《Heavens Has Fallen》


 Chapter 1 Broken

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    1


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    "I want at least lolis there! That is the bare minimum!" Karl Gulden slammed his palm into a table in front of him, staring at an unblinking tall man with black hair and in a black suit that sat in front of him. When he had found out that he was able to choose his next reincarnation, he had tried to be a saint, a powerful wizard, an emperor, a famous porn actor, an angel, a demon king, an elvish pop star and many more, but all the positions had been unavailable for various reasons. He had heavily underestimated the competition and started glaring about for any other reincarnators that might pass by and snatch his position.


    There was so much competition it was unreasonable! He was getting truly desperate and what had seemed to be a golden opportunity was gradually turning into a nightmare where he would be forced into an even more pathetic role than he had on Earth, as impossible as it seemed when he appeared in the strange place between the worlds.


    "Your personal preference cannot be guaranteed. Please, refrain from further acts of violence or your reincarnation will be canceled." The suit informed him in a bland tone.


    "You have . . " Karl almost shouted, but suddenly lowered his voice and put his hand back on his lap sheepishly when he fully realized that the clerk was losing patience with him.


    "You have already denied almost all of my requests. If there is still some fantasy setting where I get to have unusual powers, I would prefer it to another mundane life." He continued in a much more amicable way, in fact, he stooped so low as to gaze at the clerk with puppy eyes full of desperation, not that he would admit it if anyone pointed it out.


    "There is an option fitting your parameters." The clerk pushed his glasses back into place with his forefinger and that was all he did. Karl still felt strange when he saw the clerk doing his work without using no apparent device or a screen. However, the statement filled him with hope and a faint smile appeared on his face.


    "They are quite high tech here in heaven or whatever bloody hole this is." Karl thought when he observed the motionless clerk. There was no touchpad or keyboard, the heaven''s employee was doing it all with his mind. The rest of their environment looked like a bank, because they presumably wanted to evoke a feeling of security in the passing souls. There did not seem to be any other customers except of him, maybe as a precaution if he wanted to strangle them to death, in case the institute of death even worked at the place.


    "Are you familiar with the concept of a dungeon?" The clerk asked and corrected his suit after a long time of searching in his database, as if readying for the next customer.


    "Yeah, pretty much. If I get some unusual powers on top, it will be fine with me." Karl smiled, it might be a little bit messy with all the trap building and tunneling, but he would certainly end up at the top if they sparkled his existence a little bit with special powers. Wealth, women and glory were waiting for him. There would certainly be a little issue with his new identity, but anything could be solved in some way with enough power and wealth. He knew the drill, in time he would surely be able to incarnate into some body and so on and so forth.


    "It will be as you say, unusual. Your reincarnation is set." The person in a black suit nodded and after a while of doing whatever he did with his eyes unfocused, he smiled and said to Karl his last sentence.


    "Good luck." And with that, Karl''s body dematerialized.


    Was it just a mirage or had he seen a hint of an evil smirk in the clerk''s eyes? It must have been his imagination.


    * * * *


    Karl''s consciousness slowly gathered into one place, a black gem that threatened to swallow the soul of anyone who stared at it for too long. An intense point of light immediately caught his attention and when he focused on it, he immediately recognized a local star. He decided to still call it the Sun because there should not be anything different about a huge ball of gas even if this world was not his unusualy mundane Earth. Strangely, he could look into the Sun without his eyes going blind and when he tore his attention away, he found out that the whole surface of the black gem served as his eyes.


    "This is a strange position." He saw a large patch of brown cloth that moved back and forth and obscured the vision on his right side. When he looked at the other side, he saw a lineup of people that seemed to be standing around him.


    "They have already rounded me up! This is unfair!" Panic gripped him. As a dungeon core, he was vulnerable and could not afford to be out in the open.


    "You liar! I want a refund! How am I supposed to beat them?!" He shouted, but the people had not reacted to his voice. He realized that he had not the ability to speak.


    "Hmph, Jin Feng, you are forcing my hand. If you don''t stop this foolishness, I will be forced to draw my blade." A voice stated clearly with an audible snort.


    "Wu Gunk, you are the one who is testing fate. I might end up being impolite if you do not change your tone!" A condescending voice that was awfully close to Karl answered and for a while almost all of Karl''s vision had been obstructed with what he had been able to identify as a sleeve that was in his opinion unnecessarily blown out of proportions, fluttering all around him as if someone was interested in all that flapping.


    "Tarnishing the noble family name of elder Gon, you are courting death Jin Feng!" Karl heard a steely sound, but did not see much because the sleeve was still flickering everywhere in front of his eyes. Despite his limited visual ability, a dread started creeping into his very soul.


    "Something is wrong! Damn, so wrong!" He had not even finished his evaluation of the scene, a pitiful outcry that no one heard anyway, before all his being spun in a twirling motion.


    "Damn, stop that! Dungeon cores are not supposed to move around!" Karl tried to get his faculties together again after the sudden movement. It seemed that his new identity was not very fond of movement which was only logical.


    "Wu Gon, my Thundering God''s Black Blade will teach you a lesson!" Karl heard a voice from behind and for the first time, he was both able to view everything around him and be still for a while to actually be able to perceive it.


    "That trash is not worth even a single coin, die Jin Feng." Aside from all the people who stood in a circle around him, a man that could not be described in any other way than beautiful, dressed in emerald green robe, began twirling his podao ready to attack Karl.


    "Wait bro, I did not do anything!" Karl only at this point fully accepted that his dungeon core that had the shape of a black gem was embedded in a cross guard of the Thundering God''s Black Blade that Jin Feng held in his hand, the second man to the dueling pair that was encircled by people holding all kinds of melee weapons, with stoic expressions on their faces. An intense feeling of cruel betrayal began boiling inside Karl.


    "I knew it the moment I saw the environment of a bank! They act respectable, but that is not at all the full story!" He wanted to close his eyes before the impact came, but was unable to figure out how.


    "Hmph," Another cold harrumph, this time deeper and somehow imbued with more weight sounded across the stone platform where the duel was about to take place and everyone stopped like frozen in ice.


    "It is Elder Gon!" Numerous whispers sounded around them and the strike that was about to hit Karl''s blade never came. The imposing Elder himself was nowhere to be seen, but no one seemed to be bothered by that little detail.


    "I am sorry, grandfather." Wu Gon clasped his hands together and bowed slightly in a direction that did not make sense at all and followed his action by slamming the butt of the podao against the ground.


    "Esteemed Elder Gon is right, you would surely badmouth me if I bested you with my superior weapon. Scrap that trash of yours that holds no soul power and pick a new weapon. Gon family will pay it in full." The narcissistic man in green pajamas said with his chin lifted high, Karl had no idea how he was able to deduce the meaning of Elder Gon''s message. Had the guy a headset hidden in his overly long green hair?


    "Wait, scrap? Scrap?!" Karld panicked immediately, when he remembered that particular word.


    "I will not accept any gifts from you Wu Gon, you will see that my talent can breach the difference in our weapons." Jin Feng, his bearer, retorted arrogantly.


    "Very well, I will bury the fake toothpick of a weapon together with your body." Wu Gon responded and Karl imagined himself stuck in a coffin.


    "No, no, no this cannot fly! Do I have some attributes? Character sheet? Status screen?" Luckily, one of the words worked and he saw a short neat text in front of him.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 1 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 10/s


    Spells- [Dig]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s]


    [Experience 0/100]


    Before he could think of anything else, a motion followed by an intense vibration disrupted his focus, reminding him again that dungeon cores were really not supposed to move. He felt like when he visited an amusement park while drunk and had the genius idea to enter one of the scariest looking contraptions there.


    "Can a dungeon core vomit?" It was the most coherent idea he had managed to produce during the movement of the two combatants. However, he knew that he had to do something to prevent himself from being scrapped or buried in a grave of some arrogant young master, because something was telling him that his wielder was not particularly honest about his talent.


    When he regained his faculties again, the tip of the sword he was embedded in was stuck in the dirt, its wielder was using it to prevent himself from falling down while coughing out blood onto the floor of the stone platform.


    Honestly, Karl did not know why, because he looked completely uninjured.


    "If that is the extent of your talent, you should not have been even admitted into the sect!" Wu Gon continued to gloat, when Karl decided to use his summoning ability.


    Out of the blue, a thick cloud of black smoke burst out of the black gem of the Thundering God''s Black Blade that housed his awareness and formed into two humanoid shapes. The shapes further solidified until there stood two skeletons with cold blue fire burning inside their empty eye sockets and rusty swords in their hands.


    Everyone gaped in surprise the moment the two unexpected participants of the fight appeared.


    "Jin Feng!" The voice form before that had to belong to Elder Gon thundered again in anger and Karl''s wielder clearly jolted. A figure of an old man with long white hair and beard suddenly flickered into existence near Karl and drew a sword that shone with brilliant blue-white light. In a single strike that reminded him of a dance, he destroyed both his skeletons in one fluid motion. After his motion stopped, the elder gazed at the trembling Jin Feng for a while.


    Well, the movement in Karl''s vision looked like just two frames of a badly recorded video, the beginning and the end.


    "Where did you get a cursed sword? It could not be produced in our Thunder God Sect!" The elder asked, but in response he received only confused stuttering of the accused. He flickered his long sleeves before he folded his hands behind his back and then turned at Wu Gon while folding his hands behind his back . . again.


    "Wait, b-but he just. .. .ah, afterimages." The dungeon core tried to shake its head with trepidation.


    "I do not know what happened Elder, it should be a cheap replica!" Jin Feng kept banging his head against the stone in an attempt to dodge all the blame.


    The pleas stretched for a good minute. Karl did not know if the elder enjoyed them or just did not know what to do and needed to mask his confusion with a long pause.


    "Find out its origin." The elder finally said while looking away into the countryside from the high stone platform.


    "Yes master!" The addressed disciple bowed swiftly and grabbed Jin Feng by his shoulder, dragging him along without even knowing where to go.


    The important part was that Karl was dragged along as well, away from the scary elderly pensioner that did not bother to adhere to the laws of physics, or common sense.


    However, his happiness was short lived.


    "Wait, am I going with them?" Karl looked at his faithful companion Jin Feng that seemed to be leaving him stuck in the ground next to the Elder that wrapped his finger carefully around the hilt of the sword he was a part of.


    Then, the elder made a step and all the world turned around Karl, his trouble with motion doing him no good added on top of the elder''s extraordinary movement abilities. When he finally regained his senses, he seemed to be locked in a room full of other weapons, many of which had strange shapes and glows that seemed really unhealthy.


    "Fine, fine, some puny secret vault or something yeah? Just you wait. Diggy, diggy, hole!!" Karl shouted, because no one could hear him anyway, so why not. He selected his dungeon ability called Dig and tried to use it at the floor. Immediately, a red text flashed in front of his eyes.


    WARNING! BUILDING A DUNGEON IN THIS WORLD HAS A HIGH CHANCE TO TRIGGER A HEAVENLY TRIBULATION!


    "What?!?" Karl stared at the warning, but was too unused to his new body and powers to be able to stop his intent.


    Crunch, crunch.


    A small piece of the wall next to him had been dug out


    WARNING! HEAVENLY TRIBULATION COMMENCING!


    "No, wait! It was a missclick, no missthought! Do not kill me Heavens, I do not want to defy anything!" His unheard excuses were futile as storm clouds began to gather above the building and churn with heavenly wrath, a web of lightning starting to appear in its midst.


    "This reincarnation was a total fiasco." Karl wanted to sigh, already giving up all hope.


    The clouds churned and rumbled some more, brightening the sky with passing lightning. Through a small window he saw the play of blue lightning that would blind anyone who dared to look at it directly, a mighty force that gathered for a crushing strike, its wrath accompanied by panicked shouts of people that were at the lower floors of the forbidden library. Many were hiding under desks and shelves when faced with the suddenly darkened sky.


    "Heavenly tribulation?!"


    "Is someone on the upper levels breaking through?"


    "What level is he breaking through? This tribulation is no joke!"


    "Run! We will all die!"


    Their voices were turning desperate with every passing second.


    "Does this building have a lightning rod?" The last thought before Karl would be turned into a piece of charcoal flashed through the black glistering gem.


    But that was it.


    Nothing.


    "EH?" Karl was confused, have the Heavens decided to give up? He had some level of knowledge of xinxia novels, but he was by no means an expert.


    "The heavenly tribulation appears to be not working." Karl thought about using the ability to dig again, but did not dare to test the Heavens now when he knew they did not like dungeons.


    "Fine, no digging, only dark magic, skeletons, curses, genocides and stuff, but no digging. I promise." Karl nodded in his mind.


    * * * *


    In a huge golden palace that was ten million miles wide, twenty million miles high and thirty million miles old, boggling the minds of all mortals who would just dare to entertain the thought of entertaining the thought of thinking about it, a huge door that usually took a year to fully open began opening.


    Naturally, it opened just a little bit ajar, because the Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens had his nerves near the breaking point every time it opened fully and no one wanted to risk it. The wise emperor had added to his name the zero point three mark to remind himself and all the others that being a Heavenly Emperor was not a simple matter.


    That far his wisdom reached.


    However secretly everyone knew that the true reason was that he thought that he ruled over more than just the Nine Heavens even though that was everything there was.


    "Your Excellency Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens! A calamity!" A crowd of people that was out of breath, all esteemed experts arrived before the emperor and kowtowed immediately. They had to heavily overuse their time and space domains to traverse the distance from the door to the emperor, an ordinary mortal would die of old age before traversing it.


    Every Heaven, the place of immortals, was marvelous indeed.


    "Hmph." The emperor harrumphed.


    "Of course emperor!" The leading figure with a long white beard affirmed despite having no clue about what the emperor meant.


    "But the heavenly tribulation machine is stuck!" Someone uttered over the shoulder of the leading expert.


    "What?! The heavenly tribulation machine is stuck?!" Emperor shook, shocked by the seriousness of the issue. Sweat appeared on his forehead just from the thought that they would have to do the tribulations themselves. Mortals were like locust, even if he counted only those defying heaven. He could not understand why it was so amusing that they were trying to do it all the time.


    "Mugh Mhmmm m mm !!!" A loud shout came from the direction of the door, but they had to wait until it was opened at least a little bit to understand the speaker''s words.


    "Tsk, tsss." The leading white bearded figure nudged an expert next to him with his elbow.


    "Ugh, of course!" The nudged man understood what they wanted of him.


    "The heavenly tribulation machine is stuck no longer!" He discerned the meaning of the words from karma and fate as no one wanted to wait two days until the door were opened wide enough.


    One might think that a group of experts of an unreachable level should have done it in the first place instead of bothering their emperor, but a mind of an ordinary mortal could not possibly comprehend their hidden motives.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "That is great, as a reward you will not be punished for disrupting my secluded meditation!" The emperor claimed and positioned himself in a way to cover the array of empty bottles that stood atop his golden throne. No one needed to know that the uncomfortable golden throne was being used as an open bar for his drinks and the emperor used cushions and beds for sitting when no one else was around.


    "Cut the bonus of the Heavenly Mechanics, they are doing a poor job. Now go!" The emperor gestured for them to leave.


    "Eh, actually. .. Of course emperor!" The leading expert remembered that they had blamed the nonexistent Heavenly Mechanics the last time and stopped himself from inquiring who that might be, simply bowing low and walking back to the door.


    Actually, they had broken the heavenly tribulation machine on purpose to visit and see how many bottles the emperor needed. Every time he ran out of bottles, the emperor went out to get more, something that usually turned into a disaster and had to be prevented at all costs.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden watched the terrible monster that covered nearly the whole third of his sight. Staring at the detail of its legs, he saw the serrated blades of the deadly horror and followed its every move with dread as it began to renew its efforts to entangle him in its web,


    "Ugh, I cannot move!" He panicked before realizing that it was his permanent state. "I have to do something!"


    The huge image in front of him froze, its pedipalps beginning to move in a motion reminding him of the legs of a fly, although much more sinister looking. He imagined its sharp instruments digging into his glass-like surface and panic gripped him.


    "My minions, defend me! Defend your master!" Karl summoned the two skeletons, which was really all that he could do and prayed that they would be able to get rid him of the terrifying monster.


    The two of his trusted slaves materialized, ready to dispatch the abominable creature, but the moment they appeared an alarm started ringing through the room that was lined with shelves, layers upon layers of them going from the floor to the very top of the high ceiling. He felt like he was a book in a book store, but only after omitting all the dread he felt at this moment.


    "Is it acting up again?" A familiar white bearded figure appeared and promptly destroyed the two skeletons with a single swing of his blade.


    Again. How many times had it been already? He had lost count.


    "You bully! My poor skellies! Hurry up and help, I am being harassed by this filthy thing!" Karl shouted pointlessly in despair while the elder stared at him cautiously.


    "I have been on my toes for weeks because of this demonic sword, but its activity turns our to be really. . ." He squinted and furrowed his eyebrows only to relax his face a second later.


    ". . .pathetic." He uttered the last word like it was a tiny sliver of vomit, tiny in volume but intense in quality. Karl felt a pang of pain in his heart and wanted to argue with the elder, but stopped midway when he realized that the elder was right.


    "I will take it to a less secure area, this forbidden zone is wasted on such a useless piece of junk." The elder took up the silently sobbing sword and brushed a spider off its black gemstone.


    "We should allow some servants into the forbidden areas to clean it here, all those flies and spiders here. Disgusting." Elder Gon murmured and carried Karl downstairs to an area that looked significantly more clean.


    "Even if it is a piece of junk, it can certainly surprise even an expert by its unusual summons." The Elder was in deep thought while carrying the sword down. Naturally, the forbidden library had nine floors, each floor holding more dangerous items and knowledge than the previous one. The elder descended down from the ninth level until he stopped at the second.


    "The second level should be alright even though the two randomly summoned skeletons are hopeless." The first level of the library held only trinkets and parlor tricks in his opinion, but considering that even he had once been on guard in front of the item, it deserved at least the second level.


    The Elder had no idea what had been the creator of the item thinking. The skeletons had no martial training at all and were as durable as an ordinary bone. Even the most lame of the outer disciples would be able to beat them with a subpar weapon. He placed the sword in a corner of one of the rooms on the second floor, chuckling inwardly when he saw countless eyes watching his action.


    "That is Elder Gon!"


    "He had brought here an item from the upper floors!"


    "Our luck is great today!"


    "There will be a huge bidding fight for that item!"


    "He is the second strongest Elder of our Thunder God Sect!"


    The long eyebrows of Elder Gon furrowed again when he heard the last one and he though about how to punish the impudent youngling.


    Evaluating their Elders? How dare they!


    Suddenly, he flickered one of his sleeves in the youth''s direction and the poor outer disciple got nearly a heart attack. He thought about following with a crushing cold harrumph, but decided against it when he saw the pale expression of his target, his hands and feet shaking with fright.


    "That should be enough." The Elder thought and mercifully vanished without further actions, the whole floor sighed with relieve.


    The pressure of Elder''s presence was really too much for the second floor of the forbidden library!


    By a miraculous stroke of fate, Jin Feng was also present among the startled disciples.


    "This might look like a miraculous stroke of fate, but this fap of fate will have no happy ending." Jin Feng, the indecent person that constantly gazed up to the sky, having not but contempt for the Heavens above uttered with disgust into the hem of his hood when he saw the sparkling eyes of his fellow disciples. He knew the sword''s powers and they were utterly underwhelming.


    Karl Gulden watched in horror all the attention and his only soothing thought was that the dreadful spider was gone. He was clear that he would be getting himself in trouble shortly and his only ticket out was to pretend to be completely useless.


    It should not be hard considering that it was not far from the truth.


    "This sword will be yours Jin Feng, I will buy it for you! Our duel will finish as it was supposed to finish the last time."


    "Really, what does this guy has with green color?" Karl noticed that aside from the speaker wearing an emerald robe like the last time, there were strands of green hair flowing down his shoulders that reflected light like fireflies, forcing him to wonder whether he was looking from a peculiar angle, or the person had applied some sort of glitter to his hair.


    It was clearly none other than Wu Gon, eager to conclude the unfinished duel that in his mind, he had already won the last time.


    "I am not interested in your pity or money of your grandfather, be gone pest." Jin Feng was as arrogant as ever, unwilling to submit to his adversary''s taunts and the two speakers began to gloat like two peacocks.


    "You are afraid! I know that you do not have resources nor reputation to afford any weapon. Repeat the duel against me and the weapon will be yours even if you lose, something that is obviously inevitable." Wu Gon began trashing his emerald sleeves around, gesticulating wildly.


    "Hmph!" Jin Feng tried to imitate Elder Gon''s esteemed reaction, but he had overdid it with spit pressure and the two closest disciples to him were now gazing at him murderously, their long sleeves stained with Jin Feng''s spit and snot.


    "How unsightly!" Wu Gon flickered his sleeves expertly again and Jin Feng began to realize that the situation would end badly for him if he could not get away from the forbidden library.


    "I will win against a golden spoon like you easily. Buy me the sword!" Jin Feng said seriously, something that was hard to do with a ton of spit on his mouth, but he gracefully ignored it.


    "It is yours. I will give you two weeks to prepare." Wu Gon picked up the sword and Karl''s senses blurred again. The thrown blade was caught by Jin Feng who tried to save his face with his last biting remark.


    "You need to wait for your grandfather''s monthly doting to buy your victory, I see. Unfortunately for you, a great difference in skill cannot be overturned by trinkets." Jin Feng claimed pompously before quickly leaving the floor, in order to prevent Wu Gon from responding. It was hard to argue with him after the last beating.


    When lying through your teeth, it is the best to silence the other party! That was something that Jin Feng had learned a long time ago.


    Meanwhile, Karl in his hand was trying to remember the contents of their dispute. It was of no consequence to him as long as he would not get scrapped. The greatest boon was that he was no longer under the watch of the library''s enchantments and spell formations. He would be finally able to do some real experiments.


    While he tried to fight against the dizziness that his movement caused, he had been put into a scabbard and even though his surroundings was still too blurred to make any sense of it, he was able to somehow get a grip of his faculties. His mind began to slowly turn despite his movement, considering his situation.


    Undoubtedly, survival was his first priority and he had to be in control at least of some of his powers to facilitate that. Based on his identity, he was supposed to grow bigger to defend himself, building and digging, luring his greedy victims into their doom. However, thanks to the unusual settings of his reincarnation he was unable to behave like an ordinary dungeon core and build up his domain unless he wanted to face a very scary heavenly tribulation.


    "Like hell I can face that stuff that nearly kills even the most heaven defying characters with cheat-like powers." Karl though and only a single option in his mind remained. It should not matter how his targets met their end and he still had his two trusty skeletons.


    He remembered the conversation between his current owner and his rival, it seemed he had full two weeks before the duel happened. Until then, not much should happen and he would have time to do some basic power up.


    "It is high time to leave this pile of dung behind." Jin Feng took out a small leather sack and loosened its string. When he looked at what was inside, a wide grin appeared on his face and from his angle Karl could only guess that the contents that caused his mood shift was definitely gold or other currency that this world used. Jin Feng moved his hand up and down, feeling the weight of his spoils and his grin transformed into a brilliant smile.


    "I have finally taught those filthy cultivators a lesson, I will return everything they have stolen from the ordinary people back to us! You think that when you practice cultivation you can rob farmers as you please? I will rob you back!"Jin Feng jogged along a narrow dirt path that was used mainly by servants until he reached a simple entrance made of wood. He passed through as if he had done it a thousand times, despite not being a servant, and disappeared in the woods outside of the sect with the wondering Karl swinging at his hip.


    "What? He.. . he is a thief! I have been kidnapped! I mean, stolen!" He realized that Jin Feng was probably a former servant that had decided to improve his pay by stealing, pretending to be a new disciple. There were some details that were not adding up, especially why the Elder had not recognized him as a simple commoner, but Karl was sure that the truth would reveal itself shortly.


    * * * *


    1.3


    * * * *


    "You should stop playing games with toads."


    "But grandfather! I must teach that arrogant failure a lesson. I will not fail you and surely beat him up easily like the last time! "


    An old man watched his descendant for a while as if waiting for a realization to down upon his younger blood, but ended up shaking his head with disbelief.


    "Grandfather, do you really . .ugh." Suddenly, Elder Gon knocked lightly on the table in front of him and his grandson had to press his hands against his ears in a futile attempt to block the unnatural sound that threatened to melt his brain.


    "Enough! I obviously expect you to punish that pitiful creature, but you should have recognized long ago that he is just a mere weed mixed among the flowers." The Elder gave a barely observable nod, underlining the hidden meaning contained in his words.


    "Ah, of course grandfather, of course. He is just a weed." The hunched young man in front of the Elder massaged his ear lobes.


    "A simple weed." The white haired elder repeated while nodding again, shifting the weight of his body to his right ass cheek. The cushion under him gave a peculiar noise while the icon of cultivation paused in contemplation. The Elder had never been a fan of long posturing despite the latest trend. His behind got sore too easily and he had frankly no time for pointless loitering.


    "Grandfather, by that you mean?" The bowed head lifted up and looked at the Elder, a question written all over its face.


    "A mere stump in our forest." The Elder kindly elaborated.


    "Yes, yes, a stump" The question mark in his face had not disappeared.


    "A dried sump, devoid of all what makes it a tree." The Elder pulled lightly at his beard, observing his clueless disciple.


    "Do you mean?!" Despite all the clues the elder kindly provided, the man dressed in green was not much closer to the truth.


    "The man had not embarked on the path of cultivation at all! He is not even at the first level of Mojo Condensation Stage!" The thin, white beard was nearly pulled off of the old man''s face with anger when he saw that his disciple was far less bright than he had expected.


    "Preposterous! I will deal with him immediately!" The figure veiled in green bowed while walking backwards, toward the exit of the Elder''s chambers. The elder lifted his chin in sinister silence, waiting until his descendant disappeared and he could put aside the few strands of his beard he had accidentally torn off.


    * * * *


    Karl tried to steady his thoughts while he was swinging back and forth, strapped to the belt of his owner, or rather possessor, as he had clearly stolen him from the Thunder God Sect. The conman could die the next second as far as he was concerned, but he was still unsure about his tiny body''s sturdiness. He was surely not indestructible and any serious incident might result in his untimely shattering, meaning death.


    A pulse of energy flared up, when Karl thought about summoning his two skellies and taking care of his bearer, but it faded into nothing the moment he realized that his servants were probably not as strong as he would like based on his previous experience. He did not like becoming passive, but it was probably natural to a degree, given his identity.


    "Damn, this is too much." Karl turned his attention up to the Jin Feng''s chin and tried to dodge a drop formed of sweat that flew in his direction, but he was, of course, inevitably stationary as always and the drop missed him by an inch only by sheer luck.


    "Uch, ogh. Argh." He contemplated if the thief had not been injured during his flight, but it was most likely just a decent amount of fat that turned into lead when taken into account the beautiful mountainous terrain around them.


    "I can''t, can¡§t carry this any longer. A pity." Jin Feng stopped while propping his knees with his hands, a leather sack slamming against the ground, the crushed shrubberies telling Karl all that he needed to know about its weight.


    "Screw bronze, I am taking just silver, gold, soul shards and other truly valuable stuff from now on." The sword bearer said in between his labored breaths while he righted himself back up to continue his journey down the mountain.


    "Out of breath during a walk down the mountain? Pitiful, he will be dead in a few days in a cultivation world." Karl complained while thinking to what degree this world shared similarities with the classic xinxia literature. So far, it looked exactly how he had imagined it, except that walking through the mountains was boringly slow even despite his wielder''s clear urgency of traversing the terrain with haste. It seemed that the region was not safe for the likes of him.


    "Pffff pffff." A cold blooded muffled sound of air violently escaping a horse''s tender parts grabbed the attention of both Jin Feng and Karl. They turned their heads immediately only to see three figures emerging from behind a large, aged tree, the middle one trying to mask the strangeness of the sound he had just made by wildly gesticulating and imitating a hearty, Santa Clause-like laugh.


    "Ho Ho Ho! Isn''t this a lone disciple of the Thunder God Sect? Your luck is really bad today, for you have met the Three Tree Flying Heavenly Blades of Eternal Death hailing from the famous Gelu Sect!" The middle man with long black hair dressed in a black robe with green geometrical patterns spoke while slowly drawing out his sword, as if trying to scare them by the simple fact of drawing it.


    "I will be merciless with your life, your only hope of survival is to throw your expensive looking weapon to my men here and fall down while kissing my feet if you want to preserve your worm-like existence!" His eyebrows knitted into a frown and he immediately continued, his sword already half-way out of its scabbard.


    "Or face the wrath of the mig . . .ugh." Everyone froze solid at the sight of Jin Feng hurling his sword aside while launching himself at his target with his lips extended forward in a ravenous hunger for a brief, wet touch.


    "Disgusting! Get away!" The former Santa kept trying to avoid the pursuing mouth, his legs moving rapidly in a peculiar tribal-like dance.


    "Stop it at once or I will kill you ten thousand times!" Finally, the man managed to jump far enough to escape the kissing frenzy and stared at Jin Feng with an incredulous expression.


    "Have the Thunder God Sect''s disciples no shame? This is the new low for your pitiful organization!" The leader breathed wildly with clear relieve that he had managed to escape in time before his legs were stained with tons of saliva.


    "No." Jin Feng shamelessly answered, petrifying his audience.


    Finally, after a few seconds of being frozen motionless, the leader produced another horse-like noise in an imitation of a true cold harrumph and turned around, leaving the robbed Jin Feng with haste. Although he had managed to steal a sword from him, he felt his pride might be stolen in return if he dared to linger yet another second with the shameless disciple of the rivaling sect.


    * * * *


    "Useless." Jin Feng felt the shape of a shoe imprint itself into his behind and he immediately fell flat onto his face from his crawling position. The same shoe pressed him down into the dirt and he could glimpse its green, polished surface.


    "Stop it!" He protested with his mouth full of dirt, but a gloating voice immediately rebuked him without any intention to release the downward pressure.


    "Truly pathetic, how am I to gain any honor by defeating a loser that is licking the feet of every lowly bandit that lurks along the road? Tell me, how?" Jin Feng recognized the voice and managed to turn his neck enough to see the ever emerald presence of Wu Gon, the man was shocked to the point he had completely forgotten to frown, whirl around with his long, emerald sleeves or do any other multitude of quirks that he considered to look cool.


    "And do not even look at my feet!" Wu Gon shouted suddenly and jumped a few meters back, looking at the person in front of him with disgust. He only continued to speak after he made sure that Jin Feng was not moving towards him, but continued to lie down in the dirt.


    "Incompetent." A sound of steel sounded next to Jin Feng''s ear, the weapon that had just been stolen was dropped next to him by Wu Gon.


    "No, this will not stand, I cannot have my revenge like this. You need to man up first, we will whip you up into shape. I refuse to take revenge on someone crawling in the dirt in front of every lowlife he meets!" Wu Gon continued in his complaints, this was certainly not how he had imagined his glorious revenge.


    He should have fought a duel and was supposed to have blood of his enemy on his weapon, not spit on his feet! Nor should he need to hunt bandits to retrieve his rival''s weapon! At some point in time, he had thought about Jin Feng as his rival and based on everything he saw in the sect, it should have followed that pattern, but the situation continued to evolve into a strange form of a disgrace.


    "I see, you are just a dirty thief after all. Expecting anything of you was a mistake. You cannot do anything, anything. Only talk." The disdain in Wu Gon''s eyes slowly began to vanish as if Jin Feng faded out of the existence.


    "You stinky thieving bunch and your honor. You have none! Everything you own you steal from the people you claim to protect!" Jin Feng seemed to have enough and completely broke his act. He suddenly stood straight and tore of his sect''s closing, leaving him only in the undergarments.


    "You are thieving trash yourselves. Who built all your tall fences and mighty halls? Brought stones for your statues and searched for your gold that you can put on your ugly mugs later?! We, the ordinary people did all that!" He pointed his finger accusingly at Wu Gon with a sudden confidence that shocked the other party.


    "Ungrateful dog! After all the protection we provide, you dare to bark back?!" Wu Gon made a step forth and readied his podao with killing intent.


    However, Jin Feng did not back down like the norm for his caste dictated and shouted instead, his voice filled with hatred.


    "Protection?" He spat the word out of his mouth with disgust. "You mean to say extortion, right?! Go on, kill me, warmongering parasite."


    At this point, Wu Gon was shaking with rage and lifted his weapon to deliver the final blow. Jin Feng simply stood there and stared at him without blinking as if some mental disease had robbed him of all fear. The rays of sun reflected on the blade of the podao that lifted high above their heads and the birds stopped singing for a moment, as if watching the spectacle that was to come.


    The blade never fell.


    Both men froze in their place when they heard an immense explosion that colored the horizon behind them red. Instinctively turning their heads, it looked like a volcano erupted at the exact same spot where the center of the sect was.


    "Impossible." Wu Gon exhaled slowly, not wanting to believe his eyes. Even from their distance, they could guess the unprecedented level of destruction that was taking place at the spot where he had grown up. Buildings burned and pillars fell and the sounds of battle that broke out could be heard all the way. These were no ordinary battles, Wu Gon could swear that he had seen the signature move of his grandfather, an emerald green giant sword to dance among the all consuming flames. To his horror, it did not take long before the giant illusory sword disappeared. Outmatched. Overwhelmed.


    "Grandpa!!" Wu Gon roared and wanted to run back to the sect, when he was forced to dodge a stream of red hot flame that nearly burned his hair.


    "Grandpa, grandpa! How heartrending, I might cry!" Venomous words reached their ears, as a tall man in red and black clothes appeared.


    "The Cult of Mezzaiel!" The young disciple of the Thunder God Sect uttered in fear as he made a few steps backwards. The attacker acted as a professional and immediately launched a sneak attack without any further introduction, wielding a sword and a dagger both enveloped in unnatural flames.


    "Demonic cults can never win in this part of the world! Be gone or die!" Wu Gon shouted as if he wanted to encourage himself while he whirled his weapon in wide strikes in order to ward off the flames, not wanting to get too close to them. He was not able to keep up with the quick combination of a sword and a dagger when pointed at a particular point of his defense, but was able to make up for it with extra movement.


    At least for a time.


    "We can still harvest fat ducks like the Thunder God Sect and disappear. That sounds like a victory to me. You are nothing in front of the power of the demonic path. Haven''t you seen all the big flashy moves of your sect Elders disappear?" The last words made Wu Gon lose a part of his focus and the demonic cultivator quickly exploited it with an aggressive charge.


    Wu Gon had to admit that the weapon mastery of his enemy was better than his own and he was about to get stabbed by the dagger, after the demonic cultivator''s sword got his weapon out of the way, but unexpectedly, the enemy jumped to the side and distanced himself from Wu Gon as if stung by a wasp.


    Only now could Wu Gon see a figure hidden behind his enemy''s back, holding firmly the sword with a black gem embedded into it.


    "I have to admit your friend here is quite the sneaky one, he almost got me."The man in black and red smirked while weighting his options.


    "I will gut him first, he is too inexperienced." Both fiery weapons launched a fierce attack at Jin Feng who had no hope to defend against the vicious and experienced opponent.


    "I am your opponent!" Wu Gon thundered and jumped in between the two just in the nick of time, fending the attack in a desperate flurry of green sword light.


    The fight continued, two against one, it was more balanced than when it began. If Jin Feng committed fully to the fight, he would have been surely quickly dispatched by the demonic cultivator, but he held back and interfered only in critical moments, annoying the cultist greatly.


    "Die, fake trash!" The swordsman roared and enveloped himself in demonic fire. His eyes turned bloodshot and he hurled himself at Wu Gon in a mad onslaught of unprecedented intensity. It was clear that the defense of the erratically moving podao would crumble any second and Jin Feng hurried to help his pressured ally.


    That was exactly what the demonic cultivator was waiting for.


    "It''s a trap!" Wu Gon shouted, but it was too late.


    The moment Jin Feng moved closer, the cultist turned around and jumped at him fiercely with his both weapons held high, as if he had eyes on the back of his head. For that moment Karl regained his vision, as Jin Feng held his sword steady with both hands to counter the powerful downswing that would come.


    Like in a movie, Karl watched the fiery blades collide with his own. From the first seat, he could see his cheap blade to shatter and allow the fire and steel to plunge into the chest of Jin Feng. It was only natural, as Karl had always been a part of the sword, the purpose of which was more decorative than anything else with its big black gem just for show.


    "Die!" The demonic cultivator heard an angry roar from behind and an evil smirk distorted his lips, as Karl could clearly see from his position directly facing him.


    "Don''t!" Karl shouted, but as always, no one heard him.


    Wu Gon was guided by rage that was quickly used against him, as the cultist let go of his dagger, side stepped and deflected the blade of Wu Gon''s weapon that pierced right through the belly of Jin Feng on top of his already mortal wound. At the same time, the demonic cultivator used Wu Gon''s shock to stab his sword deep into his side. The fiery blade moved up through his body, searing all organs, destroying even the tough body of a cultivator.


    Karl watched in a daze as the light in the eyes of Wu Gon and Jin Feng slowly faded at the same time. However, he swore that he could see a faint smile on Jin Feng''s lips during his last moments as he stared at his unexpected comrade in arms.


    His consciousness blurred as the three of them fell to the ground, only to return immediately after with the vile cultivator no longer around. Karl was between the two bodies and thought about if he could have aided the dead duo in any way, but he knew that the two skeletons that he had were just for show and the demonic cultivator could hardly be tricked into running away.


    He was lying there and though about how to live on in such a world.


    As a useless broken sword.

 Chapter 2 Burial

    Skeletal feet stepped onto a burned piece of wood, crushing it underneath. It was an eerie sight, but there was no one to see them, a pair of white skeletons wandering among the burning ruins of the once great sect. Two feeble demonic existences painting the scenery of destruction into the scene of a perfect hell. Strangely, one of the skeletons wielded a broken blade with a large gem, a piece of art that would rather fit into a museum than a battlefield if whole and preserved.


    However, the blade was dirty and broken, looking bleak, the same as the mood of the one residing inside its black gem.


    The skeletons suddenly stopped, when they saw two fingers extending from underneath a nearby ruin, one of the fingers still twitching. The blade wielding skeleton quickly moved closer and found the neck that belonged to the pair of fingers, a neck covered with white beard. Without hesitation, the skeleton reached out and slid the throat of the unlucky survivor and Karl watched the numbers in front of him change.


    He had decided to use the disaster of the Thunder God Sect to fuel his growth, as the people here were beyond saving.


    They all had some sort of black energy swirling underneath their skin, Karl''s guess was that it was a measure that the demonic cult had left behind to silence all witnesses and the only reason he was not affected was frankly that he was not a human, or even a living being. He had quickly decided to use the opportunity to level up his strength, however grim and inconsiderate to the dying survivors it was.


    He had enough of being a decorative blade, a blade that broke when it needed to hold. He had still not found his purpose in the foreign land, but he knew for sure that he wanted to hold, not to break, the second time he needed to stand firm.


    "That should be the last one." Karl looked around, but it was not of much use due to dense smoke that would cause any living and breathing existence some level of discomfort, but for Karl, it was a good camouflage.


    With a sigh, he looked at his status to see what had changed during his last few victims. There was no tutorial or explanation and he was left on his own to figure out how everything worked.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Ghost(Soul) 5/s], [Demonic Wolf(Fire) 5/s], [Vengeful Ghost(Lightning) 50/s]


    [Experience 86/1000]


    First, he completely ignored the new [Build] option. There was a possibility that the heavens would judge that building was not as dungeony as digging, but he decided not to gamble when there was no real need for it. Who would trust the finicky Heavens?


    Definitely not him!


    "Huh, the count finally moved, it stayed the same after the previous few kills." He looked at the number eighty six. the main problem was that only some of the sect members increased it. When he was still at level one, the numbers flew as if even sky was not the limit, but the pace slowed to a crawl as soon as he had hit the level two. Obviously, the experience gain was relative to his level and level ones did not count anymore.


    He was carried around for a while and when he looked at his status again, he was surprised by a sudden change.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Ghost(Soul) 5/s], [Vengeful Ghost(Lightning) 50/s], [Zombie(Ash) 50/s]


    [Experience 86/1000]


    "What the . . ? Do not tell me that it is not fixed!" He ordered his skeletons to walk back and the missing entry had resurfaced when he entered the area from before where a large pagoda that used to be the library was still being consumed by the flames.


    "And the zombie is gone." Karl turned yet again and by running back and forth he was able to verify a simple truth. It seemed that what he was able to summon was local and was even related in some way to his immediate environment. He had even managed to find the exact corpse that kept giving him the option to summon [Zombie(Ash) 50/s].


    "Whatever, I have to try out new summons, let''s have a tournament!" He laughed quietly inside of his black gemstone and summoned the zombie into existence.


    The corpse that was the source of the summoning option began to stir and creepily stood up when he used his [Zombie(Ash) 50/s] option. The zombie looked nothing special, except its dark complexion and bits of black ash that kept falling off of it.


    It was obvious that he would not be able to summon another one, as the resource for the summoning ritual was already exhausted. Not that he was even able due to the upkeep cost of the summon. Karl considered how many opponents he should create, knowing that a summon with ten times more mana upkeep cost would surely destroy a single skeleton in seconds.


    "Let''s start with a warmup, three level one skeletons versus one level two zombie." There was no doubt in Karl''s mind that the zombie would win, as it was fifty mana against fifteen. Based on that same logic he immediately considered the zombie a level higher than the skeletons.


    Slowly, three skeletons emerged from the ground. It was off that they did not seem to consume any resources, they were probably so low tier that there was no need to consume any resource as long as there was a place with a thick aura of death.


    "Skeletons against a zombie. Contestants, get ready!" Karl shouted inside of his black gem, imagining a colosseum-like arena around them with a cheering mob that thirsted for blood. Well, only ash and bones in this case.


    "Fight!" Karl gave them a mental order simultaneously and watched the three skeletons swiftly creaking towards the zombie that was moaning forward.


    "My skellies will be owned so hard, I need to show them support. You can do it! Use your swords! Go for the head!" He began rooting for the skeletons and watched with bated breath as the competitors got into each others melee range.


    The skeletons used their rusty swords. The first leading one swung its sword and scored a precise hit into the zombie''s head. However, its weapon got stuck. The second skeleton managed to penetrate the zombie''s stomach, but the zombie failed to notice it and continued attacking. The third skeleton had been pushed to the side by the second, but refused to cancel its attack, skewering the zombies thigh. It was not discouraged by the detail that its sword skewered the thigh though the rib cage of the second skeleton, that became stuck.


    The zombie nonchalantly slapped the first skeleton''s skull and two teeth flew out of its jaw. The skeleton soon suffered a second hit that was even harder and its jaw broke. As if angered, the skeleton with broken jaw gripped its rusty sword with both hands and began to shake it violently in an urge to do something. At that point, the zombie gave the first skeleton a third slap and its jaw flew away.


    The first skeleton''s eyes flickered and the urgency of its pulls intensified. Interestingly and disgustingly, that fact turned the second skeleton''s sword into a saw that moved constantly back and forth and had already turned the zombie''s stomach into a mush due to the repeated movement.


    Karl watched in awe when the zombie probably used its ability and suddenly vomited a cloud of ash at its three adversaries that did absolutely nothing aside from turning them pitch black. As if enraged due to its ability not doing a thing, the zombie slapped mightily and the skull of the first skeleton finally flew off and its bones collapsed onto the second and third skeleton that were slightly below it, still working on the stomach. Due to the weight of the three skeletons that were collapsing in a pile of bones, while two of them were still functioning, the force acting on the rusty sword going through the zombie''s stomach reached a critical point and something snapped.


    "What in the world?" Karl watched in terror as the zombie had its spine damaged and collapsed along with the skeletons, unable to move its legs anymore.


    "They are continuing on the ground! It''s like an MMA fight!" He immediately expected some of the fighters try to use jiu-jitsu, but what was used instead was the insidious skeleton rib cage shield technique where the third skeleton unscrupulously continued to stab the zombie''s head and body, not even bothering to take its sword out of the rib cage of the second one that kept receiving the retaliating strikes of the crippled zombie.


    Teeth, bones and jaws flew, bodily liquid''s squelched and when everything ended, there was only the third skeleton alive in the pile of disgusting remains.


    "Skeletons win? What?! Why is the zombie this useless? Expensive and useless!" Karl could not believe that the team skeletons won.


    He repeated the tournament multiple times with other corpses suitable for zombie summoning, but the zombie won only once when it had managed to score a lucky hit at the start. In all the other cases, the trio of skeletons was victorious. Karl Gulden felt like after digesting a pill without any water to wash it down his throat. It was clear that he would not be able to follow the path of finding the most expensive summon and steamrolling everything with it.


    "Was it because of the attributes, types, or what those things in brackets are? Does (Ash) suck against (Death) ?" He had no idea, but as he walked around to try his luck with a rare summon, there was suddenly an option that made him stop the skeleton that carried him and stare in despair, stupefied what he read in his status information.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Ghost(Soul) 5/s], [Skeleton(Melancholy) 5/s], [Ghost(Brick) 5/s]


    [Experience 86/1000]


    "No, what screwed up cultivation world is this?! What is the attribute (Brick) supposed to mean? And (Melancholy) is not much better!" Karl was devastated. He thought that he was starting to see a pattern and would be able to decipher the local cultivation system, but something seemed to had gone terribly wrong in here.


    He immediately decided to uncover the mystery of this Ghost of Bricks, but after trying it out, it looked and behaved the same as the other ghost with the more mainstream attribute. He was about to fall into a serious melancholic state himself, when he lost his faculties because the skeleton that carried him was obliterated, the broken sword in its hand flying into the forest, making Karl want to puke.


    * * * *


    "You have said that you reached an enlightenment and needed to cultivate immediately. It does not look like it." An old man with a white beard was looking at a young man in front of him that was breathing in an unusual posture. It reminded Karl of his dog that was once too horny and decided that a simple tuft of grass would do the trick.


    "I-I thought. . .I am confused teacher. At this point, I do not think that I understand what the enlightenment even is and what it is for!" The youth breathed in quick and shallow breaths, as the posture prevented any other kinds of breathing, complaining to the elderly man about his lack of understanding.


    An understanding that he should possess based on the older man''s stern face.


    Karl that was stuck in the ground nearby had to forcefully push the image of his dog out of his mind, as the breathing only served to remind him more of its deed.


    "I still do not get it, why are we doing this? Why should I even try to trap my soul inside, if it is already in me! It makes no sense." The youth broke his meditative posture and gazed up, giving up the strange exercise.


    "It does. Look, It is very simple, as simple as this water." His teacher stood up and looked into the pond next to them, waving his hand slowly.


    "Have you seen the man waving at you?" The old man smirked at his student.


    "You mean you?" The confused student frowned and folded his arms on his chest.


    "No, the man in the pond waved at you, alright?"


    "But that is you!" The youth threw up his arms, not the wiser about the sudden antics of his mentor.


    "I am standing right here, or am I in the pond?" He suddenly gestured rudely at the pond and his reflection in turn repeated the gesture, directing it at the young man next to him.


    "Hey!"


    "See? For your eyes there is no difference between me and the reflection in the pond, but you can search the pond however you like and you will never find me there, because I am not there!"


    "It is the same with souls. Your body is just the water surface. The soul is not inside, even though it manifests through you. Death is just a state where the water surface is muddy and is no longer able to reflect the picture and thus, the soul has to find another clear water surface to manifest. " The man threw a handful of grass into the pond disturbing the water surface along with the reflected image on it.


    "To reach true immortality, you have to build a vessel for your soul and trap it inside your body, that is the core idea of our cultivation." He furrowed his brows for a second, mumbling hastily under his breath. "Well there was another approach, to create a permanent water surface, an eternal body without any soul, but that path never led to anything meaningless. The source of eternity is the soul, no other substance can withstand infinity."


    "Where I was? Ah . . with Mojo Condensation, you have to find all the aspects needed to build the vessel, a true body for the soul. You can imagine it as if you were searching for materials to construct my body to replace its reflection."


    "Then, in Mojo Purification stage, you have to refine what you found, to make a brick out of clay and fire."


    "Those who succeed can finally build the vessel in the Mojo Crystallization stage and use it to lure and trap the soul inside during the Soul Binding stage. "


    "Heck, what am I talking about, you will never reach that stage anyway."


    "Is that the final stage or. . .?"


    "Almost, but it has nothing to do with you, at least yet. You are still a seedling Mojo Condensation Stage cultivator." The old man stated and looked at his student who did not appeared to be amused by the just explained process.


    "Perhaps, is there a quicker path to follow?" The young man asked with hesitation, it was in the human nature to follow the easiest path.


    "Of course there is the demonic path, but you surely do not want to be taught that path to immortality, do you?" The teacher asked and his question felt like a sharp blade being drawn. His disciple began shaking his head vigorously, his breath taken away by the sudden, extreme reaction of his otherwise calm teacher.


    "The demonic path requires massacres by definition and you would do wise not to follow it, as I would have to personally kill you then." He added and looked at the horizon, as if briefly remembering something that happened a long time ago.


    "Enough talk, lets go have something to eat." The whole lesson was concluded and both men were moving away in the direction where the forest was not as dense.


    However, the teacher''s peace was interrupted for the last time before their voices got out of reach and Karl managed to catch the last interesting piece of the debate.


    "Teacher, please one last question!" The voice jumped a pitch, as if the student had stumbled upon the most intriguing problem in the universe.


    "Mmm, but the last one." The calm teacher''s voice responded with resignation.


    "It is all wrong! The true immortality should be at the beginning when the soul never dies, it cannot be damaged when it just projects itself in the pond, like the reflection of your body!" Karl''s eyes widened and he began to suspect that the student was actually smarter than him, which was ridiculous, as he would have probably never asked such a question.


    "You are a piece of work!" The old man laughed and his white beard and hair fluttered in the wind. "The thing is, when you reach true equilibrium power is meaningless, cultivation is meaningless, you do not need to even start."


    "Then why we . . .?!" The youth was startled and Karl''s brain wanted to explode.


    "Will." The old man interrupted him. "Want or not to want? The path you describe is the path of those who do not want, who do not will, who will merge with the environment into oblivion with no identity. The path to nothingness that leads to becoming nothing and thus everything. " The elderly person took a breath before continuing.


    "Those on the path to nothingness will not be seen on this world much, as it is their goal not to be. Those on the path of stagnant mortality will be forever lowly mortals, as it is their goal to be the stagnant mortals and those on the path of cultivation that want to grab their soul, its reality determining power in their hands, will grab it as it is their goal. Three paths that all are immortality, you have to choose which one suits you the best." A sagely silence followed, being interrupted only by the wheels of Karl''s brain turning rapidly.


    "And now be quiet brat, my head hurts from your yapping." The old man''s voice barked and that were the last words Karl heard.


    A bewildered broken sword stuck in the ground watched the pair of cultivators running away through the forest until they disappeared for good. They were probably the same ones that had destroyed his skeleton sword bearer.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Karl though about what the elder said, but determined that he certainly did not want to became nothing, or eternally pathetic and he probably would not be able to become a cultivator either. The only logical option was to forge his own path of immortality, as the old man said, all the paths were immortality anyways.


    "Holy Molly! I have submerged myself into this spiritual nonsense too much! Let''s keep my feet on the ground!" Karl would have shook his head if he had one, trying to clear his thoughts


    "Screw immortality, all I want is to make this a good, non-pathetic experience." Karl clearly formulated his goal and it seemed quite reasonable.


    "So POWER is my answer! Non-pathetic means power!" He elaborated more, but for some reason it did not feel that reasonable anymore.


    However, the logic held and he refused to change his conclusion.


    "That means no zombies. Wait! Do I have a clue about those bracketed attributes?!" He thought about it and arrived at the conclusion that it might be the Mojo they talked about.


    "Mojo is probably the stuff the vessel is made of and a soul can be imprisoned with it. Ash Mojo can create a vessel for Ash souls and so forth. It is weird, I need to see more application to verify it."


    He concluded that the most important for him was information and he needed people to gather it. However, as ageless it was definitely wise to take it slow and not storm into the first mob he encountered.


    * * * *


    "Lilgendrienbombiel, the purple flowers of death that always grew on the graves of my ancestors now grow on the grave of my son." A whisper escaped the lips of a women veiled in black silk that stared at her ancestral tomb. It was a magnificent structure with multiple graves inside and a row of detailed statues in front of it. One of the statues was equipped by the hilt of a sword with a black gem that was sheathed in a beautifully decorated scabbard. The statues were not just a simple stone, but were decorated, armed and colored and looked almost like a lifelike copy of the ancestors entombed underground. The women wore a purple robe underneath the black silk. However, Karl could sense an unnatural tension in her movements, not fitting her mourning image.


    "Herrmause will pay for this, this I swear on the Heav. . .. " A robust hand covered the woman''s mouth, interrupting her words.


    "Don''t be silly Yen, throwing around promises to Heavens will bring us only misfortune!" A man that stood next to the veiled woman scolded his wife even during her time of mourning.


    "They will pay! They will! You act as if you were not even his father, but we both know that Herrmause family sold everyone, sabotaging all formations right before the attack!" The woman whispered with venom on her tongue and hate in her eyes.


    "You don''t know that and you certainly cannot prove it! Why would they sabotage their own family? Be silent, silly woman, internal strife is the last thing we need!" The man tried to scold her again, but she just coldly turned her head to look at him and he nearly stepped back away from her when he saw the murder in her eyes.


    "I will prove it." She turned while tearing her hand from his arm, the unusual sight attracting the attention of other visitors of the family tomb. The veiled woman was quickly walking out of the graveyard, but did not forget to glare at a man in a green robe when she was passing by him.


    Karl watched it all and started to suspect that his idea to easily mingle into society by replacing the sheathed sword of a tomb statue with himself was not the greatest. Although the big family tomb in the center of a city graveyard was quite a frequented place, the mood was starting to get on his nerves.


    "I will prove mother right. I will show everyone that Mu Gon von Herrmause was the traitor that caused the raid on brother''s sect to succeed!" Another whisper of a young man in a purple robe sounded and Karl was the only one who heard it. The teeth grinding man was staring at the person dressed in green the woman called Yen had just glared at before exiting the graveyard.


    "Oh my, this world is starting to get really nuts." Karl shook in his scabbard a little and looked around again, finding out numerous lightning motives present on the tomb. "Is this guy related to the one I know? It certainly looks like it, Mu Gon and Wu Gon sound similar." Still, it was possible Karl was mistaken, confused by the unfamiliar names around him.


    Although listening to the family turmoil was inconsequential, as he was just a simple sword and the mourning mob would go away and another day would greet him with pieces of conversations, information that he would be able to puzzle together into a whole picture one day.


    "Hey, where are you going? What are you doing man? Do not touch me! Sexual harassment! He is touching my rod, eh, hilt! Help!" Karl was surprised when the man who had just whispered under his breath stepped closer to the statue he was a part of and placed the palm of his hand on the pommel of his broken self.


    "Grandfather, by your own blade, I will spill blood of the one who conspired to kill my brother, your grandchild. " The man took off his hood and from under its purple hem emerged eyes and hair of the same color. Karl was starting to suspect that it was no accident and the color themes were in some way related to the attributes that he had just discovered.


    "I swear to the highest ruler of the Heavens that by this blade, I will slay the one, the plots and schemes of whom led to the death of my only brother! I will not rest until my vengeance is complete and this sword drinks blood in full! " He uttered seriously and Karl could see that a thin web of lightning flashed above them briefly, as if to acknowledge the promise.


    The man stood there, looking into the eyes of the statue of his ancestor and when the last mourners were leaving, with their eyes averted from the tomb, he gripped the hilt harder and drew the sword that hung at the waist of his grandfather''s statue, only to stumble a few steps back in shock.


    "It is broken! It cannot be!" Dumbfounded, the cultivator stared at the broken sword and his face distorted with rage.


    "It is a counterfeit! Someone stole the grandfather''s sword!" He wanted to throw the sword away, but stopped himself when a thick ominous aura descended onto the graveyard and Karl felt as if they were gazed upon by a peeping pervert. A peeping pervert that happened to possess divine powers.


    "Damn! Alright, let it be that way! It will be only fitting for the murderer to die by this cheap, broken counterfeit!" The vengeful family member realized how wise his father''s words were. Throwing away the broken sword would mean directly offending those he could absolutely not afford to offend. He should have thought about it more before giving the oath.


    "No matter, he will perish. I, Zhan Gon von Kotzchen will spill his blood tonight!" He flickered his sleeve and the short blade vanished, hidden beneath his cloak.


    * * * *


    Mu Gon swiftly followed the road, constantly looking back, trying to ensure that no one was following him. Although he was dressed as a mourning person, he had to strain his muscles to suppress laughter. His facial muscles were tense and his green eyes were sparkling gleefully.


    His hated brother, Wu Gon, was dead and he was about to get paid for his grim job.


    "Are you still the favorite of the elders even in hell, dear brother? I do not think so." He muttered, remembering all the shame he had to suffer because of his kin. Wu Gon was the firstborn, always ahead of him, always the best. It was to the point he had been sent away from the sect to study alchemy, as his performance in tournaments and progress in cultivation was extremely underwhelming compared to his brother.


    He hated them all, his Gon von Herrmause main branch family was a bunch of hypocrites. He had not hesitated for long when an opportunity presented itself to sell them all. With all the gold he would receive as a bonus to the initial payment, he would be able to leave the backwater region and buy himself the most expensive elixirs to boost his cultivation and strengthen his body.


    No! He hated cultivation anyway, it would be better to just buy a mansion and live off the gold for the rest of his life, surrounded by women and luxury. No more grueling exercises and needless pursuits of immortality that he would not reach anyway, as the chance to became a true immortal was extremely low. He had enough hard work for ten lifetimes, with no reward but spit for it.


    "They say that hard work pays off, but that applies only for the free people, not ones embedded in a system based on exploitation." He snorted while taking the last turn before reaching his small house with no servants, the level he had fallen to due to his underwhelming performance in cultivation. He was still at the start of the Mojo Condensation Stage, with no clue about what he needed for his vessel.


    The problem with the first stage was, that the base material for the vessel could be anything, literally anything.


    Mu Gon barged into his home and glanced briefly at the corner, where a bucket full of water stood. Water was his only clue for his ascension. The usual process for beginner cultivators was to search for Idols, objects, places or even people that were connected to their Mojo. Gathering all the idols meant the end of the Mojo Condensation phase and the start of the Mojo Purification stage, where the Idols were further scrutinized by the cultivator to find out in what way they contained their Mojo.


    Every Idol represented a riddle that needed to be solved to finish the Mojo Purification stage and enter the Mojo Crystallization stage, where the cultivator used the Purified Idols to build the vessel for his soul out of them. The number of Idols needed was not fixed and depended on the specific soul itself.


    Naturally, this was a textbook approach, some cultivators began the purification process without all the Idols and some even tried to build the vessel with some missing, the most crazy ones proceeded with building their soul vessels with incomplete impure Idols and the peak of all madness was to try and bind souls to such vessels. The most crazy demonic cultivators were using random impure Idols to trap the souls of others in incomplete vessels, usually creating immortal Abominations.


    In general, all paths that involved using souls of other people were called demonic paths and were widely despised in all civilized world, as the demonic paths led to multiple serious problems that directly caused the collapse of society. Skipping stages and incomplete cultivation was frowned upon as well, as it was considered just a step away from continuing with more shortcuts that ultimately led to the demonic path.


    "Enough nonsense, let''s wait for the meeting." Mu Gon averted his gaze from the bucket, seated himself behind a simple wooden table and waited for his contact from the cult to arrive with his bonus. The next morning, he would be far away, the cultivation world forgotten and not needed anymore as he would have enough gold to start a new life of a mortal businessman or a noble.


    And soon, the door really opened and a figure veiled in dark robe entered his simple house.


    "I began to think that your organization might go back on its word. It is good to see you." Mu Gon smiled while watching the person in front of him close the door that led to the dark city streets. Without uttering a single word, the dark silhouette moved closer to the table and reached into the hem of the black robe. The hand in leather glove appeared again, holding a big leather purse tightened at its top with a string. Still without a single word, the person untied the string a reached above the table in Mu Gon''s direction.


    Mu Gon held his breath, as he expected the hand to turn over and empty the gold inside onto the table, the payment he had waited for half a day had finally been delivered to him.


    "Your payment." A strangely familiar voice sounded and before Mu Gon could do anything, the hand quickly moved in his direction, emptying the contents of the purse. A could of sickly green dust enveloped Mu Gon before he was able to react and send him falling to the ground, convulsing and coughing after inhaling the poisonous substance.


    "Mu Gon von Herrmause, our family always pays debts in full." The black robe fell to the floor, revealing the purple robe underneath and a broken sword appeared in the assassin''s hand. The victim attempted to stand up and defend his life, but it was of no use. Soon, a deep, thin line appeared across Mu Gon''s throat and in addition to the poisonous gas, he began to choke on his own blood.


    "This is for my brother, as promised." The assassin looked at the stained blade and glanced at the ceiling, as if trying to peer at the blocked sky above.


    "Rest in peace." The assassin''s head bent down again to look at the still convulsing body that was quickly losing all life and chuckled. "Not you, you shall suffer some more."


    Zhan Gon von Kotzchen sat slowly on the chair near him and observed the last moments of the rat that caused the fall of the main family. He was a little bit happy that his Gon von Kotzchen branch was now the main family, but the turmoil had still cost his brother his life, as he had been studying with the Herrmause family at that time, becoming a collateral damage to the Mu Gon''s spiteful plot.


    The desperate noises of his victim were less and less audible, drowning the room in an eerie feeling of death.


    "I do not need this junk anymore, the oath is void now." He smirked, looking at the dead man in front of him and threw the broken sword at top of the corpse.


    However, to his horror the ominous presence from before descended again and he was forced to jump up and retrieve the sword as fast as he could, as he felt a serious Heavenly Tribulation on its way to tell him what the Heavens thought about his oath being fulfilled.


    "What?! But I have killed the perpetrator! I.. . " Zhan stood there with the bloodied hilt in hand again, confused. He frantically started to recall the exact wording of his oath.


    "By this blade, I will slay the one, the plots and schemes of whom led to the death of my only brother. I will not rest until my vengeance is complete and this sword drinks blood in full." He worded the oath again and dread gripped his heart.


    "Impossible! Stupid! Stupid!" He covered his face in his hands when he realized his grave error. Mu Gon was naturally only a pawn, the plots and schemes that led to his brother''s death probably originated from the leader of The Cult of Mezzaiel, someone he could not hope to defeat.


    He had sworn to kill such a person with a fancy broken blade.


    Shaken by the bleak future he had brought upon himself by his foolishness, Zhan Gon ignored the gurgling corpse that struggled for air with its last vestiges of life and tumbled out of the door. He was not interested in the pathetic sounds of his brother''s murderer, as the sweetness of his victory soured thought and thought due to his grave mistake.


    * * * *


    "Pffff" Karl Gulden tried to blew with all his lung capacity, thus zero, as he watched a drop of blood traveling slowly along his surface that was about to drop to to the ground, but ended up dried on his surface instead, blocking his vision.


    "Go down! Gravity powers activate! Get out of my face! Stupid droplet!" He raged while trying to suppress his urge to clear his eyes with the finger he obviously no longer had. It was infuriating.


    "My skellies, assemble!" He urged his trusted servants into existence, but it did not work. He continued to lie near the side of a sleeping man without anything happening. He swiftly opened his status and found out the reason his skeletons were not listening to him was that he was unable to summon them, his current bearer was most likely resting at an unusually peaceful place.


    "Fine! This one will have to do." He willed a ball of fluffy white into existence that his system titled [White Rabbit(Fur) 5/s]. It was certainly a useless fighter, but it should be able to clear his vision.


    The furry ball hopped closer to him and on his command, began eagerly rub his surface with its head and paws.


    "Aaaaagh. That is it! More to the side buddy, work for that mana upkeep, rub me some more, rub me. . .eh."


    "Ehm, that sounded weird." Karl paused while enduring the fluffiness of his summon and started thinking about what he had found out in recent days. He got some limited insight into the cultivation process, but failed to see anything from the city they had been in, because his owner kept him under his clothes all the time, as he was technically a stolen item.


    "I need to see that city to deduce more about this world. This poor guy is heading to his doom anyway, I should help him out a bit and prolong his life."


    The air near him distorted and an unimpressive stray dog, code named [Dog(Wood) 5/s], appeared next to him. The dog was mediocre by all standards and had black and brown fur with unusually long tongue that was hanging out of his mouth. It sneaked closer to Karl and grabbed his hilt with its teeth gently and before the sleeping man on the ground could wake up due to the disturbance, he had already vanished in the forest surrounding the city.


    It was morning when Karl saw the city gates. He rested in his dog''s maw, disguised as a piece of wood, a process that took his skellies a whole hour to finish. After all, skeletons could be summoned almost anywhere and the places where he could not summon them were rare. Still, the black gem of the sword had to be visible and Karl did not plan to go promenading at a main square.


    "Let''s unleash the power of observation!" Karl Gulden chuckled inwardly, it was pleasant to feel no pain, hunger, thirst or other discomfort other than tons of saliva being smeared everywhere on his surface. He had all the time in the world and he planned to use it.


    With this mindset, Karl loitered near the main road leading into the city, observing what was happening on the toad. It was a cobblestone road that had some traffic since early rays of the Sun fell on its moist surface. There were people in carriages, on foot, merchants ferrying goods and some small squad of soldiers marching somewhere. It looked like an outskirts of a prosperous city during middle ages before guns were invented if he ignored the robed cultivators that were mixed in randomly into the populace.


    "That is weird. The cultivators do not seem to have that much of a status." Karl noticed that ordinary people were stepping aside when they saw a cultivator, but it was not to the point he had seen in the sect. It appeared as if the cultivators were minding their business, not daring to cause trouble, a complete opposite to what he had seen in the Thunder God Sect.


    When he peeked through the windows of some passing carriages, he had occasionally seen a robed cultivator, but it was not always, some of the occupants were clearly ordinary mortals and their carriages looked no less opulent than the ones cultivators possessed.


    "This is really strange, I will have to look into this deeper later on." Karl mused while ordering his dog to carry him towards the city gate, as there was nothing more that he could gain by observing the busy road.


    "Farms! This is perfect!" Karl saw that the forest gave way to fields that had farmers laboring on them from the first light. "Let''s investigate!"


    "Run, run doggy, let''s see what those farmers are about!" He eagerly looked at everything around him after they had entered the fields, but failed to notice that they were being followed as soon as they left the road. It was too late, when a large dog jumped from around the corner of a barn and began to do what all dogs naturally do when they meet.


    Sniffing.


    "What are you doing?! I do not need that kind of view, stupid dog!" His dog naturally followed his instincts and the both dogs ended up with their snouts stuck where their genitals were.


    "Ugh, it is a male! Drop me immediately!" Karl''s dog let him fall into the dirt without paying him further attention and continued socializing with the other dog that began to growl.


    Karl heard steps from behind the barn and quickly judged that his stray dog had no chance of outrunning the bigger wolf-like beast and decide to unsummon the creature before the human entered into view. His stray dog companion abruptly vanished in a spark of brown energy and the human emerged from behind the corner, looking at the startled dog that was confused, looking left and right.


    Unfortunately, the dog ceased his confused behavior and began to circle around Karl while barking furiously, as he was the only thing that remained after the intruder''s disappearance.


    "What is it Bibi? Give it to me!" The young woman picked up Karl and stared at the broken sword''s blade for a second before starting to panic.


    "It is dried blood!" A daughter of a farmer would have not panicked at the sight of blood, but the fact that the dried blood was on a sword was giving some hints about its origin. Karl observed the woman''s panic, when her eyes briefly darted to a nearby well.


    "Oh come on!" His worry was not baseless, as his sight blurred soon and he flew in the direction of an old well that seemed to be used only sparsely or not at all.


    After a wild ride of ringing against the stone walls of the well, Karl punched through the water surface and slowly drifted to the bottom of the well, where he touched the mud at the bottom. He waited for a while, trying to see through the circular hole at the top if the woman would go and see what she did, but it appeared that she did not care and had simply ran off, no longer paying attention to him.


    "These teenagers and their smartphones, their attention span is too short!" He started cursing the woman, but realized that he was in the wrong world for his criticism to be even remotely valid.


    "Easy, take it easy, my skellies can simply throw me out of the well." Karl Gulden kept his cool and summoned his trusted skeletons to realize his escape plan.


    "Just swim to the surface and throw me out, no problem." He ordered and the skeletons began to swim up vigorously, but not moving up one inch. Karl observed it and understood that his plan had a big problem.


    Skeletons could not swim.


    He changed his approach and ordered them to climb using the well''s wall, but the wall was extremely slippery and the skeletons were completely unable to hold onto it and were stuck underwater at the bottom of the well along with him.


