the fuck!?” he shouted as he toppled to the ground. “What the hell is happening to me?”

She smirked. “Did you expect a new body… to be easy to use?” she asked rhetorically. “You’ve spent your whole life in the old shape… it’s only natural that you won’t be used to it. Never mind that.” She took a deep breath, coughing a bit. “You’ll get used to it soon. I need you to tell me how you feel after that.”

He swallowed a lump and nodded. For the next half hour, Sophia just focused on meditating. Her whole body was filled to the brim with rampant life essence from overusing her manipulation, and she had to settle herself and let it gradually evaporate.

In that short time, Freddy nearly suffered a panic attack thrice. Feeling like a stranger in his own body was profoundly uncomfortable, and it was almost as if a phantom image of his old form kept overlapping with the new physique he had to master.

But, as he kept fumbling, falling over, and getting up, that old image updated, and his body began listening to him. Slowly, he went from wildly swinging his limbs around to moving like a drunkard trying to swat a fly out of the air, and minutes later, although still quite slow, he could move relatively normally.

Reaching that point was a relief, but it was a short-lived one. It didn’t take long to realize what Sophia was aiming at. “I get it,” he said, sighing. “The muscles that were reduced in size are mostly working fine, but I can tell that the ones that were made bigger are much weaker now.” He shared what he felt. “On top of that, every muscle that was altered in shape feels kind of loose, as if parts of it are softer than others.”

“Figures,” Sophia said as she opened her eyes and breathed out. “Also, although you probably can’t tell, the altered parts of your bones are more brittle now. But both issues can be fixed with some training and steroids.”

He looked at her with a conflicted expression. “Won’t they ruin the balance again?” he asked. “You know, if my muscles grow and all that?”

“The balance is fine,” she said, finally blinking the dazed look in her eyes away. “Your muscles will grow evenly, and I’ve made you a bit smaller overall, so there is space for more tissue that won’t cause any trouble.” She walked over to him, inspecting his form. “Although now I’m starting to think that even if the steroids cause a problem, your talent will probably make it go away.”

“You think?” he asked.

“For sure,” she answered confidently. “While it doesn’t passively improve your body, it does remove any imperfections that are introduced.”

That was, in theory, exactly how supreme-quality healing worked. But… neither of them had ever heard of anyone having access to this much supreme-quality healing, so it was no surprise that the theory had never been confirmed.

“Damn,” he said, spitting on the ground nearby. “And all this time I’ve been afraid of using steroids from fear of it making me too big.”

“That can still happen if you overdo it,” she interjected. “The healing quality doesn’t know what’s good for fighting. It only tackles the changes that directly hinder natural function. Basically, if you keep it reasonable, you’ll be fine.”

“Duly noted,” he said, trying to salute her but hitting himself square in the eye instead. “Ow, fuck!”

Sophia giggled, finally straightening her posture. “All right.” She clapped her hands. “Now we go to the next step,” she said as she kicked him in the stomach, pushing him over to the ground.

“You fucking—” He groaned as he got back up. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

“Feel free to hit me back. I won’t get mad, I promise,” she teased with a sneer. “If you can, that is.”

“Challenge accepted,” he said as he lunged at her⁠—

And immediately tripped, falling face-first to the ground.

Jacob stepped forth, walking back to the central passage with his party following behind him.

They had all suffered quite drastic injuries and, after half a day of recovery, were doing well enough to return. Their condition was far from perfect, but they were ready to fight again.

Theodore ignored a throbbing headache as he continuously used his ocular ability to scout the area around them.

His vision zoomed in on details, and the contrast between different colors in his vision was as stark as the difference between night and day. If there was a camouflaged figure, his talent would spot their aura, but if traps were placed anywhere on the path, he had to spot them manually.

When they set off on their trip back to the lobby, they had hoped that the attack against their party was a one-off deal, a kill-squad sent to kneecap their team or to slaughter them altogether. But as they approached their target, those hopes became fainter by the second.

Nobody was there. They had made their way through several quite popular zones, and not seeing anyone walking down these paths was highly unusual.

The sickening notion that more of those assassins were running around and assaulting everyone settled in their gut, and Jacob’s entire body was swimming in sweat.

It would be horrible news for his family if that were the case.

Most of his family members still living in this district were non-combat archhumans, with talented warriors mostly being sent off to work elsewhere or going off on their own.

As much as he hated his father sometimes, Jacob knew that the old man had the best interest of his children at heart and always gave them the right to choose what they wanted to do with their lives.

Jacob was one of the rare few who actually cared enough about his family to voluntarily stick around and establish himself locally. Few saw merit in doing that since Leonard would probably live forever, so it wasn’t like someone would take the family business over any time soon.

In any case, a terrorist attack on this scale would suck for everyone. Starting from legal issues to financial trouble to reputation, they would take a massive hit depending on the scale.

Thankfully, he had seen no corpses anywhere yet, so he held onto the hope that everyone had already been evacuated—a hope that was… challenged once he spotted the massive crowd waiting outside the passage.

“What the hell…?” Theodore muttered. “Is the passage blocked?” he asked, and everyone looked over, spotting the shimmering, undulating barrier.

“Let’s find out,” Jacob said as he stepped forward. “Everyone, listen!” he shouted, drawing the attention of only a few people in front of him. The sound of the crowd arguing was too loud for his words to reach far. He scowled.

Jacob took a deep breath. Once he sucked in as much air as he could into his massive lungs, he roared with a deafening shout. “May I have your attention, please!?” he screamed as politely as he could manage.

His voice startled many, and some people even drew their weapons. But within a few seconds, the whole crowd was silenced.

“My name is Jacob Santorio!” he said. “I am the son of Leonard Santorio and the highest authority currently present on the matters of this realm,” he asserted. “I need you to step aside so I can examine what’s happening with the passage.”

People shifted out of the way.

As soon as their party got a clear view, they walked forth.

Theodore glanced at the crowd around them, his heart beating in his chest. He feared what he would see there, but he couldn’t force himself to not look. And, moments later, he spotted her.

Beatrice stood, her expression echoing with heartbreak, regret, and resentment as she stared back at him. Petra placed a hand on Beatrice’s shoulder, comforting her, while Robert and Kyle, who stood behind her, shook their heads at him in disapproval.

His heart clenched, and he tore his gaze away, unable to stop his lips from twisting into a deep frown. “Who do you fuckers think you are?” he whispered into his chin.

They kept moving forward and soon made it to the shimmering barrier.

Jacob scowled. He pulled his fist back and threw a punch, empowering it with a Tectonic Strike. In one of the most explicit visual displays of how his talent functioned, a cobweb of cracks spread out from where his punch landed, but the same as it would be if he hit water, the damage disappeared immediately afterward. He prepared himself to throw another strike, this time with both stars activated, but someone stepped in.

“It’s useless,” a blond man with two nasty scars on his cheeks said. On his left, a woman with similar hair and a strong overall resemblance to the man stood, a large scar crossing through her left eye, the blue iris of which was paler than its counterpart. To their right, a man with a massive red mark on his head got off a small boulder and straightened his broad back, his brown hair trimmed short and his wide nose flaring.

All three were inordinately tall and muscular, with miscellaneous scars scattered throughout their bodies. The central figure—the blond man—stood at almost the same height as Jacob himself.

Jacob recognized them immediately. “Jack,” he addressed the man in the middle. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What’s happening here?”

Jack scowled. “I don’t know. We returned here only half an hour ago, and this is what we found,” he shared, broadly gesturing at the scene around them.

Jacob breathed deeply. “Shit. I guess everyone tried themselves against this thing, then?”

“Yes,” he said. “Some people still haven’t given up on cracking it, but I can tell it won’t be going down easily.”

“Mmmh,” Jacob hummed displeasurably, gritting his teeth. “What do you see? Any hope?”

“I’m afraid we’re powerless,” Jack said, scowling at the barrier. “The energy that holds the barrier active is turbulent by default, and anything short of a single attack powerful enough to break through won’t do the job.”

“What if I gave it everything I had?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Even if you went double-star at it, stacked every boost and blessing we have available, the most you’d achieve is blowing your arm up.”

“Fuck!” Jacob shouted, punching the barrier in frustration. He sighed deeply and turned to Jack. “Did you spot anyone suspicious around—” His words were interrupted by the sound of someone shouting.

The shouting got worse as the two groups turned to face the commotion.

Over every boulder and from behind every tree around them, figures in black cloaks emerged.

40

SLAUGHTER

Not even a moment passed from the first scream until ten more sounded from the crowd’s edges. The sounds of explosions, flashes of colorful light, and the splattering of blood enveloped the entire area in pandemonium.

Jacob immediately began shouting for his companions, the noise dying under the mass of screaming people.

The delvers around them pushed each other around, scrambling over one another as they stampeded in every direction. Many rushed towards the passage to try to break through and escape. But it was pointless.

The more powerful and experienced delvers tried forming their parties and breaking out of the mass of bodies, but they were vastly outnumbered by beginners who simply wanted to get out.

He spotted Jack, the tall, blond man with two scars on his cheeks, dragging his sister, Jean, the woman with the scar across her eye, out of the crowd with the help of Rick, the man with the massive red mark across his head.

Suddenly, a human corpse flew right at the mass of bodies pressing against the blocked passage. A flash of light lit up, and with the dull, disgusting sound of human flesh splattering, the corpse exploded, killing nearly a dozen people. Blood and guts splashed over every single one of them, painting the whole area red with gore and shredded armor.

All Jacob could hear was a muted buzzing, with explosions and screams breaking into his muffled mind like rocks through the surface of a pond. His eyes flickered, quickly spotting Theodore, Phillip, and Karen—but Rachel was nowhere to be found. His blood went cold for a moment, but he spotted her in the next second.

Just as he was about to rush to her side, he saw her take a nasty hit by a cloaked figure—a kick that landed right on her midsection and threw her back further away from the mass of people.

Panic sprung through his whole body. Rage burned in his chest, and he rushed forward. He knew that he should regroup, that without his team, there was little he could do, but he wasn’t thinking about that. This was different. This wasn’t an attack they had prepared and plotted for.

Rather than allowing himself to calm down and assume the position of a strong leader or guide, at that moment, he was just a young man watching his lover get thrown into a mass of enemies.

There was only one way he could respond. He rushed to save her.

Rachel tumbled, then dropped into a shadow, using her talent to teleport behind one of the figures not too far from herself. She swung a dagger right at the man’s back, but in the second before it landed, three phantasmal figures of pure flame appeared at her sides, looking much like the man she was about to assault, and stabbed shortswords right at her.

She reacted in time to block two of the attacks, but the third stabbed into her ribs. Keeping her composure, she leaped back and dove into another shadow, but before she could get away, another figure, a giant of a man, threw a punch at her, and she lifted her daggers to at least try to defend herself.

It was useless. The force of the attack effortlessly carried through her puny defense, shattering both her arms as the bulky man gripped her by the back of the head, pulled her body out of the shadow she had half-sunken into, and slammed her into a tree… killing her instantly.

Jacob froze. His thoughts slowed to a halt, and he watched with eyes wide open, mind uncomprehending. The sounds of explosions, flesh being torn, and bodies being crushed fell into the background as nothing but a high-pitched buzzing filled his ears. “No…” he whispered, his knees shaking as his legs nearly gave out from under him.

“Jacob…” someone was shouting at him. “Jacob!”

Everything snapped back into place as he turned his head and faced Theodore.

“I understand!” the man shouted. “But grieve later!” He pointed to another section where Karen struggled to defend herself against a cloaked, bulky figure swinging a massive sword at her. Phillip was working overtime to keep her safe as she seemed to be freezing up.

Numerous people were dying around them as explosions and projectiles tore people into pieces, with anyone who was trying to escape the encirclement getting picked off by skilled fighters. The situation was growing more desperate by the second.

“Fuck!” Jacob barked after a moment of hesitation as he rushed to help his party members, Theodore by his side.

The two of them reached Phillip and Karen in the next moment, and with their presence, the bulky figure backed away, swinging their sword to the side as they continued killing other, weaker delvers.

Jacob shouted at them, throwing out standard orders while the others listened impatiently, constantly glancing around them to see whether anyone was directly attacking them.

Theodore swallowed a lump as he looked around, failing to spot his former party. He forced himself to take his mind off them and refocused on Jacob’s orders. Jacob barely knew what to do, and his words kept slurring. “Shit!” he shouted. “We don’t have time to organize! Just… get into a fucking formation already!” he spluttered in a panic.

A cloaked figure leaped out of the woods on the other side of the battlefield. She was clearly a woman based on her build, and from her back, a giant scorpion stinger appeared, stabbing at those trying to escape, tearing people into pieces with incredible force.

A man wielding an axe leaped at her, his weapon enveloped in a golden glow as he prepared to swing the empowered strike down on her head.

The woman’s stinger flicked, knocking the axe right out of the man’s hands, then pierced right through his chest. The man hung by the stinger, his arms growing limp as a considerable amount of venom seeped into his body, and a second later, the woman moved her tail to slam him into a nearby tree with incredible force, shattering his body and dropping him to the ground.

From her side, Rachel’s killer stomped his foot down, sending a shockwave that shifted the earth beneath another man’s foot. The man tried defending himself, raising a shield to block the incoming attack. The giant cloaked brawler aimed right at the defense and slammed into it.

The shield didn’t budge, but the arms of the man on the other side exploded into gory pieces; a second later, a crescent moon-shaped flying strike cleaved his head off his shoulders.

Above them, another cloaked man floated into the air, levitating above the crowds as he fired stone bullets at the people below and swooped down, taking heads off with his shortsword.

Suddenly, a tall woman with blonde hair and a scar over her eye jumped up from the crowds, the wind moving about her in a way that propelled her forward as she stabbed an impossibly quick rapier jab at the levitating man. Just as the attack was about to land, the man just barely moved his shortsword before him to block and used the force of her attack to let himself be propelled further up into the sky.

The woman—Jean, Jack’s sister—dropped to the ground and straightened, her heavily repaired armor gleaming under the false sun, speckled with the blood and guts of dead delvers.

From her side, Jack, her brother, the incredibly tall, blond man, jumped forward, racing toward the cloaked figures with Rick by his side.

Jacob and his party stood in formation, waiting for an opportunity, but when the corpse of a woman exploded near them, splattering them all in more boiled blood, they realized that they had to choose right then and there whether to run or fight.

There were only around twenty enemies, compared to a bit over a hundred delvers. But the delvers’ numbers were no advantage, as most of them were rookies who were, if anything, making it more difficult for the more experienced crews to organize.

The rabble was thinning rapidly, and before long, fewer than fifty delvers remained, allowing them to see a much clearer image of the battlefield. And what they saw made one thing crystal clear—the only way they were making an escape was by fighting their way through the encirclement of opponents, few of whom were easy targets.

Theodore’s eyes bulged as he observed the cultists before them. They all exuded a threatening aura, with even the weakest of their opponents glowing with a sinister red light. But there was another figure.

A short man whose aura shone pure black—he didn’t move. The man stood impassive, observing the battlefield, his face partly hidden beneath the hood of a cloak. One of the random delvers, a woman carrying a small sword, rushed at the man, and all he did in response was raise his hand; a thin, near-instantaneous jet of water pulsed into the incoming woman’s head, and she dropped dead to the ground a second later.

Shivers ran down Theodore’s spine. That man was a water mage. Anyone who could effectively use water magic was not to be trifled with.

Yet another corpse exploded beside them, with most of the power blocked by Phillip, who timely intervened.

They nodded at each other without further ado and rushed forward, jumping into the fray.

One of the cloaked figures ran at Jacob, gleaming blades of blood protruding out of their hands as they leaped and stabbed down. Theodore sent a minuscule pulse at the attacker’s eye, blinding them for a mere moment as Jacob landed a punch on their chest, shattering their entire body like an ice sculpture, the display only second to the gory image of yet another corpse exploding not too far from where they stood.

A metal ding sounded from right before Jacob’s face as Theodore just barely flicked a red ball of toxic blood away before it could strike him in the eye. Jacob released a shivering breath as he looked over to the person who had fired the projectile.

Around twenty meters ahead of him stood a woman, a tall man, and the short figure Theodore identified as the greatest threat among them.

The woman was firing bloody projectiles, while her talent seemingly allowed her to raise shimmering, transparent barriers wherever she pleased, and the tall man was the fire mage responsible for the exploding corpses.

Karen rushed at the short water mage, choosing to take him out of the fight as quickly as possible. But her movement was frantic, desperate.

“Wait!” shouted Theodore, watching in panic as he saw the inexperienced woman on the verge of making a massive blunder.

The blood mage woman summoned a barrier before Karen, and before she could even swing her sword to cut through, the bulky figure she had been fighting before reappeared, swinging a massive sword at her back.

Phillip jumped just in time to block the attack, only for a bloated, glowing corpse to land right between him and Karen the next moment. Karen jumped back swiftly enough to get outside the effective range of the attack, but Phillip was forced to block with his shield at nearly point-blank. The force of the impact couldn’t be redirected. There was nowhere for him to send it. It knocked him flying back as he tumbled across the dry soil and away from his party.

Just as he got up, a massive arrow flew right into his armored head. With the metallic clank of the arrowhead meeting his helmet, his head whipped back, and he raised a hand to pull the arrow out as he looked over to his attacker. The arrow was stuck. Two figures stood beside one another, one swinging a whip at him while the other prepared another arrow.

He blocked the whip with his shield, but the arrow looped around his defense and hit him in the head again. Thankfully, the attack wasn’t potent enough to pierce his metallic skull, but it hit hard enough to embed itself into it, and the force of the impact was potent enough to daze him.

Phillip started running back to his party, but before he could make it anywhere near them, three golems of ice ran forward, standing between him and his party. They didn’t look too threatening, and anyone in his party could handle them. But to him, who specialized in defense, they were virtually an impenetrable barrier.

Karen relied on her air affinity to move at incredible speed and relied on her superior mobility to evade the numerous attacks flying at her. She felt helpless, like a fish on dry land. Her instincts and muscle memory kicked in whenever an attack was flying at her, but she was surrounded by bloody, mangled corpses and severed body pieces.

The battlefield around her looked like hell. She had endured rigorous training and seen many such things in videos her clan showed her. She truly believed she would be ready to stand firm if she ever found herself in a situation like this.

But those recordings never portrayed the overwhelming metallic smell of soil and blood. The screams all around her. A chunk of someone’s flesh flew into her mouth, and she spat it out.

She had never been splattered in blood and guts from head to toe. And from every single fight she had participated in, even the bloodiest, most difficult ones, she had never faced a scenario that began with one of her party members getting brutally murdered.

Despite her incredible speed, the bulky figure was nearly capable of keeping up despite wielding a sword at least five times heavier than Karen’s. Her opponent’s skill was tremendous but inferior to her own, but the constant barrage of bloody projectiles and shards of ice made Karen feel blind and dazed; she didn’t know where to look or what to pay attention to. It wasn’t long until stray projectiles started landing glancing blows, and poison started flowing through her blood.

As time passed, she found herself dodging the incoming blows and projectiles by smaller and smaller margins, with each new attack getting closer to causing severe damage.

Jacob and Theodore stood alone before four opponents.

Standing to the left was the woman who could conjure barriers and throw projectiles of toxic blood. To her right was the tall, skinny man who was beginning to run out of corpses and now supplemented his attacks with regular fireballs.

Yet another melee fighter had appeared from the crowd that grew thinner by the second, rushing at them from behind.

Meanwhile, the water mage had yet to make his move.

Jacob was forced to orient on the incoming man. The melee fighter approaching them wielded a mace and rushed at the two of them with reckless abandon while the two casters continuously pelted them with attacks.

Jacob observed the trajectory of the incoming mace swing and stepped back, preparing himself to kick the opponent in the torso to end the fight. But⁠—

“Watch out!” Theodore screamed as Jacob’s head whipped back, only to see a portal of reflective water conjure right in the middle of the air.

Head-first, with half his torso pushed through, appeared the short water mage, his hood just barely revealing a wicked grin beneath.

Every cell in Jacob’s body screamed at him as he moved his body away from the man, who raised his hand and fired a Pressure Jet at Jacob’s stomach.

The burst of water reached Jacob, stabbing right into his gut and causing a powerful burst of agony to jolt through his torso, and in the next second, a spiked mace slammed right into the middle of his back. He yelped, his Stone Skin and Hundred Wet Hells just barely stopping the attack from damaging his spine.

Jacob wheeled and grabbed the man by the arm as he kicked him in the side.

The clang of metal rang out as the mace-wielder reeled, flying back a few steps. Stone Skin and Metal Bones had protected the mace-wielder. Jacob’s teeth clenched. That was too much defense for his talent to end the man in one blow, but he had caused plenty of damage.

Theodore fired a pulse of blinding light, restricting the water mage’s vision and forcing him to fall back before he could capitalize on Jacob’s distraction.

Jacob had to dodge several attacks again, but he was determined to get the mace-wielder out of the fight.

However, to his horror, the mace-wielder rushed at a few helpless delvers and started swinging. Three lives were extinguished in mere moments, and once the deed was done, the mace-wielder stood a bit straighter as if the damage from Jacob’s attack was gone.

On-kill Healing, Jacob realized, cursing under his breath as he dodged a ball of fire flying at his face.

41

CARNAGE

Jack glanced across the battlefield, barely keeping himself calm. This wasn’t his first time finding himself in a gruesome life-or-death scenario. But he had never witnessed such a brutal slaughter.

Still, for better or worse, the same instincts kicked in.

He, his sister—Jean—and their best friend, Rick, had witnessed many tragedies. Throughout their years together, they had seen many of their party members perish, and eventually, they no longer had the heart to invite any more people into their fold.

But the three of them?

When push came to shove, they thrived. And when shove came to stab, they always made it out.

His sister ran past him, using brief bursts of wind to push several delvers out of the way of incoming attacks. She ran forth, meeting one of the cloaked figures in combat. It was a man who seemed to possess a strength-boosting talent—a powerful one, as could be judged by the cumbersome armor and sword he wielded.

Unfortunately for him, he met Jean in combat.

The man swung his massive sword at the lithe, tall Jean, swinging it in an impressively tight arc, closing virtually all escapes. Jean merely flicked his massive strike aside with her thin rapier as if it weighed nothing. Her talent—Parry—could parry almost any blow as long as it wasn’t overwhelmingly above her power level. And she could use her talent even with a feather, let alone a rapier.

The man’s panic was evident as his sword bounced off the thin weapon, but it was pointless. Negative Pressure pulled Jean’s weapon along, pushing her rapier forward in the blink of an eye as it stabbed into the thin slit in the helmet beneath the hood the man was cloaked under. And just like that, he was dead.

Jack brought his attention back to himself as the levitating figure flew over his head, thrusting a swift shortsword as the wind carried him forward.

With minimal effort, Jack stepped aside without even looking directly, and the flying man tumbled forward, landing on the ground. An illusory blade swung at the now grounded man, forcing him to block, only to realize a second too late that Jack hadn’t even moved yet. In the blink of an eye, powered by Hydraulic Flex, Jack’s shortsword flicked the man across the neck but failed to cut deep enough to finish the job.

Jack pushed forward, using illusions to keep the man too preoccupied to risk taking to the air again. A second later, a flying strike flew at Jack, flung by a cloaked woman waiting deeper in the forest. Jack was forced to duck under it, but he was already attacking again, thrusting his sword into an opening, only for a woman clad in shadow to raise her hand, conjuring a small black disc that swallowed the force behind his strike.

The tip of his blade barely touched the floating, black object, but all the momentum behind his strike simply vanished as if he hadn’t even been moving at all.

A second later, a dark, coiling tentacle tried wrapping itself around his leg but moved through the illusory limb, revealing Jack’s actual leg, which was grounded in an entirely different spot.

He leaped back and took in his opponents.

Rick pulled his short hammers out, swinging his arms, which stretched to the length of three to four meters in wild swings. The man was trying to provide aid to Jack but pulled back as he was overwhelmed by three other opponents.

Before Rick stood a giant of a man whose strikes seemed to carry through weapons and shields into the arms of those holding them, a man whose talent conjured phantasmal, fiery copies of himself that swung at anyone trying to get close, and a woman with a scorpion stinger tail growing out her back.

Rick had tempered his arms with life affinity to stretch them like that, thus they weren’t as susceptible to the giant’s destructive power. Still, despite Rick keeping his distance from the nimble scorpion-woman and bulky man, the man with phantasmal bodyguards was throwing projectiles of fire his way, and not all of them could be cleanly dodged under pressure.

These three were far too powerful for Rick to hold alone against them. “Jean!” Jack yelled. “Cover for me!” he shouted as he suddenly vanished.

All of their opponents froze, instantly noticing that he had disappeared. He couldn’t hold Invisibility for long as he simply didn’t have the essence reserves, but luckily, he didn’t have to.

A mere second later, after a wild leap with Hydraulic Flex, Jack reappeared, standing less than a foot away from the man defended by phantasmal copies of himself. The fiery phantoms reacted instantly, skewering Jack, while the shadowy disc appeared to block his attack.

As the phantasmal shortswords embedded themselves into the illusion Jack created and the shadowy disc stood in the way of no actual attack, Jack stabbed a sword through the back of the phantom user’s head, taking him out of the fight.

Jean used the momentum of the man’s death to rush at the shadow-user who was blocking their attacks. The woman couldn’t use her talent too often, so she was forced to back away, melting into the forest’s shadows as the woman who stood further back threw more flying strikes at Jean, and the levitating man fired bullets of stone.

The two ranged attackers held her back long enough for the shadow-user to conjure another Black Mirror, yet Jean used her Parry as she struck the mirror, causing a direct clash between two attack-nullifying talents.

Her gamble only half paid off. Parry was enough to make the disc vanish, but it wasn’t enough to stop it from negating her momentum all the same, and this time, she was forced to take a nasty stone bullet to her shoulder as she hopped back, relying on her mobility to create some space, but the pressure was on, and one projectile after another locked her down, forcing her to expend her essence on dodging and defending herself, her Parry the only thing keeping her alive against the barrage of flying strikes.

Jack put his trust in his sister as she kept those three preoccupied, and he relied on Rick to hold the giant down while he lunged at the scorpion-tailed woman.

Hydraulic Flex launched him forward with a few quick leaps, and before long, he was dueling the woman.

She moved with a grace that was only possible with her tail’s counterbalance and continuously thrust her stinger at him.

This woman was bad news. Despite only relying on her tail, which was undoubtedly a function of her talent, she was more than skilled enough to keep him at bay. He couldn’t haphazardly rely on his illusions—his essence reserves were already half-empty, but the woman wasn’t even using a weapon, let alone her essence.

With his talent, he sensed the presence of the levitating man behind him and dodged the Stone Bullet as he shifted to the side without even looking. But the man was flying at him without stopping, as if he intended to tackle him.

With the levitating man leaving her to the shadow user and the woman who kept launching flying strikes, Jean finally caught an opportunity to rush past them and launch herself to help her brother, but a shadow mirror blocked her attack again.

Simply forcing the shadow mage to use her talent was enough to let Jack retaliate and slip past the scorpion stinger, but with that, although safe for the time being, they were both on the back foot.

With a glance, he checked on how his best friend was doing.

Short hammers flew in tight arcs, but with almost dismissive ease, the giant of a man met them fist-first, and judging by the blood spewing from Rick’s hands, he couldn’t hold his own for much longer.

On the other side of the battlefield, Karen kept stumbling, continuously being pushed back by her berserk foe. Red Venom coursed through her veins, sending constant pangs of agony throughout her entire body as icy projectiles drew even more blood.

She thought of her grandfather, seeing his face morph into the picture of disappointment in her mind’s eye and the image of her brother sneering at her. How cowardly was she? How pathetic? Despite facing an inferior foe, she kept stumbling, allowing herself to be swept up in the tides of battle. And why? Because she was afraid to spend too much essence?

Her foot suddenly slipped from beneath her. She stepped on someone’s spilled guts, falling back first into a pile of gore. The world around her slowed to a halt. Her cowardice warred with a lifetime of conditioning, and she felt the draw to just give up, allowing her opponent to swing their blade down on her head.

Perhaps she would have settled for that if it were her life alone. But it wasn’t.

As the massive blade swung down at her, her arm twitched. Her talent, Sword Saint, blessed her attacks with a preternatural cutting ability and force… but only if she struck with the skill worthy of the title. Letting the screams and the sounds of war fall into the background, she focused on the weapon in her hand. With a single, fluid swing, her sword met the incoming attack.

With a clang, her thin saber split her opponent’s sword in two. Without hesitation, she expelled nearly half of her remaining essence on an omnidirectional burst of wind, blowing her opponent away and raising her off the ground and back up to her feet. As soon as she landed, she rushed her opponent, who now swung only half a sword around.

The match was decided—or so she thought. But in the next instant, a portal of water appeared beside her feet, and the grinning figure of the sinister water mage popped out, reaching his arm out to most likely sever her leg with a Pressure Jet.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but a dagger flew out of nowhere, forcing the mage to cancel his spell and pull his arm back. It was an attack by Phillip, who she could hear scream as he likely accepted a blow in turn to save her. Gritting her teeth, she ignored the water mage, who was already out of range, and leaped at the bulky figure before her.

With a single, elegant swing, she cut their hand off, then their whole arm, and finally, the head.

In the next moment, she leaped back and dodged the incoming shard of ice that threatened to pierce her skull. She dashed again, evading several icy projectiles as she made her way over to the ice mage. The man conjured a shield of ice, but no matter how thick, it was insufficient against a perfect thrust that pierced through the defense and straight through the man’s forehead.

She could hear the sounds of the massive golems collapsing not too far from her, and she turned to see how the rest of her team was doing.

Even though Theodore had both the light and holy affinities, neither provided a substantial way to boost one’s physical prowess; yet, he dodged numerous projectiles, relying on his perception abilities to prevent even a single one from reaching him.

That man’s talent and drive were unlike anything she had ever seen, even among her fellow clansmen, apart from her older brother. Yet he was old. Withering. Had he been born into a mighty clan, Theodore would no doubt already be a star. But even as a brown dwarf, he shone bright enough that it was dazzling.

Theodore ducked under another bloody projectile and leaped back to get outside the radius of another fireball as he once more dodged a shard of Red Venom. He was getting tired. Some of the bloody projectiles were starting to graze him, but his Sacred Temple tempering technique prevented the poison from doing any substantial damage.

Still, he couldn’t hold on for long. They were on the back foot, and although they had seemingly regained some momentum in the last few moments, they had expended far too much to get there.

Jacob was severely hurt, and so was Phillip. Karen had burned through most of her essence, and Theodore was on the brink of passing out from exhaustion. He looked over to where his old party was fighting, unable to resist keeping track of how they were doing. His heart dropped.

He watched a cloaked figure sever Robert’s arm off as an explosion burned Kyle’s side. Beatrice and Petra kept throwing attacks with a few other delvers, but their enemies were far superior, and the rabble dropped like flies.

“Brave of you to look away,” a voice whispered from his back, and Theodore moved his head aside just in time to dodge a Pressure Jet that would have pierced his skull.

Theodore swung his sword at the portal of water, trying to cut the seemingly impressed water mage’s head off, but before he could reach, a transparent barrier blocked his blow, allowing the water caster to escape and leaving Theodore to dodge yet another projectile and once more leap outside the range of an explosive attack.

As long as the woman with the barriers still stood, their odds of winning this fight were nonexistent. The water caster could pop up anywhere and kill anyone if they dropped their guard, and with her around, attacking the mage in turn was almost impossible. Perhaps Karen or Jacob could manage, but they were both running out of steam, and soon enough, they would fall unless something changed.

He glanced over at Jacob. The stern, massive leader looked… desperate. Jacob’s face contorted in agony as he tried fighting back by firing stone bullets and throwing fireballs, but there was no use. The man was a brawler, first and foremost, but with his massive body and talent, his lack of mobility and reach was lethal.

The mace-wielder could take one or two attacks from Jacob and trade another two, backing away each time to kill a straggler to heal the damage he took. While the mace-wielder had run out of targets, it didn’t matter. Jacob was mangled. His whole body was bleeding, and one of his eyes was closed.

It would be a different story if Theodore could afford to bless the man, but as it was, if he even tried, he’d die as soon as he did so since Phillip wasn’t there to keep them safe from counterattacks.

The tall, skinny man jogged to another corpse and prepared to throw it at Theodore. The latter man had no way to defend himself from the attack; from the enemy’s perspective, it was over for him. Unfortunately for them, this wasn’t the first time Theodore had been trapped with seemingly no escape.

If there was any one thing he excelled at, it was seeing that which nobody else could.

As soon as the skinny man ignited the corpse and threw it forward, Theodore was already running at it. The slim man seemed surprised as Theodore’s move looked like nothing but suicide.

But he wasn’t aiming to kill himself.

His eyes shot wide open. He activated True Gaze. He saw the flying, burning corpse, its trajectory, how it would fly and spin, and pulled his sword out.

While it was still flying in the air, Theodore stabbed the shortsword through the dead man’s forearm, lodging it between the bones as he grabbed the handle with one hand and the blade with the other. Then, pushing his two-star physique to its absolute limit, he pivoted on the ball of his foot and pulled back, swinging the corpse around his body as his blade cut into his fingers, and before the corpse could explode, he threw it right back at the fire caster, who watched the whole thing happen with his eyes wide open.

The moment Theodore saw the shimmering barrier manifest to protect the fire mage from the exploding corpse, he was already turning around and charging his Piercing Beam. He aimed it behind Jacob’s back, seemingly firing at nothing, but in the next moment, a water portal manifested out of thin air. The Piercing Beam swallowed the remainder of Theodore’s essence, but it was worth it, as the water caster’s eye was struck dead-on, and the sneer was wiped off his face as he screamed.

Jacob heard the scream, saw the beam, and turned around, spotting the water caster. There was no shield to protect the man and no time for him to pull back through the portal.

Jacob’s arm shot forward, gripping the water caster by his hair as he pulled him into his knee, shattering the man’s face and killing him instantly. The portal behind the man collapsed, severing his body in half, and with half a corpse in his hand, Jacob swung it around, throwing it at the mace-wielder, who was attacking again.

Fire burned beneath Jacob’s skin as he punched the water caster’s body, shattering it into a rain of gore that obscured the mace-wielder’s vision. Through the mist of blood, Jacob’s arm flew forward, gripping the mace-wielder around the neck as Jacob’s other hand grabbed the mace by the spikes and pulled it out of the man’s grasp.

“Resist this, you piece of shit!” Jacob screamed as he headbutted the mace-wielder, cracking the man’s forehead apart and spilling his brains.

Back on the other side of the battlefield, Jack was beginning to realize that they were fighting a lost fight. If they kept going any further, before long, they would run out of essence and get overwhelmed.

“Retreat!” he shouted, jumping back as he fled from the attackers.

His sister was already running ahead of him, but Rick was stuck trying to shake the giant man off.

Suddenly, Jack’s entire body simply came to a halt, as if someone had erased all the momentum carrying him. He looked down. His eyes widened as he spotted his foot standing on the Black Mirror.

An intense feeling of danger sparked on the back of his neck as he felt a powerful energy flying right at him. The levitating fighter was rushing at him to finish him off. But suddenly, the energy was steered off course.

He turned around.

Rick’s arm had elongated and wrapped around the levitating man’s leg. But as Jack watched, the giant slammed Rick straight into the torso. For a long moment, Jack couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Panic overwhelmed him as he realized he was about to watch another person die for his sake.

But he knew that it was too late. If he hesitated any longer, his friend would perish for nothing. Gritting his teeth hard enough that he felt one crack, he moved his foot off the black disc and continued forward, rushing after his sister and running to the other side of the battlefield.

His eyes scanned the battlefield. Only two other battles were still going on. One was a gory sight of numerous corpses, where there had likely been too few elites to stand a proper chance. On the other side were Jacob and his party, who were on the back foot but rapidly recovering.

Karen dashed over to Phillip, who was fighting against two people. Both were air-affinity archs, one wielding a long whip and the other a bow, both natural enemies to Phillip. To Karen, however, they were nothing but fodder. With two quick dashes, she evaded the arrows that curved to home into her body and cut the head off the archer. In the next moment, she severed the whip that tried to flick her sword out of her hand, and Phillip threw a metal dagger to finish the job.

The two of them regrouped—Phillip’s helmet was like a hedgehog, with several arrows having penetrated through it and into his skull. His armor was cracked all over the spots he had been forced to receive blows by the whip he hadn’t been fast enough to dodge, but other than that, he was doing fine enough.

They ran over to Theodore, just in time for Phillip to block a projectile that would have killed the man.

Theodore looked terrible—pale, his body sagging like a rotten apple.

Jacob was bathed in blood but didn’t let that stop him as he dashed, lunging at the two remaining foes.

The woman desperately conjured barriers, but those were near-useless against Jacob, who shattered them with two strikes a piece and continued forward. The two casters were trying to look intimidating, but with how many spells they had thrown into the mix, both were guaranteed to be either out of essence or close enough that it didn’t matter, with likely only satellites keeping them from completely running out.

They tried pulling weapons out, but Jacob’s fists shattered their swords, and with a single, visceral punch, he broke the woman’s head apart like a watermelon and crushed the chest of the tall corpse-thrower.

With that out of the way, their path was clear.

They turned around.

Jacob spotted Jack and Jean running from several foes, Rick nowhere to be seen.

Theodore desperately looked over to the other fight, and as soon as he did, he despaired.

Kyle and Robert were dead, their bodies barely recognizable in the pile of corpses.

Petra and Beatrice were still among the few standing, mainly because they had both stuck to the backline, but they were burned and bleeding.

He watched one of the cloaked casters conjure a fireball, only to compress it into the size of a tiny bead. There was nobody left to defend the two girls.

His body was weak, yet at that moment, he felt like he could dash across the whole field to save them. Before he knew it, he was already running, but it was far too late.

The compressed bead flew right at Beatrice, but Petra threw herself at it before it could hit her. The projectile exploded as soon as it touched the woman’s body, sending her flying right at Beatrice and knocking both of them halfway to where he was.

What followed was a second of silence as everything crawled to a halt. Fear wrapped around his throat like a snake, and his breath halted, waiting for a sign.

Beatrice’s shrill scream echoed through the battlefield in the next moment. Theodore experienced a dizzying blend of horror and relief as he rushed to her.

She was so bloody. Open wounds littered her whole body, and she hiccuped and choked as she shook Petra’s charred corpse, desperately looking for any signs of life.

Shivers made their way down Theodore’s spine as he saw the disfigured image of Petra. The force of the blow had blown her eyeballs out of their sockets, and her jaw hung limp, broken, open so wide she could swallow his very soul.

But he ignored her. Beatrice was still alive.

“We have to go!” he shouted, pulling her back.

“Let me go!” she screamed in outrage. “Petra! Petra! Someone!” she shouted. “Someone heal her!” she shrieked until her throat gave out.

Try as he may, Theodore was too weak to tear the desperate Beatrice apart from Petra. “Fucking hell!” he yelled as he punched Beatrice to knock her out. She was knocked back but remained conscious, staring at him in horror as he threw another three punches to get her to stop moving. She wasn’t even unconscious—he had simply dazed her too much to resist. “Shit, shit, shit,” he cursed as he lifted her up on his back and ran after his allies.

He was slow. He felt slower and more tired than ever before in his life.

His vision grew blurry, and before long, he dropped to the ground.

Someone lifted the weeping, bleeding Beatrice off his body and dragged her on, and a moment later, someone lifted him as well.

Phillip carried the unconscious woman while Karen raised Theodore, carrying him on her back as they followed Jacob into the woods. Jack and Jean followed after them, and moments later, the few survivors other than the two spotted the escape and ran.

Several of them were picked off, but four people managed to join the two parties on their way out.

Everyone who had access to them drank elixir recovery potions. Those that could be used in combat were incredibly expensive, and nobody there had access to them. No, the ones they used needed time to settle; they had to be mixed with a bit of gathering to dilute the external essence with natural essence. Using the raw essence could cause soul damage, but nobody cared.

Soul damage was better than death.

None of the survivors really believed that they were safe, but to everyone’s surprise, as soon as they were in the woods, the cloaked figures stopped their pursuit. Perhaps they were going to recover first and then hunt them down.

But maybe others were waiting. Maybe they were heading to their deaths.

They pushed through the forest, obliterating any gorels they came across without any care, as they had no reason to preserve the bodies. After a long, tense half-hour of running, Theodore, Jacob, Karen, Phillip, Beatrice, Jack, and Jean, followed by four strangers, made their way into the passage realm Jacob and his party had hunted in earlier that day.

Jacob, Phillip, and two strangers used their earth affinity to create a makeshift blockade, although nobody had high hopes for its defensive properties.

Thoroughly exhausted, with numerous severe injuries, low resources, and no healers other than Theodore present, few among them were optimistic about their chances of survival.

The cloaked figures watched the delvers escape into the woods, confusion seared into their expressions. Among the fleeing people, there was a figure they were surprised to see.

“Why is he with them?” the giant man asked. “Wasn’t the plan to kill everyone?”

A fully armored man was running beside the other delvers. His armor was covered in blood and gore, but if anyone had been watching, it would have been clear that he had contributed nothing to the ongoing battle other than half-heartedly defending against the occasional attack.

“If he is with them,” the scorpion-tailed woman said as she whipped her tail to flick the blood off, “then he must have a reason for it. It is not our place to question him. Let them go,” she said, turning around. “Let us rejoin the others. We must continue with our plans.”

42

INDECISION

“Can you hear that?” Freddy asked as he interrupted their sparring.

Sophia was still a one-star, so her perception wasn’t as high as Freddy’s. He had also used quite a bit of that perception medicine, making him extra sensitive. “I think I can hear… explosions. In the distance,” he said, scowling. “It’s that way.” He pointed roughly in the direction of the center of the realm. Sophia opened her mouth, but— “Wait, shh.” He raised his finger to his lips as he focused. “Yeah, I’m certain. Can you hear anything?”

“Umm… No?” she denied hesitantly, squinting in the direction Freddy was looking in. As she did that, her eyes shot wide open, and she ran forward to climb a nearby tree. “Holy crap…”

“What is it?” he asked.

Sophia covered her mouth with one hand, gagging. “Oh, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“What!?” he yelled. “What’s going on?”

“The sky… Everything is pink.”

Freddy’s throat seized up. “Oh… shit…” he cursed. “Above the passage?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, looking away and closing her eyes while breathing heavily.

“How many? It’s everyone who gathered in the middle, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

Freddy breathed heavily and bent over, resting his hands on his knees as he stared into the soil. The sounds of explosions grew more explicit in his ears, deafening silence overwhelming everything else. The blasts sounded… dull. Wet. Before long, he heard screaming, too. Shouting. The sounds of steel mashing. The sounds of people dying.

“Are you okay?”

Freddy jolted as he looked up at Sophia, who was watching him with a concerned gaze. His face was pale, and he was covered in sweat. “I’m fine,” he said, slumping into a crouch. “Should we continue?” he asked, but Sophia remained silent, watching him for a long moment. “Come on, now,” he said as he tried cheering up a bit. “We knew this was going to happen. Does it change anything?”

“Freddy,” she cut in. “The life force I’m seeing…” She slowly turned her face in the direction of the passage. “A lot of people are dying.”

“So what!?” he shouted, catching himself immediately after and swallowing his desire to scream in panic. “We are going to be next if we don’t prepare.”

She stared at him, and then her eyes slowly drifted to the ground beneath his feet. “Should we bury ourselves?”

“Is it going to work?”

“It could…”

“Are you satisfied with ‘could’? You really want to roll the dice with whether we live or not?”

“I don’t,” she spat, quieting for a long moment. “I don’t.”

Freddy pursed his lips, gritting his teeth. Their survival wasn’t guaranteed, no matter what they did. But knowing danger was coming was one thing. Hearing it—seeing it—was another. “We’ve already established that hiding is a stupid idea. Even if the cult doesn’t find us, we have no goddamn clue what’s going to come in through the unsealed passages, and if we’re dug out at that point, we are screwed.”

She winced.

“Look,” he said as he finally got up from the crouch and stretched to his full height. “I know how you feel.”

“You don’t know anything.”

He grabbed her arm by the wrist, and she looked up at him. “Yes, I do,” he said, staring her right in the eye. “You could have been standing among those people and slaughtering the innocent by the dozen.”

She tore her gaze away from him and tried pulling back, but he gripped harder.

“But you’re not,” he asserted. “You ran away. You saw what they were; you knew what they could do and wanted no part of it. What, are you ashamed that you were born as one of them?”