    "Status." He barked, but was disappointed when he saw that the only other summon available to him aside from the skeletons were some kind of small fish that were too small to do anything.


    "Damn, I am stuck here for eternity." Karl''s mood tanked as a sword thrown into a well.


    He continued to gaze at his status screen, staring longingly at the word [Dig] in the Spells category. It was possible that the heavenly lightning would not reach him deep down in the water. Was lightning even a concern given he was a gemstone embedded in a sword?


    "I am an idiot!" Karl could not believe his stupidity.


    "I cannot do it, but they can. Dig skellies! Use your swords and dig!" Karl wanted to laugh, there was no reason why he needed to dig with a spell when he had summons to do it for him.


    He observed his bony servants scratching at the well''s bottom with their rusty swords, increasing the depth of the well inch by inch while turning its clear water to mud.


    It was time to return to where a dungeon core should be, underground.

 Chapter 3 The Heavens Has Fallen

    Water was a wondrous substance. Dripping and swirling, moistening and permeating the dirt, making the ground much softer to work on. However, the bedrock had to come and after some time it really appeared, a floor of solid rock that could not be dug though easily, its hardness comparable to rusty swords that were scratching on its surface.


    "That will take forever to dig though. Well, I actually have forever, but I would rather not exploit my agelessness to that extent." Karl Gulden ordered his skeletons to dig to the side, where the solid rock seemed to be receding. Originally, he had intended to get out of the situation and arrive at the surface in the shortest time possible, but he had been watching his status screen during all the digging and was invigorated by a sudden entry.


    "Environment has indeed a lot of influence on what I can summon." He hummed while looking at the promising information again.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Skeleton(Earth) 5/s], [Well Ghost(Dread) 50/s], [Elemental(Earth) 50/s], [Worm(Flesh) 5/s],


    [Experience 86/1000]


    He immediately commanded the [Elemental(Earth) 50/s] into existence and the muddy water began to churn around him to give way to a lump of rock with only a vaguely humanoid shape. His new summon sunk like the rock it was to the bottom and hit the bedrock with almost an audible sound, despite them being still underwater.


    "Help the skellies dig!" Karl commanded gleefully and watched the elemental use its fists to hit the spot his skeletons had been just working on. The fist hit the ground and a yellow swirling glow appeared around it, the material moving aside on its own. The effect was not extreme, but it was certainly apparent when only after a few minutes, the elemental had cleared what would have taken the skeletons hours of work.


    "Elemental, go down!" Karl would have jumped with joy if he could, as he finally, finally felt as a true dungeon core that he was supposed to be and followed the Elemental''s movement with expectation.


    "It is still slow, but it is not unrealistic anymore." Karl watched as every punch of the elemental removed a fist sized piece of rock. The tunnel was enlarging with the speed of a crawl, but progress could be finally seen.


    "Should I continue down?" Karl though, a normal person would certainly not consider something so extreme. It was one thing to explore, but to dig miles and miles underground for ages was something only a nutcase would do.


    A nutcase of Karl Gulden''s caliber.


    "I love exploits and grinding." The black gem representing Karl Gulden almost vibrated with ecstasy. There was finally some area where he was overpowered. Logically, to create an extremely deep, underwater maze was the most safe option he could think of.


    Karl promptly summoned a second elemental and watched them work. For a human, it would be unbearable, but he felt no hunger, no fatigue, no sleepiness, no discomfort. Honestly, it was better than his old work when he had to do overtime. He kept watching the tunnel extend deeper and deeper, as much as the muddy water allowed him.


    Given enough time and planning, he possessed the potential to destroy the whole city by undermining its foundations, he felt really powerful.


    "Huh, we will see how it goes. I intended to explore the city first, but it might be better to thoroughly explore the underground before that." He was really curious what he would be able to summon in different parts of the underground. He had to admit that the key to his power were his summons, he needed to map the underground area. Not for minerals, but for places that enabled him to summon entities like the [Elemental(Earth)],


    * * * *


    A consistent sound of boots threading on the wet ground woke Karl from his exploration frenzy. He had been moving back and forth, up an down and was not even sure where he was, while trying to find all the useful summons he could get.


    "Someone is here! What sort of a lunatic would come here?" Karl had built quite a maze while exploring and was relying on his Elementals to travel around. They clearly did not need any light, as they were surrounded by their element and Karl was just comfortably stabbed into one of their chests. The idea that someone had actually gone through all the hassle to track him down in the dark made him feel uneasy.


    "Try to dodge him boys." Karl ordered his servants to go in an opposite direction, but the steps followed wherever they went. He was beginning to suspect that the person was using some device similar to a radar to track him down, because it was impossible to shake him off.


    "Alright, do you wanna play hide and seek with me?! Fine with me!" Karl ordered the Elementals to embed him two inches deep in the tunnel''s wall and dismissed them. For any ordinary intruder, the tunnel would look completely plain and simple. Unless they were indeed tracking him with some unusual method.


    Karl waited for some time, in dark and silence, because he no longer could hear sounds from the outside of his rocky prison very well. After a while, he could feel intense vibrations of something hammering against the rock''s surface.


    "You nosy bastard, why is he after me? And what is with this kind of precision?" Karl was angry, it was beyond doubt that the chasing entity that had been following him had him proverbially marked on a map.


    "I do not know what is going on, but you are not free to go yet." Karl heard a familiar voice while a hand gripped his hilt and pulled him out of the wall that had been shattered to pieces by some means that the man possessed. Recognizing the voice, it was obviously the same person he had just recently run away from and Karl had a hunch why he was able to find him.


    "Pesky Heavens, this is certainly because of that oath of his." He was sure that was the case and thought how to get away from his kidnapper without using lethal means.


    His anger lessened when he saw the pitiful state of his pursuer, In the light of a shining blue stone that the man held in his left hand, Karl saw that all his clothes was completely wet, as he had to swim and dive to get to the current tunnel. Occasionally, the hand that held him shivered with cold, as the underground was far from warm, especially given his holder''s drenched state.


    Zhan Gon von Kotzchen had transformed into a drowned cat, his image of a vengeful harbinger of death completely reversed.


    "Am I really this unlucky? Is some higher level being playing with me just to pass time and have fun?" Zhan could not explain how the sword had escaped him and appeared embedded in a wall of this inhospitable maze.


    "Fine, I get it, I should not have sworn the oath. I was reckless! Is it really necessary to keep torturing me until I die?!" Karl listened to the desperate plea of his bearer, knowing that he though all his actions were in fact caused by some higher being originating from the Heavens.


    "To tell you the truth, Heavens do not give a shit about you man. It was all me, but you cannot hear me anyways." Karl though while being grateful that he was unable to speak to anyone, yes, grateful. As long as he was not considered sentient, no blame could be pinned on his head, he would not be a target of any manipulation or blackmail. He was just a thing, a sword with no blame.


    Was it not better that way?


    While he though, he was being carried through his tunnels, water, above and under and had to admire the cultivator''s persistence. The maze he had created was much bigger than he had thought and when they appeared at the spot that was being illuminated by a thin ray of light coming from above, his bearer was nearly dead with exhaustion.


    Despite all that, Zhan grabbed the rope that was hanging along the wall of the very deep well and began to climb up towards the sun, the warm of which was hardly reaching to the wet depths that became Karl''s home.


    Karl observed that slowly, there seemed to be a wide smile appearing on Zhan''s face as he neared the sun that was the greatest prize that he could wish for after all the cold he had to suffer thought.


    However, they both turned they sights above them when they noticed that the sun had been covered and a loud noise was nearing them with terrifying speed.


    * * * *


    "This is the third well, we will have no water if this continues." An old man gazed down a well that was no longer able to produce any water. His beard was turning gray due to his age and his back was no longer straight, but there was still a spark in his blue eyes, his body gnarled and tough, hardened by years of labor on a farm.


    "Do you think the city cares?" A couple of years younger man with a hoe propped against his shoulder spat into the dirt.


    "It should care! It is too unnatural. It might be some plot of a demonic cult! What do I pay the taxes for?" The man bent over the edge of the well to better see its bottom, but was disturbed by a panicked shout and quickly stood back straight as much as his joints allowed him to.


    "Lein! We have to call the city guards immediately! There is a bottomless well!" A panicked man reached the pair of peasants with his face red from exertion and his long, brown hair getting in his face.


    "What?!" Both the men who appeared to be neighbors tensed, but the one with the hoe relaxed shortly.


    "Take it easy Lein, it seems that Yorm has been drinking again. At least you should be a little sensible, your old man talks nonsense all the time." Lein''s companion shook his head while looking at the youngest of the three with disappointment.


    "It is true! I swear! Rheina saw it too. She said it had to be because of a strange sword she threw inside some time ago, a short fancy thing with a big gem." The man was getting his hair out of his face, while catching his breath. "Spread the word! I am going for the guards, the well creeps me out!"


    He wanted to run off, but a few gnarled fingers caught him tightly, stopping his departure while almost making him fall to the ground.


    "Not so fast boy!" Lein''s hand held fast, not letting the scared peasant go.


    "What are you doing? We must report it, it is dangerous!" The man immediately tried to free himself with little success.


    "Even more dangerous than you think! Just imagine when certain people get wind of your bottomless well. If such a deep hole really exists on your old man''s farm, be sure that just like that, your farm and my farm and his farm will have new owners overnight." Lein snapped his fingers and pointed in turn at each of the three with his finger.


    "That means you are going nowhere, because I do like my farm quite a lot." The gray-bearded man said with confidence while firmly standing his ground, letting his hand go only when he saw that the panicked peasant was no longer trying to run away.


    "He is right." The other man gripped his tool harder, realizing the danger as well.


    "You are crazy!" After the apprehended farmer had been stopped, he began to tremble and his eyes darted left and right, switching between both fellow farmers in front of him.


    "We should solve it ourselves. Lead the way! Let''s see if we really need to call the officials here." Lein said, but it was clear from his expression that he would call them only if a whole army of demons was hidden inside the well.


    * * * *


    "What a-hole threw such a large boulder at us?!" Karl stared up and guessed they had only a few seconds before a boulder that was falling down the well obliterated them both. He wanted to think that his stony self would not be crushed after an intimate meeting with the flying huge boulder, but he was very unsure. Would he die today?


    "Not today!" Karl resolved himself and lightning fast pulled out his status screen with not many options to choose from.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Skeleton(Earth) 5/s], [Well Ghost(Dread) 50/s], [Worm(Flesh) 5/s],


    [Experience 86/1000]


    He was at the beginning of the well and the place offered him the same options as when he had started his digging.


    Immediately, two skeletons took shape next to Zhan in the air and swung their swords simultaneously at the rope he was holding onto. It was strange that they did not need ground to emerge from, but Karl was not going to complain.


    "Guess we have no time for explanations." Karl watched as his bearer kept holding the cut off rope and began falling down the well.


    Zhan kept flailing his arms and screamed something, but Karl did not care for his attempts or the words he had left to the wind. Instead, he was fully focused on his status screen and kept refreshing it like crazy,. He waited for one particular entry to appear. After a while, he had finally gazed upon what he had in mind.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Death) 5/s], [Skeleton(Earth) 5/s], [Well Ghost(Dread) 50/s], [Elemental(Earth) 50/s], [Worm(Flesh) 5/s],


    [Experience 86/1000]


    "Yes! Elementals, let''s rock!" A this point, he was not even looking around him, trying to suppress the obligatory nausea that came with the movement and focused only on his plan to survive.


    The Elementals appeared and under the command of Karl, they stretched their rocky arms in the direction of the well''s wall and their limbs began to glow with yellow light, as they were pushing their power to the maximum.


    "Dead! I am dead!" Zhan shrieked when he looked at the boulder that was nearing them from above, because its initial speed was much higher than theirs. He did not even pay attention to Karl''s summons, completely hypnotized by the immense boulder.


    "DEAD!" He shrieked again when he finally saw the two Elementals that were falling next to him.


    As they were falling down with their speed ever increasing, the Elementals'' work began to show and the walls of the well narrowed as they went, the bottomless hole in the ground that Karl had created becoming more narrow than before, not wide enough for the boulder to fit in.


    In a blink of an eye, the falling boulder reached the place where the summons had began tightening the well and a thunderous noise sounded down the tight well, the narrow space magnifying the noise. Although the boulder was now wider than the well, the difference was not big and it continued to fall with its surface areas falling off as they kept scraping against the narrow walls.


    "Be hard boulder! Do not dare to fall apart!" Zhan''s eyes widened when he saw what was happening. At this point he was quite sure that some higher being was toying with him and did not want him dead too soon, before the game was over.


    The distance between them and the boulder began increasing until the boulder finally stopped, the well partially clogged by it and only the lucky duo of accidental comrades continued to descent down the deep well.


    Karl mobilized all his will against his nausea that threatened to overwhelm him and sensed that they were already nearing the water surface at the well''s bottom. Zhan who still held him in his hand did not appear he would attempt to solve their dire situation in any way, leaving Karl to save the day. Karl, the action hero with a stone face, immediately commanded his servants to keep creating a thin floor made of rock as they were falling alongside them. He hoped that the thin surfaces would be able to slow their fall as they would break though it.


    With his eyesight not functioning, Karl knew based on Zhan''s shouts that his plan was progressing, a stream of curse words flooding the well every time his companion''s feet broke trough a thin layer of rock, creating a cloud of dirt and stones.


    "Praise whoever made the well this deep!" Karl though when he felt their speed decreasing before a hard impact came. It was the water surface that the poor villagers could only dream about given its depth. However with their speed, it felt more like a concrete to Zhan''s feet. His hand that up to this point held a gem adorned sword like a steel trap opened under the sudden impact of the water and the weapon that he held slipped out of his hand and slowly drifted down to the bottom.


    "it is so damn muddy!" Karl had to keep cursing the muddy water, as he could not see anything. Not that it mattered as he battled against his receding nausea. He had not been shattered by the boulder and there was no reason why he should care about that cultivator that had stolen him anyway.


    If he was dead, so what?


    Suddenly, a chill ran through his blade when he realized how cold and unfeeling he really became. How had he turned into an unfeeling thing? Was it because he was unable to relate to the inhabitants of this world? Or was it because he was a stone and could not feel pain?If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    With those thoughts he kept sinking to the bottom of the well, back into the maze he had created for himself to hide from the world and to discover what others could not see and what had no value and meaning to them.


    "Back home." Karl thought when he hit the bottom and his Elementals that had sunk long before him welcomed him wordlessly, already seated in his dark and cold kingdom.


    "Let''s continue the great work!" Karl wanted to move back into the tunnels when he sensed the water swirling high above him. It was clear who it was and there was a dilemma in his mind.


    "It will be better if he drowns here, he will bring me only trouble." He though, it was clear that the man was done for, there was no rope any longer and he was unable to leave the extremely deep well.


    He was fated to die at the damp, dark place, unless someone helped him to get out.


    "Only trouble." Karl repeated in his mind and commanded one of the Elementals to grab him and carry him deeper into his tunnels.


    As they moved away through the flooded tunnels, Karl watched the muddy water around him calm down. It gradually turned still as a pond with no disturbance.


    "Where was I? Ah! The direction under the city! I hope that we will not dig through some sewer." Karl moved forth, embedded in the rock of one of his servants.


    * * * *


    Water was a wondrous substance. Dripping and swirling, moistening and permeating the dirt, making the ground much softer to work on, much easier to sink into, its biting coldness preserving the bodies of those who ran out of luck.


    "Damn it all! Why am I this unlucky?" Zhan could not feel his legs and continued to swim with only his hands inside the well. He was very deep, deep enough that he was no longer able to see if the water was crystal clear or more like the contents of a sewer pipe. He felt his hands growing numb due to cold and his every movement turned slower.


    "I would never guess that drowning is my fate. Such a shitty death." As he complained, an occasional mouthful of water was accidentally swallowed by him and he could certainly exclude the crystal clear option after having a taste.


    "Tastes like dirt. My watery grave." He laughed shortly as his faculties were slowly abandoning him.


    "Hey fucking Heaven! Are you finally satisfied? You should have killed me right away instead of this farce!" He was angry at the forces that were toying with him. Even though it was partially his fault, he refused to admit that the Heavens were right by treating him so harshly, only because of a single stupid oath. Angry at the whole world, Zhan''s hands felt more and more numb and weary until he was unable to move them anymore.


    During his last moments, he floated on the surface using just the buoyancy of his body. Interestingly enough, he found out that with his lungs filled with air until they nearly burst, he did not even need to move to float.


    "I can float forever without moving, I have reached immortality. My journey was not in vein." He mumbled, his voice but a whisper.


    A while later an ice cold body was sinking to the bottom of the well. It kept descending until it rested in the cold mud at the well''s bottom.


    When Karl moved to realize his idea of a sloped tunnel that would lead to a pond in a forest, he stumbled upon the well again. It was natural as it was in the center of his maze and it was the quickest route from the part under the city to his newly picked location under the forest. He could not but notice the corpse that was dipped in the mud at the bottom of the well and a strange feeling enveloped him followed by a memory.


    "Loneliness leads to hoarding. Lonely people often become collectors of something." He remembered a piece of knowledge taken from some psychiatrist and subconsciously turned to look back at his ever growing maze of tunnels.


    "Ugh, do not tell me I will become sentimental, although there is some truth to it." He continued in his journey, leaving the corpse behind, but he felt like its image was still in front of his eyes, haunting him.


    "How would that old dude put it? Those paths are all immortality, you have to choose which one suits you the best." Karl had an urge to snicker when he was about to use an advice of a random cultivator to move forward.


    "No, it is just logic. I have exploited what I could. There is no exotic summon I have missed around here and the maze is already too huge. It is time to enter the city and live some more. As for the drowned fellow, my conscience is crystal clear, he was dead the moment he worded that stupid oath of his. He had no chance to win." He guessed that the fellow had been stage one or two cultivator and Mezzaiel had to be at lest as powerful as the leader of the Thunder God Sect, because the cult would have had no chance destroying it otherwise.


    His mind was flooded with chaotic ideas while he was digging upwards in a gentle slope. It went quickly with the help of his summons, but even then he found himself staring mindlessly at the rocky figure of his minion while he waited for the tunnel to be completed. Unfortunately, his planning skills proved to be lacking when he and his minions emerged right next to the pond that he had marked to be his target. Strangely, following the most wet soil had not led him to dig through its bottom as he had anticipated.


    "Whatever, let''s go to have a look around." Karl dismissed his Elementals and continued forth gripped in the maw of a wolf, as it was the most ordinary looking creature he could pull out of his sleeve in the area. As the paws of his servant moved forward, he noticed the forest around him thin out as they neared the farmland next to the city.


    "An attempt two point zero commence!" Karl immediately stopped the wolf when he saw the first signs of farmers, because he remembered all too well how his first attempt went.


    His stray dog from before had proven to be quite ineffective in infiltrating the city, he needed to think of something better. After a while of intensive thinking, Karl finally began to feel the urge to whistle in surprise, his knew idea being that of a genius. Soon, there was a skeleton with a broken sword stuck in its rib cage climbing up a tree in the forest.


    A really unusual sight to behold.


    It took two attempts, but after the effort put in, the skeleton had reached the top of a tree, Karl felt a sense of victory when he opened his status and saw the class of creatures he was interested in really appeared there.


    Summons- [Crow(Night) 50/s], [Hawk(Clarity) 5/s],


    Birds.


    "What infiltration? I will simply fly over and that''s it!" He felt an urge to chuckle when choosing the best suited feathered creature for the job. At first, he intended to be inconspicuous, but then he realized that a bird with a broken sword held in its beak was as inconspicuous as a fish playing a mobile game.


    "I need the hawk, it will be easier for it to carry me and I will stick out like a sore thumb anyway." Karl planned to solve his lack of deception by hovering high in the sky where no one would see him.


    And as he willed, soon a feathered companion appeared on a branch next to him, reaching for his hilt with its beak. Fortunately, he was not a heavy sword and the bird managed to lift it with ease.


    "This will be a walk in the park, fly to the city!" Karl commanded with enthusiasm, still thrilled about his solution that enabled him to avoid finding clothes for his skeletons and other measures that he might have been forced to do if not for his awesome bird forces.


    Being the summon that he was, the hawk immediately listened to his command and nearly jumped off of the high tree heading in the direction of the city.


    "That is fabulous! Fly higher, I want to see everything from high above! I feel like a bird!" Karl laughed, marveling about all the possibilities his summons were giving him.


    However, he began to notice a few issues that were spoiling the perfection of his marvels soon.


    Among other issues, he felt his motion sickness, but he was determined that this time, it would not spoil his fun.


    The first real problem was that the bird was holding him by his hilt and the rest of the blade was hanging to the side, meaning its whole posture began to tilt unnaturally and it was clearly starting to struggle to keep itself in the air, its flight giving an impression that the animal had a few beers before the take off.


    The second problem was that Karl was obviously not as insignificant weight for the bird as he had though, their altitude began to drop bit by bit and his summon began to descent instead of flying higher up. Soon, they were midway through the farms on their way to the city, but their altitude was dangerously low, low enough for many farmers to look up and see a bird carrying a broken sword in its beak.


    "Stupid bird! Flap your useless wings more! Come on!" Karl shouted uselessly in horror because of all the attention. At this point, he was supposed to be high in the sky like a spy plane!


    "Fly over the city wall! Quickly!" He commanded, but had to watch the individual stones in the city wall turning more and more pronounced as they grew larger and larger in his vision. The poor bird was flapping its wing as much as it could under the desperate commands of its master, but very soon the inevitable had happened and it slammed head on into the wall, unable to fly over it in time as ordered.


    "No way!" Karl was dropped by the bird that let out a really un-hawkish noise and they both began to fall down along the wall, amusing all the guards and other people that were currently on the wall.


    Immediately after the crash into the city''s fortification, Karl could hear a few words of the soldiers that stared at him from the top before he descended to his, or rather to his summons death, as the poor bird was unable to fly anymore after the heavy slam against the wall.


    "That is too unnatural, a spy?" One of the voices said and Karl suppressed his urge to panic.


    "Not a chance, this is way too stupid for a spy." The second voice cracked his confidence before he was too far below them, out of an earshot.


    Not long after the incident, steel rang against the stone base of the wall along with a soft plop nearby.


    "I am finished." Karl though about summoning another minion to get away, but too many people had seen the scene and he had no confidence that he was able to escape. Adding to his trouble, the dead bird naturally vanished after its demise, causing many onlookers to wince, staring in shock at the bloodied part of the wall that was the only proof that they had not imagined the bird. He had decided to use his usual tactic of playing dead and hope for the best, but he was unsure if this time, his favorite technique would prove effective.


    For a time there was an eerie silence around him and he was left admiring the perfect structure of the wall that did not look dilapidated at all and there were even some strange glowing symbols on its surface. And a few ants.


    The scene was like frozen in time, until the symbols began to lose their luster.


    That was strange.


    All his hopes for a peaceful time spend on the ground were shattered by a thundering fiery explosion that threw into the air a ton of dirt or more, something that shocked him greatly as the explosion was clearly disproportionate to his actions.


    "What the hell people? I attack by a hawk and you throw an atomic bomb at me?!" The terrified broken sword immediately threw all caution out of the window and a second later, a single skeleton was rushing with his broken self in its hand in the direction of the forest. Again, the world became a blur and the explosions colored Karl''s vision red, their loud sounds joining into a single thunderstorm of death.


    Despite his confusion, he could not but notice that the aim of his pursuers was terrible, because they had not managed to hit him a single time, as if they were not even aiming.


    "Or not aiming at me." Karl''s brain froze for a second when he compared the explosions to what he remembered from not too long ago and found it peculiar. Inevitably, he had reached the conclusion that the attacker was the same and he was not the target at all. He had found himself in a wide area bombarded by the demonic cult that had most likely decided to destroy another city after its success in the Thunder God Sect.


    "What is going on? Is this normal? Are the demonic cultivators more powerful? Then why do I have the impression that this city is quite old and established? What is going on here?" Followed by the sound of explosions and the reddish light of the ever present fire, Karl had finally reached the forest and was nearing the pond. Behind a foliage of threes, he commanded his skeleton to stop briefly and took a look at the walled city in the distance.


    The look was numbing, what had just a while ago been a bustling prosperous city was quickly turning into a burning ruin that was framed by the high walls. He followed one of the fireballs that were falling down from the sky with his eyes and watched as it crashed behind the wall with an explosion that could be heard clearly even in the forest. The barrier he had expected to see never came, a similar sight that he had experienced back in the burned down sect. The inhabitants of the city seemed to be as surprised as him, as they were flooding in and out the city gates in chaos and swarming in the fields.


    Even the guards of the city that were supposed to keep order and security were behaving in a similar manner.


    The attention of everyone was then captured by a malevolent voice from above their heads, making many people look up into the sky.


    "The Heavens has fallen. Tremble in terror, celestial sheep!" The thundering voice suddenly overpowered the explosions with its sound and Karl focused on a man that was hovering high above the city. The man was too far away to see any details of his figure, but he could tell that he had long hair that were fluttering in the upwards draft of hot air and his body was radiating heat to the point he seemed like a miniature sun hanging directly above the city.


    Without any warning, the man spread his arms and dozens of meters around him, a river of hot magma began to flow out of thin air, the resulting magma waterfall heading straight for the city.


    "I am so out of here!" Karl did not wait for the resulting apocalypse and hurriedly ordered his skeleton to head down to his tunnels, hoping that his underground maze was deep and wide enough to hide him from the disaster. With his sight but a blur again, he listened to the panicked screams of thousands of people while nearing safety.


    "This is certainly not normal, but it is too dangerous to investigate." His city mission had ended even before its start when his skeleton reentered the pleasantly cold tunnels, of course only pleasant for others as he could not care less about the temperature as long as he was not melting.


    * * * *


    With a tremendous sound, much louder than one million billion thunders combined together and then magnified trillion times, a golden door of immense proportions were unhinged and flew towards an opulent throne. In front of the throne that was lined with bottles sat a man that was the embodiment of light, his brightness was intense enough to counter the noise and stop it even before it reached his celestial ears.


    "Another one slipped though the tribulations? Not again!" The man akin to a star sighed deeply.


    "The Heavenly Emperor of Laziness and Sloppiness, I have come to take your head! I have broken all the rules there is and you will be my final badge of honor when your blood flows on my hands down the . . ."


    "You talk too much." His Excellency, The Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens snapped his fingers and the figure clad in dark flames and a heavy aura of death flew out of his hall with a bang even louder than the shattering of the magnificent door, that by the way, were still flying towards the throne.


    So big was the room was too big was big to the point it disrupted the senses and sentences of all those that dared to even think it about . .


    "Someone repair the door!" The Godly Emperor dismissively shouted and turned his attention back to the bottles on the throne. He had long grown used to the annoying noisy mob of cultivators defying the heavenly him to be surprised by yet another one appearing at his doorstep. Although most of them failed at the step of banging at his door.


    "Not so fast!" The figure from before stood in the door frame again and a wave of intense killing intent burst out from it in the direction of The Godly Emperor. The killing intent was so thick and dangerous, that even deep down in The First Heaven, all the mice had died in the direction the terrifying man was not even facing and in the direction he was facing, even many foxes died.


    Such was his terrible power, as everyone knows foxes are very resistant to killing intent.


    "Hmph." The angered emperor countered the all encompassing killing intent with his coldest harrumph and a swift flicker of his long sleeve. The air in the throne room shattered from the pressure only to be reformed again a second later by the Goldy Emperor''s calm breath, but the killing intent was no more, erased out of existence.


    "Not good enough! You bore me." He flickered his sleeve again, this time with greater force and the devil-like figure that had even a pair of wing like a demon growing out of his back was blown away with a horrified scream. However, the scream quickly turned into a gurgle, due to the invader vomiting blood all the way during the uncountable millions of miles he flew as the consequence of the mighty emperor''s flicker.


    "Finally some peace." The Godly Emperor turned to his bottles again, but suddenly felt heavy and there was a stabbing pain around his heart.


    "Bleeeeh." The celestial ruler of all vomited blood, overturning half of his bottles with its stream! He felt a little dizzy and from behind him, he heard a laughter of the man he had just sent flying.


    "Yes, that bottles will be your doom, you stupid monarch. I have watched your habits for numerous millennia and have finally found out the perfect method how to poison you." The demonic figure cackled, trying to hide that the aura of death from before was not as strong as it had been and the flames of shadow around his wings were just barely visible.


    "Be gone!" The Godly Emperor flickered his sleeve again amidst of coughing, but this time, the demonic figure stood firm, withstanding his opponents move without fail.


    "As I have expected. Today ends the reign of the celestial path and the age of the demonic path begins!" The shadowy assassin flickered out of existence and swiftly reappeared behind the weakened emperor, his clawed hand ready to strike his opponent down.


    "Despicable! I have been betrayed!" The Goldy Emperor shouted in fury while remembering who were the people that had access to his bottles of alcohol, one particular person coming into his mind. However, it was too late to punish the traitor.


    "Stupid fool, deception and trickery is the demonic path." The energies of death surged and a punch landed on the chest of the betrayed celestial emperor.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden was paralyzed with fear, held in the hand of his trusted skeleton in the deepest and darkest corner of his vast maze of underground tunnels. Sometimes, he could even feel a distant tremor that was the echo of the grand battle that was ongoing on the surface where a city was under siege. Actually, his fear had a second factor contributing to it, Karl was very well aware that multitude of people had attempted to hide in his tunnels in search of a shelter. That was rude! He was not intruding into anyone''s home and had no idea why should he tolerate an invasion of his own.


    He desperately summoned his status screen, hoping that he had omitted his current area while searching and something like The Lord of Hell would be waiting for him to call upon in his time of need.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Rot) 5/s], [Skeleton(Shame) 5/s], [Slime(Entropy) 50/s]


    [Experience 86/1000]


    In turn, he focused his attention on every item of his status, but was left hopeless. The area was nothing much and offered him just his old trusty skeletons and a pathetic slime that he had already tried out prior to this crisis. Despite all that, Karl could not rid himself of the feeling of strangeness as he browsed his status screen.


    "What is so strange about it? Every entry is normal, just like before." He thought for a while until he stopped at a single word.


    "No, that is impossible. I am hallucinating." He refused to believe his feelings, but he tried to push a little more attention onto a particular word only to see an entirely different screen to pop out.


    [Basic Tunnel Element 1 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Trap Element 100 000Ma 1/s]


    [Basic Tunnel Element(2) 10 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Trap Element(2) 1 000 000Ma 10/s],


    [Gunk Pile 500 000Ma 5/s], [Abandoned Graveyard 2 000 000Ma 8/s]


    [Void Well(2) 10 000 000Ma 25/s], [Temple of Earth(2) 5 000 000Ma 15/s]


    [Dungeon Portal(2) 100 000 000Ma 10/s]


    "What is this? No tribulations? What? Buildings are fine, or it is alright as long as I am only at the level of my screens?" He fought to reign in his surprise. For some reason the ominous feeling that signified the nearing Heavenly Tribulation was completely gone.


    With fervor, Karl immediately tried out the Basic Tunnel Element and this time, he could visually see holographic projections of individual elements that were honestly nothing fancy, but it was like the Holy Grail to Karl when he summoned his first rock floor tile into existence.


    "It appears that building is fine, only digging was dangerous!" He wanted to jump up with joy, but was unable to because of his form. However, his joy was so tremendous that he ordered his skeleton to jump with joy for him.


    "Ugh, the motion sickness." His glee was cooled down a bit a second later, but only a bit, because the implications of him being able to build dungeon structures were beyond imagination.


    Naturally, a rocky tile on the ground was nothing compared to a river of lava summoned on demand, but he was getting there!


    His good mood was quickly soured by a loud panting coming from a tunnel on his right. He focused his attention at it and thought if the time was right to try out some of his traps in reality. He felt an itch like a bird that wants to spread out its wing and fly for the first time.


    "Quickly, let''s do something classic." Karl chose one of the trap options, feeling like browsing short clips on a mobile phone, only the images were in the form of a hologram in front of him. There were spikes extending from the side of a tunnel, from above, from below, traps shooting arrows or spikes, traps crushing enemies with stones of severe weight or using springs, acid traps, all sorts of trap doors. Soon, he realized that he had no time for being choosy and quickly picked a simple trap and placed it in the tunnel that was the source of the panting sounds.


    It took him under two minutes to channel the required two thousand points of juice before small holes that were almost invisible in the darkness of the tunnel appeared on the floor, he imagined with glee how the sharp spikes would extend from them and penetrate his first victim.


    And then he saw a little scared boy emerge from the tunnel.


    "No, wait!" Karl had second thoughts about his action, but the merciless trap still worked as intended. The spikes extended with lightning speed and penetrated the boy''s body in multiple places. There was not even a single sound from him, as one of the spikes went directly through his heart. His eyes quickly turned dull, his dead body pinned in place, still staring in Karl''s direction.


    "That''s . .. that was not supposed to happen." Karl was shocked by the brutal efficiency of his trap and the unexpected identity of his target.


    "So, now I am basically a child killer." He thought heavily, all his enthusiasm completely gone.


    "It was an accident, yes. An unfortunate accident." He repeated like a broken recording, as the finality of his deed hit him in full. He was too unlucky, this kind of accident never happened to good or ordinary people! The child was supposed to stop and turn around before stepping onto the trap, or the trap should have failed to trigger due to his low weight!


    He did not know what he had been thinking, trying out dangerous contraptions on people fleeing the disaster above. The answer was simple, he had not been thinking at all, trying out what he could do, overwhelmed by his joy of being able to finally do something, to make a difference.


    Karl stared mindlessly in front of himself for a long while before his mind regained focus.


    "Fine, in the real world, shit happens. I should at least make sure that this will not happen again. That is all I can do now." In a grim mood, he dismantled the trap and the small body fell onto his rock tile with a squelch.


    He had no idea why the strange world had to be so funny an brutal at the same time, it was surreal.

 Chapter 4 A Young Master

    "This will do the trick." A shadow in the dark gemstone shifted and a couple of long spikes that were about to pull back into the ground quickly reemerged. Karl had quickly deduced that the spikes used some kind of a spring-based mechanism and the spring would not be pulled back if he refused to supply his mana, leaving the trap not functional.


    As long as someone did not stumble in the dark and fall onto an already fully extended rows of spikes.


    The traps seemed to need his mana to be conjured and some of it to operate as well later, their consumption depending on the exact mechanism of the traps. Extending spikes seemed to consume mana only briefly when drawn, which was very convenient, giving him the ability to have many active at the same time. However, he had to be more cautious with them.


    The last accident was still in front of his eyes, but like this, he should be able to prevent most of unwanted casualties.


    Karl had never expected any ordinary people to reach all the way down in his maze in the first place, as many tunnels were fully flooded and there was no ventilation, but desperation had clearly gave some of them enough courage to overcome these obstacles.


    While thinking about the courage of the people outside, Karl could hear yet another panting sound from afar and cursed under his breath.


    "No, this is too strange. Seems like someone is chasing them." He realized that it was extremely unusual that people were hurling themselves into his dark, flooded tunnels that could very well be a home to some nasty monster that the world of cultivators had in abundance.


    "I need more direct control for this kind of situation." He looked around and thought about how to improve his setup before the next arrivals reached the end of the tunnel.


    "Runnin to your brother boy? He will not save you." A voice suddenly echoed through the darkness and verified Karl''s suspicions.


    "Huh, here I come, destined to become a cliche savior." Even as a stone, Karl felt an urge to smirk helplessly. "I just need to keep his brother''s death a secret I guess."


    Before he could think more about it, his skeleton picked up the body next to it and threw it down into a submerged shaft that was the dead end of the tunnel, the next layer of his maze he had not managed to dug out yet. His summon turned its skull at the sword it held in its hand right after, clicking its jaw twice.


    "You?! Agh, alright. What about the trap? There is no time!" Karl was stupefied, but had no time to think further about the incident, because he had yet to choose his next trap and he had little time to spare.


    He quickly summoned a slime he had seen before and used it to unceremoniously wipe out the blood on his trap''s spikes while simultaneously browsing his trap options, searching for a more suitable contraption for his next opponent.


    "Nothing fits well the situation, but If the boy really is smaller, I can do it like this." He used the same trap as before, but this time he placed it onto the ceiling. Verifying the length of the spikes, they stopped roughly at the level of his skeleton''s nose.


    "That should be the right height." Karl imputed his mana into the trap and the spikes slid up into the ceiling, hidden in their tiny holes. The skeleton wielding a sword then simply walked a few steps back and got down on the ground, pretending to be dead.


    A strategy that should work given its background.


    "The eyes! I have to cover the eyes somehow!" Karl remembered to obstruct the mildly glowing blue eyes with a few flat stones, ready for his next encounter.


    He did not need to wait long before shouts reached his position, reverberating the stale air around him.


    "At this point I will be extremely rough with you, brat. You really had to run all the way here!" Multiple angry shouts were gradually nearing the end of the tunnel that ended in a ninety degree turn, which was supposed to be the beginning of the next level of the maze. However, Karl had never finished it, because too much water had been leaking in and it had resulted in a deep well, the deepest point of his maze.


    The person that was the target of the shout was not responding, only a high pitch groans and panting giving away the fact that he was nearing the edge of the well. Karl was preparing to spring his trap soon, when he realized there was a problem.


    "I cannot see a damn thing here!" It surprised him, because he had seen the holes in the ceiling just a moment ago. When he began searching for the cause of the unexpected total darkness that was not as absolute before, his attention was brought to a small pile of glowing stones. The stones on the top of his skeleton''s face.


    "Of course!" He wanted to slap his head with something when he understood the problem. He had covered his skeleton''s eyes to make it look truly dead, but the blue glow of its eyes was the only light illuminating the deep underground. It was not much, but it was clearly noticeable at the depth they were.


    "I do not want to reveal myself, but I will not see when to spring the trap if I keep the skeleton hidden!" While his mind was twisted in the unexpected conundrum, more shouts came, much closer than before, followed by a loud splash.


    "You little shit! I will skin your dick alive!" A hysterical roar came from below and something was telling Karl that it was not the boy.


    "But who knows, different world, different culture." A useless thought flashed through Karl''s brain before he fully realized that his plan had clearly fell into pieces.


    Again.


    His mind scrambled quickly to action as to prove his undying genius and he executed the first alternative that came to him during such a stressful moment.


    "Seiza!" He barked and the skeleton exploded from its lying position in a shower of stones and dim, blue light, assuming a position that Karl had not expected to see.


    "Blasted!" Karl along with everyone else, except for the guy that was taking an unexpected bath, were staring in horror at a skeleton with glowing blue eyes, sitting in seiza like a thousand years old samurai warrior. He wanted to correct himself, as this was definitely not the position he had in mind when he hastily ordered his minion, but it was too late to do anything about it.


    "Who cares, let''s fake it until we make it." Karl planned to make it look like some old cultivator was here doing his secluded meditation to scare the intruders off, but he was not sure if that idea would work anymore.


    "Is it a dead cultivator?"


    "What a strange position, it has to be."


    "His Mojo has to do with pain or something, what an uncomfortable stance."


    In the next second, Karl had been reminded that the people in front of him had closer to grave robbers and thieves, than to orderly citizens of the realm, because they threw themselves forward while trying to hold back each other.


    "Does he have a ring? It is mine!"


    "I take his weapon!"


    To Karl''s surprise, the bandits began to brawl on the ground, which obviously prevented him from using his elaborate trap on the ceiling. The only one standing was the boy who watched the two men brawling to win the spoils of the presumed cultivator that had meditated himself to death.


    Yet only up to a point, because the innocent looking boy chose to kick the two fighting men at the right moment, sending one of them flying down the tunnel with a splash.


    "There are now three down in the water, what a party." Karl thought inappropriately and finally saw his moment.


    The last standing man had been surprised by the kick, but the force was not big enough to send him tumbling over the edge of the ledge and he was quickly heading towards the unfortunate boy that was slowly walking back from him.


    "It is now just you and me brat, prepare to die." The man picked up a dagger from the ground and straightened threateningly, intending to send it though the unfortunate teenager''s throat, but that exact posing was his last action, meaning he had finally reached the optimal height for Karl''s trap.


    "Fire!" Karl shouted a mental command and a set of steel spikes descended though the thief''s brain, his body slamming into the ground a moment later.


    "Hey, throw us a rope! It is too slippery!" Only desperate shouts of the two remaining bandits were disturbing the tense moment when the boy turned to the skeleton, wary of its apparent unnatural glow.


    However, the next second he had surprisingly ignored it and bent over the tunnel''s edge, trying to look at the two swimming bandits. He was studying the surface for a while and his face went through a series of expressions until it remained stoic.


    "She is not here, but I have clearly told her to hide in the tunnel! Wrong place, her disguise is not good enough to be wandering in a war zone!" He quickly lost interest in the two bandits and turned around, running in the direction of the surface. The most startled entity here was Karl, who could not wrap his mind around what the teenage boy did.


    "She?! And more importantly . .. just what?! He has completely ignored my badass skeleton! It was moving, has blue glowing eyes and is sitting in seiza!" Karl did not understand how the boy could have simply walked away. His thoughts still churning, numerous scenarios materialized in front of his eyes.


    "Wait, what if it is normal in the city? Are there undead servants there? Golems? Do people make their eyes glow and shine just to look cool?" There were many questions left unanswered in his head and he felt his urge to visit the city on the surface to ignite again.


    Until he remembered the lava waterfall.


    "No! No city! At least until there are more news." The skeleton began to pace back and forth, unconsciously ordered by its master to do so, but the pacing was interrupted by loud shouts, almost as if the drowning thieves were almost on their last legs.


    "Help! Pete! Throw us rope!"


    "Move your ass man! This is not funny anymore!"


    "Annoying low lives. And what''s with the local names?" The difference in names was really jarring, but he just might have been on the border of two regions or something. Karl growled to himself and the blue eyes of his skeleton pulsed slightly when a wave of mana passed though the tunnel and a mass of living rock assembled above the water and swiftly fell down. A skeletal hand extended above the dark well with one eye peeking over the edge to provide a cone of blue light. The blue hue above the water surface illuminated only bubbles with no limbs or heads to be seen.


    "Huh, good riddance." Karl moved back into his dark corner and tried to find his lost enthusiasm for dungeon building, but the incident was too disruptive.


    He could see a future where he was able to build a huge underground kingdom for himself full of traps, but he did not see the point in constructing anything of that sort. He did not need traps if he just wanted to rot down under the earth in peace. If he dug a tunnel long enough, no one would bother to go all the way to simply find nothing much at the end. He could make it so long that everyone gave up or even died of thirst before its end. Even if it would mean the ultimate safety, it would become the ultimate boredom as well.


    "No, hiding in endless tunnels does not signify power and is downright pathetic. But does it even matter when I feel this empty?" He began to awaken to his existence as an artificial entity and could not put a finger on what was wrong with him, but something definitely was. He was still himself, but his perspective was askew, like he was drunk or high all the time.


    He was almost certain that he might be buried in a ruin for centuries and did not mind the time much, he had just killed people and although he had thought that he felt pity for them, in fact, he did not. He saw people passing out right next to him, but all he felt was the echo of the emotions he once had. But it was just that, an echo. A distant memory of a transmigrated soul.


    At the same time there were new urges, new instincts. He remembered how thrilled he had felt during his maze construction work, or when he controlled his minions. He was going through his little existential crisis to the point he had not noticed anything until a hand grabbed him and tore him out from the skeletal hand.


    "I have not seen wrong, I might need you later." A dark silhouette of the boy from before grabbed him rudely, directly out of the hand of his skeleton that still sat in seiza on the ground. "Strange, the tendons of the skeleton must be still completely alright, or it was just stuck because of some undead goo, disgusting."


    Thanks to his lack of attention and a disturbed mental state, Karl could only stare at the daring youth that dared to steal him from the hand of his own minion. He had no words.


    "Huh, that blue light is convenient." The youth turned back after he had made two steps forward, walked back, grabbed the skeleton''s neck and to Karl''s horror, smashed it against a nearby stone. The skull fell off the crushed neck easily and the youth grabbed it victoriously. He began to use it as a flash light while whistling an annoying tune.


    Karl had absolutely no words.


    Naturally, the eyes stopped glowing shortly and the head turned into dust when the summoned skeleton lost its integrity. The teen just frowned at his hand full of dust and continued through the dark tunnels with two curses on his lips for every step he made.


    "I feel so tired. Can I go to sleep?" Karl complained, but the steps of his bearer trudged uncompromisingly forward.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden woke to the storm thundering above his head with an occasional droplet staining his surface with wet moisture. Given that he could not corrode, it was probably alright. Well, the blade could, but he frankly did not care about that part of him too much. He might not have slept in its true sense, but the numb feeling that made the time fly by felt quite close, except he felt the same as before, there was no refreshing feeling that the true sleep provided him when he was still a human.


    "We are so proud that the ancestral blade of your kin had been found, mister. . ." A lanky figure appeared in Karl''s vision with the background of tall graves.


    "Hold your breath, you only care for the finder''s fee of my wife and I could not care less about that junk when my son is missing." Somewhat familiar purple figure talked to the man in black clothes, obviously not caring much about their interaction, trying to just get it out of the way and leave.


    "O-Of course." The clerk stammered, as he was used to a more professional behavior of the mourners. The man who was pacing back and forth in front of him was everything but professional.


    "Lilgendrienbombiel, what a pest, you put it here to make your guests tumble over them and turn into customers. Whatever, I have duties to attend to." The man growled while handing the clerk the gold, his legs vandalizing the graveyard''s flower garden in the meantime.


    "We thank you for your patronage, have a nice day."


    "As you should, that is my hard earned gold there." The man said hastily his last sentence and left, not bothering to follow the path, making his own through the flowers.


    Despite the rude behavior the clerk was happy, because he had accidentally managed to find the original sword that someone had surprisingly flung on top of the mausoleum''s roof. That meant that he had just received the finder''s fee for finding a sword that had not even originally been there, which meant he had now a sword extra that could be discretely sold.


    "Uh, too much work. With the recent attack, there is too many bodies as of late. People just can''t stop dying! How troublesome." He complained while putting one of the swords under his cloak to turn it into money later and left the other inserted in the sheath of a gaudy statue of a man. He did not get the people that planned all the decorations, it was very clear that the grabby hands of some visitors might feel the itch and borrow them forever.


    Karl wanted to see the clerk leaving, remaining in the heavy atmosphere of the graveyard mausoleum, but he had unfortunately been the one the clerk had selected to sell and he very soon saw the clerk''s garment from its other side.


    "Right, I am illegal goods again, so here we go!" He hoped that he would not be an object of shady deals for much longer and some real owner would show up and actually revealed the city for him.


    It was a long way from which Karl had seen nothing but the bending fabric of the clerk''s undergarments, luckily he could not see it very clearly in the darkness. However, as every day a new dawn came, in the same way the clerk''s garments unfolded and revealed him to a face of an old man in an oriental suit who immediately took him closer to look at him, meaning at the black gem embedded in the sword.


    "Intriguing." The suit who appeared to be some kind of an artificer kept turning him back and forth before he continued in his evaluation.


    "The blade is not worth much, but I will take it for the gem. It will fit well into one of my new works. I won''t even need to cut it, it will spare me some time." The man nodded with satisfaction along with the clerk, who was certainly imagining the sum he would receive as payment.


    But only for a moment.


    "What are you waiting for? You can go." The artificer said and the clerk''s jaw dropped.


    "Do you think I will pay you for a cheap item robbed from some grave? I know where you work." He looked at the shady official with contempt.


    "But it is not from a grave! This is an insult!" The clerk began to protest, but the suit just gestured at him with his hand to get out and his attention shifted back to Karl. Surprisingly, the clerk did not argue anymore and simply turned around and left what looked like the artificer''s office.


    The finder''s fee was probably enough to satisfy his greed, as he had not searched for the sword personally anyway. It had been simply brought to him by some teenage boy, who recognized the artwork and wanted to get at least a few silver coins for the broken sword. Much less than the finder''s fee was, but no one needed to know that little detail.


    "Wait, is he going to really extract me from the sword?!" Karl felt like a women who was about to be raped, or at least he guessed this was how they had to feel.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    "What if my powers actually come from the blade and I will be left powerless embedded in some . . in some nasty bauble!" All kinds of worries were plaguing his mind while the artificer was outside the room until he returned and placed an ornate silver circlet next to him. Naturally, he did not know it was silver, but he imagined that was the color of a polished silver. After all, Karl had not been a rich man and he had never seen any larger volumes of polished gold or silver.


    Immediately, he thought that the circlet was not bad and he would finally be able to look at the outside world from the top, not hidden under the garments of whatever thief just managed to nab him.


    "Heeello dear! Will you marry me? I, Karl Gulden, take you, shiny, probably silver circlet, for my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until another stingy artificer do us part." He stared at the circlet in awe until a gruff voice interrupted his thoughts.


    "Let''s get to it!" He said and Karl''s wordless desperate shout failed to reach anyone, just as always.


    "Use protection!"


    * * * *


    In the end, it was not as painful as Karl had imagined, probably because he seemed to be simply unable to experience pain. The man handled him with extreme care, in order not to ruin his work and he was already a cut gem. There was no need to improve his gleaming curves. He was slick and beautiful, unlike when he was still alive.


    "Thank all the gods that this circlet is not actually sentient." Karl was reassured when he attempted to communicate with the circlet, but received no response. He nearly cracked in half when he imagined to be stuck forever to someone with not even a second of privacy. He had to say that he liked how he looked. The circlet was not too thick with just the right amount of engravings, nor overly unwieldy or pretentious like a king''s crown. Just the thing he imagined an elvish pop star would have on his head.


    "Lazy reincarnation office worker, I wanted to be an elvish pop star, but now I will only be the circlet on his head!" He suppressed his anger and tried to evoke positive thoughts to reach a positive feedback loop. Just how every cheap personal coach book would advise.


    "That''s it! Just some wrapping now and this lovely piece is prepared." The artificer looked at him with pride, an action that induced in Karl an urge to vomit right into his beaming face if he could, and wrapped him into a piece of expensive looking cloth. Veiled in darkness again, he had no choice but to wait for the customer.


    However, he was lifted the next second and carried to the customer instead, unfortunately he was again unable see anything from the city due to the tight wrapping around him.


    It was infuriating! One would think that to see the city was really a simple goal, but it was something that kept eluding him time and time again.


    They went on foot for a considerable while until the movement stopped and after a series of simple actions and greetings, the polished Karl in his new circlet form was finally revealed to the world and more importantly, the world to him.


    He was in a room that could be described as the throne room of a king that went bankrupt ten times over. There was some sort of a wooden throne, but not really and a row of what clearly wanted to be a row of columns that led to it, but there seemed to be not enough room to induce the intended effect. Basically, it was a strange room with a big chair and a few columns that were not even made of stone, but wood.


    There were four people in the room. The artificer who was presenting him to the others like he was some sort of a divine artifact, one guard that was really mediocre, looking like he ate too much during lunchtime and a pair of tall men with short black hair that looked almost the same, but one was significantly younger. The older one had a very similar circlet to Karl sitting on his head, although with a red gem and it was made of gold. Or rather just gilded if Karl considered the overall state of affairs in the room.


    "Farther, but this is some stinky, gaudy jewelry! I wanted a helmet to my armor!" The young man left an immediate positive impression on Karl.


    "Be quiet and put it on. You are not a knight, but the Young Lord Riven of Orlov!" A measured voice answered the youngster that in Karl''s opinion did not look like he knew much about the world.


    "More like Raven than Riven, black hair, black eyes. They would look better with blue eyes, not that I am into men or something." Karl ranted, used to the fact that no one ever heard him. He was slowly developing a habit of talking to himself.


    "A boring merchant lord!" The Young Lord continued nitpicking and the face of the man with the golden circlet turned sour.


    "Not another world, or you are taking care of manure in the stables." He clearly knew where to strike to get the youngster in line.


    "Not the manure again!" The youngster''s temper visibly cooled down and he sheepishly took up the circlet and placed it on his head.


    "By the way, is it even worth anything? This is steel right?" The Young Lord Riven of Orlov took the circlet off his head and began knocking against the table''s edge with it.


    Naturally, Karl enjoyed the jerking movement pattern very much.


    "So it is not a helmet, but it is no jewelry either." The Young Lord Riven shook his head and the eyebrows of his father twitched.


    "Manure!" Lord Rivel barked and his son quickly put the circlet back onto his head.


    "Thank you for you gift father, it is beautiful." The young man bowed to his father with flawlessly pretended seriousness.


    "You, are, welcome." The father answered and his son left the room even before his last word left his mouth. "I pray that he grows up soon, or I will murder him."


    Karl was unable to see how the situation continued to unfold or how much was the artificer paid, because he was being carried through the corridor on the head of the Youn Lord Riven of Orlov who was dressed in a leather armor and was heading in the direction of daylight. When he exited the building, Karl could see a courtyard that housed stables, a warehouse and a simple shooting range for bowmen in between.


    He was inside a small fort, but his time for observation was limited, as the youth aimed directly for the stables without wasting any time.


    "Joan should be at their farm now." He mumbled and pulled himself into a saddle of one of the horses in a hurry.


    "Go, time waits for no one!" He urged the horse that shot out of the fort''s gate and a sight of farms all around them was revealed to Karl. He observed the people toil and greet the rider when they were too close to pretend not to see him.


    "So he is some kind of a farmer lord." Karl talked to himself as always but noticed that the Young Lord Riven looked around in panic and made his horse stop.


    "Good joke, but you can come out now!" Riven''s eyes ended up staring at a nearby bush. The horse was standing there for a time, before Riven decided to ignore the disruption and continued in his journey.


    Karl was stupefied. Was it possible that the youngster could hear him?


    "Am I really so desperate for her that I start to hear things?" His bearer wondered and Karl struggled to hold back his thoughts, but how hard it was to hold back all thoughts? He had not managed to silence his mind for more than a minute.


    "Maybe there is a way around it and I can kind of lower my thoughts? This will need practice." Karl was tiptoeing with his thoughts, afraid to be heard again. Maybe he had just imagined it and there really had been something in the bushes.


    The horse passed the farmlands and ran into a small forest behind them. Coincidentally, it was not far from the pond Karl had missed during his maze digging adventure. The incident seemed to be forgotten and Karl could feel secure again. However, the horse abruptly stopped as soon as they got deeper into the forest and the youngster''s expression was dead serious.


    "Enough of this, show yourself!" Karl had thought that he had solver the problem, yet for some reason, the youth could still hear him.


    "We are in the forest, if you want to attack me or talk to me away from our men, now is the time!" The Young Lord waited, his whole body tense.


    "Are you a remnant of the cult, still loitering around after the attack? Or are you a greedy clan rat that thinks that people with no clan or talent can possess no wealth or titles?" Despite being unable to see anyone, he slowly drew his sword and his eyes were darting left and right. This was not the first time Riven had an incident. Although this time, the perpetrator seemed to be very cautious.


    "A sneaky one aren''t we? Then stay in the shadows and do not bother me again!" The tense youth sat on his horse, alone in a small clearing that provided some light in the otherwise dense forest.


    "Just stop shouting already, brat, I can hear you well." Karl was at his wit''s end, it was obvious that the Young Lord would find him out sooner or later if he was able to somehow hear his thoughts. Not thinking aloud anything was too taxing to do it all the time, unrealistic in the long run.


    "If you want to talk to me, then show yourself, or are you afraid?" Riven tried to provoke him to reveal his position, not knowing that Karl had been sitting on top of his head all the time. Yet the poor Karl had other problems to care about. He was already about to burst, withholding all his thoughts and decided to use what he dubbed the saturation approach for a change.


    "Dad''s slippers in television watching hair doing depraved things that even Harry wouldn''t do with his broom and cigars meaning improvisation in his last days of Hawkfarts. He has to cover his wizardry origin using slippers that are very old and profound, a classic approach. Yes, a classic approach would do the trick, as I cannot show the evil wizards my pinky. Knowing the pinky might attract the waterfall closer to damp my socks, hot and wet socks are bad." Karl hastily thought about his plans combined with any random thing that came to his mind to confuse the listener.


    "A mind attack! Stop! We are close to my territory, I can call my guards!" The youth clutched his head in panic, probably thinking that some vengeful cultivator was attempting to fry his brain.


    "Ehm, I am sorry for the test, but it had to be done, I needed to find out if you are resistant enough to mind attacks. I must protect my identity against those above." Karl began to spin his story, intending to aim for the classic grandpa approach that should work in a solid cultivation world.


    Even though he was finally beginning to manage thinking in a way to prevent Riven from hearing him, the cat was already out of the bag. He barely knew the youth and could not trust him and he needed a way to justify his stray thoughts occasionally leaking somehow. Of course, he could have chosen the approach of killing the compromised people, but that way he would become a cursed item, because anyone who would put him on their head would be killed after some time. That was not the best survival strategy.


    Naturally, the safest approach was the infinite tunnel style, but he felt that he would stoop too low if he tried to do something as pathetic.


    "A piece of my soul resides in the black gem on your forehead. I have been wounded in a great battle and escaped into this shabby artifact." Karl was staring intensely down on the Young Lord''s face to gouge if his story had not gone over the top.


    "I need to restore my power and rebirth. In exchange for your occasional help, I am ready to bestow my help onto you and my wisdom." Karl continued sagely, but a feeling of dread was slowly poisoning his soul since the moment he had uttered the last word he definitely, absolutely should not have said.


    When the youth was still unable to find anyone else around them, he naively dropped off his horse and assumed the know-how position.


    At least Karl thought that was the name of the pose, he was not very proficient in various positions'' names. He remembered that in all Chinese novels there were two main poses, the flower position and the know-how position that was used for subservience.


    "Guide me Elder! I have already completed the Mojo Condensation Stage, please show me some pointers!" The Young Lord begged


    "Uhuh, you do seem sincere." Karl Gulden chuckled haughtily. "So what is the stage you are at now?"


    "The next stage after the Mojo Condensation Stage!" The young man immediately revealed.


    "That is?" Karl insisted while not daring to think about anything else. He could not believe he had already forgotten the stages of cultivation.


    "The Mojo Purification Stage of course! I am not that dumb, Esteemed Elder." The Young Lord Riven of Orlov was eagerly listening, hoping to strengthen himself during the rare occasion.


    "I see, there is no need to test you further. Look, it is easy you just." Karl fell silent, trying to produce some painful thoughts, but it did not seem to translate to anything meaningful.


    "Elder, are you alright?" The know-howing person lifted his head with concern.


    "My. It is my wound. I need to rest, young one. I will tell you soon." Karl transmitted his final thought and then began thinking about the most disgusting horror movies he could remember. It was probably useless, but a professional scammer never ignores the details.


    "Of course, Elder. How can I contact you?" The Young Lord Riven asked, but did not receive any answer.


    "I have my personal tutor now, that is great!" There was a glint of happiness in Riven''s eyes, it looked like he had managed to balance out the advantages the people in the clans and sects had over him. "I will overtake them all now, I will show them all!"


    He was imagining himself trampling over everyone who had laughed at him while they were attending their sects and academies, keeping secrets to stay in power and to prevent young talents from turning into competition.


    "I am really in a good mood now, let''s hurry and meet with Joan." The teenage Lord said and Karl only hoped that the activity with Joan was not what he thought it was, or that his owner would have at least some sort of decency to take him off.


    The Young Lord mounted the horse again and soon reached one of the farms that surprisingly had a familiar well in front of its barn. At least the pesky dog was not around. Karl hoped it was dead, but he could not think too much about it in case the empty brain under him heard his thoughts.


    "Your Majesty, you have arrived with your big horse!" A woman ran out playfully from the barn and slapped the Lord''s horse ass vigorously.


    "Hey, you have missed." Riven jiggled like an idiot and Karl had an urge to roll his eyes.


    "The next one will be for you!" The girl laughed and the young gentleman proceeded to grab the farm girl where no gentleman should and slid off the horse. Picking the girl up, he entered the barn and then their contacts began to intensify and escalate.


    "UGhghghh! The wound!" In desperation, Karl began to groan, not wanting to see what he had been about to witness.


    "Oh, right. Sorry about this, Esteemed One." Riven, half caught in the act simply grabbed his circlet from the top of his head and threw it into a barrel that the cattle apparently used to drink from. With a splash, Karl sunk to the bottom, stupefied again by the manner of the local youths.


    "And I really always thought that it was because of the smart phones." His prejudices shattered completely as he continued to lie at the bottom of the water barrel while the two young people did their thing. After a while, a cow came closer and began to drink, not minding what the young people were doing next to it or the silvery circlet at the bottom of the barrel. "Just wait for your first Mojo Purification training session, just you wait."


    * * * *


    "To sum it up, the Thunder God Sect is destroyed and will no longer protect this region from the wilderness. You have effectively become a border region and you are now a Border Lord. At the same time, the city''s forces had suffered severe losses at the hands of The Cult of Mezzaiel and they will no longer be able to provide you with any men to help secure your lands."


    Karl rested on young Riven''s head while listening to a man in a black oriental suit with familiar green hair tied to a braid, but his suit was much more expensive compared to the one he had seen on the artificer before. There was six people sitting around a table that had been brought into the shabby throne room from before. Surprisingly, the room was much cleaner this time, maybe the head maid had bad conscience, or the people seated around the table were not exactly nobodies.


    "This is a disaster, mister Lei Gon! I do not have the forces of a Border Lord! How am I supposed to hold the wild creatures back? I will be barely able to suppress bandits and rogue sects that might target our people at their most vulnerable! Were the casualties really that bad? How is The Immortal?" Lord Riven''s face was grim, riddled with worry. He wore leather armor that was reinforced with steel plates at certain places. It looked shiny and new, never witnessing the heat of battle. He had not worn it the last time Karl had seen him, his guess was that he had put it on to look like a competent military commander. However, from how he behaved, it was clear that his military experience was only limited to small skirmishes and policing the bandits along the road.


    "The Immortal is well, he had fended of the demon, Mezzaiel, with ease and is now recuperating in case of a follow up attack. We have also launched a thorough investigation into the traitorous sabotages that happened again during the attack."


    "The sabotages are really unheard of, two times in the row! Two times! Are the barriers useless now, or will they finally work during the next attack? Some even say that the war between the colors had contributed to this situation and a colorless future might be a welcomed change." The third speaker was dressed in an expensive red coat with golden knobs, a matching red beret sitting on his gray hair. If not for his expensive clothes, the man would resemble a mouse a little.


    "You say it as if you had some specific replacement in mind, Lord Kert of Zura. Please humor me, who should be the one replacing the Gon clan?" The man with green hair said leisurely, but there was poison dripping from his words.


    "I think those rumors are too radical." The Lord smiled innocently.


    "And I think that it is time to talk specifics." Another man said in a dull voice, dressed in a worn grey uniform adorned with with many golden stripes and a tightly fitting leather armor worn over it. It was very similar to the one Lord Riven was wearing, but this one bore many sings of conflict.


    "Am I really needed for the detailed debate, colonel Lorain?" Lord Kert looked like he wanted to leave the room, the sooner the better.


    "Of course, because you are paying for it." Lei Gon showed a brilliant fake smile.


    "What? That is unthinkable!" Lord Kert of Zura leaned closer to the table, as if intending to turn the meeting into a brawl.


    "That was not a question, Lord Kert. Lord Riven will bear the pressure of becoming the new Border Lord, but the farmlands are not wealthy enough to provide the necessary resources. Your mines should ease the burden of your fellow Lord." The city official in the oriental suit was not intimidated at all by Lord Kert and began to dictate his terms to the furious Lord who was clearly not used to taking orders from anyone.


    "The city should bear the most of the cost. Originally, it was the Thunder God Sect that protected that part of the border!" Lord Kert countered, clearly unwilling to pay even a penny from his own pocket.


    "The other option is to provide half of the soldiers needed. Fully armed and trained of course." Lei Gon said dryly while staring into the Lord''s eyes. "Or I can tell The Immortal that you are not satisfied, you can talk directly to him then."


    Karl swore he could hear teeth gnashing before Lord Kert of Zura finally answered.


    "All right, how much is it?" He asked and Lei Gon, who was clearly some very influential city official nodded in the direction of the colonel.


    The rest of the meeting consisted of estimated numbers of soldiers needed to defend particular parts of Lord Riven''s territory, wild life''s activity, fluctuations in dangerous beasts of the region, estimated losses of life and training facilities necessary. The cost of armor and weapons, fortifications and the time schedule that accounted for poor state of the recently sieged city''s economy. When the meeting ended, Karl could not but notice the long face of Lord Kert who was leaving much poorer then he had been just an hour ago and the grave face of Lord Riven who was supposed to do the actual fighting.


    The only one with proud, self-important posture was his stupid young disciple who was clearly ecstatic that he had been allowed to attend the important meeting of Lords due to his future direct involvement in the matter, as he was the Border Lord''s son.


    A silent man with green hair in a traditional sect outfit was the only one who had not spoken the whole time and Karl guessed that he was probably the city official''s bodyguard or confidant. Maybe both.


    "It is so thrilling, with your power and wisdom Elder, I will score a lot of merits in the future skirmishes." The Young Lord Riven von Orlov said with a smirk and Karl had an urge to strangle him.


    "Of course, but my wounds are severe. You will be the one doing most of the work, boy." Karl tried to cool his temper, not forgetting that he still owed him a payback for the barn.


    "I will stand tall against my adversaries Elder, now just reveal to me the secret methods to complete the Mojo Purification Stage!" He said with confidence, even though they were still in the corridor.


    "First enter your room, by the way, what is your Mojo?" Karl could not believe he was really attempting to pull off a Grandpa move with the state of his knowledge.


    "When I showed my ability in the city, they have told me it is called Clarity. Honestly, I was quite lucky, I had been still missing a crucial Idol when I have simply walked along the city wall and an enlightenment came when I have been staring at the wall." Riven was shaking his head, obviously still surprised by his sudden progress.


    "Clarity you say. Wait, wasn''t my . . .What have I done." Karl wanted to murder himself. He remembered that his hawk had stained the wall with its blood the other day and it had that exact attribute. Based on the attribute''s name, it might even be the reason Riven was able to hear him. What else was Clarity supposed to do?


    He had indirectly created his own problem!


    "Is something the matter, Esteemed Elder?" The question hung in the air, while the Young Lord entered his room and closed the door.


    "No nothing at all, Clarity is perfect. Just spectacular." Karl organized his thoughts, opened the lexicon of lies inside his head and prepared for his first lesson in Mojo Cultivation.


    "First of all tell me what abilities you gained during your first stage and then the second stage. I need to personalize your training routine." Karl thought his loud confident thoughts,


    "Well, the first stage was really boring. I have gained more strength, speed and my body is more durable. It all came gradually during the Mojo Condensation Stage.and when I found my final Idol at the wall, I was able to manifest my ability. I went to the city and they said that it belongs to the Clarity attribute."


    "How much your strength and speed increased? Be specific." Karl wanted to get as much information as he could while he was still not exposed as a fraud.


    "About doubled? Now that i think about it, it is probably only strength, because I can move and act faster because of my increased strength. My body is a lot tougher and heals better, but an ordinary sharp sword can cut me no problem. It is only logical, even The Immortal is that way." The youth said and Karl had to do a mental exercise not to leak his shock out. He could not believe that The Immortal was actually that weak. Was young Riven delusional or Immortals here really sucked?


    "What role does The Immortal play for this city again? I have long left this realm and have forgotten how it works down here." Karl dared to probe for some information and surprisingly, the Young Lord was quite helpful this time.


    "It is the norm here. With False Immortality, you gain Domain that is really badass, but it is nothing compared to a True Immortal. After reaching The Immortal Stage, not only your body does not age anymore, but you gain this strange ability. It is like some sort of a soul pressure or something, you can simply push everyone out of their bodies just by applying this pressure, instantly killing everything around you that does not have the soul anchored in some way. Only strong False Immortals and above can withstand it. Death Domain they call it and its range is in kilometers. Every large force needs to have an Immortal who can negate enemy''s Death Domain, or it is simply instant death for all ordinary people." The eyes of the Young Lord Riven shone when he talked about the powers of an Immortal, clearly seeing himself at that stage with the help of his newly found miraculous grandpa who had clearly been many stages above a simple Immortal.


    "I see, I see. Back to your ability. What can you do?" Karl thought that asking anymore would be suspicious and focused on the task in front of him. Based on the description, he wondered if he could withstand this Death Domain. His soul had a special anchor after all.


    "It is quite boring actually. It is just Clarity. I hoped for Fire, Water, Earth, Metal or something like that. Clarity is nothing much." The Young Lord ranted about the uselessness of his ability. until Karl had to cough discretely.


    "Ah, sure. I can see through basic illusions, learn better, understand languages that I have barely heard about and that sort of thing. My dad says that I can be a great scholar, but that is really lame." Riven shook his head with trepidation.