“That has nothing to do with it!” she screamed, thrashing her hair and breaking into tears as she pulled back with her strength and tore her arm from his grip. “They’re… They were my family!” she said, taking several steps back as she shook. She clasped her palm to her forehead as she sobbed, turning around to face the other way. “I know those people. I don’t want to fight them. I don’t want to kill them. I don’t…”

Freddy’s gaze grew cold. He watched her back without any sympathy. “You might be seeing some pink mist, but you aren’t hearing what I am,” he stated, taking a step forward. “I hear the sounds of flesh being torn, people being blown apart.”

She winced.

“They aren’t just killing, Sophia.” He walked up to where she stood, looming behind her back. “Do you want to go see what your ‘family’ is up to?”

Silence descended between them. Sophia shivered in his shadow, barely suppressing her sobs. “I’ve seen videos of what their operations look like,” she said, slowly turning around to face him. Her eyes appeared empty. “I know what they’re capable of.”

“What’s the problem, then?”

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, he opened his palm and slapped her. The sharp sound of his hand meeting her cheek echoed through the empty space around them, and she was pushed back a bit, putting her fingers to her face in shock as she looked at him in disbelief.

“Snap out of it,” he demanded. “You did the right thing by running away. Don’t fuck it up now.”

She bit her lip. “Don’t you dare hit me like that again.”

“Or what?”

Her nostrils flared as she stared at him, but a moment later, she looked away in shame. She wiped the snot beneath her nose with a sleeve.

By then, the sounds of fighting had already quieted.

Sophia looked back to the sky above the realm, and judging by the pang of agony in her eye, the amount of dissipating life force had multiplied. Her eyes moved down to the ground, and then she turned to look at him with forced cheer. “You’re gonna pay for that slap,” she said, getting back into a combat stance.

He nodded and did the same thing.

At first, Freddy believed that getting used to his new body would be easy enough. After all, not even an hour after he started sparring with Sophia, he felt he was already 90 percent there to mastering himself.

Unfortunately, that last 10 percent was also the most difficult to overcome.

The main problem was his muscle memory. He got the hang of his new body quickly enough, but numerous times, Sophia would do something unexpected, and he’d either freeze up, trip, or hit himself by accident. Conscious control caught up quickly—involuntary reactions didn’t.

A lifetime of habits was deeply ingrained into his mind and body, and while his talent was miraculous, it couldn’t change that.

This problem would haunt him for a long while, but they were doing their best to undo the worst of it. And, as their progress continued, one thing became apparent: even with the downsides, he had gained far more than he’d lost.

Comparing his new body to the old one was like comparing a top-of-the-line car to a ragged old carriage. Even if he still sucked at driving, the ride was far smoother than it used to be. But boy, did he suck at driving. Sophia was genuinely bewildered at how bad he was at fighting.

But, with her expert guidance and through much work, he started to improve. She aggressively corrected the worst of his mistakes; with time, he could almost be compared to someone who knew what they were doing, at least in the basics department.

It was equally humiliating and humbling for Freddy to confront his lack of skill.

His footwork was garbage; his sense of balance was nonexistent; he was like an angry bull, charging his opponents recklessly and throwing everything he had at them while paying no mind to how they might retaliate, thinking only one step ahead, if even that much—a weakness that Sophia happily and frequently exploited as she effortlessly kicked his ass with a tenth of the effort he was putting into the fights.

Sophia told him that he had something the cult dubbed a “mind of hate.” She had explained their convoluted system, going into great detail about why the cult waited so long for the children to be given their vestiges. It wasn’t just about them proving themselves; it was also about giving them the time to discover their true nature.

While she didn’t have a lifetime to watch him fight, according to her, she didn’t need long to get a read on him. With almost absolute certainty, she claimed that he was what the cult called a “Hateful.”

Freddy fought like he genuinely hated his opponent, even while he sparred. He despised that they dared get in his way; his soul seethed in fury at the mere thought that someone dared attack him.

He took every blow as personally as some might an insult to their mother. As such, he did everything in his power to obliterate his opponent as quickly as possible and make them suffer.

His tendencies in how he formed his abilities were further proof of this. He craved instant, overwhelming power and tools that could inflict as much damage and pain in as short a time as possible.

Usually, such people were given fire-affinity talents—destructive power sets that could be used at range. The tendencies like those that Freddy showed were horrible for anyone who wanted to train true martial arts. Taking blow for blow was an excellent way to retire early, and that was in the best-case scenario.

Fortunately for him, with 1% Lifesteal, he was a rare exception to this common rule.

According to Sophia, it was better for him to double down on how he fought. It was within his nature, after all; it was always best if one could follow the path that was most suitable for them. Besides, he was undead, and injuries didn’t matter to him in the long run—there was no downside to pursuing his style, even if it was kind of insane.

Well… if he learned how to land those strikes, at least.

From his point of view, most of what she said sounded like typical pseudoscientific cultist mumbo-jumbo, but, if anything, he couldn’t deny her skill. And there was some validity to what she was saying.

Although he took it with a grain of salt, he still listened to her advice and did his best to improve.

They would spar, with him focusing on mastering basic movements and Sophia working on her abilities. Then, when Sophia grew tired, she went to the Netherecho to replenish her reserves, and once she returned, she meditated to settle herself while Freddy trained.

When they got hungry, they hunted for nearby gorels, and then… well… they tried eating their meat raw. Not only did it taste like vomit, it was hard to digest and gave them stomachaches.

They couldn’t light a fire to cook it because the smoke might give them away, but Sophia devised a brilliant solution. Even if it was a bit… bizarre.

She first flooded the flesh with life essence and turned the whole body into a big captured life spark. Then she combined one of their extremely powerful sparks into the chunk of flesh. With a powerful spark of undeath, the flesh blob could digest any organic material quickly and without much trouble.

So, they fed the mass of flesh with tree branches, leaves, and wood chunks. The blob could easily digest plant fiber and turn it into sugars. They would feed it so much wood that the blob of flesh would be supersaturated with sugar.

At that point, it was only a matter of Sophia removing the spark of undeath. This would kill the whole blob instantly, making the meat safe to consume.

The final result tasted metallic, earthy, and sickeningly sweet. It had the texture of melted chewing gum, but it went down much more easily than raw gorel flesh.

When they were exhausted to their limits, they slept in the small cave they had found. Rather than swap turns to watch for danger, they tasked Bloodshed with keeping them safe. Well, with keeping Freddy safe, at least.

Sophia knew this, and it did no good for her sleep quality. But she rested enough. Supreme-quality healing couldn’t replace sleep, but it could supplement it somewhat. Thus, all it took was one spark, and she was up to speed.

Freddy occasionally consumed the dubious steroids and exercised to temper his body.

If he was being honest, he really didn’t like using this stuff. He only consumed a tiny crumb melted into a large bottle of water, but even that much made him feel like he was losing his mind. Coupled with continuous, aching pain in his genital area and a massive headache, it was more comparable to being tortured than anything else.

These steroids were not made for human consumption. While using them, his heart beat so irregularly that it felt like he was suffering from a long series of heart attacks. In fact, on a few occasions, his heart did stop beating altogether. If it weren’t for his undeath, he’d have lost his life every time that happened.

Being undead was pretty bizarre. Even when his heart stopped pumping blood, all he felt was severe discomfort. While he didn’t die or lose consciousness, it did have some scary effects.

His entire body felt like it was screaming for air, causing him to feel like he was suffocating the whole time. Every cell, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, demanded oxygen. This didn’t only hurt, either. The cells in his body didn’t die, but they became pretty weak, and in such a state, he could barely exert any force.

Many of those who had the death affinity refrained from becoming undead. Now that he was experiencing the downsides, he could tell why. For him, this state was temporary. But for someone without access to a talent like his?

He couldn’t imagine continuing to live without a working heart. If he felt like that 24/7… or if he got into an even worse situation?

No wonder that so many people lost their minds.

That being said, his talent definitely lived up to his expectations. Despite the aggressive damage to his body and the rapid muscle growth, once he healed, he experienced no lasting side effects.

And the primary effects were definitely worth the sacrifice. Only three days after they started, the initial vulnerabilities in his body were gone, having vanished like they had never been there to begin with. His muscles grew only a bit, but even that was insane for only three days of work.

On top of that, he felt considerably stronger. He’d need a visit to the gym to see how much, but from what he could tell, it was a notable increase. Although, that wasn’t exactly the best way to put it. It wasn’t that he was considerably stronger than he used to be, but it was now far easier for him to exert that strength.

The newly found superior leverage made movement much smoother, allowing him to comfortably exert force from a wider variety of angles. His body was also more balanced.

Once his physique was mostly settled, he dedicated a part of his focus to gathering, tempering, and growing his abilities.

He still meticulously kept track of his progress in a notebook.

GATHERING:

Second star—128% essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Pool of Blood: Stage 1—65% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 0—99% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—14% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—25% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 0—98% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—25% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 1—9% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—23% Progress

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage ?—? Progress

That Other Ability: No clue

SPIRIT ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice

Leviathan’s Fury

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -4% essence cost, +3% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed.

CURSED ITEMS:

Dagger of Bleeding: Melee attacks cause extra bleeding

He hadn’t made much progress across the board, but he did make a notable leap forward in essence capacity. Sophia’s method was quite effective.

They hadn’t yet returned to it, but he was sure he could reach at least 160% essence capacity if they did—199% was way out of his reach, however. Maybe if he had two weeks, he could get there, but with the time they had, he wasn’t optimistic. It was a loss, to be sure, but not a massive one. Even if he made it that far, reaching the third star wasn’t a possibility.

Having Bloodshed was effectively a cheat for growing capacity, but a leap to the third star took far more than just being at 199%. If it were that easy, the vast majority of two-stars wouldn’t be stuck at this exact point.

Reaching the third star required one to truly fulfill their two-star potential. Physically, Freddy was already way ahead of most two-stars… but his abilities were severely lacking.

Pool of Blood was his most advanced ability, and even it was only at stage one and 65% progress. Most people at 199% star capacity had all of their core abilities at stage two, with some even having their primary ability at stage three, but that was exceptionally rare.

The thought of this made Freddy sweat. His body was a great tool, but he held no delusions about his current power. Even Sophia had said it—without his spirit abilities, they didn’t stand a chance against the cultists.

He glanced over the notebook, looking through his set of powers. Crimson Mercury and Gore Knuckles were both close to being ready to upgrade, so he decided that the best course of action would be to focus on those two.

His effort paid off quickly. A mere fifteen minutes of tempering and another half hour of punching a tree were enough to complete the job.

He tasked Bloodshed with finding a few vestiges. Essentially, he needed the concept of “metallicness” for both abilities. There were a few branching paths for Gore Knuckles after that point, but for Crimson Mercury, it was just a matter of finding concepts of being tied to specific metals, preferably ones that made for good weapons.

A quick trip underground was all it took for Bloodshed to return with the targets. Metal was everywhere, and it was no surprise that a vestige of the concept would also be common.

He beat them up and absorbed them into his soul, finally upgrading the two abilities.

Gore Knuckles became a bit tougher, which was no surprise. They wouldn’t be particularly impressive until he got Crimson Mercury to at least stage one—10% progress. Then they would have the approximate quality of wrought iron, which would do just fine for the most part unless he had to use them on a particularly hard material.

If they shattered occasionally, fixing them required a negligible investment of essence, and he had blood to spare.

With that out of the way, he looked through the rest of the list. If he was being honest, even if he dedicated all his time to growing them, there was little benefit he could get from most of his abilities in the short time frame they were working with.

Growth outside of mortal combat was slow at his current stage, and he didn’t have the time to develop new abilities.

At this point, there was only one ability worth investing his time into—Hydraulic Flex. It was his go-to ability for all things mobility.

As for the other abilities?

Flowing Strike was already powerful enough. Thousand Wet Hells grew too slowly, and Abyssal Depths only made Flowing Strike more expensive, which wasn’t particularly desirable with his current reserves.

He hadn’t been using Hydraulic Flex until that point in his spars against Sophia. With it, he was simply too fast for her to hold her ground, and he needed to get used to his body anyway.

Once he was finished with upgrading his abilities, he walked back to where Sophia was.

Her body looked serene as she meditated, gathering essence and allowing it to settle in her body. She was close to reaching the second star. Her speed was insane, but that was to be expected with how long she had spent training before becoming an archhuman.

Although she looked calm at that moment, he knew that wasn’t how she felt. She didn’t say it—for the most part, she just focused on progress. But he could feel an air of… determination around her. There was no more joviality. Even when she did try to joke, it wasn’t funny. She wasn’t trying to be.

He didn’t ask, but he did care. He feared how she would react. It could get ugly—real ugly. There were several worst-case scenarios, starting with her fumbling and getting herself killed and ending with betrayal.

Although he seriously doubted they would take her back given the stories she shared about them.

It was hard for Freddy to relate to her. It had been a long time since he last felt like he truly belonged somewhere.

“Am I that pretty while I meditate?” she asked him as she opened her eyes. Her smile was strained, and it didn’t reach her eyes.

He didn’t feel like bantering. “I have to ask you something,” he said, sighing as he glanced down at his left hand, where his storage ring glistened under the false sun.

Freddy had already shared more with Sophia than he wanted to. She knew about Bloodshed. She knew about his spirit abilities.

His ring.

She cocked her head at him, and he tried meeting her eyes but failed, dropping his head down. He got into a crouch and fiddled with his ring, rolling his thoughts across his tongue as he pondered his options.

It was time to make a decision. Half-trusting her like this was stupid. At the moment, he was leaving himself open to betrayal while failing to maximize the odds of their survival.

He had to make a choice.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, preparing to get up and come closer to him.

He glanced at her.

Either he trusted her… or he didn’t.

His heart raged in his chest as he struggled to look at her. What were his options, even? Tell her to fuck off? And then what? How far would he get on his own? Besides, hadn’t she gone above and beyond to help him out? Her actions weren’t those of someone who wanted to betray him for this cult. From the very start, she had been serious about surviving this. She was simply torn.

“Hello?” she called. “Earth calling Freddy? Are you okay, dude?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“Sophia.” He coughed and got up to his feet. “I’m… I have something to tell you.”

She stopped and stared at him, a pensive glare dancing across his features. “Go on,” she urged.

“You said we stand no chance against the cult, right?” he asked.

“I’m positive,” she said, squinting at him. Then her eyebrows shot up. “You think you have something else that could help us in the fight,” she declared confidently.

“No,” he denied. “That’s not what I’m…” He couldn’t stop himself from looking at his ring again. “Maybe… but I’m not sure.”

When he was getting his stuff evaluated by that man, August, he only had six of the nine consumable items appraised before the whole deal went tits up. And Freddy had left the most expensive-looking stuff for last—thus, he had no idea what it was.

But she might know.

His stomach felt like it wanted to jump out of his throat as he finally bit down and steeled his resolve.

He wasn’t going to run away. She was a priceless source of information. But if he had her by his side, he was going all in. If she had any plans to betray him, it didn’t matter how much she knew.

What mattered the most was that they used everything they had at their disposal.

“Hey, Sophia,” he called, finally raising his head and meeting her gaze. “I need you to check something out.”

43

THE THREE ITEMS

The passage that Jacob’s and Jack’s parties, as well as the few strangers, were hiding in was also a hub for the dungeon they had delved just earlier that day.

The passage that went into the dungeon wasn’t open to the wilderness of the small realm, but rather, it was an enclosed, fortified building that was located underground.

Rather than wait right outside the flimsy barricade they improvised, they went deeper into the passage, reaching the fortification and hiding there.

Theodore was entirely unconscious, not having opened his eyes in the several hours they had been there, and he was the only individual present with any sort of healing capabilities.

Within the fortified building, there was an infirmary. The infirmary was rather small and poorly equipped, with no employees present. There were only five beds.

On that day, nine people with rather nasty injuries were present. The five with the worst injuries were placed on the beds—Theodore, who had overused his holy affinity and was now suffering the effects of severe essence poisoning; Jacob, who had numerous contusions, bruises, and two massive, bloody holes in his back and stomach; Karen, who was poisoned and littered with cuts and stabs, having lost a lot of her blood; Phillip, whose helmet was literally stuck to his head because the arrows that had penetrated it couldn’t be removed; and Beatrice, who was burnt, bloody, and mumbling something due to a severe concussion.

Jack had a few bad scrapes, and Jean’s whole body was littered with bruises from stone bullets, but both were free of anything nastier than that.

Then there were the four strangers who had come with them. Two of them were entirely uninjured—one was a lightly armored Asian woman whose eyes were permanently stuck wide open as she sat in a corner and hugged her knees, and the other was a medium-height man in a full suit of mid-range heavy armor that he hadn’t removed since they arrived.

The other two, a tan, tall, black-haired man with a crooked, bloody nose and a shorter man with a large cut across his bald head, had already bandaged themselves and were waiting on the side.

Jack and Jean were doing their best to help bandage and treat the severely wounded party while the armored man stood outside, watching for the invaders.

Thankfully, there was a safe with some supplies, and Jacob had the password, so they had no lack of first-aid kits and basic healing medicines. Nothing they had on hand would do them any better than natural-quality healing, but that was far superior to leaving their wounds as they were.

Out of everyone present, Jacob’s injuries were the most severe. Despite using both Hundred Wet Hells and Stone Skin, taking numerous strikes from the mace, as well as the point-blank Pressure Jet, had done a number on him,

The second worst was Phillip. His helmet, which had been pelted by arrows, was stuck to his head. The projectiles had penetrated through his expensive helm and embedded themselves into his metallic skull, making it almost impossible to remove the helmet without causing more harm.

They would have to wait for Theodore to wake up, and then Jacob would use his talent to crumble the helmet into pieces. Theodore’s healing ability would be enough to save Phillip after that. Until then, his head had been bathed in disinfectant and low-end healing elixir. They couldn’t use anything stronger than first-aid quality since nobody wanted the man’s bones to fuse with the arrowheads before they could be pulled out.

As for Karen, Theodore, and Beatrice, while they were in a bad situation, all of them would live without intervention. Phillip and Jacob wouldn’t.

Once fully bandaged, Jacob stared at the cold, white ceiling with a painfully dull gaze. An ache danced behind his eyes, and his expression betrayed the look of someone who had fallen into despair.

He had watched Rachel die, standing impotently as he saw her get brutally murdered. He had seen many die. Even at that moment, every person there was covered in guts and blood.

As if that wasn’t enough, he had been forced to confront his shortcomings in the most brutal way possible, not just as a warrior, but as a leader. He had failed his team, and it was only by luck that the rest were still there among the living.

Well… luck and Theodore.

Jacob moved his head to the side to look at the unconscious man. Now that was a leader—a truly dauntless man. With a mere fraction of Jacob’s power, Theodore had saved pretty much all of them from certain death.

Indeed, his powers weren’t to blame. Jacob had three affinities and a top-tier talent—if he had worked hard enough, he would have found better ways around his weaknesses.

Now it was too late to cry about the shoulda-wouldas. It was over. His incompetence had caught up with him. And from that point onward, that day would haunt him forever.

It was difficult to accept what happened to Rachel. He kept feeling the impulse to turn around and see how she was doing, only to realize that she was not in the room with them. She was dead.

Their relationship hadn’t been the type that was guaranteed to last forever. It was quite shallow. But losing her like this?

He saw Jean move from the corner of his eye. Her face was like it was cast in steel. The same as Jack. They had lost someone far more important to them than Rachel had been to him. Yet, based on their expressions, one would never guess.

Yet another way he found himself inferior. Yet another way he was weak.

What they needed to do at that moment was to get patched up and hide somewhere, possibly in the dungeon. It was still cleared, and if they went inside, it wouldn’t reset.

It was far from a perfect place to hide, but the underground chambers were numerous, and Jacob knew the whole structure like the back of his hand, while their pursuers didn’t. The thought of having to fight those people again made his stomach lurch, but he swallowed his fear.

He had been pathetic enough for that day. It was best now that he swallowed these thoughts and focused.

Things were a lot more likely to get worse before they got any better.

Suddenly, a man’s voice came, startling Jacob out of his reverie. It was Theodore, who was currently screaming as he got up and frightfully looked around the room. The man was suffering from psychosis as a consequence of overusing his essence.

But he was awake. Once they calmed him down, they could finally move on.

Before showing her anything from his ring, the first thing Freddy did was tell Sophia his story. Well, he had already told her his story, but now he filled her in on the details he had left out.

For a long while, she simply didn’t believe him. After all, a one-star killing an elite Lord, even if every damn star in the universe aligned in his favor, was something that just didn’t happen.

But then he showed her the prime in the small glass box—an item that he speculated to be worth likely billions of dollars.

Once her eyebrows finished their makeout session with her hairline, she finally managed to reattach her jaw to the rest of her face. “Do you have any idea how incredible that is?”

“Yes, but⁠—”

“No, no, no!” she interrupted, aggressively waving her finger before his face. “Yeah, I get it,” she spat. “You and I are in agreement that you only managed it because of the circumstances. But holy moly!” She got up to her feet and gripped her hair in two fistfuls. “That is the single most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and believe me, I’ve heard some crazy stuff!”

He chuckled a bit, dropping his head slightly. He was aware that he’d done something incredible that day. But he wasn’t there to brag. He was there to prepare for the storm that was coming for them.

As he looked at the woman before him, he could tell that she had… relaxed a bit. Some of the tension in her body had evaporated, and she acted a bit more comfortably around him again.

“Sophia,” he said. “I think it’s time to show you what I was talking about.”

She calmed down slightly and nodded her head. “Can I presume that that’s the personal ring of that man?”

Freddy nodded.

Sophia rubbed her palms like a greedy goblin, smiling nefariously like a snake who had stumbled upon a nest of unguarded eggs.

He stared at her for a long moment, squinting his eyes.

“What?” she asked. “Don’t look at me like that.” She grinned wryly at him. “You look pretty damn excited to find out too.”

He merely shook his head and proceeded to take the first of the three items out of the ring.

It was a small wooden box, and within it was a dried piece of flesh. The wood was smooth and shiny, shimmering under the rays of the false sun like a polished sheet of glass, while the piece of meat just looked like a half-eaten chunk of jerky.

“No clue,” she said straight off the bat, shrugging. “I mean, you could probably eat that… I think…? If you want to risk it, I can be ready with a few heals to save you if it goes poorly,” she offered.

“Tempting,” he said honestly, “but let’s leave that for later.” He pulled the second object out of the ring.

This time, it was a tiny glass vial, small enough that it could be pinched between two fingers. Within it were two small beads that had the texture of oil droplets floating in water.

Sophia scowled at them for a long moment, grinding her teeth as she worked to remember anything, but… “Yeah, no,” she surrendered with a shrug. “No clue. Don’t look like something I’d eat, either.”

“You never know,” he said, grinning at her with a wide smile. “Maybe it’s worth taking the risk.”

“Maybe,” she said with a quick nod. “But it could also be some sort of cursed medicine that burns your stars away and sets you back in progress.”

“On second thought, I’m gonna hold onto these.”

After putting the box and the small vial away, Freddy anxiously observed the inside of the ring, hesitantly eyeing the final item.

“Is something wrong?” Sophia asked him, and he answered with only a quick glance at her.

This item had been left for last, but frankly, it was one that he was reluctant to take out.

He wasn’t afraid that she’d steal it. Well, not that afraid, but he was worried that she wouldn’t recognize it. Or, perhaps even worse, that she would know and that it would turn out to be useless.

Trapped within a small glass box was a big glowing bead of pure white. Even inside the storage ring, he could feel an intense power radiating off the item. This was something undeniably good. This was something great.

His expectations for it were through the roof. They had been since the moment he first saw it.

“So?” she asked again. “Are you gonna whip it out or what?”

He shot her a blank stare. She responded with a wry grin.

Sighing, he finally focused, and with a pop of air rushing out of the way, he conjured the item on his palm.

Sophia swiped the box from his hand in a literal instant, then screamed, then slammed her mouth shut with her free hand as her wide-open eyes jumped between the object in her hand and Freddy’s face.

Needless to say, she seemed to know what it was.

And it seemed to be something very, very good.

44

FINAL PREPARATIONS

Freddy felt profoundly itchy watching Sophia cradling the shiny ball. “Sophia…” he called cautiously.

“Oh, shut it!” she yelled. “I’m not gonna steal it, you—argh! I wish I killed a damn Lord by accident.”

“I wouldn’t call it an accident,” he said, stepping forward.

She groaned and handed the object back to him. “Listen to me, Freddy,” she said, looking at the box. “Here is what you have to do. Go into the Netherecho, then eat this thing.”

“In the Netherecho?” he asked, scowling at her. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“Just do it,” she said.

“Hold on, now,” he started cautiously. “Imma need you to step back a bit; I don’t like the way you’re looking at this thing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Either do it, or I will steal it and take it for myself.”

“Okay, geez.” He looked at the box. With a final glance at Sophia, he took seven measured steps away from her and looked for a way to open the box. “How do I open this damn thing?”

“You don’t,” she said. “Just go into the Netherecho, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Aight,” he said. Then he took another seven long steps away from her, ensuring he was far enough away that she couldn’t snatch it while he was in the Netherecho.

She squinted at him again and made strangling gestures.

He chuckled. Then he sat on the ground, placed the box before him, and closed his eyes.

As soon as he did, he understood precisely what Sophia was talking about.

In the place of the small sealed box was what looked like a storm of ether, a coiling sphere of glowing, pure wisps. It radiated so much power that he felt it was comparable to staring at his star—if not even more extreme.

“What the hell is this thing?” he wondered, suddenly questioning Sophia’s advice.

However, he could also feel a slight pull. It almost felt like his projection was… salivating at the sight of the mesmerizing object before him.

With a gulp, he leaped off his head and landed before the stormy object. It appeared slightly larger in the Netherecho, and the glass box was nowhere to be seen. With a cautious step forward, he placed one hand on the spinning object.

Instantly, the storm stopped. The mighty mass of energy evaporated into a thin stream of pure ether and coagulated right on the palm of his tiny hand. It grew as small as a grain of sand, and once it fully condensed, it looked frighteningly similar to a miniature star.

Its white glow appeared to shatter the further it went, splitting into tiny rainbows that evaporated into gentle mist.

Don’t tell me…

With more anticipation than he’d felt in a long time, he carefully brought the object to the hood of his cloak and shoved it inside, consuming it. Instantly, a horrible pain shot straight through his entire soul, repeatedly echoing in a recursive sequence of ethereal pulses coursing into his ethercosm.

He forced himself to bear the pain, pushing through it as the process gradually came to a halt.

His projection flew back towards his body, and he appeared not in the real world but inside his ethercosm, where he floated around for a few long seconds. Then he felt his projection start to condense. Horror filled him as he felt his entire soul space shrink for a moment, and, a distance away from the two stars orbiting one another in his core, a tiny nova appeared.

It roiled stormily for a long moment before gradually calming and condensing…

Into a satellite.

Freddy stared at the object before him in shock, absolutely bewildered. “Holy moly,” he muttered, slowly drifting towards the incredible object.

“I have a satellite,” he mumbled, unable to restrain his glee. “I have a goddamn satellite!”

It was like reliving the moment he first laid eyes on his star. It was marvelous. Magical. He felt excited beyond belief, and he quickly went back outside.

Sophia’s envious gaze welcomed his return. “How’d it go?”

“It hurt like hell,” he said. “By the way, thank you for warning me.”

She smirked. “You don’t seem all that angry, though.”

He grinned from ear to ear. “I guess I’m in a good mood.”

He focused on Thousand Wet Hells. The tempering technique ordinarily consumed 10% essence every second. With 128% essence capacity, he had roughly 13 seconds of use while full. At the moment, his essence stores were at only 79%.

He quickly did some mental math.

Satellites only contained 1% of the essence capacity of an entire star. But, to compensate for this, they regenerated that capacity fully in a single second. That essence was consumed with priority, meaning it always went before the essence that was stored in the star.

Essentially, with how it worked, it was pretty much a 1% per second discount on essence use for every ability. With something like Hydraulic Flex in passive mode, it completely covered the use cost, making the ability essentially… free.

On top of that, it made essence manipulation effectively free, too, allowing him to practice to his heart’s content.

This was an absolutely enormous advantage. These things cost millions of dollars, and they were damn hard to buy for solo archhumans. The people who made these usually only sold them to big organizations.

Having a satellite meant that even if he was utterly out of essence in his star, he could still run Hydraulic Flex indefinitely. Well, until the essence poisoning killed him, that was, but water essence was the gentlest kind, so he had quite a bit of leeway.

With Thousand Wet Hells, it didn’t seem that impressive. At 79% essence, he could use it for 8 seconds—with the satellite, that became 8.77 seconds. That seemed quite tame at first glance, but that wasn’t the case at all.

That was a nearly 10% increase in the speed at which he would grow Thousand Wet Hells. Over a day or two, that didn’t seem like much, but when progress was measured in years and when compounding results were taken into account, it made a drastic difference.

Putting Thousand Wet Hells aside, expensive as it was, it made his other tempering techniques much cheaper.

Pool of Blood only cost around 1% essence per second—now, it was free. That didn’t mean he could use it forever; blood essence was a lot nastier than water essence, and overuse could lead to some terrible consequences—like his own blood turning highly acidic and corroding his body away from the inside.

He wasn’t ordinarily scared of this since it wasn’t a big deal, even if he suffered some damage. But with a satellite involved, things could get extremely dangerous. Fast.

“Did you test it out yet?” Sophia’s words broke him out of his musings.

“Hmm?” he hummed. “Ah, no, wait; I’m wondering what to try it with first.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just do whatever!”

“You fiendish woman!” he spat. “This is a special moment! I need to decide on a good one.”

She groaned. “Okay, geez,” she muttered as she turned around. “Who the hell says ‘fiendish’?”

Freddy ignored her as he took a closer look at his abilities. “Screw it,” he said as he decided on a trusty classic—Adaptive Water Body. He hadn’t used this one in quite a while, and he thought it would be wise to give it a go.

It was quite an expensive tempering technique at 4% essence per second. Now, it would be 25 percent cheaper.

He focused and started using it. His ability drew essence from his star as usual, but this time, half of it came from the satellite, drastically reducing the rate at which his star was being depleted. He continued using the ability until⁠—

“Wait a minute!” he yelped as he stopped using his tempering technique.

“Hmm?” Sophia called. “All good?” she asked.

Half?

He tried again.

Indeed, the ability drew on his essence, roughly half of which came from the satellite.

Now… either he had misremembered the cost of the ability or⁠—

“This satellite is generating 2% essence per second,” he muttered in disbelief.

Sophia’s mouth gaped. “No freaking—aaargh, you lucky bastard!” she spat. “You got a two-star satellite!”

“This is a two-star satellite!” he echoed her words. “Holy shit, I have a two-star satellite!”

His mind rushed as he got up. That changed things—2% instead of 1% wasn’t a tiny difference. Hell, two-star satellites cost over ten times more than one-star ones.

He rushed to his feet and screamed in joy. It took him a long moment to calm down. “What are my chances against the cultists, now?” he asked snarkily.

“They’re… higher, I guess,” she said. “But all of them have satellites. Hell, I think some of them have three-star ones.”

That made him deflate real quick. “Oh…”

“Don’t you ‘oh’ me!” she said. “You don’t have the right to go ‘oh’ and deflate dramatically! This is a huge deal! We only have a few more days left before this place is flooded with monsters. When that happens, having a two-star satellite will let you save your reserves! You don’t even need to tap into your star now!”

“Yeah… you’re right,” he said, but he wasn’t comforted by those words.

This was indeed a massive deal, yet she so casually shared that all their opponents had the same advantage. That was a tough pill to swallow.

It was sobering.

She wasn’t kidding when she said they were dealing with true elites.

And they only had a handful of days left to prepare.

Leonard stood before the barrier, smoking a cigar as he eyed the ripples.

The entire lobby had been blocked off and reinforced behind layers of heavy metal walls. Dozens of powerful archhumans were waiting just past the barrier behind him, with hundreds more waiting throughout the building.

He had tried himself against it. He was no combat arch, but he was no pushover, either. Yet… no luck. None of his officers could bust the barrier, either. Specialized equipment that could perhaps stand a chance would take weeks to assemble, and until then, they were stuck, waiting to see whether the barrier would go down.

There were four open passages such as this one in Nova York. All of them were blocked by the same barrier. On top of that, another five private passages had been compromised.

A total of nine realms throughout Nova York were in an uncertain state. Depending on who had done this and what their goals were, the next few weeks could spell a disaster unseen since the early days of the Rift.

The worst part was that they couldn’t simply evacuate the entire city. Millions of people lived here—where exactly would they take them?

Faced with no choice, the government had kept this attack under a tight wrap. Naturally, word had gotten out. But seeing as the local government and the news were quiet, close to no one was panicking. Similar stuff had occurred before, albeit on a far smaller scale, and things had been handled smoothly.

Unfortunately, Leonard didn’t believe it would go the same way this time.

Something about this whole thing felt sinister to him. There was a purpose behind these actions that eluded him, and if there was anything he hated, it was being out of the loop.

Not to mention that one of his most promising sons in a long time was stuck behind this barrier, and whether he had survived was unknown.

Madame boarded her flying carriage, bidding goodbye to a long line of screaming women who were seeing her off on the rooftop of her headquarters.

She sent kisses and hugs, waving cheerily as she stepped inside. Her assistant, Matt, approached the carriage and closed the door.

The smile didn’t fall from her face once the doors were closed.

A moment later, a second door opened, and Matt walked inside, stepping over and sitting beside her. A few seconds later, the three bodyguards and the driver also walked in, sitting down and getting comfortable.

There was absolutely no need for bodyguards to protect her. Yet, whenever she had to descend down to the lessers, she found them convenient to have by her side.

The empress would arrive in about a week or so, and with her flying carriage, Madame would be at the capital in only three days. Four days was the most she could manage to scrounge up. Naturally, there was no real need to show up a whole four days early, but she wanted a small break from all the hubbub.

She hadn’t set aside time for herself in a long while, and New York was just the place to go and have some fun. No, wait—Nova York. That was what they called it nowadays. She kept forgetting about that. If she was being honest, she didn’t like the new name. Even “New New York” would have been better.

Speaking of the city, she had recently gotten her hands on a few concerning reports. A few passages were in trouble, and it could be a big problem. Not her problem, of course.

As their carriage finally lifted off the ground and soared into the sky, she couldn’t help but wonder about Freddy Stern. What the hell was happening to that young man?

She hadn’t been paying particularly close attention to what he was up to, but when she sensed the intense signature of what could only be extremely crude body modification, she took a closer look. And quickly made a startling discovery—he had acquired a spark of undeath. That was plainly absurd for too many reasons to count.

There was no way in hell he had received another damn unique. So… an affinity shard, perhaps? That was also unlikely.

She thought back to that undead being she killed back in the caverns. Was that passage connected to undeath somehow?

At any rate, this was more evidence to support her initial assumption. Too many strange things were happening for that not to be the case. At any rate, extra evidence was always welcome.

Persuading the empress would be no easy task.

The next few days passed in a blur. Freddy and Sophia trained every waking second they had.

Although rudimentary, Sophia had acquired a neat ability—she could morph her legs. Now, she could bend her knees the other way and use her legs as springs for running and jumping faster.

As far as offense was concerned, she had put little work into that. Their plan would be better served with greater mobility.

Freddy understood the same thing, and as for their plan, fighting would be the last resort. Speed would be no issue for him with Hydraulic Flex—with his Thousand Wet Hells-tempered body, he could reliably use Hydraulic Flex with both stars to leap past the guards and into the passage.

Thankfully, Freddy had a watch in his backpack so they could keep track of time.

It didn’t take long for him to learn the consequences of abusing the satellite. He used it quite heavily during the first day, pushing it to the limit to discover where that limit lay. And discover it, he did. After loading his body with far too much water essence, he started throwing up.

Every single orifice in his body started aggressively leaking water. He sweated buckets. His vision became blurry, and the dehydration hit him like a truck. He’d gone way past normal levels of essence poisoning and well into lethal territory without realizing it.

Without his immortal body, keeping himself alive would have been a struggle. Thankfully, he could recover from the side effects with relative ease, and it took only two hours of meditation to purge the excess water essence from his body.

Throughout their time there, very few gorels had stumbled upon them. They were simply too isolated. But on the seventh day, as Sophia had predicted, more of them started showing up.

At first, it was just one or two, but before long, it was five, then ten, then twenty.

As the cacophony of gorel cries shrieked through the entire realm, filling the air with a subtle vibration, they knew.

They were out of time.

45

THE ADVENT OF BLOODSHED

Freddy peeked through the rocks barricading the tiny cave where he and Sophia hid. Through the tiny hole, he witnessed a storm of dark-furred bodies, their red-speckled chests the only way to tell one apart from another. The outside sounded horrendous—the screams were loud and ever present, and the stampede was causing the ground to vibrate; small chunks of stone rolled down the barricade.

The horde had arrived in the middle of their training—they were both quite exhausted, and before stepping out into the swarm, they would rest and regain their strength.

First, they had to eat. Sophia was doing her best to make the gorel paste look palatable, but no matter what she did, it wasn’t going to happen.

“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the fake chicken Sophia was shaping. It looked cartoony as hell, and its surface had a plastic texture.

“This could be our last meal,” she said, trying to look serious but failing miserably. Unable to resist, she started giggling at the ridiculous display before them. Her hand clasped over her mouth, and her eyes glanced at him.

He also started giggling like a dumbass. “Bone apple teeth, I guess,” he joked as he bent over and grabbed a fake drumstick. It tasted like the same old crap—sickeningly sweet, metallic, earthy… but… warmer, somehow.

As they ate in silence, the mood grew more severe. They ate a big meal, forcing as much food as possible down their throats. Then, with Bloodshed standing guard, they took a nap to let the food settle.

They fell asleep more effortlessly than ever, with plenty of space between them.

Freddy woke up first, finding a shivering, frightened Sophia hugging his bulky arm. Rather than push her away, he slowly moved her blonde hair out of her face, revealing her pained expression.

He felt his heart tighten. For a long moment, he nearly wanted to delude himself into thinking that… he had something with her. That there was something between them. And perhaps he wasn’t wrong—but he knew it wasn’t love.

In different ways, they were both broken. There was a kinship in their shared struggle. Within her, he saw not a lover but a long-lost sister he was starting to warm up to. A close friend.

But a wall still stood between them.

A lot depended on how she reacted to confronting the cult.

If she managed to overcome her demons…. he could see himself wanting to keep her by his side.

She opened her eyes and slowly looked up at him. After staring at him for half a second, she violently pushed him away and jumped back. “Oh no…” she said as she buried her face in her palms. “Don’t tell me I just did that…”

“Don’t worry, Sophia,” he teased. “I, too, am sharting my jorts. Brrr.” He mimicked shivering as he hugged his arms and mockingly sneered at her.

She punched his shoulder.

“Ow!” he yelped.

“Asshole,” she spat as she shook her head and turned around. “So… are you topped up?” she asked, changing the topic.

“Almost,” he said. “I’d like to meditate a bit to let myself settle. You?”

She sighed, looking down. “I’m full…”

They had done all the preparation they could, including fighting within the Netherecho to grow their stars. Freddy had made it to 162%—a monumental jump forward. Unsurprisingly, she had reached 99% progress on her star, but to their disappointment, she had failed to break through. It was a letdown, to be sure, but it wasn’t a massive surprise. Her failure to go up a star could be attributed to many things, but it was most likely because she had rushed it too much.

There was the elixir in Freddy’s ring, and despite the agony that caused him, he had suggested she take a dose to help push her along. But according to her, consuming such a treasure at just the peak of the first star had a tendency to backfire and even a good chance of making the user’s talent worse, completely negating the value of going up a star in the first place.

It was a shame, but that was life sometimes. At any rate, running out of essence would most likely not be a problem for her. Killing gorels would replenish around 1%, and there would be plenty of those around. Freddy was more worried about her body than anything else.

As a one-star, she wasn’t that much more durable than an ordinary human. Even putting undeath and her talent aside, exhaustion would eventually catch up with her.

The two meditated, settling their minds, bodies, and souls.

As a final touch, Sophia split one of the sparks of undeath and burned one half each to top them off, just to ensure they were in peak condition. The last remnants of Freddy’s fatigue vanished, and he felt ready to go.

Sophia was wearing a torn, filthy shirt, and he was shirtless, with only his heavy-duty pants, their sleeves torn from the knee down, and the metallic boots protecting his body. He had cast away all the heavy armor pieces, listening to Sophia’s advice. It wouldn’t do him much good other than slow him down.

His trusty serrated dagger rested in his palm, waiting to be used as a tool of slaughter.

He glanced at Sophia. She held her shortsword, polishing the blade with the hem of her shirt. For better or worse, she looked determined to go through with their plan.

They would go out into the forest and slaughter the gorels in their way, accumulating as much spilled blood as possible. Then once they gathered enough, they would summon Bloodshed and use it as a distraction to break through one of the passages and escape into the interspace. There, they would look for a place to hide and wait out the attack.

It was far from a perfect plan. It could fail on any of the steps. They could get overwhelmed by the gorels. They could be found by cultist scouts. They could even break through with no problem, only to get hunted down in the interspace, either by a mighty monster or one of the cultists.

But it was the best chance they had.

At that point, they were sitting there, stalling, both trying to think of anything else they could do to prepare. Before long, shifting and scratching came from the makeshift barricade keeping them blocked off.

Sophia looked like she was going to panic for a long moment, her eyes widening, pupils shrinking, nose flaring, shoulders tensing—but then she suddenly relaxed, a sense of resignation flushing her body. “It’s time to go,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” he concurred, watching a large stone roll down the pile of rubble keeping them safe.

The sounds of growling and hissing grew louder, and one of the gorels screamed.

He slowly got up. “You want to wait for them to break in, or do you want to start the party on our terms?”

She grinned widely at him. “What do you have in mind?”

“A Flowing Strike to blast the rocks apart,” he said. “Maybe with both stars active.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s the essence cost of that?”

“I think around 19% at this point,” he shared with a shit-eating grin.

She whistled. “You want to start the fight by blowing your arm up?”

“Believe it or not,” he said, “it would only injure me a bit.”

She snorted at that, shaking her head. “You’re a damn monster.”

For a long moment, they stood there, smiling.

The gorels had heard them and were now frantically trying to dig them out. An arm appeared through the rubble, spoony nails clawing stone apart like ice cream.

“Whelp,” she said, offering a fist bump. “It’s time to go.”

He bumped her outstretched fist, and they turned around. The dagger in his hand gleamed under the light coming from the outside.

A large stone crumbled apart a moment later, and four gorels pushed into the cave.

With a flick of his wrist, Gore Knuckles appeared along Freddy’s fingers, and with almost lazy jabs, he poked the rushing monsters in their faces. They supplied all of the momentum while he did the least he could get away with, ensuring he was conserving as much energy as possible.

None of the four monsters were instantly killed by the jabs, but all of them had received a poke to the brain through their eyes and were convulsing on the floor as a result, twitching and bleeding the last of their lives away. They bled profusely as their wounds leaked like open faucets, courtesy of the cursed dagger.

“Let’s go,” he said, moving forward and leaving the cave through the small hole.

The sound of gorel screams and hissing was reverberating through the realm at such volume that it created a constant background drone, akin to the howl of a million damned souls. Like ants between blades of grass, the ape sloth moles shifted through the forest, running around aimlessly and looking for anything to attack.

This was what happened when queens got slaughtered en masse—it brought forth pure pandemonium.

As they walked out into the clearing, several gorels noticed their arrival and turned to face them. But not all the gorels present realized they were there. There was a lot of infighting, and most of the critters seemed too preoccupied with fighting each other to pay much attention to the two of them.

Freddy swung a spiked fist at the head of a charging guard, and just as it became lights out for the monster—the fake sun above was also extinguished. He winced, seeing close to nothing in the absolute darkness. “It just had to go out now, didn’t it?” he cursed as he swung a fist toward the second incoming gorel, predicting where it would go and smashing its head without any trouble.

“Wait,” Sophia said as she got close enough for a whisper. “Isn’t this a good thing? I can see in the dark by focusing on the life force, and you can also see at least something, no?”

He scowled. With two-star perception, he could indeed see “something.” A very vague outline of the world around him was just barely visible. It was hard to tell any details apart, and all he caught of the black-furred monsters was the occasional shifting in the shadows.

They spent a good part of their time there in the darkness, but during those times, they usually focused on tempering, physical training, and gathering. He couldn’t see well enough to fight in the dark.

His eyes slowly adapted to the darkness, but it wasn’t enough to undo the disadvantage. He took a deep breath. “I’m gonna try something. Be ready with a heal if it fails.”

“Okay.”

Swiftly, he brought three perception-boosting pills out of his storage ring. He still had quite a few of them.

He had never taken more than one at a time.

He swallowed them and washed them down with some water he generated with Create Water. The materialized liquid would evaporate before long, but it did its job by getting the pills to his stomach.

At first, he felt fine. But then it started. A piercing headache sparked in the back of his head and slowly moved down his spine. He groaned.

“What did you do? Are you good?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m”—he slowly breathed out through gritted teeth—”I’m good.”

It was terrible, but it wasn’t enough to knock him out. He was already quite used to taking them, so he could tolerate the effect.

The sound of gorel movement was so damn loud in his ears that he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. But as he focused, his sight grew slightly clearer. The pills couldn’t give him night vision, but they could allow him to more easily differentiate the things he could see.

Within a few seconds, he could track where the monsters were, and after ten more, he could roughly estimate their silhouette and how far away they were. It was far from a perfect solution, but it was good enough to handle a couple of monsters.

He just hoped they didn’t encounter any cultists. Thankfully, the darkness provided them with a cover. It would be far more difficult to spot them moving in these circumstances.

And, just like that, they proceeded forward. The gorels rarely relied on their sight, but their hearing and sense of smell were essentially useless at that moment. The smell of blood was everpresent in the air, and the sounds of screaming, rustling, and hissing were deafening.

Being thrown into near-total darkness on top of all that? They couldn’t tell up from down or left from right. The chaos added to the disorientation, and as a result, barely any of the monsters caught wind of them.

At first, landing strikes was tricky. Freddy’s perception of three-dimensional space was quite unreliable, dark as his surroundings were, but with time, he got better at it. With every gorel he snuck up on, his headache eased slightly.

Sophia mostly stood to the side, letting Freddy handle most of the combat. His endurance was several times greater than hers, so it was best to spare her reserves.

While he wasn’t thrilled by it initially, the darkness was a huge help. The monsters were sitting ducks in these circumstances, and Freddy was a merciless hunter. His Gore Knuckles were no longer breaking apart unless he really abused them, so it rarely took more than a single swing to finish a gorel off. Even if they didn’t die outright, the wounds his strikes left behind were like open faucets of blood, courtesy of the dagger he held.

The only thing he was worried about was the possibility of deviants appearing. A fear that was soon justified.

Freddy swung at one of the smaller workers and felt the spikes sink into its back. The creature screamed and turned around. Its maw suddenly lit up with orange flames.

Freddy’s whole body was washed over with scorching fire, searing his skin and blinding him. Sophia jumped in a moment later, cutting the deviant’s head off with her shortsword and healing him. The damage was substantial, but a single spark was enough to almost completely erase it.

“Your talent is bullshit,” he chirped as he got back up to his feet, blinking away the blurry spots in his vision.

“Be more careful,” she whispered. “Aim for the head next time.”

“Aight,” he said, gulping as they continued their advance.

They kept moving through the forest, and no matter how long he fought, he saw no reason to expend his essence. He wasn’t even growing tired. His body was incredibly tense throughout the whole walk, but his training wasn’t just for show.

The culmination of all the absurd methods he had used to empower himself was bearing fruit.

As one gorel after another died from his brutal assault, he started racking up quite the body count. He repeatedly consulted Bloodshed to ensure that all the blood he spilled up to that point would count towards Blood Sacrifice.

Before long, he encountered a beast he had never seen—a royal guard. Its form was almost identical to those of gorels, but it was far larger in size, and it stood upright, having a far less pronounced hunch on its back. Standing three meters in height, it tore rival gorels apart like they were made of tofu. Each of its claws was the size of a sword.

The two of them gave the monster a wide berth. Defeating it was by no means impossible, but it was a completely unnecessary risk. The darkness was stifling, and all it would take was one good swing to cleave through both of them, turning them into helpless chunks of undead meat waiting to be devoured in the tide of berserk monsters.

Surprisingly quickly, they reached the vicinity of one of the passages. All they had to do then was summon Bloodshed and rush forward.

Swallowing, Freddy eyed the direction they were heading in, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves. His heart was hammering in his chest, and sweat was pooling along his skin. “You know what?” he said as he turned to face Sophia. “I don’t think we should go immediately. We have the darkness on our side, so getting as much blood as possible would be better.”

Sophia winced at that. “What if the day returns?” she asked. “We shouldn’t get greedy. Let’s go while we have the advantage.”

“No,” he denied. “We can take our time. How long has it been? An hour? Even if we get really unlucky, I’m collecting more blood than I thought I would,” he said as he stepped forward and killed another gorel to ensure the blood accumulation wouldn’t reset. “I can get a really good Blood Sacrifice going if we keep this up.”

She remained silent for a long moment, then breathed out. “Okay then,” she agreed.

He nodded, and they continued.

Their journey wasn’t without hiccups. At one point, they came across a deviant with a nature affinity, which proceeded to douse his whole body with acidic poison. At another point, they assaulted a light-affinity gorel, which proceeded to use blinding flash, not only taking their vision away but also attracting a damn flood of gorels in their direction by acting as a beacon in the darkness.

Add another close encounter with a royal guard, a deviant firing shards of ice from an unknown location, and a sudden surge of gorels as they stepped too close to a hive, and they had quite the ride.

They survived each time, but the small costs of their overextension were beginning to accumulate. Sophia had used four sparks, and she had only managed to find enough time to replenish two of them, leaving her with three heals total and only half her essence.

She was struggling in ways other than that, too. She was exhausted. While Freddy had no problem with dehydration due to his reserves of blood and body full of compressed water, Sophia had no such fail-safes. She had a canteen of water in her storage ring—it didn’t take long for it to run dry.

Freddy was doing a lot better, but cracks were beginning to show too. His body was starting to show signs of fatigue, subtle as they might have been. No matter how much he improved it, his body still had limits. Remaining tense and combat-ready for hours on end was simply too much. His essence reserves were fully topped off, but he had been using Hydraulic Flex more and more, and the reflux essence floating in his body was starting to accumulate.

He swung a fist at a huge guard, crushing its face. Several of the spikes on his Gore Knuckles broke off, and he had to reconstruct them. “I think that’s enough,” he said after several hours of fighting through the forest.

“You think?” she said, gulping for air. “How much are you at? You must be at least twice over what you did last time.”

“Not even close,” he said with a wry chuckle. “According to Bloodshed, we’re only a quarter there.”

“A quarter!?” she screamed, then anxiously looked around as she lowered her voice. “How big was that monster you killed!?” she scream-whispered.

“This is still a lot,” he said, unable to restrain a grin. “Trust me.”

At even just a quarter of the power of that titanic monster he summoned the last time? They were about to create quite the distraction, to say the least. Besides, he hadn’t mentioned the influence of his ring—not only would it reduce the cost of the spell, it would also empower its effect. Given that cost reduction in this case simply meant that the blood would be worth more, the effect was pretty much just a double amplification.

Freddy kicked a nearby gorel in the head and turned to Sophia. “Are you ready?”

“Wait, shouldn’t we get closer to the passage first?” she urged him.

“Nah,” he said, dismissively waving a hand. “We’re going to follow Bloodshed as it moves through the realm. Summoning it can take a while, and I don’t want them to interrupt me,” he said as he plunged his spiky fist into another monster. “Wait, can you move around with those tentacles on land?” he asked the skeleton.

“Tentacles!?” Sophia interjected, then slammed her mouth shut. “How does a skeleton have tentacles…?”

“Master…” the skeleton spirit started hesitantly. “I will not have the same form this time.”

Freddy froze. “What do you mean?”

“When summoned through Blood Sacrifice, my form is random, partly influenced by the source of blood.”

His mouth pinched into a tight line. “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

“I apologize, Master,” Bloodshed said. “You never requested that information, and I failed to realize its importance.”

He breathed out. “Okay, can you at least tell me what you’ll look like this time?

“My form will be bipedal; that is all I can say for certain.”

“Will that be enough to move?”

“I will manage,” it said.

That was good enough.

With that out of the way, they were ready.

“Cover for me, Sophia,” he requested of the woman. She was pretty exhausted, but Freddy had to stop fighting for his ability to activate.

Without further ado, he sank to the ground, breathing out and doing his best to relax. The seconds felt like they dragged on for hours, but less than two breaths later, he felt the shell in his soul click.

Unhesitantly, he activated Blood Sacrifice.

The world shifted.

Sophia nearly stumbled as her eyes bulged, and she looked around. “Why does it feel like the world is bleeding!?”

The gorels around them could sense the same thing, and in a single moment, the volume of the screams amplified exponentially as every monster in the surrounding area spun around, seeking the source of the horrible power.

Blood flowed towards them like a crimson river, washing over the grass, trees, rocks, and corpses on its journey to the center. Above Freddy’s head, a large sphere of blood started to gather. It grew, going from the size of a watermelon to the size of a large carriage. And then it kept growing.

Drop by drop, cell by cell, the mass of liquid formed a spherical pool. It began to roil, glowing with a sinister red light. Once the final drop of blood landed on the surface, the sphere expanded, growing ten times in size as it slowly morphed into a massive skeleton.

With an explosion of bright red blood essence, the form of Bloodshed crystalized—slightly hunched with disproportionately long arms, the image of a hellish giant dripping in blood loomed over the forest, reaching over fifteen meters in height. Long, sharp spikes lined its spine, and its skull formed a bony construct akin to a crown. The essence slowly seeped into Bloodshed’s bones, casting the skeleton and the surrounding forest into darkness yet again.

Sophia dropped her sword, her mouth turned as far down as it could go, as she quivered in terror at the sight. “It… It… It was fo-fo-four times bi-bigger last time?” she asked carefully.

Freddy cackled gleefully as he observed Bloodshed’s glorious form. Their situation was still far from settled, but with his mind hazy from the fatigue, he couldn’t resist the desire to laugh. It was hard to not feel invincible with something like this on their side.

“Let’s go, Bloodshed!” he commanded. “Charge to the passage!”

But the skeleton didn’t budge.

“Bloodshed?” Freddy reached tentatively.

Although he couldn’t see the skeleton’s form clearly in the dark, he could tell that it was just standing there. No… its head was turned up, facing the sky.

They felt a tremor beneath their feet as Bloodshed slowly raised a long arm, lifting it with the sound of trees bending out of the way and branches snapping as it reached for the sky.

“What the hell is it doing?” Freddy muttered while Sophia rushed over to him and aggressively pulled on his arm, urging him to run away. “Calm down!” he shouted at the woman. “It’s under my control; it’s just⁠—”

His words were interrupted when a bright light flickered through the entire realm. For a brief moment, the night turned to day, only to plunge back into darkness almost instantly.

Now, either that was the shortest day ever recorded in this realm, or…

The realm brightened again. The false sun above started glowing, flickering like a faulty lightbulb as a deafening sound echoed through the realm.

Both of them could clearly see the image of Bloodshed reaching into the sky, its skeletal face turned up to face the false sun.

Its bony fingers slowly closed, clasping as if trying to pull something to itself. And pull something, it did. The luminous sun started flickering more aggressively as cracks spread throughout it, and like a sheet of glass, the sky ruptured, exploding into a collection of crumbling shards.

The sun began rotating, swirling into a spiral as it slowly fell apart, drifting away into a ring that slowly turned a shade of orange, then crimson. The entire realm glowed with red light, dimly illuminating the horizons.

An object slowly descended from where the sky had been and placed itself into Bloodshed’s open hand.

46

DISTURBANCE

Asmall, isolated room lay deep within the Tomb of Harrkanna, down a meandering path and past a long line of corpses doused in black ooze. The only way to enter it was to pull on several hidden levers, and there was nothing of substance within.

In fact, the room was a trap. Around a minute after being opened, the massive stone slammed down and trapped anyone who had entered within. The only way to break out was by force, which would trigger another trap.

That was no problem for the people in that room—for they had stepped into the trap of their own volition.

The stone wasn’t too difficult to break through, and the subsequent trap—a volley of bolts—wasn’t an issue to dodge or defend against.

Jacob slumped against the wall, breathing out once the entrance finally closed. This place would keep them safe for the time being. He pulled a small crystal out of his storage ring. It was an amber color, fashioned in a diamond shape, and hung off a chain. With a finger, he manipulated the stone on the wall he was slumped against to create a small hook, on which he proceeded to hang the strange artifact.

While it hardly looked like it, it produced oxygen. It was used for delving into realms where the airflow might be restricted. Typically, it was hung around the neck. A cheap one wouldn’t have been able to support the small crowd in that room, but his would be more than enough.

The room was big enough for everyone present to rest comfortably but not nearly big enough to ensure any degree of privacy, leaving the residents with only around a meter of free space on either side.

There were eleven people in that room. Every single person there looked worn out and haggard. The only individual who looked even remotely fine was the armored man, but that was most likely because the heavy armor was hiding his actual condition. Still, he obviously hadn’t suffered any significant injuries during the fight, either due to luck or skill.

The hours passed. In a blink, those hours turned into days.

Nobody knew how long they would have to wait in that room, but it was best to stay as long as possible, preferably until a rescue team discovered them. But how long would that take? Days? Weeks?

Months?

They had discussed the possibilities several times, but conversations rarely lasted long and were barely initiated. Few among them were willing to speak for long, at least at the start.

But after more than a day in almost total silence elapsed, the quiet grew too heavy to bear for some of them. Phillip and Karen were the first to open up, followed by three of the four strangers—the Asian woman, the tall, tan man, and the bald, short guy. The armored man remained seated, enjoying his newly acquired personal space as the others bunched up and freed a good part of the room.

Beatrice and Theodore were located on the opposite ends of one another and doing their best not to look at each other. But less than two days into their isolation, Theodore moved over to her, and they started talking in whispers. Not that whispering did them any good—pretty much everyone there had good enough hearing to tell what they were arguing about.

Jacob spied on them rather often, trying anything to get his mind off what happened. He had to admit, it was quite the show. There was much fighting and stubborn insistence at first—blame, blame, and more blame being thrown back and forth like a hot potato. It was as if they were spilling all their anguish out on one another.

But… eventually, they started opening up. They talked about their dead friends, how much they missed them, how much they hated themselves, and all their regrets. Before long, they stopped throwing blame and started taking some instead.

Then they started dropping some juicy bombshells.

Apparently, Theodore had proposed the divorce in the heat of the moment, lashing out when Beatrice reacted poorly to hearing the news. And who wouldn’t respond poorly? Theodore had decided to ascend and leave the party without discussing it with her, effectively backstabbing their closest friends and leaving them without a safe way to make ends meet.

Jacob didn’t give a shit about some random losers, but anyone with half a brain could have predicted that they wouldn’t be too thrilled to break their party up so suddenly.

He didn’t openly admit it, but Theo indirectly hinted that he had only suggested the divorce to win the argument.

Naturally, when his wife bagged another guy that same day, it became pretty hard to take the suggestion back.

At this point, pretty much everyone was just pretending to discuss other things while secretly paying attention to the conversation between the two of them.

Things got super heated at times, with Beatrice mentioning that time he cheated on her. Ouch. He tried pulling the “I’m a man, so it’s different” argument, prompting the Asian woman to step in, joining in on their fight. Little by little, the others got involved, too, and eventually, most of the group had a heated debate about relationships.

At a few points, people nearly threw hands, but when everything cooled down, it was as if an iceberg had been melted away.

Jack and Jean openly mourned the death of their life-long friend. Phillip professed how afraid he was and how traumatized this whole thing left him, even going as far as to openly declare that he was done with fighting for the rest of his life. Jacob wanted to call him a coward and a pathetic worm. But for some reason, he found it hard to even open his mouth.

Karen shared her tale of hesitation, confessing her inadequacies and shortcomings. But, despite the severity of her panic during the fight, it was evident that she was the least scarred among them. A clear resolve rang through her words as she declared her intent to pick her sword back up and move on.

Her bravery and resolve were inspiring, if even cheesier than Phillip’s attempts to flirt with the woman.

The three strangers added their own parts. At this point, their hideout became a full-on group therapy session, with only Jacob and the armored man remaining quiet for the most part.

While nobody paid much attention to the armored man, Jacob’s party members were glancing at him more and more often.

But his tongue felt like it was tied into a knot. Every time he opened his mouth, it was as if his throat was sealed shut. However, little by little, the thorns wrapped around his neck were pulled away, one expectant glance at a time.

He felt tears slowly pool at the edges of his eyes. He held them back, but he finally spoke. “I didn’t really love her,” he said, chuckling a bit. “I was with her because she was hot, and she was with me because I’m rich.”

That earned him scornful looks, but he laughed them off and continued. “Honestly, she was an annoyance. I had been hoping to find someone to replace her role in the party so I could finally dump her ass and get it over with.

“I just wish”—his voice broke, and he found it hard to continue—”I just wish I could have told her to eat shit while kicking her out of my place, you know? I wish she had angrily thrown my things at me while calling me an asshole.” He finally broke down, covering his face with one hand as he wept. “She didn’t deserve this, man. Fucking hell.”

The room grew still as people silently watched him break down.

“I couldn’t do shit in that fight,” he said, taking a deep breath and putting his hand down. “I fucking hate myself, and I hate this stupid talent. I don’t think I’m gonna be delving for a while. I’m not sure this is the life for me.”

Out of all the people there, Theodore got up first, walked over to him, and silently placed a hand on his shoulder.

Once Jacob was done, that only left the armored man.

After everyone had given him enough glances, he finally shrugged. “Do not look at this geezer, children,” he stated in a strangely aged voice, surprising the people present as nobody had heard him speak until then. “I have too many scars over my heart to cry any longer.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Take my advice—be prepared for the world to betray you. If there is any one fate we mortals share… it is to eventually stumble into misery.”

Internally, the man wondered what he was feeling through his main body. The realm was filled with turmoil, and an underlying… bloodthirst echoed in the background.

Could this be the phenomenon they call the Crimson Twilight…? he mused.

It had come inordinarily early. But that didn’t matter.

It had no influence on his plan.

The sky above shone a crimson light. The sounds of gorel screams rang intensely throughout the realm as the monsters slaughtered one another en masse. Beneath the thin canopy of a sparsely overgrown forest, two people stood, observing the form of a giant, bloody skeleton.

Freddy watched the sinister object settle in Bloodshed’s open palm, gaping in awe and terror. It was a mummified arm with claw-tipped fingers. It almost appeared small in Bloodshed’s titanic hand, but it must have belonged to a creature multiple times larger than a human.

“What the hell is that!?” Sophia cried, shifting her gaze between Freddy and Bloodshed.

“Master!” Bloodshed’s voice sounded in Freddy’s head, more urgent than he had ever heard it. “I lost control over the summoned body.”

“You what!?” Freddy screamed. “What the fuck is controlling it, then!?”

“I do not know,” Bloodshed insisted. “The body was overwhelmed by the aura of bloodthirst coming from that limb. Master…

“Run.”

The bloody skeleton raised its head and screeched, emitting a sound akin to a collapsing building. The empty eye sockets inside the skull glowed red as the skull shifted to face Freddy and Sophia.

The two of them didn’t hesitate.

Sophia’s legs morphed, and Freddy used Hydraulic Flex with both stars activated. The two of them dashed outside the range of a skeletal hand swinging down with the might of a titan. The arm made contact with the ground, lifting a giant cloud of dust as the earth shifted beneath Freddy’s feet.

Everything around him grew blurry as the floor fell from below him. The surface collapsed underground, falling into the depths of what had recently been a gorel hive.

As he tumbled around twenty meters down, a massive stone collapsed on the upper side of his body, breaking several bones and crushing his entire right arm. He barely managed to save his head.

He wanted to curse, but all that left his mouth was blood as he hacked, emptying his full lungs. A moment later, another massive impact sounded, and this time, a rush of healing pulsed through his body. “What the—” He didn’t have time to question it.

His mangled arm detached as a new one started growing back, and with another massive impact sending tremors through the world around him, the short, deformed stump lengthened, growing out just slightly past his elbow. The bleeding had halted all throughout his body, and the parts that had been damaged were patched over with pink tissue.

“What’s happening!?”

“Master,” Bloodshed called. “That creature is still a product of your ability.”

“Right!” he confirmed. His talent was still triggered by the damage it did. Thankfully, the rock had crushed his right arm. Had it been his left… He looked over at the two rings and the dagger, and a shiver went down his spine. He had to be more careful.

This turn of events complicated things, but their plan hadn’t failed yet. This would still work as a distraction.

“Freddy!” Sophia called from above, looking down the pitfall.

“I’m alive!” he yelled.

“Get up!” she screamed. “We have to leave!”

“No shit!”

He looked around, desperately searching for a way up. It was easier said than done.

He could hear the movements of the giant skeleton coming from the opposite direction of where Sophia stood waiting for him. It seemed to be busy slaughtering gorels. Still, its attack had collapsed a large section of land, and there were no easy ways up.

Freddy was located inside a section of an underground complex, with numerous tight holes scattered throughout the sides of the pit. The whole place aggressively stank of gorel poo mixed with the scent of wet dog and mold, but he wasn’t in the mood to care about that.

His neck whipped left to right as he looked for a perch. At the same time, another pulse of healing moved through his body, and more tremors shook the earth. A large part of the soil broke off and fell near him.

Groaning, he defended himself from an incoming boulder. His missing arm had mostly grown back, but it wasn’t all there yet. The tips of his fingers were missing, his skin was raw, and the healing quality was still just barely supernatural. His arm was a far cry from a fully functional limb, and his wounded back wasn’t helping either.

Still, he gritted his teeth and leaped, feeling an intense burst of pain spread down the left side of his lower back and into his left leg as he caught himself on a ledge leading into one of the tunnels. He was still gripping the dagger in his left hand, and now he used it to stab into the stone to keep him in place.

He pulled himself up and came face to face with an angry gorel guard. The monster tried assaulting him, but Freddy used his regrowing arm as a shield. The gorel bit into his wrist, and Freddy whipped his whole arm back, launching the monster down into the pit. It only tumbled a few meters, but it had no easy way to get back up to where he was.

With a grunt, Freddy pulled himself up into the tunnel and scouted his options. Left without much choice, he leaped again, reaching another tunnel and grabbing onto the brittle edge. The stone shifted beneath his arm, and for a long moment, he felt his perch loosen. Thankfully, it didn’t break.

“Wait!” Sophia yelled from above as she threw a rope down.

“Did you just now remember you had this!?” he complained, but⁠—

“Shut up and climb!”

Growling, he put his dagger in his mouth and grabbed onto the rope with his left arm.

Sophia struggled mightily to lift him up. With his absurd muscle mass, newly acquired thick bone structure, and rather advanced Abyssal Depths, he weighed a considerable amount. He did his best to help himself up by supporting himself with his legs and the still-regrowing arm, and before long, he made it up to the surface.

He was greeted by the sight of Sophia getting slashed across her back by the gleaming claws of a berserk gorel, only for her to heal her injury and then kick the monster away.

Freddy conjured his spikes and crushed the creature’s head, killing it instantly. “Come on, let’s go!” he urged.

She nodded, breathing heavily, and followed after him.

Constant tension was absurdly exhausting. Being continuously ready for battle and making one’s way through a warzone like this was more exhausting than running a marathon. The enhanced physique of an archhuman helped dramatically to deal with this expenditure, but at the first star, an arch was barely more than an ordinary human.

Sophia appeared haggard, breathing heavily and barely keeping her head straight as she followed after Freddy, limping and stumbling. As expected, a situation like this was far too much for her to handle. They had overdone it, thinking they’d get a reprieve once they summoned Bloodshed.

Without hesitation, Freddy picked Sophia up and threw her over his shoulder. She didn’t even as much as twitch in protest, simply slumping over and coughing as she tried catching her breath.

He rushed forth, leaping wildly as he did his best to avoid the incoming attacks of rabid beasts. Mentally, he tried remembering exactly where they were and used the information to reorient himself. They had to circle around the massive skeleton to reach the closest passage.

The area closest to the strange artifact seemed to be most affected by its berserk-inducing properties, making it extremely perilous, but he didn’t have the luxury of picking which path they would go down.

Without further ado, he focused, holding Sophia tight as he activated Hydraulic Flex in passive mode and sprinted.

Pulse after pulse of healing flowed into his body, gradually reconstructing his arm until it was eventually perfect. Well, nearly perfect. Its shape was the same as it had been, but it felt… sore. The last time his talent regrew a limb, it had regrown his whole damn body, and he hadn’t had the contrast needed to feel anything off with his reconstructed physique.

Now that he had two arms to compare, he immediately noticed something disconcerting—the arm he had lost felt considerably weaker than its counterpart. No, that wasn’t the right way to put it. Their strength and build were identical, but the regrown arm was… empty. It was as if most of the energy stored within his muscle tissue hadn’t been brought back with the limb.

He had already known that his talent couldn’t undo exhaustion, but this was still a surprise. However, as he ran forth, he felt his sore limb gradually regaining some of its strength, most likely through absorbing sugar content from his blood. That was good, especially since his other arm was preoccupied with holding an adult woman in place.

For the most part, he only defended himself against incoming attacks, relying on the sudden source of healing to fix up any wounds that slipped through. Before long, he made it to a clearing that was close to the passage and swiftly looked for the path that would take him there.

He found it.

Pushing past a crowd of gorels, eventually, the population of the monsters thinned—but then he spotted something concerning.

A different type of monster appeared.

47

A JOB WELL DONE

Freddy spotted a creature fighting a gorel worker. The size difference between the two monsters was stark, with the small, dog-sized gorel looking minuscule compared to the massive, nearly horse-sized freaky camel monster—a nebber.

The strange being had a stubby, bulky body akin to a bear’s, but its neck was elongated. Compared to a camel, which had a stiff neck, the neck of the nebber was akin to that of a snake, coiling and shifting side to side as it confronted the small gorel in mortal combat. Its head was unusual, too, with flat, goofy features looking almost as if they were squished against a circular glass container. Its flabby mouth drooled with moderately venomous spit.

Freddy had read about nebbers and knew exactly which realm they had arrived from. It was one of the two elite difficulty realms accessible through the gorel realm.

What stood out the most with the freaky monster wasn’t its size or unusual looks—it was its surprising lack of power.

Although the gorel worker looked like an angry lap dog barking away at the massive creature, it came out on top in the confrontation. The gorel’s primitive Tectonic Strikes were breaking the nebber’s legs with ease, and once it was downed, the gorel proceeded to crush the creature’s skull like a watermelon.

Dumb as they might have been, gorels were no joke when paired against an equally stupid enemy.

Ignoring the sight before him, Freddy gritted his teeth and ran past the dead nebber, rushing toward the realm he was trying to escape into.

That a nebber had made it this far out wasn’t good news. Before long, his suspicions were confirmed.

At first, it was a small group, but before long, such a thick mass of nebbers appeared that it was difficult to make progress.

Freddy pushed past them, smashing them out of his way as he kept progressing while anxiously looking around. The elite realm they were heading into was thoroughly crowded by these beings, but they weren’t the reason why it was considered an elite difficulty realm.

After pushing past the mass of bodies for a while, he finally came across the main reason for that classification.

Every single hair on Freddy’s body stood on end as he swiftly leaped behind a tree, trying to calm his beating heart as it threatened to burst out of his chest.

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the forest, and with a screech, another monster rushed forth, shredding several gorels with its long, thin arms.

A giant creature stood on two legs. Its whole body was covered in pitch black, thin muscles, and its head looked like a goat skull. Its empty eye sockets glowed neon green with the sickening light of miasma flowing out of them.

Its two horns curled behind its back. The horrifying creature produced deep clicking noises as it searched for more prey.

It was a capragorn.

If it came to a fight, Freddy was… well, confident wasn’t the right word, but winning was possible. But it was too risky. Its claws weren’t as intimidating as those of the royal guard gorel, but they dripped with a gleaming liquid, and any drops that fell to the ground sizzled with the sound of acidic burning. One good slash across Freddy’s bare, unprotected chest might very well be enough to take him out.

Coupled with the dazed, barely conscious Sophia, whom he held over his left shoulder, trying to tackle the beast was a stupid idea.

Freddy waited for several suffocating breaths, and before long, the creature had wandered away in a different direction. He peeked around the tree to check where it had gone and saw it walk past a small group of nebbers, completely ignoring the dumb beasts.

The scariest thing about capragorns was that they were no mindless creatures searching for food. They didn’t even need food to live. The reason why the realm was flooded by the nebbers was due to the capragorns, who intentionally ignored the dumb beasts to use them as bait to lure prey into their realm. Those creatures were much like the cultists who were using gorels as bait.

Naturally, Freddy wasn’t thrilled to be heading into the natural habitat of such monsters. But it was their best choice.

Such a dangerous realm was the least likely to be heavily guarded by the cultists.

He pushed his way forward, continuously moving past the endless stream of monsters. At one point, he became genuinely concerned about his odds of even making it to his destination.

Whatever the hell that artifact had done seemed to have a magnetic effect on the monsters.

Sophia had estimated that it would take as long as three months for this realm to reach a critical mass of monsters, resulting in a stampede break into Nova York.

But with these conditions?

Freddy wouldn’t be surprised if they had already reached that goal.

He swung his fist, breaking a nebber’s neck and pushing its body aside as he leaped forward. At this point, he had to use Hydraulic Flex to keep jumping over the stampede of beasts. Soon enough, he couldn’t even land anymore.

He grabbed a thick branch with his free hand, holding the dagger between his teeth and Sophia over his shoulder. The woman heaved, sounding like she was about to puke, but Freddy didn’t have the time to care.

While the thought of a shirtless man carrying a woman and swinging from one tree to another conjured thoughts of Tarzan, the reality of Freddy’s improvised transportation method was far less glamorous.

He climbed up on a thick branch and jumped from one tree to another using Hydraulic Flex. Rather than land with the grace of a ninja or grab onto a hanging vine, he slammed stomach-first into a thick branch, accidentally breaking Sophia’s legs and knocking the air out of his chest. The woman screamed, hurriedly burning a spark to fix her legs, and Freddy groaned as a nebber extended its long head and bit his calf, trying to pull him down to the ground.

With supernatural strength, aided by a strong sense of urgency, Freddy pulled himself, Sophia, and the damn nebber, which refused to let go of his leg, up into the tree. As soon as he could release his grip on the branch, he grabbed the monster’s head and crushed it.

As yet another powerful tremor echoed through the realm as whatever was controlling the bloody skeleton slaughtered another mass of monsters, the wound on Freddy’s leg vanished as if it had never been there.

He continued on his way, trying to ensure he didn’t trip and fall into the stampede below.

The realm was quite close, and Freddy could already see the passage. There were no more monsters exiting, and for a long moment, he held the hope that all the monsters had already evacuated it, which would make his life far more straightforward.

“Please…” Sophia begged. “No more—hurgh.” She heaved. “No more trees.”

Freddy involuntarily chuckled, feeling a slight sense of relief. “Sure thing.” He dropped to the ground below, which had already thinned considerably. A few nebbers tried assaulting him, but thankfully, there were no capragorns in sight. He swiftly dispatched the assailants and made his way forth.

He gulped.

There was a small clearing between the forested area and the open passage. Nobody was standing anywhere near the open portal, but that by no means meant that it wasn’t being watched.

With a thundering screech, the bloody skeleton swung its massive arm again, and Freddy felt a pulse of soothing lifesteal ineffectually course through his body, having nothing to heal or fix. But it did clear his mind slightly.

Blood Sacrifice hadn’t gone as planned, but it had still caused a massive distraction. In fact, given that it seemed to be attracting every damn monster in the surrounding area, Freddy wouldn’t be surprised if the cultists had gone to try and take it out, seeing as it might very well wholly ruin their plan.

Without the monsters, there was no point in trying to cause a passage break.

Now… what would the cultists do?

His heart roared in his chest as he pondered the possibilities.

Had they rushed off to deal with fake Bloodshed? Freddy wondered. Are they waiting nearby, watching to ensure that nobody enters the passage? No, that makes no sense; they have bigger shit to deal with.

There were no more monsters around him. The only things that kept him company were Sophia, the tremors, the eerie, crimson afterglow, the endless cacophony of monsters sounding their fury… and his own thoughts.

“Fuck it!” he yelled as he ran forth, bursting into the opening with all the speed he could manage. His core tightened, and his legs bulged as he used Hydraulic Flex repeatedly, gathering speed on his dash into the passage.

He expected a projectile to stab into his back or a cultist to appear from the shadows at any moment, but to his surprise, he entered the passage without any problems.

Once inside, a horrific thought struck him—what if this tide was too much for cultists as well? What if they were hiding in the passage? Yet, as he opened his eyes and looked around… he found no people present. Or monsters. It was so empty that it appeared uncanny.

He turned, spotting the massive tree the passage was carved into, and then looked around. He was in a small, picturesque grove. It didn’t take much walking to get out of the tiny patch of forest and step out into a vast clearing.

The realm he entered was a serene sight compared to the nightmare he had walked out of. The sky above was a deep shade of blue, and the land was grassy as far as the eyes could see. Small groves of trees were scattered around the area, and the realm spread for miles in all directions, with what appeared to be a sizeable body of water on one end.

Far off, he could see vast herds of nebbers, as those were most likely too far away from the passage to sense the strange artifact’s influence.

The grove he was next to was way too close to the passage for comfort, but running out into the grassy plains sounded like a run-in with a capragorn waiting to happen. Rather than run out, Freddy went through the small grove, eventually stumbling upon a tiny cave.

Praying to whatever god was willing to listen, he cautiously went inside, hoping against hope that he wasn’t about to enter a capragorn hideout.

However, as he made his way in… he found nothing unusual. It was a tiny hole in the ground, just large enough to hide comfortably, with a small entrance that was easy to defend. Some mushrooms grew along the edges, and some loose roots hung from the earthen ceiling.

He carefully placed Sophia down and looked around, combing through the dirt, pulling the roots, and lightly punching the walls to ensure that he hadn’t stumbled into a trap. He even gave the mushrooms a taste.

But there was nothing. No monsters, no cultists, no traps, no pitfalls, no danger… just… nothing. Even the mushroom seemed to be edible.

He pulled a large stone and placed it before the small entrance, closing the hole off, and walked back, sitting beside Sophia.

The summoned skeleton still triggered his talent despite a whole realm separating him from the action. But that wasn’t the only thing that was being influenced.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed as he took a look at his ethercosm.

He was at 187% capacity. And just as he looked at it, the amount increased to 188%. He couldn’t hold back a light chuckle.

“What are you laughing about…?” Sophia eked out, barely keeping her eyes open.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” he said as he patted her head. “Go to sleep. I’ll watch for danger.”

She nodded, closing her eyes and immediately losing consciousness. It would have been good for her to eat something first, but she’d live.

As he sat in the darkness, nothing but a single, lonely ray of light illuminating the hiding spot, he finally accepted it. They were actually safe.

Their plan had worked.

He winced as he felt the turbulent reflux essence flicker inside his body. He had no clue how much essence he had spent in the last few hours. Given the fact that the giant skeleton was in the middle of murdering a horde of monsters, the influx of ether was keeping him wholly topped off with essence.

But he had used a lot. Far too much.

The sheer volume of lifesteal kept the worst of the aftereffects at bay, but it was doing nothing to purge the excess essence flowing through his body.

With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused on meditation. Eventually, the bloody skeleton would stop fighting, and Freddy would face the consequences of the essence buildup.

Thankfully, he hadn’t spent nearly as much blood essence as water essence. That would have been far more likely to kill him. But still, given that water reflux essence rapidly dehydrated the user, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

In fact, unless he managed to purge a good deal of the excess essence, he might very well be mummified on the spot.

Thus, he closed his eyes and got started.

The massive body of water in the distance wasn’t just a decoration. The surrounding Netherecho was bursting with water wisps, and without further ado, he got to gathering, gradually calming his raging insides and getting closer and closer to tranquility.

“Focus on its legs!” the scorpion-tailed woman—Illya—commanded, dodging the attack of an enraged royal guard as she spat, dashing back and watching the fight’s progress.

This damn skeleton had appeared out of nowhere, and it was in the middle of thoroughly obliterating everything they had worked towards.

“Someone get Master!” a lowly Servant yelled, swinging his spear to keep several gorels at bay.

“Master has said not to disturb him under any circumstances!” she spat. “Focus on your work and stay quiet!”

The mixed mass of monsters made progress towards dispatching the gigantic skeleton impossible. The giant monster raised its bony arm again, and with a startlingly quick swing, it brought it down, crushing two Servants in an instant and kicking up a large cloud of dust.

“Goddamn it!” Illya screamed, swinging her stinger at a rushing nebber and slashing its throat open. “Damian!”

The bulky figure of Damian, the massive brawler, perked up, turning to face her just as he crushed the head of a capragorn, scattering its cursed miasma into the surroundings. “What is it!?” the man shouted as he swung again, smashing the back of his fist into a gorel guard charging at him.

“Ignore the monsters!” she said. “Peter!” she called again, referring to the man levitating around twenty meters away. “Pick Damian up and throw him on top of the skeleton!”

“But the backlash—” the man was about to protest, but⁠—

“Do as I say!” she screamed, leaping away from the pesky royal guard that was still after her. “Hurry!” she commanded.

Peter growled, rushing over to the bulky form of Damian and grabbing the man by the arm. The two men lifted off the ground, and Peter’s skin instantly grew red as his blood pressure spiked tremendously. The more weight he tried levitating off the ground, the greater the stress it exerted on his body. The bulky form of Damian was almost too much to handle, but with their whole agenda on the line, he had no choice but to risk it.

Rushing as fast as possible, Peter brought the man over the skeleton’s crowned skull and dropped him down.

Almost instantly, the fierce form of the skeletal giant looked up, staring at the falling man with its sinister crimson eyes.

Damian grinned despite himself, cocking his arm back as he charged a Tectonic Strike and activated his talent.

His fist landed just above the skeleton’s upper row of teeth, sending a powerful burst of force through its massive skull. The blood coating the creature splashed in every direction, making the crimson skeleton turn white briefly before more blood oozed through its bones.

No more than a thin crack remained from his strike.

“Oh boy,” Damian called as the skeleton opened its mouth and slammed it shut on his body. He braced himself against its teeth, barely holding it back from chewing him into a mass of pulp.

“I’m gonna—ugh! I’m gonna need some help!” he shouted, and before long, a stream of projectiles flew at the skeleton’s head, slamming its neck and distracting it long enough for Damian to push himself out of its mouth and jump down.

Peter caught him mid-fall, slowing him down just enough to prevent fall damage, and even that much was almost enough to make the man faint.

The skeletal monster screeched madly, continuing its onslaught unimpeded.

Its power was truly remarkable. It was slow, but its destructive capabilities and sheer endurance made it capable of competing with the weakest four-star-class monsters.

Illya, the only three-star present, wasn’t nearly powerful enough to quickly dispatch the creature.

What proceeded was a grueling fight that lasted for hours. Numerous beasts fell at the crimson skeleton’s bony arms, and at least a dozen cultists lost their lives trying to take it down.

By the end, the massive stampede of monsters had been drastically thinned down. Hills of gored flesh and rivers of blood formed beneath the grinning skeleton’s feet. As its body finally started to crumble under the unending assault, it seemed to smile at them, grinning gleefully at the carnage as if to say, “My job is done.”

Illya watched the giant crumble into inert pieces with an infuriated frown. Her scorpion tail was still.

Her brethren stood to the side, most panting heavily and trying to stay on their feet after the grueling battle.

By all means, this whole expedition was turning into an utter failure. Master had shared nothing about his side of the plan, keeping it a secret even from Illya. She prayed to Holy Prosperity that his machinations weren’t compromised.

Peter landed beside her, keeping his nose plugged with one hand to stave off the continuous stream of blood pouring down it. His eyes appeared bloodshot, and his arms were trembling.

Yet he still spoke with all the dignity of a high-rank cult member. “We are recovering the strange artifact,” he said. “Damian should arrive with it in a few moments.”

She didn’t respond to the news.

A few minutes later, the bulky man, his robes torn and bathed in blood, ran over while carrying a massive limb like a log over his back. “I got it!” he said as he approached and threw the object on the ground.

Illya observed it, cocking her head. She briefly entered the Netherecho to take a closer look at it.

What could only be described as a boiling mass of crimson screams assaulted her senses. A storm of aura roiled around the horrifying object, its power incomparable to anything Illya had ever witnessed firsthand.

Her projection was forcefully thrown out of the Netherecho, and she returned to reality with a start, taking a few involuntary steps back before regaining her composure.

Peter’s eyes raised slightly. “That powerful?” he asked, his brows twisting into a scowl.

Illya gulped and nodded. “Indeed. This is a truly bizarre artifact. I have never witnessed anything like it.”

“Monsters seem to be attracted to it,” Damian said, crouching as he took a closer look at the dried limb. “Do you think we could use it as bait to populate the realm?” he asked Illya.

“Most definitely,” she confirmed. “However, I’m not certain that’s the right move.”

The two men hummed.

“Indeed,” Peter said, sighing. “Perhaps it’s a bit too attractive. I don’t see a way to redirect the flow of monsters outside the realm once they all bundle around this thing like flies around a pile of cow dung.”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the sinister object. “I do wonder what this is…” she mused. “Whatever it had belonged to must have been unimaginably powerful.”

“Yeah…” Peter nodded. “Above five stars for sure.”

Most of the cultists in earshot swallowed, including Illya. The thought of a power above five stars was… simply unimaginable.

But it did exist.

“Illya,” Peter called. “What are your orders?”

She thought for a moment, glancing at the artifact, the crimson sky, and the people around her. “Gather the bodies, scavenge the rings,” she said. “We’ll take some time to recover, then go from there. The barrier gives us ample time to act. We’re out of live bait, but there is a mountain of flesh here. That will be enough to attract plenty of scavengers.”

“And what about the arm?” Peter asked.

She looked at the limb carefully before making a decision.

“We’ll try to seal it.”

48

COHESION

Phillip couldn’t help but think that if a psychological researcher had the opportunity to observe their group throughout their time in the trap room, they would have learned quite a few exciting things.

While there was no doubt that some among them, like Jacob, would have preferred to work through their emotions in privacy, it was undeniable that most of them were more than happy to not be alone through their suffering, himself included.

That was good and all for the first few days in captivity, but as it stretched on and on, having absolutely zero privacy soon turned into a nightmare.

Two-star archhumans had more efficient bodily functions. Everything from breathing, drinking, and eating to going to the toilet operated at greater intervals. There was absolutely no trouble in the first category, but there was plenty of trouble in the second.

Naturally, there were tools and methods available for coping with this stuff. This was far from the first time a group of archhumans had to hide in a passage realm for a prolonged period. But those methods had their limits.

That was the first problem that made things awkward for the group. The second was Theodore and Beatrice. Those two were satisfying a completely different category of urges, and while they never went as far as to strip bare and go at it like rabbits, they got… shockingly daring at times.

For the most part, everyone just kind of looked the other way. But at one point, one of the strangers nearly got into a fight with the two of them.

Phillip spent most of his time either trying to talk to Karen or thinking about his future. He had kind of known this from the beginning, but as time passed, it became more obvious that Karen really didn’t want to talk to him.

She had humored his conversational attempts many times, most likely just to be polite, but when she hit him with the “I apologize, but I am not in the right mood for a conversation at the moment”—yeah… he knew that he had fucked up massively at some point along the line. Was it his eagerness? Maybe he had been a bit too annoying.

From the moment he first laid his eyes on her, he had been enchanted with the woman. She radiated a sense of culture and civility, values he greatly appreciated. The woman was also quite… pleasant to the eye. And rich. And from an influential family. And powerful herself.

He couldn’t help but lament it. The woman had been out of his league from the very start. True, he was no common rabble, but he was no true elite, either. He’d put himself in the same category as Jacob.

At a certain point, he started noticing something odd. People, more specifically, the few women in the room, were giving him strange glances. They weren’t flattering. And then he realized it—hadn’t he basically been harassing Karen?

While some fools could be tricked into thinking he was truly just earnestly fascinated by her as a conversational partner, it was evident that he had a crush. He hadn’t considered it much due to the power difference between them, but…

Oh dear god, I was being so creepy, wasn’t I?

As time passed, more and more of these small transgressions kept piling up, and as the people within gradually grew more irritable, these occurrences only grew more common and, eventually, a bit violent.

Naturally, everyone present understood that a full-on fight was beyond stupid in these circumstances, and nobody among them had a willpower weak enough to succumb that badly. But that didn’t stop the shouting. Not-so-playful kicks and jabs became commonplace. Even from people Phillip honestly didn’t expect it from, including Karen, who raised her voice in response to something Jean said for the first time since he met her.

Surprisingly, it was Theodore who first stepped up to help de-escalate the situation. His suggestion was to task the earth-affinity archs among them with constructing thin barriers around the room, allowing all of them at least an illusion of privacy. This worked surprisingly well. From there, they started organizing party games. This just made everyone even more violent, so they decided to begin strategizing instead.