    Karl stared at Riven with the eyes of a hawk, here was his moment. How to act as a professional cultivator, leaving young Riven in awe while ensuring that his bullshitmastery would never be found out? He needed to make his lies so outrageous that no one would even begin to suspect him!


    "Despair not my disciple! Continue the mundane path of cultivation, while I teach you the path of Heavenly Cultivation and as of today, you will become a rare dual cultivator!" Karl watched as Riven''s eyes grew wide.


    Naturally, the best lie was the one people desperately wanted to be true. So simple.

 Chapter 5 Grandma Soaring Through The Heavens

    "The path of Heavenly Cultivation works in mysterious ways, but the easiest way to channel it will be though your ancestors. As I am always around you, I can be your medium and though me you can call onto your ancestors and command the underworld! Try it now!" Karl said with confidence. It was actually quite easy. Countless television advertisements had showed him how to scam people and some country bumpkin without an ounce of mass media exposure could not hope to defeat him.


    "What? Like my grandmother?!" Riven was eagerly hanging on Karl''s every word, like a child who was about to receive a present.


    "Eh . .why not." Karl agreed and decided to let Riven improvise a bit.


    "Come grandmother! Let''s soar the Heavens together!" Riven shouted a little bit too loud for Karl''s taste, as the walls there, although stone, were not soundproof.


    All the saints! He was glad that he let the teenager pick his line. How was he supposed to guide him into such a nonsense with a straight face?


    Despite his mixed feelings, Karl fulfilled his role and summoned a skeleton next to Riven. Its shining blue eyes looking at its supposed Lord. To make the spectacle more believable, he made the skeleton kneel in front of Riven, as if waiting for his commands.


    "Success!" Karl encouraged the youth a little, but based on his expression, he should have rather tried to cool his temper.


    "No grandma! You do not need to kneel before me!" Riven stared at the skeleton who stood up immediately after his command in a daze. "But this is bad! Have I trapped the soul of my grandma or something?"


    Clearly, even Riven had been cautioned about the dangers of demonic cultivation by someone.


    "She is fine. This is just a manifestation of her multidimensional spirit where none of what happens translates back into her higher dimension, invalidating the effects of her soul asynchronicity. " Karl masterfully countered.


    Riven just stared at him, unable to tell him that he was wrong, because he obviously had no clue what Karl had just said.


    Karl had no clue as well. He had just mixed together a fraud physicist with an online channel of a successful clairvoyant, he had only forgotten to put in the word quantum. It was used repeatedly every time the fraud physicist was stuck in his ecstatic monologue and nearly frothed foam from his mouth.


    "You have talent, the connection is stable, but you need to say the commands aloud and I have to be present as a medium. If you want your power to be stronger, you need to feed the underworld with the souls of people of stage two and higher." Karl happily info dumped his scheme onto his clueless disciple. It was a nice plan. He would be leveling him while thinking he was leveling himself.


    He was a genius evil dungeon!


    He pitied the naive boy a little bit, but only until he remembered Joan and the water barrel.


    "So, you say that grandma has to kill people? Is this really not a demonic cultivation path?" Riven said warily, not entirely dumb.


    "No, demonic paths use the souls you kill. This way you are sending them back to the dead, not using them in any way. You can think of it as the favor of the underworld when you feed them with stage two souls and above. The power does not come from enslaving the souls." Karl explained using one of the very few pieces of information he actually remembered.


    "Stage two beasts will suffice?" Riven asked and caught Karl of guard, as he had never killed a stage two beast.


    "Usually they do, it depends on the quality of your connection with the underworld. We need to try it out to know for certain." Karl improvised and decided to conclude their session.


    "I have shown you the basics, with time you will be able to draw on your connection to summon multiple powerful entities into this world. Now I need to rest, I have already overexerted myself." Karl tried to sound tired, but was still clueless how to influence the tone of this thoughts.


    "Thank you master! Rest well!" Riven did the know-how position again, clearly thrilled by his new ability.


    While pretending to be unconscious, resting, Karl observed the room of the rural Young Lord. It was not too spacious nor luxurious. Obviously the space in a fort was costly and every piece of luxury compromised its security. Remembering the meeting, the local Lord was quite fortunate to live in a fort and not a villa or an estate. The fort was probably very old and outlived its purpose, yet at this point in time, its walls would come handy again if the worries of the two Lords and the city official came true.


    He could not believe that he was still stuck outside of the city despite his many attempts to infiltrate it. However, it might not be a bad strategy to gain information. He had already found out some important intel about The Immortal from Riven and more would probably follow as he interacted more with the fort''s occupants.


    However, there was some discrepancy he had on his mind. He still remembered his first encounter with Elder Gon in the Thunder God Sect and his speed was definitely not how Riven had described The Immortal. The increase of physical fitness should have been only about two times, despite that he was nearly unable to see Elder Gon''s movements.


    "Can it be the Mojo? Isn''t wind green?" Karl whispered and thought that he had probably found the answer. It would be quite an unpleasant answer. If his hypothesis was right, then Mojo was extremely important with tremendous impact on fighting ability. Was it the reason why the Gon family was prominently in control of the city? Because of their good attribute that gave them incredible fighting ability?


    It could have also been a Wind Domain, but he had too little information about a Domain. He would try to keep himself at the edge of the fighting and get some experience points. It would take some time to reach level three in his system, but it could be done. The worst scenario was that the system trend would continue and he would need to acquire ten thousand level three souls or higher to reach level four.


    "The system is out of its mind, the ten times scaling is ridiculous!" Karl complained, he knew that on level tree he would certainly need to use his structures to get further. For the time being his battle plan was clear. He would gather intel while his Young Lord would get him to level three, he would see what to do next.


    "About nine hundred kills will take a while." Karl thought carefully, but he had time. All the time in the world.


    * * * *


    "You are a future Lord of this house, I cannot have you getting killed by some silly monster. You will stay put until the first units are armed and trained!" Lord Riven of Orlov was scolding the Young Lord who had tried to sneak out of the fort in a search of an adventure in the woods bordering the region. Even here, hunt was both fun and a matter of prestige, especially when the hunter brought back a trophy of a dangerous spirit beast. It was hard to hold back young Riven who had too much free time on his hands, young blood boiling in his veins and was a rare dual cultivator who would soon shatter the Heavens with his power.


    At least so he had thought.


    "I can take care of myself farther, I am not stupid to go too far!" He tried to dodge his father''s attention with excuses.


    "I will not keep you here but you will not make a step in the direction of the border!" Lord Riven persuaded further and when his son did not react, he decided to give him a suggestion while lowering his voice.


    "Why don''t you visit that girl of yours? It is much safer to stay put until our forces are in order." He attempted to wink at his son, but it induced only horror in his eyes.


    "Father! Are you really ordering me to fuck now? I could not see this one coming." Young Lord Riven stared at his father breathlessly and Karl had to hold back his laughter.


    There was a while of silence before the old Lord uttered with absolute seriousness.


    "Fuck or manure! Now!"


    Silence ensued.


    The Young Lord was really worried about his father''s mental health. Becoming a Border Lord had clearly put a tremendous pressure on the old Lord of Orlov.


    Tremendous pressure.


    "Alright, I will be in the fields." The teenager lifted his arms in defeat and went in the direction of his horse. It would be for the best if he avoided his father for a while, in case he tried to give him an even more ridiculous order.


    "And I thought you would choose manure." Karl could not help himself but jab into the Young Lord.


    "Very funny, I did not know that Elders had a great sense of humor." Riven''s face distorted.


    "Wait, now that I think about it. Were you watching the last time?" Something had finally clicked in the youngster''s brain.


    "From the depth of the water barrel? No, just the first half." Karl answered with his thoughts dryly. He thought that he had finally managed to convey a hint of a feeling through his thoughts.


    "Oh, sorry about that. I will place you somewhere more appropriate this time." Riven gulped trying to brush the matter quickly aside.


    "That would be strongly appreciated."


    They used the same horse as before and this time Riven was even able to dismount and walk half the way to the barn before he was received with a warm welcome.


    "You are here, You Majesty!" The same farm girl came and was squirming shyly in front of Riven with both hands behind her back and her eyes looking at the ground. Karl did not know who was she trying to fool, he had seen with his own eyes that he was a nymphomaniac demon when in action.


    "Pretentious nympho bitch." He uttered and remembered too late that Riven had probably heard him, as he was not trying to be subtle at all.


    "Don''t call me that, it is really over the top." The Young Lord asked and his eyes looked directly up where Karl was resting in his hair.


    "Ups." Karl had some work to do on his thought control, but judging from the mild reaction, the teenager probably even agreed with him.


    "Yes, Your Majesty. " Her head still slightly down, her blue eyes shot up and hungrily stared at the Lord. "I do not have much time, I have to help out mother with the lunch."


    "Do not bother with that, we will be going on a trip!" The Young Lord Riven had naturally a lot of time after his father had banned him from doing anything stupid.


    "But I really can''t, father will shout at me again!" She appeared to be torn between the two options, sporting an expression of a tortured animal.


    "I will buy you something nice in the city." Riven used a trump card and the girl melted under the blissful weight of love, money, influence and gifts.


    "But we should be quick!" She peeped and they both mounted the waiting horse.


    Riven felt the warm body pressing against his and thought about making the journey much more romantic than he had originally planned. But as his heart began to beat faster, he remembered something important.


    "Oh! I have promised to the Elder not to expose him to that." He looked around for a while and then after shrugging his shoulders, he took off his silver circlet and threw it into the barn, where it landed next to a pitch fork.


    "No! THE CITY!" Karl shouted angrily, but it was too late. He was already accompanied just by the old cow, the empty head of his master no longer under him.


    Obviously, the Young Lord thought that no villager was dumb enough to steal his circlet as they very well knew who it belonged to.


    The Lord temporarily gone, Karl hung peacefully next to the pitch fork and enjoyed the lovely rural afternoon. It was a tremendous help that he was unable to smell anything, as he remembered that the stench of animals was not something pleasant.


    "A blissful afternoon to enjoy without the need to do anything." Thinking about it, he was really lucky. Although he was just a stone stuck to a silly steel circlet, he had a tremendous advantage over normal people. He did not have to work! He always thought that work was an insidious invention of a devil who despite being unable to step onto the Earth, he sent work in his stead. To add a diabolical scheme to the evil, people were told they needed to work and were forced to want to work or even beg for it! The devil was truly a terrifying entity.


    "Just hanging here and chilling, it is marvelous." He did admit that he felt kind of naked with his core this exposed, a feeling that probably stemmed from his new identity. Yet he did not find it unpleasant, watching the farmers toil from his little window during a pleasant, warm day, feeling a little bit tense because. . .


    "Have I turned into a voyeur? Impossible! No, they are just farmers and they are clothed and everything!" His thoughts in the rural idyll took a strange turn, when he heard a disturbance that disrupted his farmland paradise he had been enjoying for a considerable while.


    "Joan, where are you? Lazying around again! I need your help inside!" A voice of a woman sounded not far from the barn and Karl instinctively tried to cower or hide.


    "No, work! The devil is everywhere!" Karl shouted in his mind, enjoying the fact that no one could hear him again.


    "Where is that girl again!" A head peeked inside the barn and a piercing stare locked with the circlet hanging there, particularly focused at its black gem.


    "What?! I am in danger! That is the crazy superstitious women that threw me into the well!" Karl started to take the situation more seriously as the women stared directly at him for a while. Had she recognized the black gem or not?


    "No, she cannot. I am a circlet now, not a sword!" Karl was nearly sweating when the women stepped closer and her eyes widened, madness inside them.


    "What is this sorcery? It cannot be! This is sorcery! The barn! It is cursed! Our barn has been possessed by an evil spirit!" The women haphazardly ran out of the barn, nearly tumbling over the cow nearby and continued to ran towards the house.


    "Thanks The Lord that the barn does not fit into the well." Karl sighed and continued to wait for Riven, no longer disturbed from his afternoon nap.


    Thankfully, local people probably knew the women''s issues better than he did and no one came to bother and investigate the supposedly cursed barn.


    It was already nighttime when Riven was carrying Karl back to the fort on the top of his head. Karl had to admit that the boy was not as stupid as he had thought. He had stealthily released his lover in front of the barn and rode off before the angry father of Joan could manage to catch him with his pitchfork and surely intended to use the perfect excuse in front of his father that he had commanded him to do it. Karl hoped that Riven would not be learning the ways of the world too quickly, or he might see through his scam.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "You are really a fox, Young. . .. "


    "Let''s go squash some rats." Riven said and steered his horse directly to the border instead of the fort.


    Karl had no idea where the Young Lord had left his brain this time, and he had just wanted to praise his wits! He had to know that his father''s worry was not just some superficial act. It was really dangerous deeper in the forest. He had not met any dangerous animals back then, but it was logical that all the fauna had left during the clash between the cultists and the sect.


    What if he were to crack during one of the boy''s stupid adventures?


    "Riven, calm down. It is night! What you are about to do is completely stupid." He tried to persuade Riven, but his reaction was not what he had expected.


    "What? Do you think that I am useless too? I can handle a few beasts!" He received a fiery answer and based on his experience, it was clear that something must have happened in the city.


    "Who said that?" He asked, but there was only silence from his bearer.


    Was it connected to the girl or not?


    "If you want to became truly powerful and wipe your ass with anyone who have wronged you, anyone, even The Immortal, the first thing you need to learn is to calm down your emotions and listen to what I am telling you. You will become more powerful than anyone residing in that stinky hole of a city, we just need to calmly, gradually work for ti. Do you understand?" He began his psychological operation, but there was no response from the youth. Based on his understanding of the brain, at this moment Riven''s brain had been flooded with adrenaline and dozens of other bothersome substances that made his behavior as dependable as a heroine addict. He needed to slowly, methodically talk him out of it while all the chemicals were being burned out from his system.


    "Do you see that city? That is how a shitehole looks like! I have seen cities hundred times bigger, with methods of transportation, power and luxury the bumpkins over there are unable to even imagine, much less comprehend! You cannot be stopped at the beginning of your journey just because you made a silly blunder." He kept his steady pressure while expecting the constant exertion to improve the chemical situation inside of the Young Lord''s brain.


    "Lord Riven, now stop your horse and let''s make a plan to kick their ass! "


    It took some time, but then finally, Riven had stopped the horse that was clearly happy as well that his Lord regained some level of sanity.


    "There was this. .. this damned fucker!" Riven began to explain and Karl was clear that the young man was not ready to talk about the experience, nor do anything else.


    "I know what we will do. You need to get up first thing in the morning and I will start to teach you seriously. Here in the forest, on beasts. However I need you fresh tomorrow, so go to bed now to be ready for the next day. It will be taxing." He was curious himself how the training would look like, but he needed the Young Lord calm and collected before anything else.


    "Alright, alright Elder. We will start to train for real tomorrow."


    Karl did not know if he should be happy that he had managed to persuade his restless Lord, or to cry in a corner, because he had no idea what he was going to do the next day.


    * * * *


    The shadows of the trees by the road were still long with the sun having no strength at all when the hooves of their horse were threading the same path as yesterday. The Young Lord Riven of Orlov was more than eager to train under the guidance of his mentor who sat calmly on the top of his head. He looked very calm, because as a black gem, he was unable to pace back and forth, freaking out about what he was going to do.


    "Alright, let''s sum it up. We first need to know if you are attuned to the underworld enough to use even the souls of beasts. We need to find one and kill it. If everything goes as I expect, we will then simply need to hunt spirit beasts in the second stage until the connection is solid enough."


    "And then what?" The youngster was clearly not satisfied with the gradual progress. He wanted to be strong immediately, but knew himself that was not possible.


    "That will come later. If I tell you too much knowledge from the higher realm, it will only put you in danger. Remember that there exist methods to pry onto the secrets of the mind. Do not worry, everything will come in due time." Naturally, Karl had skipped the little detail that they will need over nine hundred souls of the second stage for him to level up and he did not even dare to think about the next step that probably involved ten thousand stage tree souls.


    They decided not to use the old road to the Thunder God Sect, in case there was someone still lurking on the road. They left their horse in care of the farmer the land of whom bordered the forest and continued on foot. At first, the forest was not dense, but it quickly changed and it was clear that leaving the horse behind was the right choice.


    "I hope we won''t get lost." Karl remarked, because he would certainly lose his way if not for the Young Lord leading the way.


    "Do not worry, this is my territory. I have been wandering though these wood since a long time ago." Riven said confidently.


    "You make it sound like it was at the dawn of civilization. " Karl kept looking around, because he was unsure of his bearer''s fighting skills. "Turn back if we encounter a stage tree spirit beast, we need power, not heroism."


    "Of course, do you think I am stupid?" Karl heard the response and had to strongly restrain himself not to think about anything for a while.


    Instead, he thought about the ecosystem of the world. In a cultivation world, even some beast could cultivate and he presumed that here it was the same. However, it was quite strange how it worked, because based on the widely accepted system, that would mean that the rabbits were running around the forest, searching for their Idols. That could not be right. He wanted to ask, but this was obviously the kind of information he should know as a wise Elder. He settled with the explanation that some Mojos were obvious and easy to level up in a natural environment and some were not. That would also explain why some of the beasts were ordinary even if old, but others leveled through the stages of cultivation.


    "I see a rabbit." Suddenly, the Young Lord whispered and crouched.


    "What stage is it?" Karl asked eagerly, wanting to finally move up his experience points counter, after what seemed like ages of stagnation.


    "How would I know? He does not have it written on his ears!" Riven responded and shattered one of the mechanics Karl hoped was natural in the cultivation world. Were there no spirit waves, or Mojo waves or something? Was there really nothing like that or was his Lord just useless?


    It looked like he was not destined to be the protagonist who inspected everything, knew about anything that moved and deduced miraculous methods based on his wealth of information. He would be the clueless protagonist who did not know a thing.


    "Lame." He thought aloud due to his frustration.


    "Do it yourself if you are so smart, you are surprisingly unhelpful in some areas." He received an immediate answer that he could not refute. Karl wanted to give the youngster a piece of his mind, but then remained silent, because his picture of a wise elder was already shaky enough. He did not need to add any more cracks to it.


    The next second, an arrow stuck the rabbit on the first try and Riven smirked, admiring his own marksmanship. He walked closer to the animal and threw it over his shoulder.


    "Lame you say? With the first shot." He walked back while boasting about his skills.


    "I was thinking about something else. What do you think? That I am thinking only about you all the time?" Karl brushed Riven aside, irritated by his intrusiveness. "By the way, what are you going to do with that now?"


    "The dead rabbit? Bring it to the farmer naturally." Riven shrugged his shoulders as it was a matter of course.


    "You mean we will be running back and forth with every single animal you kill? We will be here until the world ends!" Karl wanted to scream with frustration, partially because only he knew about the insane number of kills they needed to make.


    "And what else do you want to do? Leave it there? It is a waste! I mostly hunt with others, but I can''t now as some of them might spy on me." Riven bit his lip, clearly unsatisfied as well that he would be running back and forth like a courier.


    "Your own people selling you out?" Karl had thought that he had more loyalty instilled in his men.


    "With enough gold? Why not. And where gold is not enough, blackmail always works." Riven stated like it was a common knowledge and Karl understood that he was a Lord after all. He had to have some level of exposure to his father''s politics.


    "If we go further, it will no longer be your territory, thus it won''t be a waste right? Just the way of nature." Karl knew that they would get really nowhere, running with every single carcass back and forth.


    "You have told me to be cautious." Riven pointed out inconveniently. The Young Lord was smart exactly at the wrong moments every time.


    "Cautious does not seem to cut it." Karl snapped back, how could a few rabbit corpses be more important than their future?


    "Fine, we will go deeper where the people do not hunt for food." Riven flung the rabbit into the woods, irritated by the complications and headed again in the direction away of the border. This time with much faster pace.


    They walked for some time, making their way through the green sea of the forest. It was closer to the forests of mild climate, not at all a jungle that Karl would hate to traverse. There was too many spiders and other critters in a jungle environment. He searched his memory for the data that had been revealed at the meeting by the colonel. They should be far away from the region where beasts of level three and higher had been spotted, that much he could remember, but the situation of the second tier beasts was too chaotic. He decided to tenderly poke into Riven if he remembered more than him, but when he saw his determined face and remembered his shaky track record, he knew that silence was the best course of action.


    They would manage somehow.


    Riven walked on and on. At some point Karl noticed that he began panting a lot, not lessening his pace that bordered with a sprint. He should have talked with the youth more, he was obviously under too much pressure after the yesterday''s incident, too eager to take vengeance on whoever wronged him. However, before he could find suitable words, Riven himself addressed him.


    "We won''t be able to run away from those. We need to make a stand somewhere and quick." Riven blurted out in between his rugged breaths.


    "Who?!" Karl was stupefied, how could he not notice anything? It was not surprising, he had been a city dweller while the youth had lived near the forests all his life.


    "Blackpaws, about six of them." Riven added and the information from the meeting immediately flooded Karl''s brain.


    Blackpaw Wolves. Wild wolves that had attributes related to hunt tended to level up easily into the second stage and found each other using specific howls that enabled them to group into a pack. Their Alpha tended to be only the second stage, because higher stage wolves were too aggressive and did not need the group to hunt anymore, turning solitary. The size of the pack varied greatly, but large packs did not have enough food near human territories and tended to avoid large settlements, exterminating smaller villages with no protection.


    The colonel recommended that a squad of experienced and well-equipped soldiers was enough to deal with the threat. With less personnel, the chance of casualties was high.


    "How large is a squad?" Karl mused and immediately received an answer.


    "Five." He felt like a bucket of cold water was poured over his head. The Young Lord was definitely not stronger than two such soldiers, at most three.


    "Stop and take a breath, we will make a stand. I will use some tricks to help you." He would need to spin some story later, but he felt unwilling to let the youth die.


    He had invested too much effort into him to let him die. Yeah, that was it. The wolves were just bad for business and needed to go.


    "If you are a fraud, pulling my leg, I will haunt you from the afterlife." Riven said coldly and stopped while gripping his sword tightly. He sliced a nearby stick and grabbed it with his free hand. Dual wielding his sword and the stick, he waited for the wolves to show up.


    "What about the bow?" Karl asked with some hope.


    "Useless. They are too quick and it can only wound them at most. Unless I hit their eyes, but that is almost impossible with their reflexes. What tricks can you do, Elder?"


    "Let''s say that temporarily, there will be a lot more Grandmas." Karl knew that his bearer would die if he held back.


    "I am counting on you." Riven said while blood began rushing into his head. His heart thumped like crazy, as the black paws of the wolves drew closer and closer until he was completely encircled by them. Seven hungry beasts staring at him with hunger.


    "Shouldn''t we have our backs against a tree?" Karl said uneasily while looking at the sparkling white teeth of the Blackpaw Wolves.


    "Confidence, not caution against these. Gradma, let''s soar though the high heavens once more!" Riven roared and unexpectedly threw himself against the nearest beast. It jumped back immediately, dodging the aggressive move and the wolf behind Riven''s back leaped forward to bite him from his blind spot. However, the Young Lord knew well the classic tactics of wolves and turned immediately with his sword drawing a wide circle, just barely missing the attacking wolf that used its good reflexes to jump back at the last second.


    "It was about time, they will try to tire me out." Riven shouted in distress, feeling the pressure from the encirclement. He calmed down a little when he saw multiple places around him stir with activity. The dead leaves moved and lifted, white skeletons with their eyes shining with blue light emerging all around him. When Riven reached the count of ten, he stopped counting and sighed with relief. He was no longer outnumbered.


    "We will be the ones tiring them out, for the dead know no respite." Karl said a badass line, but knew that the situation was still serious. He knew how fragile his skeletons could be.and the wolves were not a simple stage one wolves. For the time, he summoned fifteen skeletons that were harassing the pack from behind, totally disrupting their strategy, turning the whole fight into a chaotic brawl.


    "Those skeletons are too fragile, they will be all gone in a minute." Riven uttered while exchanging blows with one of the wolves that had one of his ears bitten though, probably from the infighting between the wolves. None of them wanted to commit to any of their strikes as Karl kept encouraging him to stall for time.


    "That is not how this works, I can call on countless of those. Trust me and stall for time." Karl insisted. It was true that the wolves were superior to his skeletons in every way, but he had fifteen of them. Wolves kept making mistakes and were punished for them when the skeletons hurled themselves at the beasts in suicidal attacks. His low level minions had only an upkeep cost, but no summoning cost and he planned to exploit it to the limit.


    The brawl continued and the damage piled up on both sides. Riven had his stick arm badly wounded and was now propped against a tree, a tactic that he previously refused to employ, probably because he did not know about the nature of Karl''s helpers.


    Suddenly, the eyes of one of the wolves turned completely red and it charged at Riven with incredible speed.


    "Bloodthirst! I hope it is the only one!" Riven jumped aside trying to dodge the charge that was unnaturally quick and brutal. Karl had managed to throw a pair of skeletons at the wolf, but he simply brushed them aside like an adult pushing back kids, not caring for the wounds they caused on its body.


    "This won''t do, something tougher!" Karl did not need to summon his stats, because he had already done his research when the combat started. His choice was clear.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Mold) 5/s], [Forest Guardian(Tree) 50/s], [Wolf(Fur) 50/s], [Sapling Sentinel(Life) 5/s], [Mechatron Remnant(Magnetism) 50/s]


    [Experience 89/1000]


    A swarm of roots erupted from the ground and a tall tree grew up on the spot in a matter of seconds. Its humanoid shape lifted one of its legs and tried to kick the unnaturally enraged wolf, but the beast dodged with ease and bit into the wooden leg vigorously. That was its last mistake, as the roots around the leg moved to restrain one of its paws and a huge fist smashed the wolf''s back from above, shattering the beast''s spine.


    The wolf howled in pain and died under more attacks from the terrifying wooden entity. It was already the third casualty and it was enough to send all the rest of the wolves running away from the strange enemies that did not seem to follow any logic.


    "What is that?!" Riven looked with wide eyes at the Forest Guardian, not daring to get close to it. "It is not grandma, right?"


    "Indeed, what is that?" Karl muttered, but he had in mind the last entry in his status screen. That felt clearly out of place. "I should rather not touch something that fishy, not yet."


    "Remember this place well Lord Riven, we will definitely return here in the future. As far as this goes." He would point at the Forest Guardian, but had no hands.


    "You''ve been pulling my leg all the while right? There is no grandma and no Elder." Riven said bluntly out of the blue. Karl would have been surprised some time ago, but he was not anymore. He had seen the signs and understood that although Riven was impulsive and young, even acting silly at times, he was definitely no fool.


    "What do you want to do about it? Is it really the right moment to tell me? It would be much safer to confront me at the fort." He did not mind the confrontation, an irrational feeling that came out of nowhere. The intense fight made him less afraid for some reason and he was confident that Riven was not his opponent. Definitely not in his current state.


    "For me? Sure. For all the people there and my father after seeing your monstrosity over there? Not so much." He pointed at the tree entity that had clearly impressed him a little too much.


    "Based on the character of your minions, even if I killed this though looking guy, you can just summon a new one and then another one. You are almost unlimited in the terms of reconstruction of your minions, right? How many skeletons the wolves killed? Thirty? Forty? Or even fifty? It made them no good. I might be able to take you by surprise and shatter that black gem that houses you, but how can I know that there is no other vessel? You can come for revenge the next day. " The Young Lord Riven of Orlov straightened his back and took the circlet off his head, staring directly into the black gem.


    "No, we will end this here and now like two men. And if your secret is really too heavy for me to bear, only I will carry it to my grave. No one else." Riven said decisively while looking directly at the steel circlet that he held in his outstretched hand.


    Karl Gulden stared at the boy and could not deny he was impressed. No, this was no longer a boy, this was a young man. All his instincts shouted at him to kill him. He was a liability. A person that knew his secret. He was too dangerous and should be taken care of. Then, he would be able to restart his adventure again, this time a little bit smarter, a little bit stronger.


    But for some reason, he could not do it.


    "What is this, I have killed a child for fuck''s sake and I am unable to get rid of this snotty brat?!" A part of him was angry at himself, but when he tried to give the order, another part of him strongly opposed. All the time he had watched people around him getting killed with indifference. Wu Gon, the peasant thief, the whole sect, Zhan Gon with his unfortunate oath, the little girl and now his humanity suddenly decided to make a stand?


    Ridiculous!


    However, even as ridiculous as it would seem, it was the truth.


    "Riven brat, I have no words. You''ve completely got me." Karl would began to laugh if he could.


    "Well, what will it be, Elder? Or should I call you by your real name?" Riven still stared at him, motionless, determination stemming from his every move.


    The Forest Guardian stood just next to Riven and yet, he was unable to give the kill command. The dungeon part in him knew that it was a weakness, a flaw to be eradicated, but the human remnant inside him refused to do it, as it would signify the definite end of the person he once was.


    "My name is Karl, Karl Gulden. Always was and always will be. " He worded the second part more for himself than the noble holding him. He made the decision, even though it was not grounded in logic, nor in his newly found instincts. "I have a feeling that I will bitterly regret this later."


    "You won''t." Riven smiled with his typical silly smile.


    "You seem too sure about that."


    "Besides, you have promised me to make me stronger than The Immortal, remember?" Riven''s smile even widened.


    "Oh, come on! That would take ages to accomplish!" Karl already regretted his decision.


    "Wait, what? Was that not a lie? Can you actually do it?" Riven''s eyebrows shot up in surprise.


    "It might not be impossible." Karl mused, calculating how the whole incident changed his situation.


    "Then count me in." Riven put the circlet back on the top of his head and cleaned his sword before sheathing it back into his scabbard.


    "I do not know what your story is, but as you have said, we will show them all, because Riven and Karl are opened for business!" The Young Lord patted the arm of the Forest Guardian fearlessly and Karl felt that he had just joined a gang of young delinquents.


    "I am too old for this!" He complained, but could only move on, as the world never spun the other way.

 Chapter 6 Fur and Steel

    "Why don''t you want to tell me? Aren''t we best palls now? Hm?" Karl and Riven were trudging through the forest, Riven''s left hand wrapped in the medieval version of bandages. Which meant the cloth was not clean, but it did not stink like a month old sailor''s shirt.


    "Riven, the fact that I did not kill you hardly makes us best buddies. I won''t tell you why I am in this stone, the less people know about it, the better." Karl tried to keep out an eye for them, as his companion looked a little under the weather and he did not want to rely too much on his vigilance. They were deep in the forest and there was no telling where another strange monster lurked.


    "Oh, so we are back to the dangerous knowledge that can''t be revealed." Riven shot him a glance, making Karl unnerved. Their communication felt much more confrontational, now that he was no longer an untouchable Elder.


    "Precisely. " He responded simply.


    "And you are not lying this time." Riven slipped on a wet root and had to catch a branch next to them to stabilize himself. It was clear that he was not fresh, but Karl thought that a little hardship would not hurt him at all.


    "I do not care what you think, just move and be silent for a second!" Karl looked at the sky to find out that it was not even lunchtime, they had still plenty of time to return.


    "What about killing those beasts? Was it only a scheme to lure me out of the fort?" Riven continued in his interrogation.


    "No, I need them dead to get stronger." Karl decided to tell the truth and have the whole issue behind him.


    "Wait, so you will be the one getting stronger! What a despicable scheme!" Riven nearly exclaimed while he stopped to pick a route with the lest vegetation ahead.


    "You will truly not leave this forest alive if you continue to bother me! You should possess some sense of self-preservation!" Karl imagined what trap would work the best to torture Riven without killing him too soon.


    "Of course, I will not say another word." Young Lord Riven said, but Karl wanted to punch him in the face anyway when he saw his complacent smile. He knew exactly what suffering his father was going through now.


    They kept wandering the forest, looking for more beasts. Karl had noticed that the three wolves that they had killed counted as killed and he could really substitute humans for beasts. He was glad that he was not forced to became a genocidal maniac only to gain a few levels. Riven had gotten aboard his idea surprisingly quickly, he hoped that he was not the one being deceived for a change.


    "How can you make me stronger than The Immortal? Just curious. No pressure." Riven had not managed to be silent for long and Karl began to understand why he had no issues helping him.


    "I need power and someone who has extensive knowledge of cultivation. And I mean no nonsense philosophy, raw mechanics. What works, why it works and so forth."


    "I can tell you basics, if you want. What happened to all that wisdom?" Riven asked, but Karl ignored his remark completely.


    "Do you know someone or not? It is mainly for you, I do not need to understand that crap if I want to get stronger." Karl transmitted angrily and Riven looked quite surprised.


    "Wait, so do you have kind of your own thing and do not care about cultivation at all? That is cool. I can arrange a meeting. It will cost some coin, but farther has always wanted me to act more scholarly, so he can take it." Riven smirked, imagining his father smiling while handing out gold. "He might send someone with us, but that should not be a problem."


    "Why should he?" Karl was a little curious what Riven did this time. It looked like Riven''s father might be his future soul mate in his suffering.


    "I have once lured some coins from him under a similar pretext." The Young Lord said casually.


    "What have you done with the coins?"


    "Girls, you know." Riven tilted his head to the side, like that line should explain everything.


    "Ah, Joan and her city gifts."


    "Eh, no. Brothel." He scratched the back of his head and then failed to dodge a branch that proceeded to hit him right in his nose.


    "Uh!"


    "You have cheated on her!" Karl realized that the Young Lord had definitely more experience with women than he despite his age.


    "No, I am a Lord, we have a working relationship." Riven waved his right hand, brushing the matter aside.


    "Alright, not my business." Karl did not care much about Riven''s personal life, as long as he was not present.


    They stayed in the forest for a few hours and their hunting efficiency was not bad, as Karl no longer bothered to hide his powers from Riven. He would have never done that before, but their relationship seemed to be way past that. Unfortunately, many animals turned out to be only on the first stage and they did not count towards Karl''s goal. It resulted in him jumping up only another few points, too few to make him feel optimistic.


    "This may actually take a whole year." Karl sighed while mentally tired, cursing himself a second later for his lack of discretion.


    "What? How many do you need?" The dead tired Riven''s eyes bulged in horror.


    "Do not even ask, but it will take a year at this pace." Karl said in resignation. It was still better than the endless tunnel, but not by much.


    "You did not mention that in your ardent speech." Riven carefully checked his bow for damages. The old thing would be broken ten times over before they finished such a tall order.


    "No, because someone might start to cry if I did."


    "You! I might sell you to an auction house at this rate!" Riven gripped the old bow tighter and the wood creaked under the pressure.


    "If some rich lady buys me, why not?" Karl just responded jovially, clearly not bothered by the threat.


    "Do not forget that you are just a steel circlet, it will be only some fat, poor merchant Lord."


    "Then, there will be no difference, right?"


    "WHAT?!" Riven looked quickly at his belly and then began wordlessly walking towards the fort.


    When they arrived at the fort of the house Riven, it looked like an ant nest. New barracks next to it were being build and even an extension of the wall was being planned out, most of it payed for by the good Lord Kert of Zura who provided many resources and laborers for the project. Riven walked inside while looking around, hoping that his father was in a good mood and would give him the extra money he needed. He had his own fund, but why would he take from his own pocket when there was a real chance that his father might sponsor him?


    He did not need to walk for too long before spotting his father embroiled in a discussion with someone Riven had not seen before who wore a shiny military uniform. Probably some military instructor from the city.


    "What do you mean the swords are too short? Isn''t there a standard length that the military uses?" Lord Riven stared at the sword in the military man''s hand, while both had a frown on their faces.


    "It is, but whoever made these had made them shorter, most likely to spare some material. But that is not the main problem here." The military man analyzed the sword.


    "Do you mean that it is alright that the swords are too short? Because, I do not think it is!" Lord Riven was clearly losing his temper, as this might have not been the first problem he had encountered with the deliveries.


    "The main issue is that the swords are too thin. They break easily." The man swung the sword suddenly with extreme speed and the tip of the blade flew off into the distance without even being shattered by anything. It simply flew off due to the centrifugal force.


    Even though the man had clearly used some sort of special technique, it was not something that should have happened.


    "See, the second stage people cannot even use abilities with this junk." The military instructor stated calmly, like announcing the weather. However, Lord Riven''s face turned completely red.


    "Bring me parchment! Now! That scum of Zura will answer for this!" Not far away from him his son had silently slipped into the fort, heading for his secret stash. It was obvious that bothering his father at this moment was akin to seeking death.


    "No, this time it would not be manure, coins or sex. Only manure or more manure." Riven whispered while running up the stairs, trying to dodge anyone who might have been tasked with assigning him some duties. He avoided all the important people in the fort and sneaked into his room, where he took out his reserve funds and withdrew a considerable portion.


    Well, it was for his Immortality, right? He could not be too stingy.


    After he had put back his stash, he had slipped out of the room and could still hear the voice of his father from the outside. Maybe, he should buy his father some calming tea on the way back.


    With a bit of luck, Karl and Riven had successfully made it out of the fort, carrying the necessary coin for the plan.


    "Where are we going exactly? To some sage, sword master, mage or. .. ."


    "the Purple Lotus Sect." Riven interrupted him, surprising Karl with his unexpected answer.


    "Are they in the city?"


    "No, a little bit to the side. It is the Gon von Kotzchen clan. They are smaller than the Thunder God Sect was."


    "The purple ones." Riven added when he figured that Karl was totally out of the picture.


    "Why are they not in the city? Why?" Karl almost cried at this point, he was really fated never to see the mysterious city properly.


    "That is because The Immortal does not protect parasites. Sects have to earn their place. There was the Thunder God Sect from this side of the city serving as its border and protection. The Purple Lotus sect lies at the other side. There is an inaccessible mountain on the third and a wide river encloses the city from the final side. It has all been planned to serve as the border of the city. The first line of defense."


    "Ah, that is how the flower position was called! A lotus position!" Suddenly, Karl remembered a vital piece of information.


    "What position? You mean that you do not know the most basic position for cultivation?" Riven blinked twice while looking up.


    "Of course I know all the important positions in cultivation! It is the flower. . .I mean lotus position, the know-how position and seiza." Karl vehemently showed his knowledge of cultivation.


    "Know-what?" Riven''s face froze into an expressionless mask.


    "Fortunately, no one will be able to hear you. It will work out." The Young Lord Riven sighed with relief.


    "What do you mean?!"


    * * * *


    They have decided to go along the river, as it was the fastest route. There were many simple boats floating atop of the lazy wide surface of water that was framed by farmlands. It was unnaturally peaceful given the recent events.


    "Two attacks of a demonic sect and all those farms look as good as new, it is strange." Karl had not expected that the damage done to the city and the Thunder God Sect was localized only to those two places.


    "They are after souls and The Immortal. Who cares about farms? On the contrary, they want weak people to be numerous, easy souls." Riven looked at the shimmering water as well. "Small demonic sects tend to act chaotic, but larger ones leave the populations to fatten up on purpose."


    Out of curiosity, Karl checked his summons, expecting a water elemental which he would like to try out, but there was none. There were just the same boring options as usual. With nothing to fiddle with in his status screen, he watched the people fishing, but it was extremely boring. Even more boring than watching Riven''s fleas jump back and forth.


    Nearing the Purple Lotus Sect, Karl saw that there were trees with purple blossoms along the route and thought that purple lotuses would be more fitting, but it seemed like they had not fit into the budget. Despite it being just trees, not lotuses, it was still a spectacle and he would have admired the entrance of the Purple Lotus Sect some more, if not for the long stride of his companion. Thank the Heavens that walking was usually not fast enough to induce his motion sickness, it was the fastest speed he could really enjoy.


    "My carrier''s speed is too much! Delay start! Oh, no, many F sixteens are already in the air, we will miss the target!" Karl passed through the gate and felt like in some kind of a game thanks to the fact that he was not doing the walking. It felt like he had pushed the button and was simply moving forward, on autorun. Suddenly, his carrier started to cough down below.


    "What is that? Modern carriers do not cough! Am I still in the century of steam?" He wondered.


    "Karl, focus. You are thinking aloud again." The Young Lord said with more decency than usual.


    "Oh, roger." Karl acted as nothing had happened. It was true that he should be more careful, Riven was definitively not the only one having the Clarity Mojo.


    He noticed that the sect had been build on a large area, encircled by a relatively low stone fence that was more stylish than sturdy. In front of the stone fence, there were many people who did not have the purple clothes of the members of the sect, building a different kind of fence. This one looked more like a steel wall, higher and clearly much more difficult to overcome.


    "Looks like people do not trust the enchantments that much anymore." Riven whistled, but not too loud to avoid attracting attention.


    "Isn''t it useless anyway with flying people that can launch lava rivers?" Karl doubted the meaning of the wall.


    "Much better than nothing. Powerful people only rarely charge forward, even though their abilities might be awesome, their defense is often similar to ordinary soldiers."


    "Then why are the cultists so bold?"


    "Cultists usually aim to kill a lot of people quickly and then retreat. The reward for them are souls, long fights have little meaning for them. Especially because many of their abilities are unstable. They usually strike quick and hard, kill a lot of easy victims and retreat before all the side effects of their flawed cultivation techniques kick in and cripple their strength." The Young Lord Riven of Orlov explained, looking more dependable than usual.


    "The last attack did not seem that way." Karl remembered how he had thought that the whole city was done for.


    "They aimed to assassinate The Immortal, it would have been instant victory if they had succeeded. They were quite prepared for the ambush, but when it began to turn into a protracted battle, they had to withdraw. They had inside help and the traitor has still not been found, that is why everyone ts this fidgety, building extra walls in case of the Purple Lotus Sect."


    "Looking at it from this side of the city, I do not think we are quite prepared at the other side." Karl observed.


    "Do not remind me." Riven said dryly. "Short swords that break versus tall steel walls and enchanted weapons."


    "I hope your promises are not just a joke. We really do need that extra push now." Riven flashed his eyes up, his gaze directly meeting the black stone for a second.


    * * * *


    "I need services of one of your Elders." Lord Riven of Orlov entered haughtily into the main building of the Purple Lotus Sect that looked like a pan in Karl''s opinion, even with the handle. But his views were always a bit oversimplified. On top of the first pan was another and a normal person would probably call the structure pagoda that for some reason had an extra, thick column at its side.


    "I will immediately call The Immortal himself for our treasured Lordship." The man standing behind a desk, that reminded Karl of a bar from a futuristic cyberpunk city, said coldly, the whole feeling was largely caused by the chosen color scheme. The whole hall had been painted in futuristic cold colors with the bar and some other items being purple.


    There were even some lights! Karl could almost hear the sharp tones of progressive techno carrying him to the dancing floor. There was of course a dancing floor of again, purple color, but it was filled with palm trees and flowers that did not fit there much. Karl noticed that the receptionist in his purple robe stood up and walked in front of the bar. He was half expecting him to kick aside the flowers and start pumping the rhythm when. . .


    "Move it, shake it!" Karl started to really feel the beats.


    Darkness!


    "Ah, someone must have covered me with something. Was I thinking aloud again? I must really focus, I am too distracted as of late." Karl tried to meditate to prepare for his big moment. He needed to be sharp as a katana! Of course wielded by a samurai in seiza.


    "What is so funny here, am I so funny, huh?" Meanwhile, Riven had his own portion of trouble, the man from the Purple Lotus Sect that had received Riven looked quite upset, because he could tell the rude youngster before him had absolutely no respect for him.


    "No, Sir. I really. .. . I really want just some pointers from an Elder. Here is gold." Riven fought back laughter with all his might and hid his face behind a thick sack with gold coins. He had no idea from where had his imagination grabbed the few images of the receptionist doing some extremely weird moves among the flowers on the right, but he had to prevent a political faux pa at all costs.


    "Fine, but this will cost you a lot." The man did not calm down much, but clearly decided that thoroughly extracting all the gold from Riven was the right kind of punishment. "As you are our esteemed guest, I will lead you directly to Elder Yen, known also as The Purple Flash."


    He quickly grabbed the whole sack and hid it in his robe, while Riven was looking at him, stupefied. He had naturally not intended to use all his gold.


    "W-Wait! That is . . . !"


    "What is? Is perhaps Elder Yen not smart enough to give you pointers?" The man smiled and Riven saw the trap there. Yen Gon von Kotzchen, aka The Purple Flash was the Sect Leader''s wife and Riven knew that his father would strangle him if he caused some situation concerning her.


    "Of course, I will be honored to receive her guidance." Riven bowed and nearly cried when he remembered how much gold had been in the sack.


    "Perfect, Young Lord Riven. Follow me." The man smiled widely and Riven followed in his steps. He noticed that the man knew him even without introduction and was probably much more experienced in politics than him. He would have never made a move on his own, acting through someone else like his mother was better, but the matter with the circlet was too delicate to involve anyone else.


    They walked upstairs and Riven found out that a large part of the roof above the first pan was an opened garden overgrown by purple and blue bushes with a crystal clear pond in the middle . Next to the pond sat a women on a wooden bench, with long purple hair that were elaborately braided. Her eyes were a mix of steel blue and purple and there was no sign of aging on her face, despite Riven knowing that she was quite old.


    It was The Purple Flash, one of the reasons that Mezzaiel had to withdraw with his tail between his legs, the single Soul Transformation cultivator of the Purple Lotus Sect.


    A fifth stage cultivator!


    He hastily took off the hood that he had quickly threw over his head when Karl acted up. It might have been one of the reasons that the receptionist looked at him strangely. The Purple Flash either did not see his hasty action, or did not care at all.


    "Come, I have heard that you know the worth of my time. I am at your service young man, for a while." The woman smiled and he honestly could not tell if she was honest or not.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Riven thought that it was a very expensive while, but quickly cleared his thoughts before making some needless mistake.


    The sect had most likely multiple people that observed the main building from the shadows and the fact that the woman knew the situation had not surprised him at all. He just hoped that Karl had pulled his mind out of a latrine and was able of coherent thought.


    "Slow and steady boy, I am with you." Karl said as if he had been his moral pillar all this time, but killing him would come later, Riven had to focus on Yen.


    "Lady Yen Gon." Riven nodded slightly. Considering he was nobility, he did not need to do more. His status was definitely not less than Yen, but he knew how much influence she had at the moment, because she was one of the pillars that the safety of the whole city depended on.


    "Speak, what do you want to know." She jumped directly in, not interested in pleasantries at all.


    "Stay calm Riven, I have kind of watched her son drown, so we cannot afford mistakes." Karl said and Riven''s heart skipped a beat.


    "First question. What is the difference between enchantments and cultivation." Karl continued before his bearer lost his composure and Riven immediately redirected the question to the mysterious women sitting in front of him without a second thought.


    "Souls shape reality when present. Cultivation is the process of binding soul that can directly shape reality when bound, enchantments do the exact same, except without any will. If I take your soul and imbue it into this bench, the chaotic will inside it will create an abomination. To create an enchantment, the will must be crushed first and an artificial intent is provided with symbols, runes, rituals, whatever you fancy."


    "It sounds too easy." Riven mediated again and felt like a parrot. Thankfully, the fifth stage cultivator stayed oblivious to the fact they were two, not one, or chose to stay silent about it.


    "It is very easy. The problem is that this world is like a mirror, the souls are not directly present here, you have to first draw them out. Lure them, catch them and bend them to your will."


    "With Idols." Karl remarked though Riven.


    "Idols!" The Purple Flash laughed.


    "That is only the first step. I will tell you a secret. Many Immortals say that even they do not have their souls fully present, no one really knows how many layers of reality are between the true essence of the soul and our world. We only know that what Immortals do is enough to make them immortal. A legend has it that anyone could become an omnipotent god with their true soul fully present. "


    "What are the technical steps to make a proper enchantment?" Karl immediately focused on something practical, he knew that theory was nice, but he could deduce theory on his own if he possessed experimental data.


    "Ah, a practical man." The Purple Flash smiled, but only slightly.


    "Take a rabbit, its stage matters, you want to catch at least a small portion of his soul. Higher stages have it crystalized somewhere, you need that stuff, lower ones don''t, you take them whole. You need to know its Mojo to choose good binding material. Using blood, you can trap Bloodthirst Mojo, let''s say the rabbit has it. You can cut runes from wood, drench it in blood and then kill the rabbit next to it." He told him like presenting him an ordinary cooking recipe.


    "That is it?"


    "Of course there are some trade secrets. There are ways to make the transfer more successful, but they are not universal, different for every Mojo. Sometimes even every species. The runes or shapes to use are no secret, the whole procedure used to be secret, but it all leaked out a long time ago. The only troublesome part is will." She bent forward on the bench, looking into the pond.


    "Will is trouble. The best scenario is that the rabbit does not leave in the enchantment any lingering will, if it does, the enchantment will distort accordingly. Some people torture animals that are used for offensive enchantments of chaotic nature to get the will more aligned with the enchantment, but I would not recommend it."


    "Why? Some ethical concerns?" Karl did not believe it was the reason even as he was having the thought.


    The women laughed a little.


    "True, some ethical concerns. By torturing the animals, you can draw out their will, but, playing this way with wills is the strong point of demonic cultivators and you know how they often end."


    Karl did not need to ask anything, because Riven''s clueless expression asked in his stead.


    "By doing the torture, you can bend and shape weaker wills, but sometimes you might reinforce the original will instead and step up into a higher game. One friend of mine used to say animals are just deeply sleeping demons and humans forgotten gods. I am not a religious person, but even I have observed that wills have a peculiar connection to divinity, mess with a soul''s will enough and you might end up in a really bad situation. The safest approach is to simply discard those that are too lively."


    "But If you rob someone, you mess with his will quite a lot and nothing supernatural ever happens." Karl asked and The Purple Flash shook her head.


    "Are you sure? And even if what you say is absolutely true, you forget that during enchanting, the vessel is not fixed. You stand over there and your soul is directly fixated onto your vessel, it manifests through it. During enchantment, you are destroying the old vessel while trying to provide a material that resonates with Mojo, meaning you are attempting to draw out a purer version of the soul, providing a better vessel. It is like asking the bets to be raised compared to the original reality." She threw some seed Karl had not even noticed she had in her hand in the direction of the pond and when the seed fell onto the surface, a tiny fish broke the surface briefly, snatching it.


    "I am not even starting to talk about foreign entities, or demons, that is another reason why you should cancel the enchanting process when you sense that the will is too strong or just acts suspiciously. Enchantments look very powerful, but making strong ones is risky and costly. You have to also remember that enchantments tend to interfere with each other. It is easy to shield yourself against the basic ones."


    "So, to make a strong enchantment, the main ingredient is a strong soul with little will." Karl summed up his understanding.


    "Yes, but those two conditions tend to contradict each other. There are even cases when an abomination is created after the enchantment has been successfully made."


    "How was the city''s enchantment sabotaged?" Karl''s curiosity pushed further.


    "Details on that are top secret, but I can tell you a little. City''s wall foundations had been used as a part of the original enchantment. Someone had undermined a significant part, distorting the inscribed intent. It was a flawed concept, but no one had expected that the enemy would bother to dig up a huge network of tunnels all around the city. "


    "The tunnel even flooded with. . ." She paused and closed her eyes for some reason, there appeared a strange sensation all around her. Karl could not put his finger on what it was, but it was unpleasant.


    Karl wanted to be somewhere else, he began to feel unwell.


    "Fine, that has been enough. Have a nice day." The Purple Flash leaned back into the bench, not bothering to say anymore, her eyes still closed.


    "Get out! Out! Now! Turn around and walk away quickly! No, slowly! Do not even think about it, do not think about it." Karl muttered chaotically, while pressuring Riven to leave, even though the youth thought that he had paid more than enough to have more questions answered. However, he decided to leave when he considered Karl''s state.


    "What is with you today? What happened?" The Young Lord Riven asked when they finally left the main pagoda, having answered less questions than he had paid for.


    "No thinking, no thinking, leave now, no detours." Karl was paranoid and imagined that everyone could hear his thoughts. What if someone really was able to like Riven? He knew very well about whom the woman talked and did not wish to become public enemy number one.


    Back atop of the pagoda''s roof, two beautiful eyes finally shot open, purple flames burning in them instead of pupils, the flame slowly flowing out of those terrifying eyes. The person stood up and a purple mist began swirling around her and everything that touched it, died. The bench she had been sitting on groaned and bent into a lump of dead wood, the grass around her turned purplish black, clearly dead. The purple cloud touched the pond and the fish who had not long ago enjoyed the seed floated belly up, looking sickly, its necrotic flesh falling off its bones.


    "The tunnels flooded with sewer water, drowning the body of my beautiful boy in shit." She finally finished the sentence, her face distorted with rage. Not long after, she stormed through the entrance of the pagoda in the direction of the underground maze. There had to be a clue and she would find it, however long it took.


    * * * *


    As usual in similar situations, Karl decided to tell Riven that the secret was too dangerous and kept silent about his role in the death of Zhan Gon who unfortunately was Yen''s son. How could he not know? He had seen them in the graveyard standing together where the relatives of the deceased always stood. Worse, if the man had not said anyone about his solitary oath to Heaven, he was the only one who knew the real reason of his death.


    It was of course the oath!


    Some people might say that it was the unwillingness of a particular dark gem to save the drowning man, but Karl refused. If he replayed the whole incident in his head while replacing his former broken self with the original sword that he had conveniently threw on top of the mausoleum, the man would have certainly died.


    After all, he was on his way to kill Mezzaiel, alone. The only scenario of him surviving was if he ended up joining the cult, but that was impossible because of his oath to Heaven.


    "Whatever, even if I am not wrong it will be better if no one knows anyway. " Karl summed up his thoughts and focused on a loud roar that suddenly came from the direction of the woods.


    Thank the Heavens for the interruption! He was sure that Riven was about to give him an earful about all his gold spent with only a limited result.


    "What was that?" Riven asked him, startled by the unusual sound. At first, it was just a loud roar, but it strangely morphed into an unpleasant screech. Karl had no idea what kind of animal could have possibly made it.


    They were already close to the fort and had seen a great commotion happening there.


    "Something is amiss." Riven began running, wanting to know the situation.


    "Do not close the gate idiot! The farmers are all still out there! " A man in custom made, shining leather armor smacked the head of one of the soldiers and looked at them with a frown. "Finally, where have you been? Get inside!"


    "Get inside!" Karl had said almost at the same time as Lord Riven.


    Riven wanted to protest, but yielded under the double barrage and walked inside the fort followed by the haunting screech.


    "Are there windows?" Karl immediately asked and received a disdainful scoff from his carrier that shot up the stairs with the speed that left Karl''s stomach in an another dimension, permanently.


    "Nothing new." He thought weakly while failing to follow the scenery around him, yet it had not taken to much time before they stood inside some kind of a tower, looking through a very narrow window


    He thanked again his luck that the Lord lived in a fort, not in a mansion.


    Along with Riven, Karl saw how the trees far in the distance fell to the sides and a monstrosity appeared stepping onto the first field. It was exactly the farm on which they had left their horse, when they adventured through the forest.


    "Give me that! Too greedy!" Karl shouted when he saw that Riven was looking through some sort of a glass that lay nearby. Surely a magnification glass. Riven had not given up the instrument at first, but later with a horrified expression lifted his hand up, enabling Karl to have a glimpse of the thing.


    "What a nasty rabbit!" Karl stared through the glass with unease.


    Even from the distance, he could tell that the creature was several meters tall and it looked like a mutated white rabbit walking on his hind legs. Even though the monster reminded him of a rabbit, there was nothing from the fluffiness of the little creature. Its face was distorted and the two yellow teeth sticking from its mouth were good half meter long. Its fur was dirty with patches of blood on it, clearly not belonging to it and its paws ended with long claws. As if it was not enough, the monstrous rabbit suddenly jumped and the whole are about it stirred.


    With a tremor that was even visible, the abomination launched itself forward with incredible speed that was definitely unnatural even for a cultivator.


    "Damn it, that is Domain! The abomination is at Soul Binding Stage and seems to have Swiftness Domain! The village is in trouble!" Riven stared in horror as the monster was nearing the first village with incredible speed and the few accidentally present soldiers who tried to counter it had been pushed aside and crushed like paper figurines. The horror had not yet sunk in into Riven''s brain, when he noticed a few horses racing from the direction of the fort to meet the terrifying abomination. One of the horses in particular was very fast and it seemed the stallion would be able to meet the monster even before it reach the village where the villagers were just having a late lunch.


    "Father!" Riven recognized the horse and shouted, nearly snapping his vocal chords.


    For Karl, the time stopped, as there was a crucial decision to make.


    "Damn it all." He made it in a second.


    "Throw me there!" Karl roared with his thoughts at Riven who failed to react, his eyes glued at the road leading to the forest.


    "What the fuck are you waiting for? Throw me!"


    "But how. . ?"


    "Trust me and just throw!" Riven did not wait anymore and swiftly flung his steel circlet through the narrow space of the window in the direction of the road, he himself running down the stairs, barreling through all the maids and servants that tried to stop him, surely ordered by his father.


    Despite his heroic efforts, the mob of servants was too numerous and many people ended up rolling on the floor while holding onto Riven. It was obvious that the Young Lord''s assault on the abomination would not get further than past the stairs of their fort and he could only hope that the plan of the wise Elder was not just another of his scams.


    "I am high, chances are good." Meanwhile, Karl quickly called his status while soaring through the sky.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Ash) 5/s], [Eagle(Grace) 50/s], [Blue Swallow(Wings) 5/s]


    [Experience 93/1000]


    In a mind bending swirl of colors and space, a majestic bird appeared and gripped Karl into its razor sharp talons.


    "Carrier down, F sixteen Eagle on target. Launch missiles!" Karl flew quickly in the direction of the Abomination while summoning a second eagle that join him in the assault.


    "To the beak, man. We will strike with talons." Karl''s intent had been transmitted and the bird carrying him freed its talons for the upcoming coordinated attack. Karl blinked in the direction of the charging Lord Riven that astonishingly was not far from the rabbit monstrosity. There was a long spear in his hand that for now was held up in Karl''s direction, his equipment was obviously custom, not influence by the batch of faulty weapons.


    "One from the front, a suicidal strike from above. Second from the back." Karl repeated his strategy in his mind. He was naturally much quicker than the Lord and was soon descending in a diving attack.


    "Maximum speed, it is in your talons now my noble birds." He was somewhat resistant to his motion sickness already, but the dive was too much and he could not see anything.


    The first bird hit in a suicidal strike and the long right ear and eye of the abomination exploded in a rain of blood. It had to be said that the eagle was not an ordinary animal and it attacked without holding anything back and without any intention of landing or saving itself from irreversible damage.


    The rabbit abomination screeched with pain and a paw swiped with reflex in Karl''s direction, obliterating the eagle with ease, turning the bird into a mix of blood and feathers.


    "My wife." Karl whispered inside his mind, breathless, when he saw his circle divide and bent under the heavy strike of the abomination. A cruel wake up call from his motion sickness.


    The second eagle hit a second later, but the abomination had the Swiftness Mojo and had not failed to dodge the already expected attack from the air. A second cloud of feathers with gore signified the death of the second graceful bird.


    "Why Grace? Couldn''t they have something more useful?!" Karl despaired, but his despair turned into sheer terror when he noticed that the remaining red eye flashed in his direction.


    "Men of steel!" Karl heard a roar from behind and the monster dodged a spear that closely missed its head and slammed a charging horse with its paw in the contest of strength. The abomination was definitely stronger and heavier, but the charge carried and incredible amount of energy and the confrontation ended by both the contestants standing still, horse and monster. That of course did not apply for the Lord who was catapulted from his saddle and flew over the furry head of the monster, slamming his back against the ground a dozen meters further.


    Karl heard that the monster''s paw cracked slightly, but it did not mind it at all. As for the horse, it had to had half of its bones shattered by being stopped instantly from the heavy charge.


    "The situation does not look good." Karl was reluctant to even see his status, because he was sure that only mundane animals would be there with all the birds missing, as he was no longer high in the air.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Decay) 5/s], [Fox(Fur) 50/s], [Elemental(Earth) 50/s], [Mechatron Remnant(Magnetism) 50/s]


    [Experience 93/1000]


    "Good, let''s gamble then. I have revealed myself already here anyway." Karl selected the last option while still lightheaded from the clash.


    The air in front of him distorted, like there was an error in this world''s graphic card and a three meter high knight appeared. No, it was probably some kind of a robotized entity that looked like it, its left hand holding a broad sword and its right aiming at the Abomination with what looked like an automatic rifle.


    "Am I hallucinating?" Karl heard a typical barking of a high caliber automatic weapon a second later and realized that he was not dreaming.


    Unfortunately, the Abomination''s Swiftness attribute proved that it was not just for show and the monster had somehow managed to avoid all the bullets except of one that tore off its remaining ear. With air shimmering in its vicinity, the terrifying rabbit dodged almost all the bullets and Karl had a feeling that he was inside a parody of a particular movie. A swift kick ended the whole spectacle and Karl''s futuristic monster turned into scrap metal before it disappeared.


    "Damn rabbit! Die already!" This time he summoned two of the otherworldly knights.


    "Do something! You have a Mojo too, right?! Use it!" Karl almost shrieked out inside his little black gem, because the nightmarish rabbit stared at him again with its single eye and he could tell that it realized who was the mastermind.


    Again, heavy fire had been unleashed and the abomination repeated its unnatural moves while the space around it trembled. However, when its extremely fast movement stopped and it paused in its tracks, the confrontation did not end by the disassembly of Karl''s minions this time. The abomination was full of holes, good third of all the bullets found their target and despite all its might and speed, even it could not withstand a full clip from the heavy guns.


    It fell, coloring the grass red. Dead without a single twitch.


    "I see, Magnetism can curve the trajectories." Karl had immediately guessed what had happened and saw that Lord Riven was arduously lifting his body from the ground.


    Thankfully, he seemed to be somehow alright.


    The people of the nearby village peeked from under the imagined protection of their wooden window frames, mesmerized by the incredible spectacle they had just witnessed, when someone asked an unpleasant question everyone had in his heart.


    "Is there more?"


    * * * *


    "Had our spy really died? Someone helped us from the inside. What was supposed to be just a probing strike had nearly killed the old geezer." A burly man with fiery red, long hair sat on the throne out of polished bones laughing loudly and the people around him followed his example. His clothes was black with red patterns and one burned sleeve. At his waist hung a sword, richly decorated with gold and his smile filled the surrounding people with fear, despite their laughter and joy.


    His name was Mezzaiel, the Lord of the local demonic cult that terrorized the regions far and wide.


    "What a shame!" One of the more courageous captains with a necklace made of white teeth called out.


    "Go and find who did that. That was an advanced use of Earth Mojo and judging from some places, the one who did it had to work underwater as well." The imposing man ordered and immediately, there was a commotion among his subordinates.


    "What do you mean Lord Mezzaiel?" One of his close aids that was obviously trying to copy his hairstyle asked.


    "We might have a rare cultivator on our side. Maybe even Mudslide or dual Water and Earth?"


    "Is he really that important?" One of the more insane cultists dared to question the Lord''s word and some others deceptively walked further away from him.


    "Not really, but he dug out a lot. It is someone very stable, I can use someone like that in this nest of lunatics." Everyone was silent, thinking that the Lord himself was probably the greatest lunatic of them all.


    "What plan of attack should we prepare? Have you decided, Lord Mezzaiel?" The man with the necklace looked down at his chest, as if thinking how to incorporate future new teeth into his already full pride and joy.


    "Of course we will go from the side. The Thunder God Sect is gone, where else dummy? Commence the attack as soon as our pets are ready. Play thoroughly with them for this one, I want them enraged!"


    "ENRAGED!" Mezzaiel roared the word once more and laughed afterwards.


    "Of course, My Lord! It will be done as you say." The copycat bowed several times and people burst into activity while leaving their ruler alone. No one wanted to spend too much time with him to avoid unexpected accidents that might happen.


    * * * *


    "Nice to meet you Riven, but this was too much. Let''s meet again in better times." Karl almost had to push back a tear. It was clear that after he had unleashed his space marines on the cultivation world, it would be very silly to think that no one had noticed.


    A pair of Earth Elementals appeared and began drilling down, taking Karl with them. Only down until the earth would start melting, as he would not be able to escape if he had delayed for even a second. Before the world of the surface closed itself before him, he saw Lord Riven standing up almost as if nothing had happened.


    "Huh, he is not a Lord for nothing I guess." Karl was glad that his big reveal was not meaningless.


    He hoped that his abilities were not significant enough to grab The Immortal''s attention. Despite digging for a good while, he had not spotted any pursuers following him, only a strange purple hue that descended and enveloped him for a while, before he clearly got out of range of whatever it was.


    He escaped! There were many scenarios that could unfold up on the surface, but he was sure that he had done what he could anyway. If there were dozens of the creatures attacking the Orlov region, the place was doomed anyway, with or without his help. He had done what little he could and planned to visit the Riven family later when everything calmed down. He hoped that the city was competent enough to provide reinforcements after the initial surprise attack


    For the moment, Karl had to dig deep enough to discourage even the most crazy people from following him into the partially collapsed hole he had created and then resurface somewhere else, or not. He had gained some level of knowledge and wanted to hunt animals for experience for some time and experiment with enchanting later. From the point of view of a cultivator, the time of treasure hunting was over for the time and the period of training and cultivation was looming ahead.


    Well, he wondered if he perhaps could cultivate himself?


    He looked forward to all the experimentation he would do. Within reasonable bounds of course.


    He was again embraced by the emptiness from before, but it was not the same. His dungeon side did not seem to mind long periods of waiting and loneliness and his human part was looking forward when he would visit the Orlov region again in the future.


    "I need to look into the city too at that point." After a considerable while, his conscience did not let him just simply leave without knowing the crisis'' outcome and he ordered one of the Earth Elementals to travel back up and see what was happening. He focused on the minion going up while he himself kept going further down and after some time, he noticed that he was actually able to see as if he was with his servant. His perception though his minion was not as sharp as the one he originally had, but it was still enough to see a crowd of people when the earthen figure finally reached the top.


    Karl saw purple mist circling in a wide range around the point of his disappearance and could tell who it was when the purple materialized into a person that walked quickly to the nearby village. With that knowledge, he was sure his escape was justified. He did not care about the vengeful cultivator anymore and looked at others present, a figure of a man that stood above the carcass of a horse with a frown, a crowd of fatigued men in military uniforms that obviously had just caught to the people who participated in the incident and a dead body of a hideous rabbit monster that fortunately had no other buddies to join its assault. The next second, everyone locked their eyes at the Earth Elemental that fell to the ground, crumbling into dust even before some of them were able to assume a fighting stance.


    Karl managed to find out what he had intended. The assault did not continue and the rabbit incident was probably just an accident. In addition, he could no longer return to the region at the moment with The Purple Flash snooping around. Some people might count it as defeat, but Karl did not, given his new perspective. He was immortal and time had no meaning for him. He could very well visit Riven''s grandchildren when he had time later, letting the blade of time and oblivion cut down all his possible enemies. However, it was probably an unnecessary measure and he would be able to visit much sooner.


    "Well, I need to rely on my strengths." He thought smugly and then something snapped and he began falling down.


    "What is happening? I should be deep underground!" Karl could not fathom what was happening to him before an unexpected view opened up before him.


    A flash and then, total darkness.


    It was nothing new, because he could not see much anyway, but he had a feeling that this darkness was too deep to the point it was unnatural. He also lost connection with his minions for some reason and the only fact he was able to tell about his surroundings was that he stopped moving. He thought that his motion sickness was at least good for something this time around. However, all the humorous thoughts had all but evaporated from his mind when he was able to confirm that he was not able to see anything, hear anything and was even unable to display his status to summon any of his servants.


    For some reason, he was totally stuck.


    "Hey, this is no joke!" A foreboding chill went though his crystalline self when he realized the seriousness of the situation he was in.


    "I need to move, The Purple Flash might be able to find me!" He was freaking out about the inconvenience of his situation, but it changed nothing. He still continued to be unable to move or sense anything around him no matter what he did. Being cut off from all sensations, he began to feel a coming panic attack that threatened to overtake his faculties.


    "No, focus! What can I do?" He tried to make sense of the situation, but was unable to. With time he persuaded himself that waiting for a while should provide him with some clues and he started counting to kill time.


    At first, counting seemed like a good idea, but only until he had reached numbers he would rather forget. He decided to hold onto his sanity and count on, but he could no longer stand it when he had reached number thirty thousand.


    "What is going on?! Can you hear me? Anyone!" However, all seemed to have already forgotten about him and he continued to experience the impeccable nothingness around him, unable to do anything, or even make sense of his situation.

 Chapter 7 In The Dark

    At a busy street in the middle of a city, there were two teenagers talking to each other. They both wore the cheapest clothes and were clearly not frequenting expensive hotels and inns. The younger one that was a head shorter than the other was especially dirty, many people avoiding the duo due to his smell and visage.


    "Flock, one day, you will die in those ruins." The taller teenager with black, uncut hair and the eyes of a viper made a half-step back as to not dirty his already stinking clothes.


    "Do not worry prince, I will not steal your crown jewels." The younger tried to make a joke, but it was obviously not well received.


    "Very funny. Better shut up before I punch your teeth out. We need to work on the streets, there is nothing outside." The taller teen wanted to step forth threateningly, but thought twice to do it when reminded of the smell.


    "Sorry Tyrn, but the danger is the same and the Wolves will rob us anyway." The boy with brown hair shrugged his shoulders.


    "You need to steal food stupid, not coins. They won''t take it out of your stomach." In the hand of the Prince, a piece of beard appeared before he jammed it into his mouth and swallowed it without chewing.


    "Hey! You should have shared it with me!" The brown-haired boy complained weakly.


    "You wish, I do not share with moles." Tyrn said, his mouth full.


    "Friends should share, especially on the street!" The younger continued to protest, but did not dare to step closer to his counterpart.


    "Who said you are my friend, Mole?" A finger kept pushing into the younger teen''s forehead until his head was far away from Tyrn. "You are just Mole."


    It seemed that Mole did not like the nickname at all, but decided to just ignore his bigger partner''s theatrics. They were on the streets, there was no one to help him even if he cried. Especially after the isolationist policy had been introduced and life in the city became even harder than before. They had heard many tales from old beggars how life had been great back then, when the Thunder God Sect and the Purple Lotus Sect had protected the city from both sides. It was no longer true and the city was barely holding its crumbling wall together, the last protection that was preventing it from becoming just an entry in history books written by blood.


    "Enough jokes, I am still hungry. We will go to the market and try the usual." Tyrn decided and looked sharply at his companion.


    "The usual? No! I should have stayed in the ruins!" The Mole protested, obviously knowing how it would end.


    "Pipe down and come. Do you want to eat?" Prince grabbed the shorter Mole and dragged him in the direction of the market.


    They positioned themselves in a way to enter the square with the market from a street that housed the city garrison. Many of the soldiers were useless and corrupt, but they would still force the local gangs to act more civil in case of trouble, as the military had to keep some level of decency in front of the public.


    "You look especially cute today, pick a young one with kids, she will certainly pity you." Tyrn said and slapped lightly one of Mole''s cheeks.


    "Freeloader! And what about Wolves? You should be the one doing it this time!" The brown-haired teenager said with frustration.


    "Um? I think this will look more cute." Tyrn suddenly used more force and slapped Mole''s cheek harder, the hit leaving a red mark.


    "Agh!" The teenager on the receiving end tried to muffle his shout, as to not attract the attention of the guards who might decide to hunt some thieves to pass time.


    "Red cheeks are the cutest! What did you say about me?" Tyrn asked with a smile, but his companion knew that it was not a true smile at all.


    "Nothing." A whisper escaped from the shorter youth''s mouth.


    "Go again?" Tyrn asked, his hand still firmly laying against the red cheek. his head slightly bending forward as if to hear better.


    "I said it will go just fine." Mole said a little bit louder.


    "Of course, it is a solid plan! See? There is your target!" Tyrn pointed at a woman that was clearly pregnant who carried a lot of fruits in her basket. She looked like a rare specimen of a middle-class citizen that were nearly an endangered species as most of the people turned very poor or very rich due to the system being rigged. Tyrn did not delay and pushed his partner in crime in the direction of the targeted woman and watched him slowly walking towards her, the smaller teen''s right hand rubbing his red cheek.


    "That''s it. Damn, I should have hit him a bit harder, tears can do wonders with pregnant women." Tyrn calculated their chances while following the operation with his eyes. The stage was set, but before the lure could even reach the catch, their plans had been foiled by competition.


    "Not again! Seven hells!" Tyrn cursed when he saw a large man in a very tight jacket grab his partner and steer him in a completely different direction. He quickly turned around and ran back into the street with the military garrison. It was obvious that his suspicious behavior would give away his position, but he would be at a safe spot before the Wolves gang managed to get their hands on him.


    The market was a frequented place with many other pickpockets, thieves, beggars and scammers present. It was mostly the Wolves who were running the show and occasionally took aside some unaffiliated people to explain them how the business was run. Tyrn had thought that they were just unlucky the last time around, but it seemed that they had become known and had been targeted even before their first victim.


    "The market is gone! We have lost the best spot and Mole will be sulking and licking his bruises for some time. Seems like it is time for some old school jobs in the meantime." Tyrn whispered under his breath angrily.


    He looked around frantically to find the best escape route, because he did not quite fit into the random group of military men that stood in front of the garrison. Decisively picking a direction, Tyrn ran in the direction of the city gate. It used to be the direction with most of the traffic, but that was a long time ago when there was some countryside and farmlands outside. Those days were long gone and the street was mostly deserted.


    He immediately noticed that a man, who was dressed unusually well for a gang member began to tail him, trying to catch up to him without rising too much attention. He was definitely one of the Wolves.


    "What is going on? They are too aggressive today!" Tyrn was glad that he had chosen one of the most foolproof ploys to avoid the gang. He ran quickly to the gate, nervously looking for the soldiers posted there. He knew that he would be safe by the gate because there was a significant difference between the random men in front of the barracks and the soldiers guarding the gate.


    The gate was the last obstacle that stood between the city and the wilderness that contained many horrors conjured by demonic sects and cunning predatory animals that had managed to survive even among those. The quality of the gate guards was an existential question for the city and only the most reliable soldiers were standing by the gate. Few would dare to mess with them, because The Immortal himself had once taken care of troublemakers messing with the gates. No amount of backing could help if The Immortal decided to act again, meaning the gate guards had a blank check for anything they deemed necessary and they were well aware of it.


    As the result, Tyrn simply sprinted to the city gate that was closed shut just in time before the gang member behind him caught up to him. They smiled at each other murderously and the Wolf came closer with the last ditch effort to scare him.


    "You better come with me peacefully, or we will send you your friend cut into many pieces." He tried to flex his muscles and scare the teenager into submission.


    "That will be hard, I have no address." Tyrn smirked at the man who was annoyed by his reaction.


    "You think yourself smart? Let''s see how long you can avoid us in this small waste dump of a city." The man sneered and walked away, clearly not eager to create a bigger problem just because of a minor loose criminal in their sphere of influence.


    Tyrn giggled as if all of that was a joke, but his smile vanished the moment the man was gone. It was clear as day that someone would be waiting for him to explain him the consequences of playing with the Wolves. He also looked warily at the men stationed at the gate, because not all of them were friendly towards the people of his sort. Thankfully, the notorious ones that hated thieves seemed to be off duty and Tyrn could let out a sigh of relief.


    "I have some time until the next shift." He looked up at the sun that moved slowly towards the horizon and thought how to disappear. However, his plotting was interrupted by the visage of a person he did not want to see.


    "Brother! Brother!" A beaten up youngster had his cheeks much more red than before and his right eye was swollen. Limping towards Tyrn, his watery eyes were looking at him as if he was an angel.


    "Damn, I am not your brother! What are you doing here?!" Tyrn said angrily. It was obvious that it was done by the Wolves on purpose. They were eager to catch him and Flock was supposed to slow him down when he tried to flee.


    "I escaped, but it hurts so much." The poor haggard figure caught him by a sleeve and he immediately pushed him back by reflex. His accomplice had not been able to keep himself up and he plopped down onto the cobblestone.


    "Escaped? How stupid can you be?! They''ve release you on purpose!" Tyrn responded and a cold chill washed over him when he heard a voice from behind.


    "Hey, you! You have no business loitering around here. Get lost." He turned his head and saw they have grabbed the attention of one of the gate guards. Tyrn''s eyes widened when he realized that was exactly what the Wolves were aiming for.


    "W-We are just resting , Sir. Please give us a moment." Tyrn tried one of his best smiles, because he knew that the Wolves were ready to pounce on them as soon as they were further away from the gate. He could not walk away from the gate yet, his best bet was to at least wait for the night.


    "This is the last warning kid. We are at the city gate, do you understand what that means? This thing goes down and all the nonsense you are a part of is meaningless, because a sea of beasts will come through here and kill everybody." The soldier that was clearly much better armed than the regulars at the barracks pointed at the huge steel gate directly behind him. Tyrn could not even imagine what sort of beast might be strong enough to take down a humongous structure like it, but he knew better than to argue with the soldier.


    "Go away and solve the mess you have created on your own. I am not your nanny." The soldier continued in a more hostile tone and Tyrn knew it was bad, because the man must have figured out why they were at the gate.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    It was bad to be caught by the Wolves, but if he ignored the warning, the soldier could kill them both on the spot and no one would say a word about it.


    "Come, there is no choice." Tyrn pulled up Flock with heavy heart and they moved slowly away from the gate. Of course, they were not going back in the direction of the market, but to the city center. It was the shortest route out of the Wolves'' territory.


    "But we will be caught!" Flock was no longer able to hold back his tears and Tyrn had to almost drag him away, his eyes darting everywhere, searching for suspicious men that would surely be waiting for them.


    And they were.


    At the end of the street there was the gang member from before in the jacket and a burly man at his right waiting for their arrival. Tyrn clenched his teeth and continued to walk on while supporting the crying heap of misfortune at his side.


    "Stop! They will. .. they will.. . "


    "Shut up, I have a plan. Just walk." Tyrn silenced his partner while his heart began to beat faster.


    "Plan? Will it work?" Flock looked up to him with his teary eyes and Tyrn nodded resolutely.


    "It will work."


    He encouraged Mole and they shortly arrived to the two men that were obviously awaiting their arrival with wide smiles. Tyrn had deliberately took his time and tried to look exhausted and resigned to his fate. He saw the yellow teeth of the two smiling thugs and refused to be part of their imagined vengeance, whatever it was.


    "Finally, you took your time. We might be . . ." The gangster in a jacket had his smug speech interrupted by a body crushing into him.


    The moment Tyrn was just two meters away from the duo of gang members, he pushed Flock into the one of them who looked more agile and sprinted past them, swiftly weaving thought the masses of people. Flock crashed into the man in the jacket and reflexively grabbed him to prevent himself from falling, buying Tyrn a few precious seconds to escape. The more burly gorilla at the side reacted too slow and when its bulging muscles finally began to move, it was already too late to block Tyrn''s path to freedom.


    "Brat, you are dead! Dead!" Tyrn heard an angry shout behind him, but continued to escape in the direction of the city center. It was obvious that he would not be coming to this part of the city again. He had done too much to provoke the Wolves and he would be lucky if they would not put a small bounty on his head.


    "Maybe I need to dye my hair for a time." He thought while moving further through a mob of people that were the only reason he had managed to escape.


    As his legs continued to pump harder and harder, he felt that the hunger he felt in the morning intensified.


    His hand subconsciously grabbed a pendant hanging around his neck, as if to ensure it was still there. He was not supposed to be running around like a hunted animal, hiding from simple thugs. He should have been sitting in opulent halls, walking through long, richly decorated corridors. That was his true heritage, not the filth and stench of the streets. He cursed his bad luck while holding the small chain of the pendant tighter in his hand. He would rise again to the glory his family once had and then all would turn for the better. He swore he would do anything to achieve it.


    * * * *


    Winter was coming.


    He could feel it in the chill in the morning that crept under his tattered clothes. Despite the region was not in the highlands or a part of the world with a harsher climate, the lower temperature was still felt outside as the weakened rays of the sun were trying to chase away the coldness of the long nights. With the lower temperature, the hunger bit harder into the stomachs of the poor and made the beggars grateful for every bread crumb that was not confiscated by the greedy gangs or officials. Sometimes, it was hard to discern between the two groups.


    Tyrn weaved through the sparse people on the street, trying to pick a target to steal from, but the lowered volume of people on the streets did not bode well for his criminal profession.


    "Tyrn." A remotely familiar voice, yet fundamentally different from what he remembered startled Tyrn. He turned his head at the person who had just spoke to him and had to stare for several seconds before recognizing an individual that used to be very familiar to him. However, there was little of the innocence and boyish charm in that face. It had turned into a cold mask in the span of the many months he had not seen the person.


    "Mole?" Tyrn asked with hesitation in his voice, barely recognizing his former accomplice in crime.


    "Say that again and it is the last time we are talking." The teenager with roughly cut brown hair responded with a sharpness to his raspy voice that had never been there in the past.


    "Flock, is that really you? What do you want?" The events of the past rushed through his head, Tyrn could guess how Flock had ended up and he was surprised that there was not a knife in his hand aiming at his gut. It was obvious that Flock was not the boy from the past anymore, fundamentally changed by the experience he did not want to even know about. Tyrn had no illusions about the Wolves and could imagine how a pretty boy like Flock must have ended after landing in their hands.


    "I have a job for you, if you are interested." Flock ignored Tyrn''s surprise and spoke directly to the point.


    "There are surely others interested." Tyrn doubted that his former companion was naive enough to trust him with anything, especially after the change he looked like he had been through.


    "There is no trust between us, but at least I know you methods. I will rather choose a scoundrel I know than rely on a random thug." Flock said with straight face and Tyrn wondered how intense his experience must have been to change him so much in less than a year.


    "Fair enough, what is the job?" Tyrn said and realized that for the first time, he spoke to Flock as if they were equals. Something he would have never done with the naive boy from before.


    "There is a ruin outside the city, a tomb buried deep in the ground. I have already been inside, but it takes two people to get everything there." Tyrn considered the proposal warily. At first, he though that it was suspicious, a method to lure him out of the city and kill him for revenge. However, he doubted anyone would go to such lengths to kill him. A poisoned knife into his back was enough to do the job, there was no need to bother with a cover story.


    In the past, Tyrn would have laughed into his face and refused, but business was not going well on the streets. People were even more poor than before and the wealthy were above the law, meaning it was very dangerous to steal form them. For a pickpocket like him, it meant that the easy targets possessed close to nothing and the wealthy ones were well guarded, making every action against them a life threatening experience. The weather did not help much, making the already miserable situation even worse.


    "I do not get why do you need an extra pair of hands there." He wondered why Flock was willing to share his spoils by operating with an additional person.


    "The rich bastards are buried in massive coffins, we will need tools and time to get in. Just the lid weights more than the city major." Flock made a comparison to the notoriously obese official in charge of a city and quickly looked around him if no one heard him.


    "The wilderness is dangerous, we will die there. We will not be able to pass the gates either." Tyrn doubted that they would be able to move far before some predator attacked them.


    "We can bypass the gates by a passage underground. It is long and treacherous, but there are no beasts there. We will climb out of an old well and it is not far from there. The distance we will need to run through the wilds is not long." Flock stared at him, unblinking.


    "Still, we can be eaten."


    "I do not remember you as a coward. Are you in?" His former companion continued in his unusually straight manner of speech, waiting for Tyrn to make up his mind.


    "Count me in." Tyrn extended his hand towards his former comrade and had it reluctantly grabbed in return by Flock. It was clear that there was no trust between them. Despite that, there was money to be made and they both needed it desperately.


    * * * *


    "What do you see?"


    "Is it the end?"


    Karl Gulden heard a voice after an eternity with only himself and the darkness around him. He would have cried immediately if he was capable of it. His all senses perked up and he listened with all his being, drawing in all the information he could. He had forgotten how beautiful human voices sounded and wanted to hear more, no matter the words'' meaning.


    "There it is!" Another voice said and to Karl''s astonishment, he could even see the person who had said the sentence as the space all around was suddenly bathed in a faint blue light. There was a skinny teenager with filthy hair and clothes covered by mud who held a shining small stone in his hand.


    "Flock, is it safe to jump? Is there something interesting?" Karl''s attention snapped up towards the other voice and found out there were soles of two feet dangling above his head from a narrow hole in the ceiling.


    Ceiling?


    Karl looked around carefully and found out that he was in some sort of a hall with many symbols etched into the walls and a stone table in its midst. No, it was not a stone table. It was a coffin.


    "It is the tomb. We have struck a jackpot! Hurry and come down!" The skinny teenager shouted up while looking around. His eyes sparkling.


    "My leg is stuck in seven hells!" The voice above them responded, followed by a moving shadow that fell and slammed into the stone floor.


    "Finally Tyrn, what took you so long?"


    "Shut up, it hurts like hell! I have nearly broken all my bones."


    "Let''s hurry and search for anything we can grab, I am done starving!" Flock said, not paying much attention to his companion''s acrobatics.


    The one who fell rolled to his side and looked at the insides of the tomb even before trying to stand up. Karl saw as the eyes of both teenagers began to shine when they saw a few dusty weapons hanging on the wall. The fallen person hastily sat up and continued to stare in the same direction as his companion. The first ruffian named Flock who had entered the space first quickly walked towards the first coffin and bend down, touching its massive stone lid.


    "I will open you this time." The teenager muttered and soon, both intruders began to work on the massive lid. It took them a lot of time before moving the heavy piece of stone, but they were clearly prepared and brought with them tools to help with the process. When the huge slab finally hit the floor with a loud sound, both the teenagers remained staring into the coffin in awe.


    Karl could not see from his position on the floor what had captured their attention, but he could see that after a moment, one of the teenagers began to stealthily back away from the coffin, positioning himself next to an ornate urn that stood on the floor.


    To Karl''s great shock, the teenage grave robber quickly grabbed the urn and moved quietly behind his accomplice who was still mesmerized by the contents of the sarcophagus. He lifted it silently like a ghost and swung it down at the head of the person that stood bend over in front of him. It was a solid piece of stonework and the oblivious victim fell to the floor the moment the urn hit his head with a dull sound. The violent intruder continued to stand with the bloodied urn in his hands while breathing heavily.


    "We are done starving indeed." The teenager said maliciously and stepped over the bleeding head and Karl, who was coincidentally right next to it, to gaze again at what had grabbed their attention before inside of the sarcophagus.


    "You bastard!" Unexpectedly, the victim was not dead and grabbed the assailant''s legs, dragging him swiftly to the ground. There, an intense fight unfolded, both parties trying to seize the urn and use it to smack with it their opponent. After some time, it was clear that the injured person was slightly weaker and disoriented and would lose the fight. In a last gamble, the wounded youth turned around and ran in the direction of the old weapons that hung on the wall, probably left here as a tribute to whoever was resting in the tomb.


    Before the weaker opponent even reached the weapons, there was another loud thud sounding though the tomb and he fell again under a heavy hit of the urn. This time, the attacker did not stop with a single hit and continued to strike until he was sure that his accomplice was truly gone.


    "Stay dead, Flock. No one needs your sniffing nose anymore!" The other teenager hit his victim for the last time and crumbled to the ground to recuperate from the intense fight. As he sat there in his disheveled state, Karl watched him and thought that the violent grave robber was somewhat familiar. He chased away the thought immediately as it was clearly impossible and thought why he was suddenly able to perceive everything and when he called his status, it obediently showed in front of his eyes with just skeletons as his options.


    "What is going on, could it be?" Karl looked around and noticed that there were lines of runes along the walls that had been interrupted in a particular place. It was the place where the first robber had probably been climbing down from the vertical shaft.


    "The tomb must have been enchanted against restless souls or something and I have accidentally fallen into it while rushing down. How insidious." Karl grumbled. it was the only explanation for his sudden incapacity to see, hear, sense or do anything. The enchantment had most likely been damaged by the robbers and he had been freed from his dark prison.


    "See father, I will be rich again. Rich and powerful. They will all pay for humiliating a noble!" The rested youth began blabbering something that did not make sense only to pick himself up afterwards and start looting the place.


    With amusement, Karl watched the robber trying to push aside the heavy lid of another, smaller stone coffin, only to erupt in anger when he realized he would be unable to get inside because of his skinny body with little muscle. In the end, the grave robber took what had grabbed their attention in the sarcophagus and was walking back to the vertical hole with a pair of dusty swords and some old coins that were not even made of gold. Everything would have transpired without any incident if the stressed youth had not dropped one of the swords near Karl when leaving the place.


    "What is this? A gem!" His eyes bulged when he was bending down to lift the sword and immediately grabbed Karl and put him inside his pocket. After his fight, Karl was no longer a part of a steel circlet, only a sharp, short piece of steel was attached to one of his sides.


    "Wait! It looks quite similar!" Karl heard from inside the dirty pocket and growled when an unwashed hand pulled him out and put him next to a pendant.


    "Incredible! It looks the same! It is a sign! Well, but I will sell it anyway. I need the money." Karl followed the robber''s eyes and saw a pendant with the picture of a man who was remotely similar to the youth in front of him. A man with a steel circlet on top of his head, adorned with a big black gem in the middle.


    "You have to be kidding me." Karl sighed and his attention kept switching between the picture and the shabby figure with sunken eyes in front of him.


    There was no doubt about it. The two looked quite similar. Karl remembered what was said and his head began to spin.


    "Wait! Riven had no children and this spineless bastard looks to be in his late teens!" Karl felt a slight nausea when he began to ascend through the tunnel to the surface, stuffed in the dirty pocket.


    For how long had he been stuck in that tomb? And more importantly, why was Riven''s son a murderous grave robber?!

 Chapter 8 The Heritage of Ruin

    Karl heard the noise of a busy street and figured out that they arrived at a densely populated place. He was eagerly awaiting an opportunity to see his surroundings, but his new owner was too careful and had no intention to take him out of his pocket.


    "Carrots, apples and other vegetable! Fresh and cheap!"


    "The best pastry in all of Jinsheng, come and taste for yourselves!"


    Karl heard shouts of stall owners who were not even trying to sound seriously or honestly, just aiming to shout on top of everyone else to have the greatest exposure. There were shouts of women, men, children and occasionally the noise of animals being sold or held in captivity. When Karl decided to try and analyze all the sounds some more, he had abruptly heard a whisper that was unusually loud, as if the source was not far from him.


    "You have some guts to come here after the last time, do you think we are stupid?" A voice akin to a hiss startled Karl and a sudden unease signifying the coming motion sickness told him that his owner had just moved abruptly.


    "From when is this your territory?! Let me go! I will shout!"


    "I do not recommend that, you know that we provide certain services to the guards."


    "Come, we will explain to you how to be a good boy." A third voice said and a series of rugged breaths followed, ended by Karl falling again, this time the world around him in his full view.


    "The city!" It was his first thought before anything else. He had finally managed to see the city he had dreamed to infiltrate for so long. However, it was not the most pleasant sight. They were in a narrow alley where two men who were probably from a local gang had dragged his current possessor and were in the process of explaining to him how it worked in the local neighborhood. Obviously, Karl had fallen out of the pocket during the intense explanation and was now lying on the cobblestone, promptly stared at by all three actors that were alone in the dark alley.


    "You are a rich boy! That should be enough to pay for our hard work explaining the rules to you." The gang member who looked more civilized smiled, surprised by the sudden riches that Tyrn possessed, as the rusted swords had fallen out from under Tyrn''s clothes as well.


    "The boy is a loaded collector, cool. Let''s shake with him some more and maybe gold will fall out!" A more burly man snickered, he was a typical muscle head deliberately dressed in tight clothes to show others his bulging pride.


    "That is mine!" Tyrn tried to shout, but was immediately silenced by a quick punch to his gut.


    "I do not think so, it should be enough to pay for his burial." The slick gang member took out a long, narrow dagger and his expression changed, no longer playful.


    "W-Wait! I am only a small thief! You can''t do this!" The pitch of Tyrn''s voice immediately jumped one octave higher and his struggle against the two men turned more frantic.


    "We can and we will. You are a notorious trouble maker and the boss had enough. Ulthar, hold him tight, I do not want to cut myself." The armed man said and Karl watched how the one sided fight turned more desperate. Naturally, the teenager had no chance against the two men, it was clear how the whole scene would end.


    "Fine, fine. It will be trouble, but I guess I should do this much for the old times." Karl sighed and the next second, the trio found out to their horror that they were encircled by a number of skeletons wielding rusted weapons. Haunting figures made of bone with their eyes shining with blue eerie light.


    "What?" The gangster who seemed the smarter one of the pair looked again at all the loot that had fallen out of Tyrn on the ground and gulped, his knife shaking when facing the encirclement of the skeletons. "Where did you get those brat?!"


    "It, It was this tomb we have. . ." Tyrn began to stammer, totally dumbfounded by the skeletons as well. None of them were seasoned fighters or soldiers and were not used to fighting anything from beyond the city wall. Especially not undead creatures that exerted a certain level of psychological pressure on inexperienced fighters,


    "Tomb?! You dumb fucker raided a demonic tomb from beyond the wall?!" The gangsters had no time to say anything more, the skeletons attacked in unison, the movement of their bones producing unnerving sounds The skeletons were definitely not stronger than the men, but swords against a dagger was never a fair fight, especially with a numerical advantage.


    The armed man was able to parry the first strike using his superior agility, but another two swords pierced though his chest from the sides. The man''s loud moan was interrupted in the middle when a third sword joined the two and the thug crumbled to the ground, dead. The burly man followed shortly with almost no resistance, as the numerical advantage of Karl''s minions was too great. It was also different from an ordinary encounter with weak skeletons, because Karl was coordinating the attack and the skeletons'' tactic resembled more that of wolves than ordinary skeletons.


    Soon, there were two bodies lying on the cobblestone that was soaking in hot blood. The pool of blood soon reached the soles of shabby boots of the only person left standing, remaining still like rooted in the ground.


    "Easy." Karl made one of his skeletons pick him up from the cobblestone and put him back into the filthy pocket. Honestly, he did not care as the level of cleanliness had no relation to his actual comfort as he was just a simple gem. A moment after, all the skeletons crumbled into dust, leaving there just a single stupefied teenager with a few bruises here and there.


    "It will be a bit difficult with this brat, I doubt he has the Clarity Mojo as his father had." Karl tried to think aloud in the same way he had done with Riven, but there was no reaction from Tyrn.


    "As I thought." Karl returned to his usual level of intensity. "Ah, this was a mistake, I do not see a thing again!"


    Karl immediately materialized one of his servants again and its bony fingers took him out of the pocket, pinning him to the outer pocket of Tyrn''s jacket in a way he would be able to see well. When he saw the stupefied expression of the teen through his servant''s eyes, he could not help himself but give him a thumbs up before turning the skeleton back to dust. The teen had been unable to move for all this time, dumbfounded by the unusual experience.


    "This. .. " Tyrn backed away, almost slipping on the blood that stained his soles until his back hit the wall. Breathing heavily, he looked at the two bodies in front of him and then fearfully at the black gem that was stuck onto his jacket, the thin steel spike that was all that was left from the circlet piercing his pocket like a pin.


    "All, it all makes sense now. Father always talked about the circlet like it was his good luck charm, more than a mere item. This is it!" Karl watched the fearful expression of the youth turn into the smile of a lunatic.


    "It is a demonic sect inheritance! With it, I will regain my noble title! No, it is more important than the title! It will be the source of my might!" His lunacy suddenly intensified and Karl watched warily as the teen''s hand grabbed him and put him down into the pool of blood.


    "Drink the human blood of my enemies and get stronger, Oh Great Demonic Eye of Death!" Tyrn began to wash him in the pool of blood, effectively preventing Karl from seeing anything else but the sticky red substance.


    "What the hell man! I do not care about stinky blood! Yuck! Disgusting!" Karl protested, but the youth obviously could not hear him and proceeded to complete his just invented demonic ritual.


    "Hm, my knowledge is lacking. The blood is probably low in quality, they were just thugs after all." Tyrn picked up Karl again and hurried away before more people showed up. Many had already seen the pool of blood, but the default reaction of an average citizen who dared to venture into dark alleys was not to call guards or make trouble for themselves.


    "I need to learn writing and hope the dumb lunatic knows how to read." Karl mulled over the idea for a while, before giving up on it. "No, he certainly does not."


    Shortly, he was again pinned to the jacket and thought about what to do next. The teenager''s full name was almost certainly Tyrn Riven of Orlov, a grabby thieving murderer, aspiring cultist and an ambitious future demonic cultivator with little moral scruples to do anything to advance his status. He had an urge to send him down a well with a sword in his back, but there was a great guilt brewing inside him. He had left the old generation to their devices and the only way to redeem himself at least a little was to put Tyrn on the right path.


    While Karl was thinking, Tyrn had managed to steal a piece of bread from a man, not even trying to be stealthy. His new status had clearly gone into his head and Karl could see trouble were about to find them if the teenager continued his power trip. His intuition proved to be right much sooner than he had expected when a loud shout made them turn around.


    "There he is! He killed them both!" Tyrn''s swagger through the streets have been interrupted by a band of people armed to the teeth who were out for blood. The group immediately rushed towards Tyrn who simply stood against them haughtily and pointed his finger on the leading man.


    "Great Demonic Eye of Death, destroy my enemies!" He said with arrogance and a wide smile on his face, but the smile began to fade when nothing happened.


    "Shit, it must have exhausted its power!" Shortly, Tyrn was sprinting though the streets with a band of thugs chasing him. Due to the coming winter, there was not enough people he could use as living shields and the group was slowly falling apart, the ones in good physical condition quickly catching up to Tyrn. He realized that there had to be cultivators among the thugs.


    "Guards! Murderers are chasing me!" Tyrn shouted like a true hypocrite in an attempt to attract the attention of guards, but his fruitless attempt was met with ignorance. In seconds, the first gang member caught him and immediately grabbed him into a hold, almost completely immobilizing him.


    "You will all die! I will unleash my rage upon you!" Tyrn shouted like mad while struggling against the powerful man who was soon encircled by the rest of the band.


    "Beat the fucker to death!" One of the thugs spoke, but was silenced by a mere eye contact of the person who held Tyrn immobilized like a child.


    "No one will touch him, the boss will want to investigate. You know why." He gave some of the gang members a meaningful look and all the demands for blood suddenly ceased.


    "Boss will show him." A passing murmur ran though the group before they encircled the no longer struggling Tyrn and led him deeper into the Wolves'' territory.


    "We should at least take the thing away from him." A tentative proposal sounded from one of the group, but was immediately shot down by the leading man.


    "Do not touch it, it is dangerous. Let the boss handle this."


    Karl though about his next course of action, but it was clear that if he chose to go all out he would end up fighting half the city in no time. He should use the fact that the gang members would certainly want to keep his existence a secret, actively hiding him from truly dangerous people that might pose a serious threat to him.


    "Besides, my arrogant cultist can use some schooling." Karl needed Tyrn to be taught a lesson and become more careful. "I should be able to manipulate the situation into some sort of a favorable outcome."


    Karl thought while observing the streets around them. It was nothing much and he was disappointed by the state of the houses and their residents. He was used to the environment of a modern city and the two were incomparable. Part of the reason for the bleak surroundings was certainly the place they were walking through. it was not exactly a street full of wealthy businessmen. The faces of the few people they met were grim and it was obviously not caused by the presence of the thugs. The more Karl looked, the more it seemed that coming to the city was a mistake. Before, the city looked glamorous and full of prosperity, it was begging all visitors to enter and marvel at all the goods and services it had to offer. That time had clearly passed and it was no longer a hub of commerce and activity, only a mass of surviving people trying not to starve another day.


    Jinsheng must have been through tough times during his long absence. There was just bleak stone all around, no bright robes of cultivators, no flashy clothes of the wealthy or merry making of the lower classes. There were beggars all around and thieves looking for their prey without success, as most of the pedestrians were already poor.


    The group walked the uniform streets until they reached a large manor. The men at its front let them in without an issue and Karl watched as the picture suddenly changed when they entered the vast building. The opulence of the place jumped suddenly by two level, beautiful paintings and gilded statues everywhere. Karl looked at the expensive red carpets and intricate arming swords hanging on the walls and had not noticed that all the thugs had left except for the one from before and a new pair of men was now following them who looked more like the military than a pair of thugs.


    They passed a heavy steel reinforced door and stood before a man that was dressed like a noble, but his pose betrayed that he definitely did not belong to the city''s hereditary nobility. He had long red hair with no beard and his eyes looked sharp. Without a word, he waved the men away and sat down on a luxurious chair and Tyrn was quickly seated on a similar one against it before their escorts left.


    All except the two men who had joined them in the manor, those remained standing close behind Tyrn''s chair without a word.


    "Tell me brat, what have you used to kill my men? It was not an ordinary cultivation method. There were even reports of undead assisting you." The boss looked at the teenager sitting in front of him, studying his every muscle. Karl was surprised by the speed the information about his deed traveled.


    "You should release me before you find yourself at the mercy of my demons!" Tyrn answered with a grin. He seemed to have embraced his new identity of a cultist and behaved as if he was some cult leader on par with the gang leader.


    "You do realize how quickly can this kind of talk get you in trouble? Especially a snotty brat like yourself." The boss chuckled and folded his arms on his chest, amused by the youth''s boldness.


    "Do not underestimate my power! I can smite. . ." Tyrn did not finish, as he was grabbed by his head and two skeletal fingers picked up the black gem pinned to his jacket. What followed was a measured throw of his person to the side and the skeleton who had just took care of him sat on his chair instead. It pinned the gem into the wooden table and propped its chin by its skeletal fingers, its elbows resting against the table.


    Karl could not stand the young Riven anymore, he was obviously too far gone to be taken seriously.


    No one moved a muscle during the commotion, but Karl could tell the boos and his escort were extremely tense, ready to take action at any second.


    "Sentient?" The big man sitting opposite Karl asked, not fully able to hide his surprise. Karl made the skeleton lean back against the chair and its chin bobbed up and down.


    "It is a Soul Vessel of a demonic cultivator!"


    "No way! We must destroy it boss!" The bodyguards shouted, breaking their professional act, as what had they just witnessed was too far from ordinary dealings of a local gang leader.


    "No one moves or leaves this room until I say so." The boss said coldly and continued to stare at the skeleton. Karl did not know what theories the people around him arrived at, but it was still better than if they knew the truth.


    "To be able to exercise this level of control with just the Soul Vessel, you must be at the end of the Soul Binding Stage or the beginning of the Soul Transformation Stage. You will obviously not die, but you cannot yet form an immortal body either." The boss said while a bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. "I do not presume you can speak."


    Karl made the skeleton shake its head in response and a quick barrage of questions followed when the boss realized Karl was unable to answer in a more detailed manner.


    "What is with the brat? Is it a nobody?" Karl lightly shook his head.


    "Don''t tell me he is someone important to you." The skeleton tilted its head from side to side in an indecisive answer.


    "I get it, a baggage you need to babysit." There was a loud shout of protest from the side, but after Karl nodded his head, the two thugs proceeded to take care of the noisy troublemaker, being careful not to overdo their care. Karl made the skeleton watch the process carefully, and when he saw that the thugs were obviously careful not to harm Tyrn, he gave the boss a thumbs up.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "I get it, I have a few of those myself." The boss laughed and relaxed a little, when he saw that the entity possessed some level of intelligence and was willing to cooperate.


    "You know that you are not in a favorable position, yes? With your body missing, you will be powerless against the local high level cultivators and I can even blackmail you by using the brat." The large man tried to push a little harder and observed Karl''s reaction. Karl made the skeleton''s jaw move to imitate laughter and waved his hand. In a second, another nineteen skeletons popped into the existence and the people in the room involuntarily sucked in a deep breath.


    "What is the guy''s Mojo? This is nuts!"


    "Definitely the Soul Transformation Stage."


    "Alright, alright! We do not need to jump to negative conclusions. Let''s cooperate." The boss was shocked as well as everyone else, no one expected the mysterious expert to be able to control twenty skeletons even without his body. Karl had no intention to initiate a conflict either and gave the leader a deep nod, apparently pleased with the continued negotiations.


    "What do you need? We can make some limited arrangements as a token of good faith." The boss proposed and Karl made the skeleton engrave some text into the table with its sharp bony finger. The big man from across the table leaned over in an attempt to read the text, but was surprised when he was unable to figure out anything from the foreign text.


    "You need to write to someone?" The man asked, having no clue what Karl wanted to say. The skeleton shook its head and painted at the man and then at the writing on the table. The man guessed again and after several attempts, they had finally arrived at what Karl had in mind.


    "So you do not know our writing and want to learn it!" The boss was happy that he had finally guessed what his guest had in mind, when the skeletons vigorous nodding rewarded his persistent questioning.


    "That can be arranged. I think it will be for the best to talk when we can understand each other better." The man concluded the debate that turned very civil after Tyrn had left them, accompanied by a few Wolves.


    Karl thought if the gang planned to sell him to a bigger power, but he could see the greed and curiosity in the eyes of their leader. He was surely one of the few that had enough money, people like him did not pay much attention to bounties and other trinkets money could buy. Karl was considered to be a high level demonic cultivator and could provide them with secrets no amount of money could buy.


    There was another factor that Karl did not consider. A lot of demonic cultivators used shortcuts and crippled their future cultivation base in pursuit of immediate power. Demonic cultivators had many strong people, but they were unstable and the number of top level demonic cultivators was very low due to their numerous accidents due to their unregulated experimental methods of cultivation. It was almost unheard of to see a high level demonic cultivator that was stable, calm and was able to sit with someone at one table for almost an hour.


    In the minds of the gang, the methods that Karl used were very precious and obviously yielded similar results to the regular celestial cultivation path. There were none of them that had no greed for such methods that might enable them to relatively quickly gain great power with little side effects.


    Karl began taking lessons in writing without delay, his stalled progress during his stay in the tomb bothering him. The gang took it seriously and there were multiple teachers rotating around a clock to teach him how to write. It was much easier due to his knowledge of the spoken word, but it still took him considerable time to learn to write on a decent enough level. Meanwhile, he had sent his Earth Elemental to hunt outside the city using pitfall traps in hopes that he would make a dent towards the next level.


    He considered reaching the next level quite important as it would make him ten times more powerful if the levels followed the pattern from before. He dreamed of being able to summon two hundred skeletons with a wave of his hand, a level of power that would finally somewhat satisfy him.


    The days passed and before he knew it, he was sitting in the same room as before with the gang leader at the opposite side. He was again fastened to Tyrn''s jacket and the youth behaved quite differently from before. The teenager had suffered no visible harm or other damage to his body and was still much more rational than the last time. Karl wondered what methods the gang had used to put him in his place.


    "I guess the Wolves are much better nanny than I am if they put they all into it." With their money and influence, Karl did not doubt that the means of the gang were not to be laughed at. Especially when the boss was personally interested in the result.


    A thug pulled a third chair carefully next to the table and prepared a piece of paper in front of it, the purpose of the seat obvious. Karl did not keep others waiting and summoned one of his skellies to be his messenger. When the undead appeared, the people around were no longer surprised and the boss began their discussion.


    "I hope you have enjoyed your stay. We can finally have a proper discussion now that we possess the means to communicate." He began and Karl felt as if they were nobles meeting at their secret base, not a band of thieves.


    "I have been away for decades, what happened to the city?" Karl started by asking about the overall poor condition of the city and a sad smile appeared on the mafia boss'' face.


    "Out beloved Jinsheng seen better days for sure." The boss sighed heavily and started a story that clearly disturbed the present Tyrn greatly, as he kept fidgeting the whole time.


    "The city had numerous farms and the two sects that now are just pitiful remnants used to be strong as well. The outskirts of the city stretched far and wide with numerous farms, lumber camps, mines, you name it. But the border was very wide and the protection relied on patrols that rushed to emergencies when they happened. It worked for a time, but then everything changed. The frequency and severity of attacks increased for some unknown reason and the patrols were no longer able to cope with the attacks. "


    "No one really knows what caused it, but the demonic influence grew more powerful. Some say that demonic cultivators were no longer subjected to Heavenly Tribulations as before, which left them to grow unfettered. Their numbers grew and the results of their experiments could be found everywhere. The border regions that did not possess exceptional fortifications fell one by one, until only the city remained with its mighty wall. But even it will not last forever and many predict that Jinsheng will not last past this century." The big man ran his right hand thought his hair and his eyes unfocused, looking into the distance.


    "The wall is crumbling to pieces and we have no longer any access to farms or other resources. Famine is the city''s permanent state now. " His gaze returned to look at the table longingly where the piece of paper rested, as if expecting to see the solution for all the problems written on it.


    "City''s finances are in a terrible state after surviving on imported food by the river. The imports are naturally extremely expensive due to the danger for the merchants and the costs of their escorts. The only reason the city is still able to exist is the remaining foundation of the Thunder God Sect and the Purple Lotus Sect that slowly sell their knowledge and services to other cities. "


    "What about using demonic sects for protection?" Karl wrote, stunned by the seriousness of the situation.


    "It is not a long term solution. The demonic sects are outcasts for a reason. Their power is too unstable and causes more harm than good to society. Small demonic sects can somewhat work, but it does not work in big cities. Demonic sects consume vast numbers of people and every sacrificed person is a potential lost forever. It had been proven time and time again that demonic cities do not work." The boss made a considerable pause while staring at Karl with burning gaze,


    "Unless the quality of their methods is comparable to the celestial path." He continued to stare at Karl and he realized that he should clear the misunderstanding that was unfolding without delay, before a disaster happened.


    "Understandable, I do not possess such methods, as the path I cultivate is specifically possible only for my rare Mojo." He scribbled on the piece of paper hastily, hoping to prevent future trouble.


    "How unfortunate." The mafia boss sighed, but it was obvious that he was not fully convinced of Karl''s sincerity.


    "That is the situation we are in. What was left of the outskirts moved into the city and the city is now overpopulated, starving and broke. Welcome to the present, sir. . .?"


    "K . . " He had almost wrote his true name down, but quickly finished it with the end of his surname when he realized there might be some special means if someone knew his full name. " . . en."


    "Ken." Karl looked at his creation and the head of his skeleton almost fell off.


    "I need to save my life quickly! I cannot possibly name myself Ken!" A quick thought flashed though his mind and he thoughtlessly squeezed next two letters of his name into the gap that remained between the K and en.


    "Oh, sorry. Lady Karen." The mafia boss apologized immediately, even before Karl was able to remedy the situation. He did not know whether to laugh or cry, as it was debatable if the alternative was better than Ken.


    "I can help the city after I regain a part of my power." Karl wrote his honest opinion. He was not against helping out if it meant that the city helped him first and to be honest, there was still this hidden feeling of guilt that kept nibbling on his nerves. He might have been able to save the Riven family if he stayed behind that day, not continuing in the direction of the pesky tomb that cost him many years of time. He was almost sure they had become the victims of the demonic sects'' rampage, because he naturally presumed that Tyrn Riven''s state came to be due to the complete absence and decline of his family. His father must have been dead and even if he was not, he did not plan to search for him using a mafia boss.


    No, he had to be dead. His father would have never allowed his son to turn into the murderous creature that carried him pinned on a jacket.


    "That would be much appreciated, what do you need in return?" The boss asked in a happy tone and Karl wondered why the boss had not made any requests. The most probable explanation was that the man was trying to play a game of multiple steps and they were in the bait phase.


    "Just turn this brat Tyrn into a honest man and leave my minions operate unrestrained." He wrote and loved the expression Tyrn made when he saw the text.


    "Of course, your skeletons can operate unrestrained in the base and the other one is just a small matter." The large man responded with a bright smile. He had probably expected a more costly cooperation.


    "Not just skeletons." Karl wrote and the eyes of all who read the short line bulged in shock.


    "Certainly, Lady Karen. Just inform us in advance, so we can make preparations." Karl could hear a hint of fear in the boss'' voice, as he had probably thought that they knew the full extent of Karl''s powers. Karl did not dare to reveal any more, as he might very well become a threat if he was too powerful.


    "Let''s hope that this mighty Lady Karen will be able to level up without distractions." Karl thought and the skeleton disappeared in a cloud of dust.


    * * * *


    The black gem that contained the esteemed expert, Lady Karen, was pinned on a jacket of a big muscular man, Karl''s personal gorilla that moved according to his wishes transferred through writing. Tyrn was busy with his education program and Karl was left to his devices. The muscular man was named Krax and Karl kept unceasingly mistaking it with crack that well fit to the man''s background, but not to his habits, as the man did not even smoke or drink. He could not believe such a man even existed in a street gang, but it obviously needed some level of decorum to become one of the higher level members.


    Karl was sure that the man liked his job, because Karl had not yet ventured outside the base and the man could simply laze around the base, doing more or less what he wanted. For that reason, he was at this moment resting on a comfortable couch with a broad smile, watching the other thugs doing something reminiscent of work on the manor''s premises. Once, he even waved at the men through the window and Karl could hear a flood of curses, muffled by the great distance.


    "This gang looks too peaceful from the inside, it is not normal." Karl could not believe it and shifted his mind to his plans. Requesting peace and quiet for his meditation, he was able to send two elementals to build traps outside and it finally began to show, his numbers going up again. He lovingly called for his status screen and admired the new numbers.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Blood) 5/s], [Rat(Decay) 50/s], [Elemental(Carpet) 50/s]


    [Experience 102/1000]


    He planned to keep both of his minions to work on the traps for some time before assigning them a different task. The most peculiar fact was that most dungeons possessed some sort of a border, their tunnels and structure were their body and they needed to act within its perimeter. This restriction did not seem to apply much for Karl, as he could be farming kills with his minions far away while being pinned onto the jacket of Krax.


    "It seems too overpowered, there must be some reason behind it." Karl thought, but the only two reasons that he was able to think of was the fact that he was still operating inside the borders of Jinsheng, or the reason had to do with the unrestrained activity of the demonic cults. He was sure that Heavens in this world counted him as a demonic entity no different from ordinary demonic cultivators.


    "What should I do with the city''s economy?" Due to his sentimentality, or simply his new greedy dungeon instincts, he caught himself thinking of Jinsheng as his city, especially the Orlov region beyond the gates. It was only natural that the region was his, when the rightful heir of the region was in a sorry state and his inability to govern the region could not be questioned. It made sense that he was the de facto regent of the region at this point in time.


    Right?


    Right!


    "That means I have to improve the financial situation of my city." He immediately thought of exploiting his Elemental(Earth) summon to mine in the nearby stone quarry. It was outside of the walls, but if he had managed to hit the next level, he should be able to launch vast operations underground with the maximum of twenty Earth Elementals in action.


    "With plenty of stone, I might be able to strengthen and expand the walls, reintroducing farming before my city goes bankrupt." Karl continued in his plans when a strange thought started to bother him.


    "Crack, why don''t they build new walls using cultivators? There must be plenty people with Earth Mojo out there. " He wrote using his skeleton and his assigned servant only slightly jumped up when a skeleton suddenly appeared near him.


    "There is not enough of them and those left are strategic resource needed for the constant repairs of the main wall. People with valuable attributes simply move away in a time of crisis, unless they are thoroughly bound to a city with family, blackmailed or other means of persuasion are used on them. Try to stop a high level Earth cultivator, he will just laugh at you while submerging into the ground." Krax patiently explained, completely ignoring his butchered name.


    "What, what is the weather usually like?" Karl asked a silly question, because half way through his thinking process, there was something really disturbing that he had seen through the window. There was a figure he would rather never see again and she looked exactly the same as the last time he saw her.


    "The weather is actually really nice, we might go take a look. There is a balcony nearby." Krax stood up swiftly, pretending to be captivated by the weather more than was normal and turned his back to the window, quickly barring the view with his back. Unfortunately for him, it just made Karl more cautious.


    "What the hell is Purple Flash doing at this house?" His mind raced and it did not take long for him to realize that the Wolves had sold him out. That kind of person appearing near the manor of a local gang shortly after Karl had made the place his base of operations could not be a coincidence.


    "I have picked the wrong people, or my display was too disturbing and the boss chickened out. There might be also some spy among them who informed other factions." No matter the real reason, Karl did not want to be within the same building with the dangerous cultivator, especially when there was a high chance that she had arrived because of him. His beautiful plans of rosy future slowly burned with every step of the high level cultivator. He wanted to flee, but hesitated for a moment when he thought about Tyrn. It was crystal clear that they would try to blackmail him if he fled, using the boy to trap him.


    In the meantime, the mafia thug had reached the balcony and slowly opened its door, trying to time it in a way Karl would be unable to see The Purple Flash who was already standing at the main door below. It only solidified Karl''s theory.


    "That is irrelevant, they will not dare to kill him. It is their only lead." Karl made his decision and miles and miles away, one of his summons turned into a pile of rocks, replaced by a multitude of skeletons that surrounded Krax. Three of them quickly grabbed the black gem pinned to Krax'' jacket and one of them managed to snatch it away and throw it high, on top of the manor''s roof.


    "Lady Karen, what are you doing?!" Krax shouted in panic, Karl''s actions making little sense to him.


    However, everything clicked in place in the thug''s head when a falcon appeared next to the black stone and grabbed it, carrying it high into the sky. Karl was glad that he was no longer a part of any trinket and the falcon would not end the same as his poor hawk.


    "Boss! He escaped!" The thug kept shouting in panic as he had failed to accomplish his job, but the shouts already grew distant as Karl soared above the city. Despite the gang picking up their most competent man to watch over Karl, no one could have anticipated that their guest was able to simply fly away on the wings of his feathered pet.


    "Finally, I should have seen this view much earlier instead of the main wall. This time, there will be no accidents." Karl had an urge to laugh when he finally accomplished his idea from many years before.


    "Let''s have a good look at you, Jinsheng." He started observing the streets below that grew smaller and smaller, bleak and covered in soot. Ordinary people had no extraordinary means to keep themselves warm and had to burn whatever came under their hands. When Karl wanted to peer further, beyond the premises of the dirty slum, he saw that a cloud of purple smoke began amassing behind him.


    "So annoying! It seems that a sneak peak is all I will get." Karl urged his bird of prey to speed up instead of circling higher to get the full view, there was no telling what means The Purple Flash possessed to chase him down, as she must have realized that he had escaped.


    A moment later, Karl could really see a slender person in purple garments to take up to the skies and move in his direction, trying to chase him down. He panicked when he saw the cultivator moving towards him, leaving clouds of purple smoke behind her. Urging the falcon to fly with its maximum speed, Karl''s nerves calmed down soon, coming to a conclusion that his speed was significantly higher that the speed of the cultivator.


    "Stupid cultivators! Nothing beats my Bird Force One!" Karl was thrilled by winning his race, so much so that he completely forgot to look onto the richer parts of the city, remembering his original intent of observing the city only after his bird had already moved past the high wall.


    He had not seen the city again, at this point it had to really be a cruse of sorts.


    "No, I have seen a little bit." He looked back where above the high wall he saw the very few buildings that were higher than the enormous defensive structure.


    There was a high keep glued to the side of the city wall and a distant, but not truly too far away from it, there were a few spires that seemed to be a part of the wealthier district, probably even the Immortal''s palace, because they did not share the dreary, bleak visage of the keep, instead being colorful, their architects obviously caring more about their looks than function. There were even three building that were still barely visible above the wall, but bore no special attributes, looking plain and simple.


    Karl could not be bothered about the details and was forced to look back directly in front of them, where far in the distance there were some other winged creatures that although still very far were making Karl uneasy.


    "Land boy, land, land, land! We are too visible up here." He quickly reminded himself that the wilderness seemed to be in war with the human civilization and the human side was not exactly winning the struggle. It was wise to be very cautious. Starting to descend, Karl stared for a time in disbelief when he saw where they were about to land. He had not recognized the structure at first, because it was in a bad shape and overgrown with vegetation, at the same time the airborne view was quite different from the perspective he had been used to see.


    Yet, there was no doubt about it, it was the old fort of the Orlov region. He had never known the official name, but decided to call it Fort Orlov, its real name could not be much different considering it stood guard of the once prosperous farming region.


    Looking quickly around before the falcon''s talons touched the grey, crumbling stones of the fort, Karl overlooked the land conquered by the forest. There were signs of destruction covered by leaves and bushes everywhere, the land quickly claiming what humans once had. The bird carefully touched down on the main tower of the fort, its wings still spread wide, as if the bird had the intent to claim the territory for himself.


    Karl very much agreed with the sentiment.


    "It will be only proper to claim the land as my own. I am it''s rightful regent after all! Lat''s build here the first proper dungeon in this chaotic cultivation world and grow it far and wide, deep and high!" Karl Gulden glittered in the cold, winter rays of the Sun in the beak of his falcon, dreaming of the structures he would unleash upon the world.

 Chapter 9 New Home

    "A monster made of rock that had roughly a humanoid shape was behind the bars of a prison cell. On its head there glowed a single black eye that glared at the first bricks that were being laid down for the foundations of a grandiose structure that would come to be known as the Legendary Labyrinth Karl." A thought process ran inside of the very eye mentioned, because Karl was suffering a very light case of engaging in self-righteous monologues due to being unable to speak to anyone else.


    "No that is completely wrong, the name is ridiculous and how can I lay the foundational bricks when I am actually just digging?" He had opted to make the entrance of his future dungeon in the basement of Fort Orlov, in the only cell he had found the keys to. It was convenient that he would already have a door without the need to buy it.


    A solid door for free!


    "And they always say that there is no free lunch in the world in cultivation novels. Bah! Liars! A door for free right here!" He continued to watch the digging process closely from the top of his minion''s head where he was embedded.


    "How much are a door to a cell anyway? Probably not that much." He ranted while watching his elemental build the entrance tunnel, as his second minion was still in the wilderness, constructing more pitfall traps.


    Karl felt a long suppressed feeling swelling inside him, the urge that was being satisfied, an instinct he had not fully realized he even had. He would finally have a place of his own and was fascinated by its every inch being build, every grain of dust being moved by his tireless servant. It was fascinating to the point he began to worry about his mental health. How could moving rock be even a little interesting?


    And yet, it was.


    "What about a lift? Should I make a tunnel straight down like before? Should I make a large spiraling stairs down? I can also make the tunnel sloped to get the same result." He thought while fully captivated by the task.


    Karl ordered his sole worker to continue for some time before deciding to make vertical spiral tunnel with just mild downward angle, planning to connect tunnels to its side in the future. He did not want stairs because any sort of wheeled instrument would have trouble traversing them. He had no idea why would he need the functionality, but he wanted to plan into the future.


    After all the planning Karl remembered a minuscule problem that concerned Tyrn Riven. He was sure that the youngster was safe with the gang as long as he seemed useful to them. They had no reason to dispose of someone who had the potential of being useful to Wolves, yet there was an issue lurking in that logic. The Wolves had to believe that he was not completely gone.


    Why would they keep a nuisance like Tyrn around if they believed that Karl was completely out of their reach, gone forever? It was the option Karl needed to prevent. He needed them to hope and keep nurturing their presumed asset.


    "Yeah, that should do it." Karl''s eyes lingered on a round stone that looked similar to him. He ordered his Elemental to stop working for a second and turn the stone into his double. It was quite easy given that Karl looked like a black stone with no engravings or other hard to duplicate features.


    "Sending the bird flying back and forth a bit with this stone in its talons should do the trick. I can almost see the confused thugs thinking how desperately I am searching for their hostage." Karl marveled at his genius. "I love minions, you just send them out when the evil called work rears its ugly head and that''s it!"


    Maybe being a dungeon was really better than being an elvish pop star.


    Well, but any proper elvish pop stars surely had fan girls.


    Yet fan girls could not fly, unless thrown out of the window.


    "But why would an elvish pop star throw his fan girl out of a window?" Karl thought seriously for a second. "Unless the fan girl was a stalker and witnessed the elf murdering a different fan girl. Then she might even jump out of the window herself out of desperation, the wet dreams of her idol''s perfection shattered forever."


    Karl continued in his brief thoughts on the fundamentals of the universe and suddenly, he noticed that the Elemental had already dug a long vertical spiral that was the continuation of the short horizontal access tunnel that led into the prison cell.


    He needed to secure the entrance and as a proper dungeon, or a dungeon that was trying to be a proper dungeon, or rather was urged to be one by his new instincts, his property''s safety was of great concern. He walked back and stopped at the prison cell''s door, his first line of defense.


    "I need to build something small before the prison door, it is my precious door!" He immediately rejected the spike trap, as the little holes were still visible. Instead, he decided to go with a wide pitfall trap that consisted of many meters deep hole covered with a thin layer of rock. The thin layer was being supported by the very same spikes from underneath and sliding the spikes back into the horizontal holes at the very top of the hole acted as the layer''s support. This way he was able to activate and deactivate the pitfall trap using the spikes and even was able to close the trap from above with the spikes to prevent anyone from escaping. For a good measure, he added extra spike traps to the very bottom of the pitfall trap, to gain an option to deal the final blow to anyone who fell inside.


    "Default position is disarmed, definitely disarmed." Karl remembered the unfortunate accident with his first spike trap and did not want to repeat it. A proper dungeon should possess some level of safety regulation after all!


    He pushed his demons quickly back into the back of his mind and prepared to start with the main dish.


    "Right, it is time to see my repertoire again." Karl called for his status screen and dug deeper into the options, selecting the structures he could build. He needed more variety of traps and some that were more reliable and deadlier than the simple spike trap.


    [Basic Tunnel Element 1 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Trap Element 100 000Ma 1/s]


    [Basic Tunnel Element(2) 10 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Trap Element(2) 1 000 000Ma 10/s],


    [Gunk Pile 500 000Ma 5/s], [Abandoned Graveyard 2 000 000Ma 8/s]


    [Void Well(2) 10 000 000Ma 25/s]


    [Dungeon Portal(2) 100 000 000Ma 10/s]


    He could not believe how long he had not build anything using the system menu, it was definitely not normal for a dungeon, but when one had a hammer, there was the option of not seeing every problem as a nail. However, now was the time to use it extensively. The last time he had examined the Basic Tunnel Element and the Basic Trap Element and took just a quick look at the advanced versions. If he kept his pitfall handling Elemental in action, he could generate fifty juice per second, meaning he got three thousand mana a minute, or nearly two hundred thousand in an hour.


    Karl focused on the Basic Tunnel Element and began scrolling though his options that appeared in front of him in the form of a hologram. This time he decided to go through everything more deeply, as he had plenty of time to do so.


    Rock tiles kept changing in front of his black eye, with different colors and made of different materials. Wall reinforcements followed, including even luminescent materials that glowed in various colors, although the intensity of the light was really mild. Karl decided to use them as light strips along his walls and ceiling. That was about it and he fluently switched to viewing Basic Trap Elements that revolved around all kinds of spikes and pointy objects extending from the walls, even blades. When he ventured into Advanced Trap Elements he had even found a trap that consisted of a set of holes in the walls that were connected to a reservoir of magma that after touching a trigger tile on the floor ejected a stream of lava that was being kept under high pressure by a big stone lying on the surface of the lava reservoir that needed to be build in the wall next to the trap.


    There were more elaborate traps like it, a trap that ejected pressurize water, a trap that slammed the whole tunnels floor against the ceiling and vice versa, a trap that by breaking a weakened wall ejected tremendous volumes of water into the tunnel, hopefully propelling people back towards the exit, a trap that set loose a giant ball of rock lumbering through the tunnel. It did not always followed the logic that energy had to be consumed to keep some of the traps active, but in general, all the more fanciful traps were contained in the Advanced Trap Element category and cost one mana upkeep per second.


    Something that Karl would naturally never pay.


    "Why should I pay upkeep for anything? I have never needed the Dig option either." Karl decided immediately to watch the more complicated traps only as an inspiration and use his Elemental to build them instead, using the most basic traps that did not cost anything for upkeep as triggers."It was quite a flood of information, but let''s continue."


    He forced his way through the rest of the tunnel elements and traps and his jaw had nearly fell off. [Advanced Tunnel Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s] contained what appeared to be a regular space ship airlock doors, lifts that would make galactic empires proud, downright huge castle gates and many more. Within the trap category were traps blatantly shooting lasers from the walls. Still, the advanced traps of the second tiers consumed ten mana per second and Karl could imagine how the costs would add up if he began using the options that required upkeep. He wanted to build a huge, functional dungeon, not a space ship.


    "When I have more mana, we can do a space ship, but how much would that cost?" Karl quickly calculated in his mind how much it might cost to build if his system really contained everything to construct a space travel capable base and he just shook his head. Some components would certainly be in the higher tiers and the cost together would be surely in thousands of mana per second. That said, he had absolutely no idea how much would a powerful energy core or engines cost if the system even contained them.


    "No, for now I have just my trusty Earth Elemental to construct for me advanced traps. Let''s make some surefire way to squash opposition." Karl pushed his infinitely long tunnel idea to the back of his mind as pathetic, again, and thought about a trap he would place right behind a wooden door he had positioned right where the original prison cell''s wall should have been. A simple wooden door did not cost upkeep to create and he happily created this Advanced Tunnel Element. It cost him a few minutes time and no upkeep, so it was a breeze and the result was a sturdy wooden door that he liked very much,


    He had to do much more of them in the future.


    "Fine, at this point, people here are aggressive intruders, so the kill zone now." He thought for a while on a mechanism he could use until he came up with an idea of a fake right wall. The right side wall would be actually the part of a huge right triangle with its longest side being tiled by forty five degrees and the triangle''s weight would be resting on it. As the consequence, the huge triangle made of rock would need to be held in place by extended spike traps placed inside the wall, off the tunnel to the right. The idea was that if he retracted the spikes, the triangle would come free and slid along its tilted base. From the perspective of the tunnel, the right wall would be moving left until it slammed against the left wall, crushing everything in between. Naturally, it would be sliding left and down, meaning the floor tile needed to be made a part of the trap too, because it would halt the triangle''s movement if it was not a part of it.


    The resulting shape was that of a huge triangle that had in its shorter vertical side the imprint of a tunnel,


    The whole contraption was the work of a genius and Karl began a monumental construction work to complete it, but realized a vital defect of his invention when the work was well underway. If people simply stayed in the cavity, they would move to the side with the triangle and would be trapped instead of crushed, which defeated the whole purpose of the trap.


    "What a useless complicated mechanism! Who has invented such a faulty thing!" Karl raged, but had only himself to blame. "No, I need something more straightforward! Not a difficult to construct nonsense!"


    Karl then opted to make a thin, fake ceiling made of rock and above it suspended a huge rock slab in the shape of the tunnel, but slightly smaller to accommodate for debris. It was again hanging in the air on the tips of half-extended spikes. He had not opted for the solution at first, because the fake ceiling was needed to cover the spikes, but it proved to be the more simple option in the end. He had unleashed his minion and watched him shape the rock with the perfection that was only to be expected of his kind. The trap would be really huge measuring forty meters and would be triggered manually by him operating the spikes.


    At the end and the beginning, Karl added a different type of door, thick extendable vertical bars that would provide him with the option to enclose the space of the trap. He had eliminated the visible holes by having the upper bars perfectly aligned with the ceiling before coming down and the slots for them on the floor had been covered by a thin reinforced floor tile that would cover the whole tunnel. The thin floor tile would simply be shattered after the bars came down into its holes. After a while of thinking, he decided to use the same principle at the top, making the steel bars completely undetectable.


    "That is for the main dish." Karl was happy to invent a trap that would certainly kill even the monster rabbit from before, if the creature was small enough to fit inside his tunnel.


    While looking at his creation, he realized that covering the holes with a thin layer of reinforced floor tiles was a good strategy and decided to use it everywhere from that point on. Having almost reached the downward spiraling tunnel, he decided to create a space on all sides filled with concealed spike traps and enclose the space with the vertical sliding bars. At the very beginning of the slope down, he added one extra wooden door for the good measure.


    "Spilling some really slippery soap here might be fun, people would slide all the way down." Karl chuckled inside of his mind, thrilled by the image. In the end he added a huge boulder at the very beginning of the spiral tunnel that was ready to fall through the fake ceiling and roll down on his command. He had always wanted to make the trap and something was telling him that its efficiency would not fail him. The downward spiraling tunnel was the ideal place for it.


    "Fine, now that I feel the very basic sense of safety, it is time to address the elephant in the room." He was very satisfied with his measures, he wasted no mana upkeep on none of his traps and even then had a lot of deadly options. There was still the issue of some Earth attribute cultivator that might just breeze through his traps, but he decided to take care of that complicated issue later.


    "Channels of acid surrounding the facility can be a solution, but enough of that." His mind raced with possibilities when he stared at his additional building options.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    He had the same building options as the last time except for the [Temple of Earth(2) 5 000 000Ma 15/s] which had disappeared. Karl did not think it was substantial, as he would extend the reach of his dungeon to the place that enabled him the option. It was only a matter of time. This time, he was not stingy and decided to build all of the structures even if he would be forced to tear them down right after. He knew very well how game changing could the options that environment dependent features offered be and with time, he planned to at least try out every possibility he encountered.


    Karl decided to start with [Gunk Pile 500 000Ma 5/s] that should take under three hours to build if he canceled both of his Elementals. He constructed another tunnel at the bottom of the spiral and placed the structure at the side. The process was peculiar, he just needed to build a short straight tunnel branching from the main one and place the structure in there in the hologram mode and it began building itself.


    Slowly.


    Sometimes, he was glad that he was a dungeon and time was merciful on him. The three hours passed like a breeze with the whirling mass of magic and rock doing whatever it did and lo, there it was, a Gunk Pile!


    The tunnel had been widened by the Build spell and there were multiple piles of gunk that had to stink terribly, because they even looked like smelling bad. For a good measure, Karl decided that a good old heavy wooden door was a good fit there and promptly build one.


    And than build another one just for a good measure.


    After all that he and his faithful Earth Elemental began running back and forth in between the piles of gunk, but did not see anything spectacular, or even remotely useful. He had given up on trying to identify the origin of the gunk after a few minutes and looked if his status could provide some guidance.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 2 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build], [Manage]


    Summons- [Skeleton(Pestilence) 5/s], [Goblin(Filth) 5/s]


    [Experience 350/1000]


    "Goblin? Do not tell me that it is the only effect of that pile of trash." Karl had never seen a Goblin as an option and knew it had to be the effect of the structure. He focused on the Manage option and another transparent screen appeared in front of him.


    [Gunk Pile 500 000Ma 5/s]


    Gunk Regeneration - 10/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Goblin(Filth) 600Gu 1Gu/s]


    Mesmerized by all his options, Karl immediately chose the nested [Build] option while calculating his new summoning possibilities.


    [Latrine 100 000Ma],, [Waste Dump 100 000Ma]


    Karl''s enthusiasm lessened immediately, when even after building both of the buildings in the area of the Gunk Pile, they appeared to serve no special purpose other than the obvious one.


    "Meh, what have I even expected from the cheapest structure? Let''s focus on something more juicy." Even then, the sheer number of Goblins he would be able to generate through the new Gunk resource was considerable. Although they were probably even weaker than the skeletons. However, Karl''s eyes were already focused on the next structure that looked much more promising. He quickly walked to the next prepared side tunnel and selected his most anticipated option.


    [Void Well(2) 10 000 000Ma 25/s]


    It took Karl longer than a full day of channeling his mana into the construction with all his Mana Regeneration capacity to finally materialize a crack in space that glowed with unnatural energy that kept seeping through it, the deep purple substance shone with ominous light and was clearly not entirely safe for ordinary people. The room turned bigger than the one created after building the Gunk Pile with its diameter about thirty meters, a few thin spires from black metal supporting the ceiling with the purple energy snaking upwards along them. Karl quickly summoned his skeleton, as he had not had any minions summoned during the construction and walked into the room, greedily choosing the Manage option.


    [Void Well(2) 10 000 000,25/s]


    Void Regeneration - 100/s


    Spells- [Build], [Void Burst 1 000 000Vo],


    Summon- [Warped Flesh(Void) 100Vo 5Vo/s], [Void Horror(Void) 600Vo 100Ma 10Vo/s 5Ma/s], [Void Knight(Void) 10 000Vo 10 000Ma 40Vo/s 10Ma/s]


    Karl was at this point reacting like a cobra, launching his consciousness at the Build button to see more options that he could devour with his greedy eyes.


    [Void Crystal 1 000 000Vo], [Void Portal(3) 100 000 000Vo 100 000 000Ma 250Ma/s],


    "Holy! That is expensive, but I do not need tier three structures now. I need bulk and options." He was curious what the Void Crystal did and quickly began constructing one. He had to begin somewhere and there was no reason not to begin with that particular option. The purple mass in the middle began immediately condensing at one point at the one of the two black spires, slowly creating a purplish substance there. It was clear that it would take a while anyway and Karl switched his attention to the summons.


    "It is definitely a tournament arc now, but I do not need silly heroes, students, soldiers or whatever. It will be my minions'' testing ground!" He waited patiently for the Void Crystal to be build, the time seemed to pass almost instantly as he kept fantasizing about his future greatness.


    Sadly, the void crystal did not provide any kind of description, his system being stingy about explanations as usual. He had to find out what it did.


    A second later, he did not need any explanation, because it was clear what it did after he had tried to summon one [Void Horror(Void) 6 000Vo 100Ma 10Vo/s 5Ma/s].