There was a non-zero chance of encountering the terrorists. Sure, they had detailed a few basic plans in case this happened, but there was always more they could do. Besides, even minor improvements gave them confidence and boosted morale.

They first recollected absolutely everything they had seen the terrorists do, and eventually, the group was left with a relatively detailed profile of all the ones who survived. Next was a more thorough strategy, both to specifically confront the invaders based on their known powers and better cooperate with one another.

And finally, they started sharing tips. Everyone who specialized in something tutored others on improving in that field if it applied to their skills. Jean taught Karen some neat tricks she could do with negative pressure, while Karen taught her about swordsmanship.

Phillip discussed defensive posture, Jacob gave Jack tips on water abilities, Jack taught Theodore how to use the light affinity to become invisible, and Theodore, who had been struggling with this for a long time because of his poverty and inability to afford tutorship, finally managed to complete the ability, becoming an even more valuable asset in the process.

Everyone contributed, everyone gained.

Except for one person—the armored man.

The man was by far the least troublesome when it came to conflict. He was quiet and kept to himself, responding with a dismissive yet disarming tone if anyone tried talking to him, and given his elderly aura, nobody bothered him too much.

But it became… strange after some point.

People got pretty damn talkative in that scenario. Phillip knew some deeply personal stuff about almost everyone there, as none of them had managed to stay entirely out of the conversation, even the ones on the quiet side.

But the armored man? Nobody knew a single thing about him. Absolutely nothing. Not his name, not his powers, not his background…

Not his allegiance.

He was strange. Too strange. Too silent—too unbothered. The man could stay eerily still for ridiculous lengths of time, to the point where nobody could tell whether he was awake or asleep.

Eventually, Jacob grew too frustrated with this to remain still and got up to confront him. “Hey, old man,” he called rudely. “We have to talk.”

The armored man turned his helmet head in Jacob’s direction, saying nothing.

The burly party leader bent down, squatting right before the silent man as he said authoritatively, “I need you to tell me what you’re capable of. You have stayed out of the conversation for too long. At the very least, I’d like to hear about your talent and affinities.”

The man remained quiet, simply staying still for almost ten seconds. “You wish to hear about my powers?” he asked slowly.

“Yes,” Jacob confirmed. “And I don’t want to hear any excuses,” he added. “If you want to keep your privacy, feel free to go somewhere else.”

“Jacob!” Jean yelled, frowning at him as she got up. “Show some respect!”

“Calm down, Jean,” Jack said, placating his sister as he turned to face the man. “Jacob, there is no need to be rude about it. I’m sure the man will speak if you ask nicely.”

“‘The man,’” Jacob said, mimicking air quotes with his hands, “isn’t going to say shit. As you can see, ‘the man’ is the only way you can even refer to him because, guess fucking what, we don’t know the man’s name! He has said nothing about himself at any point during our stay here. Does anyone here know anything about him? You don’t.”

“Jacob, please.” Theodore rushed to his feet. “I get your point, but antagonizing the poor guy won’t get him to open up.”

Jacob squinted, and Theodore walked up to him. “Just step back, okay?” he told Jacob. “I’ll take it over from here.”

“Fine.”

Theodore walked up to the armored man, sitting on the ground before him and meeting his eyes—or, rather, the empty, black slits in his helmet. “So… what can you tell us about your powers?”

The man stared at him for a long moment, remaining quiet. The attention of everyone in the room was upon him, but this wasn’t the first time that had happened. Nobody had ever gone this far to get him to speak, however, and the man appeared to break under the pressure. “I sincerely apologize,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “This old fart didn’t see that his stubbornness was bringing you anguish. For that, I am genuinely sorry. Very well, then.

“My talent allows me to rapidly recover from any harm done to me. It also, in return for severely limiting the amount I can expend at once, provides me with effectively unlimited essence. Physically, my prowess is significantly boosted, and I can see in a 360-degree range, including above and below me. If I am killed, well… it would be pretty inconvenient for a while.

“As for my affinities, I have dark, unholy, and ritual, with an emphasis on curses and using material shadows to restrain my opponents. That’s it in broad strokes,” the man declared without as much as a hint of humor. “I will not bore you with the finer details unless, of course, there is something else you wish to know?”

“…No,” Theodore said after a long moment of hesitation.

Phillip stared at the man, looking for any, even the tiniest hint that he was joking. It wasn’t strange for an old man to have a slightly odd sense of humor. However, as he peered into the empty slits in the helmet, he didn’t see anything—not even the faintest glimmer of light.

As if there was nothing there.

With a shiver, Phillip looked away.

“Hey, uh… Jacob?” Theodore called. “Can I talk to you for a second?” He walked up to Jacob and whispered something in his ear.

Jacob nodded, walking over to Jean and then waving everyone over to the two of them.

Once everyone stood in a small circle, Jean raised her hand and cast Sound Barrier.

“Okay, what the fuck was that?” Theodore asked. “He’s obviously lying, but this is getting creepy.”

“Maybe he just has a strange sense of humor?” Beatrice tried, but…

“That’s strange indeed,” Jack commented. “Too strange. What do you think, Jacob?”

Jacob stood still, arms crossed and brow furrowed. “We hadn’t considered it so far, but it’s possible he’s with the terrorists.”

Everyone froze at that and tried not to move their head to face the man. Phillip failed to stop himself, and as he looked over, he felt a strong chill move down his spine. He glanced away, swallowing nervously.

“Think about it,” Jacob continued, turning his head aside so the man couldn’t see his lips. “He hasn’t told us anything about himself. On top of that, this whole situation doesn’t seem to bother him at all.”

“You’d have to be pretty batshit insane not to crack,” Theodore concluded. “Honestly, with their weird cult vibes, I’m sure he’d fit right in.”

“Okay, okay, slow down!” The man with the crooked nose—Gabriel—spoke up. “We’re making some big leaps in judgment here, no? What if he’s been traumatized? The poor man might’ve lost his damn mind.”

That… As seen by their shifting posture, most of them at least considered it a viable possibility.

“We’re being too hasty,” Jack declared, siding with Gabriel. “If he’s with the terrorists, why on New Earth would he go out of his way to make himself look so suspicious? You’d think he’d at least try to fit in.”

“We do not know what those people are after,” Karen stated. “We also have one more possibility to consider.”

“And what’s that?” Jack asked.

“That the man is telling the truth.”

“Pfft—” Theodore snorted, chuckling. “Look, Karen, I have a talent that allows me to estimate how much of a threat someone poses. This man’s aura is a dark shade of orange, meaning he’d pose a serious threat to me, but given that almost all of you are a scary shade of red, that makes him among the weakest in the group. If he actually had the powers he said… fuck red—he’d be a pitch-black void! Power like that would be impressive even by the standards of five-stars. Tone the delusions down, okay?”

A brief scowl flickered on her brow, but she schooled her expression. “You have previously admitted that your talent isn’t always reliable.”

“That is true, yes,” he said, “but not like this. Sometimes, I can’t see people’s auras at all. Besides, come on, get real! There is absolutely no way that this man is that powerful! You’d have to be high to think that.”

Her expression grew cold as she looked him over. “Those who fail to consider all possibilities are doomed to death by ignorance.”

“Oh, really?” He snickered. “Get a load of Socrates over here.”

“Theodore, that’s enough,” Jacob interrupted, raising a hand. “Look, the dude’s weird. We can all agree on that. We’ll ask him more questions and get his measure. Theodore, keep an eye on him with your talent. Even if he’s only orange, he’s good enough to have managed to survive that slaughter. Maybe you’ll get a glimpse of something else.”

“So what do we do now?” Phillip asked, feeling unnerved by the man’s presence. “I’m going to be honest, just being in the room with him is uncomfortable enough.”

A few of the others nodded in agreement. Even if he wasn’t with the terrorists, the man was an additional strain on their already fraying mental health.

“We cannot remove the man from this shelter,” Karen said.

“I agree,” Theodore added, surprisingly enough. “His presence might be a bit jarring, but kicking a crazy old man out to fend for himself isn’t gonna improve our sleep quality, that’s for sure.”

Jacob’s hands balled into fists as he looked down to the ground. “Whatever. We aren’t doing anything, then.”

“But you’re the one who⁠—”

“Take the fucking barrier down, Jean.”

Jean nodded and deactivated her ability.

Jacob turned around and walked over to the old man. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but a moment later, he closed it and turned around, walking back to his small corner.

Nobody else said a thing, either, simply moving to their personal space and crawling inside.

49

MANHATTAN, NOVA YORK

Madame looked herself over in the mirror, taking a closer look at the new foundation she had put on.

She was located in a small room atop a tall building. Her surroundings were a plain, subdued gray, with nothing but a cupboard to her side and a mirror before her lovely image.

She held a sponge in her left hand as her right pulled a finger down her right cheek, testing the fortitude of the layer she had just applied. It was still a bit loose, delicate as it was.

Any four-star with a life affinity had perfect skin; that went without saying. Regardless of whether she used makeup or not, her beauty was something that no mortal could rival, no matter what they did.

But natural beauty was so plain. So boring.

So… unexpressive, really; insulting, even. Many shamed the fakeness of makeup, small and limited as their minds were, claiming that being “real” was the superior choice. All this attitude revealed was that they had no idea what they were talking about.

Humans didn’t live in objective reality. Everyone crafted a fake world all in their head, a coat of paint over the uncaring coldness of the infinite multiverse. Where these coats of paint met, layering over one another in a nasty storm of clashing perspectives, that was the world humanity lived in.

Claiming that this construct was fake was failing to realize just how easily it could end one’s life.

Makeup was but one manifestation of the power to control reality—to wield it to one’s advantage.

Her pale skin had a hue that no makeup could replicate, but makeup could create many effects that natural hues couldn’t. She could make her face more or less illuminated, add a flashy zest or an intimidating shade, a vibrant joy, or a mask of cruelty.

For her meeting with the empress, she decided on a naive look: puffy, pink cheeks, big eyes, and youth—lovely, fleeting youth that her ageless, mature appearance mercilessly refused to provide her with.

Her fingers went over to a brush, and she collected some blush, carefully applying it. Her movements paused as she sensed something.

Her talent—Life Signature—had a limited number of people she could use it on. As such, she had ensured that she kept most of these uses for important political figures. At that moment, she felt the approach of one of these signatures. She had to ensure that she did not make a move or betray that she knew this person was coming.

She felt them slip right past the security as if they weren’t even there, moving past locked doors and into one of the highest-security buildings of Nova York as if they were taking a casual stroll through a park.

Without even a single hint betraying their presence, the target appeared standing behind Madame, just slightly outside the view of the mirror’s reflection, arms locked behind their backs as they smiled at her. “Hello, Narcisse,” a woman’s voice sounded behind her.

Madame bounced in her chair and looked behind her, showing a modicum of surprise, just enough to not seem unnatural. “Leona!” she exclaimed, putting the brush down and getting up to shake the woman’s hand. “How lovely to see you here!”

The woman who stood before her was a white woman with the same ageless aura as all those reaching the peak of power. She wore a uniform: a black, militaristic suit with a wide-brimmed peaked cap atop her short, green hair. Her appearance was like that of a general from the old world, but her function was way more hands-on.

Leona was an assassin—the best assassin in the entire world; well, the parts of the world that had active contact with the American Empire, at least. Her abilities were unknown to most, with likely only Madame and the empress understanding the extent of the woman’s abilities.

The woman was a five-star, among the exceptionally few who didn’t play a critical managerial role in the government or an influential extragovernmental organization. Her talent, in one way or another, allowed her to phase through surfaces, and her affinities were light, dark, and air. With the invisibility of light, the shadow manipulation of the dark, and the ability to eliminate sound through the air affinity, the only way to truly feel her coming was by extraordinary means.

What a wonderful subordinate to have, Madame thought. If she could use this woman for herself, she’d rule the world in no time. Her Matt was a genius, but he simply couldn’t compete with Leona.

Leona smiled at Madame, a pleasant yet distinctly formal expression. “It is good to see you as well. I have come here under the orders of my mistress. She wishes to let you know that your meeting is scheduled for thirty minutes from now.”

Madame had to use her essence to maintain a stony expression, desperately holding her eye back from twitching. Leave it to the empress to pull stuff like this. She sure loved keeping people on the back foot. “I thank you for letting me know, dear,” Madame said, clasping the woman’s hand in both arms and smiling up at her, choosing a disarming, cute smile for the job. “Please let Kaiya know that I will be there five minutes early at the latest.”

“That will not be possible, Madame,” Leona said, keeping her face neutral. “I was tasked with escorting you on your way there.”

It was rare for Madame to feel like cursing. Unable to take a deep breath, she imperceptibly expanded her lungs to intake some extra air. “Oh my, that’s wonderful! I thank you for your time,” she said amicably. “Please wait a minute, dear. I was just about to finish applying my makeup.”

An act she now had to alter. She pivoted slightly with the direction she was taking her finish. If she brazenly continued in the same direction, Leona, who was quite perceptive, would undoubtedly notice and internalize what she was trying to do, and while it was no significant infringement, Madame didn’t feel like testing Kaiya’s mood with frivolous deception.

Her options were quite limited, but her nearly 200 years of practice were enough to improvise an acceptable alternative. She settled on strong-young, the picture of her decorated mug interpretable as either that of a youthful lady forced to mature early or an old yet young-looking mistress holding a tight grasp on the spirit of her younger days. Closer to the truth than she’d like it,

“Your skills are quite impressive,” Leona said, holding a tight, polite smirk pulled over her plain lips. “Most ladies I’ve interacted with tend to have someone else handle their looks.”

Madame smiled guilelessly. “I couldn’t!” she exclaimed with a girly giggle. “I love doing my own makeup. In fact, I find the thought of letting someone else do it ridiculous. What’s the point of self-expression if you don’t do it yourself?”

“I personally dislike makeup,” Leona said, “but if I ever decided to dip my toes, I’d certainly try doing it myself.”

Madame paused, arching her neck to glance at the woman’s reflection in the mirror. “Are you trying to convince me that you’ve never done it? Camouflage should no doubt be a skill of yours, my dear.”

Leona smiled a bit wider. “It’s not quite the same thing, Madame. You’ve said it yourself.”

Her hand didn’t stop as she wrapped up her finish, and all she did in response was briefly nod in acknowledgment. The implication of that statement was quite apparent—one was for deception, and the other was for self-expression. Well, if one actually made a distinction.

A wise-ass as always, I see, Madame thought to herself.

Once done with her preparations, she got up and followed the woman. The two of them made their way to the rooftop, where a floating, old-fashioned carriage awaited them.

The view of the center of Nova York was beautiful. Tall, intricate buildings sprung up, many going even taller than the already impressively tall building they were atop. Countless structures floated around them, some slowly shifting positions as the owners traded places to change the view a bit. Either that or to grant those below a bit of sunshine.

Distantly, she saw the endless ocean spreading so far into the horizon that its edges were but a hazy mist of glimmering blue, the air refracting light in a way that made it seem like the sky and the ocean split each other apart rather than met in a straight line.

The shape of what used to be Long Island was no longer the same as it had once been. Not only had the Rift expanded its surface area drastically, but it had also altered its shape. Many large urban centers were scattered, with buildings suddenly having far more distance between them than before the Rift. That space had naturally been filled in later, of course, and most of the old buildings were either destroyed or drastically altered.

Manhattan was different. Most of the old buildings had remained right where they had been, and geographically, it hadn’t changed much.

This was a pattern with locations that had a particularly high ether density. For some reason, they were less subject to change. That wasn’t to say that Manhattan hadn’t undergone some drastic changes in the last 200 years. Much of it had been destroyed in the early wars, and only some of the buildings had been recreated as an homage to the old world.

And some parts had been… reappropriated.

A great example was Central Park. Where the park used to be open to everyone, it was now a large private property with an awe-inspiring palace built right in the middle of it.

They got into the carriage waiting for them, which lifted into the air, taking them to the empress’s residence.

They flew past the numerous floating structures and descended into the gigantic garden, landing right before the White Palace. Its name and architecture were reminiscent of the White House, the building in which the president of the United States of America used to live. That place, along with most of Washington, D.C., had been completely obliterated in the early wars.

The two of them got out of the car and walked to the opulent structure, passing its gaping entrance surrounded by great pillars and walking into its depths. A long hallway lined the surrounding area with statues of early archhuman heroes. The people who helped establish peace and stability in the early post-Rift era were hailed as heroes of the highest order.

Naturally, only those who had died. The dead were mythologized precisely because they were no longer there to wield the power of those myths.

Granting such prestige to those still alive was an expensive ordeal, so their accomplishments were played down to ensure they stood no chance of grasping any real political power past some posturing and minor roles in local communities.

The woman who so casually strode beside Madame had no doubt played a role in the deaths of at least several of the people who had been immortalized in this hall.

After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped into the main chamber of the building. The whole path was wide open, without even a single door standing in their way, but it was plenty protected and insulated from the outside.

As expected, the opulent, gigantic marble throne sat empty in the center of the well-decorated but dark room. Shadows concealed most of the paintings and art lining the walls.

They were early for the meeting, and even with that in mind, the empress would likely be at least a few minutes late.

Regardless, as soon as she stepped before the throne, Madame knelt, keeping her head down as she awaited the empress’s arrival.

Minutes dragged on, and she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She wasn’t looking forward to the meeting for many reasons, but she steeled her resolve.

Eventually, distantly, just within the range of her enhanced hearing, Madame heard footsteps. It was the clank of steel boots upon the marble flooring of the hallway. She didn’t gulp, but it took some effort not to succumb to the instinct.

As the clattering grew closer, an aura could be felt.

Despite also being a five-star, Leona was utterly invisible to Madame’s senses. But this was only because the woman was exceptional at keeping herself hidden.

The empress cared not who sensed her arrival.

Her presence was akin to the manifestation of authority itself. It was overbearing and domineering, so potent that its flow was as viscous as honey. It permeated the room, lining the walls and surrounding the entire chamber. The walls reacted. The opulently decorated interior lit up, with the numerous paintings and pieces of art glittering with the reflection of the lights spurred by the owner’s arrival.

The whole room was glowing with light as gentle and rich as sunshine, and the bulk of the glow was focused upon the massive throne, bathing it in such glory that it gave it a divine aura.

The sound of the footsteps changed from one step to another, and the room was positively flooded with aura.

A tiny sheen of perspiration fought to break past Madame’s essence control, but she kept her body’s reaction subdued, ensuring that not a bead of sweat appeared along her skin.

One loud clack after another, the sound of the boots approached, until suddenly⁠—

A bulky, muscular arm wrapped around Madame’s waist, lifting her up. A hard knuckle buried itself in her hair, rustling it playfully. A feminine yet deep voice chuckled from above, its thick tones as complete as a glass of well-aged whiskey.

“Narcisse! You’re as cute as I remember you!” the empress declared, raising Madame by her armpits and lifting her like a puppy as she stared at her.

Madame stared down at the massive figure before her with no slight hint of frustration.

Empress Kaiya stood over two meters tall, clad in a majestic gold-red suit covered by a golden cape. Her long, plain brown hair, covered by a military-style peaked cap, spread down across her broad back. Her face was that of a half-Asian woman, chiseled and hard, with lines so sharp she could cut diamonds with her jawline. Her eyes were slitted so tight that they barely looked open, and her mouth spread wide open in a glorious grin.

Muscular, tall, and domineering, her presence was like that of a female hyena, emitting an aura that made the concepts of femininity and masculinity obsolete.

“Lovely to see you, dear,” Madame concurred. “Can you please put me down?”

“Sure thing!” Kaiya declared with a beaming smile as she plopped a big kiss on Madame’s forehead and put her down like a kitten she was tired of playing with. “So… How about we get that meeting started, huh?”

Madame failed to stop her eye from twitching, but she nodded and bowed slightly as she took a graceful step back to let the empress walk to her throne unimpeded.

The tall woman snickered, striding forth and taking a seat. The air around her shifted subtly as she got comfortable on the throne. The boisterous persona regained its regal authority as she rested her cheek upon the knuckles of her fist.

Madame stood there, maintaining her lady-like grace in the face of the predator before her.

“So… About that message you sent me,” Kaiya started, cocking an eyebrow. “I believe we both know your actions come from a personal grudge,” the woman declared. “I know you well enough to assume that, and I respect you enough to believe you won’t try to hide it from me. I’d like to hear details on this conflict before we continue.”

Madame nodded, already expecting this. She proceeded to explain everything, starting with Basilisk’s actions, how this tied into her investigation of the expedition, and ending with her evaluation of the severity of the threat. The Kraven Clan escaped the executioner’s blade by a hair’s breadth; had they not lost their patriarch, the situation surrounding this would have fallen entirely on their heads.

Naturally, Madame kept quiet about the exact details of how she figured the whole scenario out. The empress respected her vassals’ need for privacy regarding their means and didn’t pry further into the finer details.

Everything she had listed off up to that point had barely expanded upon the contents of her letter. There had to be a solid reason why the empress had invited her here, and depending on her response, it would become clear soon enough.

“I see,” the empress said, nodding as Madame concluded her recounting. “That is quite the story. I must say, it is an incredible coincidence that the person you were going to interview is the same one involved in the damage caused by the expedition. You haven’t mentioned this in your letter, but why did you book that man?”

“He was the first to discover the entrance to Faralethal.”

The empress quirked an eyebrow. “I do not believe that’s enough to land an interview with you.” She smirked. “What’s the catch?”

Madame smiled. “You’re quite right. That was only the first thing that drew my attention to him. His story made my choice for me.” She paused as she recollected her first impression of the man. “He was so perfect,” she said, sighing lethargically. “Naive, young, hot-ugly guy with an attitude who is just ordinary enough to be relatable yet exceptional enough to stand out. A true underdog. A hero of the masses.”

The empress didn’t appear to be impressed at all, but the answer seemed to satisfy her curiosity. “And why were the Kraven after him?”

Madame sighed. “To be perfectly honest, I still do not understand why,” she said, scowling a bit. “My best guess is that the man’s proximity to the creation of the passage had resulted in the manifestation of a valuable unique, but I doubt that. He was indeed hiding something, but I never found out where, why, or how.

“I do know, however, that Mr. Maskaart was privy to this information and that he had leveraged it against the Kraven Clan to pressure them. I presume he knew they would act and waited to strike while the iron was hot. At any rate, the man was indisputably innocent of any crimes, and their actions were unjust on both ends.”

The empress hummed. “I see,” she said, tapping her chin with one finger. “I have a proposal for you if you’d like to hear me out,” she said, smirking down at Madame.

Narcisse took a moment to settle herself, then nodded. This was most likely the reason why she was called here.

“I have a new project I’m trying to get on its feet in Starhold,” the empress said. “We have recently discovered a technology that allows us to create a simulation that perfectly replicates an archhuman’s body within a false world.”

Madame’s eyes widened slightly.

“But,” the empress said, interrupting Madame’s thoughts, “there is a catch. I can already see what you’re thinking, and while you aren’t wrong, I don’t see this technology becoming commercially viable… ever.”

“That expensive?”

“No…” the empress said playfully, a slight smirk quirking on her lips. “It’s based on the talent of one person. He is a criminal who has been sentenced to death, but as an alternative, he’s being kept alive as a core component of this system.”

Madame held back a snort. Not only was that man probably not a criminal at all, but the fact that the empress was openly sharing this information with her was a sign that she had little choice in the matter of the offer that was about to come.

“You see, while Starhold is a generally successful project, we’re recently seeing a decrease in the number of people willing to migrate there.”

“I’ve heard the stories myself,” Madame said, nodding.

Camp Violet was one of many examples of a project going awry. While few were as bloody as that, many have taken their fair share of lives and sent home a number of people with severe injuries and disfigurement.

“I expect nothing less of you…” The empress smiled. “That being said”—she slowly rose to her feet and started walking forward—”we are looking for ways to attract more permanent residents. And… well… an arena where nobody can suffer permanent injuries sounds like just the kind of place that would appeal to those afraid to die.”

“And I presume you want me to promote this arena?” Madame asked, but⁠—

“No, dear. I want you to become its face.”

Madame’s eyes shot wide open. “Deal,” she said immediately.

Kaiya laughed vociferously at the instant agreement. She walked up to Madame and offered her a handshake. “We have a deal, then.”

Not only would this offer be the perfect step forward for her career, but she was effectively getting a free invitation to establish herself as a significant player in Starhold. Naturally, it would be quite the burden, too, but that was the price of power.

“I am flattered by your magnanimous offer, Your Majesty,” Madame curtsied as she thanked the empress.

“It is only fair,” the empress returned, smiling down at her. “You have done me a great favor by exposing the damage Mr. Maskaart’s expedition was causing. It’s only proper that I reward you for your work.”

Well, that was a load of bollocks. If anything, it was the other way around. Dealing with Harold, that snake, was Madame’s reward for accepting the undoubtedly brutal challenge that was to come.

Still, for her, this was a win on all ends. With a gleeful joy bubbling in her chest, she prepared to wrap up her meeting with the empress.

“Oh, one more thing,” the empress called, looking down at Madame. “I am about to go handle a local incident. Would you like to come with me?”

Madame considered the offer. It was a strange one. There really didn’t seem to be an ulterior motive—none that Madame could think of. Perhaps she considered it a good publicity stunt? If that was the case, Kaiya was wrong. Madame’s image was carefully crafted to be as far from that of a warrior as humanly possible. Her power was implied, not displayed openly for the world to see.

Her conflicting emotions were clear even to the empress, who helpfully added, “I have no ulterior motives behind the offer, my dear. You never know; if you’re bored and have some free time, it might be fun,” she offered with a cheeky smile.

Madame smiled politely and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I will have to decline. I am not a fan of dirtying my hands.”

“A pity. Well then, I should probably get going.” And with that, she swung her cape and walked right past Madame, squaring her shoulders and looking straight up…

As if she was heading to do nothing more than handle a chore.

50

EIDOLON OF AUTHORITY

The reasons to seal a passage were as numerous as the grains of sand in a desert. However, they all ultimately came down to the age-old rule of risk vs. profit.

A wasteland with no valuables could one day release a monster, and with nobody aching to dive in, keeping it open was a mere liability. Conversely, hellscapes ordinary humans couldn’t survive in remained open all across the world since the riches within were too valuable to place behind a seal.

During the early days of the post-rift era, all passages were open. It wouldn’t be until several decades later that society grew stable enough to organize and begin systematically sealing dangerous realms off.

Many of these early seals remained in place until that very day.

But humans… they were funny creatures. Stupid, reckless, selfish, lazy, shortsighted—they repeatedly failed to do the right thing, and tragically, those making these errors rarely suffered from the consequences of their own hubris.

Over a hundred years was a long, long time. During that time, records were lost. Who back then worried about the fact that people a hundred years down the line wouldn’t know what lay behind a passage seal? It was sealed for a reason; what reason? Who knew, who cared—just keep it closed, lest you unleash a bloody calamity.

And for humanity today, taking the chance to peek behind them was an age-old rule—was the risk worth the profit?

Most of the time, the answer was… no.

Opening a sealed passage was opening Pandora’s box. No matter how terrible, all of them kept an evil trapped within.

As he sat in the underground chamber, remnants of old infrastructure crumbling around him, he peeked at the empty sleeve on his shirt and then back to the glowing ritual circle.

His avatar was safe for the time being, but those kids were slowly becoming suspicious. Well, no matter. They wouldn’t act for at least another few days, and during that time, his target would arrive.

His eyes refocused, and he looked at the seal which lay beneath the ritual circle. Several specialized talents and many resources were used to construct this one. If he were more physically powerful, perhaps he could break it through sheer force, but as it was, he had to resort to slowly dissipating the ether constructs holding the barrier together.

A sound akin to crystalline wind chimes rang throughout the room as a critical component finally crumbled, and a tired smile quirked up on his lips.

“Pandora’s box indeed,” he muttered as he placed a palm upon the inscribed surface and pushed a pulse of essence into it.

The sound of screams echoed through the structure, remnants of a will whose master had long passed taking a final, futile stand against his intrusion. The metallic barrier keeping the passage sealed was reduced to a mere layer of ordinary matter within seconds.

His dark essence oozed out of his right hand and turned into a large tentacle of darkness. The appendage latched onto a small nook in the seal and pulled it up. Even though ordinary, it was made to endure. Whoever had built it was well aware of the danger posed by the thing sealed within.

Yet, the creator couldn’t have possibly predicted how powerful a five-star could become.

With another pulse of essence, the tentacle ripped the metal off its hinges with a loud snap, and he threw it aside, causing it to skitter across the nearby ground as he looked down through the circular passage, which looked like a round trapdoor in the ground and past which a dark chamber lay.

There was little light around him, but that couldn’t impede his vision. With his Dark Sight, he peered through the darkness, observing the majestic, solemn chamber within.

A smile quirked on his lips as he took a step and jumped down.

He landed with a light thud that echoed through the room, reaching the tall, imposing walls and lines of pillars. He lifted his head and looked at the throne on the other side of the chamber.

Upon it sat a perfectly still figure. It looked like a faceless white puppet, clad in royal clothing and carrying a majestic crown on its head. As it noticed his presence, it slowly moved its head up.

In an instant, the air in the room changed. An unbelievable feeling of suppression coursed through his body as the very concept of authority congealed in the air around him, imbuing him with a burning desire to kneel and obey.

“Not yet,” he said, keeping his head up as he gazed upon the eidolon of authority. “I have come here to pledge my loyalty to you, Your Highness,” the man said, bowing slightly—respectfully but not obediently. Not yet. “I believe you feel my power just as well as I feel yours. My servitude would no doubt be a valuable asset to Your Majesty.”

The eidolon perked up at that. It had no mouth, so it gave no vocal response. It raised a hand and snapped a finger instead.

With a flash of light, a spirit appeared at the eidolon’s side. Its blue head was massive, and so were its striking golden eyes, and its neat robes swayed as if an intangible wind was blowing over them. It raised a small hand with thin, long fingers balled into a fist to its tiny mouth as it coughed. “My lord says that you cannot be trusted,” it said in a polite voice. “If you have a desire to serve, you must prove yourself. Pair your loyalty with an adequate proof of obedience, and you shall be accepted as a servant.”

“Duly noted, respectable sir,” the man responded without even a hint of sarcasm. “Indeed, I come here not as an enemy. I am more than willing to prove this. But, I have a condition.”

Both the spirit and the imposing eidolon tensed at that proclamation.

“As you can see, I have no shortage of power. Dare I say, if we were on opposing sides, it would not be easy to guess who would prevail. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You dare!” the small servant spat. “Direct your petty threats at your lessers, fiend! Begone at once!”

I overdid it, he thought, sighing as he lifted his right hand. A small mass of shadow coalesced around his middle finger, and with a burst of his will, it tore his finger off. He showed not even the slightest reaction to the pain.

“My apologies,” he said, bowing deeply. “I hope a finger is enough to excuse my misbehavior.”

The two ether constructs remained silent for a long moment, and then, the king nodded a single time.

“Hmph,” the servant scoffed. “You are lucky that my lord is feeling generous today. Very well. We shall hear you out. What is it that you wish for in return for your servitude?”

He smiled, raising his head as he used shadows to plug the wound on his finger. “I would like your help with a coup d’etat.”

In one of the open realms in Nova York, a group of terrorists had walled themselves off. The realm in question was one of many that had been affected by a large, coordinated attack. It was a C-rank realm located in the Taranccia realm, a small world of purple fields and tall, dinosaur-esque monsters.

A thick, undulating barrier of opaque liquid blocked the passage, acting as a near-impenetrable barrier against every force that tried their hand at piercing it. As for who had placed the barrier, nobody knew.

The only thing that was clear was that it was incredibly difficult to break.

It was to no small surprise to the people within, then, when the sound of an explosion echoed through the realm and a veritable horde of people rushed in.

Within less than half an hour, the group of terrorists were apprehended, and the horde of monsters they had gathered was slowly being dispersed. As was predicted by many, as soon as these people were captured, a ritual circle lit up on their forehead, and they died, committing suicide the moment their plan had failed. There were no indications of who exactly was behind the group. There were no signs pointing to anyone specific.

Kaiya stood near the passage, just a bit inside the realm, acting as little more than a watch dog ensuring nobody escaped.

Her imposing figure stood firm as her eyes scanned the inside of the realm. The immediate area surrounding the passage was a gruesome sight. Numerous corpses—torn, burned, doused in acid, hit by necrotic spells, and sliced apart—were scattered all around, heads, arms, and legs floating in pools of blood.

The empress sighed, shaking her head slightly as she spat on the ground. “What a mess.”

This was hardly the first time she was seeing such a sight. While it was rare for her to step up like this, she needed to remind everyone of her existence every once in a while.

Yet, as she stood there at the entrance, her intuition told her something was off. Her arrival in the capital was by pure chance, and it was no surprise that her help wasn’t accounted for. Despite that, this entire thing was… off. It was too organized for such a risky, foolish endeavor.

There were few five-stars in the empire, and most of them were in Starhold. Had any of them decided to come to Nova York while this was happening, they could have stopped it. It wasn’t a guarantee, granted, but there was a solid 30% chance of it happening. That was too much risk for an undertaking with such a pointless cause.

No, there was more to this. What swam before her was a red herring—the shark was hiding deeper in the water.

Leona suddenly appeared by her side, dropping her veil of invisibility. “I have found no signs of anyone more powerful than a three-star being here.”

“Anything else?”

“No. From what I’ve gathered, their intent was to cause an artificial break. Secondary motives are unclear.”

“We’ll move on to the next passage immediately,” Kaiya declared. “Something is off about this attack. I want to clear every barrier by the end of the day. We’re aiming for the big ones first.”

Sophia stirred slowly. A massive headache pounded in her head. An intense hunger raged in her gut. As she opened her eyes and got up, she came face to face with a decrepit undead creature. She screamed. Well, tried to, but her parched throat produced a long, scratchy voice crack instead.

“Relax,” the living mummy eked out, keeping a hand above its mouth. Every second, a small drop of water condensed on the creature’s hand, wetting its lips.

“Wait… Freddy?” she asked, frowning at him. “What the hell happened to you!?”

He looked absolutely horrible. The skin all over his body had shriveled up, making him look like… well… a mummy.

“Essence poisoning,” he eked out barely.

“Oh…” she said, relaxing for a moment and then breaking into a panic again. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said simply. “But I will be once I rehydrate.”

Given the absurdly slow trickle of water coming from his finger and the fact that he was using water essence to condense that water, thus making his poisoning even worse, she doubted his recovery would be smooth.

“Stop with the condensing, you dunce, you’re gonna make it worse. I’ll go fetch some water.”

“I’m not an idi—ahem,” he coughed to clear his tight throat. “I’ve calmed the poisoning already. I’d still appreciate some water, though. Just be careful. Monsters.”

Sophia nodded curtly as she left the small hole they were hiding in. Five minutes later, she came running back inside while a large nebber head peeked in after her. From the safety of the hidden hole, she swung her swordsword and stabbed it in the eye. The monster screeched a long, pained note and dropped dead.

“These things are so damn annoying!” she said, breathing out as she collapsed on the ground. “Oh, I’m so hungry I could eat this thing whole.”

Freddy snickered. “Did you bring my water?”

“Yeah, here you go, shrivelhead,” she said as she passed him a canteen of water. “Drink deep of that since I’m not going back outside to get more.”

Freddy downed the water in the small container, then moved over to the dead nebber’s bleeding neck. He placed his palm on the wound, and with a small burst of blood essence, he started absorbing the blood through his palm. Meanwhile, he swung his dagger at the spark of undeath.

“Uh… that’s not⁠—”

“I know this isn’t a good idea, Sophia,” he said with a shake of his head and a snarky chuckle. “But I’ll live.”

Naturally, absorbing the blood of an unknown monster was… well… the same as injecting the blood of an unknown monster. Not good for anyone who enjoyed being alive. Thankfully, the unholy combination of undeath and 1% Lifesteal could keep him from suffering too much damage while his body fought tooth and nail against the influx of foreign blood.

Over the next ten minutes, his skin tone and overall state rapidly improved.

Sophia partook of some meat—after processing it first, naturally. It was an upgrade compared to the god awful gorel flesh, but it was still far from luxury cuisine.

The two of them recovered in silence for a while. Freddy was the first to speak up. “We’re alive,” he said.

“That we are,” she confirmed.

“That’s good, yeah.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yeah, no, I’m just… yeah.” He coughed. “I’m happy we’re safe.”

“You have something to say?” she asked.

“I’m just…” He scratched his head. “Sorry for the legs.”

“The what?” she asked. “Oh! Yeah, don’t worry,” she said. “That sucked, yes, but it’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“Yeah…” His voice trailed off as he twirled his fingers. “So… How are you feeling?”

“I’m good. You?”

“I’m great… Great, yeah… My blood feels like I’ve injected a million fire ants into it, but the feeling is… well… let’s say I’ve entered only six-figure territory. Of fire ants, I mean.”

She chuckled. “I’ll prepare a spark or two to help you out. I could also use a few to deal with this headache.”

“Yeah… but we’re alive… and we’re safe.”

Sophia stared at him for a long moment. He met her eyes for a brief moment and then looked away. It was painfully obvious that he was dancing around a certain topic. She couldn’t help but sigh. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she suggested with a smirk.

“Well, it would be, but this was one of those dramatic thank yous that you just know has a bit of something behind it, you know?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. She looked away, unwilling to show her face to him. Her mind rushed with thoughts. She thought of the cult. No, not the cult.

Her old family.

Her old friends.

Her old life.

They were out there, hurting people, doing terrible things in the name of their cause. How easy it would have been to end up among them.

More than death, more than danger, more than pain, she had been afraid of having to confront them. The thought of finding someone she recognized was like a dagger in her heart. It hurt. Even at that moment, she couldn’t brush off the connection she had with them.

But as morbid as it might have sounded to someone else, she was glad that they were out here doing this. Being so cruel. Being so obviously evil from an outside perspective. It made it easier to justify her choices. Even if it didn’t make her feel any less lost.

Freddy coughed again, as untactful and goofy as he was. “So… I was waiting for you to wake up so we could decide on what to do next.”

Indeed. While they were tentatively safe, there was still a threat of being discovered.

“Yeah,” she said. “We should move out further.”

And so they did. Carefully, ensuring they didn’t attract one of the demonic capragorns, they went from one grove to another. Just not being in the same grove as the passage was already a world of difference, and they decided this was safe enough.

This time, they climbed up into one of the trees. There were no airborne predators in this realm, and nothing dangerous should climb the trees, so it was a better option than waiting underground.

There, they waited for what felt like days. The realm was perpetually sunny, however, and it was hard to tell exactly how much time was passing. The pocket watches they had brought with them had been left behind with all the other unnecessary equipment they brought in rucksacks. For a long while, they were simply waiting, entirely alone.

Then Freddy heard voices in the distance.

“Shhh,” he shushed Sophia as he strained to hear better. “Someone is coming.”

Sophia grew pale. The voices were quiet and distant, and soon enough, the sound vanished. Just as the two of them started to relax, a loud voice shouted from below.

“Two on my position!”

51

SHACKLES

Illya chewed on her nails, eyes bloodshot as she stared at the bane of her existence. She hadn’t slept in days. The artifact—the massive, mummified arm of crimson skin and wicked nails—defied every attempt to even as much as mute its aura of bloodthirst.

Several of their members stood anxiously around the intimidating object, similarly displaying signs of stress and severe exhaustion. The situation wasn’t helped by the mountain of rancid, rotting flesh, which smelled so bad it would make a mortal faint.

The situation was starting to fray everyone’s nerves, and she felt the influence gnaw at her, demanding that she claw someone’s throat out with her bare fingers.

They tried, repeatedly, from runic inscriptions to shackles to wards, but nothing worked. Ether constructs simply couldn’t maintain their form in the presence of the limb.

Naturally, an artifact as powerful as this had to be worth a lot of money. But its no doubt significant monetary value was hardly of consequence when its mere presence was enough to thoroughly derail their plans.

The lack of living bait shouldn’t have been a significant problem. The smell of blood alone was already enough to maintain a trickle of starving monsters through the passages.

The problem was that they instantly lost their minds, rushing towards the limb standing before her like moths flying into a flame. And when they came here, they slaughtered each other.

It was hardly possible to cause a break with a pile of monster corpses.

At this rate, their plan would be a failure.

But that didn’t have to be the case.

This object was dangerous enough on its own. If they just figured out how to best utilize it, the damage it could cause might very well surpass anything their previous plan was capable of doing.

The only problem was that it might be too effective. Their plan didn’t involve razing the barbaric city to the ground. This was just the first step to sending their message. It was supposed to plant a seed of dissatisfaction and create a ripe opportunity for a rebellion.

Sowing seeds of despair would only serve to reinforce the status quo as the people swarmed around the familiar scent of the blood-soaked striped flag.

Taking a frustrated breath, she made an executive decision. “Fall back, everyone,” she said, sighing tiredly. “We have exhausted our options for the time being. We will take a day off to recuperate and then continue our⁠—”

An ear-piercing, shattering sound echoed through the entire realm, and the cloaked men and women turned to face the source as one.

Standing upon the mount of flesh, they had an elevated vantage point and could clearly and easily identify the origin of the deafening noise.

It came from the passage—the entrance to the realm.

A massive, bone-white arm of chiseled muscle protruded through the now-broken barrier. It was so thick that it barely even fit the wide opening, stretching at least fifteen meters in length. Its horrifying size made the gigantic limb before them look like a toddler’s arm.

“Oh… boy,” Damian croaked, lifting his arm to scratch the back of his head. “That’s not good.”

Illya shot the burly man a lethal stare.

“Sorry, boss,” the man said, stepping back.

The gigantic arm suddenly shrank, deflating like a balloon as it receded back through the passage. Illya recognized the look of that limb. Everyone present did.

That was the Avatar of Dominion. One of the most famous talents in this part of the world.

Its call to fame?

The owner—the empress of the American Empire.

“We took the gamble knowing this might happen,” Illya stated resolutely. “Do not falter. Master will call for us soon. Do your best, everyone. Resist until your last breath.

“Do not die in vain.”

Freddy summoned his Gore Knuckles before he even saw who was shouting. Both he and Sophia kept their forms concealed behind thick branches, keeping most of their bodies out of the view of whoever might decide to throw a projectile their way.

“Please identify yourselves!” the voice shouted. It was a man’s voice, and it sounded distinctly… militaristic?

Freddy raised an eyebrow. Despite his better judgment, he peeked behind a branch and took a look at the people surrounding them.

Numerous compound bows were aimed at them, and their users were all clad in military-style camo. Rather than despair at the sight, Freddy felt elated. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “We’re civilians!” He promptly retracted his Gore Knuckles and gestured to Sophia, telling her to put her sword down.

“Stay put!” the man yelled authoritatively. “Prepare your identification cards and throw them down!”

“All right!”

After retracting his Gore Knuckles, Freddy took his ID out of his storage ring, and Sophia followed his example. They threw them to the ground, and one of the people surrounding them rushed to pick them up.

“We are going to prepare a safety cushion for you,” the man said. “Please jump off the tree with your arms placed behind your head. Do not resist. If you show any signs of hostility, we are authorized to use lethal force.”

“Okay!” Freddy confirmed.

The uniformed men threw a ball beneath the tree, and within a second, it inflated into a large cushion. Sophia went first, hands placed on the back of her head. As soon as she got off the cushion, one of the nearby men used a metal manipulation ability to shackle her.

A chain extended from the man’s hands, attached to a pair of arm cuffs which glowed with a runic seal.

“Hey!” she shouted in protest, causing several of the nearby soldiers to raise their bows and aim them at her.

“Do not resist!” the man shouted again. “You have nothing to fear if you are innocent. This is just a precaution.”

Freddy soon followed after her, and just like Sophia, he, too, was shackled once he got off the cushion. Rather than tense up, he was visibly relieved. “Never thought getting arrested could feel this good.”

“Let’s go,” the man said, nodding at the others present.

The person manipulating their shackles gave them a polite tug. “Please do not resist.”

Freddy nodded.

Thus, they were dragged along. Most of the people present dispersed, likely as they continued their search for any of the cultists that might be present in this realm.

He presumed that they’d be allowed to go when they were cleared of suspicion. Suddenly, his steps halted. The man tugged on the chain again, prompting Freddy to continue walking.

Although he’d felt greatly relieved at the appearance of the soldiers… weren’t they kind of in deep shit?

Sophia was also being dragged, but she was quite far from him, as they weren’t allowed to stay close to one another. He couldn’t talk to her. They couldn’t discuss anything. Even if they were near enough to speak to one another, they were being watched.

Doing his best to subdue his panic, Freddy pondered their situation. Would they be interrogated? If that was the case, he should probably run right fucking now!

Sophia had literally grown up in the cult responsible for this. This wasn’t something they even needed to interrogate out of her—this was on her papers! The woman had gone to the police after escaping the damn cult!

Usually, that would be proof that she had cut ties with them. But in this scenario, the fact that she just happened to be there during this terrorist attack was just a bit too much of a coincidence.

And what about him?

If they took a look at his records and saw the two years where he was just completely missing, only to return back to society looking quite different and having quite a bit more power, he’d look even more suspicious than Sophia!

Oh shit… Freddy thought, gulping. I’m going to prison, aren’t I?

Well, only if he didn’t get executed.

Sweat dripped down his back, and he looked over at Sophia. She looked stricken.

Great! Now we’re even starting to look guilty!

The biggest problem they had was that they were both completely unaffiliated with any party. They had no faction standing behind them, meaning that nobody would step up to force the prosecution to do their due diligence.

With how the justice system worked in the empire, backing and status were more critical than innocence. Two shmucks nobody would miss were always in danger when pitted against the law.

His heart hammered in his chest. Should they run? If so, this was a good time to make that decision. They were surrounded by only a few soldiers, while most of the others had spread out to search a wider area.

He pulled on the shackles a bit, testing their strength. He winced. They felt super tough, and without at least a two-star Hydraulic Flex or even a Flowing Strike that would break his own arms, he didn’t see a way to free himself.

The runic inscriptions did nothing to inhibit his essence flow, so they were likely there to reinforce the metal.

Testing it just a bit, he pulled on his essence and tried to use Hydraulic Flex to⁠—

Immediately, a blaring alarm screeched from his cuffs, and five soldiers turned around, aiming their bows at his head.

“Wait, wait, wait! Sorry! I am so sorry!” he shouted. “I-I-I… I tried using Hydraulic Flex to walk a bit more easily! I uh… I’m pretty damn tired. Haven’t eaten in days and all that…”

His pathetic excuse didn’t look like it convinced anybody.

The man who was keeping him on a leash pulled out another set of shackles and clasped them around his wrists, then he summoned a giant chain that he used to tie Freddy around the arms.

Freddy’s expression looked extremely sour.

Well then… What the fuck am I gonna do now?

Jacob sat with a dour expression, keeping to his small compartment and refusing to talk to anyone. Time passed by, with no signs that anyone was coming after them.

Until things suddenly changed.

The sounds of voices could be heard just past the barrier that kept them isolated, and soon enough, it turned to shouting.

Almost everyone in the room took a stance, preparing themselves for a fight, but Jack raised his arms. “Wait!” he shouted. “I can hear the voices clearly! These aren’t the terrorists! They sound like soldiers!”

A wave of relief instantly washed over everyone in the room.

A few moments later, a blade carved the wall keeping them contained.

For a long moment, Jacob feared that the trap would go off and hurt someone, but to his relief, the soldiers seemed to have disarmed it before opening the barricade.

“Everyone get on the ground!” a voice shouted from the other side. “Hands on the back of your head!”

The smarter among them immediately complied, and the dumber among them followed their example. Even the armored old man obeyed.

Shackles floated over, cuffing everyone, and chains dragged them out one by one.

Nobody there enjoyed having bows pointed at their faces, especially after everything they’d been through, but seeing the uniformed men was a relief nonetheless. They were taken out one by one and brought out of the dungeon and into the lobby building.

There, a man looked them over, confirming their identities. Jacob, Karen, and Phillip were released from their constraints as soon as their identities were verified, but everyone else was kept in shackles.

And finally, the last one to be dragged out was the old man.

“Please hand your identification over!” the soldier commanded.

“I apologize,” the armored man said. “I do not have my papers with me.”

The soldier snapped a finger, and several additional layers of shackles were placed on the old man. “As a precaution, you will be additionally restrained until your identity can be verified. Please do not resist.”

“That is no issue,” the old man said in his usual, disarming tone. “Thank you for your service.”

Jacob, Phillip, and Karen were escorted out first while the others were dragged individually.

A short hour later, they were regrouped just outside the passage that returned to the gorel realm. Following one after another, they went through.

As soon as they stepped past the passage, gasps could be heard from most of them.

The blood-red sky above clearly triggered some unwelcome memories from Jack and Jean. Everyone knew what this sky meant. It was the Crimson Twilight—and it was way too early for it to appear.

Still, if this realm was known for anything, it was the inconsistent intervals at which stuff happened. That, on its own, wasn’t too strange, even if the timing was bizarre.

What had them truly shocked was the abhorrent stench—as well as the image of the mound of flesh in the distance. Whatever had happened here, it was… horrifying.

Jacob gazed upon the destruction with a dead look. The ecosystem had been irreparably damaged, and it would take a long time for this realm to become usable again.

However, the implications of the cascading damage this could cause were put out of his mind. They had more than enough capital to make it past this. The actual disaster for him had nothing to do with money.

After a nauseating trek through the forest, through which rivers of rotten blood ran, they reached a clearing close to the main passage.

What he saw there was… quite a surprise.

His name was… Liam? It was the guy who bagged Theo’s wife. He was shirtless and heavily restrained, likely because he, much like the old man, didn’t have his ID with him when the soldiers found him.

The sight of that, as well as the sight of Theodore and Beatrice looking at the man with shocked and ashamed expressions, brought just a tiny shred of joy into Jacob’s life.

He also recognized the woman standing next to the man—it was the chick he had brought with him to the club that one time. Goddamn, what a piece of ass!

Maybe he could try… avenging his good friend, Theodore? Tit for tat, as they said. It sounded like a fun distraction from the bullshit he’d been through.

The thoughts about Liam were quickly wiped from Jacob’s mind as he spotted another person. A woman was walking down a path, flanked by two guards.

His jaw dropped.

The woman was nearly as tall as he was, clad in royal clothing and eyeing their group like a hawk. He had seen her plenty of times—her face was plastered on quite a few things and broadcasted almost daily. It was the empress. What the hell was the empress doing there!?

As soon as they stepped into the clearing, Jacob, Karen, and Phillip knelt before the intimidating woman.

Liam, the nervous man, looked at them with confusion, as if wondering why they were kneeling. Then he turned to face the incoming woman. “Holy shit!” he shouted, nearly prompting Jacob to break into laughter.

The man rushed to get on his knees, and the woman beside him soon followed suit.

Freddy cursed himself up and down as sweat erupted from every pore on his body.

Why is the empress here!? Why did I shout like that!? Aaaaah! he screamed internally.

Just when he thought his day couldn’t possibly get any worse, something like this happened. That was just great.

Needless to say, the odds of successfully escaping with his life intact were shrinking by the moment. As if the thick metallic shackles weren’t enough, one of the—if not the most powerful person in the empire—was standing guard.

To his absolute horror, the woman suddenly turned and looked at him. The weight of her gaze felt like trying to balance an anvil on his head. A single twitch of a wrong muscle, and he felt like he was in for a lot of pain.

The woman suddenly began gesturing with her fingers. A secret code?

Suddenly, the man holding Freddy’s leash tugged on it and pulled him back, drawing him into the forest.

What the⁠—

The men holding the other hostages seemed to do the same thing. However, one person was left alone in the clearing. A fully armored man, with more shackles on his body than even Freddy, stood alone in the center of the clearing as everyone distanced themselves from him.

“Oh, dear,” the man uttered.

Suddenly, with a flash of white light, a figure appeared. Freddy’s jaw dropped.

A white titan with runic formations inscribed upon its skin—a physical manifestation of the empress’s authority—flashed into existence behind her. It was a giant standing even taller than Bloodshed had been when he summoned it a few days ago.

Then it pulled its fist back and brought it down on the armored man.

A shockwave blasted in all directions, pushing the trees and blowing the retreating people away. Every leaf on every nearby tree was torn off, leaving the canopy barren. The ground beneath their feet sank slightly before bouncing back up, tripping everyone over while the gale blew them away.

Freddy was pushed back, falling to the ground as his ears pulsed with the blast. For several seconds, he heard nothing but a high-pitched buzz.

He didn’t see what was happening. A storm of leaves and dust covered his vision, and a stray shard of stone embedded into his nose. He coughed, spitting brown spit and freeing his lungs of the dust he inhaled.

Another shockwave made the realm tremble, and the sounds of explosions got louder.

With the numerous restraints, getting up was difficult, but he didn’t have to do it alone. The soldier pulled him to his feet and shouted something—most likely a command to follow along.

Whatever the hell was happening, Freddy couldn’t be happier to get as far away from it as possible. The cloud of dust slowly cleared, and he looked around to see where Sophia was.

He quickly spotted her. She was standing just a few meters away from him, but finding her gave him no relief. “Sophia…?” he called.

She stood frozen, eyes wide open as her mouth flapped.

“This isn’t the time to—” he tried, but his words were interrupted as a ritual circle appeared on Sophia’s forehead.

“F-Freddy… What’s happening?” she asked, panic evident in her expression.

Then her eyes rolled back as a pulse of power echoed through her body.

52

RED BARRIER

Illya stood in a small clearing.

Standing right beside one another, every remaining member was seemingly out in plain view—more than 50 cloaked people stood in the middle of an exposed clearing.

Yet, as another group of soldiers combed through the nearby woods, they walked right past them, completely failing to notice their presence.

What kept them hidden was a large illusion array, one of the most expensive ones money could buy. Even then, while it was a miraculous piece of etherology, it was child’s play to anyone at the third star or above.

Hell, if anyone paid close enough attention, it was apparent enough that the “empty stretch of grass” appeared slightly distorted from the outside.

Needless to say, this hiding tactic wouldn’t keep them hidden for long.

A deep frown hung on her face the whole time. Could it be that Master hadn’t even noticed that something was off?

If so, were they not simply waiting to be discovered and killed?

She knew that their situation was desperate; she had known it from the moment the Avatar of Dominion smashed through the barrier, but waiting for something to go wrong wasn’t how their groups ever operated. There was always a plan B, an alternative move they could make.

And, indeed, they had made plans in case the empress arrived.

But all Master had said about that possibility was that “he would take care of it” if such a situation were to occur.

Not that she was doubting him, of course. And she would never openly say such a thing, gods forbid, but… so much had already gone wrong. She couldn’t stop the paranoia from creeping in.

Suddenly, a massive sound echoed through the whole realm. A shockwave blew through the leaves, lifting the dust and breaking the illusion barrier keeping them hidden.

She cursed. They would have to fight. Just as she was about to make the command, she noticed something strange through the cloud of dust.

Her people were… writhing? Why?

Suddenly, she noticed something else. She felt burning. Intense burning. A fire spread through her body. A strange force was gathering on her forehead, and she raised a gentle finger to touch it. As she did, the abject agony she felt was washed away by relief, and she smiled gently.

“So you did have a plan for us, after all.”

Dust hovered in the air.

In a small clearing, not too far from the entrance to the gorel realm, the empress of the American Empire stood with her arms crossed as her avatar pulled its massive fist back.

Her hawk-like eyes scanned the environment, and it wasn’t long until she spotted the shackled man, standing barely a few feet to the side of the impact. He strained his muscles and, with barely any effort, tore the constraints that kept him shackled as if they were made of paper.

“Slippery bastard,” she cursed as she gave a mental command to her avatar.

The Avatar of Dominion swung one fist down, then another, hunting for the tiny target, only to barely lose it every time. She clicked her tongue as she pulled the massive limbs back.

Her muscles suddenly bulged, and with a titanic force, she clapped her hands together. The shockwave instantly cleared the dust, revealing the figure in plain armor.

Just from the looks, it was impossible to tell who this was. He had used no abilities, either. But even then, she didn’t recognize the aura.

Five-stars were few and far between. This was either someone who had remained hidden within the empire or someone from a foreign country.

At any rate, he was an enemy.

“Who are you?” she asked authoritatively.

“Who? Me?” the man said disarmingly, gesturing at himself as if he were no more than a harmless old man. “I’m just a passerby, Your Highness.”

A sudden pulse of essence spread from beneath the empress’s leg, rushing right under the man. In the next moment, spikes of stone burst from the earth, but the armored man leaped up, contorting his body to avoid every sharp edge. But that left him afloat, where another giant fist was flying right at him.

Rather than float helplessly as death rushed at him, a small black tentacle extended from his hand, wrapped around a nearby spike, and pulled him out of the way. This time, however, rather than cleanly dodge the incoming blow, the man found himself standing in the way of the charging empress, who was running at such immense speed that the ground cracked beneath her every step.

“Tectonic Strike,” she whispered as her arm adopted the momentum of a falling mountain.

A dark mass materialized beneath the man’s body, taking the form of a rapidly inflating pillow of black that sent him flying up in the air and out of the way of the strike while the empress smashed her foot down, sending chunks of stone flying into the air, and then punched one of those chunks. The immense force pulverized most of the rock into dust, but small pieces flew up at the floating man at such an immense speed that they simply couldn’t be dodged.

Each packed with more force than a Stone Bullet, they shredded the man’s armor and embedded themselves into the skin beneath, and a moment later, the Avatar of Dominion’s fist caught the man mid-air, sending his form crashing into the ground and sending another cloud of dust flying. Before it pulled its fist back, the avatar jumped, smashing its feet down on where the man had landed.

The subsequent blast made the whole realm shiver with the force, but the empress stood as if glued to the ground beneath her feet.

“That is quite the rude greeting, I say,” a voice echoed from her left, over forty meters away from the blast.

The man’s armor was mangled quite heavily and filled with holes, with visible streaks of blood serving as evidence of her attacks’ effectiveness. Yet he was bleeding no longer, and despite the decrepit state of the cheap metal armor, there were no signs of visible damage on the body beneath.

The empress scowled at the sight. Her mind rushed with thoughts.

She had faced no small number of bastards like this. He stood confidently—part bravado, part hidden plan, she was sure.

Without knowing what he was planning to do, she had no idea how to prepare. But from experience, she knew that not letting the opponent stall was always a good idea.

With a flick of her wrist, a simple-looking blade appeared in her hand. It was unadorned, with an incredibly simple ergonomic grip, a plain guard, and a straight, pure blade. She flexed her metal affinity, exerting her will upon the blade with Sharpen, tightening its edge so thin it could cut a grain of sand in two. Wind gathered around her back, compressing into a propelling force, while the air before her chest grew thinner, creating both push and drag to move her forward, and her muscles briefly flared, flashing an outline of her body as a streak of lightning seeped into her form.

With an explosive leap, she flashed forward, moving at nearly half the speed of sound. Her blade rushed at the bastard before her, cleaving him in two well before he could muster a defense.

Before his two pieces could even fly apart, her sight blinked out, replaced with pure darkness.

A curse! she screamed internally. She had run right into it without noticing it. Several barriers of earth appeared before her as she leaped back, creating distance between herself and her opponent. Then she made a gesture with her free arm.

Leona spotted the empress’s sign and immediately rushed in, completely invisible, without a hint of sound coming from her footsteps.

Yet, she rushed with the precision and determination of someone who might be at every disadvantage. No fight between five-stars was won by taking things for granted.

Within a second, she was out of her hiding spot and swinging a dagger to decapitate the target, all five of her stars active as she employed Negative Pressure for maximum effect, but as soon as she stepped within range, the man’s torso also lit up with five stars.

She didn’t hesitate, carrying through with her attack. There was no way the man knew she was there. A moment later, her suspicion was confirmed, sort of. The man’s body was suddenly surrounded by black tentacles, which spread out in every direction, wrapping around everything in the area, including herself.

It was a nonsense attack. Technically, it had landed, and it did interrupt her assault, but she would be free within⁠—

Suddenly, a sinister energy radiated from the man’s form. A ritual circle shone through the armor, inscribed upon the man’s forehead, and an instant later, just as she was about to release herself, a blood-red barrier in the shape of a dome surrounded her and her target, trapping them together.

Leona had no reason to panic. If anything, this led her to believe that the man was using everything he had as a last resort. She wasn’t trapped in here with him.

He was trapped in here with her.

With a flex of muscles, she loosened the grip of the tentacles and slashed them apart with her weapon.

She went invisible again and, a moment later, appeared behind the figure. With dozens of rapid slashes, she cut off both the man’s arms and his head before chopping his torso and legs into pieces. Then she kicked the parts as far apart from one another as possible, given that the man’s talent likely had something to do with healing. Her suspicion was on point, as the torso started putting itself together, but she pulled out dozens of special needles and pinned the chunks to the ground, hindering the regeneration, crippling the essence flow, and keeping it restrained.

It was only then that she noticed something odd.

If the body and head were separated, the soul always remained attached to the head—not the body. Even if the man was immortal… why was the torso healing by itself, while the head was completely unaffected?

“Your Highness!” she exclaimed. “Something is off!”

The empress blinked. The haze of the Curse of Blindness finally vanished from her eyes, and she looked forward, noticing the red barrier.

She scowled as soon as she saw it. The Avatar of Dominion moved, burying its fingers around the barrier as it pulled up. The barrier didn’t budge. Her avatar punched the barrier, but the impact didn’t even make it flare, let alone crack.

Leona tried using her talent—Phase Shift—but as she already knew, it was useless against energy barriers. It wouldn’t let her through—not without vaporizing her body first.

Both the empress and Leona knew that something was horribly wrong. This was no ordinary barrier. It appeared to be the same type of barrier as the one that blocked the passages, but it was different not only in color, but this one was clearly far superior.

Leona peeled the mangled helmet pieces off of the disembodied head. What she found beneath was bizarre.

A grinning man with a burned-out ritual circle inscribed upon his forehead, the light gone from his eyes. The face belonged to nobody she recognized.

She thought she could feel scattered hints of soul aura flickering through the decapitated head. Whoever this was, they had used a spirit ability. Not just any ability, either—they had sacrificed their own lives to create the barrier that was keeping her trapped.

Suddenly, something in the air changed. It was hard to tell at first. The strange aura of bloodthirst still coated the entire realm, and the empress’s presence was so overwhelming that it made it hard for other auras to peer through.

But this was different.

It was loud.

Overbearing

Authoritative.

The two women turned to the nearby forest. The sounds of fighting echoed from within. And there, from the darkness, a figure emerged.

Leona’s eyes widened slightly once she saw the man’s face. “No…” she whispered, feeling a pang of anxiety for the first time in a long, long while.

It was a gaunt, skinny man with a tall hairline. He was missing an arm and a finger on the arm he still had. He raised his open palm.

A second later, the squirming torso on the floor beside her stopped regenerating, and an organ floated out from it. It was a heart that looked to have been cast in metal. A metal that strongly resembled silver.

The next moment, the heart flew through the barrier as if it weren’t even there, reaching the man on the other end within less than a second. It sank into his torso.

Instantly, his decrepit form started to change. His deflated muscles bulged, his hairline moved down slightly, the overall sickly shade of his body disappeared, replaced by a healthy hue, and even his missing finger regrew—but his arm didn’t.

The man took a deep breath and smiled at them. Gone was the timid form of a skinny man. In his place stood a muscular beast, his eyes predatory and his smile wicked.

A second later, the aura they had been sensing appeared behind him.

A massive, nearly three-meter-tall eidolon strode with a royal step, moving with the pride and authority of a king.

Leona gritted her teeth as she realized what was happening.

The empress’s posture shifted as she balled her fists. “You goddamned psychopath…!” she spat through gritted teeth as her face morphed into the picture of fury. “How the hell are you still alive!?”

Jacob stood frozen, eyes wide open and sweat dripping down his body.

A soldier to his side dished out commends. “Cover the flanks! Three men to the—ack!” the soldier spluttered as a bulging, cloaked figure grabbed his throat and snapped it like a twig.

The terrorists were back. Their heads were lit up with ritual circles, and their bodies inflated, burning with the fire of their stars burning to a crisp as they extracted every shred of power they could.

Karen moved with absolute determination and supernatural swiftness, unerring with her swings as she carved the restraints off anyone still tied up.

Even Phillip, despite the visible dread on his face, took his shield from his storage ring and raised it, eyes shifting for anyone to defend.

Meanwhile, Jacob stood frozen, completely unable to move.

His knees quivered, and he balled a fist, punching himself in the thigh as he tried pushing himself to move, but he could barely budge.

The soldiers were getting torn to pieces.

He saw the scorpion-tailed woman appear from behind a tree. Briefly, his mind flashed with the “plans and predictions” they had strategized beforehand. Those pitiful ideas came crumbling in a second.

The woman’s form pulsated as her tail grew three times its size.

Despite her intimidating presence, Karen lunged at her, raising her sword high as she prepared to fight. The scorpion tail flashed with such horrifying speed that Jacob would have missed it if he could blink.

One moment, Karen was bravely charging at her opponent.

The next, she had been impaled through her chest. She spat blood as she tried resisting one final time, but the next moment, her body was flooded with venom, and her flesh was rotting apart.

He saw Jack go briefly invisible as he scored a swing, cutting a terrorist’s head off. In the next moment, a massive fist was rushing straight at his face, but Jean appeared to parry it.

Jean negated the blow, but the massive man didn’t even stumble as he threw a second punch. The woman’s body was broken in two as she failed to dodge.

Jack screamed, but his face was grabbed with supernatural speed, and his head, just the way Rachel’s had been, was smashed into the nearby tree. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then over and over and over until there was nothing but a bloody pulp left.

Briefly, Jacob spotted Theodore. He met the man’s gaze for a brief moment. The next second, Theodore picked Beatrice up and went invisible, vanishing into nothing as he made his escape.

With a trembling step, Jacob turned around and did the same thing. He ran for his life.

One shockwave after another washed over the battlefield, raising plumes of dust and deafening him. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t turn back.

Briefly, he ran past that man—Liam—and saw him staring at another bulging figure. It was that woman he had been with. He didn’t have the time to ponder that scenario.

He simply continued running.

Freddy watched Sophia’s body inflate slowly as the constraints around her wrists snapped. She screamed, shouting in agony as she resisted whatever was happening to her. He watched a life spark flash in her body as it burned. It did nothing. But then a second lit up. And a third. And a fourth. And finally, a fifth. With that, she stopped inflating, and the circle on her forehead finally shattered, losing its sinister glow. It left a deep, black mark.

“Holy shit!” she screamed. “What the hell was that!?” In the next moment, an arrow embedded itself into her stomach.

Freddy turned with horror to face the soldier who had fired the arrow.

The soldier looked panicked as he turned around and shouted, “Two on the flank!”

53

SCRAMBLE

There was no time to think. Freddy jumped before Sophia as a barrage of arrows flew their way, most of them landing right on his skin and embedding, albeit rather shallowly, as his Thousand Wet Hells-tempered body resisted the projectiles, while the rest of them bounced off the massive shackles, keeping him restrained.

The soldier who was holding Freddy’s leash had thankfully let it go to fend for his life.

Sophia pulled the arrow out of her stomach and used her life essence to seal the wound. It was a crude measure, something that would leave a permanent scar without her talent, but it would keep her from bleeding out for the time being.

Thankfully, the volley of arrows didn’t last long. After only ten seconds of being turned into a hedgehog, the berserk cultists finally reached the group of soldiers, who were promptly forced to change their target. It was hard to see the whole picture. The tall boulders and thick trees limited the view in almost every direction, leaving them only with the deafening sounds of combat.

“Are you good!?” Sophia shouted.

Freddy slowly turned around to face her, shaking like a leaf in the wind. She flinched as she saw the arrow in his eye, as well as the dozens upon dozens of other arrows scattered throughout his whole body.

“Do I look good?” he snapped, tearing the arrow out of his eye, but his voice was weak. It was hard to talk with such severe injuries.

They didn’t get a long time to rest. A moment later, a fist-sized projectile of stone cracked against Freddy’s skull, whipping his neck back, but with his thickened bones, it hadn’t done enough to knock him unconscious.

The two of them turned to face a flying man just in time for that man to pierce Freddy straight through the heart with a shortsword. The man was about to tear the sword out to strike again, but Freddy’s blood suddenly coagulated into a metallic substance that filled his chest cavity and locked the sword in place.

Before the flying man could realize that his sword wouldn’t be leaving Freddy’s chest any time soon, Freddy grabbed his arm, pulled him in, and grasped his neck, barely reaching it given the restraints limiting his movement.

Whatever kept the man afloat suddenly flared as both of them jolted into the sky, dragging the several-meter-long chain leash up with them. The man’s other hand manifested a spike of earth that rushed to pierce Freddy’s other eye, only to bounce off his forehead, but not before taking a chunk of skin off.

Suddenly, the cuffs keeping Freddy restrained started blaring with a high-pitched alarm as the artifact detected the essence flowing through Freddy’s arm. A moment later, Hydraulic Flex powered by both his stars crushed the man’s neck into a paste, mangling his flesh and crushing his spinal cord.

The rush of lifesteal instantly stopped Freddy’s bleeding, and the first-aid-quality healing pushed half of the arrows out of his skin, but the other half was buried too deep to be ejected so quickly.

Once the influx of ether reached Freddy’s body, he knew that the man was dead.

They fell back to the ground, which caused many of the arrows to break as their tips embedded deeper into Freddy’s body. “Fuuuck,” he groaned. He was blind in one eye. He was heavily restrained. His heart had been cut straight through, and a chunk of metallic blood was coagulated all around it. Blood wasn’t flowing through his veins, and his Pool of Blood was steadily leaking through the puncture in his heart.

He rushed to his feet, feeling the uncomfortable sensation of his flesh and skin being cut by the metal arrowheads, but he ignored the pain as he raised his guard. He felt dizzy, and fatigue was beginning to settle in his body. He had to get his heart pumping again.

Sophia grabbed his arm. “Come on!” she shouted. “We have to run!”

“Run where!?” he yelled back.

Indeed. They were surrounded by fighting on all sides. The only direction that was relatively clear was the place where the empress was fighting someone. That place had gone relatively quiet, and Sophia and Freddy looked over simultaneously to see what was happening.

Only then did he notice the tall sentient ether construct through the storm of sensations he was feeling. His blood ran cold as he felt its power and authority envelop him with such a force that he nearly felt compelled to kneel before the being.

It was an eidolon. And by the looks of it, it was allied with a strange man.

Well, that’s none of my fucking business, Freddy decided as he started looking for another way to go. For a moment, his eyes flickered to Sophia, and he saw the stricken expression on her face. She looked… sad—confused. She was shaking as she kept her eyes locked on the strange man who was facing the empress.

“Not the time for this, Sophia!” he yelled as he tugged on her arm.

It was definitely someone she recognized. Given that the man was facing the empress, he absolutely had to be the leader of their cult. And if he could face her, he was a five-star, which was horrifying. This was not their fight. Not that day, not in a hundred years.

Sophia tore her gaze away from the man and shuddered. She nodded her head briefly and refocused.

The shackles keeping Freddy tied were thankfully quiet now that he wasn’t using his essence, and they still allowed him to run relatively freely. The weakness that was slowly spreading through his limbs like wildfire wasn’t so merciful. “Sophia…” he whispered. “You have no more sparks left, right?”

She nodded.

He swallowed. “Take one from that man’s corpse.”

It was a desperate move, but it would hopefully be enough to at least remove the chunk of metal in his chest. The rest would have to be handled through his talent.

She nodded hesitantly and obeyed. A few seconds later, the spark was burning through Freddy’s body with an intense healing energy. It was filthy, way nastier in substance and feeling than his talent.

The chunk of metal in his chest broke apart into pieces, the biggest of which were pushed out of his flesh, but several smaller ones stayed behind, together with most of the arrowheads. His heart was back in one piece and back to pumping blood. There was a massive bloody gash on his right pec, and several of his ribs were broken beneath.

A deep nausea had spread through his body. He could see patches of his skin growing discolored, and he felt like his organs were melting. That was one hell of a price to pay for a bit of healing. It was way worse than what Sophia described, likely due to whatever that ritual circle was doing to the cultists.

The two of them broke into a run in a random direction away from the empress and the strange man. The action around them was still incredibly intense, and from what little they could glimpse between the thick foliage, it was plain to see that the soldiers were losing. Formal training and tactics were an excellent way to overcome superior power, but when that superior power was backed by elite training, there was little that could be done.

Freddy watched a cultist walk through a volley of arrows as if they were a mere inconvenience, completely ignoring any that embedded into their skin as they ran forth and tore the soldiers limb from limb.

Sophia wasn’t fucking around when she said that these people are nuts!

They moved around a tree, over a boulder, and through a bush, only to⁠—

A massive fist crashed right into Freddy’s left cheek, cracking the bone beneath and sending him flying. He slammed right into a tree, and a second later, another punch smashed right into his chest, crushing the chains into powder and caving his lungs in.

A wheeze escaped his mouth as he opened his one good eye to look at his assailant. A titan of a man loomed before him, cocking a head-sized fist back as his bulging muscles flared. Freddy barely moved his head out of the way of a punch that would have likely crushed his head. The tree behind him exploded.

He jumped to the side, barely carrying himself a few feet onward, but the man pursued him, throwing another punch.

Freddy raised his cuffed hands, only for the man’s blow to shatter both the cuffs and Freddy’s arms as he was sent flying back again, this time back-first into a large boulder.

Once he blinked the black spots out of his vision, he saw Sophia standing frozen with a scorpion-tailed woman before her. The two of them seemed to be talking. A chill pulsed down Freddy’s spine, but he didn’t have the time to consider it as he stumbled out of the way of another massive blow.

The man didn’t let him get far this time as he grabbed Freddy’s right arm and swung him into the boulder, then at the ground, and then at a nearby tree, but before Freddy’s body could smash into the tree, his mangled, twisted arm tore off, sending him skittering across a patch of sandy soil.

His vision was blurry, but Freddy could see the man charging at him. He was about to use Leviathan’s Fury, but the man suddenly leaped out of his field of view, and Freddy felt the shell for Leviathan’s Fury lock as he realized with a profound sense of dread that he couldn’t use the ability if he couldn’t see the target. The man was seconds away from landing on Freddy’s back, and if he succeeded, it would be lights out.

Left without another option, Freddy focused on Create Water, activating both his stars as he coupled it with Perished Water. He pushed with all he had, manifesting as much water as possible. Within a few moments, a solid 70% of his essence vanished as a massive sphere of water manifested all around him.

For a moment, he was fully submerged. For the first time, every inch of his skin was enveloped by Perished Water.

Then he felt a particular shell in his soul finally unlock.

Without knowing what it was, Freddy desperately rushed to activate the second ether shell of the Perished Water affinity.

Suddenly, it was as if the water around him became an extension of his body. He felt every drop of it clearly as he sensed the bulky man’s body sinking into it. Within the Perished Water swam the Ghosts of the Drowned—and he was their master.

He felt his essence slowly trickle down as he gave the command. An eel-like creature rushed at the man’s leg, biting down on it. His skin was like pure stone. Another small ghost moved through the water and clawed at the man’s arm. It only left a small scrape.

Freddy didn’t panic. Instead, he focused on all the other remaining ghosts. The man’s head finally reached the inside of the mass of water.

Every remaining ghost suddenly rushed at the man’s eyes as soon as he was fully submerged. Before he could raise his guard, it was already too late. A stinger pierced the man’s right eye while a toothy tongue tore the left one apart.

In less than three seconds, the mass of water had appeared and flowed away.

The broken Freddy stumbled up to his feet as the giant of a man screamed bloody murder on the ground next to him.

Despite his injuries, the giant figure still managed to roll away and climb to his feet, just in time for a two-star-powered Flowing Strike to ram Gore Knuckles right into his stomach.

Freddy’s attack landed with far more force than he expected it to. The man’s whole body was lifted off the ground for a solid second, despite his incredible body weight, but even with that, it took the man only a second to react by reaching an arm to grab at where Freddy was, but Freddy managed to stumble to the side as he swung a second strike at the same spot. And a third.

The attacks had devastating results. The man spat blood and stumbled back.

The two strikes alleviated many of Freddy’s injuries, but he wasn’t even close to regrowing his right arm, which was missing elbow-down. Still, much of the many injuries marring his body had been at least patched back together by first-aid-quality healing, so he was in far better shape.

His mind whirled.

His essence reserves weren’t doing so well. Within seconds, he had expended 130% essence, leaving him at only around 60%.

The man was blind. Freddy had no reason to continue the fight. Sophia was just behind one of the boulders, and he turned to⁠—

The sound of feet shifting on the ground was all the warning Freddy got as another punch flew right at his side. He barely moved out of the way in time, only for the man to throw yet another punch, which landed a glancing blow this time, dislocating the shoulder on Freddy’s torn arm.

“Shit!” he shouted as he leaped back, only to be followed by the blinded man. With the senses of a two-star and extensive training, it was possible to fight even without eyesight, but it wasn’t something any ordinary warrior was capable of.

Bracing himself, Freddy resorted to only using Hydraulic Flex in passive mode with both stars activated. His essence expenditure raised just above 3% per second, and with his satellite, that left him with less than a minute to finish his opponent and go find Sophia.

He reformed his Gore Knuckles, took out the Dagger of Bleeding, and got started.

The giant’s punches were incredibly precise and quick, leaving Freddy with many glancing blows across his body. This gave the cultist more information on where he was moving, allowing him to press the attack.

Still, despite being on the back foot, Freddy struck back, mainly on the man’s forearms. Gore Knuckles struggled to get through the man’s ridiculously tough skin, but when they pierced through, the bleeding effect of the dagger made the injuries considerably more dangerous than they appeared to be at first glance.

Before long, the man threw splatters with every swing of his arm. He was losing a lot of blood. So much that it appeared to be slowing the giant down.

Freddy capitalized on the man’s sudden decrease in speed to lunge in. That was a massive mistake.

The man suddenly sped up, and Freddy immediately realized he had been tricked. Before he could react, the man’s hand reached his head, wrapping giant fingers around his face. A moment later, Freddy’s head struck the ground. Then again. Then again.

With the first strike, he lost all hearing in his left ear, and with the second, the hearing in his right was gone, too. He couldn’t see anything; it wasn’t just from the man’s palm blocking his view—his vision was blacking out; now, even the desperate solution of using Leviathan’s Fury was off the table.

He cast Create Perished Water with roughly 30% essence, conjuring a giant bubble, but not enough to fully submerge him. Not enough to use Ghosts of the Drowned.

The ghosts cut into his body just as much as they did his opponent’s, and a moment later, the last of the water flowed away. Freddy’s head was smashed into the ground again. And again. And again.

A strange clarity seeped into his mind. How was he even still alive? He couldn’t tell. Maybe it was the undeath. Maybe it was Thousand Wet Hells. Maybe it was Sophia’s help. Maybe it was all those things combined.

At any rate, whatever it was wouldn’t last long.

The back of his head grew softer with every strike as his skull splintered and fell apart. The feeling in most of his body was already gone. As his sense of his body started to fade, he only felt the things directly tied to his spirit. He felt Bloodshed watch on from deep within his soul. He wanted to release it to at least let it escape. But he couldn’t focus long enough to do that.

He felt the ring on his finger and the way it empowered his blood essence. It was such a fascinating phenomenon—so alien and strange. He felt chunks and pieces of his life force chip away one piece at a time. Finally, he felt the storage ring on his finger.

He felt the items inside.

Before he could even realize what he was doing, he extracted the massive bag of nearly 200 doses of lethal poison. Although he didn’t feel his body, he didn’t need feeling to move it. Hydraulic Flex activated, forcing his arm to throw the bag roughly in the direction of the man’s face. A second later, the constant lurching stopped as the world stilled again.

Freddy didn’t feel his talent activate, but that was because it couldn’t be triggered by such indirect means. The poison had come from neither his body nor his abilities. But if he had managed to hit the man, then he was also covered in a highly potent toxin. His undeath wouldn’t keep him safe forever.

He willed to extract the spark of undeath. As soon as he did, he slammed his Gore Knuckles into it. A pulse of healing essence coursed through his body. He didn’t feel his body, but he felt the life force at work more clearly than ever before. He felt it form thin connective tissue at the back of his head and throughout his wounded body.

His vision was still dark, but the barest hint of feeling returned to his body—and he felt the giant man’s body pressing down on his own.

“Shit…” Freddy whispered. “At least take me out on a date, first.”

The man was unmoving, but Freddy hadn’t received a rush of lifesteal, meaning he was most likely just paralyzed and not entirely dead.

Freddy rushed to use Create Water and wash off the poison covering his own body before he suffered the same fate. Then, without a single hint of hesitation, he slammed his Gore Knuckles into the man’s neck. A massive pulse of lifesteal coursed through his body as he felt the man’s warm blood running down his torso. He did it again.

A few moments later, the rush of ether came. The man was dead.

Freddy slammed his fist repeatedly into the spark of undeath, urgently healing himself as much as he could manage.

The damage on his body was so extensive that, without at least half an hour, he didn’t have enough time to fully heal. But he had more than enough time to give the body parts that were still attached to him a dose of natural-quality healing. As soon as he could see again, he pulled himself out from under the man’s corpse and got to his feet.

He quickly retrieved his Dagger of Bleeding and spark of undeath and rushed to where Sophia was.

As soon as he turned the bend, he was greeted by the sight of the scorpion-tailed woman slowly turning to face him…

And Sophia’s dismembered… and decapitated body scattered across the ground.

54

ASURA

Freddy’s mind froze as he saw the scene, but he didn’t panic.

He couldn’t afford to.

Sophia’s head was in one piece; there was a good chance she could still be healed.

The scorpion-tailed woman slowly turned her head to face him. While the man had been more like a wild animal, the woman was entirely in control of herself despite the incredible power pulsing through her body. On top of that, while Freddy had felt the man’s power as a peak two-star, he didn’t sense this woman’s power at all.

She was a star above him. And if that wasn’t enough, whatever this ritual had done to her, it didn’t make her any weaker.

“You beat Damian…?” she asked, looking rather amused. “Fascinating. You were her friend, right?” she said as she turned to face Sophia’s dismantled body.

He could hear the woman’s voice, but it sounded slightly muffled, almost like she was talking through a wall. The woman seemed to be willing to speak. He lunged at the opportunity. “Why do you want to know?” he asked in turn.

He was exhausted both in body and spirit. He didn’t have time to summon Bloodshed or enough blood to make it count, and he was missing an eye and a whole arm. The odds of him winning against this woman were hilariously low.

But maybe, just maybe… he could still find a way out.

The woman shrugged. “I’m just curious. She was always a lonely girl, this one,” she said fondly, almost as if talking about her little sister. “Too bad she willingly reduced herself to this. Anyway, you seem oddly calm,” she noted. “Do you not want to avenge her? Does your kind not feel such emotions, or are you just particularly barbaric in nature?”

“I could say the same thing about you,” he said. “Are you not sad that I killed your friend?”

She snickered. “You are not the one who killed him. You merely hastened his death.” She tapped the ritual circle on her forehead. “This power comes with a price.”

“You people are fucking insane,” he spat. “What are you waiting for, then? Shouldn’t you go join your leader in his fight before your battery runs out?”

She smiled at him. “My role is to keep distractions away. I count myself as one of those.”

Freddy felt sweat trickle down his back. He tried thinking of something to say, but nothing other than provocations came to mind. Unless a miracle intervened, it would come to a fight. And he would lose.

He looked at the pulsating stinger hanging above the woman’s head. That thing could crush his head like a watermelon. Sophia had managed to keep her head. If he could fight her and get a similar result, maybe⁠—

“Oh, and by the way,” the woman called. “I’m aware that she’s still alive.” She moved her stinger over, caressing Sophia’s mangled head with the tip.

Freddy’s blood suddenly ran cold. Of course she was—she would have felt the influx of ether if Sophia had died. And she wouldn’t be fooled by him, either. He stood frozen as the woman cackled, breaking into a manic laughter. Her shrill voice echoed in his ears.

“Think fast,” she said as her tail suddenly whipped, sweeping Freddy off his feet, and then impaled him into the ground right through his navel.

He spat blood as he felt a chunk of his own insides rushing up his throat.

She raised his body off the ground with her tail and slammed him into a tree, which suddenly began growing thick branches that coiled around his body. “As I thought, you’re undead, too,” she commented, quirking an eyebrow. “What a coincidence. Where did you meet her; at a zombie support group?” Her stinger moved closer until it was an inch away from his eye. “I just have to crush your head, and that will be it…”

Then her stinger stabbed into his thigh, shattering his femur and almost severing his entire leg.

He groaned through gritted teeth, focusing on stopping the bleeding as best as he could.

“Quite the pain tolerance you have,” she said, walking closer. “Must have lived a difficult life…”

At that moment, her placid mask of calm cracked, and an expression of rage flickered through her eyes. “Tell me… was she happy with her choice? Picking you pathetic beasts over a life for the greater good? Did she enjoy the fruits of what you people dare call a society?”

She flicked her stinger again, crushing Freddy’s other leg. “Did she find the happiness and freedom she wanted?” She stopped in front of Freddy, grabbing his jaw and staring him down. Her green eyes were wide open, piercing deep into his soul. Pitch-black hair peeked through her hood, partly covering her face. “I will die so that your people can one day live in peace. Yet I see no gratitude in your eyes.”

Her eyes shifted. “It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. I almost feel like… I’m making a mistake.” Her fist landed right on Freddy’s mangled stomach. She slowly pulled it out and shook her hand to throw off the piece of flesh sticking to it. “I love my family, and I believe in our cause,” she said, sounding almost like she was trying to convince herself. “But I don’t want to die for vermin like you. So tell me, then—how did Sophia repel the ritual?” she asked with an intense madness so vivid that it nearly made him flinch. “Is it your talent?”

He had been wondering why the woman even bothered to keep him alive. Now, it finally made sense.

A soft whisper escaped his lips, too quiet for even a three-star to hear.

“Hmm?” She quirked an eyebrow.

Another whisper, barely audible.

The woman brought her ear closer and finally heard what he said.

“Leviathan’s Fury.”

Instantly, the branches keeping him restrained tore apart as a dozen bony protrusions formed hellish jaws rushing to impale the woman. She was way too close to either block or dodge, and every single one of them reached her skin, piercing through it and drawing blood.

The spikes retracted a long moment later, having severed the branches keeping him tied up, and Freddy’s body fell to the ground, with many of his bones fractured—but the backlash wasn’t as intense as he expected. A surprising—startling burst of lifesteal rushed in from the woman’s body. It was enough to patch him up to the point where he could move again.

The woman screamed in rage as she thrust her stinger, but he used Hydraulic Flex to push himself out of the way. His legs hung uselessly, given that they were attached by little more than pink, deformed tissue. With only a single functional arm, Freddy could do barely more than desperately claw himself out of the way of the stinger’s attacks.

The woman’s assault was clumsy at first, but her nature affinity wasn’t just for show—moments later, her skin was mending as her wounds closed back up. What looked like tiny roots of something growing an inch beneath the surface of her skin extended, pulling her wounds shut while her nature affinity hastened her recovery enough to get a hold of herself. But where her skin wasn’t bloody, it was deathly pale.

Even a three-star couldn’t afford such a sudden and great burst of blood loss. Her legs shook as she looked like she was barely standing on her feet, and her skin glistened with the shiny sheen of perspiration.

Yet she was still a three-star.

Suddenly, the grass around Freddy started wriggling. Like tiny tongues, the strands licked across his skin and caught on anything they could, slowing him down enough to make dodging the woman’s attacks almost impossible.

The next stringer thrust was far too close for Freddy’s comfort. “Wait!” he shouted. “Spare me, and I’ll tell you the secret!”

She paused. “Speak. Say the wrong thing, and I’ll make you suffer a fate far worse than death!” she shouted as she raised her stinger high, preparing to stab him in an instant.

“Okay… Leviathan’s Fury!”

The bony head of the leviathan struck out once again, and the sheer disbelief was nearly enough to stun the woman into reacting too slow, but this time, she moved her stinger to block the incoming attack.

The stinger’s hard carapace repelled the ivory spikes, sparing her any damage, but the force knocked her off her feet.

The jaws of bone clamped closed on empty air.

As the spikes retracted this time, Freddy was in a far worse state. His body simply refused to move. He did no damage with that attack, leaving him with no healing to offset the now broken bones and mangled flesh.

He watched the woman slowly get back up, leaning on her stinger. The moment she stood again, he was dead. But what else could he even do? Leviathan’s Fury was locked as he couldn’t afford the price, and he was still in combat, so he couldn’t use Blood Sacrifice.

Something tugged on the back of his mind, and he heard a voice. Release me, Master.

With only slight hesitation, Freddy obeyed and released Bloodshed from its shell. Rather than attack the woman, the skeleton immediately entered the Netherecho, disappearing the instant it arrived.

The woman rushed to her feet with a jolt as she turned around and scanned the area. “A spirit…?” she muttered but quickly brushed it off as she refocused on him. “You had your chances.” She spit something out of her mouth and threw it over to him. Tiny seeds scattered around his body and quickly took root, growing in a heartbeat as thorny vines wrapped him up from head to toe.