    A hunched monster with deep purple skin like silk appeared near him, its two hands extended into sharp claws and its eyes shining with bright purple light. It had no legs, as its torso was submerged in a swirling purple mist that floated above ground and the space around it seemed darker than usual, the dim light of Karl''s skeleton''s eyes that he traditionally used to lit his tunnels lost the battle instantly and was sucked into the monster. The structure was still lit by the purple Void that danced in the middle on the two supports and in the horror''s eyes, but it was like the other light had been stolen, consumed by the purplish monster. Its face reminded him of a dog''s maw with its teeth bare, the purple substance swirling down in its throat that was visible through its teeth. Karl felt that the monster had a similar demoralizing effect as undead, but the feeling seemed less repulsive and more unnatural, just wrong. He did not envy anyone who would find himself fighting the minion.


    Especially in the dark tunnels, it would surely make the incoming heroes soil their pants.


    "Wait, my dungeon will not be attracting heroes or adventurers at all, there are not any!" He reminded himself that he would probably be leaning more to the offensive side of dungeoneering.


    "Wait, why has it popped into existence instantly?" Karl''s attention focused on the Void Crystal and understood why it did not take the logical sixty seconds that it should


    "Oh, man! This structure is OP!" Karl could not believe his eyes. Void Crystals obviously served the purpose of storing Void in them that could be used later. He was sure that their number was not limitless, but it certainly opened a terrifying option to hoard Void to use it later for a burst of force in a short assault.


    "This is a vital option to explore for later, I need to find out the maximum number of Void Crystals I can make." Karl was more and more wondering why what he was doing at the moment did not provoke any Heavenly Tribulations and was inclined that the rumors were true and something really terrible had befallen the Heavens. He could not imagine that him playing with Void would be alright if everything worked as it should in a cultivation world.


    "That is good news, but also a little bit scary. What if the demonic cultivators can exploit the same fact to their benefit?" An unease gripped Karl and he no longer felt safer even with his newly found advantage.


    "If the Heavens has truly fallen, it will be the race to the top and judging by the state of Jinsheng, it has already began." Karl immediately dismissed all his summons and began creating more Void Crystals just in case.


    He discovered that he did not need to wait almost three hours for each of the crystals to be created, but he could just queue the construction in the building and go away. he decided to furiously queue an insane amount of Void Crystals and summon his Elemental again to expand his dungeon.


    "This is annoying!" He found out that he was able to summon the elemental only in a few particular parts of the dungeon and had to travel halfway up the spiral to summon it. It was good that the Elemental ran on mana, not Void, which reminded him of his idle Gunk resource.


    "Wait, let''s build the last structure first, that is the priority!" He walked back and started to construct [Abandoned Graveyard 2 000 000Ma 8/s]. He had not even considered to build the Portal before leveling into next stage, because it would take him ages to channel the ridiculous amount of mana.


    [Abandoned Graveyard 2 000 000Ma 8/s]


    Rot Regeneration - 100/s


    Dread Regeneration - 1/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Zombie(Rot) 5 000Ro 10Ro/s], [Skeleton Warrior(Death) 10 000Ro 10 000Dr 1 000Ma 10Ro/s 5Ma/s], [Dread Knight(Dread) 10 000 000Dr 10 000Ma 1Dr/s 50Ma/s]


    Karl immediately chose the build option, before his brain was fried due to the unbelievably overpriced Dread Knight.


    [Crypt 1 000 000Ro], [Mausoleum 1 000 000Dr], [Early Grave 1Exp]


    "This is even more complicated than the Void resource!" Karl honestly did not get how was he supposed to amass the required ten million Dread with a measly one Dread per second.


    "Suppose the Mausoleum option is the equivalent of the Void Crystal, am I supposed to be hoarding Dread for half a year for a single knight? That is ridiculous!" He quickly lost his feeling of being overpowered and started to search for a catch in the whole Dread mechanic.


    "The problem has to do with the Early Grave, but I will never spend Experience points to just summon a silly unit." He just rage clicked the Mausoleum option many times along with the Crypt option and abandoned the disappointing Abandoned Graveyard.


    No, it was rather frustrating than disappointing. He could use just the Zombie for his tournament.


    "Fine, it is time to put things in order." He decided to construct a mental map of his dungeon.


    There was the access tunnel connected to the prison cell. It led into the downward spiraling tunnel that he dubbed the Spiral, which he planned to extend further down in the future, but it was already almost a mile deep. At its end was the main South Tunnel that was the main tunnel for the time where all the buildings were, that was his Monster District. At that point he decided to start building an arena for his tournament to the west, introducing the Laboratory where he planed to test anything that needed testing, in this case his minions.


    "Isn''t it too arrogant to call one tunnel with three buildings a district? Nah, we are in the cultivation world now!" Karl chuckled in his mind with an evil voice. He did not stop for even a second to doubt about building an arena and call it the Laboratory.


    The construction proceeded slowly, but smoothly and the completion of the Laboratory was just a matter of time. He opted for a huge circular room that had a deep pit in its midst that was only a few meters in diameters smaller and a good thirty feet deep. He positioned himself at the high ledge created by that design and prepared the first opponents. In total, he planned to test his [Zombie(Rot) 5 000Ro 10Ro/s], [Warped Flesh(Void) 100Vo 5Vo/s], [Void Horror(Void) 600Vo 100Ma 10Vo/s 5Ma/s], [Void Knight(Void) 10 000Vo 10 000Ma 40Vo/s 10Ma/s], [Skeleton(Pestilence) 5/s], [Goblin(Filth) 600Gu 1Gu/s] and had to run back and forth to his buildings, because the minions could only be summoned there.


    For reference, he planned to pit every monster against his skeleton first, creating a basic skeleton benchmark that would indicate how many skeletons that particular minion could handle.


    First was a little green creature roughly a meter tall armed with a dagger that did not look particularly sharp. It tried to do damage to the skeleton, but the dagger proved to be absolutely ill suited for the fight and goblins were able to fight the skeleton to a draw only when they were ten against one and even then it could not be said with certainty that the skeleton would not manage to get from under the heap of goblins and kill them if given enough time. Repeating the goblin fight with a zombie was even more hopeless, because goblins were unable to dog pile it due to its greater strength. Karl slowly understood that Goblins would be totally useless against particular types of opponents. Thankfully they might be well matched against humans, as their daggers would be effective against them.


    "That''s it for Goblins. Might be useful against humans, but ill suited against monster, meaning useless in dungeon defense as my dungeon will be probably most threatened by high level cultivators and monsters." Karl sighed, but the Gunk Pile still cost him only five mana upkeep and was able to sustain ten Goblins and he decided to keep the structure.


    Karl''s skeleton benchmark continued with the zombie, but he already knew what to expect due to his earlier three versus one battle. After a few fights it was obvious that one zombie could take on two skeletons with a reasonable chance to win.


    "Oh my, that means that I can have ten zombies for just eight mana upkeep with one Abandoned Graveyard. That is very good. " Karl''s enthusiasm was cooled down when he realized that the zombies were quire slow, much slower than the skeletons. They were extremely unsuitable for ranged fights or chasing down frankly anything, as their speed was really underwhelming. Karl estimated that a zombie''s run speed was equal to him swiftly walking to a toilet.


    That would hardly catch anyone.


    Another skeleton had risen from the ground and against it entered an entirely new opponent, Warped Flesh(Void). If was a disfigured humanoid figure with muscles bulging everywhere and visible pulsing veins that circulated its blood, obviously laced with purple Void, through the monster''s system. Its height was considerable, two meters and it looked physically strong with its hand having only three fingers that looked more like tentacles than ordinary fingers with bones. Its eyes were purple like with all the other Void summons, but its teeth were not pronounced, it did not seem to be equipped for bite attacks at all.


    The opponents ran against each other and Karl noticed that their speeds were comparable with the Warped Flesh slightly quicker than the skeleton. The skeleton initiated a swing from right to left aimed at the Warped Flesh''s head and its opponent made a mirror attack from left to right with its hand. The rusted sword hit the monster''s head with no visible effect and the skeleton''s head flew away the next second, the single blow turning it into a pile of bones.


    "Now we are talking!" Karl was surprised by the obviously one sided duel. He quickly repeated the battle with five skeletons, but the result was still the same. The rusted swords were simply too dull to cause a critical injury and the Warped Flesh won even against ten skeletons facing it. After a few matches, it lost only once when a lucky skeleton managed to stab it through its eye.


    After more combinations, Karl made the decision to test Void Horror against multitude of opponents and was pleasantly surprised when finding out the monster quire durable. It could take on anything he could throw at it. After some thinking, Karl arrived to the conclusion that his monsters had simply too bad equipment to actually harm Void Horror. None of his minions possessed good quality sharp weapons and the Void Horror had a tremendous advantage in all fights possessing both speed and strength. He was interested in the match up of Skeleton Warrior against the Void Horror, but he did not have enough Dread to do the test.


    "Fine, let''s wrap this up. Here comes the star of our show!" Karl made the skeleton that carried him run back to the Monster District to summon the Void Knight for the last set of matches.


    Karl admired a little over two meters tall figure in a full plate armor that held a robust two handed sword in its one had like it was a toothpick, its eyes glowing with purple light, having the armor plates engraved with runes and depictions of horrific beasts emitting the same glow. Suddenly, the robust knight turned with the speed of the wind and its sword heavily engraved with similar runes shone with bright purple light while moving in a wide arc. In its path a purple light had been emitted turning into a projectile that quickly moved to bisect the incoming Void Horror.


    The fight was over just with that one move.


    "That is my boy! How many can I make again?" Karl was ecstatic and quickly pitted the Void Knight against every opponent he had in his repertoire, but none was his match. The only one who was even capable of damaging it was the Void Horror with its claws, but it was always dead long before it managed to get into its striking range. Karl calculated that if he build two Void Wells, he would be able to summon five of them and the upkeep cost for one would be twenty mana, which was incredible. It was definitely his most efficient combat unit at this point unless it had a weakness he did not know of.


    "I cannot spend one hundred mana upkeep on them, even if I make two now I won''t be able to summon my Elemental anymore and that is crucial." Karl mulled over his situation and decide he had to do two tasks. The first was to farm monster kills to level up and the second was to find the building that had something to do with earth element. It had popped up in his status when he had been in his old labyrinth and he would be forced to make a forward base there to claim the prize.


    He had seen the Void Knight operate, he was sure that the cost of the summons that did not require buildings was deliberately much higher and it was inefficient to keep using the expensive ones that were not generated from buildings. He had seen how powerful dungeon structures could be and decided to reinforce his base and start searching for more buildings, hoping that his pitfall building Elemental had built enough of the traps and he did not need to summon him again.


    "Wait, at what paint I have canceled all my summons to build faster?" Karl''s mind froze, when he realized that he had made a tiny mistake in his plans. "My Bird Force One! I hope nothing serious happened."

 Chapter 10 Forward Base Exploration

    "You should really think twice before lying to me, we have means to make you talk." A beautiful lips of a lady veiled in purple garments uttered not so beautiful threat towards a youth that walked beside her with bowed head, his expression ashen.


    "Fine with me, be stubborn." Yen Gon von Herrmause known as The Purple Flash looked at the teen sharply before she stopped paying him attention.


    Another young idiot playing with demonic cultivators, exactly what she needed. She had been called for an emergency by one of her sect''s informants, but the fools messed up and the demonic cultivator they had apprehended escaped before she had been able to even enter the building. The gang argued that they still had this asset she was escorting to a safe place, but she doubted the boy knew anything useful unless the demonic cultivator was stupid.


    The high level ones rarely were.


    She felt uneasy because of all the pressure on her. The problems continued to pile up and it was only a matter of time before the city gone bankrupt. Her sect had probed the other cities long ago, trying to find a more grateful landlord, but it appeared that Jinsheng was not a rare case and all the cities around had serious problems. In addition, her sect was forced to provide support for other cities, as they would have never sent them food otherwise. At first, she had been angry, but as of late that feeling was beginning to turn into fatigue.


    She was tired, but could not rest because every second threat she faced could pose an existential danger to the city and her sect.


    "He was able to control many skeletons and a bird. What Mojo is that?" She whispered while lost in her thoughts. She felt even more exhausted and uneasy when thinking about the current threat. Usually the knowledge of the Purple Lotus Sect gave her an advantage against her opponents, but not this time. She had absolutely no clue what the intruder was capable of and she was very clear what he wanted, because all demonic cultivators wanted only one thing.


    Souls. That usually did not bode well for the city''s population. There were some demonic cultivators that were content with animal souls, but using animal souls had serious consequences for most of demonic cults'' cultivation methods.


    "The falcon went north carrying the stone. The question is whether he gave up on his schemes or not." She was abruptly torn away from her musings by an unusual sight. The one she had tried to catch was soaring up in the skies above the city as if he owned the place.


    "How dare you!" Yen was enraged by the intruder''s audacity and her body enveloped in a dense purple gas propelling her up towards the unwelcomed guest. The falcon did not change course and continued in a straight line with its highest speed while obviously holding a black stone in its talons.


    Yen gave chase while attracting attention of all the poor down in the slums, their eyes watching the chase, an unexpected amusement to their dreary lives. Except of the few that decided to use that opportunity to steal from the distracted mob. She chased the bird with her highest speed, but she was not that fast, her flight far away from the capabilities of the Immortal.


    "What is that idiot even doing? Has he completely gave up on the city?" It was another heavy burden pressing her down. She had noticed that the Immortal was as exhausted as she was by the constant existential crisis and was secretly looking for a way out. She would not be surprised if he one day left the city without a word.


    "It is useless, I will not be able to catch him." She gave up on the chase when the bird passed the city wall, and descended back to the ground.


    However, it was not the end. The bird continued to fly over the city at high altitude during the day as if deliberately mocking her and her mood plummeted even more. This was the new low, many demonic cultivators attacked and probed the city defenses, but none were so brazen as this cursed black stone.


    And then the bird vanished. Just like that.


    "What? Is this another way to laugh into my face?" Yen watched the black stone falling to the ground, expecting the bird to appear again any second to grab it, mocking her by its acrobatics. but the bird had never appeared and the stone fell to the ground a few streets away from her.


    "Ha! The demonic asshole''s cultivation must be less stable than he thought, this is my chance!" Yen sprinted in the direction of the ground zero and soon reached a black stone lying on the pavement. She was quite quick and no thief had yet managed to pocket it.


    "Your fun has ended, you peacock. It is time to talk!" She sneered, but remembered that the stone could only write, not speak. That in itself was unusual. She grabbed it carefully and decided to take it back to the Wolves while picking the useless youth along the way. They could still use him to make the intruder talk. The Wolves were happy to see their mess solved and readily prepared a room in a cellar for an interrogation.


    Yen sat down behind a table with three chairs, a piece of paper in front of one of the spots and the scared teenager fidgeting on the third. She waited for a while for the demonic cultivator to summon his skeleton, but he clearly refused to speak to her.


    "Look, we can do it the easy way, or the hard way. If you do not want to talk, I can skin this punk alive." She looked at the black stone with a frown, but there was no reaction. It was natural, demonic cultivators cared little for their followers and she had anticipated the teen''s uselessness from the start.


    "Or we can try something more straightforward." She continued grimly while placing a large hammer on the table. "I am interested how many blows can you take."


    Oddly, there was still no answer, but one of the thugs that stood around for security reasons stepped forward while coughing lightly.


    "Lady Purple Flash if I may." He said tentatively and stepped closer to the table, looking at the stone from up close.


    "What is it? Do you have a way to make him talk?" She barked, she was still angry at the thugs for letting the cultivator escape.


    "No, I think that it is just a stone."


    "I can see that! Go on, make him talk then!" She retorted impatiently.


    "No Elder, I mean that it is just a stone. The one from before looked differently." He said and Yen felt that a bucket of cold water had been poured on her head.


    "Do you mean that the bird returned with a stone in its talons just to make fun of me?" She realized what was going on and the thug decently stepped back, not daring to say anymore.


    Yen felt blood rushing into her head.


    Such humiliation!


    "Dead! He is dead!" She said coldly, her hands tightening into fists.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden lay on the ground, watching another sparkling Void Crystal pop into existence. He had decided that it was safer to first wait for his level to increase, as he was not that far from his objective. Days passed and he patiently watched his numbers go up, as his Elemental was again at work laying down pitfall traps.


    "If the Heavens are really out of commission, does that mean that Zhan Gon?" A thought crept into his mind. If the Heavens were no more, as the demonic cultivator who unleashed a river of magma onto the city said, had Zhan Gon''s oath been undone? Could the son of The Purple Flash actually live if he had saved him that day, because the oath to kill Mezzaiel no longer applied?


    During the long wait, Karl''s doubts resurfaced and he could not suppress thoughts that he could have done a better job. However, he knew that he was at the end of the day just an ordinary man and had not received any sort of training to cope with extreme situations. He did what he thought right at the moment and for him, that was enough.


    Not that people like The Purple Flash would accept such a cheap explanation if they had something to say about it.


    But they did not have any say in the matter and Karl would ensure that it stayed that way in the future.


    [Experience 604/1000]


    He hypnotized the number that was slowly moving up. With more and more traps build, the numbers moved faster, but to reach a thousand would still take time.


    No matter, he could wait. Time was his buddy.


    Despite his tough guy stance, he decided to try out some psychological hygiene and called on a few goblins with their not exactly sharp daggers. He ordered them to engrave a few simple murals dedicated to the people he had failed. A grave to his regrets.


    The first was a pair of two figures that looked really terrible, but Karl kept persuading himself that what mattered was the intent and not the actual artistic value that was naturally not high given the goblins had created the mural. The two figures were of course the siblings he met in his labyrinth. The smaller one was the unfortunate girl that impaled herself on his trap and the bigger one was her brother that sold him in the city.


    "Rest in peace, I really need to help out some kids in the future to make up for the whole mess." How many lives saved was enough to buy his salvation for the one he took? It was a question with no answer, but he would surely feel better if the number was no longer zero. Karl thought and looked at the mural next to it where there was a simple figure of a man running a sword he was holding through another that had horns on his head.


    "Rest in peace as well, stupid man. Why have you chosen revenge? Revenge suck every time." He sighed towards the second mural and his eyes wandered to the third one, where there were two men. One holding a podao that went through the second man who had coins strewn all around his body.


    "Rest in peace you two. I could not face anything at that time, but that will slowly change. You could fight alongside one another in the end." He said towards the mural of a thief and a young disciple of the Thunder God Sect.


    Karl''s eyes moved to the last mural of a single figure with a circlet on its head, something circular dug in its center. The goblin art was truly terrible, but Karl did not care at all.


    "Fuck you Riven, what am I supposed to do with that son of yours?! Are you even dead?" Karl hurled his angry thoughts towards the simple mural, as if there was really the former Young Lord Riven of Orlov standing in front of him.


    "I refuse to wish you anything. We are not done, hear me? We are not yet done with each other!" He stared for a long time at the ridiculous depiction of the former heir to the fort above him.


    He had not asked Wolves how the Riven family had met their unfortunate end and needed to find out more in the future from someone more trustworthy. He wanted to rush into the city immediately, but he knew it was silly. He had to wait for the next level when his power would be incomparable. He would only end up in a situation similar to the one with the crazed rabbit monstrosity if he went immediately.


    "I am a decade late anyway, a few weeks mean little." Karl thought and did not know if the whole idea with the murals was a good one. He felt worse than before, but it would change with time. Time was his ultimate weapon. It could kill people, memories, mistakes, regrets, everything.


    * * * *


    Tyrn kept tiptoeing around the scary woman that came to pick him up from the Wolves'' base. Earlier, he had hopes that the dark gem would be his salvation, but it seemed that it made his trouble even worse. He was now under scrutiny of The Purple Flash herself who had to think of him as a cultist. Before, he had been sure that the more powerful people in the city could not be bothered with him, a little thief, but he was no longer sure anymore.


    "You are from the Riven family right? I thought they were all gone." She said and unexpectedly, her tone was not as cold as he had anticipated.


    "Yes, Elder. My family died in one of the invasions. We used to own a fort outside the wall, but it is but a ruin now." He waved his hand in the direction of their family owned fort that had no longer any value, overgrown with vegetation, located in a position that was no longer defensible.


    "Actually it should be that way, It all happened a long time ago." He waved his hand again in the direction that he hoped was right this time, but nearly slapped the purple hair of the woman. He was no longer only in a dangerous situation, but felt like an idiot as well.


    "Overrun as all the others. I see." She nodded absentmindedly, ignoring his panic and they walked out of the building owned by the Wolves. Tyrn slowly followed, anticipating that he had not yet been released from the presence of the Purple Lotus Sect Elder.


    "Will you execute me, or . . ?" Tyrn''s heart began to beat faster, his eyes darting around, searching for escape routes. However, he knew that escape was impossible considering who was his captor.


    "Tell me honestly, what was it with the gem? I see that you are an ordinary street criminal. You are not a cultist." She looked at him and he expected to see hatred in her eyes, but there was something else instead, am absentminded expression of a tired woman.


    "I just found it, that is all I know." He lied, keeping the black stone''s history for himself.


    "You should tell me everything, this incident is too irregular." She kept looking at him and Tyrn had a feeling that she could easily see through his lie.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "I just. . ." He wanted to say that he simply found it outside, but the obvious question where was bound to follow.


    "My. .. " He wanted to tell her that his stooge found it and he was to blame for the mess, but realized that he had killed him and the body was still in the tomb that might link it to the Riven family if investigated thoroughly. He had no idea what the tomb was.


    "I sole it from a man in the city, then it just suddenly started to act up, slaughtering people." He ended up saying, hoping that he might be able to play a stressed out little thief that was too nervous in front of the famous hero.


    She looked at him for a while and he was sure that his lies were too fragile to hold. Still, he looked at her back brazenly, as he could not afford to budge if his lies were to have even a sliver of a chance to pass for truth.


    "Come, we need new disciples in the Purple Lotus sect." She turned away and started to walk in the direction of the wealthier districts that he had been dodging all his life, the security too tight there for an obvious criminal like him.


    "Wait what?! I mean, Esteemed Elder you cannot be serious!" Tyrn''s eyes opened wide when he heard the unexpected reaction while following behind her frightfully.


    "Simple. You are clearly a liar, expected given your background, but you have balls boy. " She said while Tyrn was trying to keep up with her swift pace.


    "We have dark days ahead of us. Thieves, gangs, nobles, soldiers, citizens, it does not mater. One day there will be a tide of monsters that even our mighty wall will be unable to hold back and on that day we all will be only humans and abominations. Are you a soldier who can only swing his sword? Learn to swing it better to cut off their mutated limbs on that day. Are you a a noble? Exploit all the people you can to build mansions that withstand the monsters'' blows on that day. Are you a thief? Learn to lie better to trick the monsters when the fateful day comes." She said with determination he was not used to hear from people in his line of work.


    "You certainly do not think this way, but I have a lot to show you to change your mind. " She smirked slightly.


    "Wait, but we have the Immortal! He can protect . . ." Tyrn tried to protest, almost wanting to beg to be put into jail instead. However, he knew that jailing was the luxury of the days past. Who could pay feeding a jailed person?


    "The Immortal!" She cut him off with her laughter. "You will find out that the Immortal of whom you speak is not eager to sacrifice his immortality for a bunch of people he regards as just a resource." She suddenly stopped and turned to look directly into his eyes only an inch away, purple flames burning in them. She looked serious to the point he could not breathe and he expected her to evaporate him into oblivion any second.


    "The one of whom you speak will be the first to run. I have seen him for what he truly is." Her voice was but a whisper, but crushed into him like a wave. "And when he leaves, there will be only us to save what is left."


    "R-Run! We can run to our neighbors!" Tyrn stuttered, shocked by the confrontation with the truth he had always been able to guess, but had never knew for a fact.


    "You mean the Gelu sect that had been just destroyed? It has not been released to the public, but there is nowhere to run." She whispered into his ear like a demon trying to rob him of his sanity.


    "But that is impossible, the food is still. .. "


    "Taken out of our stockpiles that are slowly running out." She continued mercilessly, crushing everything that might give him any hope to avoid the fight.


    "There is no hope. We cannot even survive without an Immortal!" He thought that he would have cried like a little kid if he was not in the middle of the street.


    "I have a plan, but enough talking. Know that following me might be your only chance to survive, as soon all hell will be let loose on this city. If you have the blood of your grandfather running through your veins, you should have what it takes to fight." She said and continued to walk through the streets that were no longer as filthy as before, the people serving the elite trying to preserve at least the pretense of decency and prosperity.


    A pretense running on borrowed time.


    Tyrn wanted to turn and run back, to run away from everything despite knowing that what had been just said was most likely true. He did not know what the woman hailed as one of the heroes of the city planned, but he decided to take his chance with her. There was no reason for her to deceive him, a simple criminal from the streets.


    They quickly neared a tall building that was the temporary headquarters of the joint Purple Lotus Sect and Thunder God Sect after both their original places had been obliterated. Like in a dream he had been led to his room and explained the basics of the sect, it still bothered him because it did not look like they presumed he would become a high level cultivator. His introduction was definitely not the process fit for someone they intended to nurture to become the next pillar of the sect.


    Was he just being prepared to become a cannon fodder? A sacrifice? He could not figure it out until The Purple Flash fetched him again from his room that was shared with other people that were naturally cultivators and looked at him as if he was a chicken in a doghouse.


    "Come, I will show you where you fit in into our plan." She said and handed him a leather bag containing a few basic things. They walked through the improvised base of the sects while Tyrn looked hastily through the prepared tools, his face turning grim.


    It was very familiar, he could almost hear Flock laugh. It was similar to what he used to have in his bag.


    There was a set of glowing stones, a piece of paper with a pencil, rope, candles, a simple lighter that was produced using enchantments and a set of dark clothes. At the bottom was quite an expensive compass with food rations and water.


    "This is . .. " Tyrn''s head was spinning when he guessed what he would be expected to do given the contents of the bag.


    "You and your friend had found the black stone in a tomb, quite an experienced grave robbers you were." The Purple Flash said calmly while Tyrn followed her out of the building.


    "Do not bother, I do not care anyway." She interrupted him even before he had managed to come up with an excuse.


    "You should be experienced in searching old tunnels and avoiding dangerous beasts. The cult of Mezzaiel dug out a vast network of tunnels to undermine our city''s defensive enchantment and I plan to use the very same tunnels to hide along with the rest of the capable people that will remain when the Immortal turns coat and everything goes to hell." She revealed a bombshell and Tyrn gasped. He wanted to say that he had not been the one doing the tunnel exploration and he had simply been exploiting his comrade that considered him a friend, but how could he?


    He was only useful this way.


    "Y-Yes, I used to explore some tunnels together with Flock, he was usually just tagging along." He lied as he always did, but still, he swore he could hear Flock laughing at him from whatever dimension his soul had departed to. He had to lie to be able to do the work Flock had been doing, as Tyrn had considered it beneath him.


    "That is great, you will explore and map the tunnels under the city. You should be smart enough to know what will happen if you do a sloppy work. This is for the survival of the city and traitors will be dealt with harshly with not even their souls left behind." A dangerous light flashed in her eyes and Tyrn gulped.


    He should have stayed with the gang!


    Tyrn imagined the dark tunnels swarming with monsters and prayed to all the gods to save him, but there was nobody to lend him a hand and honestly, he knew that gods would never lift a finger for a scum like him even if they existed.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden lazily looked again.


    [Experience 884/1000]


    And then again.


    [Experience 884/1000]


    "What about now? Has it changed?"


    [Experience 885/1000]


    "Ho ho! A single point up! Way to go!" He enjoyed his power up that happened with him not having to move a finger. He expected that the next level would probably need ten thousand kills and only beasts of stage three and above would count. He did not expect to be able to complete that stage in years to come. More like in decades if he managed to avoid all tombs and other underhanded methods the world had prepared for a poor dungeon like him.


    He could only wait to level up and then embark with his cavalry of monsters to explore his labyrinth from before, constructing a building boosting his Earth Elementals. They surely deserved it with all their hard work.


    "It will take some time to score that last one hundred plus kills, but it goes much faster with the amount of pitfall traps I have build in the forests nearby."


    Until then, he could only wait in boredom as nothing at all happened.


    So boring!


    * * * *


    Tyrn''s heart nearly burst with fright when something fell onto his shoulder and he tried to brush it away in reflex. It was sticky like spider web and he needed to breathe for a while as he was getting a panic attack, the dark space around him not helping. He had a bunch of glowing stones in his pocket but was afraid to take them out fully and attract attention to himself.


    "No, there will be no spiders, no spiders." All the Flock''s stories now seemed to come alive, a revenge from his early grave. He remembered well what the young grave robber kept ranting about.


    Spiders.


    Not ordinary palm sized spiders, giant monsters that lurked in the darkest corners, ready to pounce on anything that wandered into their domain. Their victims finding gruesome death instead of a hidden shelter.


    "Breathe, just breathe and remember what the little brat said. They hate fire, yes fire." He rummaged in his bag to find a candle, but then realized how pathetic it was.


    "I need at least a torch, not this!" He threw the candle back into the bag. He did not know who had prepared his supplies, but it was surely someone without a brain.


    "They do not like water, but that will not help me much either." Actually some of the tunnels he had been ordered to explore were almost completely flooded with water of terrible stench, but not all. Another problem was that there was too little ventilation underground and he had to turn back several times just not to suffocate.


    Tyrn ran back to the surface and stopped at the part where there was some daylight. Clothes he had were already wet and he was cold, the outside wind that was able to get into the first part of the tunnels did not help. The entrance was by a pond that was large enough to make him uneasy, given that its water might undermine the tunnel and flood the whole system in seconds. He had already pointed it out to his superior, but The Purple Flash did not share his concern.


    "Stupid cow, I am risking my life here every second while she is in the city doing whatever." He still doubted that her plan was feasible. If something had the power to crush the walls, how was a stupid hole in the ground supposed to stop it? It was just a crazy idea of an incompetent woman that did not know what to do. She kept ranting that the demonic cultivators were interested in larger numbers of people and would lose interest in a small group of survivors underground, but he could see wishful thinking when he saw it. He was a professional liar and Purple Flash was lying to herself, they would all die in the end and she knew it.


    What were they supposed to do about food? Cold? Their plan had so many holes that he wanted to cry. The problem was that he had nowhere to run to. He thought about sneaking inside one of the trade ships that traveled on the river that was next to the city, but the amount of ships traveling the waters decreased and those who still roamed the waters had extreme levels of security. It was not possible to get inside and leave the whole city of crazy people behind.


    "Fine, let''s add to the map." He rolled out a parchment with a large map of the underground tunnels. It was very large and the more he explored it, the larger it seemed to be.


    "Who have even dug out the thing? I have never heard of it. Some insane Earth cultivator probably, ordinary people could never do this." The tunnels ran in all directions without any apparent plan and some parts even seemed that they had not been dug by a person. There were no stairs anywhere and many long vertical shafts.


    "So, we have roughly ten inaccessible ends here. Well, fourteen actually." Tyrn looked at all the parts where he had to retreat due to different reasons. Six times it was because he could hear clicking of something and he immediately imagined a giant spider in the dark tunnel. Some shafts were too long and he ran out of rope before reaching the floor. Some were completely flooded, he was glad that he had not drown in one of them.


    "This is it, I will have to push though with luck with the rest." For a time he thought with a pencil in his hand and then just drew what he guessed the rest of the tunnels had to look like based on the portion he had already discovered.


    "I have to escape before they go deeper and discover that it is quite different from the map." Tyrn shrugged and rolled the map back into his bag.


    He quickly got up and hurried back to the city while trying to meld with the trees around. It was dangerous to walk in the forest that used to be farmlands, he was surprised that he had not been eaten by the multitude of predators and strange creatures that roamed the wilderness. He looked at his long, dark cloak and snorted. He had suspected that it was just a cheap piece of cloth that they claimed was enchanted by the best artisans in the city, but there might be some truth to their words given that he had not yet been eaten.


    The journey was as unpleasant as his travels through the underground, but he had pushed his fear deeper into the back of his mind and continued in the direction of the dark, gloomy wall that looked more and more dilapidated as days gone by. Yen, as she insisted him to call her, said that the city had roughly five days of supplies of food and then, everything would run out. Around the same time, the hoard of beasts that had destroyed the Gelu sect of the city next to them should arrive and collide with the city wall.


    The problem was not that the city was too weak to fend the horde, but Yen had somehow found out that The Immortal planned to leave the city before it stuck. Meaning there would be a tremendous blow to morale of the defenders and it was highly probable that the wall would not hold. The whereabouts of the Cult of Mezzaiel were also unknown, but she expected them to attack as soon as the information about the Immortal''s desertion reached them.


    He was sure that she had not told him everything, but it was everything he had. He could only hope that they did not plan to dispose of him due to his usefulness.


    "I need to think of a solution later." Tyrn thought again about the fake part of the map, but it still should provide him with a few days of extra life, before they found out it was fake.


    * * * *


    "Let''s see." Yen took the rolled up map that Tyrn was handing her with his steady hand. She quickly placed it on a wooden table of their secret underground base and unrolled it, slightly shocked by its scale.


    "Good job, let me just verify how good actually." Suddenly, she took out another map from under the table and placed it next to the map Tyrn had painstakingly brought from his expedition. He had naturally turned pale when he realized her intent.


    "What? I cannot trust one little thief with the lives of us all. Let''s compare your map with this one and see if they match." She shrugged her shoulders and began studying the two depictions of underground.


    "Where did you . .?" Tyrn had no words, his heart immediately beating faster than ever.


    "From an incident a long time ago, it is not important." She quickly brushed his question away, obviously not interested about talking about the topic. He leaned over and watched with horror the black lines that might mean his early death.


    There was a heavy silence, Tyrn heard even his blood circulating in his veins.


    "Unexpected, they look pretty similar." Tyrn let out a breath when he realized that the other map, although detailed, was focused more on the tunnels under the city and the dead ends that he had fabricated were more in the direction of the forest.


    "However, based on your reaction, I can tell that your map is not as flawless as it would seem." The Purple Flash made his smile froze and he could not believe he had done the obvious mistake of being unable to control his emotions. "There are only a few discrepancies, but I have absolute confidence in my other source."


    "They must have cheated you, it is very hard to explore some of the tunnels." Tyrn tried to save the situation, she was clueless about most of his fabricated data and he had still some hope that he could turn the situation around.


    "Am I supposed to cheat myself, boy?" Tyrn was stupefied by her cold words, he had not expected that Yen had drawn the other map herself.


    "I. .. I .. . I . .There was this one tunnel." He stammered while looking into her purple eyes, he was sure that to persuade the other party of his complete innocence was unrealistic. "There was this one tunnel that led through the sea, I mean through a lot of water, a really lot of water!"


    "This one tunnel? Really?" She looked at him with her head cocked to the side.


    "One tunnel, I swear it was just one tunnel . .. " He watched in horror the woman''s hand that unsheathed a thin, but long dagger, its steel giving off reflections of light. " .. at most two or three tunnels."


    "Tyrn, I think that you have bad eyesight. Your left eye seems to be the cause, you will see much better next time if we cure your affliction." She grasped the young thief''s head with her left hand and pointed the dagger right against his left eye, immobilizing him in her iron grip.


    "No! Please do not do this! It was only fourteen." He started to panic, but did not dare to move too much, because his eye was already uncomfortably close to the tip of the dagger.


    "Only fourteen?!" She paused for second, surprised by the number.


    "Please, I am only a lowly thief! Why do you keep doing this to me!" He continued to plead, close to tears. His whole life he had been unlucky despite him doing nothing wrong!


    "Oh, you consider lying normal even in the matters of life and death of the whole city." She snorted while looking at his pathetic display with disgust.


    "Lying is a sin." Yen said calmly, but he could see in her eyes that she was dead serious. It was as if he was looking into the eyes of a fanatic.


    "I used to be soft on liars that sought to undermine city''s security for their own benefit." She continued calmly while still holding him tightly in her grip.


    "I also used to have two beautiful sons." She uttered and all emotion evaporated from her voice. Tyrn''s body began to tremble, only at this point he truly understood the seriousness of his situation.


    "With your one eye, you will go and explore at least ten of these fourteen tunnels, or you won''t survive our next meeting." She said like a judge telling him his sentence.


    "Do you mean? You are crazy! Please, no!" Tyrn shrieked out while his whole body stiffened and after that only screams could be heard from the isolated cellar room.

 Chapter 11 Then I Am Your Master!

    A terrifying figure of a knight emanating void energy was walking slowly through the tunnel that was not even inch higher than the monster that had a black stone strapped to its forehead. Inside dwelt a presence that was exited by its every step, thoughts of grandeur running though its mind.


    "Thinking about it, do the cultivators have some sort of a system or not? It does not seem that way." Karl Gulden mused, trying to invent new ways to exploit the system. However, it seemed that he was the only one with the system that was explicitly shown to him, the cultivators had to do the good old research and Karl''s own system tried to somehow fit their world with its rules and laws into a digital form.


    At least that was how he imagined it.


    "This means there will not be many exploits that are left undiscovered in the system of cultivation, the only meaty exploits I can find should be in relation to my dungeon system." He speculated further, but the only thing that kept appearing in his mind was some way to guess the best locations for his buildings.


    He ended up with history being his answer.


    His system obviously depended on where he tried to use it, he should explore the world''s history and visit the most famous historic places and the present most potent sites to get the best dungeon buildings possible.


    "That is so funny. Most people gain power in cultivation worlds through secret scriptures, but I will be seeking famous places and hidden history records." Of course the dysfunctional Heavens could throw a big wrench into his theories.


    He urged the Void Knight to go faster, as he did not want to waste too much time before finding the closest place to his other dungeon that he would connect in the future to achieve a single large dungeon with all the utility he needed.


    "But that is troublesome! It means that I will have to have multiple dungeons in multiple places if I want to seize all the best sites." Karl did not like his conclusion as it naturally led to a battle on multiple fronts. Not to mention that he was unwilling to just throw traps all round.


    "I will worry about it when it comes, I do not have multiple good sites yet." He wanted to enjoy his current level some more, because he would not be reaching level four anytime soon. "This will be the place."


    He stopped the movement of his minion in one of the more remote places of his former Labyrinth, when he saw an entry he had been waiting for to appear on his holographic screen.


    [Temple of Earth(2) 5 000 000Ma 15/s]


    He quickly focused on the building he wanted and began construction without delay. With level three, his mana regeneration was ten times better than before and he estimated the whole process would be done under two hours. He could not wait for his new servants that were bound to improve his construction speed tremendously while thinking about his future joint dungeon layout and security.


    "I need some measure against Earth cultivators. They would be a nightmare to face." He thought about constructing parts of his dungeon from materials outside the Earth attribute, but there was no suitable candidate. The only option that struck him as easy and obvious was ice. The problem was that if he faced an invasion force some day, even Water Mojo would be probably present among their forces. He needed something very rare, but something he could still use himself.


    "I will do something about it after exploring the new temple." He promised himself to lay the paranoid part of his mind to rest.


    The Temple of Earth turned out to be quite a weird structure. To the point Karl had no clue if it was completed until all the rocks ceased their movement and the result was left in front of him to look at with his bulging eyes.


    "Well, that is unexpected." In a perfectly cubic room dozen meters high there stood a thick pillar made of rock in its middle that went from the floor all the way to the ceiling. It would be an ordinary pillar, but it was joined with another pillar that went from left to right and yet another one that began behind Karl and ended up embedded in the far end of the room''s wall. Three pillars intersecting in the middle of the cubic room, spirals of yellowish energy running from their six bases into the intersection in the middle where all the energy simply vanished under the stone surface of the joint.


    Karl watched the strange structure for a time before eagerly looking at the structure''s options through his management tool kindly provided by the system.


    [Temple of Earth(2) 5 000 000Ma 15/s]


    Spells- [Dominion of Earth ()/s]


    Summon- [Elemental(Earth) 50/s]


    "What trickery is this? This does not follow the pattern at all!" He was surprised to see that there were no cheaper versions of his previous minion as he had expected, but just the same old elemental plus a strange spell he decided to try out right away.


    Still, it felt rather underwhelming at a first glance.


    Karl selected the Dominion of Earth spell and his senses immediately shifted as if he had become the ground around him. He could sense all the tunnels that had been miles away just a second ago and felt every single one of them as if everything had been his body. It was a very strange experience, one that he had expected to have when he had first heard that he was supposed to become a dungeon. It took him some time to get accustomed to his new perception and when he focused randomly on one of the tunnels, he could sense its rough surface, the aftermath of the quick work of his minions.


    "So crude, I have been oblivious to all the details." Karl thought and suddenly, the surface of the tunnel changed, becoming smooth like glass.


    He was deeply fascinated by what had just happened and began testing out his newfound power some more. He moved and shaped tunnels and the rock and soil moved by his will as if he was a god in his underground kingdom. Smooth tunnels, bizarre columns and dreamlike caverns sprang into existence, flowing like water under the command of the greedy dungeon that was stunned by his sudden power.


    "Damn." Karl finally interrupted the spell after an undetermined amount of time. The range of the spell was only a few miles, but even then he had to force himself to keep away from the temple. He knew that he might get stuck for weeks here, playing with the amazing new spell.


    "I think most security problems had been just solved." He could not imagine anyone being able to defeat him in the area of the few miles if he activated the spell. Sadly, the area was not large enough to encompass his other building. However, the temple''s defensive value was unquestionable.


    "Let''s connect to the old base, besides, I need the walk to sort through my ideas." Still overwhelmed by the spell, he exited the Temple of Earth and began returning back to his original base.


    Karl proceeded to tunnel towards the Fort of Orlov to connect to his other structures, leaving two of his Void Knights behind. Plenty forces to be able to protect his new structure against anything mediocre. He switched his awareness to the guarding duo every now and then and stopped all his work in surprise, when one of the knights saw a familiar figure.


    "Ah! Lord Regent sees his runaway ruler, how convenient!" Karl chuckled and the hand of one of the guarding knights shot up to keep the youngster from fleeing. Karl decided to leave his minions working alone while he began returning back to his new building where he had to initiate the future Lord into his new role.


    * * * *


    Tyrn walked next to the pond that was near the Labyrinth''s entrance, how many decided to call it. He was veiled in his magical cloak that prevented most of the threats in to woods from detecting his presence. However, his eyes were down under his hood and he did not seem to even care about the dangers of the forest anymore. They were too distant and he had no experience with any of the feared beasts.


    His eyes blinked.


    His right eye blinked.


    His left eye blinked.


    He touched them both softly with his left hand and they were still there.


    And his right hand was squeezing his butt that hurt like there was no tomorrow.


    "Cursed bitch! Does she think that she is my mother or what?!" Tyrn growled, angry at the whole world and even on himself. He was happy that the punishment had been much lighter than the original idea and he was angry at himself for it. He felt like a puppy that was happy to receive only a light beating from its master instead of a harsh punishment.


    "Ten out of fourteen is too much." He stomped into the dark tunnel with a shining stone in his hand.


    He proceeded along a path that led to a branch of the Labyrinth that he had marked as a dead end. The tunnels were as dark and humid as ever and his imagination kept conjuring hideous monsters beyond the edge of the cone of light that was coming from his glowing stone.


    "I will have to dive."A shiver ran through his body when he remembered the substance the Labyrinth was flooded with. His disgust did not last, interrupted by a suspicious noise and all his hair stood on his body when he looked into the depth of the tunnel and understood that it was not from outside of the tunnels.


    "Someone is here." Tyrn''s mood fell and he hoped it was someone, not something. He was already quite deep in the tunnels, but it was the part he had previously explored and there should not be anyone present.


    Something has changed.


    Despite his fear and hesitation, he knew that the famous slave driver hero Purple Flash was losing patience with him and he had to explore at least some of the tunnels to avoid her wrath. Reluctantly, he slowly continued walking, ignoring the ominous noise in the background evoking a feeling in him that the rock itself had come to life. What a ridiculous notion. He persuaded himself that it was at least not reminding him of spiders in any way. The disturbance was difficult to attribute to anything he knew, a weird creepy noise that was more pronounced the more he pushed further though the tunnel.


    He wanted to return, but he could not because this was a tunnel that led to several dead ends that he had skipped the last time. He needed to sneak though it if he wanted to really explore more than one or two of the tunnels he had previously abandoned. At some point, he noticed that he could see something even without using his stones, a faint source of light had to be somewhere deeper into the tunnel.


    Moving further, he was sure that the source of the light purple glow was coming from behind a corner, he hurriedly took out the map he had drawn and found his position.


    "This tunnel is straight! There should be no corners." He persuaded himself that he was hallucinating due to fear and simply pushed forward, his crouching figure making it closer and closer to the source.


    "You are just a hallucinating coward, the tunnel is straight, the map says so." He told himself until he passed a certain point and could not ignore what he saw anymore.


    The right side of the tunnel disappeared and there was a new branching connection that just after a few meters expanded into a huge cavern that was suspiciously rectangular. Before he was able to see any more details, his eyes registered two big figures that stood right behind the door of the strange room, their whole body glowing with the light he had previously seen.


    "A Door?" He said in confusion and immediately understood that should not be the main reason of his surprise and felt quite silly. Silly and scared.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    After he had overcame his shock, he turned around intending to ran away, but his hesitation was a grave mistake and one of the monstrous armored figures leaped forward and caught him by his arm. When the huge hand clenched around his arm, he stopped his motion as it was clear that any kind of struggle was futile. Tyrn closed his eyes and expected his end with thumping heart.


    Expected and expected some more, but he was for some reason still alive.


    He opened his one eye and looked sneakily at the one holding him and quickly closed it again, because the armored figure was much scarier up close and he had a feeling that he had when he was a kid, the feeling that no one could see him as long as he had his eyes closed.


    It was a very silly strategy, but it was all he had.


    Tyrn had no idea how long he had been frozen in his posture, but every time he tried to open his eye a little, the glowing metallic monster was still there and he quickly closed it again. Until he heard steps and looked in the direction in which he had intended to go originally. He saw that there was another similar glow in the tunnel, slowly nearing his position.


    He had no reaction and continued to stand there in shock, because he could not be more in shock than he already was.


    The sounds of steps were closer and closer, until the sound stopped directly in front of him and he dared to look who it was. It was no surprise that it was the same kind of metallic giant as the one who was holding his arm, but right when his consciousness was about to fail him, he saw a black gem strapped to its forehead and everything clicked into place in his head.


    "Great Demonic Eye of Doom, forgive this humble servant!" He wanted to fall to his knees, but forgot that his captor was still firmly holding him and ended up half-hanging in the air by his arm. His action ended up as a strange dance at the feet of one of the Void Knights, his whole body tangled into its legs.


    He stopped all his motion when he saw the monster that carried the terrifying artifact lifted its finger and began wrote on the wall words that were left there glowing with bright purple light, doubtlessly a spell formation was being written by the Great Demonic Eye of Doom.


    "Please mercy, Excellency of Terror! I will obey your every command!" The youngster continued to tremble half on the ground and half in the air.


    "Just be quiet and behave Riven brat, I have a migraine already." The revelation of the Great Demonic Eye of Doom.was not what Tyrn imagined, but it made all the tension to leave his body nonetheless.


    To the point he fainted.


    * * * *


    "Mm, I used a cellar like this for my collection of pickled vegetables. Brings back memories." A tall man with black hair tied on the top of his head and sparkling green eyes entered swiftly through a moldy door of the cellar that held a lot of Tyrn''s unpleasant memories and stared at the surprised person in her purple robe that seemed to be shocked by the man''s presence. She was not surprised by the man''s extravagant clothes that was showing off his wealth and status, but by his mere presence, she had not expected to see the man ever again.


    "Immortal." She stood up and bowed low with her hands clasped together and all her words stuck in her throat.


    "This little plan of yours has been really amusing Purple, but it is high time we stop playing games." The man flickered the long sleeves of his black robe and clasped them behind his back. There was no reaction from the dumbfounded Yen and the personal guards of the two important people that were present seemed to be confused as well by her confusion, as it was not her usual behavior.


    "I must say that I have been greatly disappointed how low your opinion of your Eldest had sunk. One day, I embark to negotiate with neighboring cities and the other I find out that I have abandoned my post." Yen was still silent, thinking about how The Immortal had found out about her plans. He must have had more spies in her sect than she had anticipated.


    "Whatever, I am glad that you at least behaved constructively and tried to find a shelter instead of some other actions that had been proposed. It is the only reason you still hear me with your head on your shoulders. I think at least an apology is in order to the savior of the city." He held his nose higher and received a pair of two bulging eyes staring at him without blinking as a response. Yen was starting to doubt the necessity of the farce, she felt no need to bow or apologize to anyone, even if the consequence might be her death. The Purple Flash was not the kind of a hero that had been created by propaganda, it was the byproduct of her actions. One might say that it was her fearlessness that had created what she was, not the other way around.


    "You will have none." She said dryly, not moving a muscle and the personal guards of the two people became much more tense.


    "You are still stubborn and clueless as always, Yen. Don''t you understand? Savior means that the city will not need to be evacuated." The Immortal spread his hands in jubilation, but his conversation partner''s face remained the face of a stone statue.


    "That is impossible. What about our finances and food supplies?" She doubted his words without hesitation.


    "You are hopeless! I know you do not like politics, but this is too much." He shook his head, but Yen knew that it could not be completely genuine. However, she decided to listen to whatever story he had prepared, despite doubting his loyalty to the city.


    "As you know the Gelu sect fell under the pressure of the demonic cults. The cult that operates near their borders had caused too much trouble for them. Other cities found themselves in a difficult position as well and we all were searching for a common solution. Some proposed that the cities should be joined to gain the military power to protect farmlands at a suitable area, preferably somewhere with lower activity of demonic cultivators and a solid wall still standing." He started to walk back and forth slowly while gesticulating with his hands, clearly enjoying his moment of triumph.


    "Conveniently, the issue with Heavenly Tribulation not preventing demonic cults from attempting all kinds of crazy experiments does not mean that those experiments are not dangerous and so it happened to pass, that the infamous Cult of Mezzaiel that has a base near our city met an unfortunate accident."


    "What do you mean?" Her eyes sharpened and she completely forgot with whom she was speaking. There obviously must have been some development, if he was back in the city.


    "After a huge fluctuation of all energies across the board at the cult''s location, Mezzaiel and all of his sect are missing, replaced with a strange jungle devoid of any human presence." The Immortal dropped the bombshell and savored her shocked expression.


    "That is incredible! Do you mean to say that the threat to the city is mostly gone and we will be receiving people instead of evacuating?" She still could not believe the completely reversed situation.


    "Right. A lor of people and multiple sects. If we consolidate our resources and enlarge the farming area a bit, everything should work out just fine. I have come to invite you to a meeting. We need to distribute the land around the city properly." The Immortal kept his fake smile on his face and Yen smiled as well, despite wanting to punch the man instead.


    The dynamics in the cultivation world had always been like this. Immortals had their Death Domain that could easily kill anyone at the Mojo Condensation, Mojo Purification, or Mojo Crystallization stages and kept those people in line. That tactic, however, did not work on people of higher stages of Soul Binding or Soul Transformation that were often called False Immortals. The strength of a cultivator was tremendously influenced by their Mojo and it was not rare that False Immortals were much stronger than True Immortals if their Mojo was good enough.


    It all created the dynamics where Immortals were politicians who had the masses under their thumb, but were afraid of the top False Immortals who were skilled fighters. As much of a threat as they were, Immortals could not eradicate them, because they were the only protection they had against another stronger Immortal that might appear, as it was completely impossible for anyone below the False Immortal stage to face an Immortal directly.


    In short, The Purple Flash could not go against The Immortal and his tremendous political influence, but he knew that his days were numbered in case she launched a suicide attack at him. Everyone at the top understood why the two bloodlines of cultivators had dominated the city, their ability to fight was above average.


    "I will join the others as soon as they arrive." She said formally, overcoming her distrust of the man opposite of her.


    "Then let''s go meet your new colleagues, they are already here." They walked together out of the cellar and Yen wondered what could have happened to the infamous cult, the unknown factor making her a little uneasy.


    * * * *


    High above the city of Jinsheng, there was a vast land filled with wonders. It was above, yet none could reach it by going up, down, right or left, as the direction the land lay, no mortal could follow. It was infinitely far away for any ordinary denizens of The First Heaven, yet only a single step away for those from higher realms.


    The Second Heaven.


    Despite its wonders it was still among the lower realms in the Heavens, as there were other seven above it, each more enchanting than the other with the Seventh Heaven being overgrown with lush forests and vegetation, a land where all animals thrived in absence of any humans. A pristine wilderness ruled by its Emperor by his steady hand.


    "Hmph, it seems that the fool is tired of his game." A giant of a man with thick green hair and beard looked at his hand with interest, his eyes able to see what simple mortals could not. The force restraining his aura disappeared, but he honestly paid it little attention, as the restraint was just superficial anyway. It meant that the Ninth Celestial Lord had stopped being a fool, playing his silly game, or someone had just punched his empty, drunken head.


    "The second should be true, he was just too annoyingly intrusive into the matters of other beings." The bright emerald eyes sparkled and looked behind him where his tail swished though the air, chasing away a fly without killing it, a little creature that for some reason kept harassing his butt. His four hoofed legs stepped from side to side and he made a few steps forth, preparing for his walk through the lush forest around him.


    "Nature is a beautiful thing." The Seventh Celestial Lord made just two steps when he felt the fly again on his butt and repeated the movement with his tail to chase it away, his every action filled with tranquility. He had always liked nature and refused to sacrifice the little animal for just a tiny bit of his own luxury. He was The Seventh Celestial Lord of Nine Heavens, the merciful lord of forests and nature.


    "Well, if there are no restrictions any longer, I might peak into other Heavens to see how creatures fare there." He smiled and began to meditate without changing his position in any way, his four hooves standing on the ground and just his tail swishing from time to time, as the fly not only had not decided to give up on his butt, but even flew a little lower at times.


    But the benevolent Celestial Lord loved all creatures and it certainly had no influence on his mood. Not even a little bit.


    With his mind, he connected to the First Heaven where the weakest creatures lived, he had always liked the place. Although it was plagued with the two legged ugly beings that had some strange stupid ideas against nature all the time. He was shocked when he discovered that there was a sea of dead mice everywhere, the immaculate little creatures that he really liked for their resilience and cute whiskers.


    He was shocked and his tail swished again in its relentless match with the fly.


    Then he looked at the other end of the lowest world and was devastated by numerous dead foxes strewn all over the continent. Their little cute paws lying lifelessly in the forests, looking like they had black socks on. How could someone hurt an exquisite animal like that?


    He was mortified. His tail swished vigorously downwards as the fly changed targets again.


    It was not the best idea.


    "This is insanity! Insanity!" The usually very calm Seventh Celestial Lord staggered under the accumulated stress coming from observing the countless dead creatures.


    "Ah! Here!" He focused his mind again and randomly touched with his awareness a lovely white rabbit that must have been not even a year old. However, there was a two legged annoying creature with the rabbit and when the Lord Seventh saw what the deranged monster was doing to the innocent white rabbit, he furiously swished his tail in unprecedented rage.


    And killed the fly.


    "YOU!! YOU WILL PAY!" All the forests of the Seventh Heaven swayed and the skies rumbled as if awaiting the Seventh Lord''s judgement and the form of the half-human and a half-horse disappeared from his realm with the deafening sound of thunder. Something that was strictly forbidden by the rules of the highest in the Heavens, but his rules were meaningless when there was no one to enforce them any longer. Even if there was, only the Ninth Heavenly Emperor himself would dare to stand in the way of the righteous anger of the Seventh Celestial Lord, as it was too much trouble to stop him and no one usually cared about the targets of his rage anyway.


    * * * *


    "Great Demonic Eye of Doom, what an idiot." Karl shook his head while looking at the fainted Young Lord that was actually a Lord no longer strictly speaking, but Karl could not deny that he understood his fear.


    "The important part is what am I going to do with him now? He is a killer. I doubt they have a psychiatrist in the city prison here." Karl was technically a killer as well, but the problem was that Tyrn executed the deed deliberately for a couple of gilded trinkets against his close companion. Karl had an urge to get rid of him, because that was exactly what any judge in a world like this would do, but it was still Tyrn Riven and he owed his former friend. He owed and this was the only way to pay him back post mortem. To transform Tyrn into what he should have been if his territory had not met a disaster. Karl knew very well why their bond had been special, he simply had not been able to talk to anyone else in the new world directly and it made a huge impact on him.


    He had no illusions that the absence of Tyrn''s family had not played a huge role in his upbringing.


    Karl stopped his train of thoughts about what might have been if and simply decided to do it, but he needed to think of how.


    Still, should he support a cold blooded killer and tolerate his eventual future deeds just to patch up his regrets? How could he remodel him in a short time to limit all the damage he could do to those around him?


    "I have no clue. No clue." He arrived at a terrible conclusion. He could guess what to do if Tyrn was just a little delinquent, but he did not feel confident at all with his record. "I will really need to find some sort of a psychiatrist. That is quite a tall order here."


    Secretly, he thought that he himself would need some rehabilitation program, but his ego immediately banished that thought.


    Another thought was, if Tyrn''s father even would want Karl to do him this kind of favor.


    "Would he be even pleased if I told him something like hey, this is your son. He is a good man, he had just killed four people, raped two women and robbed dozens of others before I have managed to bring him on the right path!"


    After a while, Karl had to admit that he was no closer to the solution to the problem what to do with the kid, the Void Knight that carried him pacing quickly in circles. Another option was to hold him in the Fort alone where he could try to cheat and kill only him, but that might have been a fate worse than death, being alone for most of his life.


    "Let''s sum it up. I should confine him here to prevent him from doing harm, but I do not want him to be isolated from people, making his condition even worse. I want to help some kids because of another reason as well. I also want to build here a base at the Fort of Orlov and establish it as my first dungeon stronghold among many all across the world." Karl stated all his goals and decided to simply cram everything into a single move.


    "Let''s execute Karl''s super multi-objective genius move!" The Void Knight carrying him suddenly stopped doing circles, standing in the middle of the dark tunnel with its arms spread wide, illuminated only by the eerie Void light.


    "Young Global Dungeon Leaders assemble!" The idea was impeccable, what could go wrong?

 Chapter 12 Lord Evil Eye

    "The Council has decided. We need to find out if we can include the old fort in our territory." A person entered the office of The Purple Flash without knocking, his rude actions fully justified by his status. The room was small, situated in the temporary headquarters of The Purple Lotus Sect, but it was large enough to serve its purpose.


    "What do you mean? It should naturally be ours and even if not, who can counter our military might now?!" Yen was talking casually to The Immortal as the tension between them lessened after the crisis had been resolved. It was unusual for him to be less aggressive than her and she knew right away that he had to possess some knowledge about the problem that she lacked.


    She looked up from her desk and awaited his reaction.


    "I would agree with you immediately, if not for the situation up there." He nodded his chin up towards the sky and Yen knew what he had in mind. The Heavens worked in mysterious ways nowadays, as if there had been some power struggle up above their heads. "In addition, we have detected multiple instances of second stage Void monsters over there."


    "Void? That makes little sense." She pushed away all the paperwork in front of her and propped her chin with a hand, her elbow resting on the polished wood of the table.


    "That is exactly the reason why The Conclave decided to skip the place for a while, focusing more on the former territory of the Purple Lotus Sect."


    "Ah, I see. You have called me to investigate." Yen knew that Immortals were quite the cowards concerning raids outside their territory and rightly so. The strength of their stage was not much higher than hers against strong opponents and they were invaluable assets for the city, painting a huge target on their foreheads. Yen had participated in the broader meeting of the Conclave, but had no clue what the inner circle of the three Immortals had decided to do.


    "Precisely, the activity seems to come from the underground and we fear that somewhere deep, there could be a tear in reality with creatures of much higher level than just the second stage." The Immortal continued to gauge her reaction, looking for a hint of panic in her behavior, but saw none.


    "Let''s hope that is not the case, I see no reason for anything similar to appear at that place."


    "One never knows, the ambitions and dreams of rural Lords are sometimes too big for their own good and you would be surprised what they are able to hoard and hide in their false hopes of gaining power." The Immortal sneered as if he remembered some particular incident.


    "I will look into it shortly." She replied right away, knowing that it was not up for a discussion.


    "Be careful, you are not a good match for Void." He said, but Yen just laughed in return.


    "Who is?" Void was a nuisance that could not be countered easily. The best counters were people with Mojos like Melancholy, Fear or other types that negatively influenced mental states, because Void tended to corrupt the mental state of its user, its emptiness being stressful to cope with. She had seen a fight between a fighter who cultivated Despair and a wolf evolved using Void and the beast simply committed suicide midway through the fight.


    After she parted with The Immortal, a map of the wilderness appeared in her head, she needed to choose the safest route based on the latest reports.


    * * * *


    "What are your orders, Lord Evil Eye?" A trembling youth asked a giant black knight covered in markings in strange language that glowed purple, the same purple flame burning in its eyes. It was much higher than Tyrn. He had already tried to escape from the haunted place that turned out to be the cellar of his ancestral Fort Orlov, but it was like the place itself wanted to prevent his escape. He knew that the evil entity that resided in the black gem on the knight''s forehead was to blame. The demon without a material form who enslaved many terrifying servants and the earth itself headed his call.


    "Why run? Were you hungry or something?" Karl hastily wrote on the tunnel wall using a finger of his servant that glowed purple with Void. He had long given up persuading Tyrn Riven to call him differently, Lord Evil Eye was the least pompous title he had been able to get out of him yet. The teenager tried to escape with every slightest opportunity and agreed to anything he wanted without thinking.


    "I am perfectly satisfied with everything, Lord Evil Eye! You need not to bother yourself with my wretched presence." Karl felt an urge to slam into the stone wall with something. There was no way he could think of to connect with the boy. He had tried to talk to him, persuade him, listen to him, reason with him, but everything had failed. In Tyrn''s eyes, he was simply some sort of an evil reincarnation of a demonic Immortal that wanted to twist and corrupt his soul before drinking his blood mixed with marrow from his bones and tear his soul apart before savoring it bit by bit. Playing with his feelings was obviously a part of his feeding ritual.


    What a disaster.


    He briefly thought about his newly renovated dungeon to improve his mode and it really helped. He had successfully managed to connect all his three important structures together and heavily fortified his domain with a network of traps and tunnels that had been constructed under his new safety standard. The trap areas were accessible only after breaking a door or getting through a row of thick bars. He had even prepared a flood gate to submerge the whole network underwater in case he had been attacked by an Earth Mojo cultivator. The construction had really filled him with hopes for the future, even though he had not found any more interesting buildings than those he had already discovered. His only problem left was Tyrn.


    "I am tired of this, follow my servant to your cell." He wrote and Tyrn began to tremble even more.


    "Yes, Lord Evil Eye. I will follow your servant!" There was an immediate response.


    Karl decided that Tyrn''s perception of him being his jailer was impossible to root out of his mind and he would have to play with the cards he had. After all, it was not Karl''s objective to make Tyrn feel like he was on a vacation. His objective was to make a more decent man out of him, being nice was not absolutely necessary.


    "What happened to this old place anyway?" The Void Knight wrote with shining letters in the air while they were walking.


    "My family lived here, but they had been killed in the attacks." Tyrn said quickly, wanting to have the coming interrogation behind him as soon as possible.


    "What exactly happened?" Karl made his knight write slowly in the air, his end of the conversation was considerably slower, making Tyrn nervous.


    "This became a border, but we had trouble with supplies. Something with weapons. Men were inexperienced and weak. In the end, the fort was overrun by the wilderness." Karl thought that there might be more to it, but Tyrn had to be very young when that happened and could hardly know any details.


    "You alone survived?" Karl wanted to make sure that his friend was really dead, yet he knew the answer already. Riven family would never have allowed Tyrn to become like he was if they were still alive.


    "I fought until the last second, but the monsters struck me unconscious. Everyone died, but somehow beasts thought that I was dead and left me alone. I could not do anything. I was out." He responded quickly with his eyes wandering along the nearby wall. Karl left his obvious lie be, as it was clear that Tyrn would have not been walking behind him, if he had not run away that day. Beasts not being able to tell a dead body from a living person was ridiculous. He decided not to call him out on his false story.


    "You will be trained in combat, I am in need of more forces. Better behave, if you displease me, you will become a sacrifice." Karl wrote and halted next to an entrance to the room that was suitable to become Tyrn''s cell. Karl decided to act as his prisoner expected him to in order to get somewhere.


    "Of course, Lord Evil Eye." Tyrn hurried inside the room Karl had originally designated as a storage room and bars quickly slammed behind him, trapping him inside.


    "This might be the only model that works, I am simply at my wit''s end." Karl thought when finally alone, wandering off through his network of tunnels. His old plan had not worked and he had to improvise.


    He intended to force routine on Tyrn with straight and fair system of rewards and punishments, the intention being to ingrain in him that systematic hard work could pay out. At the same time, he intended to become the evil lord the boy imagined him to be and planned to threw in a few prison mates in his cell. He would then push the group to work against him until they managed to escape.


    The more he thought about it, the more he liked the plan. It would force Tyrn to honestly cooperate with others, as he planned to let them escape only if they worked together like a team.


    "It seems like a solid plan, but I will need some team mates. It might be the time for the evil dungeon to go hunt innocent teenagers." Karl''s steps changed direction, closing to the surface entrance situated at the basement of Fort Orlov.


    He ordered another two Void Knights to go alongside him and also took a group of ten goblins that would serve him as disposable scouts. He set off and began snooping around the city, not daring to venture too close to the high intimidating walls that still stood strong despite the battering they had received during the last decade.


    * * * *


    Meanwhile, Tyrn sat on the cold floor on his cell while tapping into the bars with a piece of stone he had found. It produce loud sound that spread through the dark tunnels. He hoped that someone would hear the sound and come to his rescue, but it was obviously wishful thinking. He was inside a secured area that had traps all over, there was no way anyone got too far.


    The greater was his surprise when he saw a person veiled in a purple cloud levitating in front of his cell. The robed figure had without doubt used the fact that while flying, it was not touching any walls and had not triggered a single trap. A sign of both ingenuity and luck, as all the traps had their triggers linked to the surface of the tunnels.


    "The Purple Flash! You have to get me out of here!" Tyrn almost shouted when he recognized the person levitating in front of his cell.


    "The monster has finally left, tell me more about it." Yen considered other priorities without even trying to free Tyrn.


    "I can tell you everything, just get me out!" He pleaded desperately, but the women was not moved at all.


    "You have more value inside than outside. Tell me something I do not know and I will let you live and leave." She stated and Tyrn was shocked by her unconcealed pragmatism.


    "Wait, you have to rescue me! Lord Evil Eye will sacrifice me in a ritual!" His mind automatically slipped into the worst possible outcome.


    "Thirty seconds." The Purple Flash said coldly while paying attention to the tunnel she had came through.


    "He is. .. he is interested in me. I do not know why. He tried to communicate with me a lot before locking me in this cell. He also wanted to know if I am alone."


    "Communicate a lot?" Yen lifted her eyebrows in surprise. It was unexpected from a demonic cultivator to speak a lot to his sacrifice.


    "Yes, it was strange. It felt like he was trying to get under my skin or something. I do not know, it felt like an old creep that wants to force a candy onto a kid at times. It was strange."This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "What?!" Yen lifted her eyebrows even higher.


    "Yes, and when I resisted all his attempts, he tried to find out if I am alone and locked me in this cell." Tyrn slammed into one of the bars again, producing yet another unnecessary noise.


    "I wish you good luck, continue spying on him." Yen looked at him with pity for some reason and levitated away, probably attempting to avoid confrontation with Lord Evil Eye.


    "I do not like this at all, there is some very strange Mojo at play here." She uttered under her breath while swiftly passing by the destroyed entrance that she had melted with her power like hot wax.


    * * * *


    Karl was circling around Jinsheng in search for teammates for Tyrn. He had long sought to help out some kids and decided to score two hits with one shot, it was only logical.


    "I will help some kids out as I have promised. . . still by jailing them with Tyrn. Can it still be counted as helping?" There was a tiny flaw within his logic and he needed to mend it somehow, it was beyond obvious.


    "I will provide them with food and everything and I will be really nice to them. Tyrn must not figure it out though. It would become complicated." He knew that it would be though, but he was determined to make it work.


    During the dungeon construction work, he had kept a few of his minions loitering near the city and hoped that there would be some disturbance that would enable him to snatch some teens. Well, save them from a terrible fate.


    After the realm had become more unstable, the sources of disturbance were not just the outside sects and cults, but there were many attempts of the cultivators that lived in the city itself to break the boundaries that used to be unassailable, or protected by Heavenly Tribulations. No one knew what happened, but there were no more Heavenly Tribulations and people even began curse at the Heavens with no consequences at all, something that used to be unthinkable. Even oaths sworn on the Heavens no longer worked, it was as if The Heavens took a week off, but it seemed that it would be much longer than a week.


    Many people from the city gained the courage to do what they had feared to do prior and some of their experiments caused serious trouble and chaos. During those events all kinds of disasters struck and people ran in all directions in panic, sometimes even outside of the city wall. Karl decided to wait for a similar, cornered group that sought escape beyond the wall.