Immediately, he felt his whole body freeze. A poison coated the thorns, sinking into his skin, and it caused pain he could only compare to using Thousand Wet Hells. The inside of his veins felt like it was melting, and what remained of his muscles all cramped, thoroughly paralyzing him.

“The pain will worsen over time,” the woman stated matter-of-factly. “Now, make your choice. Either tell me what Sophia did to repel the ritual or spend the last few hours of your life in hell.”

Under ordinary circumstances, those words would make anyone feel pure terror. To Freddy, however, that sounded like salvation. He doubted she’d wait there the whole time. And if she left him alone, he’d have Bloodshed save him from his predicament.

For a few long moments, he gave the woman a rebellious glare, but then he pretended to succumb to the pain as he groaned and squirmed. It sucked enough that he didn’t really have to pretend to be suffering, but it wasn’t nearly enough that it would break him.

Several minutes passed, but the woman kept staring at him, waiting.

Does she really have nowhere better to be!?

“Are you seriously that stupid!?” she shouted. “Just tell me what she did! Are you going to die to keep it a secret? Or are you delusional enough to believe that you can still fight your way out?” she spat, and a moment later, she brought her stinger behind her back and hung it right above Sophia’s head.

He froze, stopping his squirming as he watched the woman.

She chuckled in disbelief. “I guess the pain suddenly vanished? Dear me… You really are something, aren’t you?” Her face suddenly fell as an expression of rage descended on it. “Give it up.”

He gritted his teeth.

“Who are you, anyway?” the woman asked. “Such a powerful spirit ability is something I’d never expect to see on a two-star.” She paused for a moment. Suddenly, her expression of rage softened a bit as she worked to place a smile on her face. “Look, I know you don’t trust me to spare you, but I swear on everything that ever meant anything to me that I will if you just tell me what to do!”

Her desperation was the only thing keeping Freddy alive. And, obviously, he had no answer for her. Not one she wanted to hear. Unless she could somehow heal Sophia enough to wake her up, she was a dead woman walking.

Just as he was about to get desperate, something bizarre happened. The glowing ritual circle on the woman’s forehead appeared to… turn off. It dissipated some form of sinister energy, and a moment later, her bulging muscles deflated as the strange power coursing through her faded away.

She breathed out a shivering breath, relief washing over her as a tear ran down the side of her face. “I’m alive… Master must have⁠—”

Before she could say another word, Bloodshed suddenly appeared right behind her and swung its clawed fingers, severing her Achilles tendons.

She screamed in surprise and fell over back-first as if the ground had vanished from under her feet, landing on Bloodshed’s extended arm, which pierced right through her back and, a moment later, ripped her still-beating heart out.

The woman tried screaming, but it came out as a wheeze. She squirmed on the ground, watching the emotionless spirit with an expression of terror as she muttered, “I… don’t want… to die…” She clutched her robes right where her heart used to be. And a moment later, she stopped moving.

Freddy stared at the bloody skeleton, mouth wide open. “Holy shit, Bloodshed…”

“I hope my service is to your satisfaction, Master. I apologize for taking my time. The construct upon her forehead was exchanging her life for power, and while it was still active, I wasn’t confident in my ability to execute her. I took too long to break the construct. I will do better next time.”

“No, you—you did fucking fantastic!” he said with a manic laugh, relief washing over him. The vines keeping him wrapped up shriveled as the last of the woman’s life faded away.

Surprisingly, he seemed to get all the ether for the kill, likely as Bloodshed couldn’t absorb any of it. And boy, was it a lot. Not as much as he got for killing the patriarch, but still, it was a massive influx.

He thought of getting up, but nothing wanted to move, no matter which muscle he tried commanding mentally. A few could still twitch, but that was far from enough to help him move. As the relief truly sank in, so did the realization that he was barely holding on to his consciousness.

So much for kicking the habit of passing out at bad times…

With the last of his willpower, he extracted the spark of undeath from his storage ring. His eyes met the empty eye sockets of Bloodshed, who nodded with understanding. And with that, his awareness blinked out.

The empress stood, her body tense as she stared at the man before her. “You goddamned psychopath! How the hell are you still alive!?”

The sounds of fighting echoed throughout the forest around them, with the terrorists fighting the soldiers. Shouting and metallic clinks sounded in the background, reducing to the all-too-familiar background drone of war.

“Nice to see you again, too, Kaiya.” He chuckled. “I thought you’d drop those senseless allegations against me by now, but I suppose that wouldn’t serve your agenda, would it?”

“Senseless allegations?” she spat, chuckling sardonically. “I think that’s enough talking.” She raised her sword, getting into a stance.

“Now, now,” he said, waving her down. “You must be aware of the disadvantage you’re at. I’m giving you the chance to live for another few minutes; the least you can do is humor me for a bit.”

“You are overconfident.”

“And yet you still haven’t made your move. How curious.”

“What do you want?”

“A debate, I suppose,” he said, chuckling. “I want to see your point of view.”

She smirked. “Please spare me the nonsense, Nathaniel,” she said, slightly lowering her sword’s tip. “Or do you still go by Silver Heart?”

“I go by Master Kirurg these days.”

“Figures.”

The tension between them grew. The eidolon of authority waited patiently as the two five-stars waited, seeing who made the first move. The seconds passed by, and soon enough, they turned into minutes. The sounds of fighting in the background gradually quieted as the conflict came to an end.

The crimson sky suddenly began fading.

Both of them knew how this realm functioned, so they thought it was merely the Crimson Twilight coming to an end. But then, something bizarre happened.

Blood from all throughout the forest started glowing. It lifted into the air, traveling towards the center of the realm. A power began roiling.

The eidolon of authority raised its sword—but not at the empress. It turned towards the strange source of power at the center. The overwhelming aura of blood grew concentrated, focusing on a single point. And a moment later, it vanished.

The two opponents couldn’t afford to look away. They kept their attention firmly directed at one another, but as the seconds passed, the feeling that something was deeply wrong became undeniable.

And judging by the eidolon’s reaction, something indeed appeared to be coming.

Nathaniel’s eye twitched as both of them noticed that the eidolon was no longer paying attention to them.

Almost instantly, the empress raised a wall of earth as she activated all five stars and started running in the other direction. She tried slashing at the red barrier to free Leona, but…

Leona nodded with an expression of understanding. The barrier wasn’t going to go down that easily.

“Stay alive,” the empress commanded and continued running.

“Damn it!” Nathaniel shouted as he gritted his teeth.

Just as he had her in his grasp, the damn eidolon had to⁠—

He turned around just in time to spot the shadowy figure, barely discerning its form in the darkness. It stood over four meters tall, glaring down at the eidolon of authority as it held its sword in its grasp. The eidolon couldn’t even budge.

The creature’s skin was a deep, crimson red, sleek like polished metal, and stretched tightly over its lithe, muscular body. Its face was like that of a demonic cat, with a grin spreading from one ear to another, massive, red, slitted eyes bulging wide open, and bat-like ears twitching in excitement.

Nathaniel watched in horror as the creature grabbed the eidolon’s head and crushed it like an apple.

With the death of a powerful eidolon, the surrounding Netherecho briefly overlapped with reality, the two sides of the world interposing with one another, and a moment later, the world settled again, yet a few flickering wisps of ether remained in reality, fluttering through the air.

Nathaniel couldn’t help but chuckle. “I don’t suppose you’re an asura of forgiveness?”

The creature spoke with a deep, raspy voice, a playful tone dancing through its words. “I bear no grudge against anyone. But since you asked so nicely, I suppose I could give you a chance.” Its grin began spreading wider and wider as its eyes opened wider. “Run.”

Nathaniel immediately turned around and bolted towards the nearest passage. He quieted his presence as much as he could, covering himself in thick shadows as he pulled himself forward with Black Whips.

Within less than thirty seconds, he was on the brink of stepping through a passage. A pleasant forest awaited him on the other side, but before he could make it, the asura peeked its head from within the passage, grinning widely at him.

Razor-sharp claws tore his entire body into shreds, and just like that, his legend would forever remain just another page of the history books.

Bloodshed kept the spark fed as it helped move Master’s hand. The dagger pierced the mound of flesh, and with every swing, Master’s complexion grew slightly brighter. But it was a slow process.

The damage Master’s body sustained was fierce this time; only second to that time when he’d been reduced to a mere head.

Suddenly, the red glow of the sky blinked out, and the aura of bloodthirst disappeared. It was an odd phenomenon, but it was nothing Bloodshed could control. It had a task.

It would complete it.

It kept at it, swinging the dagger over and over.

Eventually, it was interrupted by a sound.

The leaves rustled as a strange, sleek, crimson figure stepped from between the trees.

55

BLOODSHED’S SECRET

Freddy woke up with a jolt. As he did, he found himself in near-total darkness. For a long moment, he thought he was dead.

As he heard the rustling of the several leaves scattered on the grass below him and felt around, feeling both his body and the ground beneath, he realized that that wasn’t the case.

Once the disorientation faded, he remembered having a flashlight in his storage ring. He took it out and flicked it on. “Holy fucking…!” he shouted as the light landed on Bloodshed’s skeletal face, startling him.

“Master, you are awake,” it said, cocking its head.

“Fucking hell, Bloodshed, you scared the everliving shit out of me!” He breathed a sigh of relief.

“I apologize.”

He thought he was entirely used to Bloodshed’s bizarre appearance. Apparently, that wasn’t the case for situations like this.

Freddy took a few seconds to feel around his body, ensuring he was properly healed. Everything seemed to be all right. “Okay…” He took a deep breath and slowly released it, working to calm his nerves. “Calm down…” he told himself, taking another breath and letting his shoulders loosen slightly.

He was alive, and there was no immediate danger. It was time to assess his situation.

First, he should ask Bloodshed what happened. “Bloodshed, can you tell me what…” His words trailed off as he spotted Sophia’s shortsword by his side, resting next to the mangled spark of undeath. Bloodshed must have used it to help him stab the spark.

He raised an eyebrow. Just as he was about to dismiss the detail, he realized that his dagger wasn’t there. “Oh shit!” he shouted. “Did we lose the dagger?”

“No, Master,” it declared. “The dagger’s aura was fused into the ring on your finger.”

“It… Wait, what!?” Freddy asked. “Wait, wait, wait, hold on, that’s… That’s not something that just happens!” He breathed out again, working to calm his nerves. “Okay… Yeah… Tell me what happened.”

The skeleton appeared hesitant for a long moment. Its head dropped slightly.

This was something Freddy had never seen the skeleton do. “Bloodshed?” he called cautiously.

“While you were unconscious, Master, we were visited by an asura.”

Freddy blinked. “A what now?”

Bloodshed slowly raised its empty eye sockets. “A sentient ether construct above an eidolon in power.”

Freddy’s entire body froze. Those words felt like getting struck by lightning. He didn’t even know that things more powerful than that even existed.

But… more importantly…

With a shaky hand, Freddy spun and quickly illuminated the patch of forest around them. Nothing was there. He quickly rushed to turn off the flashlight lest he attract undesired attention.

The realm felt strangely… quiet. The Crimson Twilight was gone, and that feeling of bloodthirst⁠—

“The limb…” he muttered.

Bloodshed nodded. “That limb belonged to the Asura of Bloodthirst. We were the ones to set it free. It visited us to repay the favor.”

Freddy’s entire body felt numb. The hand holding the flashlight shivered, and his heart beat out of his chest. The horror he felt as he prepared to ask the question nearly made him puke. “And this… asura… where did it go?”

“It opened a passage and went through it.”

“Ah…” Freddy pitifully squeaked out. “Opened a passage. Right. Okay. I guess fucking anything goes then.” He rubbed his face. “Okay. Asura. Dagger. Favor. I’m starting to piece things together. So… this thing fused the dagger with my ring?”

“Not exactly.” Bloodshed said. “It fused the dagger’s aura into the ring. Most of the power was lost, but now the effect can apply to everything Master does.”

Freddy stared at Bloodshed for a long moment. He blinked. “Ev—Everything?”

Bloodshed nodded.

“Hah… I should do favors for asuras more often. Okay.” He slowly got himself back up to his feet and turned the flashlight on again, but turned it down to minimal brightness.

A fog hung over his mind, and the general sense of anxiety made his thoughts rush through his mind too fast to keep up. He didn’t even know where to begin. “Sophia!” he suddenly exclaimed, rushing to find her head.

It had tumbled under a bush while the rest of her body was scattered all across the clearing. It was covered in blood with chunks of grass and leaves sticking to it, deathly cold to the touch, and her eyes were rolled back. There were a few minor cuts across her face but nothing to indicate internal damage.

“Fuck this is gross,” he muttered as he reluctantly picked her severed head up and… shook it.

He was trying to discern whether anything in the skull was loose, primarily to determine whether she had suffered significant brain damage. He felt nothing unusual—well, not that he’d ever shaken a severed head before, but at least nothing was bouncing around in there. But it was… jiggling. “Ewww, urghhh, I hate this.”

His fingers nearly hurt at the touch of her skin. It was like holding a hot potato. He didn’t want to be there or do what he was doing. It was gross and made him feel like throwing up, but knowing that she was most likely still alive made him unable to just leave her behind.

Freddy’s knowledge of how to save someone from such a state was… non-existent. All he knew about treating others was basic first aid, and even that was a bit shaky.

He went off of what he knew about undeath. Those who found themselves in a state similar to Sophia’s usually didn’t survive for long. Without circulating blood, there was no functioning immune system, meaning nothing could prevent the fungi or bacteria from slowly eating away at the tissue.

He’d have to do that manually.

For the time being, he cleaned her head, washing it in water he created with his spell. Then he cut her hair off, reasoning that it would be easier to keep it sanitary that way… probably. Her hair was greasy and full of filth, and any source of contamination wasn’t welcome.

Once done with that, he rubbed some of the supreme-quality healing cream over her skin. The cream absorbed quickly, improving her skin complexion. He saw the small wounds close up, which was, at the very least, a sign that some of her cells were still alive.

He found the corpse of the scorpion-tailed woman and looked for her ring. She had one on her, but it, to his surprise, was completely empty. It was likely that the woman had used all her resources, which, to be fair, wasn’t unreasonable at all, given that the storage space was only a fraction—around an eight—of the size of Freddy’s ring. The man he had killed also had an empty ring. It was even smaller.

Still, they were both valuable items. He stashed them, together with Sophia’s ring, away in his half-torn pocket, but not before putting Sophia’s head inside of the bigger one.

“Okay…” He took a long moment to think his next step through.

Frankly, he felt paralyzed. From the empress to the strange cult to the appearance of an asura, the situation was so complicated that he couldn’t possibly even begin to guess what would happen next.

Under these circumstances, he only had one real option—he had to hide.

Although pulling off would be a bit tough, there was a manual way he could keep Sophia’s head from rotting.

He had a rough idea of where he was and where he had to go to hide. Rather than use the flashlight and attract attention, he swallowed three of the perception pills and turned the light off.

His nose was already mostly used to it, so he hadn’t quite registered it, but the whole realm smelled like rotting carcass. Now that he’d swallowed a high dose of a drug that boosted his perception, he quickly found himself on the floor, heaving and retching with nothing to throw up. And the headache appeared again.

Once he finally adjusted, he slowly got up.

Bloodshed returned to his soul, and he crawled through the woods.

There was nothing alive.

Nothing.

It was filled with such pure, overwhelming silence that he felt every hair on his body stand on end.

Eventually, that silence was interrupted as he heard spirits cackling in the distance. The happenings within the realm must have generated a truly unbelievable amount of ether. Unsurprisingly, the number and power of sentient ether constructs had surged. Thankfully, he didn’t cross paths with any of them, and before long, he spotted the faint light of a passage leading to another realm.

It was the same realm he and Sophia had waited in. It was the only one he was even vaguely familiar with, so he figured it was likely the best place to hide.

Once inside, he located a safe corner, climbed into a tree, and sat down.

Bloodshed sat within its shell, observing Master’s actions as he got comfortable and prepared to sleep atop a high branch.

The encounter with the asura was still vivid in Bloodshed’s mind. If Bloodshed’s existence wasn’t tied to Master’s soul, the asura would have killed him. It was a creature with absolute loyalty to its kin—blood constructs—and an eternal thirst for the blood of all living creatures.

If this “sector,” as the asura had called it, wasn’t too weak for its notice, the result would have been catastrophic for Master’s kind.

Bloodshed wondered whether it should tell Master the secrets the asura had shared.

Master was cursed with a fate that would always inevitably drag him into bloodshed. Master’s entire world was little more than food for a larger ecosystem. His planet was in an “integration” phase, and the following years would spell a disaster Master’s kind was incredibly unlikely to survive through.

A grand war was looming on the horizon.

But it kept its mouth shut. Bloodshed was devoted to its master, but it was no fool. Master—no…

Freddy was weak.

He wasn’t mature enough to hear any of this. What purpose was there in telling a pond fish about the vast ocean? No, he had to go through the steps as he put the pieces together himself.

Meanwhile, Bloodshed had other things to tend to.

For a long while, Bloodshed had thought its growth had been severed by merging with Master’s soul.

Far from it.

If anything, that had only been the first step to entering the next level of power.

Not by itself, no, but together with Master.

The true purpose of the “spirit abilities,” as the humans called them, was much grander than they believed. And not only did Master already have two, but both of them held true ether constructs within.

But he needed one more.

Otherwise, he would never reach a power beyond five stars.

Freddy woke up from a restless sleep. He panicked for a moment and nearly fell off his perch on the tree, but he grabbed it in time to stop it from happening.

“I guess I should find food for now,” he decided as he slid down the tree.

That ordinary task marked the beginning of his life in the Capragorn realm.

Days passed one after another, although it wasn’t like he could count them. Tracking days was impossible in that realm. It was always day—always sunny.

His main source of food was raw nebber flesh. It was unappetizing, probably not very nutritious, and definitely unsafe to eat unprocessed.

At first, his schedule was as simple as could be. Eat, sleep, rest, and wait. Oh, and make sure that Sophia’s head didn’t rot.

His solution to the problem was to develop Purify—a simple water-affinity spell that purified liquids. It could deal with bacteria and other impurities, but it wasn’t a perfect solution.

The issue with using Purify like this was that it purified everything. Blood? More like water. Extracellular fluid? More like water. Cerebrospinal fluid? Yeah, more like water.

Thankfully, that was one of the things that undeath was perfect for dealing with. His ability only cleared the liquids outside of Sophia’s undead cells, which ensured that she, at the very least, didn’t start growing mushrooms anywhere.

Naturally, that made the head look quite deflated, but she was still alive.

Occasionally, he checked up on the gorel realm. It appeared that Bloodshed had indeed destroyed the sun—it was always night in there now. But even with that fact, he saw no signs of human activity. Or any activity for that matter.

As time passed, his visits to the passage became less and less frequent.

Given all the free time he had, he found himself devoting more and more of it to training. He had to get his mind off his situation somehow.

Over time, he got more daring. Before long, he had his first run-in with a capragorn.

The creature tore his guts out with a single swing, but in turn, it took a flowing strike to its chest, which completely shattered its bony torso and killed it immediately. That was far from his first encounter with the horrifying monsters.

While he couldn’t track days, he could track all the times he’d slept. Soon, that number went over ten. Then twenty. Then thirty.

Then fifty.

Nothing came through the gorel realm passage.

And the days of solitude continued to stretch on.

Freddy washed his face in the water. Once he finished scrubbing, he let the water settle and checked his reflection. His hair had grown a few inches, now reaching over his ears.

He raised his head and looked up.

He was in the middle of a grove with tall trees around him. Their canopy cast a gentle shade over his back as he gazed across the water.

The large lake—a massive body of water stretching through a good chunk of the realm he was in—was gorgeous.

He got up and walked to the closest tree. With practiced ease, and despite his immense body weight, he climbed up the branches until he reached the makeshift platform he called home.

There, he sat on the ground and took Sophia’s bald head out of the storage ring. It looked incredibly pale and shrunken, courtesy of the method he was using to keep her alive.

He placed his fingers on her scalp and channeled Purify. At first, he had nightmares from tending to Sophia’s severed head. But as time passed, it became almost meditative. Maybe it was just a cope, but he kept in mind the fact that he was working to preserve her life. There was value in that. No matter how grotesque the process.

Once done, he returned her head to the ring and sat down to meditate.

From his best guess, somewhere between three and four months had passed since he first entered that realm.

With how long he had spent alone, he had plenty of theories about what happened. Maybe the empress had died, and the American Empire was being overwhelmed by the cultists. Maybe the empress had won but had to seal the passage because the asura appeared. Or maybe the asura had actually made a passage out into Nova York, where it promptly killed absolutely everyone because there was nothing powerful enough to stop it on the entire planet.

At any rate, his guesses were only guesses. In reality, he was completely oblivious to the truth.

As he meditated, he worked extra hard to temper his patience.

He was immortal and in absolutely no rush to return to anything. No matter how much time he had to spend living in that realm, it was better than dying.

He had to be honest with himself—the words “better than dying” were slowly starting to lose all meaning. But he was still holding on.

At least the training he was doing was paying off.

His notebook appeared in his hand, and he cracked it open to write down his progress.

GATHERING:

Second star—199% essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Pool of Blood: Stage 1—97% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 1—48% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—38% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—90% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 1—71% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—89% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 1—67% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—48% Progress

Purify: Stage 0—99% Progress (Ready to Upgrade)

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage 0—8% Progress

Ghosts of the Drowned: Stage 0—8% Progress

SPIRIT ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice

Leviathan’s Fury

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -6% essence cost, +5% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed. Attacks inflict minor bleeding.

As he flipped through the pages, he couldn’t help but feel a swelling sense of pride. He had made significant progress. He was still a ways off from reaching the third star. He didn’t even have a stage-two ability yet.

But that didn’t make his growth any less impressive.

Technically, by peak two-star standards, his abilities were lagging way behind his star development. However, for someone who had been an archhuman for less than two years in total, he was a monster.

After using Ghosts of the Drowned on that cultist, he finally figured out how to progress his perished water–affinity abilities. The two abilities weren’t strictly separate—not entirely. They were more like a single ability with two segments. To use Ghosts of the Drowned, he had to be fully submerged in perished water. And once he used it, both of the shells made progress. They grew excruciatingly slowly, however.

Across the board, he had seen excellent growth.

Yet, there was something that was bothering him.

He was never going to forget his fight against that giant man. The scorpion-tailed woman was one thing. He only won that fight because she was desperate.

Against the man, though? He felt like he really should have won that one without the poison. His opponent had been blinded, exhausted, and severely wounded, yet Freddy’s lack of skill let the man claw his way out of a desperate situation.

It was way past the time he learned how to fight. But, obviously, he had nobody to teach him here.

Sighing, he climbed down the tree and started his daily exercise.

He took a dose of the beast steroids. Due to how little he could tolerate at once, he wasn’t even close to running out, but he’d already gone through over a third of it. And it showed.

His muscles had grown significantly. As a result, he was just a bit slower, but he remained flexible to ensure it didn’t affect him too badly.

He hoisted a massive boulder on his back and started running. He had to get rather creative to push himself without proper equipment. But it mostly came down to doing pushups with a boulder on his back, squats with a boulder above his head, pull-ups with a boulder held tightly between his legs, and so on.

He could only use so big a rock without it getting wildly impractical. With time, he had to do more and more reps, and at that point, his training was just a wide range of exotic forms of cardio. But still, he kept it up to, if anything, not lose the habit.

Once done with the physical exercise, he walked deeper into the woods and faced a large tree. He focused for around twenty seconds and slowly formed a thin javelin of blood.

Then, using Hydraulic Flex, he threw it.

He missed the entire tree.

The javelin proceeded to fly into the distance at immense speed, where it slammed into a different tree and tore a chunk out of its side, cracking apart into tiny shards of crimson metal on impact.

Sighing, he focused on making another javelin.

Freddy’s lack of skill was only one of three major problems he had as a fighter.

The first of the other two was that his most impactful abilities were essence chuggers. During his fight with the giant, he exhausted over half his reserves before the fight even really got started.

The second problem was that he was slow.

While the first of the two could be fixed by developing more cost-efficient fighting methods, there was no viable way to “fix” the second problem.

His body was big, he relied on Abyssal Depths, and his affinities didn’t have the best options for mobility. Unless he gave up on Abyssal Depths and lost a ton of weight, he would always be slow for his rank.

Thankfully, that didn’t have to be a problem.

He threw another spear, and this time he hit his target. The weapon embedded deeply into the wood, causing a large crack to run up the tree. He smiled. Just because he couldn’t catch up to his target didn’t mean that he had no way to slow them down.

By combining three abilities—Blood Javelin, Accelerate Blood Projectile, and Hydraulic Throw—he could develop an incredibly powerful ranged option. Blood Javelin and Accelerate Blood Projectile were relatively cheap in terms of essence cost, and Hydraulic Throw was just a more specialized version of Hydraulic Flex, kind of like Frog Leap.

He hadn’t yet created any of the abilities. Blood Javelin would be done first, Accelerate Blood Projectile would be finished second, and Hydraulic Throw would take way longer.

Hydraulic Throw was probably the most important of the three abilities. If he executed it well, using the ability would make his javelins always go exactly where he wanted them. If he fucked it up, he’d have to break the shell and start from scratch.

While working on solving the second problem, he thought about ways to compensate for his absurd essence expenditure.

Most archhumans only had their essence pool and stamina to take into consideration.

Meanwhile, Freddy technically had six different resources at his disposal: essence, physical stamina, his own blood, his enemies’ blood, life force, and RETI.

Essence, of course, referred to his pool of essence.

Physical stamina was just how long he could endure intense physical combat.

His blood was a critical resource for his blood affinity, and his enemies’ blood was essential for Blood Sacrifice.

For a long while, he wasn’t sure how Leviathan’s Fury worked, but after dealing with Sophia and her talent, he was confident it consumed life force to trigger. That was also why he couldn’t use it when his body was completely mangled.

And finally, there was RETI.

RETI, or rather, his reflux essence tolerance index, was a number that showed how much maximum essence he could expend in a single battle for every affinity he had before it started becoming life-threatening.

His maximum essence was 199%, but that didn’t include essence from his satellite or recovered essence from kills. Even though they were plentiful, those two sources also had their limit.

The RETI for water, for example, was 2.56—meaning that he could expend 2.56 times his maximum essence in water abilities; in this case, that meant 2.56 times 199—509%. That was quite a lot of leeway.

However, it wasn’t the same for all affinities. Not even close. The RETI for blood was only 1.21, meaning that he could only expend 240% of the total essence on his blood affinity before it became dangerous. Usually, such a number wasn’t a problem. Unless an arch had a satellite, expending over 100% of one’s total essence in a battle wasn’t a common occurrence.

However, there were some affinities with a RETI score lower than 1.

The holy affinity had a RETI of 0.73.

And Freddy’s perished water affinity, from what he observed, had a RETI of around 0.52—a meager score. After spending that amount, random wounds would start opening all across his body, and no matter how tough he was, he could do nothing to stop them from appearing. But he could heal them, at least. Still, while he could push it a bit further, that wasn’t a good idea. The damage got exponentially worse with every percent over the limit.

To minimize his essence problems, he had to utilize his other resources as much as humanly possible. More low-cost abilities that his satellite could cover, more abilities that used his blood reserves, and better control over his martial arts were significant steps forward, but he was seriously starting to entertain relying on his spirit abilities more often.

Blood Sacrifice was easy enough to justify, but even Leviathan’s Fury wasn’t as scary as he used to believe. As long as the ability wasn’t blocked, he was likely to, at the very least, have the wounds patched back up by the influx of first-aid-quality healing.

He had tried this out a few times against the nebbers, and as expected, he could get away with using the ability semi-casually. He still wanted to avoid it if possible, but it wasn’t the self-destruct button he used to believe it was. Well, not after his two-star upgrade to 1% Lifesteal, at least.

He threw another javelin at the tree, and this time, the javelin broke into pieces. Sighing, he stretched a bit and decided to take a break.

“I haven’t checked on the passage for a while already…” he mused. “Might as well go take a look.”

He prepared a Blood Javelin in advance and even his Gore Knuckles in case he came across a capragorn again. Thankfully, he only spotted some nebbers on his way to the passage, and within twenty minutes, he was at his destination.

Taking his customary peek, he almost turned around out of sheer habit, but he froze as he finally noticed it.

What looked like the glow of flashlights shone above the canopy of the forest.

People had finally arrived.

56

CRIMINAL

Once he spotted the lights, rather than rush out and introduce himself, the first thing Freddy did instead was turn back around and jog to his hideout.

He prepared his ID, putting it in a pocket.

He cut off the ring finger on his left arm to remove the Blood Ring from there, then he hid the ring in his storage ring. He cut a small incision in his right calf and inserted the storage ring under his skin. It was soon joined by the two cultists’ rings, as well as Sophia’s, which he had also picked up.

Given that the spark of undeath was in the storage ring, he had to cut some grass to heal the wound and seal the rings inside his leg. It was a bit uncomfortable but completely unnoticeable.

Well then.

He sat down on the grass and took a few deep breaths to calm himself.

Naturally, he’d thought through the possibilities and planned what he would do ahead of time.

The best-case scenario would be if he could wait another few months for the open passage to be renovated and then just sneak out, pretending to be one of the delvers.

The only clothing he had was a roughly shorts-shaped piece of tattered cloth protecting his privates, but that wouldn’t be too weird. It wasn’t that uncommon to have one’s equipment melted off by a deviant.

But there was one small problem with this ideal scenario—it was unlikely that this passage would remain open.

From the destruction to the appearance of the asura to the numerous deaths, he doubted the average solo delver would brave entering this place for a long, long time. Even if people wanted to return, repairing the damage caused by all that happened would take a while.

The most likely outcome was that this passage would be turned into a private one, and there was also a non-zero chance that it would be permanently sealed if the risk of the asura appearing again was determined to be too great.

In the end, the outcome depended on what exactly happened while Freddy was unconscious.

At any rate, unless he wanted to become a permanent resident of the wild interspace, where he would basically be waiting to get eaten by something, he only had one viable way out—he had to go and ask for help.

Would he get arrested and interrogated? Undoubtedly. Thankfully, he had the evidence on his side. After all, he wasn’t one of the cultists. Sophia would have been screwed if she was still in one piece, but the only thing tying him to the cult was… well… Sophia.

And he could very well just say he had no idea she had ties to the cult.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind that he threw her under the bus.

With that out of the way, he took one last glance in the direction of the lake. The water shimmered peacefully, and for a long moment, he felt a bit nostalgic. The last few months were the most peaceful months he’d had in… ever, actually. If it weren’t for the risks, he’d almost be seriously considering becoming an interspace hermit.

He chuckled and got up to his feet.

At a slow jog, he made his way through the capragorn realm. As soon as he walked through the passage leading back into the gorel realm, he started screaming. “Hey! Over here! Hey! Help!”

Minutes later, several scouts appeared from the bushes. “Hands behind your back!” a man with a large spear shouted. “On your knees!”

Freddy complied with both commands. “Oh… Thank god. I thought I would be stuck here forever…” he said. He tried acting out what he believed would be an appropriate amount of relief. To his surprise, it came very easily. Tears streaked down his cheeks.

The man with the spear stepped forward and placed the point of the spear to Freddy’s forehead. “Name yourself and the faction you belong to!”

“Liam Cuttingsworth, unaffiliated,” he answered.

“Do you have your ID with you?” the man asked.

Freddy nodded.

“Where is it?”

“My right pocket.”

A small tendril of darkness extended from the shaft of the man’s spear and sank into Freddy’s pocket, extracting the ID. The man looked it over and nodded. “You will be restrained and taken into custody. Do not resist.”

Freddy wasn’t tortured.

But to say that the interrogation went smoothly would be a blatant lie.

He thanked his lucky stars that he had studied Liam’s documents. This whole situation was so massive, apparently, that literally everyone who was even vaguely involved with it had been thoroughly investigated. In many areas, these investigators knew more about Liam than the man had probably known about himself.

There were a few odd questions he had to improvise the answers to. Such as why he called himself Liam Johnson in public, why and where he vanished for two years, how he got to the peak of the second star so quickly, why he claimed his talent was related to regeneration when he used to claim that his talent was a generic strength boost, and why he was involved with Sophia Summer.

He bullshitted his way through the questions, sticking close enough to the truth to leave no gaps. The interrogators repeatedly asked the same questions, sometimes slightly rephrased or in reverse, likely to try and catch him in a lie.

But his months of preparation weren’t for nothing. He made sure to keep his story straight.

He called himself Liam Johnson to distance himself from his real name due to his past, which was very reasonable given the life the man had lived.

He vanished for two years because he was focused on training and improving himself so he could escape his life, and he claimed to have reached the second star a long time ago; he just hadn’t reported it until he had to update his ID before traveling to Nova York.

The reason why he “claimed to have a strength-boosting talent” before was because he intentionally kept his far superior talent a secret to stay out of trouble with his enemies.

And finally, he was involved with Sophia Summer because she was hot and he was trying to get with her. He definitely had no idea that she was involved with the cult. They accepted this excuse most readily out of all of them.

Well, it was pretty realistic.

On the plus side of them thoroughly digging into him, they had already gathered enough evidence to decisively conclude that he had nothing to do with the cult. On the negative side, Liam Cuttingsworth was a fucking criminal, and Freddy was now being prosecuted in his stead.

Dealing drugs, breaking and entering, battery, assault, racketeering, tax evasion—even goddamn sexual assault was on the table.

Liam had been one hell of a piece of shit.

Thankfully, as a peak two-star archhuman, very different standards and procedures applied to him. The more powerful one got, the more easily they could get away with bending the law.

A peak two-star was too valuable to society to get thrown behind bars for just any reason.

He wouldn’t call sexual assault “just any reason,” but the morbid reality of the situation was that it wasn’t considered serious enough to land him in prison.

It was, however, together with all the other crimes he was accused of, enough to get him stuck with a 2.5 million dollar fine.

Ouch.

After spending three weeks in custody while everything got sorted, he was finally free to go.

Exactly 4 months and 28 days passed since he got trapped in that passage. The date was the 28th of October, year 2217.

His cuffs were removed, and he was taken out of his cell.

Wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, Freddy stepped out into a particularly chilly but beautiful fall day. It was late afternoon. The distant sun cast its gentle light through a small scattering of colorful clouds, giving them a golden lining and pink body. The air felt rather clean, fresh, and just slightly humid. The streets were scattered with puddles, and people moved about, going about their lives.

The cool air brushed across his lightly exposed skin, sending chills and goosebumps across his body. His shirt fluttered in the wind, revealing abdominal muscles that looked like a godlike sculptor had chiseled them to perfection.

He had no time to appreciate any of this. Instead, he ran to the closest cafe and sprinted into the toilet. There, he conjured a tiny blade of blood on his finger and dug into his leg. After a messy few seconds of digging, he extracted all the storage rings he had shoved into his calf.

With trepidation, he pulled Sophia’s head out. For a long moment, he feared the worst. Mold or discolored patches would be a surefire sign that something had gone wrong.

As it finally appeared in his grasp, he sighed a small breath of relief. There was no discoloration, and it smelled like nothing at all. It looked like his vigorous decontamination had kept it safe.

He used Purify for a few minutes on it just in case before returning it to his ring.

After returning his Blood Ring back on his finger and having it bite through his skin and into his bone again, he walked out and sat in the cafe.

It was a quaint little place with rustic decor and plush, large seats. The people inside were mostly on the older end—mortal folk in their fifties and sixties. He watched them flip through newspapers, his enhanced perception allowing him to catch a glance at a headline. To his surprise, even so many months later, there was still a small article talking about what happened with the passages.

It seemed that the Santorio hub wasn’t the only place impacted by the cultists.

His interest piqued, Freddy asked the waiter whether they kept any older copies of newspapers somewhere in the back. They didn’t. But, they did have a large volume collection of numerous articles that had been published on the subject, which was even better.

Just as his coffee arrived, so did the massive catalog of articles. It was so damn huge he could kill someone with it.

He picked it up and cracked it open. The aromatic cup of coffee tickled his nostrils. Passionately, he took a long, deep gulp and let it wash over his tongue, warming his mouth and throat as he felt the caffeine kick buzzing his brain. “God fucking damn I missed coffee.” He placed the cup back on the table and breathed out a sigh of satisfaction.

And with that, he started reading.

The text came with numerous revelations and surprises. The cult, or rather, the Republic of Prosperity, as it was called, had been completely destroyed. He snorted at the fact that they had called themselves a “republic.” Once it was discovered that they were the culprits, the empress personally visited them to help disband their faction and arrest the members.

Many of them got the death sentence.

But the thing he found most surprising was the report of the man behind the cult—it was Nathaniel Kirurg. The man also known as Silver Heart. Freddy thought back to the figure he saw facing the empress. A horrible chill went down his spine as he realized who that person had been.

He was one of the first people ever to reach the third star. And what did he do with that power? He made a massive harem and declared himself the ruler of an enormous area. His attempt to establish himself as a leader failed once he was taken down by a group of renowned heroes, including the currently reigning empress.

Their meeting must have been one hell of a reunion.

Freddy wondered how that man managed to survive a literal execution. But, well, who knew what exactly happened back then?

The empress once more claimed that the man had died in the realm but didn’t disclose how and didn’t take credit for his demise. Yet again, Freddy had to wonder whether the man was actually dead or not.

He saw no mentions of the asura, but there was plenty of speculation about the “mysterious power” that chased even the empress herself out of the realm.

There were so many trash articles trying to squeeze as much juice out of the story as possible. More than one headline was about the private life of a delver speculated to be trapped within the passage.

Even he had an article dedicated to him, and it was a good one, too. They talked about his strange, stoic appearance and his sudden rise from a helper for another party to someone who could retrieve as many as… 200 gorels a day?

He didn’t quite remember doing that.

That wasn’t the only detail that was unbelievably exaggerated and even outright false. For example, claims about his talent and abilities weren’t even in the same ballpark as reality. Apparently, he was an assassin with dark and death affinities and a talent that allowed him to sneak up on opponents unnoticed. They even briefly mentioned Sophia, citing her as his lover.

Then they made up a story about where he came from, followed by an entirely fictional tale about his education in a poorer archhuman academy.

It was so absurd that he was starting to doubt the legitimacy of much of the information presented. It took all the willpower he had not to start laughing out loud at the absurd claims.

As he made it past that and into the reports about the death count… it stopped being funny.

Almost nobody survived the ordeal.

Not just in Santorio, either; all the affected areas had high death counts.

Right around the time the empress escaped from the realm, a handful of delvers also made their way out. All of them were with the groups the scouts retrieved. Out of the seven survivors, he, surprisingly, recognized three of them.

Theodore Osborne, Jacob Santorio… and Beatrice Osborne.

While he technically didn’t have anything to do with the woman, he still felt relieved that she had survived. Had she died in a terrorist attack, that would be pretty much the worst way to conclude the absolute disaster that happened between them.

There was a lot of information about the other passages affected, but most of those were resolved with comparative ease.

He slammed the volume closed at around 9 p.m. and headed home.

While it was a bit of a waste of money, he had been paying rent for the past five months due to the automatic payment he had set up. At least that meant he had a place to stay.

His keys were in his storage ring, and he took them out to unlock the door. The moment he stepped inside, he noticed something strange.

He found several pairs of shoes, including female ones. Confused, he made his way towards the room, only to find an absolutely terrified couple screaming and shouting at him. The man threw a bedside lamp, and the woman repeatedly shouted, “Intruder! Intruder!”

Freddy was furious. “What the fuck are you doing in my apartment!?” he yelled at the couple, who did not look apologetic at his accusation.

“Get the hell out!” the man kept yelling.

Thoroughly bewildered, Freddy ran outside, ready to kill the landlord if he didn’t explain himself.

His angry knocking woke up the owner of the building, who looked quite shocked to see him.

The man’s explanation, while still infuriating, made sense. It was unfortunate, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Freddy’s bank account was frozen after he was presumed dead, and the monthly payments for the apartment stopped coming in.

Truth be told, the owner could have been more prudent and changed the goddamn lock to ensure that something like this didn’t happen. But it was hard to blame the man, given what people thought happened to Freddy. And besides, he could have also visited the landlord beforehand to ensure that nothing was out of the ordinary.

At any rate, pushing the issue wasn’t worth it.

Once he apologized for the disturbance to both the landlord and the couple, he sighed and went to a hotel instead.

He didn’t go for anything fancy. He rented a small room for 300 bucks just to have a place to sleep through the night. That was still quite pricey, though.

After a decent night of rest, he quickly got up and rushed outside.

From helping bring Sophia back to life to training to getting more money…

He had a lot of work to do.

THE KRAVEN BLOODLINE

Madame woke up from a nap with a jolt. She looked around her colorful office, looking for anything unusual. She was still in Pittersville, even five months after sealing her deal with the empress, and her preparations still wouldn’t be done for at least another half a year. Moving headquarters was no easy task, especially not for someone with the mantle of a Lord.

Due to all the stress, she habitually took half an hour to clear her mind and stay productive. She had no need for such sleep, but this way, she could at least pretend she got some respite from the endless avalanche of work.

With the life affinity and as many medicines as she needed, her sleep should be absolutely perfect. Yet, for whatever reason, she found her sleep becoming increasingly restless over the last few months.

Once or twice wouldn’t have been too strange, but she was past believing that it was a coincidence.

Closing her eyes, she took a peek into her soul. As always, all she saw were the four beautiful stars, with a large pink ring wrapped around her first. The stars roiled with the pink glitter of life, the orange fury of fire, and the flickering green flames of lifeflame—her unique affinity.

Ignoring her stars, her satellite, and her abilities, she cleared her ethercosm and took a deeper look. Scouring every corner, she sought anything that even vaguely stood out. Her half-hour break came to an end, and for a moment, she contemplated leaving and continuing her work. But something about this situation was gnawing at her.

She left her ethercosm for a long moment and sighed. She pulled a small, shiny pill out of her storage ring and downed it. It was a soul clarity pill, a costly medicine used to thoroughly examine one’s soul. With it, she should be able to spot even the tiniest of imperfections.

It was a huge sacrifice, but she knew better than to ignore her investigative instinct.

This time, as soon as she dove into her ethercosm, she immediately spotted what was wrong. The eyes on her projection shot wide open as she saw a tiny, almost imperceptible eyeball staring at her from a deep, dark corner of her soul.

Its pupils were square.

She immediately flew over to it and tore it into pieces. For the next fifteen minutes, she explored every inch of her soul to ensure nothing else was hanging around.

Once she was absolutely sure she was safe, she left. There was no relief to be seen on her face. If anything, a deep scowl had embedded itself into her brow.

That thing must have snuck into her soul way back when she had gone to that anomalous passage.

To think it had not only slipped past her vigilant guard of her soul but also gone undetected for so damn long… That was terrifying. And few things could make her feel afraid.

She guessed that—no, she knew that such a parasite must have invaded the souls of Mark and Nahar, too. And they most likely hadn’t been able to resist the effects of whatever it was trying to do nearly as well as she could.

For a long moment, she considered helping them deal with it. It would, no doubt, further indebt them to her, but…

What would the point of that be… when the Kraven Clan was already on the brink of falling apart?

A decrepit man sat at his desk and drew on a paper. The only source of illumination was a slit of light that pushed its way through the shades on the window. The rancid smell hung like a fog, blending into the haze already coiled around his mind.

People refused to believe him.

That dumb motherfucker of a psychologist kept saying it was a symptom of the guilt he felt.

He’d show them.

He’d show all of them what the thing looked like.

He’d prove them wrong.

His hand shook as he tried drawing the outline of the man for the umpteenth time. “Fuck!” he screamed as he threw the damn paper aside and tore out another page from the notebook. “Fucking shit! Fuck! Fuck!” He slammed his fist into the table over and over, cracking the wood in his violent rage. His breathing was ragged, but he did everything he could to calm down and try again.

Slowly, one twisted line after another, the image of a man appeared on the page. He was muscular and imposing, with shoulder-length, wet hair flowing down the side of his head and striking, square pupils staring deep into the viewer’s soul.

That was what it looked like in his mind. But once he blinked hard enough, the hallucination vanished.

In reality, the image he was painting on the paper was more akin to a stickman a toddler drew. He laughed at it. His cackling grew manic as he tugged at his hair, only to pull out another chunk of the once-healthy blonde locks.

His alarm beeped away in his pocket, and only around ten minutes after it started, he caught on. “Time to go to work,” he muttered into his chin as he went to the toilet to prepare.

He walked over a massive pile of shredded paper. Horrific images of twisted figures adorned the pages. Dirty clothes were strewn all across the bedroom, with only his uniform, which the servants had taken care of, remaining even half clean. He reached the knee-deep pile of plastic bottles resting beside the entrance to the room and waded through it, knocking them over with the sound of hollow rattling.