    It was foolish, but walking past the wall did not mean an automatic death and some still decided to try their luck when the alternative was a gruesome end.


    Karl waited for half a day before an opportunity appeared, although it was not due to a disaster outside or inside of the city. The reason was much more simple.


    "Get out, I do not care what gang you belong to, stealing food from the guards is really over the top!" A harsh voice barked and a second later a small group of rugged ruffians was thrown out of the city gate, motivated by tips of spears to move beyond the safety of the massive stone structure.


    "Please! This is a death sentence!" Some of the group pleaded, but it had no effect and the gate quickly closed behind the group, their pleas totally ignored.


    "We will not leave! This is injustice!" Another lean teenager shouted in the direction of the gate, but reconsidered when one of the soldiers took a bow off his shoulder and roared.


    "Boys! Shooting practice! The snotty redhead is for double points!" The soldier reached for an arrow and the men around him laughed and began preparing their bows as well. The small group of exiled people immediately moved away from the wall and hid among the trees while not daring to make a sound that might betray their position to the beasts outside.


    "Looks like we have candidates, but I have to exclude the most violent first." Karl''s objective was not to kill Tyrn and he was sure that the teenager was not the sharpest knife among the thieves. He decided to observe what would happen next to the small group.


    "We will try to reason with a different shift." A voice interrupted Karl''s musings and he shifted his attention back to the bunch of teenagers that were still hiding behind a tree.


    "No, you won''t. You are mine." Karl decided to act, when he observed that swirling tendrils of a living wine were slowly creeping towards the unsuspecting victims. The living vine was one of the less dangerous monstrous inhabitants of the forest, but a dragon was not needed to eradicate a small group of teenagers with dull knives, the vine was more than enough.


    It was a creature that Karl had not seen before in the forest, but was not rare after his emergence from the tomb. It reminded him of a couple of long snakes moving together, with the minor difference that it moved both above and under the ground, making it a particularly nasty surprise for those that did not pay much attention to their surroundings. It was clear that the teenagers would be ambushed and not many of them would live to tell the tale.


    "Can I consider them dead now, thus saved by me or not?" Karl mulled over his moral high ground and while he did, another living wine joined the leading predatory plant.


    "Yeah, I can definitely consider them dead without my help now. Let the spectacle begin." Karl nodded his head with satisfaction. Well, it was actually his minion''s head as he had none.


    He rushed out of his hiding place and the Void Knight that carried him cut along the length of the living vine on the ground, its tendrils burning away quickly with purple fire. The knight stomped on the burned ashes that fell to dust and roared with an unpleasant sound of a torn metal, forcing many of the onlooking teenagers to cover their ears.


    They were stunned by the threat that had emerged suddenly out of the bushes and were staring in shock at the runed armor of the hulking figure. Karl ordered his minion to walk swiftly in their direction while he fired up the Void attribute burning in the runes of the steel giant to the maximum. His plan to scare the group had worked and they quickly began running in the direction of the fort while screaming their lungs out.


    Some of the teenagers wanted to run along the wall, but Karl used the goblins he had with him to make a racket in their hiding places and managed to keep the group together, moving exactly in the direction he wanted.


    "Herding sheep must be really fun, I might have been a German Shepherd in my previous life." Karl thought while chasing the group in front of him. It was not easy to force his minion to run slowly, but appear as if it was running with all its might. Some of the people were very lean and unhealthy, they had no chance to outrun anything in the forest, except maybe the plant monsters.


    "The question is, when to start the selection? Should I begin now?" Karl thought and decided to speed up a little.


    "It is catching up!"


    "We will all die!"


    "Somebody, do something!"


    Karl listened to the desperate shouts of the group, his gaze lingering on the one who uttered the last line.


    "Except of you, huh? I have no room for parasites." Karl snorted and marked the individual in his mind for elimination.


    He quickened the Void Knight''s pace and ordered him to cut down the particular individual with an arc of void light that had followed its quick sword swing. The move cut through the female like nothing and the group began to panic. A pair of a girl and a boy were pushed to the back, their bare feet being obviously one of the reason they were slower than the rest.


    Karl''s minion shortly caught the girl by her neck and stopped, holding the flailing, helpless teen off the ground with one hand while she struggled for air. The boy looked at the scene, terrified, his legs trembling with fear. After a while, his absentminded gaze hardened and he launched himself against the thick, armored hand that held his companion in the air.


    "Let her go monster!" He attacked ferociously, but his attempts could not make any difference against the strength and armor of the Void Knight.


    "I can work with that." Karl nodded and another Void Knight stepped out of the bushes. He put down the girl and ordered him to capture the pair while Karl continued to chase after the group. He was able to catch up to them in no time with his top speed.


    "The monster is back!"


    "It has already killed them!"


    "It is quicker than before!"


    Another salvo of desperate shouts greeted Karl and he was interested what would happen next. Sadly, the group seemed to practice the strategy of everyone for himself and he was unable to sift through more members of the group. When he reached them, he simply hit them with the flat of his sword wishing them good dreams with a huge bump on their heads.


    "That might have gone better, but whatever. I can do the selection later." He ordered his minions to collect all his prisoners and headed back to the Fort Orlov.


    Karl looked behind him and analyzed the snaking line of his forces that was following in his footsteps. Being level three his mana regeneration had jumped to a pleasant number of one thousand and he had already distributed it to summon a decent force.


    He ended up mobilizing twenty Goblins, twenty units of Warped Flesh, ten Void Horrors and ten Void Knights, a force that cost him slightly above three hundred mana to sustain. He had gone overboard, but he wanted to see how his units performed in action. He had not even bothered with Zombies, as they were too slow and were more suited for defensive roles.


    Observing the broad shoulders made of purplish flesh carrying comparatively tiny figures of the teenagers, he was satisfied with the performance of his units. Goblins were good at scouting at the perimeter, dying with a screech anytime there was a serious threat to the procession, alerting the other units.


    With his newfound military strength he was no longer hard pressed to gain more levels, nor would that be easy as his worst fears came true and he really needed ten thousand kills of entities of the same level or higher leveled beings to reach level four. The problem was that the higher leveled beasts were less common and had usually some years of experience under their belt, meaning they were hard to catch with simple traps. No one could survive for long being stupid in a dangerous place like the vast forests of the cultivation world, not even beasts.


    That was why he had chosen to solidify his position and solve his past first while exploring the world and search for opportunities later. Partially, it was also due to his reluctance to make the critical decision he would be obviously forced to make, due to the downright genocidal character of his system. If everything followed the current pattern, he would need to kill one million people to reach level six, the Immortal stage. In other words the system would one day require him to exterminate one million Immortals.


    Insanity! Even if he managed such a feat, he did not know if he would be proud of it. Back in his mind, he hoped that he would be able to stumble upon a better way during his journey, as the obvious path was rarely the best path.


    It did not take long for them to arrive at the fort and Karl''s attention shifted back to the group he had bravely saved from a certain death.


    Or despicably kidnapped, but he preferred to see it through the first lens of a savior.


    "I need to do another round of selection, I have just the barefooted pair yet." His eyes zoomed at the two sinewy figures carried by a figure made of flesh. They both looked ordinary with brown hair and little muscle to their bones. Judging by their similarity, he guessed they were most likely siblings. The only feature that set them aside from the others was a tattoo on their right shoulder. It was no art, just a zigzag patter reminding him of a letter w, more like a brand than anything else.


    "It is time to improvise a little."


    The armored boot of the minion carrying him stomped onto the stone of the fort''s cellar and Karl stared in front of him in terror.


    "My door!" His inconspicuous prison door no one should have realized were leading into his dungeon were destroyed, a large hole burned through their middle part and the same fate met his favorite wooden door that were positioned deeper in the entrance into his domain.


    Karl silently stepped closer to one of the steel rods that had been burned off by something, angered by the intruders arrogance and skill. Whoever infiltrated his domain had burned through all his doors without springing a single trap as if he was laughing in his face.


    "Burned off, or corroded." His minion kept gripping the ruined piece of the prison door while Karl stared deeper into the tunnel. It took him some time to arrive to the right conclusion, but from his perspective it was hard not to.


    "They flew, dammit to hell!" He angrily bent the remains of the door, turning it into scrap metal. It was a clear oversight on his part, as he had not expected that someone could invade his home without touching any surface at all, meaning all the traps he had installed before were meaningless.


    "This needs to be rectified immediately."


    * * * *


    "How it went? How many troops will you need to clear the area?" The Immortal immediately asked when a person veiled in a purple robe entered his office, crossing paths with a long legged woman that was leaving, clearly after she had been dismissed when the man had been notified of her visit.


    "Are you in a hurry? Something had to change." Yen spared the woman she considered a whore from higher society only a quick glance before focusing back on the Immortal.


    "You can say that our dear Jinsheng is becoming smaller and smaller for all our esteemed guests." He said with a fake smile, his face an enigma. Yen guessed that there had to be some pressure concerning distribution of influence in the city. It was hardly surprising considering most of the sects invited had been used to ruling a significant portion of a large city.


    "Then our honorable guests might consider doing the work themselves instead of sending someone else." Yen tilted her head to the side and folded her arms on her chest.


    "They have decided exactly that and that is why I need your honest opinion. How difficult is it to reconquer the Orlov region?" He asked seriously and his smile vanished instantly.


    "Lay claim somewhere else, there are irregularities there, including a rogue demonic cultivator." Yen reported without much interest. Her greatest asset had always been her strength and knowledge, she pitied the people that had to play political games to keep their wealth. The wealth she held was inherently with her no matter where she went.


    "You mean a single demonic cultivator? Haven''t you lost your edge Yen?" He looked at her as if he wanted to peer into her head and see what she was thinking.


    "I repeat, pass the region to someone else, it is not worth the trouble." Yen held her gaze, the purple eyes staring, unwavering, at the Immortal in front of her.


    "Understood." The Immortal nodded. He knew that Yen would not harm the interests of her sect lightly and her judgement was only rarely off. "How many will they lose there?"


    "No idea, the situation is too off to even guess. A demonic cultivator that is highly irregular and can keep his head from exploding for an extended period of time is always bad news." She shrugged and picked up an apple that was near the Immortal''s desk.


    "You do not want to eat that, that was for the guest." The Immortal said dryly while pointing at the fruit and Yen''s jaw froze midway before taking a single bite.


    "Ah, I see. The guest." She shook her head and put the apple down. It had to be laced with something. "Anything else?"


    "No, that is all. Tell your Elders to scout the area around the river. I will push towards that area from now on. Dismissed." The Immortal waved her off and she walked out of the office.


    She glanced at the chair nearby where the young woman sat waiting and rolled her eyes out of habit. She was well acquainted with the man''s decadence that might be meticulously hidden from others, but she had known him for far too long. However, none of that concerned her, she had done her duty and it was time to return to the Purple Lotus Sect to check on the hot heads of the young members, who were surely in full swing trying to prove that they were the best in front of all the foreign cultivators.

 Chapter 13 From Beyond the Grave

    "This should do it." Karl stared at the reworked system of traps in front of him.


    In fact, the traps had not been changed at all. The wooden door had been repaired and the ruined prison door had been replaced with Karl''s generic bars that slid up and down.


    After a lot of thinking, Karl chose a different approach to the problem.


    It was obvious that he could not resist the might of the city, if it decided to act with full force. He might build all kinds of traps, but in the end he was still just a one person. He left everything how it had been except for a fact that his system buildings were at this point just dummy rooms without any function at all and the real ones had been completely cut off from the dungeon.


    He had transformed his underground lair into two separate dungeons with one that could be entered and explored and the other one that was completely cut off by dozen meters of rock from the fake one. The public dungeon. how he decided to call it, had its connection to Karl''s private dungeon sealed in the middle of an inconspicuous straight tunnel where no one would expect it.


    When Karl needed to pass from the public to the private part, he simply ordered an Earth Elemental to destroy the rock that separated the two. It took a while to open, but he did not trust any kind of a secret door anymore. The elemental stationed in the private part of the secret passage cost him a hefty fifty mana in upkeep, but he decided that it was a necessary cost. At lest until he would find a better way.


    If the uninvited guest came again, he would observe just minor changes in certain areas like the Void Well and other structures being just a cheap imitation. There was even a fake dungeon core in the middle for those that might guess Karl''s true nature for some unfathomable reason.


    A proper scam was easier than a valiant defense. In case a strong invader came, he could let them conquer the public part of the dungeon and let them have their victory. There would be no way for them to know that they have missed something. There would be a way if Karl had been properly "isekaied" into a standard setting, but that was not the case in the cultivation world. The intruders would have cleared his lair with none the wiser about his true fate.


    "I have to fully utilize my mobility advantage." Karl watched his last door slid into its place. He did not possess the classic weakness of ordinary dungeons of being stationary and it would be foolish not to utilize this advantage in his strategy. From the perspective of the natives, he was closer to an Earth Mojo cultivator with some special means at his disposal.


    "It is time for another round of selection." He focused on one of his minions that were on the surface. It was harder to act through his other minions, but he had to learn it to avoid being targeted in the future. The limited perception was a small price to pay for the huge security benefit of acting through a proxy.


    * * * *


    "Heavy crap, we had pulled the short straw." Rovan, a red haired teen who was little more than just skin and bones put down a rectangular piece of rock that would make the wall he was building higher by another feet.


    "I knew it was a scam right away." A similar figure with bald head answered after they had crafted and fitted yet another stone block into the seemingly infinite wall.


    "All of us will croak here, we should fight or run while we have any strength left." A third laborer complained while getting his messy black hair out of his face. He was significantly older than the two, not fitting into the group of five that toiled since the morning, trying to rebuild the walls of Fort Orlov.


    "That is hardly an option, old man." The red haired teen snorted and glanced warily next to them at an unspeakably hideous abomination that guarded them.


    "I should have chosen to be a sacrifice, there will be no difference in the end." The middle aged man responded, he was the oldest of the group of thirteen that had been kicked out of the city. Considering the average age of the group, he was really an old man.


    Thirteen of them had been kicked out of the city. One died during the chase and the two others were gone as well. The leftover ten had peen divided by their captors into two groups. Five were taken away into the depths of the wet stinking hole under the fort to be sacrificed to same insane new deity, the remaining five had been chased to the surface to work.


    Five survivors.


    How long would it take to shrink those five yet again, this time to zero?


    Only the three of them had still enough strength to work, their two mates lying on the ground. Rovan sneaked a peek at the abomination guarding them, but he knew that it was not alone, there were more deeper in the forest. They would not get far if they decided to run.


    "If we dash in multiple directions, one of us should make it." The other teen said, not believing it himself.


    "He is right." The old man said, but Rovan did not believe him at all. He had urged them to take action multiple times, probably waiting for them to become a decoy for his escape. Rovan had spent enough time in the slums to see through his ploy.


    He was about to retort something in response to the old man''s repetitive urging that was becoming old quickly, but his bald coworker was obviously not as suspecting as he was, or his nerves had finally snapped, because he suddenly threw away the tools and began running away into the forest under the keen eye of the flesh monster that monitored them.


    Immediately, the abomination dashed after him, leaving them seemingly alone.


    "Fool." Rovan watched them disappear in the thick vegetation of the forest, when he heard a rustle nearby. The supposedly exhausted pair that had been collapsed on the ground jumped to their feet and were both running in the opposite direction of the bald escapee.


    "Those pretenders!" He spat out when he saw how quickly the par was running away, without doubt they had been just slacking off while the three of them worked on the wall.


    He just wordlessly watched the remaining old guy next to him having finally his moment. He must have thought that three decoys was more than enough and chose another direction to make his escape. It seemed to Rovan that he was the only one who had been honestly rebuilding the wall and all the others had just been waiting for an opportunity to escape.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    He sighed an sat down on the stone block he had been about to haul to its place. He was too exhausted to run and he had not intended to escape in the first place. There was nowhere to go. He had heard many tales about the wilderness and it was no joke to survive in the forests around Jinsheng. Even if they managed to reach the wall, what then?


    It was more promising to act as an exemplary servant and try to infiltrate the strange cult or whatever it was, than try and survive the wilderness with no actual knowledge about it.


    "Alright." Rovan stood up again and continued to work even without any supervisor around. If he wanted to go along the road of an exemplary servant, it had to look authentic.


    * * * *


    Karl was tumbling through the woods, inhabiting the body of one of his Warped Flesh servants. Actually, he was not directly controlling the body, as it was not possible. It felt more like giving commands to a subordinate and then watch him execute them in the first person view mode. His minion was in pursuit of a bald teenager that was making his escape.


    "Slow down man, slow down, else we catch him." Karl commanded his minion while watching the thin feet of the runaway getting closer. They were only playing along, he had no need to catch anyone. His goal was to sort out the disobedient delinquents and cutthroats that would make bad company for Tyrn. There was no benefit in catching them.


    "Fine, let''s go back." Karl ordered when the teen finally managed to outrun them.


    "That should get rid of the less promising group on the surface. Those five looked too violent to use them for my project." He returned to the spot of his little labor camp only to freeze at an unusual sight. There was a half-naked teen with sweat running in rivulets down his body toiling like it was his last day being alive.


    "Well, that is unexpected." Karl stared at the sight and his minion stood motionless in place, having run out of orders.


    "Guess that makes eight of them. Bring him to the others and lead all of them to Tyrn''s cell. It is time for some introductions." Karl concluded and detached himself from the minion, returning his perception to the one that was carrying his physical self.


    He had nine teenagers at this point. Tyrn, the five he had selected for looking sufficiently meek, the siblings and the redhead oddball that for some reason had not escaped, but continued working. He thought it was only fitting that he ended up choosing nine people, it seemed to fit the cultivation environment nicely.


    Everything was going like a well oiled machine.


    "That was the surface, let''s check on our prince before I put them together." Karl focused again on the minion carrying him and felt overjoyed to perceive again all the details he had been unable to sense while possessing the minion on the surface. As much as he liked the extra security, he did not want to torture himself too much and walked down the main tunnel using the huge body of his bearer.


    He passed through the bleak tunnels of his underground kingdom, but his perception was skewed by his existence. He did not feel any of the discomfort or anxiety a human would feel. Instead, he felt mesmerized by the purple light reflecting off the glossy surface of the long tunnels. Where a human would see a haunting, wet tunnel, he saw an enchanting place of wonder.


    He had never been a picky guy with no need for satisfying his greed or ego, he always scolded his co-workers for complaining their work being boring. Boring was good. It meant that it was not stressful, nor painful. Some considered him a loser for having his bar too low, but he considered himself a winner, as he refused to accept the expectations of others. Why should he dance as the others willed as their puppet?


    He even no longer felt any pain and he always liked boredom anyways. In a way, he had enjoyed his new existence, even though his perception had most likely been already a little skewed by what he had experienced as a dungeon. In the end, everything stemmed from experience. Prolonged experience became a habit, a habit became a person''s history and a person''s history was an identity.


    The rift in perception was clear, but the gloom and doom swiftly returned to Karl''s existence the moment he had arrived at the storage room and saw the body lying inside.


    "Tyrn?! What happened?" He even forgot that no one could hear him and quickly entered the improvised cell. The armored hand touched the stiff body, but it was clearly too late.


    "Wake up!" He shook the body, but Tyrn was clearly not asleep.


    Karl had no means to verify the body''s temperature, but Tyrn was curled up into a ball and his jaw looked forcefully clenched. Whatever end he had met, it did not look painless at all. Despite that, there were no visible wounds on his body, pointing in the direction of an internal injury.


    "An Intruder! Who have killed him?" Karl looked around and quickly went thought the eyes of all of his minions around him to discover that there was no one else around. There was no disturbance anywhere with no intruders in sight.


    "I had everything planned out and it went so well! Why? Why?!" Karl wanted to shout his frustration into the world and the fact he could not made him even more angry.


    Tyrn was dead and his plans failed. There would be no redemption for him.


    While he raged inside, nine figures began marching to his position led by the Warped Flesh minion, as he had tasked the servant to bring them for introductions. The closer they were, the more apparent was the dread in their faces fueled by the picture of an imposing knight towering above a dead body.


    "Everything is messed up." Karl looked up at the line of trembling teenagers and fought back the urge to slaughter them all in a fit of rage.


    "Killing them is the cleanest. Humans are just trouble, I can do alone with my dungeon." The Void Knight straightened and took out its sword that gleamed with purple runes. The frightening monster left the bars of the improvised prison and lifted its sword above the teenagers'' heads, its tip began glowing with purple light.


    When the tip finally moved, breaking the breathless silence, purple words in the air lingered for a few moments that seemed like an eternity.


    "My name is Karl, Karl Gulden. Always was and always will be."


    He had already chosen his nature once and he was not going to change just because of misfortune or trifling fate.


    * * * *


    "Give it to me, all of it! You surely ate your fill on your way here!" A sinewy hand tore a piece of bread out of a smaller hand that held it with all its strength. However, it was no use against the stronger kid.


    "I ate nothing! I am so hungry Tyrn! Let me have . . . "


    "Do not lie to me ever again!" The hand had already stuffed the bread into its owner''s hungry mouth and was now grabbing onto the shoulder of the smaller kid, shaking him violently.


    "I am not lying! I wanted to share it all!" The small boy protested, but the bigger one just snorted in response. Deception, theft and violence were common in the slums of the declining city. Those who were too honest had already starved to death, or slaved in one of the few city''s factories.


    "Give me the rest, I am bored by your lies." Tyrn snapped, the winter had been particularly cold and it was the first year that even the last surviving farmers had given up on their livelihoods, running away from the wrath of the wild beasts. As the result, the food was more scarce compared to other years that had been already quite lean.


    "Ok." Flock whimpered while being squeezed by Tyrn''s iron grip and gave all the rest of the bread to his companion, but not before he had stealthily squeezed inside a sharp piece of a nail he had picked up earlier, because it looked shiny. He did not want to harm his friend, but the frustration and anger from his constant pestering and exploitation clouded his mind, a tiny voice in the back of his mind kept calling for justice at all costs.


    "That is a good boy." Tyrn smiled insincerely and gulped down the piece of bread.


    "Damn, it is too dry." He chuckled for a second, but it passed quickly and he began to lead them back to the city center.


    "We will try again, there is never too much food." Tyrn said resolutely."You have to try harder Flack, people really like your pretty little face. I had no luck with my appearance."


    "Alright." Flock whispered knowing it was a lie, the truth was Tyrn had eaten all food he had managed to get.


    Despite being his friend, he sometimes wished for him to choke on all the stolen food, as hunger gnawed away on his belly.

 Chapter 14 The Water Dragon Sect

    Karl stared at the group that was surprised by his sudden introduction. Even Karl was, given he had no plan for the unexpected turn of events. He was playing it by heart and hoped for the best. The logic of his plan dictated that he should continue with his schemes without change, as his relationship with Tyrn was based mostly on regrets and bad conscience towards Riven. He knew that it was not good to live in the past and he should throw away all what he was unable to change anymore.


    When he thought about it more, he felt like a heavy stone fell off of his heart when he looked at Tyrn''s body. It may be ruthless of him, but it was the truth. All the trouble he had been prepared to undertake only to feed a relationship that would have most likely always been just a way for his conscience to compensate for his past actions.


    Along with the guy had died his guilt and the Riven family became history that he might reminiscent about, but it would always remain just that, history. It would take a while for the bitter feeling to fade away, but Karl was clear that he would be able to better move forward from this point onward.


    "That''s it, let''s hope that we will find a new path forward after I have shown a bit of honesty and introduced myself to them." He thought and awaited the reaction of the eight people.


    "Go fuck yourself, you monster! Let us out!" He received the awaited response shortly. The speaker was a boy with freckles and ginger hair who seemed to be too courageous for his own good. It was a miracle that he had survived in the slums with his attitude.


    Karl thought about what his reaction should be, but he had found a fitting response shortly.


    "Fine, go." He wrote and gestured to one of his minions nearby who began leading the foul mouthed person out of the dungeon. Hysterical shouts had been heard a moment later when the teenager realized what he had actually achieved, but the decision had been made and Karl had no patience to babysit anyone.


    "My name is Rovan Goln, I would be honored to be accepted into your service, Lord Gulden." The redhead fell to his knees and Karl nearly dropped his sword due to his surprise. The speaker''s attitude could not contrast more with the previous person.


    "What is wrong with this guy? Have I hired him or something? I have not paid him anything!" Karl thought, confused, he had no clue where the enthusiasm was coming from, but it was certainly better than more swear words being thrown his way.


    He instructed his minion to nod and the introductions continued promptly.


    "Wu Han and Xin Han paying respect to Lord Gulden!" The siblings fell to their knees, following the example of the redhead. The boy clearly dragged his sister down without her having any room to react. They both had grey hair and blue eyes, their figures as frail as the rest because of the general state of affairs in the city slums.


    Karl urged his servant to nod again, he liked the siblings from the start.


    "Kou Linhai, name Kou Linhai." The teenage boy next to them said immediately after without moving a muscle. Karl did not know if it was due to his pride or just because he was too stiff or nervous to do anything else. He was the youngest of the lot and had long black hair that seemed like it had never been cut.


    Karl did not react in any way, just continued to act serious and menacing. In fact, that was his default behavior. He did not even dare to imagine what would happen if he ordered the Void Knight to smile and look friendly.


    Menacing had to do.


    "Wei Ming greets the Lord." Next, a person with short black hair did the position that Karl very well knew as the know-how position and he began to feel more like he was in the cultivation world again.


    "Uh, it was about time." He thought for himself before his eyes rested on the last two people that had not introduced themselves yet.


    "Mei Gon von Herrmause greets Lord Gulden." A girl clasped her hands together and bowed politely. Karl had to wonder why she possessed the name that should belong to high society. There was defiance in her green eyes, but her hair was a mix of green and black, something he had not seen in the Thunder God Sect where the green hair and eyes were as common as fish in the ocean.


    If he had to guess, he expected her to be some sort of a mixed blood bastard child that had been born in the slums and she had not been accepted into the sect due to her tainted pedigree. He would have time to probe into the details of her origin later.


    "Hasuf." The last one simply nodded, an action that could be barely seen through the unnatural number of clothing items the person was wearing and Karl was glad that it was over, because he had total mess in his head regarding all the names he had just heard. He had still no idea why some names sounded similar to each other as if from a single culture and the other names were completely different. It was a little mystery he might try to solve some day, but the day was far off as he had more important problems that called for his attention.


    The most pressing of them being what next.


    His attention shifted away from the heap of clothes named Hasuf and wandered to the dead body of Tyrn, who had still not moved a muscle due to being dead.


    "Take that body and bury it outside." He wrote the only sensible sentence he could come up with. He could not tell them that they had come here to accompany Tyrn who had unfortunately died in the meantime.


    He was still in the dark regarding the cause of death, but he had not found any external wounds and guessed it had to be an illness or internal injury. There was the possibility that the previous intruder poisoned him, but he doubted anyone had the time to go around poisoning people if they could have killed him directly without any schemes and fuss. Tyrn had been defenseless behind bars, poisoning him made no sense.


    Some of the teenagers seemed to be in shock from handling a dead body, but there were those like the redhead who acted as if it was as natural as taking out the trash. The group swiftly took the body and walked away while accompanied by some of his minions.


    "In a way, it simplifies things." Karl thought morbidly. He wanted to chastise himself for thinking that way, but he knew that it was partially in his nature. In a way, a part of him was glad that the past was finally fully behind him with no lingering attachments.


    Continuing his original plan, he still intended to use the seven people at his disposal in a constructive way. He had a foundation to solidify and places to explore. He also should train some of them to be able to get into the city''s library or some other place holding historical records. He would have places to see when his foundation was rock solid.


    Thinking about the future, the time passed quickly and when he shifted his attention to the surface where his new subordinates were burying Tyrn, an unexpected sight appeared in front of him.


    "No Kidding, I might be using my special backup plan sooner than I have expected. I should at least test some of my toys in real combat."


    * * * *


    "Identify yourself, you are on the property of the Water Dragon Sect! Is this disgusting monster your summon? Put it away at once!" A bearded middle aged man with light blue hair dressed in a white and blue robe demanded from Rovan who happened to be considered the leader of the bunch of teenagers. From his posture, it was obvious that the stranger was used to giving orders, his beak-like nose and sharp cheek bones were giving him a menacing air the slum dwellers were used to see from gang bosses and military officers.


    Rovan was obviously out of his depth and had no clue how to react to the man''s demands.


    "This is the property of the city of Jinsheng, it is not a territory of a clan." He managed to say the most sensible argument he could come up with.


    "Naturally, we are a sect that belongs to Jinsheng and we have been given the right to this territory by the Council of Elders and the three immortals that rule the city." The speaker laughed haughtily, enjoying the confusion of his counterparts.


    "There is only one Immortal!" Kou Linhai said immediately and made the man of the Water Dragon Sect shake his head.


    "Your knowledge is outdated! The city has accepted new forces and this region has been taken by our sect. There is no reason for me to explain anything more, the ones with the legal right to this land, the Riven clan, are extinct and there can be no complications. Cease any unauthorized actions on this land or accept the consequences." The man stated firmly and more and more people in similar robes as his began to trickle out of the nearby forest. The imposing man watched with the corner of his eyes as the forces belonging to him continued to fill the half-ruined fort that had no functioning gate to speak off and his smile continued to widen gradually.


    He stepped closer to Rovan who stood dumbfounded in place and whispered into his ear an obvious threat.


    "Get out."


    There was tension in the air and Karl observed everything thought the eyes of his Warped Flesh servant, unsure how to deal with the threat to his human followers.


    "But it will stink, you know." Wei Ming scratched his head while pointing at the body of Tyrn.


    A strange expression appeared on the face of the Water Dragon Sect''s representative.


    "It won''t and my men can take care of this trifling matter. Now, you can go." He gestured with his hand and gradually, all water from Tyrn''s body seemed to evaporate, leaving him in a mummified state. The eyes of the teenagers widened in horror and their reaction pleased the man who did the trick.


    "Sir . .Blue Hair, but there is a situation underground." The redhead said tentatively and the said person seemed to bristle the moment he had heard the improvised nickname.


    "Call me Elder, if you must, brat. " The man responded hastily, quickly losing patience with the group. "What underground situation? Have you been drinking in the wine cellar? Do you want to take some wine with you?"Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "There is a .. " Rovan was obviously conflicted about his loyalties and to add oil to the fire, he had no clue what situation would be more advantageous to him, as his ability to estimate the strength of the involved parties was limited. "The underground has already been claimed by a foreign sect."


    "What?! What is the sect''s name brat? Speak! Quick!" The blue haired Elder''s face turned grim and the people behind him began to arrange into defensive formations, their clothes clean and bright, leagues away from the dirty group they were interacting with.


    "It is. .. " Rovan could obviously not know the name of Karl''s sect, because it was not a sect in the first place and had none, but he still tried to figure it out. All he knew was that the supposed sect''s minions were inhuman and some of them used purple flames often." Flaming. . purple. .. "


    "What purple? Is it the Purple Lotus Sect?" The Elder immediately jumped to a conclusion and steam seemed to start gathering at the surface of his clothes without damping it at all.


    Rovan stared back at the Elder with opened mouth and the man seemed to take it as yes.


    "Cursed snakes! They should have taken the river! How have they found out about our plans?!" A man next to the Elder barked angrily, but the previous speaker silenced him with a gesture and continued himself.


    "What rank do you have in the sect? You are our hostages!" The man said and gestured to one of the units that had formed behind his back. "Take the hostages and make them show you the way into their hideout! Kill every unauthorized person that refuses to leave our property. Kill the summons."


    "Yes, Water Dragon Lehaim!" Two dozens of people jumped forth and hurled all sorts of water spells at the minion through which Karl had been observing the situation up until now.


    Karl observed through the eyes of his fleshy minion all the attacks that flew against him accompanied by flashy moves and sometimes even shouts of the attacking cultivators. Knowing their own numerical superiority, their moves were more to catch the attention of their superiors than to carefully approach their enemy. Even then, the minion was overwhelmed and cut into pieces before it could do anything other than observe some basic moves.


    The minion valiantly withstood a few strikes made up of water blades and ice spikes, but soon crumbled to the ground when a considerably larger water blade cut it vertically in half.


    "Pf, rude people. I have no longer eyes on the ground, but I can guess the situation." Karl ordered his minion to make haste to the secret passage that led to the private part of the dungeon.


    "I can test my minions while they cover my retreat." Karl decided to assign the group that had been rounding up the kids to defend the dungeon and see how it went. At the same time, he began deactivating all the traps to prevent anyone from even guessing his true nature. The traps would not win the battle anyway and he was too oblivious to the situation in the city.


    If he wanted to go against Jinsheng, he needed to play into the city''s politics, not to kill everyone who came his way. That was a recipe to make an enemy out of the whole city, something he could not afford.


    "I will make this sect my cover, they will never know that they are not alone in their precious base." Karl wanted to laugh, but in his mind he was readying a backup plan in case someone had the bright idea to expand on the tunnels and accidentally connected to the private part of his dungeon.


    Despite his optimistic attitude, he needed eyes on the situation to not be left in the dark. It was something he would need to think about from the safety of dozens of meters of rock that would protect him from the intruding cultivators.


    "Oh, they are here, let''s see how they fight." Karl rushed into the secret passage and ordered the elemental there to close it behind him immediately.


    It was time to watch the show.


    Using his twenty Goblins, he took advantage of their small, filthy figures to blend into the dark tunnels and corners of his domain and commanded them to be his eyes and ears. He prepared four units of Warped Flesh for the cultivators on their way to the cellar and hid one Void Horror behind a corroded plate armor that stood in the tunnel leading into the cellar, where he had built his public dungeon''s entrance.


    The cultivators searched the fort and quickly started going in the direction of the only resistance, using the Warped Flesh minions as punching bags. They were able to exterminate all four without sustaining a single injury, because the minions were not trying to hide and had no chance of reaching the fighters of the Water Dragon Sect before being torn to shreds by their powers. Realistically, they would have had it though if they tried to hide because of their large and bulky frames.


    It was all a ploy on Karl''s part to make the invaders more confident and careless, as he would test their professionalism with the prepared ambush.


    Even then, he noticed that some cultivators were not as flashy as before and began hiding behind others, a clear sign of their exhaustion.


    Karl knew based on his experience from his time spent on the surface that the first stage cultivators had no visible soul powers, no matter what Mojo they cultivated, the first stage affecting only their fitness. A standard cultivator could use his powers only since the second stage, but those cultivators tended to tire fast and the number of uses of their abilities was extremely limited. Only on the third stage, the Mojo Crystallization Stage, could cultivators use their powers for extended periods of time without being too tired.


    "A Good third of them are not even the third stage. That is as expected." Karl switched his attention to the lurking Void Horror and awaited the intruders.


    Emboldened by their easy progress, the cultivators were not paying as much attention to their surroundings as when they had began their search and the Void Horror was able to stay hidden to the last moment. The monster''s ever present purple glow emanated mainly from its eyes and sharp claws and Karl had ordered it to carefully hide both behind the rusty piece of armor.


    When the time was right, the Void monster rushed out from behind the armor and swiped with its both clawed hands in a wide arc, leaving trails of eerie purple light in their wake. The cultivators of the Water Dragon Sect were not expecting an ambush and most of them could see only the claws and two shiny dots in the darkness of the tunnel. They had brought light stones that illuminated the space to same degree, but the long shadows had been hiding the attacker perfectly.


    In a second, several of the cultivators had their bellies stuck with the vicious slice, suffering from serious injuries. Karl noticed that their robes glowed brightly when the trails of purple light stuck them, the defensive enchantments trying to prevent the claws from tearing the sect members apart. It was most likely thanks to those enchantments that the cultivators had not been bisected by the attack and only had their bellies torn open.


    Before his minion could do any more damage, it was stuck by a surge of steam that pushed the monster far back into the tunnel while some people jumped forth to put themselves in between the injured and the threat. Karl decided to fight seriously this time and ordered his minion to hide in the back of this tunnel, it was crystal clear that a direct charge through the long tunnel would give the cultivators more than enough time to turn it into shreds.


    "It fled! What is this? It should keep attacking!" Karl heard distant shouts via his minion that was hidden behind a corner, waiting for cultivators'' next action.


    "An ambush and now it is not attacking? This is suspicious."


    Shortly, the brightness of light stones coming from the direction of the cultivators turned dim blue and when Karl ordered his minion to look behind the corner to see what was going on, he was puzzled when he saw a solid blue wall of thick ice.


    "They blocked the tunnel." He stated, startled by the fact.


    However, it had some logic behind it. The cultivators must have evaluated the Void Horror''s behavior as irregular and were unwilling to fight it in the dark, unexplored tunnels where it had the advantage.


    "It might be for the best, the casualties might attract too much attention if they decided to go all in." It was obvious that many cultivators would have died before they would manage to conquer just the public part of his dungeon.


    "But I have still not solved the situation with the kids." Karl quickly began to mobilize his minions to go around the exit at the Fort Orlov to assist the teenagers in case they needed it. He had his goblins on the surface who could surveil the situation, but they were too weak to do anything about it.


    Karl mobilized his minions and created a temporary exit from the private part of his dungeon that unleashed them upon the surface. When he was done, he shifted his consciousness into one of the goblins that still followed the situation on the surface, right in time to see Water Dragon Lehaim holding Rovan by his neck.The poor teenager had to stand on his tiptoes to prevent himself from choking.


    "What sort of an ambush has the Purple Lotus Sect prepared here? Talk, filth, or you will share the fate of your friend here!" The man pointed at Tyrn''s corpse that had not yet been fully buried, its paper-like mummified skin peeking through piles of dirt.


    "What sect? There is this nuts demonic cultivator!" Rovan was sweating profusely in the Elder''s hand, his act of a perfect subordinate obviously not covering extreme situations.


    "I am losing time with you." Water Dragon Lehaim released Rovan who crumbled down onto the ground while coughing violently. It was obvious what would happen next.


    "Damn! My most promising follower, I have to do something!" Karl began to panic, but what might a group of goblins do? He had only around ten of them encircling the cultivators and their strength was as pathetic as always. He needed to buy a few minutes before his other minions arrived from the temporary exit.


    The next second, every goblin along with two Warped Flesh minions that had been separated by the ice wall, trapped on the surface, received a once in their lifetime command.


    "Sing!"


    And they sang.


    Naturally, the minions'' ability to execute commands with creativity and initiative was quite limited, meaning they began with a silly moan that in Karl''s opinion was not puzzling enough to delay the cultivator''s in their sinister actions. Karl quickly scrambled in his brain for a melody and words of something that would do the trick and shortly, he became the lead singer for his minions. His monsters interpreted the melody and words the best they could and soon, the immortal rock stars of Earth had their first cover song sang in the forest of the cultivation world.


    Karl had to admit that his Warped Flesh minions might have some level of talent for heavy metal songs, their performance reaching more than acceptable levels of raspiness.


    The cultivators heard it all and when the inarticulate shouts of Karl''s monsters turned into a song, their wary expressions turned into something indescribable.


    "This place is cursed! Let''s get out of here!" Some of the weaker cultivators that were here to gain experience were more than ready to pull their tails in between their legs and run back to the city.


    The Elder seemed determined to continue in his actions despite the strange song, but calming down the unsettled members of the sect and listening to the song delayed him enough and the cavalry had already arrived.


    To the horror of all the cultivators present, multitude of the very same monster that had ambushed them in the cellar had emerged from the forest and stood there motionless. In addition to the known foe, ten hulking figures armored to the teeth stepped heavily out of the shade of the trees and made some of the less courageous members of the Water Dragon Sect gasp for air.


    Both cultivators and the monsters stood in their place without moving, as if the slightest motion would start a bloodbath.


    "Prepare for battle, but let''s make an example first. I hate liars." The Elder took out an ornate dagger and its blade reached towards Rovan''s next, who was still lying on the ground.


    The moment Elder Lehaim placed the blade against the poor teenager''s neck, the ten metal monstrosities swiftly gripped their swords and drew them halfway out of their scabbards, the meaning of their action obvious.


    "Elder, I do not think that his execution is a good idea." A man whispered into Lehaim''s ear urgently and the Water Dragon Sect''s leader suppressed an impulse to punch him.


    "I do have eyes, idiot." The Elder growled, thinking about their next course of action.


    He put back the dagger and the Void monsters sheathed their swords again, the message clear to all who saw it.


    "What are your orders, Elder? Will we fight?" The same man asked while warily watching the encirclement.


    "Begin a tactical retreat, be prepared for an ambush. We know too little about the enemy." The Elder ordered after a long pause and the cultivators started to move in a loose formation in the direction of the city, leaving the teenagers to their devices for obvious reasons.


    "This is not the end." Water Dragon Lehaim spat out angrily before the forces of his sect disappeared into the forest after a careful retreat.


    Karl almost melted with relief, because he was not sure how the confrontation might have ended, he had noticed that the cultivators had not suffered a single casualty due to their enchanted robes and pills they had taken afterwards. He was not afraid of losing his minions, but a too serious of a confrontation might provoke a united action of Jinsheng, something Karl wanted to prevent.


    In the crumbled courtyard only a handful of teenagers remained, encircled by the now closing mob of Void monsters. One of them in particular had an uneasy expression plastered on his face.


    "Hello, Your Majesty Karl Gulden. Nice save!" Rovan showed the incoming minions thumbs up, hoping that it would make up for his dubious conduct.


    "Just bury the corpse already." Karl wrote in the usual manner in the air and Rovan was holding a shovel even before the letters'' purple outlines fully faded into the wind.


    A huge stone fell off everyone''s heart when they realized their master was not going to punish any of them, but the uneasy feeling returned when Karl accidentally wrote his following thought for all of them to see.


    "I need eyes in the city, this will not simply fizzle out."

 Chapter 15 The Council

    "This is preposterous! I demand the thief to be punished!" A tall man with blue hair stood up from his chair and pointed his finger at a figure veiled in a purple robe that sat at the other side of a large triangular table. The room was fairly spacious and lavishly decorated, three distinctive people sitting in the three corners of the triangle. One of them spoke up, displeased by the ruckus the man was making.


    "Water Dragon Lehaim, this is the council chamber, not your bedroom!" The eloquent, yet imposing person with bright green eyes and black hair spoke with a strict tone and the troublemaker quickly sat back down.


    "Esteemed Immortal Wu Zayed, I only demand justice! The Purple Lotus Sect deceived us!" Although seated, the man in blue-white robe was still awkwardly pointing his finger in the same direction.


    "Justice!" The accused snorted, she was none other than The Purple Flash, a well-known hero of Jinsheng. She sneered in the Water Dragon Sect Elder''s direction and responded calmly. "In your greed, you have refused the riverside region, because you thought that your sect will be easily able to conquer it later, or perhaps instigate some trouble using its river?"


    She said teasingly, but continued before the Elder could refute her claim.


    "I stand behind my previous words. The Water Dragon Sect has already claimed the Orlov region and has no right to claim more land." Yen said with finality and looked away from the man, as if the debate had ended.


    "That land is infested with deadly Void monsters!" The Elder exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. He did not know how, but he was sure that the Purple Lotus Sect was heavily involved in the matter.


    "We are not at a grocery store, you cannot return what you have claimed. Unless someone is willing to trade their land with you." A woman of petrifying beauty chuckled, folding her fan. Her hair were half-black and half-white, divided like night and day, even her eyes shared the same pattern.


    Lehaim''s eyes desperately scanned the other cultivators present in the room, but he found no pity in them. Not a single person was willing to help out a fallen sect that had met a disaster due to its greed. Elder Lehaim cursed his earlier decision to refuse the riverside region due to his great ambition that resulted in the current situation of his sect being homeless.


    "Immortal Yang Zhi is right. The Water Dragon Sect had already laid claim to a region and will not be in possession of another unless all other sects receive another plot of land as well. This matter is closed." Wu Zayed confirmed to end the Elder''s complaints.


    Lehaim looked around and saw all the other Elders sagely nodding their heads. He wanted to shout at them, calling them greedy filth, but he knew that he lost this match. All he could do was damage control. He was confident that the Water Dragon Sect had enough forces to conquer the infested fort and its dungeon, but he was afraid of the cost. The number of Void monsters was unknown and the Void Mojo was a difficult attribute to fight. Additionally, the heavy presence of Void usually signified some trouble with space, something he would like to avoid. If the loses were too heavy, it would have a huge impact on the power balance between the sects.


    The Water Dragon Sect could remain without land, but it was a choice that would lead to a slow, but sure decline.


    The Elder''s ears perked up, when he noticed that instead of helping him, The Council had prepared for him a nasty surprise. He did not know if it was on purpose or not, but his hands gripped the chair until it creaked when he listened to it.


    "After hearing the news of your progress, I think that the assigned regions should be secure and partially developed until the end of this year. We have agreed to perform an inspection of your fortifications at that time. The sects that fail to build appropriate fortification and ensure the security of their land by then will have their right for the land stripped from them and distributed to more capable hands." Immortal Wu Zayed proclaimed without expecting any discussion, as it had been agreed upon by the three Immortals.


    Water Dragon Lehaim''s face turned grim. He had obviously no more time playing politics, he had to act immediately.


    "Let''s move to the next agenda on the program, we need to improve out ability to produce enchantments at scale to support our expanding forces." Immortal Yang Zhi said in her velvet voice and Lehaim suppressed an urge to vomit.


    "Bah, they work together too well. I wonder if the two do each other as well in private,in their overly expensive Immortal chambers." Lehaim thought venomously while slowly calculating his sect''s casualties, ignoring the further discussions of The Council. The sect leaders and Immortals were happy to ignore him as well, trying to grab onto all the resources they could.


    When the meeting finally ended, Lehaim stood up and left the chamber though its huge door that had been opened by four guards exactly when their session ended. Surprisingly, he had not gotten too far, before a silky hand grabbed him by his shoulder with unexpected strength and forced him to shift his attention to a woman in purple robe he did not like one bit.


    "What is the meaning of this? Get your hand off me!" He said angrily in a low voice, readying himself for an attack. During their violent times, he would have not been surprised by a cue, or an assassination in a broad daylight.


    "Easy old man, we need to talk." She said in a neutral tone, releasing her hold.


    "What makes you think I will talk to you, Elder Yen? If you''d like to rub some salt into the wounds of others, I have better things to do." Lehaim was in no mood for provocations, but the Elder of the Purple Lotus Sect seemed determined to make the meeting happen.


    "I see why your cities were overrun. You fail to see the big picture." She answered coldly and the Water Dragon Lehaim had to take a deep breath to calm down. He wanted to send the women where digested food belonged and walk away, but something was telling him that it was not a good idea.


    Even on his way to Jinsheng, he knew that many sects mingling together in the limited space of a single city was tricky. He had to play along if he wanted to survive.


    "Get us a private room." He said to a nearby guard and the man immediately began to lead them to a private place in the palace. Naturally, Lehaim had to consider the conversation very much public, because he had no confidence in the owner of the building that belonged to the Immortals.


    "Five minutes." He said to The Purple Flash as they followed the guard through the huge halls of the palace. According to the paintings and murals on the walls, Jinsheng had seen better days, still it was better off than his old city that turned to ash some time ago. The paintings of prosperous fields, booming industries and lavish parades might one day turn into reality in Jinsheng, but there would be only thistle and grass at where his old Water Dragon Sect stood.


    When the door to a cozy private room finally closed behind them, he turned to his colleague, his expression full of hostility.


    "Well, go on. You can start to mock me." Lehaim said, trying to act indifferently.


    "Elder Lehaim," Yen walked to a chair and sat down, not touching the prepared glass in front of her. " have you seen the paintings on the way here?"


    "Obviously, get to the point." Lehaim remained standing, but nervously poured himself a glass of green liquid with an exotic aroma. He planned to taste some liquor if he had to waste time listening to his competition.


    "I lived though them all." Yen leaned into the chair and Lehaim nearly cursed out aloud, sensing that the conversation was not going to be quick as he had expected. "The first picture is decades old, it was painted by a man close to out family. He always told me how proud he was of what I had become."


    Yen stopped looking at Lehaim and began to stare out of the window.


    "A prodigy of one hundred years, that is what he called me and I believed him. I studied and trained with all my heart until I became one of the best youngsters of the Purple Lotus Sect. I threw myself into even the most dangerous missions for my beloved city and they started to call me The Purple Flash, a nickname for a young heroine who was an example to all the others of our generation. I met my husband on one of our missions, we fell in love and I love him to this day. He was so proud that he had our two boys, he always wanted to have sons to carry on the lineage."


    "Hmph." Lehaim raised him eyebrows, not knowing why the Elder of the Purple Lotus Sect was bothering him with her sob story.


    "Then one of my boys died in a raid supported by a traitor of the city and I was devastated." She stopped looking out of the window and turned her head to look at Lehaim. "I searched frantically for the traitor high and low, but all was in vein. All traitor scum should die."


    Lehaim gulped hastily, nearly chuckling on his green liquor. The menacing look in Elder Yen''s eyes when she spoke about the traitor was giving him goosebumps.


    "And the other one of my boys was killed shortly as well." Her tone turned even colder and she stood up from the chair.


    "My husband turned into a drunkard and my beautiful city remained beautiful only on those paintings, falling apart." She stepped closer to Lehaim, looking directly into his eyes.


    "All I have left are the kids of The Purple Lotus Sect that are barely scraping by and the city that has closely avoided its destruction. If you plan to scheme and play politics despite everything around us burning to dust, Jinsheng''s very existence at stake, you are a traitor to the city and I will kill you right here, right now." She was just inches from his face, her purple eyes staring into his own with determination he had not seen for a long time.


    "What is this about Elder Yen?" Lehaim whispered, alarm in his voice. He had not anticipated that the leading Elder of the native Purple Lotus Sect was a bit crazy.


    "Do you plan throwing stones under my feet using the river, or will we cooperate in the name of the city? I have some information about the threat that concerns the Orlov region." She held her gaze, observing the Water Dragon Sect Elder''s reaction. "In other words, are you here to parasite on Jinsheng''s resources, or can we cooperate to make the paintings the reality again?"


    "Huh." Lehaim huffed, studying his colleague''s face. "Words are as cheap as leaves in the forests outside, you have to show sincerity first."


    He was an experienced Elder and had seen women both grovelling and playing theatrics in front of him. Life has taught him that resolve not backed by actions was just a useless pose.


    "Fine, let me join the forces that are going to subdue the Orlov region." She responded without hesitation.


    "To let your people in our back? Are you insane?" A pincer attack was a disaster Lehaim needed the least.


    "It will be only me and a small unit of people, nothing big." Yen caught up on the misunderstanding without delay.


    "You seem too confident in dealing with the Void monsters." Lehaim was still suspicious, as according to his calculation, the Purple Lotus Sect should have no love for his own. They really had plotted to use the river running through their region for a diversion, an easy task for a clan of cultivators with Water and similar Mojos.


    "I have some guesses about their nature and I have a solution in mind that should spare a lot of lives." She presented him with a response full of uncertainty, but Lehaim would have not trusted her anyway.


    "This does not makes sense, there is no benefit in it for your sect." Lehaim gulped the last drop of the liquor and placed his glass back on the table near him.


    "That is untrue, Elder Lehaim, you should have listened to what I have said earlier more closely." Yen shook her head and turned to leave, opening the room''s door.


    "I will be awaiting your response." She left, Elder Lehaim starting at the closed door for some time, deep in thought.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    "I am in no position to play it safe any longer, let''s see what will come out of this deal." He left the room as well, not sure what to think about his political enemy turning collaborator in a matter of minutes.


    * * * *


    After their grave-digging experience and the following intrusion, the mood of the teenagers was naturally, grave.


    As well as the mood of the entity entrapped in a black stone that was pondering on how to find out what the city was planning. Karl was sure about one thing concerning the human society, humans did not give up when they smelled resources, unless they burned their fingers badly while getting them.


    And with no casualties, Elder Lehaim''s fingers had not been burned at all!


    "Maybe I have miscalculated and should have killed just a few." Karl felt like pressed in between two stones with higher hardness than he had.


    According to the original plan, he should be training his new teenage dungeon leaders while searching for places with historical value. However, the old plan seemed hollow with Tyrn lying cold a few feet underground. Nevertheless, it was still the best course of action he could come up with.


    "I refuse to give up on the Void minions and the fort, the hidden dungeon here has to stay." That point was clear to Karl.


    "I need to infiltrate the city, but now is not the right time." He thought further about what to do, it was obvious that Jinsheng was expanding into its historic borders and after its expansion, there would be traffic flowing in and out of the city, providing Karl with an opportunity to get in and out without much complications. He planned to hunker down temporarily, before unleashing his highly educated leaders onto the city.


    "So, I have to teach them everything about the city and provide them with some money and leverage to get me all the information I need." It sounded logical, until he realized that he knew less than the teenagers about the inner workings of Jinsheng. "Or should they teach me instead?"


    He felt really incompetent at this point, it could not be right!


    One way or another, he had temporarily housed the teenagers in the private section of his dungeon and chose a volunteer to hunt and cook them some food. Obviously with heavy assistance of his minions that might be able to hunt, but were undoubtedly terrible at cooking. It came as no surprise that the first volunteer for the job was Rovan, the first hunter and cook of Karl''s dungeon.


    He was beginning to love the guy, it was a pity that Tyrn had not been as diligent as him.


    On second thought, it was of no consequence, given Tyrn''s current decomposing state.


    Humans! They were too fragile!


    "What nostalgia, back to the present." Karl thought and noticed something weird about his thought process, but it was probably nothing too serious. "I guess being a stone makes one hard."


    "Not in the inappropriate sense of that word of course." He thought and concluded that he really needed some conversation partner, as he might be getting too eccentric. Chatting with the teenagers was difficult, as they were too pent up around him, as the air of an evil demonic cultivator seemed to linger on him.


    Karl had unleashed his hunting party on the forest and had nothing to do except of admiring his tunnels and stalking his guests.


    He went deeper into his collection of floor tiles and even customized some wall decorations including murals, engravings and even tapestries, but promptly reverted to the generic ones when he saw the proof that he had never been good in painting and his art was terrible. Karl had also created some more tunnels separated from his main network, as his paranoid nature wed to his inclination to build more underground structures was working miracles.


    A few days passed in a relative peace and quiet, until a group of men he really did not want to see emerged from the forest near the devastated walls of the fort. The fort was getting better thanks to the effort of his many Warped Flesh minions rebuilding its walls, but a few days was just a fraction of time needed to repair it.


    He could use the Earth Elemental for the repairs, but it would have looked weird and unnatural if the fort was not build from bricks as before.


    "I knew it! I should have discouraged them the first time they were snooping around." Karl observed through the eyes of his goblins, some of them already dead, what was the composition of the invaders.


    He did not get why the intruders kept killing his goblins on sight, they were cute. There was strong wind outside and they should even not smell as much as usual.


    There was even more of them than before and Karl had an urge to lower the head of the goblin he was currently using as his eyes.


    They were nearing the fort from six different sides in eighteen units, Each such a squad had roughly twelve members and thus, the total number of incoming enemies was something slightly above two hundred, all of them cultivators. All the squads except of three were dressed in blue-white robes Karl was familiar with and it was clear who it was.


    "That stupid guy has returned sooner than expected." Karl was displeased by the urgency of the invading sect actions.


    Two squads were dressed in black leather armor and one had the well known purple robes of the Purple Lotus Sect. The moment Karl saw it, it was obvious that the Water Dragon Sect had not kept its failure hidden and other forces started to meddle in the situation.


    "Crap! What to do? This is starting to get too blown out of proportions!" Karl quickly decided on his next course of action, as he had been thinking about it for some it.


    Originally, he had thought about assigning a single Void Knight the role of a dungeon king and stage his downfall, but he had thoughtlessly showcased a lineup of ten Void Knights during his standoff with Water Dragon Lehaim and it would be seen through easily.


    "I can no longer fake my demise this way, I need something different." Karl quickly invented another plan. "I got it, I have been destroyed by a massive goblin invasion. It would also explain the ever present goblins."


    He promptly ordered total retreat of all his forces into the private section of his dungeon, while assigning his Earth Elementals to strengthen the walls between the two parts even more and with sadness in his hart, began the disassembly of all his traps in the exposed parts. He also began pumping his vast amounts of mana into creating a large goblin force that would be massacred by the incoming sect.


    "They should have little trouble with them." If his plan succeeded, he would disappear from the surface, but his Void structures would remain standing deep underground.


    "Let the fall of a mighty goblin king begin!" Karl entered his system options and began spawning the goblins like crazy.


    * * * *


    Water Dragon Lehaim along with the best warriors of his sect were steadily marching towards the fortress, his best fighters at the front. Remembering the ten hulking figures seeping with Void, he expected an intense battle in front of them and hoped that the foundation of the sect would not be damaged by the confrontation.


    From time to time, his eyes wandered towards the unexpected ally he had gained in the city, a squad of cultivators from the Purple Lotus Sect. A force he did not trust at all. There were also two units of dubious fighters that were not a part of the sect, but had proven valuable based on previous encounters. Dressed in expensive leather armor, they were a mixture of all that left of a destroyed city''s guard, people that had nowhere to go after their original city had been destroyed.


    "Elder, this is the third one. The woods in these parts are infested with the vermin." A runner came to report the execution of another monster and Lehaim remembered seeing them along with the Void monstrosities.


    Had they been enslaved, or was it a completely different force?


    It would be no surprise, goblins usually licked the boots of stronger monsters, but they usually tended to serve to those related to them. Well, he had to clear out the vermin whatever the situation was, the deadline set by the Immortals was pressing on him. They needed to conquer the place quickly, if they wanted to see it developed to some degree by the end of the year.


    "Move toward the wall! Do not break the formation!" Lehaim shouted.


    All the squads spread out alongside the circumference of the contracting circle that had the fort at its center. When they were only fifty meters away from the crumbled wall, a racket from behind the wall stopped their steps and dozens of green little bodies with daggers began pouring in their direction shortly after.


    "Stand your ground!" Lehaim shouted to boost the moral and gave a hand sign that meant the same. There was a group of two dozen goblins running directly at him.


    "What a joke!" He gestured with his hand and all of them fell to the ground in a matter of seconds, convulsing and screeching until their movements stopped and their bodies stayed lying motionless in the high grass and bushes looking like mummified corpses. It was a technique Lehaim specialized in and it was deadly to all creatures containing a large portion of water.


    There were often people fearing cultivators that used blood in a similar way, but the truth was that the percentage of water in a body was much higher, making Lehaim''s technique more universal and deadly. He could not help himself but look at the cultivators dressed in purple and see how they compared to him in dealing with the goblins that went their way.


    The leading person of the Purple Lotus Sect shot a ray of purple particles from his palm and Lehaim had to suppress laughter when the shot missed the goblins and landed many meters in front of them, the particles spreading harmlessly in all directions.


    "Is that everything you have got, Jinsheng''s hero?" Lehaim snorted with disdain, but shortly saw all goblins quickly falling to the ground, dead. When he looked more closely, the grass under them had a shade of purple, no longer bright green.


    "Cheap tricks, too slow and limited." He clicked his tongue and turned his attention to the overall situation on the battlefield.


    Goblins were pouring out of the fort without any sign of their numbers dwindling and the squads kept culling them the best they could. The battle was intense and Lehaim expected the goblins to run out of their numbers soon.


    His guess had been wrong and the flow of enemies had not stopped, their green tides pushing on them wave after wave like seawater against a high cliff. Lehaim was not worried about their enemies'' strength, but their numbers started to get annoying.


    "Die, lowly vermin!" He angrily released a large horizontal water blade at one of the incoming groups and butchered even those that were still far away in the distance and had not paid attention to the battlefield. The debris from one of the walls that was hit flew in all directions and the structural integrity of the fort was visibly worsened by the violent strike.


    To his surprise, the people belonging to the Purple Lotus Sect were close to taking a nap at their position, their careless attitude annoying him to no end. They had created a plot of toxic vegetation that the goblins were unable to cross and their bodies were simply piling up into the poisoned grass. A clever tactic that spared them a lot of effort, the creators of the toxic land just observed the results of their move from afar.


    "Hmph, enough of this farce!" Lehaim was annoyed even more and decide to stop playing with the enemy. "See the true face of death and despair!"


    Lehaim spread his hands wide and a pressure descended all around him, the vegetation in front of him began to dry up and ground cracked as Lehaim was quickly turning the fort into desolated land along everything that lived within it. It was the same technique he used before, but on a much greater scale, it was called Desertification and it was quickly able to extract all water from the large area of the fort and its surroundings.


    A move with good killing power and long term environmental impact.


    All incoming goblins began slowly dying, not even able to reach their ranks and the grass slowly turned to dust, blown away by the wind. It was a sight to behold, a power that turned a part of a lush forest into dead wasteland, a desert where nothing lived. A marvel of power over nature that caused many people to call Lehaim jokingly a Desert Dragon behind his back.


    "What an idiot." The hero of Jinsheng, Yen Gon, whispered under her breath as she watched the whole fort creak and third of the fort slowly crumbled to the ground, turning the whole fort into the state where it was close to irreparable and would have to be taken down and rebuilt anew. Stone was more or less invulnerable to Lehaim''s technique, but many structural elements of the fort had been built using wood that had been nearly reduced to ash under the power of Desertification, its extremely dried state having no structural integrity.


    Yen was sure that the people of the Water Dragon Sect would curse Lehaim''s posturing later, while repairing for weeks what he had destroyed in mere minutes.


    "Charge!" Lehaim shouted and led by example, advancing towards the fort above ground. He was on a similar power level as Yen Gon von Kotzchen and had also a way to fly. Most of the cultivators that had reached the level of Soul Transformation could, and some happened to posses the ability even sooner, although limited by the strength of their souls.


    "That, is quite hilarious." Yen watched Water Dragon Lehaim fly and her brain could not help but slip to some amusing associations. Lehaim was using mostly steam to propel himself forward and to propel himself forth, the steam had to logically come from his back.


    After tearing her eyes away from the butt of the elder, Yen looked around to search for the Void monsters, but saw none. She shrugged her shoulders and reabsorbed the poison from the dried vegetation in front of her, following in Lehaim''s track.


    After a few hours of thorough searching, Lehaim stood with a thoughtful expression at the crumbled fort''s courtyard. Actually, there was no fort to speak of anymore. It had already been in a sorry state before the attack, but now it was just a ruin.


    "Water Dragon, we have not found any signs of Void creatures!" Lehaim listened to the report, enjoying a sound of his title for a second. Of course he was no dragon or had anything to do with them, but the title still sounded good, as well as his sect''s name.


    "What is going on here? Why there was an army of goblins?" Lehaim could not figure out what had happened at the fort and turned his gaze to Elder Yen who stood next to him.


    "No idea, we should explore the tunnels that seem to be the origin of the Void''s presence." Yen shrugged her shoulders, knowing who the likely perpetrator of the incident was. She had seen the signs of Void when she explored the underground. She met the unfortunate street thief that was connected to the demonic cultivator that ridiculed her. It had probably been his lair and thus, it was false to think that the source of disturbance was some sort of a Void rift, the threat was mobile, not stationary.


    "The fort has buried the tunnels when it collapsed, it will take time to excavate." The reporting cultivator said with tense expression on his face.


    "No need, this plot of land is ruined anyway. We will build a new fort elsewhere." His Elder waved his hand with a smirk. Lehaim decided to solve the two problems at the same time.


    "I see that you have no need for our further assistance, Elder Lehaim. The issue has been solved and we will take our leave." Yen cupped her hands and said her goodbyes to the Elder. She needed to think further about the threat they had just faced.


    "If only that fool had not collapsed the fort, now he will be long gone before they dig out anything." She thought and began to suspect that the appearance of extensive networks of tunnels had something to do with the rude demonic cultivator that was trapped in the black stone. In addition, it did not even look like Lehain intended to investigate anything in the future and planned to call his trouble solved by the ruin of the fort that buried the tunnels under the weight of uncountable stone blocks.


    However, as long as the rogue element did not threaten the security of her sect or the city as the whole, she had better things to do than to chase after ghosts in the sky and under the ground.


    In the distance, a goblin blinked his big eyes and Karl was relieved that at least once in a century, the events had passed just as he planned and hoped he had not jinxed himself just by thinking about it.

 Chapter 16 A Shadow in the Water

    A knight in a plate armor that shone with the runic engravings of purple light was walking back and fort near one of the pylons of his home building while flipping a coin. Near him sat a red haired teenager, his eyes hanging on the knight''s every move, using a chopped trunk of a tree as a chair.


    There was a black stone fastened to the knight''s forehead, making the minion unique. Karl ordered his minion to flip the coin again and pondered about the details of his plan. His new scheme seemed a bit convoluted, but he considered it a necessary complication. At first, he had intended to send his loyal subordinates into the city to act on his behalf, but it was obvious that their actions were very limited while playing the role of a street beggar or a thief.


    Previously, he intended to solve the problem by giving them money, but the teenagers would probably only get killed as soon as someone found out that they were rich. That was why Karl made his revised plan. After the latest update, the devious Karl''s plan looked as follows.


    His people infiltrate the workforce of the Water Dragon Sect nearby and find a suitable contact. The cultivator contact receives his support and go to the city acting on Karl''s behalf. The contact should not get killed, nor be barred from entering the places of interest that Karl needed to infiltrate.


    According to his brain preconditioned from reading all sorts of crazy novels, he should be building his kingdom or luring adventurers to kill them in his domain for experience and fun. Instead, reality forced him to do something totally different, to start building a network that would move on his behalf.


    A business network moved others using the power of money, a spy network used skill and ruthlessness instead and frankly, he could do both.


    He would never even consider to build some expansive kingdom to stand against all the cultivators and other freaks that the cultivation world had to offer. It would become an unending fight against the whole world.


    He was not seeking death!


    "I entrust you with leading the operation. We can go over the plan once more." Karl addressed his most loyal servant with his writing.


    "What if I need to contact you, Lord Gulden?" He asked, not looking particularly enthusiastic about the endeavor his superior was trying to rope him into.


    "My goblins will be nearby at all times." Karl tried to reassure Rovan, but his face stayed the same.


    "Goblins? What if I cannot see them?" He asked and Karl could see in his eyes that he was already concocting all sorts of plans on how to ditch his master.


    "Just call them." Karl said simply, telling himself that everything would work out fine even if the level of his servants'' loyalty was questionable.


    "How?" Rovan asked and Karl wanted to roll his eyes, but he had to admit that the teenager could not be running around shouting goblin names.


    "Just say something that will blend in when said aloud, something that will look natural." Karl proposed and Rovan began to think, the strain of his brain almost visible through his eyes.


    "Something like. .. . like. . .. I have it! Something like fuck!" The teenager said and his eyes brightened.


    "Eh, why not." It seemed a little unorthodox, but it would be the least conspicuous given the teenager''s background.


    "Wait, his background!" Karl thought and realized that Rovan was not the best candidate, because Lehaim had spoken to him directly and would surely remember the teenager even if he radically changed his appearance by washing himself.


    "Never mind, call the siblings and forget what we have just discussed." Karl suddenly remembered an important detail from a day prior.


    "As commanded, Lord Gulden." Rovan brightened the moment he realized he would not be doing any secret missions and quickly disappeared from Karl''s presence.


    "What a shifty bootlicker." Karl wanted to shake his head, but the result was only a stuck feeling from his phantom neck. "Yet, it is pleasant to be praised from time to time, he is definitely an asset."


    It did not take long and a pair of people entered the Void Well, as Karl was still in the room, next to its pair of glowing pillars.


    "Sir." Both of them bowed their heads in unison and awaited Karl''s words, or rather, letters.


    "I have a mission for you, because you seem to be my most loyal and trusted servants." Karl wrote and the hearts of the pair started beating faster.


    In truth, the visage of the siblings had changed the most when Karl provided all his people with a bath and the probability that Lehaim would recognize them was low. Their hair was not even gray anymore, but white. Naturally, he could not tell them that they were going on the mission, because they had been the most dirty of the lot and no one would recognize them.


    "We will not disappoint you, Lord Gulden." The teenage boy answered, obviously moved by the praise.


    Karl thought that the boy was either naive, or a very good actor and proceeded to explain him his mission.


    * * * *


    A lean figure wearing clothes stitched from pelts moved through the forest with confidence, his face stern. From time to time, a callused hand pushed the white hair aside to reveal blue eyes that seethed with anger.


    All that nice talk had ended as it always had, based on his experience from the slums, with blackmail. The so called Lord kept his sister locked in his domain to ensure his loyalty while sending him on a mission outside.


    Despite his anger, Wu Han knew that the Lord was not mistreating her and he was partially glad that Xin was safe. There was little that could threaten the mysterious person that was able to move under the ground like a fish in the water, summoning terrible monstrosities out of thin air with just a simple command.


    He took a deep breath and recalled his mission.


    He had to compromise a cultivator of the Water Dragon Sect, something that he would never have dared to do if not for the backing of Lord Gulden, who promised to aid him with his creatures. The most likely services Wu Han could provide as the handler for the future asset was to eliminate someone or to scout the forest as Lord Gulden had told him about the resources assigned to his mission. There were even some creative options, but the hardest part was still ahead of him, he had to find a person ambitious enough to betray their sect.


    "Seems like they have already started." He observed from the bushes the construction site for the new fort of the Water Dragon Sect. The construction was in full swing not too far from the ruin of the old fort. They were clearly planning to connect to the route that led to the old fort, as the old road''s foundations could be used for further construction.


    Wu Han backtracked to look like someone who was desperate enough to walk along the old road all the way from the city to offer his services for food. He looked too clean, but it was probably not something a non-slum dweller like the cultivators would notice.


    It did not matter if the cultivators actually gave him anything, the key was to get into their camp and operate there unnoticed.


    "Halt! What is your business at the land of the Water Dragon Sect?!" Shortly, he spotted a cultivator guarding the road who shouted at him even before he got close.


    "I am looking for work!" He shouted back and hoped for the best.


    "How do you know about the construction site?" The cultivator remained suspicious of him, resolutely flapping his long sleeves to add weight to his question.


    "The word in the city is that the sects are expanding outside." He shouted again and his throat was becoming sore. "Can I come closer?"


    "Only half-way, wait for someone to pick you up." The guarding cultivator responded and fired a few water blades in a sequence up in the air, probably some sort of a signal.


    Thinking about signals, Wu remembered his own and had to sigh at Rovan''s lack of imagination.


    Shortly, two more robed cultivators hurried in their way and the two gestured at him to come closer when they stood next to the guard.


    "The pay is food, there will be silver for everyone when the project is finished, maybe even gold if the boss feels good about the result." One of the cultivators said, acting like he was offering Wu Han a treasure worth dying for.


    "Yes, sir." Wu Han answered shortly. He knew that cultivators hated to be pestered with thousands of questions from people who in their opinion knew nothing about the sects.


    "Fine, go with these two gentlemen, they will tell you the details." The two cultivators just nodded at him and led him further into the construction site.


    It was obvious to Wu Han that he was being handled by so many high level cultivators only because of the tight security of the camp. When they checked him out, he would surely work under a foreman that was an ordinary human.


    In the understanding of a slum dweller, there were four types of cultivators. First were those with no abilities with only their body strengthened. Second type were those that could use some sort of an ability occasionally. Third were the real deal, those that could actually use good abilities frequently, those were always the types the gangs of the slums were afraid of. None of them had bad abilities, because no sect bothered to nurture a person to that point if their Mojo was something useless. The fourth type were the sky, people to be always avoided.


    "The walls are behind the schedule, let''s take the kid there." One of the cultivators said and the other just snorted in response.


    "Everything is behind schedule, we could not place him wrong if we were blind."


    Wu Han could finally see the building site and what the sect was trying to accomplish.


    Gone were the opulent gardens, beautiful flowers and scenery bringing peace of mind to help the process of cultivation the sects used to build in the past. Under the pressure of the ever present threat of wild beasts and rogue cultivators, the sect had borrowed the design more fit for a local lord than a sect.


    Wide ditch was being made by a small team of cultivators encircling a large fortress that seemed to had gone too far in its ambition, its area being several times larger than that of the previous Fort Orlov. Its foundations were still incomplete, but the rough circular shape could be already seen, two concentric circles making it clear that the fortress would consist of two layers of walls that would be further separated into sections.


    Surprisingly, Wu saw that even many cultivators was helping with the work, the large stone blocks being carried on a layer of water from further away. It was obvious that the cultivators had not enough workers, or were quite desperate to have the fortress built quickly.


    "Your turn!" A tall cultivator shouted at a shorter one who had his robe stained with dirt, obviously not even caring for his image anymore.


    "Are you out of steam again?! Pathetic!" He growled angrily, but switched with the tall cultivator, taking turns in digging the wide ditch. They were using water blades and high pressured streams of water to dig it, sparing the extra workers that could be used for other purposes.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Wu and his escort passed the two while clearly trying to hold back their laughter and headed to the inner section of the wall, nearing a cultivator that was wildly gesticulating with his hands.


    "Where the fuck are you going? We do not want to get close to Lehaim!" One of his escorts nearly slapped his companion and began dragging them to a section of the outer wall where heavy stone blocks were being lifted by a dozen men. There, they hastily left him standing near a man who was overseeing the construction. The stone blocks were just enough to be lifted by a few men without the need of any advanced tools.


    At least for the moment, when everyone stood with their feet planted firmly on the ground.


    "A new worker, good!" The man said with glee and Wu Han looked back at him with trepidation.


    After a few days of work, Wu Han was more familiar with the construction site and the camp. It was unfortunate that the camp for workers was separated from the one the cultivators resided in. He knew that a random worker would be thrown out of the cultivators'' camp immediately, meaning that the only opportunity to contact a suitable person was at the construction site, where all people mingled under the pressure of tight schedule that was clearly imposed on them by the city.


    At times he even welcomed the hard labor, because he was able to vent his anger. It was unpleasant to be blackmailed in a hostage situation and he did not know how tolerant his unusual Lord was to failure. What would happen if he failed the task? Wu Han had to force himself to stop thinking about his precarious situation to keep his sanity.


    He overheard much at the construction site and had even some candidates that might be swayed by benefits to join his Lord''s cause, but he needed an opportunity to talk to them and something enticing to offer.


    "Stupid wall! Everything is heavy like my grandmother''s ass!" One of the workers around Wu complained.


    "At least the pay is good."


    "Even then, do I look like an Earth Elemental or something?" The worker added while glancing at his body, dirty from the mud that was everywhere.


    "You sure do look like one." The foremen surprisingly joined the bickering instead of reprimanding the workers.


    Wu was lucky that the man was a rather down to earth individual who cared just about the work done and made them do only what was needed to not lag behind the other teams. Wu saw the short cultivator from before who walked near them and stopped to say something about their banter, but then quickly looked at Lehaim in the distance and scurried off to dig the ditch that was nearly complete.


    Wu had to smirk when he saw it. It was true that the status of ordinary mortals worsened since the disaster years ago, as mortals had been using money to level the playing field between them and cultivators. That ended some time ago, business was not doing well with the interruption of nearly all major trade routes. However, the culture had not yet degraded enough to plunge the society into a full on mafia mode. There was still some backbone left in those who remembered what people could achieve through cooperation. Lehaim was one of them. Wu had already experienced multiple times that even though Lehaim was not the brightest of leaders, he had no patience for those that hindered the construction in any way, including the gloating poses of some of the less polite cultivators.


    In his own words, competent people need not to bully, they prove their superiority with their excellence.


    A motto that surely was not shared by the cultivator that was only able to give them a hostile gaze.


    "A little man with an itch to prove something. That could work." He whispered under his breath while staring absentmindedly at the dirty worker who had just been called an Earth Elemental.


    "And an Earth Elemental that would prove an invaluable asset during the construction." Wu Han connected the dots and a scheme began to take a root in his mind.


    * * * *


    Ir was dark and Wu Han''s whole body ached, the working site slowly emptying after another day of hard work. In spite of it, he took a longer route to his camp around the ditch that had just been finished. He glanced behind his back and saw that his calculations were right, the cultivator he was targeting was guarding the west side of the construction site.


    His name was Bei Lin and he was a cultivator that was quite dangerous for the slums'' standards, but was definitely not at the top. He was among the usual muscle that the sects relied on, the type that was not completely expendable for the sect, but no one would cry for him either if he had not returned from a mission one day.


    "Let''s go." Wu Han abruptly dashed out of the construction site in the direction of the forest, his both hands carrying the most expensive tools he could find.


    The cultivator noticed his suspicious behavior and began following him into the forest after Wu Han had ignored his shouts. Wu Han was relieved that the little man had not attacked him, but began to pursue him instead.


    "Stop, idiotic thief! You will not get far in the forest!" The cultivator was quickly gaining on Wu Han, his better physique of a cultivator showing its worth, until he effortlessly caught his shoulder and stopped his escape.


    They were already deeper in the forest, out of sight of anyone who might be watching what was about to happen.


    Bei Lin turned the escapee forcefully and looked at him with rage.


    "Fuck!" Wu said aloud with joy.


    His plan worked!


    Yet, the cultivator looked strangely at his bright face.


    "There will be serious consequences, not that your brain can understand it. Hand over the tools!" The cultivator doubted Wu Han''s thinking ability when he saw his weird reaction. His confusion had not yet fully transformed into anger, when shadows around them morphed into twisted silhouettes armed with sharp claws that glowed with purple light.


    The monsters had no exceptional stealth abilities, but to hide in a dense forest after dusk was not hard for anyone.


    "Impossible." Bei Lin''s eyes widened, when he saw the stone expression of the apprehended thief. It was obvious that Wu Han was either brain dead, or was working with the enemy. His hand fell off Wu Han''s shoulder and he stumbled a step back.


    "Do not move, this is an ambush." Wu Han said while his heart was racing, in his wildest dreams he would not have imagined that he, a pathetic slum dweller, had just ambushed a cultivator only a short distance from his sect. Luckily, everything went as he had planned so far.


    "Show yourself!" Bei Lin looked frantically around at the encirclement of Void monsters around him. He had obviously arrived at the conclusion that Wu Han was being controlled by some master mind. The thought of a simple worker at the construction site being the master mind of the scheme had never even crossed his mind.


    "I am here. I have a proposition for you." Wu Han was confused himself by the cultivator''s reaction, but continued to say what he had prepared to say.


    "So be it, I will talk to your mouthpiece. What do you want?" Bei Lin focused again on Wu Han, watching him with his narrowed eyes, while warily observing the Void monsters around him that were just standing there, doubtlessly under the control of the same person who controlled the construction worker in front of him.


    "I want to buy your services, from now on, you will be under my command."


    "Bah!" The cultivator snorted disdainfully, spit flying everywhere around him. "How dare you?!"


    "I might be a lowly peasant, but you do not want to anger those that I serve, as they command the might beyond anything even your sect can muster." Wu Han tried to grow a spine and look fearless, his courage nurtured by the sheer number of the Void Horrors the Lord had assigned to his mission.


    "Do you think I can be scared off by a few Void monsters, brat? Think again!" The enraged cultivator was about to do something unwise, when thankfully, Lord Gulden that was doubtlessly watching the confrontation through the eyes of his minions intervened and more Void Horrors appeared at the edge of their vision, accompanied by numerous Void Knights that were even more imposing.


    Given the eerie darkness of the forest, the emerging forces scared even Wu Han himself, despite the fact that they were his reinforcements. He mustered all his courage and tried to look imposing again, he knew what was at stake and he surprised himself by his firm tone.


    "Enough games lowly scum, I act in the name of Lord Karl Gulden, Emperor of The Night, The Void Demon of Oblivion, The Terror of The Deepest Depths. You will bow before his name, or I will summon his legions to encircle and destroy your feeble existence along with your meager sect!" Wu Han thundered with voice he had never heard from himself before, while his long, white hair fluttered in the gentle night breeze.


    "Kneel before his name, or perish!" Wu Han roared while looking at the cultivator.


    Thud.


    All Void Knights knelt on one knee with the tips of their swords propped against the ground.


    All Void Horrors bowed deeply, for their bodily constructions made kneeling impossible.


    Bei Lin watched the spectacle and felt something in him snap. The dread he felt was beyond any of his past experiences, even Lehaim''s famous Desertification did not compare.


    Thud.


    His both knees gave up and he fell in front of the lowly rubble from the slums, when he thought about it, the peasant was somewhat different from ordinary slum dwellers. It had to be the power of his master showing through him.


    Why not to serve a Lord that could make a pathetic dirt from the slums into a general of Void legions?


    The Water Dragon Sect was nothing special, they had already failed once. He looked at the purple glow gathering around him and stopped seeing a threat and started to view it as an opportunity.


    "Command me, Emperor Night Gulden, The Void Demon of The Deepest Karl, I will serve and in return, show me the power beyond the Heavens!" He addressed the mastermind behind Wu Han, as he had considered him a mindless puppet from the start. In his stress he was unsure if he got all the long titles right, but the puppeteer did not seem to mind.


    "So be it. Here, under the light of the full moon, your orders will be delivered to you written in blood. Now go!" Wu Han said in a domineering tone, because he had just run off the script and did not know how to continue. He had not anticipated Bei Lin''s reaction.


    "It will be done, Emperor!" Bei Lin bowed his head and hurried off, back to the construction site. His figure quickly disappeared in the darkness of the forest, leaving Wu Han accompanied only by the ominously glowing minions of his Lord.


    "I have done it." Wu Han crumbled to the ground and began to laugh like mad, ignoring all the Void monsters around him. He had completed the mission and his sister was safe. It was time to return home.


    "Wait, home? That blackmailing scum will never be present wherever my home will be." He corrected himself angrily, but could not get the thought out of his mind.


    * * * *


    Lord Gulden watched a scared, white-haired girl playing near a pillar of his Void Well absentmindedly with pebbles. He had nearly burst into tears at the sight. In her eyes, there was a longing for her absent kin that was fighting against all odds on a dangerous mission. Fighting for their freedom, for their lives.


    How could someone be heartless enough to force her into that position?


    It was the stone in him! It was his stone-hearted part that was to blame!


    Karl failed to ignore Xin Han and his conscience gnawed on him. He always tried to imagine himself being the hero who fought evil and protected all good people, but that was obviously not what he was currently doing.


    He felt like a selfish, psychopathic stone at times and what scared him the most was, that sometimes, he did not even mind to admit it.


    "No, no, that is not the case. I need to keep in mind that all of them are basically starved corpses walking. I gave them a new life and it will get better when we will have finally arrived to the city, where all my plans come into fruition." Karl Gulden persuaded himself and kept staring at Xin while waiting to see if the cultivator named Bei Lin, who had been contracted by Xin''s brother, returned to bite the bait.


    He had no eyes or ears in the city and could only hope that the man was as capable and ambitious as he looked. However, something was telling him that there would be some complications. He could have tunneled to the city from below, but even then, he needed some cover for his operations. A notion that he would have dozens of people entering and exiting sewers without anyone noticing was naive. A cover was necessary if he was to have at least a little freedom inside of the city.


    He felt like a drug lord trying to find a shop for his money laundering scheme.


    "Why the full moon?! I have to wait like two weeks!" Karl thought to himself, but there was nothing he could do. For the sake of theatrics, Wu Han had promised a full moon and they had to wait.


    He switched to the eyes of one of his Void Horrors to reread a message written on a huge tree in deer blood. Wu Han had already prepared it in advance and they only needed to guard the site against unwanted visitors, something completely trivial. In two weeks, Bei Lin would come and read their deal.


    After speaking the names of two Earth spirits, they will be under your command. Use them to acquire the land of the old fort. Further instructions at the site.


    The names are Sauberer and Bauchspeicheldr¨¹se.


    Karl revised the message he had written in deer blood. The names of the spirits just came to him, the first should mean a wizard in a foreign language and the second was simply the most difficult foreign word he could remember. He never had too much talent for learning languages, but the names were inconsequential anyway, the Earth Elementals would naturally lay in wait and appear on his command. Bei Lin would not be in control of anything.


    "Right, I will built some sort of an exchange, a trading company at the old ruin and make some money by selling materials in the city. The resulting connections should serve as a good source of information." Karl thought about his updated plan. At first, he had intended to stuff his servants'' pockets with gold and send them on a mission, but it might be better to simply start doing business with the city.


    Where money flowed, information flowed as well and he would be able to leverage the profit to make people do what he wanted from the shadows. He had to think more on the exact structure of his trading company, but he liked the idea. The money making engine of the company would be his minions and his extraordinary abilities, he would need a layer of the initiated, inner disciples who would be in the know, a layer between his minions and the oblivious trading partners.


    The region would still remain under the jurisdiction of the Water Dragon Sect, who would certainly milk Bei Lin, the face of the operation, for money, but that was of little consequence. Karl was prepared to give up all the money, as he cared only for information. Those who might try to take his business over completely by force would quickly learn that destroying him was not a simple task.


    Overall, he liked the direction all was going and soon, he would have a lot of information about the region and the city, enabling him to better fit in and to scout for more useful buildings that might grant him more amazing powers and minions. He still felt the itch in him to build, to grow, to construct wonders towering to the sky and burying themselves to the deepest chasms.


    "Lord, mission accomplished." A voice surprised him, he had been engrossed into his thoughts enough to overlook Wu Han that had just returned from his mission.


    "Wu Han!" The heap of misfortune playing with pebbles immediately jumped up and ran to hug her brother, who accepted her hug and still tensely looked in the direction of the Void Knight that was currently in care of the seemingly ordinary black stone.


    "You have done well. Enjoy your free time for now." The knight wrote with Void into the air and the man smiled and bowed his head slightly.


    Karl thought about whose turn was next, he needed his inner sect disciples ready when the time came.


    And he desperately, desperately needed to officially present his titles. He did not want to be called The Deepest Karl ever again.

 Chapter 17 The Many-Faced Game

    "Hereby, I proclaim with all seriousness of the matter, henceforth, I am and forever will be known as Lord Karl Gulden, or The Black Emperor if you really have to call me by any titles." Karl stared at Wu Han with penetrative gaze, but no one could really see where he was looking and his penetrating effort had been completely wasted on the smiling, white-haired man that had his sister stuck to him since the moment he had returned from his mission.


    "All the alternatives like, Emperor of The Night, The Void Demon of Oblivion, The Terror of The Deepest Depths. Great Demonic Eye of Doom, Lord Evil Eye and similar abominations of my name are not to be used under any circumstances. Especially the title calling me Emperor Night Gulden, The Void Demon of The Deepest Karl, is strictly forbidden under the pain of death, slow and gruesome. I hope that everyone understands." Karl gazed through the wall of floating purple text he had just written and saw the nodding heads of all his human servants, except for Bei Lin who had already left under his new orders.


    He would do a special address just for him later.


    Karl had assigned the cultivator to start with their business, finding potential buyers for the goods they could produce. They would be using the road that even the Water Dragon Sect needed, meaning the security was not entirely dependent on them. For the time, the sect had been placated with the assistance of the two Earth Elementals that were working on their new fortress day and night around the clock. Given how much importance Lehaim seemed to treat the construction work with, it was clear that Bei Lin had gained quite the influence in the sect by his move of providing two heavy duty workers that could shape the rock and soil faster than an ordinary worker could ever dream of.


    What was left was to bring potential buyers to inspect their produce that consisted of what could be gathered in the forest. Karl hoped to attract the attention of moderately important people with his carcasses, plants, berries and whatever he had managed to scavenge from around their location. He needed to hold back with his operation for the start, making too much money and ending up dealing with the Immortals was definitely not what he intended with his plan.


    "Wu Han, you will be Bei Lin''s handler, you do know him the best. I will tell you when he returns." He wrote while facing the white haired teenager and his face immediately lost a lot of its lightheartedness.


    "And my sister?" He asked while his sister squeezed the young man''s hand more tightly.


    "Stays down here as insurance naturally." Karl wrote in response. He got his feelings, but he did not need unnecessary accidents.


    "Understood." Wu Han answered dryly and the siblings left the Void Well.


    Karl decided to take a look outside, where his ever diligent Rovan had prepared all the goods to be inspected by the buyers. He exited Fort Orlov, using the brand new exit they had to make due to the Water Dragon Sect sealing the original entrance. Thankfully, Bei Lin kept the sect at bay for the time and Karl did not need to bother with any problems regarding the Water Dragon Sect at the moment.


    After the recent battle, the ruin was even more pitiful than before and the courtyard resembled only a plot of land encircled by stone rubble. In the middle of the clearing stood huge wooden planks supported by wooden stumps, a makeshift tables that served to present the goods. It was not much, but Karl did not expect his business to start as something breathtaking.


    The little he had was enough.


    He saw Rovan snooping around a jar with yellow berries that his goblins had gathered. When he ordered his Void Knight to walk closer, Rovan took the initiative and began talking to Karl. Something that the others rarely did.


    "Greythorn berries, I loved them mashed with milk when I was little. It used to be an easy to get meal when there still were some cows and farmers outside the wall." He was looking at the berries while talking about the past.


    "Everything is on a good track to return to the old ways." Karl wrote to bring some optimism into the debate.


    "As you say, Lord Gulden, after we trade the berries, some kids can have the same meal as I used to have." Rovan grinned widely while going along the plank, looking for other familiar goods.


    It might be the first genuine smile Karl had seen from the man.


    Most of it had been identified by those who frequented market in the city. Most goods in slum markets were cheap, but even there had been some rarer merchandise for sale on exceptional occasions. Rovan browsed the goods under the gaze of Karl, but made no further comments.


    Karl noticed that during the long wait, that was taking more time than he had expected, two girls exited the tunnels to get a few sun rays that were sorely missing under the ground. They sat down next to one of the wooden planks and put something onto its smooth wooden surface that had been cut by Void into its present shape.. He thought that he was a little familiar with Xin Han, but the girl with green and black hair named Mei Gon was still a complete mystery to him. Actually, he was proud that he even remembered her name.


    He tried to get closer without being too obvious, an action that was completely unsuccessful, and observed up close what the two were doing while they sat next to one of the wooden planks that had no goods on it.


    They had some kind of coins in front of them and kept throwing them into the air, after a minute, Karl understood that it was some sort of a game.


    "Oh, Lord Karl Gulden, do you want to play?" Mei Gon asked and surprised Karl who had not recognized the game at all.


    "Sure, why not, but I do not know the rules." Karl agreed, because the buyers were nowhere to be seen anyway. He could as well have some fun in the meantime.


    "It is good old Scratchers." Mei Gon presented smoothly, while taking out ten flat pieces of stone from somewhere.


    "Here you go, you can make your own." Karl looked at her for a second, before he realized he was supposed to engrave the word into the ten pieces. After a while, he had his ten game pieces ready with a single letter on each of them.


    S C R A T C H E R S


    It looked rather silly, but he was not expecting rocket science from the girls born in the slums of Jinsheng. He liked his ugly artwork.


    "Now, the rules!" Mei Gon began to explain the rules. " You throw all of them high above your head and when they fall back, you will get either face or flat. Throw them!"


    She urged and Karl threw all the stone pieces into the air and watched as all fell back to the ground and he got his result of four faces and six flats.


    S A R S


    "Well, that is ominous." Karl thought while gazing at the other six blank pieces.


    "Not bad, My Lord, not bad!" Both girls quickly threw their own pieces with different results for Mei Gon and Xin Han.


    C A T C H


    A S


    "Bad luck, Xin! Now is the betting phase. Everyone has to pay one copper to stay in the game or he is out. We have no money, means we use this!" Mei Gon slammed a green piece of stone on the wooden plank and Karl had to think for a while to realized what it was. Not far away, there was a place with a mineral reminding him of pieces of shattered green glass and the teenagers had collected the glass to use as currency in the game.


    "I will give you some of mine, My Lord, we have collected plenty." Mei Gon pushed some of her wealth to Karl and he promptly bet a single piece of glass to stay in the game.


    Why not? He could catch catch with sars easily!


    Another throw happened with the remaining flats and Karl''s luck was good this time.


    S A R S T E C H


    S C A T C H


    C R A T E R S


    He was confident that with his sarstech, craters and scatches could be beaten easily, he was just two letters short of winning.


    "I win in the next round with the probability of one fourth, the game is mine!" Karl thought and happily pushed forward another glass piece.


    It was really the case and Karl was able to win in the next round, both girls staring at him with blank faces.


    He stared into the big eyes of Xin Han, mesmerized by her charm. However, it was just a fleeting notion as he had no longer the fiery instincts of a human male. Suddenly, he had a feeling of deja vu and froze for a moment.


    "Lord Gulden, may I touch your . . may I touch you?" Xin Han asked and lowered her head, Karl had no idea where it was coming from.


    He stared at the teenage girl, the first thing in his mind being something indecent. However, they were not private and it did not make any sense anyway. Karl thought about it again and found nothing too strange about the request.


    "Well, why not, there are my minions around us everywhere." Karl thought and ordered his Void Knight to lift his finger and wrote a short answer.


    "Yes, briefly." The purple text floated in the air and a slender white hand stretched tentatively to touch his surface.


    "Jeeez, it feels so intimate, do not hurt my eyes!" Karl shouted inside of his mind, but his jovial mood ended abruptly when the hand touched his surface and grabbed him firmly within the frame of the next second.


    Instantly, the seemingly tender girl transformed into an enraged beast and hastily tore him off the head of the Void Knight, throwing his solid, black body towards her brother that was not nearby just by an accident.


    "Kill it! Quick!" She roared at her brother who must have been expecting her action for some time.


    "Knight, st. .. AGH!" Karl was reminded that the motion sickness was still affecting him when he moved abruptly and the crucial order to his minion had been interrupted.


    "Gladly!" A familiar voice answered and a second after he heard the voice, he saw a huge rock falling on top of him.


    "Traitor scum!" It was too late and Karl realized that it was a scheme. His faithful servants had not been just loitering around, but observing him closely. Had they realized that he had to order his minions first and could not use them on reflex? Had they deduced his motion sickness? Was that why Xin Han had always been playing near him with pebbles, in fact, observing him all the time with sinister intentions?You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Karl Gulden felt a crack and an unpleasant tension that ran through all his being.


    Cracks, like spiderwebs, spread along his surface and deeper into his very core.


    "It cannot be, they are just teenagers!" He had to be paranoid, but still, the kids were the breed of thieves and gang members who had been thrown out of the city because they had dared to steal from the guards at the gate. They were a completely another breed of teenagers than he had remembered from his old life and the similarity clouded his judgement.


    "I was like your father! How could you?! I saved your lives! Dammit!" The black stone shattered and he felt weightlessness and pressure enveloping him from all sides. The bond with the stone that contained him had been broken and he could see its shards in sand of the Desertified forest.


    He remembered all the near death experiences he read about when he had been a human. Were the people right? Was he seeing his body before he would depart for some strange place again?


    Suddenly, he felt a pull on his being and realized he was being drawn towards the direction he had been thrown from. For a second, he dreaded that the teenagers were devils incarnate and had planned to capture his very soul.


    Despicable demonic cultivators!


    But then, he actually saw again.


    He saw the same girl again, but this time her features were quite different.


    "Da shit finally kicked the bucket!" She said in tone that he had never heard from her before, he could not understand how he had considered her cute just a moment ago.


    "It did, sis, we are free." Wu Han smirked, but then the attention of everyone had been drawn by Karl''s minions that began turning into purple mist.


    "No, no, NO! Status?! Come on!" Karl realized that there was a single minion that had not turned into purple mist and for some reason it was still present without any connection to his previous dungeony self.


    "Run, while it''s still dazed!" Somebody shouted and the teenagers quickly vanished from Karl''s vicinity, leaving there only a single Void Knight that had not fallen apart like all the other minions for reasons unknown.


    Karl realized slowly that he had just been stripped of all his power and his soul possessed the empty husk of his Void Knight before he had the time to disappear after his system had been destroyed.


    He listened to the fading footsteps of the teenagers and suppressed an urge to chase after them and reward them for their loyalty.


    How could he have been so blind, not noticing their treachery?


    "Yet, it is not that surprising." Karl lifted his sword and waved it around to try out its weight, it felt unusually light.


    It was not surprising that Xin Han wanted him dead, when he kept risking her brother''s life. It was no wonder that Wu Han shared her desire, being under the pressure of the possibility of losing his sibling whenever he messed up too badly. It came with no surprise that Rovan played the exemplar of servitude only to stab him in the back later.


    "It is all so obvious, I was blind. A blind fool playing a happy family." Instead of chasing after the teenagers, he let them run and slid along one of the wooden stumps towards the ground, yet stood up right back, as he was not ready to give up just yet. With last sliver of hope, he wandered back down to his layer and entered the no longer functioning Void Well, a dysfunctional husk with two pillars that remained in place of his prized building, a ruin. Nowhere was the dazzling purple glow from before, all the power of Void from before absent.


    All was lost.


    "Positive thinking Karl, positive thinking." He kept repeating in his mind and the only positive thought he managed to have was, that with limbs and torso, he could finally dance like an elven pop-star.


    "Let''s dance" He stepped into the center of the room and grabbed a pillar.


    He was really out of it.


    The pillar blinked at him.


    * * * *


    Xin Han was startled, when the big armored figure hugged her and showed no signs of letting go, gently rocking from side to side. Directly against her eyes was the mysterious black stone that housed the existence of The Black Emperor.


    "Lord Gulden, are you alright?" She asked, a little bruised by the huge armor plates pressed against her skin.


    "Where? What ''s happening? Are you still here? Sorry about that!" The Lord finally let her go and wrote quickly.


    "Where else? We are playing Scratchers. I have just asked if I may touch your stone pieces, they fell off the table. It has to be difficult to move them with your armored hands." She pointed at two pieces that had fallen off the wooden plank after being thrown too high in the air. In response, her mute game partner began writing furiously again.


    "Xin, Mei, everyone, I will not hold you here against your will, none of you. You can go right now, if you wish. Your brother has to be worried about you when he goes out. It was unreasonable of me to ask you all to be here, to treat you like my property. I can escort you to the city, or get you inside from below, Bei Lin will certainly get some money and you can start a new life." Lord Gulden began ranting out of the blue and Xin was confused a little, she did not understand what had suddenly gotten into the Lord.


    "What are you talking about, Lord Gulden? We have more food than we have ever had!" She giggled while waving off all his worries with her hand.


    "Your brother has to be stressed out! I haven''t. .. do you hate me? You can speak freely, I will not hurt you." The Black Emperor still continued conveying the strangest of messages.


    "I . . .I will move your piece, Emperor." She bent and stretched her small hand, picking up two pieces of rock that fell there when the Lord threw them up clumsily before. The pieces appeared in their new place and Xin brushed her hair out of her face.


    "We never think about tomorrow, another day in the slums is just another day of pain and survival. We can eat to our fill here, that is more than we ever had. We know that at some point, you will get tired of us and throw us to your monsters, but we have no hope of any other existence." She gestured her hand in the direction of the forest dejectedly and continued after taking a deep breath." All we can do is enjoy the days we have left and forget about our future." She said in a sad tone and Lord Gulden paused, finally understanding that the game was not meant to entertain Xin, or Mei, but to amuse him.


    To amuse him and prolong their lives.


    "You have won again!" Xin Han shouted merrily and clapped with her hands.


    Yet, he knew he did not. He saw the flats down in the grass.


    "I am not The Black Emperor for nothing!" Karl proclaimed pompously, playing along, while thinking about that very future. Then he began to write with big letters for everyone to see.


    "From this day forth, you must not fear tomorrow, none of you will. I will not let suffering dominate your days ahead, as long as I can draw even a sliver of power, I will do my very best to take care of you. Of us." Karl was moved by how the reality actually compared to his worst hallucinations. Clearly, there was hope even in the darkest of places and not all was just filth in the slums. He had never been a father, but he thought that what he felt at the moment was not very far from that exact feeling.


    He could not say that suddenly, surrounding himself with people and becoming a grand savior of everyone had become his goal, it was just a detail. However, despite a single detail was not enough to mean anything on its own, a collection of details that one surrounded oneself with meant everything. The life itself was just a collection of details.


    Xin Han stared back at him like a statue, but he could tell that all her facial muscles were tight, her jaw clenched from suppressing emotion.


    "Thanks for the game, but I have an empire to run." He wrote jokingly, not wanting to turn the moment too awkward and ordered his minion to quickly walk out in the direction of Bei Lin, who had just arrived with the delegation of potential buyers.


    He assumed the role of an ordinary minion and waited for what was to come.


    * * * *


    "Here are the goods I have prepared, it is trivial for my servants to gather large amounts of anything your eyes can see. You can say that the very forest around you is under my command." Bei Lin walked towards the former courtyard of Fort Orlov, hands clasped behind his back while being followed by several men that had obviously the status of trusted gang members at most. They also might have been formerly influential members fallen from grace who had been chosen for a highly risky mission, their rivals hoping for their thorough disappearance in the dangerous forests around Jinsheng.


    "It is amazing, Sir Bei Lin. With your power, the business will be booming soon." One of the rugged men that followed Bei Lin exclaimed, trying to remain in the good books of the clearly extremely powerful cultivator.


    "Minions, create a secure perimeter while the guests are browsing the goods!" Bei Lin gestured haughtily and the Goblins, Void Horrors and Void Knights assembled at the edge of the clearing, following his command. It was beyond obvious how much he enjoyed the borrowed power he wielded.


    After the initial hesitation, that was natural given the visage of the monsters, the guests swarmed around the makeshift tables and began browsing the goods that could be obtained from their new business partner.


    "How much for the food? I will buy all the food you can gather!"


    "The stumps are for sale too? Wood is currently expensive. Can your servants transport the goods?"


    "Shut it, all meat is mine!"


    The potential buyers started bickering among themselves, the animosity they held towards each other quickly skyrocketing. They had not expected the venture to be a profitable one, expecting it to be simply a plot to get them all killed. Yet, out of the blue they were presented with a deal like no other. All the sects were busy building their forts, walls and roads, no one had the capacity to do business at the time. What was painstakingly gathered in the forests by the cultivators was being redistributed by The Council and only a few rogue cultivators had the guts to do a small scale business for the black market.


    A golden opportunity had been presented to them and they planned to make the most of it, turning themselves from the outsiders sent on a suicide mission back into influential members of their respective gangs and societies.


    "I will sign preliminary contracts with everyone, the most promising customers will have their contracts extended." Bei Lin was enjoying his position of a big shot and the center of attention. He was not the only cultivator present, as influential gangs had their own resources.


    "Sir Bei Lin, could you perhaps provide even military assistance? For the right price of course!" One of the more shady people among the guests asked and winked at Bei Lin, who chuckled in response.


    "Everything is opened for negotiations, for the right price, of course." Bei Lin nodded back at the man who immediately smiled and stroked his black beard, appearing to be thinking of something sinister.


    * * * *


    "What were you thinking, you dummy!?" Karl wrote, enraged by the little man standing in front of him who shivered like a dry leaf.


    "They paid a lot, so I thought. .. . " Bei Lin whispered in low voice, his demeanor completely different from the haughty lord he had been impersonating just an hour ago.


    "Then stop thinking! You were supposed to get us a low profile deal, an ordinary deal. We are not a mercenary band!" Karl was displeased with the result of their presentation. Everything went well, except for the fact that Bei LIn had sold a squad of Karl''s minions to raid a food bank in Jinsheng. The action was intended to create serious trouble for a competing gang called Wolves who ruled the territory from the shadows, tolerated by the authorities.


    It was exactly the kind of thing Karl wanted to avoid.


    "We need to cancel the deal somehow without damaging out credibility." The action had already been paid for and Karl did not want to enter Jinsheng as a liar who was breaking deals. At the same time, he could not act as aggressively as raiding a food bank.


    "I have an idea." Suddenly, a person stepped up to the task. Surprisingly, it was the youngest member of Karl''s little empire, Kou Linhai. His long black hair a tangled mess as always, he stopped playing with the others and stood up to tell them his opinion. "Just smash their noses! The dogs should be left barking on the moon, that is all they can do. That is what the old Karzak used to say."


    "Care to explain?" Karl turned to Kou Linhai, more out of decency than any hope that his proposal could actually lead to something.


    "He is right, do it like the old fox and smash their noses. What can they do?" A whirlwind of red hair joined the debate, as Rovan had long concluded his inspection of the goods and Scratchers seemed to no longer amuse him.


    Bei Lin and Karl simply turned to face Rovan, expecting the answer from him.


    "Karzak is the old shopkeeper that used to be in the Purple Lotus Sect, but was kicked out because of his methods. He opened his business at the border of the slums and the old manufacturing district. Some gangs tried to collect protection from him, but did it twice at most."


    "How is that possible? Whole gangs could not be afraid of a single shopkeeper." Karl wrote with doubts about the story of a tough shopkeeper facing the gangs. "Had he connections in the sects?"


    "Nah, no one influential. He was selling subpar goods and the gangs lost a few members every time they have tried something. He was not worth the effort and the gangs did not want to risk too much just for posturing, as he was dangerously close to the Liang Plaza." Rovan continued, expecting that there would come a moment of realization to Karl and Bei Lin, but they just kept staring blankly at Rovan.


    "Well, we are very close to the fortress of the Water Dragon Sect and we peddle basic goods. Our merchandise might be very valuable to ordinary people, but not to the cultivators. We are in the very same position as old Karzak. I propose to just bully the gangs and keep our word only when dealing with serious customers." Rovan shifted his glance from Bei Lin to Karl and this time, he saw understanding in Bei Lin''s eyes. "Just keep the advanced payments from everyone and honor the deals that we made with serious customers."


    "Interesting proposal, we can try that." Karl said after a while. The fingers of the city gangs were not long enough to reach them where they were and even if they managed, it would pose an opportunity to gain information as well and that was the purpose of the whole operation.


    With time, the forest around them would inevitably turn into just another district of Jinsheng. They needed to integrate into the city, but no one said that being integrated equaled to being exploited, Karl only needed to look like a too tough target to be worth the trouble for the big players. It might be wise to take a different approach with the gangs.


    "Generalization is for amateurs, we need to deal with different players differently to achieve good results." Karl Gulden thought while recalling the names of organizations that had just paid them a visit.

 Chapter 18 Exposed

    We have waited for days and the food bank still stands. The Wolves took out another two of our places and we no longer have enough boys to push them back. What happened to your powerful ally? A forest demon my ass Gregsis, you are full of shit. You screwed us over. We are coming for you Gragsis, I will personally hang you by your long filthy beard. You better run into the forest to your imaginary friend.


    Bright purple eyes skimmed the contents of the letter stained with blood that lay crumpled on a table that despite being luxurious, was incredibly old and was nearly falling apart. The room was dark, the eyes of common folk never meant to see its insides. On the floor, there were bodies everywhere, some of them stripped naked and marked with symbols engraved into their flesh, the work of a madman pushed into a corner.


    The woman handed over the letter to a man that was veiled in a purple robe that was almost identical to hers. He looked through the contents as well and snorted disdainfully.


    "We missed all the fun and a forest demon again? I am beginning to think it is not just a fairy tale. What do you think, Master?" The man was very young, his eyes had the same purple color as his robe, but his hair was just half-purple and its other half was green.


    All knew what that meant, he was a mixed pureblood.


    "Might be, the important part is that the demon is dead." She answered to her new disciple that had been forced upon her by the sect. She was aware of the rumors that she was turning too grumpy and a fresh prodigy disciple to guide was, in the opinion of her comrades, the right way to improve her mood.


    "A demon? I thought he was a human." The man said while circling around the room, mixed purebloods were usually less powerful than ordinary purebloods despite their greater versatility, but there was always an exception to a rule. Artoan Vita was such an exception.


    "Don¡§t play with words, you know well what I mean. True demons do not hide in cellars. They rely on instincts, they hunt." The Purple Flash moved in a blink of purple into the center of the ritual chamber, doing honor to her name, and looked again around the room.


    "A pity, it might have been more fun." Artoan sighed, eagerness for action overflowing from him.


    "Cut it, let''s call the cleaners." Yen Gon clicked her tongue in annoyance. She preferred solving trouble in the city compared to the boring plans on expansion of her husband. There was no doubt that she was more efficient doing what she had the most experience in, hunting demonic cultivators that appeared in the city. However, even she did not like the recent rumors. If demonic cultivators survived outside of the city, it meant that their capability was considerable and a similar group represented much bigger threat than Gregsis.


    The last thing they needed was another Cult of Mezzaiel.


    Gregsis was just another example of an outlaw that had been pushed into a corner and tried to use the absence of Heavenly Tribulations to turn himself into a demonic cultivator. Unfortunately for him, it was not as easy as he had predicted and the mad Gregsis ended up slaughtering half of his band while the rest fled to the streets, attracting the attention of the Purple Lotus Sect that had been tasked with security of the specific region.


    "It might be that you have not been completely robbed of all the fun, Artoan Vita." Yen addressed her disciple in an overly formal way and watched a group of men that barged into the underground hideout while shouting obscenities.


    "Prepare to pay with your life and all your money, liar!" A burly man leading the group shouted when he opened the door even before he could take in the situation that was not what he had expected. The moment he saw the two people in purple robes, he made a long face and froze in place.


    "I like people who spare my time, thank you for joining the investigation, gentlemen." Yen Gon gave the band a smile that could not be more fake and slowly walked closer to the motionless thugs.


    "Pu. .. pu. . .pu . .. " The leading thug could not even finish his words, when he understood that they had stumbled upon The Purple Flash herself, when meeting the members of the Purple Lotus Sect would have been a disaster big enough.


    "Poo poo will come later, now we talk." Artoan was enjoying the situation and kept waiting for anything that might give him the grounds to eradicate the thugs from the face of Jinsheng forever.


    "We are just visiting an old friend! Nothing malicious!" The leading thug tried to salvage the situation, while very slowly backing away to the door that was still opened.


    "Certainly, we have seen the letter." The thugs paled when they heard Yen''s cold words. "Tell me about what you know about this forest demon and tell me everything if you want to walk out through that door back up in one piece."


    The group of stinking men looked at each other and gulped, what they chose was crystal clear.


    "There are rumors of a new source of food. The word on the street is that some man from the Water Dragon Sect has a huge operation in the forest. He sells all kinds of stuff, he will sell you even your old mother if you pay the price." The boss of the group of men began talking about what he knew about the mysterious new business entity from outside the forest.


    "That is of course a lie! You saw the letter, the promised troops never arrived!" One of the underlings shouted and the boss looked at him angrily for interrupting him.


    "What a shame, continue." Yen Gon said sarcastically and gestured at the boss to tell her more.


    "That is all we know, but the fool Gregsis kept yapping about how powerful he is, commanding armies of Void monsters, Goblins and all kinds of nasty vermin."


    "Goblins you say, is the group that assaulted the Water Dragon Sect involved?" Yen Gon muttered for herself and continued firmly aloud.


    "That might be enough. Get lost." She did not need to tell the thugs twice, as they were running out of the ritual chamber the moment she said the words.


    Yen did not even think about investigating whatever lawlessness the thugs were involved in. Criminals undermining the system in a fundamental way needed to be punished to deter others from contributing to the city''s destruction, petty crime was inconsequential. It was the sad truth that Yen Gon had learned over the years, when they lacked the resources to fight back against every little pickpocket.


    "Do you have some clue, Master?" Artoan asked Yen Gon hastily, when he saw that his Master let the thugs go.


    "It is time to visit Water Dragon Lehaim and ask him some questions, I hope it won''t be the worst scenario." Yen Gon furrowed her brows because of the seriousness of the matter.


    "What do you mean, Master Yen Gon?" Artoan had never seen his Master making a similar face and hoped that the said scenario would not come to pass.


    "No, that is impossible, Lehaim is not that stupid. It must be something else." Yen Gon set off in the direction of the door, not minding the corpses around her. "Come, time is of the essence."


    Yen Gon wondered if those rumored Goblins were the same ones from before and hoped that Lehaim had not made a pact that might cost the city too dearly in the future. The Purple Flash had seen whole sects decimated by dealings with powerful demonic cultivators and prayed that Lehaim was not too desperate for a positive evaluation of his land.


    * * * *


    Karl advanced steadily towards his goal to explore the extent of his powers. He had more or less decided that to kill one million Immortals and reach beyond the Heavens would also mean to kill something in him that he was not willing to sacrifice. That left him with trying to explore places of historical significance where he might discover something exceptional to both boost his power and explore his new identity.


    In the end, what was power really? An extent of one''s ability, or rather the level of understanding? Obviously, the first was of little use without the second.


    Maybe, if he truly lived for uncountable years, he would reach higher levels anyway, but not by murdering people willy-nilly, but simply due to the fact that every number was small in the face of infinity. In a way, the exploration of the extent of his ability meant exploring himself, an interesting prospect, as all goals were meaningless unless he truly knew himself.


    "Our city is in the phase of expansion and the cities around us should be in ruins. Jinsheng is in a good position to explore and expand if its might is sufficient." Karl thought about riding the wave of development for his own ends along with the initiated few around him.


    He observed through the eyes of his minions how the various goods that the clients demanded was being delivered to the target locations. The places had been chosen near enough the city that the threat from the wild beasts was manageable and most of the goods was carried inside with the help of the bribed guards or illegally extended sewer tunnels. The boldest and most upfront of businessmen simply picked up the goods and carried it inside pretending they had gathered it themselves.


    Karl was amazed by all the schemes and ideas that the various organizations and individuals used to get the materials inside without rising suspicion from the authorities. All knew that if they failed in their schemes, a terrible fate called taxes could befall upon them.


    The hunger for the outside goods was greater than Karl had anticipated and in just over a week of doing business, he ended up with enough capital to buy a simple building inside the city.


    "Everything goes well, " Karl thought while watching the articles left over from the presentation slowly disappearing, ferried off by mostly goblins that kept moving everything to gathering points closer to the city.


    "Wu Han! Wu Han! Wu Han!" Karl turned to the place where vegetation parted and a person exited from the green foliage with haste. It was Bei Lin and judging by his expression, he was in distress.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "Damn, I jinxed it." Karl looked around and saw confused Wu Han that slowly walked to the stumbling Bei Han, who ran in his direction immediately when he saw him.


    "Trouble never sleeps, I hope it is not serious." Karl muttered and walked closer as well to find out what was the commotion about.


    * * * *


    "Bei Lin, I would never guess you had such a potential in you. I might be inclined to make you my personal disciple if you were younger. " An old man''s gnarled hand landed on Bei Lin''s shoulder with an audible clap, both man laughing merrily in a good mood.


    "Water Dragon Lehaim, I would not dare!" Bei Lin smiled at the sect leader of the Water Dragon Sect. He had never been especially talented in cultivation, but the sudden fortune meant he enjoyed a similar level of respect to an Elder. The only step he needed to make was to remove the middleman and get closer to The Black Emperor himself. By observation, he would be surely able to unearth the secret to his power and take it for himself.


    "You have never struck me as a talent in cultivation, what is your progress?" Lehaim stared Bei Lin in the eyes and the smaller cultivator wanted to strangle him due to his shame. His cultivation had been stagnant for far too long and it was none of the old fart''s business.


    "I am at the third stage, Esteemed Elder."


    "Hmph, at least you got the Idols long behind you. Come, let''s have something to drink, thanks to your hired helpers, we are ahead of schedule already!" For a moment, Bei Lin saw disappointment in Lehaim''s eyes and pushed down his rising anger.


    "Just you wait, when I find out the secret of the demonic cultivator. You will all be crawling at my feet." Bei Lin thought, his thought interrupted by the sudden arrival of two figures in purple clothing.


    "What a good idea, Elder Lehaim! May we join to drink to your great success?" The leading female figure smiled at Lehaim, as if they were old friends.


    "Of course, Elder Yen Gon, only the best for my future neighbor!" Lehaim continued in good spirits and steeped closer to the table with refreshments that stood under the clear sky of the construction site.


    "Perfect, we are here on the business of keeping demonic influence in check. Something that should probably be discussed in private." Yen Gon expression lost its initial smile and Lehaim''s hand that was already holding a bottle froze for a second.


    "I think that we are fine, it is not that serious, right?" Lehaim waved his hand and the cultivators that were in their immediate vicinity moved into a respectable distance. XXXXwho


    "There are rumors of a forest demon trying to take roots in the city." Yen Gon sighed heavily while shaking her head. Afterwards, she quickly looked directly into Lehaim''s eyes and continued. "It would be the best for everyone if forest demons stayed in the forests."


    "Indeed." Lehaim laughed while trying to offer Yen Gon a cup of liquor, but she refused it with a slight gesture of her hand. "Ah, not drinking on duty, I see."


    "We have just stopped by to see if everything is alright, given the rumor, but it seems that the Water Dragon Sect is as capable as ever." Yen Gon said in a measured way and pointed at an earthen figure in the distance. "You sure have recruited some interesting helpers, I commend your resourcefulness, Elder Lehaim."


    "They are superb, the fortress will be ready in time. We have even enlarged the courtyard!" Elder Lehaim pointed at the place where the two earthen figures were currently working tirelessly, employing powers typical for Earth Elementals.


    "I envy your contacts, Elder Lehaim. If everything is alright here, we will continue our pursuit of the rumored forest demon." Both people in purple robes bowed and left as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Lehaim standing there with a bottle and cup in his hand.


    The sect leader turned the small cup bottom up and its contents fell to the ground with a splash, making a stain on the polished stone underneath Bei Lin and Lehaim.


    "I lost my appetite." He said and looked at Bei Lin who was trying to act as if not present.


    "Tell me, my friend, do you perhaps know something about this forest demon? Doubtlessly, a person with unusual methods and abilities." Lehaim turned his head slowly and ended up staring at the two working elementals, leaving his words hanging in the air.


    Meanwhile, blood was rushing into Bei Lin''s head, his heart beating faster with every second. Dealing with demonic cultivators had always been frowned upon, but in the present times of uncertainty, there was no telling what level of contact his superior might tolerate.


    "I just. .. .I." Bei Lin wanted to say something, but the situation was too obvious and he could no longer dodge the bullet.


    "I am not stupid, Bei Lin, and worst of all, even the dogs of the old Immortal aren''t." Lehaim stepped closer to Bei Lin and whispered into his ear in a sinister tone, a stark contrast to the merry atmosphere just minutes ago.


    "I hope that you understand what their departure without a word mean, the trouble on our land are our responsibility and any mess you create here will be mine to clean."


    "Esteemed Elder, there will be no trouble! I promise!" Bei Lin fell to the floor into a submissive posture while shivering, not minding the spilled drink that was staining his clothes.


    "Good. Do not mess this up, there is no other city to retreat to." Lehaim spoke icily and turned around, leaving the suddenly risen star of the Water Dragon Sect shaking on the ground.


    The implications of what had just happened were clear to Bei Lin, it would be his head rolling if anything went awry with the infamous forest demon.


    * * * *


    "Wu Han! Wu Han, the sect knows! What should we do?!" Bei Lin had ignored the obvious unfamiliarity with his supposed superior Wu Han and started shaking with him, something that looked quite hilarious from Karl''s angle, because of Bei Lin''s lacking height.


    "The city knows? How?!" Wu Han''s eyes widened and he immediately glanced at a Void Knight that approached them, doing the first action that came to his mind in his distress.


    "Emperor! The Water Dragon Sect knows about your empire!" Wu Han blurted our quickly, before realizing that Bei Lin was not supposed to be privy to the fact that the leader of the operation was one of the minions, not even speaking about the fact that Karl being a stone should be unclear to even most of the teenagers.


    Karl understood that he was about to make a mistake, showing the small black stone that was strapped to the Void Knight''s forehead to Bei Lin, whom he did not trust at all and quickly turned around, leaving the two men staring at each other in bewilderment.


    "What emperor?" Bei Lin stared at Wu Han in confusion.


    "Emperor?" Wu Han''s eyes followed the disappearing back of the present bearer of The Black Emperor''s true body.


    Soon, a nearby Void Horror that guarded the place floated closer to the duo and wrote a message in the air with Void. Wu Han found it more clumsy than usual, but it was still the handwriting of Lord Karl Gulden nonetheless.


    "So what? It changes nothing about our strategy. Better grow some balls and go to Jinsheng, I need those books that we have talked about."


    "That is the will of The Black Emperor!" Wu Han told Bei Lin, glad that the trouble had been resolved quickly, without much effort on his part. "The Water Dragon Sect is of no concern, continue with your assignments as planned."


    "Of course, as The Black Emperor commands." Bei Lin nodded quickly several times, even forgetting that he should be upset about a slum dweller with no cultivation giving him orders. "I will go at once."


    Shortly, Bei Lin was heading in the direction of Jinsheng with an escort of minions that had been forced upon him by Karl, as he was in no state of mind to keep himself safe in the perilous forests around the city.


    * * * *


    "As we thought, but isn''t he a little rat, this Bei Lin?" Artoan Vita whispered while looking at the scene in the distance. They were hiding far away in the lush vegetation, paranoid about being spotted by numerous monsters that wandered aimlessly in the area. According to The Purple Flash, they were all agents of the demonic entity that was probably the same existence that had been dubbed a forest demon in Gregsis'' letter.


    "So what? It changes nothing about our strategy. Better grow some balls and go to Jinsheng, I need those books that we have talked about." Yen Gon repeated under her breath the only sentence they had been able to spy on, due to the fact that it had been written in the air using traces of Void.


    "This Black Emperor cannot be the minion, such an entity has to reside in a Vessel." It was common sense that only the third stage of Mojo Crystallization and above had a Vessel to house a soul and even then, the Vessel was fully complete only since the fourth stage of Soul Binding.


    Possessing a monster without a Vessel was a grey area. It could be done, but demons capable of advanced planning and intrigue were usually more stable and needed a Vessel. Yen Gon knew when she saw an organized group that could not be led by a thoughtless Abomination.


    "Isn''t the monster stage three? It looks strong." Artoan seemed to be pondering about their chances in case they needed to confront the demonic forces.


    "The Void tin cans should be borderline three, but this one is a solid two." Yen Gon theorized and watched an escort forming in the distance. She remembered from her spies embedded in the Water Dragon Sect that the hulking steel figures were most likely the most powerful, although there was little information about their actual combat ability.


    "Will we engage?" Artoan asked and his body tensed. Given who was beside him, he had no doubt about their victory, but the fight would not be something taken lightly given the numbers and unknown origin of the threat.


    "No, this might be the same trick as before." Yen Gon fell deep in thought. Just a moment ago, she saw what was strapped onto the forehead of one of the Void Knights before it turned around and left for the entrance of the demonic den. She still remembered the embarrassment with the bird and was unwilling to fall into the same trap again.


    "Tail them, I will get someone more suited for the job before they enter the city. We need to determine what damned book the demon is after." She whispered in a hurry and departed in the direction of the city the next moment. A small, well-organized demonic sect operating on the future territory of the city was not something she could ignore. The suicidal thugs meddling with demonic cultivation could be left to someone else, she should solve the threat of the black stone once and for all.


    "Well, The Black Emperor, as the demon calls itself. What arrogance." She snorted and continued racing towards Jinsheng to prepare for a quick counter-intelligence operation.


    Left behind, her disciple watched the procession heading towards the city from a distance.


    Luckily, The Purple Flash was a top tier figure in Jinsheng and even her disciple was able to reach for some enchanted gear that made it easier to avoid the common dangers of wilderness. Still, with no luck, his position could be exposed, but he had confidence in getting away if that happened.


    In the group, there was the traitor from the Water Dragon Sect, Bei Lin, and a handler that appeared to be ordering him, a young boy with white hair, even younger than Artoan himself. On the monsters'' side, there was the minion that had messaged the two earlier along with three others of its kind and a group of a dozen Goblins that ran constantly around, almost sniffing him out on occasions.


    The Void minion had obviously turned to an ordinary mob minion and Artoan tried to recall if he heard of a case of a demon that could jump from monster to monster possessing them as it willed. He failed to remember a single case in all the books he read and started to have an uneasy feeling in his guts.


    "Just tailing them while this might be a coordinated attack?" He was fascinated by the legend of The Purple Flash and knew that she had not reached her position by following orders. If he wanted to make a name for himself and achieve a similar level of recognition, he needed to do more than what was expected of him.


    However, it was not his time yet.


    He kept tailing the demonic forces until they reached the city gate and the escort of monsters left. Along with them, the teen that accompanied Bei Lin left as well and the Water Dragon Sect cultivator was left alone, heading for the gates of Jinsheng.


    At the same time, a group of people dressed in camouflaged leather armor appeared in front of Artoan, guided to him by an enchanted guild ring he wore on his hand for exactly that purpose.


    "Sir, we take it from here." Artoan listened to the leader of the group that had been obviously sent by Yen Gon that strangely was not part of the group.


    "Master is. .. ?"


    "Preparing further security measures in the city." The man responded with professionalism and waited for Artoan to leave. He did not know who exactly the unit was, but they appeared to be the members of the Immortal Guard, uninvolved in sect politics.


    In general, the cultivators of the sects focused a lot on advancement of their cultivation base to higher levels in hope of achieving similar levels of power to Yen Gon, or Lehaim. Those who had little hope of advancement and wished to pursue a different path often chose to serve in the Immortal Guard where they focused fully on combat ability, espionage and other matters of the city''s security.


    "I will be on my way." Artoan Vita nodded and left, but not in the direction of the city, he followed the white haired teenager that appeared to be returning to the demon''s camp.


    "Four stage two Void Moinsters, this will be close." He sneaked closer to the group and waited for the best opportunity to ambush one of the monsters. He completely ignored the Goblins that should not pose a threat to him.


    "Better safe than sorry." When he reached close enough, he took a spherical device from under his robe that was covered with blue runes. It was a paralyze grenade created from a rare Forest Stalker that lived deeper in the forest and usually possessed Paralyze Mojo that was extremely useful for crafting similar devices. Artoan hesitated a little, but decided to use the expensive weapon given the high stakes.


    Extracting information from Bei Lin''s superior would bring him enough merit to outweigh the device''s cost.


    He took a deep breath and threw the grenade to the midst of the group that was luckily traveling close together.

 Chapter 19 A Map

    "Book, book, book, alright." Bei Lin was extremely nervous, he felt like a noose was tightening around his neck. He was supposed to go into a library and search for records of historically significant places, or landmarks of the region. However, he would have to be blind not to see all the people that were following him. Lehaim had clearly decided not to leave him alone and he had seen a group of Water Dragon disciples following him all the time, not even hiding their presence.


    "He wants to send me a message, Lehaim''s way of saying that I am his bitch." Bei Lin cursed under his breath.


    He needed to make himself scarce quickly without angering The Black Emperor.


    Suddenly, he got an idea and walked to the street that led through the former manufacturing district that was much more quiet that it used to be, as the inflow of materials was not as plentiful as before and most of the businesses ceased their operation. He was not interested in manufacturing at all, he entered one of the old shops that remained even through all the hardship the city had been through.


    "Hello Karzak, how you doing?" He greeted the old shopkeeper and the old man that sat behind the counter had to think for a while to remember the man who was greeting him.


    "Oh, isn''t it the little broken heart? Here to buy yet another gift to impress a lady?" The shopkeeper laughed and Bei Lin wanted to punch him in the face for reminding him of an incident he wanted to forget.


    "No, I decided to study geography. Do you have some books?" Bei Lin claimed with serious face, startling his conversation partner.


    "What?! Well, none of my business, but books . . . " The shopkeeper appeared to be confused by the request and scratched himself on his head. ". . my shop has wide variety of goods, but you would find better stuff in a library."


    "Libraries do not interest me, they are too stuffy." Bei Lin claimed, not bothering to cover up his obvious dishonesty.


    "Stuffy?" Karzak asked questioningly, but his business face quickly replace his inquisitive expression.


    "Well, I do not have any books about geography, but I have quite a few maps. If you want books with geography, I have only these kind of books." Karzak pulled out a thin book from one of the cabinets and handed it over to Bei Lin, who opened it on the spot and began to read.


    Seven steps east, seven north,


    our Elders fart loud and snort.


    Seven steps west, seven south,


    their disciples have foul mouth.


    Gather sister their coins quick,


    you just need to blow their dick.


    . . . .


    "This is supposed to be. . .?" Bei Lin gazed back at the old man in daze.


    "Slum fairy tales, or something of that sort. The artist is quite talented, no?" Karzak laughed heartily while slapping his knee, but Bei Lin did not share his glee.


    "Alright, it is not that much geographic, maybe a little graphic on later pages, but it is the best I''ve got, Sir! If you are not interested, here I have some maps." The old man took back the vulgar piece of art and threw a heap of paper onto the counter. Maps of various sizes and qualities that he had gathered over the years.


    "I hope there is something solid." Bei Lin sighed and the old man snorted with dissatisfaction.


    "Only solid goods in my shop, no deception." He stated and watched the visitor going through the maps one by one.


    Bei Lin knew a thing or two about geography of Jinsheng and his old city, which was not common knowledge for a simple conman. He used his knowledge to quickly filter through the maps that were overly inaccurate or false and was left with a much smaller pile.


    "You have a good eye, kid." The shop keeper nodded when he observed his selection. The old fox must have known that many of the maps were just thought up fabrications, but he did not hesitate to try and sell them anyway.


    "I will take all these!" Bei Lin stated and Karzak brows shot up high.


    "You do not know the price yet." The old man looked warily at the young cultivator, he remembered that last time, Bei Lin had not been a particularly wealthy person.


    "Will this be enough?" Bei Lin took out his purse and turned it over above the counter, emptying its contents. Gold coins started rolling everywhere, but Bei Lin did not care, because he was aware that The Black Emperor cared little about money.


    "Happy doing business with you, Dear Sir! The maps are all yours." Karzak smiled and bowed his head deeply. "If your interest persists, this old man might get you the best books about geography you can find."


    "It is alright, the maps will suffice." Bei Lin stuffed the maps into his sack and quickly left the shop, hoping that what he got would be enough to satisfy his superior. In the distance, his unwelcomed companions from the Water Dragon Sect were already waiting for him to remind him that Water Dragon Lehaim was still watching his every move.


    Between Lehaim, The Black Emperor and The Purple Flash, he was beginning to realize that what he had gotten himself into was well over his head and he needed a plan to get out of his predicament.


    "I need to really make myself scarce somehow, but first I have to deliver the maps." He sighed and sped up in the direction of the city gate as if the cobblestone under him was burning his feet.


    * * * *


    "Has my brother really run away?" Xin Han asked one of the Void Knights with trembling voice. She was afraid for her brother and at the same time, she knew that his betrayal would have had serious consequences for her safety.


    "Unlikely." One of the Void Knights drew a single word in the air.


    Karl had to admit that the attack was unexpected.


    Some of his Goblins avoided the explosion and he had seen that an enchanted device had been used during the ambush and the flashy purple robe was also something that was hard to miss.


    "It was the Purple Lotus Sect." He wrote, it still boggled his mind what had the Purple Lotus Sect to do with the matter. It happened on the territory of the Water Dragon Sect and other sects had no business operating in their territory.


    "It has to be The Purple Flash, I am so fed up with that sniffing rat!" Karl thought about what to do next, the good part was that Wu Han had been stunned, not killed, meaning the confrontation had not yet escalated into a war.


    "No matter, sometimes leaves fall in the forest. Wu Han will need to use his wits to survive. Let''s hope they do not kill him off if they have undertaken the trouble to take him alive in this kind of a stunt." What troubled Karl more was that he had close to no knowledge about the explosive device used. He had not felt the need to ask around, because no one seemed to be using enchantments amass, but such items could clearly play a key role in crucial situations.


    "I am as clueless as ever, at least there will be some progress after Bei Lin returns from his mission. Buying information might be my next step." Karl thought about his further plans, it was very difficult to say if it was the right time to leave Jinsheng to explore the region for better Buildings or not. He was decided to leave at some point, but the timing was unclear.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    A person that arrived at the ruins of Fort Orlov disturbed his planning, it was Bei Lin, but he was not alone, there was some sort of an escort tailing him in the distance that obviously belonged to the Water Dragon Sect. Bei Lin seemed to be resigned to the fact and simply ignored them.


    "Huh, this cannot continue." Karl stepped towards the cultivator with his Void Knight and wrote with large letters in the air.


    "Tell them to summon Lehaim here, we need to talk. I have an offer for him he will not refuse."


    It seemed that Karl had only two options at this point. Evacuate the place and search for another base, loosing any progress he had made at Jinsheng, or involve the Water Dragon Sect to the point it would be in their interest to actively protect his operation.


    He continued to write in much smaller letters that the cultivators in the distance could not see.


    "Show me what you have found, we need to prepare for the worst case scenario." Karl wrote and Bei Lin paled, but still complied with the request.


    "Based on all the geographic evidence I have found, I have constructed a map with places of interest." Bei Lin lied with a straight face and pulled our the best map he had selected in advance. It was not much, but still thousand times better than the fairy tale book.


    "Lehaim?" Bei Lin asked uneasily, not sure how nosy he was allowed to be while communicating with the minion that seemed to be in some way possessed by The Black Emperor.


    "I need to make some things clear to prevent other sects from targeting my people in a similar way to Wu Han." Karl wrote causally in response and Bei Lin nearly choked on his own saliva.


    "I-I will tell Lehaim personally. No need for a middle man!" Bei Lin said hastily and the minion just showed him thumbs up.


    An hour later, Bei Lin fell onto the stone floor of the half-completed fortress of the Water Dragon Sect while facing Elder Lehaim, who was frowning at him.


    "Water Dragon Lehaim, you need to protect me! I am being blackmailed by a demon! Please save my life!" Bei Lin squirmed on the ground in self-pity, while the few cultivators behind him were shaking their heads. They were the ones who had been following him all day. One of them stepped forth and bowed to Lehaim.


    "Elder Lehaim, the demon wants to talk with you. I do not recommend to agree to the meeting in case it is a trap." Although the speaker was dressed similarly to Bei Lin, his behavior was much more professional.


    "Bah! A trap?!" Lehaim snorted haughtily. "I look forward to it, it is time to make a move about this whole Forest Demon matter. Lead the way!"


    Lehaim left with Bei Lin still on the ground. When he left, he slowly got up and began searching for the most secure section of the castle where he hid himself from the world, all his worldly ambitions dissolved in fear, at least for a time.


    * * * *


    "What is the meaning of this, Elder Yen Gon? Is it common for your disciples to attack families of other sects on their own territory?" An old man stormed into the office of The Purple Flash, his beard disheveled and robes unbuttoned. He appeared to had been rushing to the Purple River all the way to communicate his rebuke to the old hero that sat in her brand new office.


    "Elder Lehaim, what have I done to deserve the Water Dragon Sect''s attention? You have never visited our new headquarters before." Yen Gon asked, sighing internally, prepared for yet another fruitless struggle for territory with their neighbor.


    "Well, new headquarters." Lehaim looked out of the window at the clearly blue river enclosed by dense green vegetation and held back a snort. In his mind, it was laughable to insist on its new name, but hubris of cultivators had few limits.


    "Never mind, as I have said, your sect had seized a family member of our cultivator. I demand his immediate release!" Lehaim refocused his attention at the person sitting behind a desk with many notes written everywhere, obviously still busy finishing the relocation process of the Purple Lotus Sect.


    "That must be a mistake." Yen Gon spoke calmly and finally started to pay her conversation partner her full attention.


    "It is not. Xin Han, come and tell Elder Yen Gon about the incident." Lehaim called behind his beck and a petite female with white hair appeared from his back, dressed in the traditional garments of the Water Dragon Sect.


    She was obviously stressed out from the presence of both high level cultivators, immediately bowed to Yen Gon and greeted her in the most formal manner she could pull off. Despite her effort, there was no reaction from the other party.


    "Who is she? Your maid or something? She is just a mortal." The Purple Flash uttered while gazing sharply at Lehaim who remained stoic. An experienced cultivator was able to distinguish between mortals and cultivators, as all cultivators had their bodies enhanced and moved slightly differently from ordinary humans.


    Lehaim simply clasped his hand behind his back and remain staring at Yen Gon, while Xin Han stayed in her deep bow.


    Seconds ticked and The Hero of Jinsheng began to play with a pencil that lay on her desk.


    When she nearly broke her pencil, Yen Gon sighed and leaned into her chair.


    "I hope you do remember what we have talked about before, Water Dragon Lehaim." Her purple eyes were fixed on the old man, who acted as if everything was just business as usual.


    "Despite being old, my memory serves me well." He smiled lightly, stylized into the role of a good and wise old man.


    "In that case, we should not delay reuniting the . .. " She paused and glanced at the still bowed person in front of her. A smirk appeared on her face briefly. " . . . a member of your sect with her family. Still, I will count it as a small favor for the Water Dragon Sect. "


    "Of course, Elder Yen, of course." Lehaim said quickly and turned to leave the office. "We will wait outside, admiring the beauty of your Purple River."


    The two members of the Water Dragon Sect left and Yen Gon kept staring at the door absentmindedly.


    "You better take your promise seriously Lehaim, because I will." She whispered and called a guard to arrange the release of their prisoner.


    She could not babysit a figure like Lehaim, who needed to take responsibility for his own schemes in case his plans backfired. At the same time, it would serve as a lesson to Artoan, who had made a reckless move without her knowledge. Despite the whole situation ending as a farce, it was useful to know that the force hidden behind Lehaim bothered to save a nobody like Wu Han.


    After some time, far away from the Purple River, three people dressed in the robes of the Water Dragon Sect entered an access tunnel hidden among stone rubble and descended until they reached a simple closed wooden door, a tall figure covered in plate armor standing in front of it. To its left, there was a halfblood cultivator of a low rank. She was dressed in dimple leather armor, fidgeting from time to time, obviously not used to the her outfit, her hair that were half green and half black swaying every time she decided to adjust her stance or the clothing underneath.