Then he stepped into the toilet. With a shaky hand, he flicked the light switch. Dust and filth had piled on every surface, and the floor was scattered with wet pieces of paper. Usually, the servants would have cleaned this, too, but he refused to let anyone into his home.

He couldn’t risk one of them being an impostor.

Mark Afronte finally walked up to the mirror. It was filthy, with dried splatters of pus and blood from the acne he popped coating the surface. He grabbed a moist piece of toilet paper, spat on it, and wiped some of the muck off.

Underneath, he saw his reflection.

His face was gaunt and scattered with pockmarks. Acne littered his skin, part from his horrible diet, part from his stress, part from his utter lack of hygiene. The hair atop his head was thin, with noticeable bald patches.

His once healthy, spry physique of chiseled muscle was now far less impressive. He was still shredded, but a lot of the muscle mass was gone, and his body fat was so low that it made his body look almost fake, as if molded out of plastic.

He ignored his looks and tentatively washed his face. He wiped it with a towel that reeked of mold.

Ten minutes later, he was in his uniform and rushing to his station.

As soon as he left the living quarters and stepped into the deployment hall, he boarded the train. He gave his ID to a man waiting inside, who quickly verified it.

The ride was calm, with the train moving without as much as a bump of turbulence to disturb his trip. He leaned his head against the glass, watching the vast structures move by in a dizzying parallax of human achievement.

Floating structures, buildings that looked like they should topple over due to the way they bent and twisted in the air, and numerous floating platforms—either hosting parties, meetings, gatherings, lessons, or transporting workers from one area to another—filled the space before him, blocking the view of the endless blue sky above, which he could only see through the metal mesh keeping the dome solid.

The massive structure of transparent material protected the growing city from outside danger, with numerous archhumans stationed all across its surface to fight off aerial threats. He wasn’t qualified to fight there. His station was outside on the surface, where thousands of people fought off a continuous swarm of monsters rushing to break through their barricade.

Once he stepped off the train, he walked through a narrow tunnel and made his way outside.

The golden fields stretched far. Vaguely, in the vast distance, he could spot hazy blue outlines of different biomes, including a massive ocean and a range of mountains reaching for the sky.

Starhold was built on an elevated plateau. Between the plains below and the concrete platform upon which Mark stood, a sheer cliff of super-reinforced concrete was located.

There was a buffer of around fifty meters between the dome and the drop-off to the golden plains below. Upon this buffer, a scattering of buildings had sprung up. They were primarily temporary outposts for medical help and officers standing on guard.

All across the concrete cliff, workers hung off harnesses and examined the wall. They used earth-affinity abilities to fix cracks and inspect the building for deeper structural integrity problems.

Some also visited and dove into the vents, ensuring nothing was blocking the air flow.

While few monsters could climb up that cliff, all of them gave it a shot. That threatened the lives of the men and women working to keep the structure safe—one of whom was Mark’s father. He was a metal worker who worked on reinforcing the support beams. He was deployed in a different section that day, so Mark wouldn’t be seeing him.

From his vantage point atop the mind-bogglingly large hundred-meter-tall plateau, the people fighting against the monsters looked like ants scurrying about, with the occasional flash of color sparking against the pitch-black backdrop of the burned fields.

In the immediate area around Starhold, the grass was all burned down. The grass was deceptively challenging to scorch, and it grew ridiculously quickly, so it had to be cleared regularly. There were plans to create a massive platform of stone at some point in the future, but things were working out as they were, and whoever was in charge of such stuff clearly didn’t believe it was necessary to waste resources on that.

Not too far from where he was being deployed, he saw the sewage river flowing out into the distance. It was one of three such bodies of water.

All along the border of Starhold, right past the burned areas, were large towers. They looked small from his vantage point, but they were all over twenty meters in height. From those towers, ranged attackers worked to whittle down any monsters that tried to move past them, but naturally, they couldn’t catch all of them.

That was where people like Mark came in.

“Group A31, step up!”

He stepped on the elevator and waited to be brought down with 14 other people.

While the fighters were deployed in “groups” of 15, these weren’t teams. It was their own job to secure parties or alliances if they so wished, but they also had the freedom to simply work alone.

The others around him were all complete strangers. Maybe he’d worked with one or two of them before, but he’d been deployed hundreds of times by that point. He couldn’t memorize every face, especially not with how often two-stars changed their appearance.

While most of the group chatted away, quickly bundling into groups of six and five, Mark and three more people stayed to the side, clearly intending to work alone.

When the elevator touched the ground, they left and ran into the clearing.

The two groups split up, covering a small area while Mark walked out toward the outer edge.

His massive sword slid out of its scabbard, and he held it casually to his side. Thankfully, he got the metal affinity once he ascended. While there was a 90% chance to get it at the second star, it was not guaranteed.

As the first monster reached him—a furry bear-wolverine thing with stubby limbs—it leaped at him. Mark swung his sword forward and cleaved the beast in half. Despite the muscle loss he’d experienced, his strength was still impressive.

He had primarily worked on Compress Blade as his primary ability for the metal affinity and was already getting close to high stage two with progress. It was a simple ability that made a blade more narrow for a fraction of a second. It was a potent ability. It could allow ridiculous feats like cleaving through a whole tree in a single swing if timed properly. It was relatively cost-effective, with only 3% essence consumption, most of which was covered by his two-star satellite.

He cleaved one monster after another in half as he proceeded forward with terrifying efficiency. Even in confrontations where a single mistake could cost him an injury, he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t fear or panic.

Nothing could compare to the horror of his dreams.

And, if he was being honest with himself, the desire to die had already slowly crept into the back of his mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he slipped up and lost a head or two one of these days.

Sadly, on that day, it wasn’t fated to happen. He’d have to settle for venting his cold, seething fury on the poor creatures driven by instinct.

Once his allotted two hours ended, he returned to the elevator. He briefly spotted the female observer tasked with keeping track of their contribution.

The woman averted her gaze once she realized he was looking at her.

Once he stepped into the elevator, the people inside looked at him strangely.

“Hey,” a short man in light armor called. “You’re pretty damn impressive.” The man eyed Mark’s decrepit appearance with a hint of confusion. “I don’t wanna pry, but you have uh… You have a bit of a situation going on there, huh?” the man declared. “You know, if you’re struggling, my family is hiring. I can give you a business card if you’re interested.”

Mark stared at the man for a long moment. “Can your family secure a spot in the Pearlore Academy once it opens?”

The man scowled. “That’s a massive ask. Uhm… Maybe… I’m not really versed in⁠—”

“Then go away.”

The man blinked. “Right… Well… Sorry for bothering you.” Then, as he turned around and stepped away, he whispered, “Prick…”

There was one and only one reason he still worked to make it through every day—the promise his boss had given him was still on the table, secured by a contract. As long as Kraven still existed as an organization once the academy opened, they were legally required to secure a spot in the academy for his sister. This had been arranged a long time ago, under the supervision of an imperial adjudicator, so it wasn’t something the Kraven could back down on.

But he knew better than to believe it would go without hiccups. Even though he believed Nahar, he had no faith in any of those other fucking pieces of shit.

“Let them try and pull something…” he muttered into his chin, attracting a few worried gazes from the other fighters. “I’ll kill them all.”

He made his way back to the compound and entered their underground headquarters. With each passing day, he came across fewer and fewer members of the Kraven Clan. They weren’t getting killed off or anything—he could only dream—but they were instead leaving.

He couldn’t blame them, he supposed. There was less and less reason to remain affiliated with the clan with every passing day. Those who remained were either diehard maniacs or milking the dying organization for all they were worth.

Those who came across him either snarled or sneered at him. A rainbow of resentful looks was directed his way every single day. They mocked him, teasing him like petulant children. They vented their frustrations on the dead-eyed bitch of the incompetent young master—the man who was, in their eyes, the one to blame for their continuous failures.

Nahar worked so much harder than any of these ungrateful bastards knew. Yet, Mark never rose to their provocations. They didn’t deserve his acknowledgment.

Even if every single member of the clan left and went on their way, his deal with Nahar was set in stone. The academy would be open soon, and well within the period they still had protection from the empress.

Mark walked into Nahar’s office.

There, he found the man placing things into a box. Nahar froze once he noticed Mark. “Oh… Hey…”

“What the hell are you doing?” Mark asked him coldly.

“Look,” Nahar called, trying to force a smile on his face but producing something more akin to a manic grin. “I just can’t fucking handle it anymore, Mark.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” the man spat, taking an aggressive step forward.

“Don’t be stupid, Mark,” Nahar chided. His expression turned sour as sorrow descended upon him. “I… I had so much faith in this clan. I was naive,” he said bitterly. “We can’t have any influence without a Lord. And nobody in the clan is even close to ascending. I thought Uncle Rahal, at least… but… it’s not fated to happen.”

Mark stood frozen, fearing the answer to the question burning a hole in his throat.

“Relax,” Nahar said as he shot him a sour smile. “My uncle will take over once I’m gone, and you’ll still get your end of the deal.” Nahar lifted the box and started walking. “I really hope we can stay in touch. But… yeah… I’m looking forward to finally becoming a free man. Perhaps you could join me?”

“What if they try to pull something?”

Nahar froze. “Look…”

“Don’t.” Mark looked the man deep in the eye. “You know damn well Rahal will fight for every shred of power he can get once he becomes the leader.”

“Look,” Nahar stated more firmly. “Can I be honest with you… just for a second?” The two men stood in silence for a long moment before Nahar decided to continue. “I don’t think you need this, Mark.”

“It’s not about me; it’s about my⁠—”

“Well, your family doesn’t need it either!” Nahar spat. “Look. You can just… leave. Go back to New Earth. Settle somewhere. Get a fucking wife, dude, and let your sister live a normal life.”

“It’s not that simple…”

“You’re obsessed, Mark.”

“You have no goddamn idea how dangerous it is to be anywhere but at the top,” Mark asserted.

Nahar scowled. “Yes, I do, Mark. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Mark couldn’t stop himself from laughing at that. “Oh really? You think you know anything? You think playing the patriarch of a dying clan is enough to know what it’s like to be a fucking serf!? If a three-star—if you wanted to force yourself on my sister, you think I could do anything to stop you!?” he screamed. “You think the adjudicators would punish you!? Even if you slaughtered my whole family, you’d get a slap on the wrist!”

“Come on…”

“No. You will never understand. As long as you live, you won’t get what I’m trying to say until you see it yourself. I have my contract—I don’t need you,” he declared. “Goodbye, Nahar.” He saluted his old boss and marched out of the room.

Later that day, Nahar held his parting speech before the remaining members of the Kraven Clan. Before he could get three sentences in, he was shouted off the stage and chased outside. Mark watched the whole thing happen with cold eyes.

Then slowly, like a hero foretold in legend, Rahal got up and walked up on the stage.

The cheering was deafening.

His coronation as the clan patriarch started with a speech on integrity. He reminded everyone of the clan’s history and the power they held before—the potential they still had within them. He directed a speech at the diehards who decided to stay behind, focusing on their bloodline and loyalty, promising great rewards and status to those who still believed in their principles.

He painted the purging of the unloyal like a blessing; with the “unfaithful” being expunged, he promised a stronger, more unified clan than ever before.

And then, once he buttered them up enough to bake a fucking cake between their asscheeks, he started talking about his future plans. They were pretty radical. The man planned to effectively pull out of Starhold. They would sell off whatever stakes they still had left and reestablish themselves in Pittersville. He hit the audience pretty hard with all the bad news, only to then immediately go into a calculated justification for his actions.

It was a pretty reasonable plan. With how much power they had lost, remaining here was clearly not a viable option. They would get chipped away into nothing until they were forced to disband. Clearly, Starhold was above them as they were at the moment.

But Pittersville, their old headquarters, wasn’t a bad place to return to. With all the superpowers focusing on Starhold, traffic had to go through the bustling metropolis. Their status was much more solid there, and nobody had the power or the incentive to chase them out, even without a Lord in their midst. They just had to bide their time until a four-star rose from their ranks again, and then they would return to chasing higher peaks.

Frankly, Mark didn’t care what they did. He wouldn’t mind returning to Pittersville as long as his sister was in the academy. And if he was being honest, Rahal was putting forth a pretty solid plan.

He heard people whispering that Nahar could never show such leadership and that the boy had doomed them from the start. It was easy enough to say that now, given that all the people who had been staunchly against such a retreat had left the clan.

His attention was snapped back to reality as he heard Rahal say something strange. “—to that end, I believe it would be prudent to disband Kraven Industries and liquidate the assets.”

He immediately shot up to his feet and raised his hand.

Murmurs of discontentment echoed all around him, but Rahal waved the people down as he pointed at Mark. “Greetings, Mr. Afronte. I believe you have a question for me.”

“Yes, sir.” Mark anxiously fixed his uniform cap as he straightened his back. “I have a contract signed with Kraven Industries. What will happen with that contract once the company is disbanded?”

“That is an excellent question, young man.” A cruel smile flashed on the man’s lips for a brief moment. “Once the company is disbanded, the contractual obligations, such as your deal… will be passed on to the legal owner of the company.”

For half a moment, Mark was almost relieved. Then he realized it.

Nahar was the owner of the company. He was the one who had to deliver on the contract. Naturally, he could also choose not to disband the company, as it was his, but pretty much everything that the company owned was simply an “investment” from the clan members, who were the actual owners of practically everything.

Except for the obligations.

Obligations that Nahar was powerless to fulfill.

Mark found himself staring into the man’s striking blue eyes. Within them, he saw… triumph.

That was why the man had passed the leadership unto Nahar so easily.

From the very beginning, he had planned to do this exact thing.

Mark’s lips twitched and pulled apart into a nasty grimace. “You fucking monster…”

Rahal made a hand gesture, and in the blink of an eye, two three-star elders held Mark by his arms as they dragged him away. He kicked, snarling and screaming. “I’m going to fucking kill all of you! Let me go! You fucking bastards! You’re all dead!”

Just as he was being dragged through the doors, he watched Rahal’s lips twist into a wicked smile as he waved and mouthed, “Say hi to my nephew.”

57

HE WILL DIE

Freddy walked into his newly rented apartment and placed two large glass containers and a bag of groceries on the tiny table in the room.

The new place he was renting was considerably smaller than the former apartment. It was only a single room with a bed in the middle and a table next to a sink, but it was still thrice as large as the coffin room he had grown up in.

While he was itching to finally get his own damn apartment, he didn’t mind waiting a bit longer. He had a massive debt to pay off, so, for the time being, until he started making considerably more money than he needed for the monthly payments, he was being frugal.

As a two-star, he wouldn’t pay the fine off a couple hundred dollars at a time. No, he had to pay nearly fifty thousand dollars a month. He still had quite a bit of money stashed away in his savings, but given that he wasn’t back to delving yet, he was being patient.

Also, admittedly, there was something comforting about watching his spending.

Maybe it was just an old habit.

There was no fridge in the room, nor was there any other surface to make food. His food stash—dry bread and miscellaneous multivitamins—was tucked in large paper bags in the corner of the room.

He arranged some of the ingredients he had gathered on the table and poured water into the first pitcher. Slowly, one after another, he poured in ingredients, mainly quite cheap stuff he got from the grocery store, like salt and sugar. On top of that, he was adding more expensive materials, including a viscous, vibrant blue preservative that came in a small glass bottle.

For the last week, ever since he’d been released from jail, he’d been doing only two things—planning where he was going to work next and digging through obscure books for any records on how to preserve the life of someone who had been reduced to a mere head.

It didn’t take long to become apparent that healing Sophia wouldn’t be easy or cheap. It would be a breeze if he could somehow wake her up, but given her state, that wasn’t a possibility. At the very least, she wasn’t conscious.

It was pretty intimidating seeing how differently death came to those who were undead. At times, he even felt slightly regretful that he had decided to go down this path. Everyone died eventually. And given that he would never die of old age, his death could only be excruciating. Still, he had made his choice. No matter how unpleasant, it was a massive source of power. Sophia was proof of that.

But even in this state, she couldn’t survive forever.

Thus, he needed a safer way to keep her alive until he found a permanent solution.

Finding out how to do that, however, was no easy task.

He had thought he could just ask the local librarians or bookstore owners for advice, but most had only pointed him to old medical records on obscure cases.

The problem was that most organizations oriented around death affinity had their own unique and—surprise, surprise—secret ways of keeping their members alive.

It took a long, grueling week of digging through one record after another and swapping through several libraries until he finally found what he was looking for.

Once he finally added all the ingredients, he took out a large metal spoon and stirred them for about a minute. Then he took Sophia’s head out of his storage ring, gently lowered it into the empty container, and slowly poured the solution over her until she was fully submerged. Once done, he attached the airtight cap to the container and put it into the storage ring.

Just like that, he had bought himself roughly a year to save her.

Undead cells didn’t die on their own the way living cells did. Once exhausted, they went into a stasis, resuming their work after being supplied with more energy. But they, just as everything else, were subject to gradual deterioration.

Die, they might not—but fall apart, they would, indeed.

A year from then would be around the time when enough of her brain matter deteriorated to irreversibly lose a part of who she was as a person. Even if resurrected after that point, she would never be the same Sophia again. Freddy wouldn’t give up even after half a decade, but that didn’t mean there was no sense of urgency.

He had planned to decompress for a day but settled for beating up the spark of undeath instead. Rest would come after he found regular work again.

Given that it was noon, he had his lunch first. He wolfed down several stale and dry loaves of bread, each dipped in water to soften them up, and then swallowed a large handful of multivitamins. While eating like this was objectively gross, he had to admit that he kind of enjoyed it in a twisted way.

There was a bizarre feeling of power in knowing that he could eat worse than some poor farmer’s chickens and still be healthier than the overwhelming majority of the population.

Washing his hands, he straightened his white short-sleeve T-shirt and headed outside.

It was an inordinately cold day. The sky above was clouded, but it didn’t look like it would rain. The city was full of people rushing about their business, and the street was full of cars. Not carriages—cars. In fact, during his long absence from society, Freddy had missed out on several critical breakthroughs in technology.

Starhold had been quite productive regarding resources and development, so cars with an internal engine were becoming increasingly common. So much so, in fact, that drake-pulled carriages had been declared illegal in large cities due to the traffic congestion and pollution they were causing.

Naturally, many people were super pissed about this as they still couldn’t afford a car, but anyone who needed transportation for business had been given a generous subsidy, which dulled the blow.

Freddy brought his idle daydreaming back on track as he refocused. As expected, the Santorio hub was closed indefinitely after the incident. That left only three other public passages—or so he thought.

Once Santorio was out of the equation, a handful of brand-new public passages opened to compete for the role the Santorio hub used to play.

While the three already-established hubs were undoubtedly a safer choice, Freddy had already visited these places, and he wasn’t a big fan, to say the least.

The first was an anomaly—the inside of the realm was a mountainous area where the undead kept appearing out of nowhere. His talent, unsurprisingly, didn’t work on piles of walking bones and rotting flesh. Being unable to rely on his talent in a tight spot was an unnecessary risk.

The second was a scorching hot desert. Usually, this would be great for a water-affinity arch like himself because he was naturally more resistant to dehydration, but the lack of vegetation was somewhat of a turn-off. Again, it was not a huge problem, given the fleshy blob in his ring, but it wasn’t optimal.

The third was… well, it really wasn’t a bad option on the surface. A neat, forested area with all sorts of animalistic monsters inside. The issue was with the owner—after the terrorist attack, he had become quite paranoid and had thus set up background checks on anyone who requested entry, making the passage only quasi-public.

Although Freddy was entirely innocent and already investigated, he wasn’t allowed entry because of his involvement with the terrorist incident.

Thus, on that day, he was on a journey.

He had four destinations in mind.

It was time to see what Nova York had to offer.

Theodore was out on a walk in the streets. A beige scarf fluttered in the frigid wind, bouncing across his thick, black coat. He brought a cigarette to his lips and took a deep pull, exhaling slowly.

His life had been going rather well during the previous few months. He got a new job in a mercenary crew. He’d left the life of freelance delving behind him and now worked exclusively by contract. His talent made him quite valuable for exploring new passage routes and scouting inside established realms.

Once finished with his cigarette, he extinguished it and threw it in a nearby bin. Walking another block, he turned and entered a skyscraper.

Within a minute, he was in his apartment on the 17th floor. As soon as he opened the door, a woman rushed at him and hugged him tightly. “You’re back…” Beatrice whispered.

He could feel her rapidly beating heart. Her relief that he was back home was as palpable as the tightness of her grip around his waist.

After he gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, she detached from him and looked up with shining eyes. “I made you dinner. Oh, but we ran out of parmesan…” she said, her eyes drifting to the side.

“No worries,” he said, putting his coat back on. “I’ll hop down to the store and get some.”

He walked back outside.

Beatrice hadn’t been doing all that well after the whole ordeal. She hadn’t left their apartment for months. Frankly, Theodore preferred it this way. Not only did she not give a shit what he did or who he spent time with, but she was also willing to forgive… anything… as long as he didn’t abandon her.

She had been fighting tooth and nail to keep him happy. He could, of course, bring over a therapist to help her move past the trauma, but… nah.

Where was the fun in that?

The only real downside was that she sometimes woke up screaming in the middle of the night, but that was no big deal.

She had recently started putting a gag on her mouth before going to bed.

Besides, Theodore rarely spent the night sleeping at home these days.

The closest store was just outside the building. As soon as Theodore walked out the front door, he turned, and⁠—

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a large man in a white shirt turning left down the street. Within a second, the man was gone behind a building.

Theodore froze.

His eyes were his greatest weapon. He was confident that he wasn’t imagining it. But still, he rushed forward just to confirm it.

Cautiously, he glanced around the corner and watched the broad back of Liam John—no, Liam Cuttingsworth—as the man made his way down the street.

“What in the…” Theodore couldn’t believe it.

The man was still alive?

They must have found him when they cracked the seal a few weeks ago, but even then…

Jacob had been absolutely positive that the man was guilty of conspiring with the cultists. It looked like he had been wrong.

Theodore ducked behind the cover with a huge scowl on his face.

Back when he saw the man in the passage, right before the empress arrived, Theodore had noticed something weird. The man’s physique had been substantially different than just a few weeks prior. Not just a little, either—it was as if his bones had been reformed and muscles rebalanced.

And somehow, he’d only grown bigger since then.

Theodore had noticed throughout their time working together that Liam’s body grew at a rather absurd speed. Back then, the man had done nothing impossible. Some steroids and a bit of exercise would do the job.

This was different.

This was caused by some sort of outside influence.

But what?

His talent?

Did that woman he was with do that to him? If so, how?

Given that the man’s weak points were even more muted than they were the last time Theodore saw him, it definitely wasn’t a purely cosmetic effect.

Yet, frighteningly enough, that wasn’t even the most unusual part. The man was a peak two-star.

“Phew…” Theodore breathed out, leaning against the wall.

Liam was a bizarre individual. He’d already known that much. While his circumstances were intriguing, Theodore had no real reason to care about the man.

Other than⁠—

“Whatever,” he muttered, turning back and walking to the store.

He bought the parmesan.

He ate his dinner.

After eating, he sat down in the living room and watched a movie with Beatrice by his side. Yet, throughout the film, he kept spacing out. His heartbeat was elevated. Beatrice’s touch, where she leaned on his shoulder, felt uncomfortable and… dirty.

“Hey,” he said, pushing her away and getting up. “I’m going out.”

His wife looked incredibly disappointed that he wouldn’t stay to finish the movie. She looked down for a moment before asking, “Are you going to be back tonight?”

“Yeah, yeah… Yeah,” he said, waving her off. “I’m just gonna go… uh… see a friend.”

Within twenty minutes, Theodore was knocking on someone’s door. It took a long minute, but eventually, the doors cracked open. “Oh, hey!” Jacob greeted him as he opened the door. “What brought you here?”

Jacob had changed quite a bit in the last half a year. The man’s face looked gaunt, and he’d lost much of his muscle mass. He was pale. Deep eye bags hung under his eyes.

“Hey there, man!” Theodore greeted him, offering him a fist bump. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah… Uh… You wanna come in?” Jacob offered.

“Sure. I have to talk to you about something.”

The men sat down in the massive, highly decorated living room. They chatted idly for a few minutes while a maid brought them coffee. The woman appeared a bit jittery, and Jacob smacked her ass as soon as she turned around. She yelped.

“New girl?” Theodore asked, smirking at him.

“Yeah, she’s a bit of a shy one.” Jacob chuckled as he wiggled his eyebrows.

“You dog.” Theodore shook his head as he took a sip of the coffee. It was slightly bitter. “Hey, I have to talk to you about something.”

Jacob quirked an eyebrow as he raised a cup to his lips. “What is it?”

“I… I saw Liam Cuttingsworth on the street today.”

Jacob’s arm froze. He put the coffee back down as he turned to face Theodore. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” Theodore declared. “Did you not know that they found him alive?”

“My old man didn’t tell me shit!” The man spat on the ground. “What the fuck!?” he exclaimed with a scowl. “Are they insane!? That girl with him was a fucking cultist; I know what I saw!” He got a bit heated, but he caught himself, leaning back on the couch as he chewed on his knuckles. “There’s no way he’s clean.”

“Yet he’s a free man,” Theodore declared. “You know damn well how strict the adjudicators are. If the dude had farted too loudly at any point in the last decade, they’d know.”

“They have no idea what happened in the passage,” Jacob said. “Other than the handful of us who lived, there are no witnesses. He could have been in there killing people the whole time, and they wouldn’t know shit.”

“Well, the cult is gone,” Theodore said. “Without hard evidence, they can’t put a peak two-star behind bars.”

Jacob froze. “Wait… what…?”

“You heard me.” Theodore nodded gravely. “Peak fucking two-star. No signs of injuries on him, either. Not only that. Remember how I told you that his body is different now? I wasn’t just imagining it. It was like his head was transplanted on another man’s body! It’s ridiculous!”

Jacob snarled at that.

“You know… you might think I’m crazy, but I have a theory.” Theodore took another sip of coffee and adopted a severe expression. “A few weeks ago, they publicly stated that Silver Heart was found dead within the realm.”

Jacob nodded, remaining silent and attentive.

“Well… You know how they said that Silver Heart was executed all that time ago? And then he… magically came back to life all this time later?”

Jacob snapped his head in Theodore’s direction. “You don’t think…?”

“Hey, you never know…” Theodore shrugged, raising his hands. “If the man can transfer his consciousness from one body to another, this whole thing would make much more sense.”

Jacob smashed a fist into the table and rushed to his feet. “Fuck!” he shouted, pulling at his thinning golden hair as he paced in circles. “I have to go talk to my father.” The man stormed out of the room. “Wait for me here,” he said, grabbing a jacket and putting his boots on. Then he rushed outside.

Theodore obeyed, leaning back and meditating while he waited.

Around half an hour later, Jacob walked back into the apartment. He slowly walked back to the couch and sat next to Theodore.

“And?” Theodore prodded.

“There was a clear indication that Silver Heart’s soul was destroyed,” Jacob said. “That’s about as solid as evidence gets, I suppose.”

“Is it really?” Theodore tapped on his chin. “Even if his soul is gone, can they prove that the man didn’t transfer his consciousness?”

“Without a soul?” Jacob probed. “I don’t see a point in doing that.”

“Who knows what that psychopath was capable of?”

Jacob scowled.

Theodore pushed. “Look, even if we’re wrong, I think it’s safe to say that that man must have had some ties with the cult. They can’t prove anything, and given that the cult is already gone, they let him go.”

Jacob’s scowl deepened.

Theodore pushed harder. “They’re not going to do anything about him. Think about that. Remember what we lived through back there? That bastard was almost definitely doing the same thing to others in the passage. And he’s just going to walk away. Free as a motherfucking bird.”

Jacob visibly bit the inside of his cheek.

“I don’t know about you, but I can’t ignore that.”

Jacob clenched his fists.

“I think you know what we should do, right?

Jacob slowly nodded. “Yeah… We can’t just let that bastard walk away.”

Theodore smiled.

The two discussed some plans and threw ideas around for a while. Eventually, after a few drinks, their conversation veered way off course. They agreed to discuss things further the next day, and for the time being, Theodore went home.

By the time he was back, his wife was already sleeping soundly in bed.

He saw her helpless, half-naked body on the bed and slowly approached it.

Looking at her from above, she looked so… small. So fragile. Like he could cup her whole body in his two hands. He slowly lowered himself and sat on the bed next to her. He carefully moved her hair out of her face to get a better look at her.

He chuckled.

It was surprising that he would do something like this. He thought himself more rational than that. But while he was willing to believe that that man was entirely out of his wife’s mind…

He would never forget about him.

He could never put that behind them.

He could never come to terms with it.

“I can forgive you, you fucking whore,” he whispered as he bent over, gave her a kiss on her cheek, and watched her smile in her sleep.

“But he will die.”

58

DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE EYES

For a while already, a Mark-shaped hole was present at every family meal at the Afronte dinner table.

Throughout their time living in Starhold, Mark had been growing busier and busier with every passing day, barely finding the time for his family even though they lived pretty close to one another.

But, at the very least, he never let a week pass without visiting. Now, it’s been almost two full weeks without any of them seeing him. And they’d had enough.

As soon as Mark’s father walked into the room and smelled the food, he called, “Did Mark show up?”

“No, honey!” his wife yelled back. “I’ve sent him a message, though! Maybe today he’ll⁠—”

“Come,” the man called. “Call Sarah, too.”

“What?” the wife yelled. A second later, she stormed into the hallway with a scowl, wiping her still-wet hands on a small kitchen towel. “Where are we going? The dinner will be done in⁠—”

“Call Sarah,” he interrupted her. “We’ve given Mark plenty of freedom, but I think it’s high time we check in on him and see what’s happening.”

His wife looked reluctant at that. Her hands slowed as she gripped the towel and lowered her head. “But I don’t want to force him…”

“Well, I do,” he asserted. “Sarah!”

A second later, the blonde teenage girl popped her head out of her room. “Huh!?” she yelled while pulling earbuds out of her ears. “Did someone call me?”

“Yes, dear. Put your shoes on. We’re going to visit your brother.”

Less than five minutes later, they were all standing right outside Mark’s room. They rang the bell. They waited patiently for a long few minutes, but nobody answered.

“Maybe he’s out?” Sarah proposed.

Instead of retreating, her father pulled out the spare key he had of Mark’s room.

“Honey!” his wife called. “Don’t you think that’s going a bit far? We promised not to intrude on his privacy…”

“I don’t care anymore,” he said. “I’m done waiting for the stars to line up. We’ll have our damn family dinner even if I have to drag him home by the ear!”

His wife looked like she wanted to protest that but kept her mouth shut. All of them wanted the same thing, even if they weren’t comfortable with the approach.

The man inserted the key into the hole and tried turning it. It was stuck.

His wife’s eyebrows shot up. “Did he change the lock without telling us…?”

“No,” the man said. “There’s a damn key on the other side.” He pulled the key out and placed a palm against the lock. The man focused, exerting his metal affinity, and broke the lock.

“Dear!” his wife yelled. “What about the⁠—”

As expected, the alarm was triggered.

“He can sue us if he wants.” He pushed the door open.

Piles upon piles of filthy dishes were lined up in the kitchen. Trash and dirty clothes were everywhere throughout the living room. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in forever.

“How horrible!” the wife exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth. “What on Earth are the maids doing!? This is awful! Why didn’t he…?”

“Mark!” the father shouted. “Mark! Are you in!?” The only answer he got was the alarm, which was still blaring in the background. “I don’t like this…” He rushed toward the room and tried opening the door. It was also locked. “Mark!” he shouted and knocked. “Are you inside!?” Nobody answered. “Shit…” the man cursed as he kicked the door in with a Tectonic Strike.

The sound of his wife and daughter screaming behind him reached him just a moment before he saw the sight.

In the middle of the filthiest, messiest room he’d ever seen in his life, his son was hanging by his neck, dressed in nothing but a white undershirt and boxers, with blood running down his legs from his severed wrists.

“Mark!” he shouted. “Oh, dear god, Mark, what did you do to yourself!?” He rushed and pulled his son off the rope. “Mark!” He slapped his cheeks. He pressed his fingers to Mark’s neck, but before he could feel whether there was still a pulse, a voice came from behind them.

“Hands up!” a guard shouted, pointing a crossbow at them. As soon as the man realized what he was looking at, he lowered the weapon and lifted a communication crystal to his mouth. “Send medical help immediately!”

Mark’s eyes slowly cracked open. He was greeted by a blurry, pearly-white sight. “Am I dead…?” he whispered through cracked lips.

“Mark!” someone’s muffled voice called. “Mark, can you hear me!?”

“Ugh…” he groaned as he tried moving. His head was pounding, and his whole body felt weak. But he was, indeed, still alive.

He closed his eyes as he realized his situation. The blurry white was the sterile shade of a hospital ceiling. His forearms had been stitched back together, and the rope had been cut.

He had been saved.

Well… interrupted.

Once he opened his eyes again, the image was a lot clearer. They were in the emergency room. He saw his mother’s worried face looking down on him, with his father and sister standing behind her.

He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “Hey there, guys… Haven’t seen you in a while.”

His mother burst into tears as she buried her head in his chest. She wept and sobbed, clearly trying and failing to say something. His father’s expression was steely, and his eyes demanded an explanation. Sarah… She just looked afraid.

Was he a coward for what he’d done?

Obviously.

But what other choice did he have?

After everything he’d done, he still had to look his family members in the face and tell them that they’d lost everything.

His sister had missed out on education—no two ways around it. Any academy that would accept her with her background and age was either far too expensive or far too inadequate.

Even though she’d already accepted a combat talent, she would never be an elite. She would never find a secure position. And neither would he. Both of them were living on borrowed time until early retirement or… death caught up with them. And that was if their lack of protection didn’t result in an even worse fate for everyone involved.

“Why…?” his mother muttered. “Why!? Why would you do that!?” she screamed. “Does our love mean nothing to you!? What happened that would push you to such a decision!? What!?” She looked up at him, mouth trembling as she slowly whispered, “What happened, Mark?”

Bitter. He felt bitter. Bile slowly moved up his throat, and he didn’t even bother swallowing it. “You want to know what happened?” Anger bubbled in his chest. “Fine. I’ll tell you what happened: Kraven Industries is disbanding. Those bastards used a legal loophole to scam us of what was promised to us—Sarah will never go to the academy.”

His mother and sister paled at that.

His father, however, looked angry. “How could you!?” he shouted. “For this!? Are you seriously that stupid!? Something like that was enough to push you to… to… to try and kill yourself!? I can’t believe that you’d act like such a coward!”

“I killed a man to get this opportunity!” Mark spat out before he could think twice about what he was saying. At that moment, he felt like he had nothing to lose.

So he told them.

He told them the fate of Freddy Stern. The deal between him and the Kraven. The bullshit story about the “lucky opportunity” he’d stumbled upon when he entered the clinic to get his arm amputated fell apart as the horror of reality settled.

His sister stared at him with open eyes, her hands covering her mouth. A moment later, she sprinted out of the emergency room. His father looked like he wanted to say something, but he bit his lip and followed after Sarah.

Despair clouded his mother’s face, but she forced herself to swallow it. “They need some time to process it. Don’t be mad at them.”

He wasn’t angry at them. He was sad. His breathing hastened as he teared up, regret washing over him as a sob escaped his lips. “They hate me.”

“They don’t hate you!” his mother insisted, trying to cup his face to turn his head and meet his eyes, but he refused, pushing her arm away and shaking his head.

“I sold my soul for us, Mom,” he declared with such palpable sadness that it looked like it crushed his mother’s heart. “And yet we still have nothing.”

“Don’t be silly…” she tried, clearly forcing herself. “You’re still alive,” she reminded him. “I don’t care what you did. Demon or angel, you’ll forever be my son. I will always love you, Mark.” She grabbed his hand and brought her forehead to it. “Do you think that man would forgive you if you disappeared?”

“A monster wears his skin, Mom. I will never be forgiven.”

“It… what!?” his mother asked with a scowl, but he turned away.

“Nothing,” he said. “I need some time alone.”

“No. I’m not going to give it to you. I’m staying.”

“Mom, please…”

“No! You’re coming with me.”

As soon as Mark’s condition was fully stabilized, he was taken to his family’s residence. They had three guest rooms, and before long, one of them was his. There, he lay in bed, feeling exhausted. He’d lost a lot of blood. But still, no matter how tired he felt, he couldn’t force himself to fall asleep.

He knew what was waiting for him there.

They tied him to the bed so he wouldn’t hurt himself again until a psychologist could declare his mental condition as stable.

That evening, his mother brought him his favorite meal—pizza. Just a simple pepperoni pizza. Just the way he liked it back when he was little.

His appetite was nonexistent, but his mother forced him to have a few slices. Before he realized it, he ate the whole thing.

Then his mother brought him some tea. As soon as he saw the pink shade, he scowled. It was milky pink alia. He hated this tea. People drank it a bit too casually as far as he was concerned. It was a pretty damn potent drug.

He despised the feeling of losing control over himself, be it from alcohol or any other substance.

“Take it,” his mother offered. “I know you don’t like it, but you need to get some rest.”

There was no rest for the wicked. But instead of saying anything or throwing a tantrum, he took the tea and downed it in one gulp. “Thank you, Mum,” he said, smiling at her. “I love you.”

She smiled back at him. After giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead, she left the room and turned the lights off.

Before long, the tea kicked in. Every bit of stress left his body within minutes. For as long as he could, he tried to remain awake.

He didn’t last long.

Yet again, he found himself in those cursed woods, and once more, the small pond bubbled as a figure crawled out of it. The image of a half-rotting body covered in muck and filth stood tall, shooting him a fierce, mocking grin. It wore Freddy’s face. “Well, well, well…” it cackled at him. “What do we have here? Even after putting me through hell, you still didn’t get anything. And you lost so, so much.

“Your father, oh those beautiful eyes! The hatred and scorn bubbling, held back only by the fact that you’d hang yourself again if he is too harsh.” It laughed. “And your sister? Kiss her innocence goodbye. Even worse, she’d ask herself why she couldn’t at least get a ticket to the academy given what you did—and she’d hate herself for it.”

“What do you want?” Mark asked, feeling no patience for this creature’s mockery. “If you’re just going to echo my thoughts to me, you might as well wrap it up and let me rest.”

“What do I want?” it asked, cackling vociferously. Then it suddenly grew deathly serious. “I thought you’d never ask.” Suddenly, it slithered forward, melting into the muck as it wrapped around him and placed its hands on his shoulders. It started massaging him. It slowly whispered into his ear, “Tell me… Do you want to get revenge?”

Mark bit his lip. “On who?”

“You know who.”

Mark’s bravado deflated slightly upon hearing those words. “Of course I do. If I had the power to do it, I’d slaughter every single one of them.”

“I can give you that power.”

Mark snorted. “How? By taking my body over?” he sneered. “I know what you’re after, you foul being. I’d rather kill myself than let that happen.”

“You’re wrong,” it said, unwrapping itself and slithering behind a nearby tree. Two glowing eyes peeked behind the wood, almost shyly. “Your former boss was hiding a secret from you.” It suddenly shifted and slithered behind another tree in the blink of an eye. “You see, my two loyal minions were captured and imprisoned by the Kraven Clan. All you have to do is free them. I’ll give you the power to do it—no strings attached.”

Silence ensued between them. What did Mark really want? If someone had asked him while awake, he’d say he wanted to protect his family. He wanted a better life for them.

But was that really what he wanted? Would he have made the decision to leave them all on their own if that was the case? Well… he did want that. He knew that he wanted that. But in the quiet depths of his mind, where all his thoughts lay bare, he knew that there were things he wanted just as much. He wanted to be free of it all. He wanted to be someone else.

And he wanted to slaughter those bastards.

They had misled him from the start.

It wasn’t like he knew Freddy would lose his life when he was made that offer.

They had deceived him.

They had robbed him of his soul.

And what did he do?

He moved past it.

And why?

Because their old patriarch, the bastard responsible, was gone?

The new one was just as evil.

He was just as much of a villain.

He deserved to die.

They all needed to die.

The blood they smeared over their hallways wasn’t just a decoration.

This whole time, they’d been telling him exactly who they were.

Monsters.

No…

Demons.

After a long moment of silence, Mark cracked his mouth open. “How do I know you’ll hold up your end of the deal?”

The creature’s grin split Freddy’s face in two. “Oh, you’ll know.”

Mark opened his eyes. It was the dead of night.

His entire body twitched and spasmed. Power coursed through his veins, bulging his muscles and rapidly healing his wounds.

Within his soul, his gathering skyrocketed, blasting through bottlenecks as a supernova exploded with the manifestation of his third star. He felt his talent evolve again. From Rebalanced Musculature at the first star, it had become Superior Musculature at the second. Now, it felt like it was on a different level. The power within him was something that even three-star elites would envy.

But that wasn’t even the most shocking part.

No, what surprised him the most… was the presence of a second talent.

Mark’s mouth spread into a wide grin.

With a twitch, he broke the restraints keeping him locked to the bed and got up. Once he left his room, he encountered his bleary-eyed sister on her way to the bathroom. She jumped back in fright upon seeing him. “Mark…” she called. “You scared me.”

She kept her head down, looking like she couldn’t meet his gaze. Suddenly, she scowled. “Didn’t Mom say you were…” Her words trailed off as she raised her head to look at him. She squinted in the dark as she took a cautious step back. “Mark… what’s wrong with your eyes?”

He smiled at the girl and rustled her hair. “Don’t worry, chief. They’ll look like that from now on.” He turned towards the door. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be back soon.

“I have something to take care of.”

59

LIBERATION

Rahal walked into the patriarch’s office—no, his office. While it was a pale shadow of the throne he had dreamt of his whole life, marred by the clan’s recent setbacks as it was, he still felt a simmering glee that it now… finally… belonged to him. Not his bullheaded brother or naive nephew; no; it was his and his alone.

He sat down on the cold stone chair and leaned back. It was ridiculously uncomfortable. He cackled to himself. His brother had been quite the hardcore type, and he always wanted the world to know it.

But Rahal was different.

While the patriarch’s image was crucial, he did not want their clan to continue existing in this cold, depressing state. It was too unwelcoming to new recruits, and he knew damn well he’d need to get to recruiting as soon as possible.

What the people wanted was luxury and comfort, not blood-slathered stone walls and disgusting decor.

The days of stubborn pride were over. It was time to rebuild the clan by the foundation and reshape it stone by stone.

He broke himself out of his thoughts and rolled his shoulder. There was no time for daydreaming—a massive pile of unfinished work waited on his desk, and it was time to start chipping away at it. Just as he was about to reach for a paper, a red light ignited above his head, and an alarm started screeching.

He rushed to his feet. That was the intruder alarm. A cold chill ran down Rahal’s spine at the thought. Did some faction decide to take a risk and take them out while they were weak? That would be ridiculous! They still had the empress’s protection!

What kind of suicidal⁠—

“No,” he spat as a scowl set across his brow.

It had to be Nahar.

“That stupid mutt!” Rahal spat as he rushed out of the room.

He retrieved a staff from his storage ring. The gray, ghoulish wood was polished smooth across its length of slightly over a meter, and a large red gem rested atop the staff. While Kraven was temporarily weakened, they had been a powerful faction for a long time. The treasures and weapons they had acquired throughout the years put them a solid step above the average three-star faction.

The staff in his hand increased the potency of his abilities by a startling 16%—making it almost too powerful for his soul to handle.

As he rushed down the halls, he shouted commands at anyone who passed by.

Nahar would die that day—but even though his attack was suicidal, he was still an incredibly powerful archhuman. In fact, purely based on his power, he was far more capable than Rahal. By the time he was taken down, he could cause more damage than the clan could afford to take in these transient times. “That piece of⁠—”

“Patriarch!” A younger clansman with a broken arm came running from the other direction.

“Where is Nahar!?” Rahal spat, glaring death at the poor boy’s eyes.

“It’s not him!”

“What!?” Rahal’s steps slowed as a pang of terror shot down his spine. “Who is attacking us!?”

“It’s that man who used to work for Nahar!” the boy shouted. “He is slaughtering our clansmen!”

Rahal stared at the boy for a long moment, consternation crossing his eyes. “Shit…” he muttered.

There was only one way that man could have enough power to do this much damage—he had used a spirit ability to exchange his life for temporary power. If that was the case, their situation was dire. Depending on how much damage that young man did before he was taken out, Nahar would have the opportunity to practically cripple them if he joined the attack.

Rahal could not let that happen. “Where is he?”

The boy quickly answered, and Rahal bolted down the hallway, shouting commands at passersby and gathering a small army of followers behind him.

Within less than a minute, he reached the place the young man had described and saw a scene of carnage.

The bodies of numerous clansmen had been cleaved through, chopped into pieces. The heavily reinforced walls were severely damaged in a few spots, the hallway floor was drenched in blood up to the ankle, and among the dead, he even spotted a three-star elder.

This made no sense.

A spirit ability couldn’t explain this.

Something else was happening here. Something sinister.

He marched with his men, following the trail of blood until they reached an elevator door. The doors leading into the elevator had been pried open, with clear handprints still visible on the disfigured metal.

Rahal looked down the shaft and spotted a small bloody footprint landing where the elevator shaft turned to the side. “No…”

Why was that man heading towards their prisoners? Could he possibly…?

He leaped down the shaft, bouncing off the walls skillfully as he reached the turn. As soon as he landed, he saw the distant figure of Mark Afronte as he tore another entrance open with his bare hands and entered the prisoner block.

Rahal was stunned for a long moment. Not because of the impressive feat of strength the boy showed—but because he felt the boy’s power. He wasn’t a two-star. No, the boy was a three-star—nearly at the peak, at that.

The boy was at the same level of power as himself.

The crowd of people following him stopped as he raised a hand. “Elders, follow after me. You and you,” he said, pointing at a pair of two-star supports with the holy affinity. “You come with us. Everyone else, stay behind and guard the exit.”

They quickly headed into the prisoner block. As he passed through, walking over the corpses of slaughtered guards, his fears were confirmed—the entrance to the hidden compartment was compromised.

They slowed as they heard the sounds of slashing coupled with deep, resonating buzzing sounds. As they walked into the room, they spotted the young man trying to cleave through the protective glass with his sword.

Behind the large glass panel was the chamber where their special prisoners were kept secure. The mysterious man and woman were still restrained and hanging from the ceiling.

With pulsing flickers that flitted through the defensive barrier, Mark’s attacks were repelled, but not entirely; small cuts were accumulating over the glass, and given enough time, he would make it to the other side.

Rahal knew for a fact that the young man could sense their arrival. Yet, he kept slashing away, pretending that they weren’t even there.

“Mr. Afronte,” Rahal greeted him, stepping forward and keeping his voice level. “If you tell me what you’re doing here, I might consider not torturing your family for years before I take their lives.”

The man’s sword stopped; its tip lowered to the ground as Mark slowly turned around. As soon as he was facing their direction, the two supports inhaled sharply through their teeth when they spotted his eerie, square pupils.

Rahal’s eyes widened briefly, and despite his efforts to remain calm, a thin sheet of perspiration covered his back.

Mark’s mouth morphed into a wicked smile. “Fancy seeing you here.” He turned around with his whole body and swung the sword over his shoulder. “I take it you won’t let me release these guys before I kill you?”

Rahal’s eyes narrowed into slits. “And why are you—” Before he could finish his sentence, Mark threw his sword at impossible speed. It flew in a straight line.

The tip of the blade pierced through Rahal’s stomach, embedding itself all the way to the guard and just barely avoiding severing his spine.

Before anyone could muster a counterattack, Mark dashed forward at a bizarre speed, pulling his sword out and kicking Rahal in the chin, sending him flying up to the ceiling.

The supports didn’t have time to cast their buffs before their bodies were diced into chunks. The elders rushed to attack the man, but any projectiles they sent his way appeared to swerve around him, almost like magnets being repelled by the same pole. In the next moment, the elders were dead, too.

Rahal got a hold of himself mid-air and used a Blood Burst to send himself flying towards the other end of the room. The massive gash in his stomach hurt like hell, but he ignored it as he raised his staff and fired Blood Bolts at the enemy.

Mark didn’t move to dodge. The projectiles just swerved around his body, being pushed aside like snowflakes. “What!?” Rahal shouted as he panicked and activated all three stars, increasing his output fourfold and launching a massive, high-speed projectile at the young man.

This time, Mark dodged by bending backward. His knees were bent at a 90-degree angle, but he remained standing despite being way off balance.

Rahal’s projectile struck the wall on the other side of the room, melting the metal into a sizzling goop.

Before Rahal could process what he was seeing, something even more bizarre happened. Mark started floating. His whole body lifted into the air, and his figure slowly levitated towards Rahal.

The young man kept an easy smile on his face as he extracted a cloth from his ring to wipe the blood off his blade. “This stuff is pretty corrosive,” he said. “I’m gonna have to charge you for the damage to my sword.”

Rahal was no fool. He could tell what was happening here. Whatever this young man had done, it had put him at a level of power that he wasn’t qualified to face. With grim determination, he activated his spirit ability. It would cost him a whole star, but in return, it would⁠—

Before he could blink, Mark was standing right in front of him, and for some reason, Rahal’s body was falling to the ground. Once the pain finally reached his mind, he reeled at the sensation of all four of his limbs being severed at once. “Gaargh!” he shouted as his back impacted the ground. “Aaaaah—gggrrraaaah…!” he groaned in pain as he clenched his jaw.

He felt a whole star evaporate from his soul, and power filled his body—but to what end?

Mark grabbed him by the neck and lifted his body, bringing their faces close enough to kiss.

Rahal wanted to fight back. His pride sought any way to rebel—any method he could find that would at least let him survive. But that gaze…

In the square pupils of his killer’s face, he saw an abyss deeper than hell, darker than the void, and more sinister than the very concept of evil.

Within Mark’s eyes…

He saw death itself.

Mark stared at the pathetic, groveling form of his greatest enemy. Somewhere far in the back of his mind, he knew there would be consequences for his actions. He was aware of the danger and the risks; he knew that the power he wielded wasn’t free, but he smiled anyway.

There was so much he wanted to say to the man. The amount of anger he wanted to spill out was overflowing. Yet, rather than say anything, he simply pried the patriarch’s jaw open and started pulling his teeth out.

One by one.

He enjoyed watching the man’s willpower flicker like a candle in the wind. Every time those eyes showed defiance, he inflicted punishment. Before long, the man was crying like a pathetic worm, and Mark knew if he removed his hand from the man’s neck, he would hear him plead for his life.

He tightened his grip instead, crushing the man’s windpipe.

“Oops,” he muttered. With that, the patriarch’s eyes were already starting to dim. The fun was coming to an end. “Oh well,” he said as he dropped the man to the ground and crushed his head underfoot.

There was no time to play around. He had to hurry.

He quickly dug through the patriarch’s storage ring and found the key he remembered Nahar using to access restricted areas. Before long, he also found the keyhole, and a moment later, he entered the chamber.

There was a disgusting smell in the air.

With a few swift slashes, he freed his targets from their restraints and released them. The two were incredibly thin—most of their muscle tissue had atrophied due to the way they were imprisoned. They were covered in numerous wounds, but it was nothing debilitating. The Kraven had clearly tortured them, but they were spared any heavy injuries, likely as the clan was hoping to make use of them at some point in the future.

Naive bastards.

The man was the first to get up to his feet. “I thank you, young one, for your assistance. We were told you’d come here.” He rolled his shoulders and stretched a bit. “I haven’t moved in quite some time, so you’ll have to give me a few moments to regain my mobility.”

“No problem,” Mark said with a chuckle. “But do hurry if you can.”

The man nodded. “My name is Kaefalge, by the way,” he said. “I apologize for the late introduction.”

“Firrita,” the woman on the floor added. “And… I’d appreciate some help…”

“Sure thing,” Mark said as he helped the woman off the ground. “Oh, and I’m Mark Afronte. Nice to meet you two.”

He helped the two with removing all the smaller restraints, and once done, they plundered the bodies of the people Mark killed. There were some healing salves that helped the two prisoners recover slightly.

They slaughtered every member of the Kraven Clan that stood in their way, but they didn’t have the time to purge everyone.

On their way out, they visited the changing area for the Kraven militia. It was entirely empty, as most of the militia had already been disbanded. They all donned Kraven militia uniforms to avoid suspicion as much as possible.

Mark’s plans were… open-ended. Frankly, he had no idea what to do next. He had simultaneously committed a major war crime and violated the protection the empress extended over the Kraven Clan due to their demotion.

His… “patron” had told him the two he had liberated would know what to do.

So he asked them.

“We must leave this city,” Kaefalge said.

“Sorry for my language, but… no shit?” Mark spat. “Of course we do. But where do we go from there?”

“We will navigate through the Great Labyrinthe until we reach a safe harbor.”

Mark’s steps faltered. “Huh?”

“The interspace,” Firrita said. “That’s how they call it here, remember?”

“Ah, yes,” the man said.

Mark stopped. “That’s suicide.”

“Why would that be the case?” the man asked. “If you do not trust us, you can simply go your own way.”

Mark gritted his teeth. He’d be fine if it was just him, but what about his family?

His heart sped up, and he started to regret his choice. “Let’s leave this place first, then we’ll talk further, okay?”

The man shrugged. “That suits me just fine.”

They tried to look inconspicuous as they moved through the residential area. Their square eyes stood out quite a bit, but nobody had any reason to believe it was anything but a strange fashion statement.

The Kravens’ intruder system was entirely internal. They wanted to keep it a secret from the outside world if something like this ever happened precisely so that nobody could capitalize on a moment of vulnerability.

Within a few minutes, they reached his family residence. As soon as he knocked on the door, his father tore it open and shouted, “Where were you—” His words trailed off as he spotted Mark and the two strangers behind him. “What’s happening?”

“Call Mom and Sarah,” Mark said. “And come with me.”

“We’re not going anywhere until you⁠—”

“It’s a matter of life and death. Call Mom and Sarah immediately.”

His father swallowed and, with a stern glare, reluctantly listened to his son’s request.

Soon enough, the three square-eyed archhumans were being followed by a perplexed trio of civilians, and before long, they made their way over to the exit from the residential area.

Just as they stepped into the lobby, a voice called from the side, “What do we have here?”

Mark’s steps froze as he recognized the voice.

“He’s powerful,” Kaefalge whispered into Mark’s ear.

“I’m well aware of that,” Mark growled back as he turned around and smiled pleasantly at the man walking toward them. “Hello there, Mr. Maskaart! What can I do for you?”

What the hell is this bastard doing here…? Mark wondered.

He wore a colorful button-up shirt and gray shorts, with clapping sandals marking his every step. Basilisk’s snake-like eyes narrowed into slits as he grinned at them. “Oh, you know, business as usual. I heard your old boss had lost his job, so I was trying to find him and see if we could hash out a deal regarding a certain… issue he may or may not have.”

Mark gritted his teeth, failing to keep his frustration hidden.

Basilisk laughed. “What’s with the hostility? I’m not here to ruin your family’s… picnic.” A sly grin spread across his face. “Say, your eyes look a little different than I remember. And your soul tickles me just a bit harder now. How strange.”

“What do you want?” Mark spat, ready to pull his sword out if need be.

“Come on, you know I’m not that kind of guy!” he said as he stepped right before Mark. “I’m just curious about the situation you found yourself in. Just in case you did something like break into the Kraven compound and free the two mysterious prisoners that my informants told me the Kraven were hiding deep within their headquarters!” he blurted quickly. “Just an example.”

“What do you want?”

Basilisk grinned even wider. “That’s the wrong question to ask. I have a better one for you—what are you willing to give me? If you need my help getting away without finding yourself on the empire’s chopping block, now would be the time to ask.”

Mark froze at that. Rather than reject it outright, he prodded, “Depends on what you’ll ask for in return.”

“I think that’s something we should discuss behind closed doors, my boy. Follow me.” The man turned around and started walking away.

“Mark…” his mother whispered.

“Please,” he said, forcing a tight smile on his face. “I’ll tell you everything.” He stepped forward and gave his mother a hug. Once he released her, she glanced at his face, and a clear expression of terror flickered through her eyes at the sight of his bizarre pupils.

“Don’t worry,” he said. Then he turned to his sister and father. “I know you guys don’t see me the same way anymore. But I promise you, no matter what it takes, I’ll do anything to keep you guys safe.” His throat tightened.

“You coming?” Basilisk called from across the room.

“Yeah, wait a moment,” he said. “I’m sorry,” he told his family. He teared up slightly as his voice shivered. “Just don’t hate me, okay?”

He looked between his mother, father, and sister. None of them could meet his eyes.

But that was all right.

It would all be okay.

Whether they liked him or not, he would always be there for them.

He would do whatever it takes.

60

NAIVE LITTLE SHIT

Freddy was in debt.

Thus, it was easy to conclude that saving money was the right choice to make. Perhaps, at some point in the past, he’d have made that decision. He’d cheapen out on anything he could to ensure that his debt was cleared as soon as possible.

But on that day, he was a wiser man. He’d gotten a taste of earning thousands of dollars in just a single day. So, which was the right decision—let the money rot… or invest it to increase his profit?

He returned to his apartment, holding several large bags of equipment.

Not only were his savings of over half a million dollars gone, but he was 100,000 dollars deeper in debt, courtesy of a brand new loan.

During his time in the gorel realm, he’d learned many things. This was reflected quite aptly in his purchases.

A pretty large bulk of the money he’d spent was invested in only four pieces of equipment: the helmet, boots, metal vambraces, and a reinforced vest.

The helmet was smooth, almost resembling a motorcycle helmet. The visor was much wider than the one on his last headgear, giving him a more extensive field of view. The glass was made from a material that was quite effective at blocking blinding light-based attacks.

The boots were much bulkier than his previous ones, but he knew that he wouldn’t regret the extra protection.

Bracers were great, often comprising the first line of defense between him and a charging enemy. But they were usually made of thinner, lighter material. Their origin was that of a piece of equipment archers used to protect their arms from the bow string.

He needed more than that.

The metal vambraces he bought were damn bulky, adding quite a bit of weight to his upper arms, but they were tough enough to provide a much more valuable layer of protection against serious melee blows.

The reinforced vest was somewhat of an experimental piece. He often delved alone, and he didn’t have 360-degree vision. The vest he bought was heavily reinforced along the spine and heart areas, giving some extra protection to what could be called his only real weak spots in his torso.

The main thing that was different about this piece was the same as with the vambraces—it was bloody heavy. Fifty kilograms, to be exact. With his equipment and Abyssal Depths, Freddy’s total weight was well over 200 kilograms. While he could still claim to be mobile, he certainly wasn’t fast.

With the way he was going, speed would never be his strength. Rather than constantly trying to compensate, he wanted to make the most out of what he had.

He planned on becoming something of a tank—somewhat slow, incredibly sturdy, and packing one hell of a devastating ranged attack. With the added bonus of stealing people’s life force, of course. A vampire tank.

Other than that, he got a heat-resistant body suit, some permeable gloves that allowed blood through so he didn’t have to take them off or ruin them when forming Gore Knuckles, and a whole collection of pieces of underwear bought at quite the luxurious premium. Everything was camo—gray, black, and brown, mainly on the darker side. And everything was extra fire-resistant.

It took a few days for his equipment to be ready to use since he had to get it refitted, which also cost quite a bit of money, but now that he had everything, there was no more reason to stall.

After half an hour of pulling things on, tying straps, and securing buttons, he headed out toward his new place of work.

Three of the four new public hubs were suitable for his personal preferences. One banned him the moment he tried registering due to his criminal record, and another wasn’t accepting two-stars since it was aimed at beginners.

That left him with only one, somewhat unpleasant option.

As opposed to the gorel hub that used to be a short walk from where he lived, this realm was a 40-minute bus ride away. He was looking for accommodation somewhere closer, but for the time being, he didn’t mind the commute.

Once he was off the bus, he had another short walk to get there.

The hub building was quite similar to Santorio. In fact, most of these public passages were within similar buildings. Heavily reinforced metallic constructions were used to ensure that the damage could be minimized in the unlikely case of a break. They had been beefed up a bit after the… incident.

He stepped into the lobby, where he was greeted by a scene quite reminiscent of his first delve. Even the interior was similar, but rather than a scattering of couches, this hub used plush armchairs.

Dumb motherfuckers kept pointing fingers at his excessive gear, laughing and calling him names. Because they were so much cooler for not wearing a fucking helmet to a place where losing their head was a constant risk.

But such people were a minority here, thankfully. This realm was no joke. And the delvers reflected this. Naive fools were few and far between, with most people resting around looking quite a bit more experienced. Granted, nobody was wearing gear as heavy as his own, but they were still properly equipped.

Rather than a descent into a cellar, the passage of this realm was right behind a bend on the other side of the room. Rather than a massive entrance, the passage was the size of a tight door.

Freddy had to wait in line for around two minutes before being allowed to pass through.

And on the other side… Well, it was probably what hell looked like.

The first thing that hit him was the smell of smoke and sulfur.

Several hill-sized volcanoes were scattered throughout the realm, and rivers of lava flowed into massive lakes of fire. What solid land there was was overgrown by near-pitch-black vegetation. Everything seemed to have an oily surface. The ground was a depressing shade of gray bordering on black, and the “ceiling” of the realm was a reflective, uneven surface that evenly scattered the light throughout.

This place had no sky; to be technical, it didn’t have a ceiling, either. That reflective, uneven surface was nothing.

Quite literally.

Most people imagined nothing to be a black void. But for something to be black, it had to either be an empty space or a material that absorbed light.

Nothing couldn’t absorb light. Things couldn’t just “go nowhere.” Nothing wasn’t material. It wasn’t empty space. It wasn’t… anything. Nothing was indeed just nothing.

True nothingness appeared like a perfectly reflective surface. Everything, be it matter, light, or force, was simply reflected right back with 100 percent efficiency. And this nothingness was the true edge of every realm in the interspace. A naked look at the very border of existence.

Where there was nothing left to see.

Looking at the tall surface above made Freddy feel queasy. Knowing that nothing lay beyond the confines of a realm was one thing—seeing it was another altogether. It was a phenomenon that truly defied human comprehension. He settled on thinking about it as just a mirror instead and managed to temporarily stave off the searing existential dread that had built up in the back of his mind.

With a resigned step, he embarked on his journey throughout this hellscape of a realm. The main targets were these large white lizard things that mostly lived inside the lava but journeyed into the nearby woods to find something to eat. They were the size of a horse, but they could move at quite the speed due to an inborn talent.

The greasy woods had several types of monsters, the most notable being the giant, black, greasy snakes that fed on the lizards.

The snakes were a bit slippery—quite literally—but he found that one solid injury anywhere along their body was enough to mortally wound them. Or maybe that was just the incredible power behind his blows.

The lizards proved to be the trickier among the two opponents. They were damn fast on their feet, and as soon as they spotted even a hint of movement, they bolted right back into the lava and dove into it in an instant. Despite being deaf, sneaking up on them was quite hard—they had a large field of view and kept tight notice of their surroundings.

Freddy couldn’t kill a single one.

Thankfully, the massive snakes were considered the more challenging target for most delvers, and their bodies were comparatively more valuable.

Among the other monsters in the forest were frogs that spat acid and bat-like creatures with incredibly sharp teeth and claws. Both critters were almost worthless but could easily damage equipment, as Freddy learned the hard way.

Three snakes in a single day and all by himself was apparently quite the impressive haul, given the looks people gave him. It was no surprise, either—that was 14,000 dollars. The fee for delving here was only 20 percent compared to the nasty 50 percent fee at Santorio’s, but that wasn’t a huge surprise. This realm was rated at D+—suitable for either peak two-stars or competent parties.

While the deal seemed wonderful, the reality was a bit more complicated. The demerits were numerous, and few delvers would find it a practical place to make money. Hell, even Freddy had struggled to get that much done.

Those damn forest critters had done a number on his new gear. Eight thousand dollars of his earnings were gone on repair, just like that. Not to mention that the whole realm was so hot that Freddy would have died of heat stroke had he not frequently cast Create Water over himself to cool down.

While the heat-resistant equipment served him well, it wasn’t heat-immune.

With an incredibly hostile environment and annoying monsters, it was an excellent place to get injured or stuck perpetually working to get the damaged equipment repaired. While injuries were no issue for him, fixing his equipment would still be a significant tax on the total profits he made unless he found a way to deal with the critters.

Freddy still had a lot of stamina and essence in the tank, but that was enough work for the first day. He’d have to cycle Adaptive Water Body a bit to help deal with the heat fatigue. Besides, it’d do him no good to attract too much attention.

For the rest of that day, he read through the guide on the realm again. It was crazy how differently he perceived the text after seeing it for himself. So many small details that seemed irrelevant suddenly popped out, almost like the text was stabbing him in the eye.

He went about the rest of his evening as usual, eating, keeping himself clean, and working on his tempering.

The next day, he was up at 9 a.m.

He put his gear on and stepped outside.

A short bus ride later, he was at the hub.

As soon as he stepped inside, he noticed something slightly disconcerting—there was a group of four delvers he hadn’t seen the other day. All of them were geared up quite heavily, clad in almost as much protection as he was—but it was clearly of much higher value.

Three of them had nothing unusual about them, but their fourth member was massive, over two meters tall, with a frame Freddy could only compare to someone like Jacob Santorio, but a bit skinnier.

While it wasn’t that rare to see people wearing helmets, it was unusual that they were all wearing them inside the lobby. Their gear had no signs of maintenance—it was brand new.

And they were powerful. They all had a way to hide their gathering, so he couldn’t tell exactly how strong they were, but they most likely weren’t over two stars in power.

For a moment, he could swear he felt their attention on him, but in the next instant, it was gone, like they had never noticed him to begin with.

These people were strange. Bizarre, even.

The most likely explanation was that they were some sort of party of enforcers. The empire occasionally sent such people into hubs like these, usually if there was suspicious activity among the delvers. Given that it took being at least a little crazy to delve here, it was no surprise that someone was up to no good.

While their appearance was curious, Freddy had no further interest in them.

For that day, he headed towards one of the larger lakes of lava. It had a clearing surrounding it, and the number of lizards in the area was high. There were no other delvers there.

He made this place his target because, without the surrounding forest, there were no annoying critters to inflict damage on his armor. He’d have to rely on his javelin-throwing skills to hunt, but even if he only got a few, avoiding repair costs was worth it.

However, it wasn’t surprising that this spot was unpopular—the heat the lake emitted was insane. With temperatures like this, Freddy was considering developing some sort of ability specifically for cooling his armor.

He settled a bit away from the lizard beach and got to throwing. As soon as one lizard spotted the projectile, it rushed into the lava, immediately prompting all the other lizards to follow.

Thus, Freddy’s hunting regime consisted of throwing spears randomly and praying he hit something. While the lizards were fast, their bodies were large, so hitting them wasn’t impossible.

A few times, his prayers were answered. He landed four throws by sheer chance—even though he only killed three of the targets.

From what he knew of the pricing, that would add up to around 4,000 dollars total. While that didn’t seem like a lot—a thought he couldn’t believe he was actually considering—it was money earned with little essence spent and in relative safety.

When accounting for the repair cost, he had almost earned as much money as he had the day before. If he continued for another run like yesterday, even with armor repair, he should be 10,000 dollars richer.

He was at 154% essence remaining, but he’d spent 200% on water and around 50% on the javelins through his satellite. With the RETI of those affinities, he could continue delving further, but he had to keep an eye on the reflux water essence.

His blood reserves were low, though. There was only around 10% capacity remaining in his reserves. Once he finally got Pool of Blood to stage two, he shouldn’t be at risk of running out unless he wasted blood with reckless abandon.

Just as he was about to go collect the corpses, he heard a voice from behind him. “Hey!” someone shouted. “Do you have a moment?” The cadence of the voice was familiar, but it sounded muffled—almost modified through the helmet.

Freddy raised an eyebrow as he turned to face the three people approaching him. It was those people he had spotted in the lobby, minus the freakishly large guy. The one standing on the left held a shortbow, the one on the right carried a spear of pure metal, and the one in the middle—the man who was talking—had a shortsword sheathed on his hip.

“We’re new around here,” the man said as he stopped some ten meters away. “We were wondering if you have any suggestions for good hunting spots. Or maybe we could join up?”

Something about this situation didn’t sit right with Freddy. In the back of his mind, his instincts were screaming that something was wrong. The voice he thought sounded familiar, the missing man, the brand new gear, the fact that they were there—it all added up to something, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Suddenly, he heard a strange noise. It sounded like footsteps, and they quickly got closer to him. He turned around to face the sound, only to spot the massive man charging at him from a blind spot, and in the next moment, an arrow struck him in the stomach, although it barely pierced his vest. He jerked his head back to the other three, only to spot the archer preparing another arrow.

Before he could move out of the way or even react, the massive figure jumped and drop-kicked him toward the lake. The momentum behind the strike was incredible, and he felt his entire torso scream in agony as the surface of his skin cracked apart and the integrity of his armor fell into ruin.

His body flew over the lake’s surface, its heat so scalding he felt his skin boil, and just as he was about to fall into the lava, he activated both stars and used Create Water. The large ball of liquid caught him like a net in the air, slowing him down as the water washed over the scorching surface.

Thankfully, water created by essence couldn’t turn into steam, so he wasn’t in the center of an explosion, but unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly cold enough to handle the lava. Freddy’s body dropped on a fragile and ridiculously hot raft of sizzling obsidian, and while his body burned, his mind churned for any way out of his predicament.

“Holy shit,” Jacob cursed as he got off the floor. “That bastard is tough as nails. I expected him to break in two.”

Theodore’s eyes were locked on the flying form of Liam as he flew into the jaws of fiery death. It was time to drop the pretense—he was fucking ecstatic to see the asshole finally die. And it seemed that he wasn’t going down without a spectacle.

A large ball of water appeared in his path and caught him, slowing him and dropping him onto an obsidian platform. Theodore snickered at the attempt. All the man had achieved was to make his death even more painful. He was already a good thirty meters out—and even if he found a way back, he wasn’t making it past them.

Still, even though they didn’t need to do anything to finish him off, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t take pleasure in adding to the man’s suffering. “Grant,” he called the archer. “Give him hell.”

The archer nodded and took aim. He fired arrow after arrow, but Theodore could see that even with their respectable power, they weren’t sinking particularly deep. “Tough as nails, indeed,” he admitted.

Suddenly, he spotted movement to their side.

The corpses of the giant white lizards were leaking black liquid, likely their blood, and it was flowing through the air—right in Liam’s direction.

Theodore raised an eyebrow at the unusual sight. “Randy,” he called the spearman. “Disperse it.”

The air-affinity spearman nodded and raised a hand, using a simple Gale to try and disperse the blood. It didn’t work. As the black liquid broke into mist, it floated faster over to the grilling man, who was somehow gathering it into a large ball above him.

Grant fired away at the mass of blood, but nothing seemed to affect it.

A moment later, the ball of liquid started glowing, transforming into a crimson mist.

He had a bad feeling about it.

A moment later, that feeling turned into horror as the mist manifested in the form of a three-meter-tall skeleton drenched in blood.

“What the hell is that?” he muttered.

Considerable power radiated from the creature, so much, in fact, that they’d be in trouble if it was next to them.

“Keep firing,” he said.

The arrows flew at the creature, and while they were leaving visible marks on the bone, they weren’t powerful enough to break them apart.

Suddenly, the bloody monster grabbed Liam by the leg and lifted him into the air as if it were going to throw him.

Theodore’s mind spun as he tried to predict what the creature was doing. If it was throwing Liam at them, it was sending the man to his death. There had to be another⁠—

“The passage!” he screamed in terror, his eyes wide open. “We have to start running immediately!”

“What’s happening?” asked Jacob.

“Hurry the hell up!” insisted Theodore as he ran back towards the passage.

The other three quickly caught on to his meaning and joined the man.

That creature felt quite powerful. It no doubt had the strength to throw Liam all the way back to the realm’s entrance. And the man had just proven capable of manifesting a mass of water large enough to catch himself mid-air to prevent death from falling.

If he made it back there and into the hub, the four of them would be in deep shit. In the worst-case scenario, the adjudicators would get involved, and even with Jacob’s political clout, things could get ugly.

“Grant!” Theodore shouted. “Just… Fuck! Try and shoot him out of the air if he⁠—”

A nasty crunching sound interrupted his words. With pure disbelief, Theodore watched the man he was just talking to fly a few dozen meters forward under the impact of Liam’s flying body, who was also skittering across the ground.

As soon as Liam stopped rolling, he started getting back up to his feet.

Grant’s arms were bent the wrong way. He wasn’t moving.

Before Liam could get back up, Randy screamed in fury and dashed forward, aiming his spear to impale the bastard before he found his footing. But before the man’s weapon could land, another mass of water appeared around Liam—but this time, it was strange.

Slithering shapes shifted through the liquid, scurrying about and enshrouding its depths.

Randy couldn’t stop himself in time and dove head-first into the mass of liquid. A moment later, the dark water flowed away and evaporated, leaving the image of Randy’s body impaled upon spiky knuckles of blood. The spearman coughed as he tried to say something, but Liam grabbed his head and smashed it against his knee, crushing it like a can of soda.

Theodore and Jacob froze as they watched Liam throw Randy’s limp body aside like a wet rag doll.

It made no sense.

Liam’s armor was partly melted, with chunks of his metal vest that Jacob’s talent had crushed rattling inside the body suit. The two of them could smell the burned flesh, yet Liam stood as if his disfigured body was a moderate inconvenience.

“You bastards,” Liam said, his voice sounding distorted, likely due to the heat burns inside his throat from inhaling the scalding hot air from so close to the lava’s surface. “I know who you are,” he declared as he lifted a finger at them. “Jacob and Theodore, am I right? Now what the fuck did I do to you!?” he shouted to the best of his ability, but it sounded warped. “Huh!?”

“Jacob,” Theodore whispered. “I’m gonna Bless you. Take him out before anyone comes.”

To Theodore’s surprise, Liam seemed to have heard his words from that distance. He got into a stance and prepared to fight.

Freddy was not in a state to fight. His essence was at 76%, but that was the least of his problems.

The damage all across his body was terrible. So bad that if he wasn’t undead, he’d already be going into shock. The burns had healed a bit after he killed the two men, and the worst of it was scabbed over with the scar tissue created by first-aid-quality healing.

That was barely keeping him together.

“Master…” Bloodshed whispered in his mind, and he glanced at the distant form of the skeleton. “My time is up.”

That was short, but also to be expected given how little blood Freddy had used. Frankly, he was surprised at the power Bloodshed could show even with that bit of blood. The amount of blood seemed to have a more significant impact on its size and how long Bloodshed could remain than on its power.

But now it was gone.

And he was facing two opponents all by himself.

He watched Theodore step over to Jacob and deliver his promised Blessing. After doing so, he pointed a finger at Freddy and fired a practically undodgable beam of light. It did no damage, but it near-perfectly outlined the area on his body where he had suffered the worst of the burns.

“Son of a—” Before he could finish his curse, Jacob was sprinting at him.

Freddy readied himself into a stance and did his best to ignore the pain he was feeling.

Jacob was there within seconds, and Freddy launched his fist forward.

The man dodged the attack effortlessly, bending around and landing a nasty kick on Freddy’s burned hip. Yet again, the man’s attack seemed to have a strange effect on armor. The body suit was torn apart with ease, and even his bones felt like they were cracking into pieces.

The two of them engaged in a melee, with Jacob landing every blow and Freddy failing to do anything about it. On top of simply outclassing him in skill, Jacob was casting Shift Ground occasionally, disturbing Freddy’s footing and making him clumsily stumble around as he continued his onslaught.

Every now and then, Freddy saw something he remembered Sophia doing, but Jacob did it so much faster and so much harder that there was little Freddy could do to retaliate. When he thought the situation couldn’t get much worse, Theodore picked up the dead archer’s bow and started firing arrows. The man had no power to make the arrows count, but he knew just where to aim to distract Freddy even further.

I have to use Leviathan’s Fury, he thought—but he hesitated.

Jacob would die if he did that, but what then? Freddy would be left half-dead, and even against Theodore, he didn’t believe he could win a fight in that state. While the man was primarily a support, the light affinity could get dangerous if need be.

But did he have a choice?

A punch landed on the side of his helmet, cracking his visor. A kick landed on his knee, sending a sharp jolt of pain through his leg. Then a punch in the gut, another kick in his burn wounds, and another kick right in his chest, each strike leaving cracks through his body.

He felt helpless, as he had back when he’d been sparring with Sophia.

His eyes widened briefly as he remembered something she had told him⁠—

After landing another blow on his ear, Sophia shook her head and stepped back. “You really do suck at fighting.”

“Huh!?” Freddy shouted, picking at his left ear, where he struggled to hear anything. “Can you repeat that a bit louder?” He could hear her just fine with his other ear, of course, but he decided to be a prick just for the hell of it.

Sophia rolled her eyes. “This is not the time to be joking.”

“Then give me advice!” he yelled. “You’ve been yapping plenty, but I’ve yet to hear something useful!”

“I’ve given you plenty of pointers.”

“And I’m too dumb to follow!” he said, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, but I know you’re used to people who aren’t… you know… challenged when it comes to stuff like this. But I think it’s becoming obvious this isn’t working for me.”

Sophia scowled at that and, a few moments later, nodded. “You’re right.” She took a few steps forward and looked up at him with squinted eyes. “While it usually takes much longer to discern someone’s true nature, I’m rather confident you’re a Hateful.”

“I’m a what?”

“A Hateful. You have something my people call a ‘mind of hate.’”

He gave her a flat stare in response. Then he scoffed, “Aight. I already knew I’m a born hater—you didn’t have to beat the shit out of me to tell you that.”

“This goes deeper than just being prone to hatred,” she said, pointing at his face. “When it comes to fighting, even in sparring, you attack with passion, like you have a personal vendetta against the fact that I’m standing in your way.”

He frowned at that. “I didn’t really get to do much of anything.”

“Because I don’t let you,” she said. “When you attack, you don’t put any thought into it. A fight isn’t decided after a punch is thrown—it’s decided before that. To win a fight, you must know what your opponent intends to do and directly counter that move before they even make it. But with you, there’s no such thinking.”

“You expect me to, what, play fortune teller mid-fight?” He snorted.

She smiled at that. “People like you should never be close-combat fighters. There’s more to a fight than winning. Everyone who fights to the death has to walk away not only victorious but healthy.”

“Bah,” he said. “You know that’s not a problem for me.”

“I do; you don’t.”

Freddy paused for a long moment. He was about to say something, but he shut his mouth as he thought her words through.

“Look,” she said, smiling mockingly at the rusty gears turning in his head. “You don’t need precognition to guess what your opponent will do next. In fact, you have a natural advantage against skilled opponents.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

“Does it?” she asked, tapping her chin. “Think about it like this—if you know where it would hurt the most to get hit, that’s probably where you’re going to get hit next. A skilled opponent will aim for openings.”

“Yeah…” He nodded as he finally got it. “Huh. That actually makes sense. You know, I’ve had a similar thought, but any time I try to defend myself, you just hit me somewhere else.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t defend yourself.”

He scowled at that. “Huh?”

“Freddy, look—no matter what is done to you, you’ll live. So when someone aims where it’s gonna hurt—you hit where it’s gonna hurt harder.”

Jacob planted his feet into the soil as he swung a fist at Liam, landing a solid blow on the man’s stomach. Even injured as he was, the man was incompetent. Yet, despite his lack of skill, he had some of the most incredible defense Jacob had seen from a two-star, and the man apparently didn’t even have a defensive talent.

Suddenly, the man’s guard dropped on the injured side of his body. He was finally starting to lose steam. Jacob, purely by muscle memory, launched an attack straight at the opening, aiming to crush the man’s hip and end the fight.

Yet, at the same time—no, before Jacob even made his move—Liam was in the middle of throwing a punch.

Neither of them could dodge.

Jacob’s kick landed with a nasty crunch, and Liam’s spiked fist landed on Jacob’s helmet. Gore Knuckles pierced through the helmet with incredible power behind them, far more than Jacob expected to see from the man, and one of the broken spikes sank into his left eye. “Fuck!” he screamed.

The unexpected force threw him off balance, his head reeling from the blow. He took several large steps back to create distance between himself and his debilitated opponent. He refocused his sight and watched the man conjure a flimsy Blood Javelin.

He prepared himself to throw it, but rather than launching it at Jacob, he threw it at Theodore. The projectile struck the caster right in the knee.

So fast!?

Theodore’s knee exploded, nearly blowing his entire leg off. With a pained scream, the man dropped to the ground.

Liam conjured another spear and threw it at Jacob. The projectile flew at insane velocity, reaching Jacob just as he raised his hand to slap it aside. He managed to redirect the attack, but his hand felt numb from the impact.

This man is a freak!

Liam didn’t conjure any more projectiles. In fact, the man was obviously exhausted, with blood running down his armor and his posture drooping.

Jacob, carefully observing his opponent, started approaching. “You vile bastard,” he accused, conjuring a fireball and throwing it at the man. It was a distraction at best, but against a helpless target, it was still a ball of fiery agony.

Yet, even though he was on fire, Liam seemed to care little about it. A ball of water manifested above his head and flowed over his body, extinguishing the flame.

“I saw it,” Jacob said. “That whore by your side was one of them. I refuse to believe you didn’t know!” He raised his hand and fired a Stone Bullet, aiming at exposed flesh and tearing a chunk out.

Liam still didn’t show a reaction.

“You think this is some sort of sick game!?” Jacob shouted. “Do you even have any idea what kind of pain…? What kind of horrors those cultist bastards committed!?” he shouted as he fired one Stone Bullet after another. “Do you!? You and your ‘friends’ have extinguished so many innocent lives. Karen… Phillip…” His words were reduced to sobs. “Rachel… They deserved better. If it weren’t for sick bastards like you…”

“Sorry for interrupting you, man,” Liam croaked, “but what the fuck are you on about?”

Jacob snorted. “Playing dumb until the end, huh? You know what? Fuck you. I’m not a sick bastard like you. I’ll make your death quick.”

With both stars active, Jacob used Hydraulic Flex and dashed straight towards Liam, and just as he was about to land the killing blow, he heard Liam mutter something.

“Leviathan’s Fury.”

Theodore watched Liam’s body erupt into a forest of bony spikes. A moment later, Jacob’s body was trapped in the jaws of what looked like something between a dragon and a turtle. He muttered something through bloody coughs, and a moment later, the spikes retracted, dropping his dead, mangled body to the ground.

Theodore’s breathing was frantic. His knee was shattered entirely—it was impossible to heal it at his level.

After standing deathly still for a few moments, Freddy fell to his knees. The man’s entire body was covered in severe wounds, and blood was seeping through the cracks in his armor.

Whatever that skull was, it had taken both of them out. However, rather than lay down and die, Liam extracted a fleshy blob out of thin air and a hunting knife.

And he started stabbing.

Theodore was frozen in horror as he watched the numerous weak points across the man’s body slowly fade.

Panicked beyond the ability to reason, he unhesitantly cast Piercing Beam with both stars activated and aimed it at Liam’s head. Faster than the wounded man could dodge, a beam of light as thick as a grown man’s leg impacted his head, vaporizing the cracked helmet and melting his skin and flesh to the bone.

A grisly white skull with blood seeping through the charred eyes and flowing down from where the scalp started was all that was left of Liam’s face.

Yet… again… rather than drop dead…

The man raised the dagger.

And started swinging.

The sickening sounds of flesh being repeatedly torn sank into the background as Theodore watched, frozen in horror, as tissue rapidly grew back all across the man’s face. It looked scarred and raw, but with more and more slashes, it rapidly improved.

“Y-y-y… You fucking monster!” he shouted as he turned around and started crawling away. He clawed through the dirt for minutes, feeling his mind melt from the despair. And while he thought he was imagining them at first, he was eventually certain that footsteps were closing in on him.

“Oh god…!” Theodore cried. “Please… Please don’t kill me… Beatrice…! She’s sick! You’re gonna leave her all alone! She’ll die without me; please, have some heart!”

Then a foot landed on his shattered knee. He screamed, shouting wildly as Liam’s foot twisted.

“So… you fuckers think I’m one of the cultists, huh?” he said, lifting his foot only to bring it down on Theodore’s other knee, which he crushed with absolute ease. “You imbeciles think you’re so goddamn smart… What, the investigation wasn’t enough for you? Not even the best detectives in the empire can compare to you…”

“Please… I’m begging⁠—”

A foot crashed down right on the bottom of Theodore’s spine, just above his glutes, and a moment later, the feeling in his legs vanished. He screamed harder.

“Let me tell you something, Theodore,” Liam whispered as he violently pulled Theodore’s helmet off and grabbed him by the hair, lifting him off the ground. “You bastards are above the law. Had you killed me here, you would have walked away without even a slap on the wrist. Jacob’s daddy would ensure nobody looked too deep into my death, and you’d spend the rest of your life fucking your wife without imagining my face. But guess what?”

Liam turned Theodore around to come face-to-face with him. Through the burned hole in his helmet, an imperfectly healed face—the image of a monster—grinned widely at Theodore. “While you may be above the law, you are not above me. For the same reason you get to do whatever you want, I get to walk away alive.”

Theodore’s nostrils flared as he struggled to breathe. “Maniac! Help! Help me⁠—”

Liam’s hand wrapped around his mouth to shut him up. Slowly, step by step, Liam dragged Theodore’s thrashing form; they both knew where they were headed. Theodore couldn’t hold back his tears as he felt the heat behind his back.

One last time, Liam lifted him into the air. “You said your wife will die without you?” he said, snorting and then breaking into an unhinged laugh. “Nah.” He grinned maniacally. “She’ll move on by the end of the day.”

That was the last thing he heard before the world started spinning. It didn’t hurt as bad as he thought it would.

The pain spiked suddenly, and just as suddenly, it vanished as the darkness consumed the flames flickering through his eyes.

“Oh, shit!” Freddy jumped back as Theodore’s body exploded when subjected to the sudden spike of heat. Moments later, little jaws popped out of the lava and tore his body apart, eating it before it could cook past well done.

Soon enough, Jacob and… whoever the other two were… joined the man on his swim.

And Jacob’s ring was stashed away in Freddy’s pocket. It was about the same size as the one owned by those two cultists he’d killed—big enough for a few core items, but not any more than that.

“Well then,” Freddy said as he sighed and continued slashing away at the spark to heal the rest of the damage. “How fucked am I?”

It was the same old same old.

An unaffiliated two-star shmuck had no business defending himself against such an affluent young master and his goons.

Sitting at the shores of a lake of fire and angrily slashing away at the chunk of flesh, he couldn’t help but feel bitter. So bitter.

He remembered his expectations of living life as a fighter. Women, money, glory, anything he wanted—as long as he could prove himself, he’d be set to live his life exactly as he wished.

This dream was inspired by what those in power wanted those at the bottom to believe. “Work hard and fight harder…” he muttered.

Once healed, he got up and pulled almost everything out of his storage ring. He raised all the ethertech garbage high and threw it as far into the lake as possible. With that, his storage ring finally had some free space.

His mind lingered on the platinum card in the corner of his ring. He chuckled. That would have to wait, it seemed.

He took off the most damaged armor pieces and threw them into the lava.

With that, he turned around and left the realm as quickly as possible. He gathered what few valuables he had, sat on the first bus that didn’t require an ID, and bought himself a ticket.

He didn’t care where he was going. He just had to go far away.

Thinking about it, he had never actually seen someone at the third star at any of the hubs. That only meant one thing. By the third star, everyone was either affiliated, retired…

Or dead.

He had no intention of becoming either of those three things.

His plans were grander than that.

The bus started and moved forward through the traffic. It was the middle of a rather cold day, but the heating was turned off. The other people were mostly quiet, but there was a couple chatting away at the front. Slowly, the bus moved from one intersection to another, stopping and picking up more passengers as it went.

It was out of the city not long after, leaving the man-made horizon behind.

He leaned his head against the cold glass and took an even colder look back at the city.

He thought he could be different. He believed that minding his own business would be enough. It had always been enough.

Stay away from others, and you’ll stay away from trouble.

That still held true, and he knew it. What happened on that day was a consequence of his own decisions.

He thought back to the long days he spent in the interspace, far from people, far from all the stress.

Unfortunately, that was a false paradise.

Whether he retreated to the deepest corner of the interspace or the biggest city on New Earth, he was always an unlucky day away from death.

And he was done lying to himself.

Freddy Stern was a shallow person. He wanted wealth. He wanted power.

He had lived a life of envy directed at those who sat at the top, and the mere idea of running away just to die from boredom somewhere in a rural shack was an insult directed at the very core of his being.

But even when he tried keeping to himself, other people still got in his way.

This wasn’t going to be the last time.

Throughout all those years, he had really believed that he would be different. In a world of cruelty, where those in power could only be held back by a greater power, he had really believed that he could avoid playing by the rules. That he could avoid all of the darkness and live honestly in the light.

He shook his head and chuckled to himself, then covered his face in shame.

What a naive little shit he had been.

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