    "The Black Emperor is expecting you." The girl said, opening the door and the monster knight stepped aside.


    The people of the Water Dragon Sect entered a large hall carved into rock. Lehaim guessed that the space was supposed to be a throne room, but the art and the style of the room was too dark and deviant for his taste, almost to the point of being chaotic.


    "Pleasure doing business with you, Your Majesty." Lehaim gestured for the two people at his side to continue forward, he himself halting his steps long before reaching the monstrous knight.


    "The pleasure is mine, sect master Lehaim." Karl responded with purple text floating in the air as always. "I see that you have not reported my presence as promised, a wise choice."


    "My sect will always strive to protect your secrets, Your Majesty. As long as we control the territory, no one will bother you." Lehaim bowed slightly and Karl thought he might vomit blood if he listened to Lehaim for longer, even though he was just a stone. The sect leader was obviously trying to manipulate him into helping the Water Dragon Sect defend their territory and hijack at least a part of Karl''s business that turned out to be more successful than expected.


    It was without surprise, Karl''s minions could get even rare materials that required venturing far from the safety of the high city wall. Who cared about them being eaten by wolves several times? More minions simply picked up the cargo when the previous ones met their demise and continued with the delivery. A scheme that would normally never work.


    Karl had no bad conscience about it, he was almost sure that his minions were not sentient, there were no signs of it.


    "I am sure we will be able to ensure stable environment for our prosperous future." Karl decided to play along and let Lehaim exploit him just a little, he was in need of the cover that only a sect master could provide.


    "As you say, Your Majesty. I will leave your subordinates in your presence, they are safe and sound as promised." He gestured in the direction of Wu Han and Xin Han. Lehaim wanted to continue and say more, but closed his mouth before uttering a word. Most likely, he decided to postpone whatever he had in mind saying, not deeming the moment right for his request.


    I will take my leave." Lehaim clasped his hands together to pay Karl respect and departed the ruin that served as the current entrance to Karl''s underground lair.


    After the siblings fell into each other''s arms and left the gloomy throne room, Karl wandered about.


    He remembered the map he had seen and hoped that the incident was the last political trouble he had to stick his nose into. It was certainly not the last, but he could use some pause considering the integration process into Jinsheng would be slow and gradual.


    Afhter a brief walk, he ended up where he started.


    He commanded his knight to sit again at a throne he had crafted out of stone, his latest artistic venture and gazed at the map Bei Lin had brought him once more. There was a beautiful picture of a city with a word Jinsheng written next to it. The picture had a river running through it and when he followed the stream with his eyes, his eyes met another picture of a city, similar to the one that represented Jinsheng.


    A single word written next to it, Edo.


    "What a peculiar name." Karl thought and his interest had been piqued.


    He looked around the room with many murals and his magnificent throne in its middle, spiral columns positioned randomly around him, their purpose not structural, but to show what was within his mind without in the form of art. The eerie feeling of his throne room was magnified by the Void light that emanated from the Void Knights'' present.


    He was a pioneer captain on the ship called insanity, and he had just chosen his destination.


    "Edo it is."

 Chapter 20 Perilous Journey

    For thousands of years, we of the Crimson Blood fought to protect our legacy.


    We burn the unworthy that dare to peek beyond their ken.


    We wage a secret war on the ignorant who stretch their hand to the sky only to damn us all by their stupidity.


    We protect the sacrifice that was given and shield the gate never meant to be opened.


    We purge the world of the filth lurking all around us, exiled and misunderstood, yet never wavering.


    We are of the Crimson Blood and in spite being rejected as above so below, we shall stand strong forever.


    Crimson Blood Patriarch, Tokugawa Akame


    A dried up, smouldering finger turned the page of a book that was almost falling apart, a memento he carried with him to remind himself of the importance of their mission. A Historic record of the past that had been almost forgotten.


    But not by him.


    When the wall fell, many of his brothers abandoned their oath and ran for safety, but he stayed true to his lineage. That, meant to be guarded forever would suffer no desecration, not on his watch.


    He would continue to guard the gates, to keep the hell that lurked in the deepest dungeons of Jitori at bay. There were many that yearned to meddle with powers beyond their understanding just to further their selfish plans. He stretched his body that looked like a smouldering ruin, but was in fact perfectly healthy, its unusual visage caused by his unique origin. His only feature that looked ordinary was his gray hair.


    "Intruders." He focused his amber eyes at a file of monsters that was clearly seeking to cross a river and continue in a fairly obvious direction.


    * * * *


    "Why does it look like a map for kids? Bei Lin is better not trying to fool me, or I will personally castrate him." Karl Gulden thought while looking at the map in front of him, focused on a particular location that piqued his interest. He had been staring at the map for as much time as it takes for three and a half incense sticks to burn, which is a darn long, but had still an unspecified uneasy feeling about the venture in front of him. "No, not me personally, but my minions will!"


    "Your Majesty Black Emperor, a memo from the sect master." A person with half her head covered in green hair interrupted Karl''s leisure time near the ruin. There was already grass growing again and Karl had come to enjoy the bit of greenery that interrupted his nearly perpetual stay under the ground. He could have looked through the eyes of his minions, but to see the scenery in person was still incomparable.


    "Read." Karl wrote a single word in the air, not wanting to bother himself with ordering the bulky Void Knight to unroll the tiny bit of paper with the memo. He had already tried it once and became a laughing stock of all his trusted servants.


    Correction, servants. He still did not trust them much.


    "Of course." The girl coughed lightly and began to read.


    "I, Water Dragon Lehaim, invite the Black Emperor for a glass of pineapple juice at noon. Please change the date to any date that suit you in case The Esteemed Black Emperor is not available."


    Karl wanted to roll up his eyes when he heard the message. He did not understand why all Lehaim wanted to do was to drink tea with him. His first response had been that it is customary to drink something else in his empire and there he was, the annoying Lehaim had even managed to get pineapple that Karl had not seen anywhere in the forest. He was seriously running out of excuses.


    "Write Lehaim that my presence is needed in a revolting region of my empire, but I will send an emissary in my stead." Karl wrote with Void and stood up, he decided to embark on the expedition earlier than planned. "Call everyone, I have an announcement to make."


    He commanded and Mei Gon disappeared to execute his command while writing the last letters down.


    Karl wanted to leave before he was involved too deeply in the political struggle of Jinsheng''s expansion. Lehaim had his Earth Elementals to play with, making him ignore Karl''s base insignificant presence and Karl did not plan to involve himself any further.


    Honestly, he had little enthusiasm for the mission, but it was the most sensible thing he could think of. It reminded him of his life on Earh, living one day after another almost like a machine, flowing through the dullness of an ordinary employee, doing what he had to do to move towards another day.


    "Let''s just get on with it." He looked around and then looked up towards the summer Sun.


    "Damn Sun shining, flowers stinking and blooming with their annoying colors. Everything with a hole into a butt running around as if trying to make up for the winter. So annoying." Karl complained for himself, realizing that the lush greenery had not improved his mood at all, he should have stayed underground.


    Was it perhaps his dungeony side, being annoyed by the clear sky?


    He decided to follow Mei Gon instead of staying outside and strangely, his mood improved a little the moment he stepped into the insides of his dungeon.


    "This is strange, is it just my imagination?" He shortly met a party that was moving up along the spiral access tunnel and decided to hold the debate in the middle of it, receiving surprised glances from his subordinates.


    "Good . .. . night. " He wrote, he had almost written morning, but he corrected himself in time. He was not a liar and mornings were never good, he had no idea who had invented the stupid greeting.


    "Good morning, such a stupidity, glorifying the annoying Sun and pestering work." He ranted in his mind before writing another line.


    "Good night, Lard Gulden!" Rovan said without hesitation, saving everyone else who were just staring at Karl, unable to react right away.


    "I am in need of volunteers for our scouting mission." Karl continued before the situation degraded further and became even more awkward. "Naturally, the first scouting party will consist of mostly my minions, there is no need to risk lives."


    "It will be an honor, Your Majesty." Rovan immediately reacted with the others remaining silent.


    "So lazy!" Karl thought, his subordinates had apparently inherited some of his qualities. "It is commendable, but I need more than just one."


    "It will come with benefits." Karl wrote, trying to entice more participants. "As long as it is in my power."


    The next second, Karl heard a male voice requesting something he had not expected.


    "Food and whores." The eyes of everyone looked in the direction of the person veiled in multiple layers of clothes.


    "Hasuf seem to be our second participant." Karl wrote, not caring much for the condition. He had quite some coin and could surely provide the requested service.


    "I will go, the tunnels are too bleak." Surprisingly, Mei Gon was next and the last volunteer and Karl decided not to push further, as three people seemed to be enough.


    "Alright, we will set out in a few days." He concluded his meeting and began calculating in his head how large of a force they should be mobilizing for the mission.


    The target''s name was Edo, a city that was supposedly destroyed, but there might be a lot to gain by exploring it. Karl had to go in person, as he would be unable to construct dungeon Buildings otherwise. At the same time, Karl had an itch to finally discover what was with the names of the new world. So far, it looked like he had been far from the only transmigrator in here, although he had not met anyone else like him directly.


    How else to explain all the strange naming? There had to be more to it, but thinking about it more, no one would be running around shouting that he had been reincarnated.


    Edo was a distance away and Karl intended to bring a considerable force with him. He calculated that he could bring twelve Void Knights, forty Warped Flesh, sixteen Void Horrors, ten Skeleton Warriors, twenty Zombies and thirty two Goblins. He added the last two types just for utility reasons and it all should cost him half thousand mana to keep standing, half of his total capacity.


    He needed two hundred and fifty mana upkeep for his Earh Elementals. One of them was the gate-keeper operating the entrance to his private dungeon and four were busy facilitating his good relationship with the Water Dragon Sect that was still building their extensive fortifications. Lehaim behaved like he intended to build a dwarven kingdom in place of the wilderness, but Karl did not care as long as it meant protection for his base and people.


    Karl was left with seven hundred and fifty mana of upkeep for his expedition forces, he wanted to exhaust all of it, because there was no reason not to. He planned to leave only Void Knights at the Orlov base, because weak monsters would die off gradually if he was away for a longer period of time.


    With heavy heart he decided to leave ten Void Knights at his base, costing him two hundred out of his one thousand precious mana upkeep. Fewer than that and the security of the base and the operations of his business would have been heavily compromised.


    The leftover five hundred mana was used for the expedition force.


    "I have no patience to use the last fifty." He grumbled when he realized that the time it took him to summon an expensive unit turned into forever when his mana started replenishing at a slow rate.


    Karl Gulden left for his private dungeon to summon all the units he needed with hope that the ten Skeleton Warriors he had never really tested in combat would not turn out to be completely useless.


    * * * *


    "As you can see, Immortal Wu Zayed, the Twinstar Fortress is large enough to house many more men in the future. The road has been widened to double its width and fortified garrisons and watch towers had been build not only along the main road, but even at the former border of the Orlov region. Currently there is a wall being build connecting the outer ring of towers. My vision is to turn it into a new city wall in the years to come." A tall man with blue hair and beard explained while walking on the said road towards a towering fortress in the distance he had just mentioned.


    "All solid stone, naturally." He smiled at the man walking next to him that seemed a little startled by the situation.


    "Well done, Water Dragon Lehaim, I see that we have underestimated your resourcefulness." The man nodded his head while his long black hair went along with the gentle morning breeze. "Perhaps, you could lend your capable hands in the matter of repairing the old city wall."


    "I am a public servant, it all depends on the current priority." Lehaim claimed while spreading his hands, trying to present himself as an altruist.


    "Would you be so kind and provide me with a contact on those responsible for the construction?" The Immortal tried to sneak in a question, but Lehaim would have none of it and his expression turned sad.


    "Sadly, the cultivators behind the construction had been targeted by gangs and other criminal elements in the past and refuse to act in the open. I fear that they might leave the city for good if I tried and forced their hand." Lehaim sighed while shaking his head.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "Truly unfortunate. Let''s hope that the security will improve in the future." The Immortal mirrored Lehaim''s expression and the Water Dragon Sect leader nodded in agreement.


    "I will try my best, as I did with the construction work."


    Immortal Wu Zayed sighed again, probably weighing his options, but stayed silent until the pair reached the wall, a numerous escort staying at a reasonable distance away from them at all times.


    "I must admit, you have left me breathless, my friend. I will return back to the city and tell everyone of your extraordinary abilities. Soon, your territory will be the first that will enter the enclosure phase. I cannot wait to see this part of the city reclaimed from the clutches of the demon-infested forest."


    "I share your hopes, Sir." The two top ranked cultivators greeted each other with clasped hand and Lehaim watched The Immortal leave along with his part of the bodyguards that followed him closely.


    "Sadly, my words are less of a lie than I would like." Lehaim grumbled under his breath. He had been trying to secretly investigate the true identity of his benefactor, but he kept hiding behind ridiculous titles and obviously fake identities. He could not antagonize his sudden helper and did not dare to act from the position of force. This all led to a limited contact.


    His eyes wandered to the top of the Twinstar Fortress where two siblings stood on the wall. He had managed to keep them in his sect with the prospect of getting at least some information out of them, but his subordinates had not been successful in that matter yet.


    Lehaim''s gloomy mood thawed like ice when his eyes wandered down to look at the fortress itself. Its walls had been constructed in the shape of two starts, a fact that had naturally given the fortress its name, the Twinstar Fortress. In it, Lehaim''s eyes continued to search until he had found some of the most stunning members of his sect that were not particularly far on their path of cultivation, but had other qualities.


    "Let''s try a bit of honey on our two birds and see how it goes." Lehaim whispered under his breath and stepped through the gate of his brand new fortress.


    "Sect Master, there is another one!" He was stopped the moment he had entered the large courtyard that had multiple carts moving back and forth with goods and material. Lehaim''s eyes focused on a dried up corpse that was propped up against the stone wall.


    "Was it enchanting again?" He studied the corpse in the distance only to find out that the corpse had more legs that it was supposed to and all of them were not that of a human. "One casualty?"


    "Two animals and two people had to be eradicated after a failed attempt." His confidant in a strikingly similar clothes as everyone else answered with a clear unease in his face.


    "This cannot stand, halt all attempts for a few days and get more information about other sects'' progress." Lehaim ordered to stop more casualties produced by their continued attempts to craft enchantments. The standard process was less safe than before, especially after the incident with the Cult of Mezzaiel and Lehaim feared that a different technology of enchanting would have to be found.


    There were rumors that the Cult ceased its existence thanks to extensive experiments on rabbits.


    "Animals seem to be off limits, we will find a different way." He said, still in a good mood due to the just finished inspection, an important test that the Water Dragon Sect passed with flying colors. With his roaring success, it was time to expand the sects strained foundation and cultivation resources.


    He stopped and looked into the wilderness from the high wall of the fortress only to turn around and look inside of the sect that currently dwelled inside the fortress.


    Lehaim stared forth with displeasure when he realized how monotonous the life of disciples became. The cultivation was both a search inside oneself and in the outside world, dull environment proved to be a dull inspiration. He needed to ensure rich environment with plenty of variability if he wanted his disciples to find their path forward.


    "There is much to do, I should carefully squeeze The Pineapple Juice Emperor as well, he is obviously bullshitting me." Lehaim stroked his blue beard planning what to do next, his eyes sparkling with azure light.


    * * * *


    "This is so cool! I could travel to the end of the world with these guys!" Rovan praised while clapping on the shoulder of one of Karls minions. The Warped Flesh had his shoulder almost higher then Rovan''s head and was carrying all his bags with provisions.


    The file of twelve Void Knights, forty Warped Flesh, sixteen Void Horrors, ten Skeleton Warriors, twenty Zombies and thirty two Goblins marched in the direction of Edo with the more vulnerable units in the middle and the toughest at the periphery. They were all in a single file except for eight Void Horrors who were scouting in a ring around them for dangers.


    "Still, I would prefer to walk during the day." He said tentatively and looked at one of the Void Knights that had a black stone fastened to its forehead.


    Karl looked back at Rovan, but ignored his complaints.


    He decided to move at night, because his minions could scout ahead with exceptional stealth. The glow of their claws and eyes could be reduced, making Void Horrors hard to see at night, especially for enemies who were not expecting their presence and did not know what to look for. Using his strategic genius, Karl ordered all Void Horrors to move with one eye closed, effectively turning them into purple fireflies for all people who were not expecting an encounter with the shadowy monsters.


    "You have turned lazy and fat in the base." The girl traveling with them snorted in Rovan''s direction and he smiled at her without finding the right words to respond. In a few seconds, his smile froze and turned sour before he looked away, still without knowing how to respond.


    Unusual for the pretentious chatterbox Rovan, his unease of moving at night among undead was beyond obvious.


    Karl wondered how close the two were, but it was clear that it was not the best of relationships. He could not join the discussion much even if he wanted, as his purple writing would be a security risk for their group. All the Void light had been dimmed to the minimum by his order and he did not intent to act against his own orders.


    The first days of the journey were uneventful, until they reached the river that needed to be crossed in order to get to Edo. It was the same river that flowed next to Jinsheng down the stream. He had even considered traveling by a boat on their way back, but that was far into the future. However, he would rather fight a land beast than some water monster even though the water route would be definitely faster.


    "Should we swim?" Rovan asked while gazing into the dark water, not intending to be the first one to go in. There was a while of silence, before a voice interrupted it, coming from the multilayered outfit that was hiding Hasuf inside.


    "Lord, where are the whores?" He looked at the leading Void Knight for a second and then his head swiveled towards Mei Gon, his eyes kept staring at her brazenly without any intention of looking away.


    "What?! Chill creep. The river can cool you down." She pointed at the river in front of them and both looked at it briefly.


    "No." He answered.


    "We will go along the stream for a time, there has to be a crossing sooner or later." Karl decided to respond while ignoring the inconvenient topic, it would not be much of a detour, because he had not expected them to find a crossing immediately. The delay had been included in his plans. However. the moment they made a few steps along the stream, a word was uttered into the darkness.


    "Scam." Hasuf said and Karl had an impulse to order a Void Knight to throw him into the river as far away as the minion was able.


    "Payments after completion." Karl wrote when he realized the dubious member of his squad would probably not let the matter slide.


    Fortunately, that was the end of it and they could enjoy the night sounds of the forest without any more squabbles.


    They continued along the bank, the reflection of glowing runes of the minions'' drawn swords dancing on water surface next to their feet. Moving on, the forest on both of their sides started to elevate into hills, the river they have been following passing in between. Karl looked at one of the hills to the right and noticed that the top of the hill had many trees burned into black stumps He could see it only because some of them were still glowing, the cause of their destruction left embers that whispered their message of doom into the night.


    The cause Karl would very much like to avoid.


    He looked left and right and ordered the file of their troops to increase their marching speed. The pace was unsustainable for the teenagers moving along with him, but that was not an issue at the moment.


    Despite their attempts, a mournful wail penetrated the eerily silent night forest, its loudness uncomfortable.


    "What is that?!" Rovan, who had already been on edge tumbled and nearly fell into the river. His moment of clumsiness was followed by a second wail that seemed much closer to them and they knew that they had been spotted.


    "Silence." Karl commanded immediately and with a thought ordered his minions to spread out to prevent their ranks from being decimated by area attacks. At the same time, he steered the closest Void Horror in the direction of the sound and pushed his presence into its form, observing the sudden threat first hand.


    His view immediately shifted and he no longer saw the river bank, but instead, a blur of flames intertwined into whirling hair of green and purple color mixed in a similar patter to Mei Gon. It belonged to a cultivator in a purple robe that was locked in a fierce fight with a flaming entity that moved too fast and all Karl could see through the blur of flames and hot air was a roughly humanoid figure.


    First hand, Karl could see the fierce fight escalate until the fire user clearly lost patience with its adversary and an inferno of flames exploded outward from him, sending the opponent half-flying, half-tumbling in Karl''s direction. Yet, the flames did not stop after the eruption of fire and the surroundings of the fiery entity continued burning with extraordinary heat.


    Thanks to the sudden big move that paused the struggle, Karl could finally see the humanoid entity clearly, standing in the midst of the shimmering air that was radiating incredible levels of heat, burning the forest all around the gnarled figure.


    Surprisingly, it did not seem to be a monster, but a human that had patches of his skin glowing as it kept burning and the places that were just smoldering reminded Karl of burned bark. He was most likely looking at a demonic cultivator that had chosen a radical way to gain power, yet was not incompetent enough to blast himself into pieces right away.


    He stopped looking at the dangerous persona and his eyes shifted to the area around him.


    "Domain?! We need to get away from them." Karl made a quick guess and ordered immediate retreat while commanding a few Void Knights to fire volleys in the direction of the two struggling cultivators as cover. Soon, Void projectiles began flying through the forest, shattering bark and wood, filling the night with the ominous glow of Void.


    * * * *


    Artoan Vita conjured a blast of wind mixed with what looked like tiny petals of sakura blossom directed at the creature in front of him, but the gnarly monster simply blasted his attack away with a simple gesture that commanded a wall of flames burning many meters above his head.


    From all the possible hell spawn, he had to encounter the one that was proficient with fire. It was usually not good news, as intense fire tended to easily neutralize poison, a significant portion of his power.


    Unexpectedly, the fire wielding cultivator burst out with flames on a whole different level than before and sent Artoan flying in the direction of the river.


    "Damn!" He cursed his idea to try and follow the strange procession that had to have some connection to the mysterious trader from outside of the city. He could still feel the smouldering rage deep inside him, after his efforts to shed light on the case had been neutralized by the leader of the Water Dragon Sect. And the fearless hero he used to worship, Yen Gon, proved impotent to do anything meaningful.


    Instead of trying to hide from them like before, he decided to chase after the minions of the forest demon in hope to distract the persistent enemy that proved much more formidable than he had anticipated. Artoan quickly pushed a red leaf of an expensive healing herb into his mouth and rushed away from the fire cultivator that reminded him of a humanoid pile of smouldering ash. He ran through the trees like a rabbit, swiftly nearing the armored knights he would prefer as opponents, as he had run out of tricks he could play. He had to admit that his bag of tricks he used in fights with ordinary opponents was all empty.


    He could not even react when he saw the sudden flood of violet swordlight that headed in his direction. He turned his head a second before the Void sealed his fate and saw a rising tide of fire that was coming from the other side, ready to answer the Void''s challenge.


    The fiery reflection in his eyes kept enlarging until he was swallowed by both tides.


    * * * *


    An armored boot smashed through the the soft moss, supporting the immense weight that lumbered through the vegetation with unusual speed, Karl in person, or rather in stone bouncing two meters above the ravaged vegetation, urging his minions to move at their fastest pace.


    As the result, one of the goblins had been trampled to death.


    Not that he cared, because at the moment, there was a huge fiery tornado raging behind their heels. It was probably the last stand of the cultivator that had been using wind, an unfortunate man that had to be fighting for his very life with all recklessness at his disposal.


    However, Karl guessed that based on the ratio of fire and wind in the mix, he was not the one winning.


    his minions had long stopped shooting behind them and they all focused on running alongside the river with the three teenagers being carried by the Void Knights, as they were unable to keep up the breakneck pace.


    Karl himself had a hard time to keep his wits about him due to the uncomfortable speed.


    They kept moving for hours before he allowed his servants to stop and the teenagers were placed back on their wobbly feet. No one was in the mood to talk and he decided to give them a moment to recuperate.


    "This is bad, only a single silly demonic cultivator and we are on our toes. Have I underestimated the dangers of the mission?" Karl thought, doubting his previous enthusiasm for the adventure. His companions seemed to be of a similar mindset and no one talked for a while, until they reluctantly set out to continue along the river bank. Their pace was moderate, almost reminding Karl of a funeral procession.


    Karl continued to lead the group next to the river, thinking about the encounter.


    "Cool down, creep!" Suddenly there was a shout and a splash heard from behind his back and he immediately ordered his minion to turn. He saw that Hasuf was no longer walking in the line behind him, but was swimming near the shore instead, the layers of his clothes soaking with water. It made his movements difficult, but he could obviously swim and would not be drowning anytime soon.


    "Bitch!" He had even energy left to shout and everyone just stopped and waited for him to climb back onto the riverbank.


    "Creep! Keep your hands for yourself!" Mei Gon, who was doubtlessly the cause of Hasuf going for a swim promptly shouted back. Karl guessed that Hasuf had decided to defuse his tension using particular parts of Mei Gon''s body and she did not share his enthusiasm.


    The shouting and splashing continued from both sides until there appeared an unnatural bulge on the black water surface of the river, reminding everyone that they should have been silent. It moved fast in the direction of Hasuf that started desperately flailing his arms and legs, unable to move even a few meters before the suspicious shape in the water reached him.


    "Help!" Hasuf shouted desperately before he disappeared under the water, clearly pulled under by a considerable external force.


    Karl wanted to do something, but realized that the Void Knights would immediately sink like a stone and he doubted that his other minions were able to swim, except Goblins. He prepared himself to sacrifice a few before he understood that it was useless to even try, Goblins were physically too weak to deal with the big water monster, whatever it was.


    Unconsciously, all three of them stepped a few meters away from the river and both Rovan and Mei Gon looked at Karl with questioning looks.


    "Stay away from the water." He stated the obvious and continued in their walk, followed by his small army as if nothing had happened. Yet, the unexpected death of one of the expedition''s members lay heavily on each one of them.


    Karl started to think that the expedition was a mistake, but it was too late to turn back with the demonic fire cultivator behind them. They had made it most of the way and the path back was as tricky as the path ahead. They seemed to have only one choice, one direction left, forward.

 Chapter 21 Exodus

    We have been left behind, abandoned in the First Heaven with no hope to return to either of our homes.


    It is up to you, for whom I write these lines to fight and make a brand new one here.


    The Nine cannot be fought, nor beaten and the net of the Heavens is vast.


    Yet, even though nothing can escape it, the awareness of the tyrants is not limitless.


    Their wisdom finite.


    Thou shall fight for freedom we all deserve and win.


    Nothing is final, even the cycle.


    Persevere. the cycle will fade.


    Crimson Blood Patriarch, Tokugawa Akame


    "Persevere. the cycle will fade." An ashen finger not dissimilar to a branch of a tree touched lightly the forehead above the amber eyes and moved quickly as if to draw foreign symbols in the air, mostly horizontal in nature. Meanwhile his other hand closed his small book and his eyes wandered to the scene in front of him that was taking place by the river, far away from his hiding place in the trees.


    He chose not to act yet and just observed.


    They were too few, he could not be impatient.


    * * * *


    "There does not seem to be any other way. I am sorry." Karl Gulden looked at Rowan who wore the expression of a tortured animal. Two robust Void Knights held him at each side.


    "Assisted catapultation commence!" Karl shouted inside of his head and motioned resolutely downwards with his hand. It seemed incredibly funny to him and he was glad that his stone identity protected him from displaying a mischievous smirk on his face.


    Two of his knights heaved mightily and threw Rovan with all their might across one of the most narrow parts of the river they had been able to find. Rovan took off the ground and flew many meters across while not making any sound. Karl with Mei Gon watched his flight and breathed out with relief when Rovan landed on the other side in the bushes.


    After a while, a shaking hand emerged from the bushes and showed them thumbs up.


    "No, he is faking it! Faking it!" Mei Gon stuttered when the two knights promptly grabbed her malnourished frame with obvious intentions.


    Karl simply ignored her and waved his hand again, Rovan seemed fine.


    Another person flew above the Purple River and crashed into the vegetation on the opposite bank. It was much easier than Karl expected. The only one left was he himself, but he wanted to wait until at least some of his minions were on the other side to protect his fragile self.


    And his companions of course.


    The next moment, Void Horrors were being thrown across the river in a wordless, eerie spectacle that was simply unreal.


    Luckily they turned out not as heavy as Karl had anticipated and ended up all safely on the other side. He dealt with his skeletons the same way and the Goblins were just too easy.


    "Now comes the hard part." Karl focused his attention on the Void Knights themselves.


    Without hesitation he ordered the same procedure to be done with one of the Void Knights, expecting that if he acted natural, the physics would not notice.


    Sadly, it did and the Void Knight was unable to reach the other shore and sank into the river like a rock only after making it two thirds of the way.


    That was a problem.


    "This won''t do! I cannot drown all my knights!" Karl thought desperately how to move his most valuable assets across. "Why have I chosen teenagers? The Water Dragon Sect disciples would have had no problems with this task."


    Karl sulked for a while, but was eventually forced to face reality.


    "Do you have rope?" He wrote a question in the direction of his two servants who were squatting on the other side of the river.


    "No." He received a simple answer and a short while of uneasy silence ensued.


    Was it possible that they were all negligent enough to not even take a rope on an adventure like theirs?


    The truth was unpleasant and Karl rather focused his genius on finding another solution that did not require a rope or tools of any kind.


    "All of you, start chopping down trees and throw them all into the river. The more, the better!" He ordered his minions and soon, swordlight of Void energy began flying left and right and trees were pouring into the river. With above ten knights of herculean strength, the trees poured down the river and after some time, Karl began to see what he intended to create from the start.


    One of the large logs was stuck in the stream and other began to pile up on top of it.


    Karl watched his plan to shape the forces of nature to his advantage and felt really smart and cool at the moment.


    However, instead of creating a safe crossing as he had intended, the river started to overflow, as he had created a more shallow, but wider riverbed instead.


    "Great, just great! Go fuck yourself water! Do you hear me?" Naturally, it could not due to multiple reasons and Karl was left with no other option, but to command his minions to back away from the widening river.


    "We will not be able to cross here, follow me!" Karl wrote in big letters and made sure Rovan and Mei Gon understood his intentions. He organized his minions and they started to continue along the river on their respective sides.


    He did not believe there was no crossing down the stream. Even if his luck was cursed for seven generations, there had to be a crossing somewhere.


    "We will not hold out, we have to rest before reaching Edo!" Karl heard Mei Gon''s shout from the other side of the river and had to agree with her. Despite his relative focus on the other bank, he seemed to spot a sudden movement in between the trees.


    "The creature is here, has it been following us the whole time? Why revel itself now?" Questions ran through Karl''s mind, not being sure of the identity, nor intentions of the fire wielding combatant from before.


    "Turn back, your destination is not a place that welcomes visitors!" Deep voice carried by the wind showed hostility Karl had anticipated. The creature appeared to be a person, probably a demonic cultivator malformed by his cultivating practices. His skin looked like burned to ash, patches of it still glowing with embers. His skin was not smooth, but more like bark of hundreds of years old tree, completely unnatural.


    Karl''s first impression was that the person must be suffering, but he did not seem to mind his condition.


    "That means Edo has still someone that calls it home." Karl answered, trying to circle around the hostile statement and get more information from the cultivator in front of them. "My name is Lord Karl Gulden, or The Black Emperor and I am on an expedition to reaffirm the state of the world after the great cataclysm."


    "You mean the shift in the cycle? You would do better staying home, Edo does not welcome visitors."


    "I understand! I will turn around, but sooner or later, Edo will have no choice." Karl wrote, aware of the fact that his mission was not exactly critical and it would be foolish to fight with this super strong demonic cultivator just because of his hubris and ego.


    "What are you implying? Is it a threat?" The unwelcomed visitor continued in his hostile tone, stepping closer to the Void Knights that did not seem to provide much of a deterrence against him. If it was due to his strength or foolishness remained to be seen.


    "Perhaps you could introduce yourself, if we are to continue this debate." Karl proposed in slowly written words and the cultivator remained standing for a while before he responded.


    "Tokugawa Genji." The demonic cultivator responded and Karl had to force himself to not get too distracted, his name blowing his mind. It was obvious that he was getting at something, but he had no idea what it was. One option was to ask directly, but he doubted it was the best and safest strategy.


    "Never heard of your family before." Karl responded, trying to prompt the other party to reveal more about himself.


    "You have to be from far away, our clan has quite the history in Edo. You have never been to the city." Genji stated flatly, waiting for Karl''s response.


    "No, is the city still . . .operational?"


    "You are awfully interested in Edo, considering you have never been there before." Genji dodged the question again and Karl knew that he had a problem. The man seemed to be too protective of the city, still standing or not.


    "Fine, we will return. Have a nice day." Karl decided it would be better to cancel the operation, too much unusual circumstances surrounded the city of Edo and he was not willing to sacrifice anything important just for the sake of exploration.


    "Wait, you have said it is only a matter of time. Perhaps, there are others coming our way?" Genji quickly scanned all of Karl''s party and The Black Emperor had a feeling they were even closer to a confrontation than before. The suspicious demonic cultivator seemed too protective of the city and the prospect of many visitors had clearly not left him in a good mood.


    Karl''s thoughts raced against time, as he kept assessing what could be safely told to the eccentric cultivator. It was obviously unwise to let him know that there was a big city with multiple Immortals in it and he was the only one who knew about the existence of the demonic cultivator and his fixation on Edo.


    Telling him that he was a merchant from a land far away was even more dangerous, meaning that no one would come looking for him.


    "Jinsheng will be sending diplomatic delegations to all nearby cities to find out about their status. We went in advance by chance because of, . . . a map I have bought from a senile shopkeeper."


    "Just like that?" The cultivator had to think it was quite a silly reason, but his fake smile froze on his face the moment Karl pulled the map out of his bag.


    Karl waved the map, as if trying to say that it had looked like a promising idea at the time and Genji seemed to believe him. Telling half-truths was safer than lying outright. The reason looked silly, but authentic and that was all Karl had been aiming for.


    "This is. .. such a trash." Genji stepped closer, took the map and shook his head after taking a brief look. The map''s accuracy was terrible.


    "Edo is mostly overrun by the beasts, we could use some help from your puppets. Can we hire some?"This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Karl was alarmed that Genji was able to tell what his minions were, but it was not strange considering he had been observing them for some time. He hesitated, a long-term operation that would enable him pushing his kill count up was advantageous for him. He had a long way to go to the next level, but he might as well start from somewhere.


    "Why not? But you will only command them to kill beasts, not people."


    "Deal." Surprisingly, Genji had no problem with the condition, indicating that his request was genuine. "How much do you mind losing them?"


    "Do not mind it, pushing back the beasts and restoring the civilization in the cities is the priority." Karl wrote, trying to position himself into the role of a hero, because he did not want to openly admit that the cost of summoning was negligible and he did not care at all.


    "Who will be our contact for further communications?" The cultivator who reminded him of a living burned tree asked, most likely surprised by the advantageous deal he had just made. The transaction seemed too quick and profitable to be true.


    "If you must contact us, travel to Jinsheng and ask for the Water Dragon Sect. They will know about The Black Emperor." Karl said and after exchanging a few more pleasantries with the strange cultivator, they parted ways.


    Karl had not expected that his journey to Edo would end before it even properly began and was a little disappointed by not seeing the city and experiencing the adventure of uncovering its mysteries. He would not be able to see much given that his ability to possess his minions had a certain range limitations and his curiosity about the city would remain not sated.


    Yet, he forced himself to act rationally and not stick his nose into the business of Tokugawa Genji, who was obviously not eager to share his secrets with him. Everything about the man screamed at him that he would be dealing with a complicated mess if he insisted on sticking his nose into his business.


    The name, his level of power, his looks, the state and name of his home city. . .


    There was too many mysteries and Karl had to be careful before sticking his nose into something big. After all, he could just turn back and watch his kill count go slowly up until one day, one day it reached the milestone of the next level.


    He did not entirely like being forced into a reactionary approach by his circumstances, but it would be silly to not use what advantage he had.


    He looked at the state of his experience points that he had not seen for a while and it did not improve his mood at all.


    The number had not moved at all.


    It had been moving with the speed of an iceberg, which was only logical since he was not actively doing anything to rise it, as all he could think of was either too radical or too inefficient.


    Genji departed with roughly half of his forces and Karl stared at Mei Gon and Rovan who were stuck at the other side of the river.


    "Nah, my Void Horrors can''t throw them back and I do not have any Void Knights on the other side. "


    Eventually, they had managed to meet again after Karl had asked Genji about the nearest river crossing. They trudged along their path back home to the expanded underground of Fort Orlov without any major incidents. Twice, Karl''s minions had to fight off wild beasts, but they were relatively weak compared to the remaining strength of his party and there were no surprises. They arrived back to his dungeon with no fanfare, but he noticed that his subordinates were quite happy to be back home.


    No surprises waited them at the old ruin, except that their party shrank again. For some unspecified reason, their comrade Kou Linhai was no longer at the base and no one seemed to know where he was.


    A thought passed through Karl''s crystalized brain, he considered searching for more people, but he decided not to. He had still some of them in one piece and kicking. Besides, he did not need them much anyway. He quickly recalled the status of his teenage companions.


    Wu Han and Xin Han were still with the Water Dragon Sect masquerading as its members. Two members of his private circle had just returned with one drowning in the river, Wei Ming was present in the base and the last was the missing Kou Linhai.


    "Bah, how fast they''ve shrunk. I have only three of them present at the base at the moment." Karl mulled over the state of his core staff. "It is still enough to delegate the basics, it is not like there is too much work to do considering that my business is not very important."


    He already had a lot of coins and did not need more.


    They spread in the base and everyone did their own thing. Karl decided to roam through his tunnels, decorating his home with murals, columns and of course, more tunnels that led to no particular location. He built two mazes and tried to make one of them three dimensional. At the moment when he was in the business of building a third maze that was not only three dimensional, but also incorporated underwater portions, he had been disturbed by Wei Ming, who surfaced from under the water of one of the maze''s branch tunnels.


    "Lord Karl Gulden, the sect leader of the Water Dragon Sect is here to visit you." He said coldly with a strange expression on his face.


    "I will be there, what do you say about my new maze?" Karl wrote his response with enthusiasm.


    "Permission to speak truthfully, Lord?" Wei Ming asked while doing something with his black hair.


    "Of course! Do not hold back!" Karl reassured him and waited what would be the man''s thoughts. He was not against knowing him a bit better, as he was one of his people he knew the least. He should get to know him, before he kicked the bucket like the others and he lost the opportunity.


    "The water stinks like my grandmother''s ass!" Wei Ming tried to spat out the last drops of the water that had gotten into his mouth.


    "Noted." Karl had intended to use lava originally, but it cooled down too quickly to be practical to work with.


    They exited the maze and Karl walked out of his domain, where clear sky greeted him along with a man with blue hair and beard that was waiting for him there.


    "The Black Emperor in person, what a marvel! I have an issue to talk about." The cultivator beamed with smiles, but Karl noticed that the ridicule in his voice had not been hidden as well as before. For a second, he thought that the man was making fun of him, but he decided to ignore it.


    "What issue?" He wrote without any pleasantries.


    "I have received a complaint from Yen Gon of the Purple Lotus Sect. She is claiming that your forces has killed her disciple." He stated with his hands behind his back, waiting for Karl''s reaction.


    Karl was surprised, but quickly realized where the problem was. Genji had been given a part of his forces and was basically indistinguishable from one of his people.


    "It was an accident and it was not my forces who killed him." He said.


    "I have argued the same, but she did not seem to understand. I am afraid that you will no longer be able to stay at my land." Lehaim stated bluntly, acting like he had been shocked by the murder and wanted to deliver justice.


    Karl Gulden nearly ordered his minion to run its sword through the man''s heart.


    "Let me guess, the fortifications are more or less complete and I have outlived my usefulness." Karl though about the most likely reason for his host''s unexpectedly cold attitude.


    "If you insist." Karl wrote, thinking that he might be visiting Edo after all. He had enough gold and some basic information, plus he had made some contacts in the city, he did not need his business as desperately as before anymore. In addition, he could purge the city with more intense operation, gaining experience points faster. The buildings for recruiting Void Knights could remain in place, He just needed to introduce some additional measures to separate his private dungeon from the public space more properly before making it look truly public and deserted.


    "I can leave anytime." He added and watched with amusement Lehaim''s expression. The man obviously did not expect him to give in so easily and might have intended to negotiate a price. However, he had disrupted all his plans by his unusual flexibility.


    "That.. . That is perfect. I will give you a week, because of our friendship." Lehaim said and Karl was glad he had no mouth as he would have spat out a ton of saliva at this moment. A friend was definitely not the term he would have used for Lehaim.


    "It is time to say goodbye then, Water Dragon Lehaim. Good luck." They both clasped their hands together and bowed slightly.


    Karl headed back underground to prepare for another expedition, no this time, it was an exodus and the target was the same as before, Edo.


    "While there, I have to dig in into the secrets of that city." He thought if the decision was not too bold, he might as well make his camp outside in the forest, but with the demonic cultivator, he at least knew that life in Edo was possible. It was not like he needed much space on the surface anyway.


    Karl immediately began their preparations for the exodus, yet he was unwilling to burn all bridges when moving to Edo. He recalled all his Earth Elementals that were helping Lehaim, who had little need for their help anymore, and began separating his private dungeon part from the portion outsiders might have seen with more than just a dozen meters of soil and rock. He moved his secret base that would remain in the region a good five hundred meters away from where his old base was. Karl considered it a sufficient distance, he did not assume Lehaim was crazy enough to be digging kilometers in every possible direction just to be sure that he truly left.


    The Water Dragon Sect could hardly waste their resources doing that.


    Concurrently, he commanded a portion of the Earth Elementals to dig an access tunnel in the direction of Edo, as he planned to connect his leftover base with his future base at some point in time. It was only logical and he had manpower to spare to do it.


    Well, earthpower.


    "It will be perfect." Karl mused and caught himself drooling over the idea of having his secret bases everywhere, connected with extremely long tunnels that would run like a web under the whole world. The dungeony part of him was drooling over it, mesmerized by the prospect.


    After a week, Karl Gulden assembled all his minions that would move away with the exception of two Earth Elementals that continued to work on the tunnel leading to his destination. They all stood among the ruins of the old Fort Orlov, making their departure as public as possible. Karl was sure that Lehaim had his spies watching and the possibility to fake his departure was certainly something that crossed Lehaim''s mind.


    However, without enough resources, what could he do? He could only probe so much to make sure The Black Emperor was truly gone.


    Karl looked at his retinue that was being assembled under the last rays of the sunset. He decided to move at night as before, as it proved to be a good strategy. It was strange to see the plate armor of his Void Knights reflecting light instead of the ominous Void, as they usually looked underground. For the moment the tip of the Sun was still above the horizon, they lost all their eeriness.


    After checking his minions, Karl''s sight inevitably drifted towards his teenage entourage. The siblings, Xin Han and Wu Han, no longer in the robes of the Water Dragon Sect, Mei Gon squirming in her new leather outfit, looking like she intended to play an amazon or something, Wei Ming who looked so ordinary Karl suspected he was just a cultivation troop inserted into his group by a malicious trickster god and of course, Rovan, his exemplar servitor who had a big smile plastered on his face in a way Karl could no longer even guess what percentage of that smile was just a cheap posturing.


    All of them shared a similar air of unease looking at their elusive emperor.


    "Rigth, those that I saved, but they were originally nine, weren''t they?" Karl thought while looking at the fidgeting bunch of teenagers. He knew that he was not a good guy, not really after all he had done, but he suddenly felt that marching the remaining five towards Edo was too cruel. Had he truly saved them if they would die for him one by one, or would he be just their jailer and torturer?


    He pondered about the situation again and began writing slowly letters of Void, gentle breeze stealing their lines as they flowed into the wind.


    "The journey ahead will be perilous and I cannot guarantee your safety. Those who wish to stay behind, can. It seems like ages ago, when I have rescued you at the gate. Those of you who desire, I can lead you to the very same gate and I have more than enough gold to get you past it, back into the city from whence you came. Even with some coins to spare. A fresh start with better chances and on the right side of the city gate."


    He paused for a moment and observed their expressions, but they were blank, only masks of what they really thought.


    "There will be no sense of betrayal on my part, nor any vengeance later. You can choose freely, for I am no slaver."


    Heavy silence fell on everyone, interrupted by loud words after a time it took an ordinary Elder to stroke their beard twice.


    "I accept." Everyone turned at the speaker with red hair.


    Karl looked at Rovan with surprise, but when he thought about it, the man had never been truly loyal to him. What he had just said was only natural. All this time he had been seeking a surefire way out and he had finally found it. No one would dare to make this choice sooner, before they knew Karl better, but at this point they had a rough idea what to expect of him.


    They knew he would not go back on his word in this matter.


    "Sorry, but I would die with worry if this continued. We accept." The white-haired girl was the second to speak and with that, the siblings were out.


    Karl thought bitterly that his acts of blackmail bore their fruit. It could not be helped. He remembered the sweet words of Xin Han about their future, but where there was no trust, words were just that, words. Sweet, yet empty.


    "I can still see the tentacles in the water, hear the screams, the desperation. I will not return there. I accept." A girl spoke, her bowed head covered with a waterfall of green. She obviously felt guilty about jumping the ship, but fear was one of the strongest, if not the strongest of motivations.


    Karl felt like he had been shot by a shotgun with every single statement and when he desperately looked for the fifth person, he discovered Wei Ming had already run away. He most likely had not believed him when he said there would be no vengeance.


    He was probably not willing to go with Karl alone, no matter what was the alternative.


    "Alright, I will send you off with an escort and give you the necessary coins." He wrote like in a dream and everything that followed passed as if he was not even present. One by one the teenagers he saved left and he remained only with himself, his army of minions and his goal.


    He felt empty.


    The claws of insanity scratched at the edge of his mind.


    "Ungrateful brats." His first reaction was anger, a wave of anger to beat back the ugly that lay beneath it.


    "Rovan, you two-faced bastard, always wearing your fake smile. Xin Han, treacherous bitch. Were all your words just lies?" His mind drifted to Mei Gon and when he wanted to badmouth her in any way he could think of, he remembered the fear in her eyes.


    They were afraid. All of them afraid. Afraid of him, an unpredictable monster inside a black stone.


    His anger slowly faded, revealing the empty abyss beyond.


    "My name is Karl, Karl Gulden. Always . . . " His finger stopped in midair, not finishing the sentence.


    " . . .always alone, always fighting. Stranger to the world." A raspy voice spoke from a distance and a person with ashen hair stepped from behind a large tree on the periphery of the clearing.


    "You have followed me again." Karl responded dryly, not really in the mood to argue with the strange demonic cultivator. He also felt exposed, because the intruder''s words completed perfectly what was left unsaid.


    "Yes, for some time now. I find it funny that our circumstances are kind of similar." The figure slipped out of the shadows completely, revealing more than his amber eyes that shone with a beastly light.


    "Hardly, a stone is not similar to a half-burned tree." Karl was not in the mood to argue and wished the stranger simply go away.


    "Yet, we both came here through a bank."


    "A bank?!" All alarms sounded in Karl''s brain. Was it possible that the person spoke about how it all began? Was he facing another reincarnator? " Do you mean the riverbank?"


    "No, you know exactly what bank I mean. The one institution that should be called a church, because no tangible value is really stored there, only paper faith." He paused for a second, before continuing with a short chuckle. "Not even that paper will be left in the end, right? A Church that figured out that faith can be counted. Just count it and it will leave people in want."


    Kalr realized that it was no misunderstanding and the person opposite him knew much, too much.


    "Are there more of us?" Karl spoke and felt that the emptiness in him faded considerably, replaced with hope.


    "Yes, but to find out more, you have to help me out." The person with skin of ash smiled at Karl. "You were heading to Edo anyway, right?"

 Book Two, Chapter 22 The Blood God Court

    The emperor felt an impact that shattered the space around him. For a while, it looked like the boundary of the Eighth Heaven would hold his fall, but his momentum was too great.


    If it was a simple momentum of a mundane cultivator or the momentum of a star, it would be a trivial matter for the boundary between the Heavens to arrest it and make the object stop. Obviously, that was not the case with The Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens, who in his poisoned state,


    despicably poisoned, that should be mentioned thrice to point out this grave injustice,


    who in his unjustly, despicably poisoned state had been accelerated by spacetime kvuantum-chi momentum acting on him due to the ultimate demonic finishing technique of the bad person who had so despicably poisoned him.


    Another loud crash that shattered all the eardrums of even all the frogs residing in the Third Heaven and the Despicably Poisoned Emperor continued to fall into the Sixth Heaven.


    It should be mentioned that the eardrums of the frogs in the Third Heaven were especially sturdy and yet, even those who lived in extreme depths of the deepest oceans were croaking with pain as their eardrums had been shattered.


    In quick succession, the unfortunate, despicably poisoned and slapped emperor had shattered more boundaries between Heavens to the point only two of the Heavens parted him from exiting the Nine Heavens completely.


    The thought scared him. What if he ended up falling outside of existence?


    The emperor mobilized a fine trickle of his residual power and tried to slow down his fall by reversing time.


    During his attempt, he heard another loud boom.


    The boundary of the Second Heaven gave way and he was at this point falling through the First Heaven, leaving a blazing trail in his wake.


    The emperor willed mightily and the time immediately became slower until it began to flow in reverse. Unfortunately, due to the briefly mentioned poisoning, the emperor forgot to switch off his resistance to temporal manipulation and his body slammed on top of the largest continent of the First Heaven with full force.


    The impact to the time-shifted younger continent was as devastating as it would have been to its older version and his body had finally exhausted all its momentum.


    The Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens stopped moving at the bottom of a huge crater.


    Then the mightiest emperor the Nine Heavens had ever seen had died because of the severe poisoning. Clearly, the impact itself was just a glancing blow for him.


    However, at the place he struck, the imprint of his body was still felt in the fabric of spacetime and his lingering phantom of fear of exiting the Nine Heavens kept weakening the boundary of the Nine Heavens at that unfortunate place.


    Aeons later, a city was build at the center of the crater and many more next to it. The settlements appeared at the bottom of the valley which the emperor had created. However, the valley was so huge it could be recognized as such only from space and naturally, no locals knew about it.


    And the young city was named after another city from outer space, an irony of fate.


    An Iron Fate.


    * 9 * . * 3 *


    A mass of black full plate armor moved through the dark overgrowth, purple runes glowing ominously against the glossy black surface. The giant of a man that wore the armor was the same as those that followed him, their faces forever hidden behind the black visors of their helmets that had never been lifted. The sameness of the gloomy knights was interrupted only by a small black gem that was strapped to the helmet of the leading knight.


    Next to the marching knights, creatures of shadow were hovering left and right, their shapes blending into the dark night from time to time, occasionally disappearing from view. Deeper in the ranks of monsters, there were short, green figures mixed with walking skeletons. As the force trudged onward, even beasts and misshapen creatures learned to avoid it, the leading creature watching all life of the forest flee in his wake.


    Despite that, he did not allow himself to relax. The forest was too vast and dangerous to get careless.


    He liked the tension, it kept his mind from useless thoughts, memories of all that happened in Jinsheng, the city he did not want to see for a long time. He had too many conflicting feelings about the place. He conveniently reduced it all in his head to a single line that described what could be done dungeon-wise in the city.


    "Void monsters, good attack capability,. A temple enabling extensive earth manipulation, but too restricted to be used globally." He tried to squeeze everything into a single sentence in his head and look forward to his next adventure.


    He would learn from his mistakes and start better in the next city.


    Karl looked to the right at the gnarled humanoid creature that walked not far from him. He wanted to find out more about Edo, but he ended up being interrogated by his companion who was greatly interested in his minions. It was time to pretend to pay attention to him again, before he discovered he had been ignoring his monologue for a good three minutes.


    "That is amazing! You have an immortal army at your disposal!" Genji''s eyes blinked from one minion to another, sparkling with desire. "Just imagine what we can do now, with all that muscle!"


    "That is an overstatement. It is more like a company, their intelligence is limited and their bodies far from indestructible." Karl tried to cool off his excitement, not with much success.


    "Bah! As if that mattered, you can take tremendous loses, if given enough time." The mildly glowing tree man was not losing his drive. Yet, Karl was not angry, he was happy that there was someone to take his mind off the unfortunate departure that left a bitter taste in his mouth.


    "Certainly not now. It is difficult to find a place that can produce these." Karl commanded his Void Knight to clap on its sturdy black armor. He could naturally return to his first base that was hidden deep beneath Jinsheng, but who would want to march back and forth all the way because of every single casualty?


    "It is my turn to ask, tell me more about the situation in your city." Karl felt unpleasant not knowing much about Genji, who was too mysterious for his liking. He understood that he wanted to use his minions as cheap cannon fodder and the idea was enticing even for him if he excluded himself from the list of future victims. However, Genji''s further plans were unknown, causing Karl to throw occasional glances around him, as if expecting ambush at every turn.


    "It will be easier if you wait to see it yourself. You do not trust me anyway, isn''t that right?" The amber eyes looked at him and Karl had nearly chuckled at the surprising honesty of his conversation partner.


    "That will be for the best." Karl decided to not bother with doubts any further. He believed that exploiting him would be more trouble than worth, especially at this moment when there was nothing to blackmail Karl with as he had been abandoned by everyone.


    They walked for a while, making their way through the dense forest, when Karl remembered a question he had been dying to ask.


    "What''s with the names anyway? It feels all mixed up."


    "That is obvious. We .. well, I mean, I have a theory about it. There seemed to be multiple people transported here from different ages, This world almost seems like a god of reincarnation''s garbage bin. I imagine that my guess is not that far off. " Genji laughed dryly before he continued. "The more successful groups imposed their naming system on the locals and with time, even that had been distorted."


    "That son of a .. " Karl thought that when the kind sir during his reincarnation process had finally found a place for him, it might have been just a joke and he simply threw him into garbage together with all other troublemakers. "Dammit ,and I thought I have not crossed the line."


    "I belong to those with a more pure heritage." A statement that felt too self-important tore Karl out of his grim reminiscence.


    "So, you came from Japan." Karl stated matter of factly.


    "My ancestors did, Karl." He said his name with a particular cadence and Karl guessed what he was implying. He was not one of them.


    "I can see the walls, finally." Karl interrupted the unpleasant topic with his purple letters, the whole conversation being written on his part.


    "Yep, we are here. You will sate your curiosity soon." Karl did not know why, but he was not looking forward to it anymore.


    They walked through an enormous gate, similar to the one in Jinsheng, but this one was without the thick steel doors that barred entry to all visitors. There was only moss and vegetation in its stead. The great wall of Edo had been completely breached at several places, it was a miracle that the stone frame of the gate still stood.


    The steel boots of the knights smashed against the pavement, the sound was loud and unpleasant in the total silence of the deserted city.


    "There is no one here." Karl had an urge to whisper, realizing only a second later how silly that was, he was not talking anyway. Coincidentally, the letters he wrote were smaller as if to reflect on the urge.


    "There is, but only alpha predators are allowed to be loud."


    "That is reassuring." Karl immediately attached the said role to himself and his companion and felt more at ease.


    "It is not, make those damn steel dummies stop the ruckus." Karl''s mood changed when he realized that Genji had not been talking about the two of them and gave a mental command to his minions to walk at a slower pace.


    "Do you expect company? It is high time you let me know."


    "It will be alright, they do not hunt at night. We just need to be careful." Genji kept looking around, his amber eyes scanning the ruins of Edo around them.


    "A beast?"


    "Fortunately yes. It is some kind of a mutant. They have very good sight, but only during the day. We call them Razor Hawks, pray you do not see why."


    "Are they the only predators that can pose a danger to us?" A Void Knight''s finger kept pilling up question after question non-stop.


    "Among the beasts, they are the only ones in this part of the city. It is too run down, close to rubble. They like it here, no trees in the way and a few high buildings still standing for nesting. Those with guts like to steal their eggs, but that is only for experienced survivors."


    Genji looked at the black stone as if scoffing at Karl with disdain.


    "Thanks, but I have enough of mine two." Karl quickly cracked a mindless joke among men, but immediately realized his mistake.


    "Ha! You?! Where are they?" Genji chuckled, immediately receiving Karl''s angry, lightning fast response in a font that was more rounded than usual.


    "Mister wooden marbles has spoken. Do they even work?"


    "Piss off stone!" Genji turned away from all the minions and continued to lead the way with Karl no longer at his side.


    They continued like a line of geese into a narrow street that marked the end of the flattened part of the city that was the habitat of Razor Hawks.


    After their line snaked through a few narrow streets, they entered a large courtyard which had all its other paths walled off, or blocked by barricades that served as checkpoints. They passed through one of those checkpoints without an issue. Some lean people looking more like vagabonds than cultivators waved them through, recognizing Genji on first sight.


    Given the respectful bows they gave him, he was obviously not simply some nobody in the group of survivors that had a peculiar name, written above the entrance that looked everything but grandiose.


    "Blood God Court? Doesn''t it sound too ominous for a new group of young and hopeful cultivators?" Karl asked discretely his partner in small letters, to prevent anyone else from spying on their conversation.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "It was their pick, it fits the sacrifice it required and will require to move forward." Genji shrugged his shoulders while they were heading to a group of cultivators that were assembled in the middle of the communal space.


    The buildings that were encircling the large courtyard were mostly deserted and in disrepair, but some of those in better shape were clearly housing the sect that was at this moment assembled in front of Karl and Genji. The group of lean young men in grey clothes with a red armband warily watched their line, slowly forming into a defensive formation as they drew close. Karl|s minions looked too dangerous to be left without attention even though Genji was an influential figure of the group.


    "Elder Genji, please explain yourself before moving any further!" A person who had similar skin complexion as Genji stepped forward with a frown on his face.


    "Elder Sato, let me introduce our new ally, Karl Gulden. He will help our cause greatly!" Genji gestured at the leading Void Knight and Karl made the minion nod in the direction of Sato, who looked at him while not hiding his distrust.


    "Welcome to the Blood God Court, Karl. Be so kind and wait over there with your . . " Sato overlooked the diverse procession of monsters lined up behind Karl and his eyebrows rose and furrowed in a quick succession. ". . .your men while Genji and I discuss the details of our cooperation."


    "Yes." Karl wrote three big letters into the air and headed to the shown empty spot under a pair of tall trees. The two Elders waited for him to leave before starting a heated conversation.


    Karl looked around the dilapidated courtyard while waiting for his allies to find a common ground, as the act of hiring Karl had, without doubt, not been consulted with the entire Blood God Court beforehand. He also had not forgotten the question still lingering in his mind, the itch to find more otherworlders like him. He had to ask some serious questions the moment Genji''s little squabble with his sect mates was over.


    While waiting, Karl noticed an increasing commotion that broke out at one of the barricades blocking entrance to the court. The noise grew in intensity until a loud explosion shook the very cobblestones under Karl''s feet.


    "An attack! It''s the Jing-Jang Palace!" He overheard a shout while trying to discern enemy figures among the grey clothes with red armbands and he indeed found them.


    "Guess this ends the awkward welcome." Karl thought and commanded his minions to form a loose defensive circle with the Void Knights at its front.


    * * * *


    Yukikaze stared out of the broken window of his spacious room. Space, the one article they had aplenty in the empty halls of the Jing-Jang Palace. What they needed were more high-end forces and much more cultivation resources.


    Absentmindedly, he watched the Mojo Condensation Stage cultivators gathered at the courtyard performing various forms of arts, or simply odd behaviors. Some were painting, playing music, exercising, but their actions were far from limited to the ordinary. There was a cultivator of a smaller stature licking walls and anything else that came his way, one talking to a tree, another dancing with a rabbit before it became his dinner when the Sun moved higher in the sky.


    They were those looking for their Idols, a painfully large number of sect members still struggling with the first cultivation stage.


    In most old sects, these would be the pureblood people that failed to fully inherit their sect Mojo and were searching for their own. Core members of such sect used a standardized procedure and had no need for licking walls and other odd behaviors. Unfortunately, the ancestral pastures of Jing-Jang Palace had been destroyed and with it their path to cultivate their ancestral Mojo. To awaken, it required blood of a rare animal that was not living freely in nature.


    Sure, there definitely existed some alternatives to the blood, there was never just a single path to the top of a mountain, but the sect had failed to find it despite many desperate searches. In the end, they had to abandon the traditional patch and being a pureblood meant a curse, not a blessing. Their sect turned into a mortally wounded animal clinging to its last vestiges of life.


    His eyes focused again, turning away from the central courtyard to a space in the corner where those of the Mojo Purification Stage trained. Those who had already found their Idols were the real future of the sect. There were also those of the third stage among them, the Mojo Crystallization stage , as the process of cultivating the two stages was intertwined.


    Those who knew their path were the lucky ones, but those were just a minority. Yukikaze looked with envy at a cultivator with long, red hair of the third stage who was standing out, her beauty highlighting her presence, yet her talent and power scaring off most who craved her attention. She was feeding mice in a large cage. Sagine Yagi was an outsider that joined the Jing-Jang Palace just recently, but because she knew her mojo, Bloodthirst, she was able to progress quickly as the path to cultivate it was a common knowledge thanks to its wide occurrence among beasts.


    Annoyed, Yukikaze turned his gaze back to a set of rusted swords and tools in front of him. He himself was at the third stage, building his Vessel for the fourth, Soul Binding stage. His Mojo was that of Steel, a well known, powerful Mojo that was considered a good luck to have.


    However, that was before the cataclysm.


    Although the method of cultivating this path was known to him, the way to perfectly purify the cultivation materials was closely guarded and not easy to find out. He had resigned and began building his Vessel from ordinary steel, despite knowing that he might not be able to reach the fourth stage, the ceiling of the third becoming his limit. He had tried for too long to forge steel that was considered pure steel and could be used to cultivate the Steel Mojo to the next stage.


    Yukikaze forcefully closed his fist and a thin layer of steel appeared on its surface. It looked magnificent and powerful, but only until he turned his fist and saw patches of rust on the other side.


    His smile turned into an ugly sneer and he suppressed an urge to shatter the nearby wall. The rust took away nothing from his strength, but signified what he had already known. His Vessel was not pure and would likely not allow him to cultivate the fourth stage.


    "Yukikaze, we need you for a mission!" A sudden voice disrupted his bitter mood and a sinewy cultivator in camouflage walked briskly into the room.


    "What mission?" Yukikaze barked, his voice still colored by his bad mood, but his conversation partner simply ignored it.


    "There is a large commotion in the camp of the demonic cultivators. The scouts report significant reinforcements arriving to their camp. We urgently need more intel. "


    "It will be a pain in the ass." Yukikaze groaned in the direction of the tanned cultivator in camouflage.


    "No kidding." The man shifted his weight onto his other leg before continuing in a more serious tone. "Reina wants you there."


    "Huh, guess they want someone who can take hits. Is she going?" He asked with squinted eyes.


    "Even Yagi is." The scout said and the mood turned much more heavy. It was obvious that the situation was not simple if even their best fighter and de-facto leader, Reina, was tagging along. Not that she openly claimed to be a leader. After the tragic death of Elder Feng, they had no cultivator of the fourth stage.


    If they had, the city had not been conquered by beasts, leaving them hiding where they could.


    With time, they adopted the tactic of moving away when a serious threat approached. A stark contrast to defending their grounds when they had had the power to do so. It was a cowardly strategy, yet the only reason their sect still existed.


    "Let''s go!" Yukikaze slapped his knees and rushed outside, they could not leave the threat of the Blood God Court be. People were not beasts, they would actively hunt them down and moving was not an option.


    * * * *


    "Form a line! Fire!" Karl issued mental commands to his twenty plus Void Knights and soon a volley of deadly Void light battered the ranks of the invading cultivators. He was glad that the cultivators of the Blood God Court were not completely useless and covered the flanks of his force, enabling him to put all his knights to the front.


    They were obviously wary of his force, but the urgent need to defend the base was the greatest medicine to cure their reluctance to cooperate with Karl''s forces.


    "Fire! Fire! Fire and charge!" Karl charged along with his knights towards the disorderly ranks of the enemy. To his right, he could not but admire a knight that was slightly taller than the others. It lacked the mystical aura of a Void Knight, evoking fear and disgust instead. Instead of a sword and shield, it held a huge two handed sword with a row of teeth on its blade. A blade to tear and cut the enemies unfortunate enough to taste the edge of the huge sword.


    The giant knight was obviously the Dread Knight that would see his first combat and Karl was eager to observe his performance.


    So far, he was not thrilled to find out that the Dread Knight did not possess any means of ranged attack, but he knew the mass of steel would not fail him in the coming melee.


    A water blade unleashed by one of the intruders stuck the shoulder plate of the Dread Knight and made him pause for a second, but that was all it could accomplish, the undead monstrosity continued moving on as if nothing had happened.


    "That''s it, my boy! Crush them!" Karl laughed in his mind while observing more and more Soul Power attacks focus on the knight. He was the largest and most iconic of his forces, meaning he drew attention of the enemy fighters. Luckily, his armor was thick and the attacks could do little harm to him from greater distance. One lucky steel spike managed to embed itself in its thigh, but it was nothing to the dead flesh of the knight.


    The enemy lines faltered. There was roughly two dozens of them and despite them all being higher leveled fighters of the third stage, they were greatly outnumbered. It looked like their probing strike would end even before Karl''s forces managed to lock with them in a melee.


    Carefully, the enemy started a quick, orderly retreat.


    Karl could only growl, as it was a logical course of action. The enemy leader clearly had not even planned a head on clash, just trying to test the power of their combined forces.


    "Yagi, pull back! That is enough!" A shout sounded and he noticed that a redhead fighter had not disengaged as all the others, rushing towards one of the Void Knights with her eyes burning bright red, her speed extraordinary even for a third stage cultivator.


    "Let''s have a little taste up close." The crazed woman laughed and traded a few blows with the Void Knight while retreating, her twin short swords clashing against the blade and shield inscribed with Void runes. One of her swords managed to slip into a seam of the knight''s armor, but Yagi''s smile froze on her face when her opponent showed no signs of discomfort.


    Instead, the Void Knight flexed his arm, leaving one of the short swords stuck in between his armor plates.


    "That is far from enough to take my boys down, silly girl." Karl snickered in his mind and was surprised by a large shadow flying over his head.


    The Dread Knight had obviously been enraged by the enemy''s clear attempts to avoid a direct confrontation with him. He lowered his center of mass and jumped in a way he should be unable to due to his great mass. Leaving all onlookers in shock, its steel boots left cracks on the surface of the courtyard and the Dread Knight jumped a great distance, landing behind the stupefied Yagi.


    Karl guessed that this minion had no special power, just brutal might and resilience.


    The terrifying combatant roared mightily, almost stunning the red haired cultivator, who realized too late that her sides had been also blocked by other Void Knights and she had nowhere to retreat.


    "Yagi!" Suddenly, a figure of a man of steel, the skin of whom was literally turned into rusted steel, slammed into the Dread Knight''s back, trying to open a path of retreat for his comrade. The giant staggered a step forward and quickly grabbed behind him with his armored hand, as he did not need his both hands to use his giant sword anyway.


    The man of steel quickly dodged and started kicking the knight''s legs, the blows resonating as if hammers were struck against anvils.


    Usually, blunt blows were affective against armored opponents, dealing a lot of internal damage. Unfortunately, dead flesh cared not for such blows and the attacker had to jump back, narrowly escaping the teeth of the giant sword.


    "No!" He roared, when he saw that several knights ganged up on the red head, unleashing a hell of Void and steel against the reckless cultivator. Judging by the horror in her face, she understood that even her Bloodthirst Mojo that gave her extra speed and resilience would not be able to compensate for the overwhelming numerical advantage of the knights.


    After just a few seconds, her body turned into body parts that flew in all directions. All she could do was just slightly damage one of the Void Knights.


    The result was to be expected. It was close to impossible to face melee in an encirclement, especially from minions that were not some uncoordinated rowdy group of hooligans. Karl had been coordinating the fight the whole time, exploiting any tactical advantage the enemy gave him.


    All the knights turned to face forward, rearranging the formation with speed and precision of a machine.


    That one moment filled all the spectators with more dread than the armor, stature ,or strength of the Dread Knight.


    "You will pay!" The cultivator with steel skin turned away and ran while breathing heavily.


    Or rather, he tried to.


    The Dread Knight dashed forward, immediately building up an unstoppable momentum and the retreating cultivator found out in horror that he was unable to outrun the monster. It might have been possible in a forest terrain, but the courtyard was solid, paved with cobblestone, meaning the weight of the Dread Knight posed no issue for his footing.


    In a fluid motion, the knight swung his sword and his target was able to dodge, but the cultivator did not expect that the monster would immediately follow his blow with a back swing of his armored hand. The steel knuckles hit hard against the steel skin of the cultivator''s back and he was catapulted forward, towards his companions with a clear imprint left on his back.


    "Enough!" A woman with long black hair that ran in the center of the enemies turned around and slammed her hands onto the cobblestone.


    A wall of green flames erupted before the pursuers, blocking their path. The enemies increased their lead, closely followed by the visibly exhausted woman that had unleashed the green flame that still ravenously burned despite having no fuel. Karl noticed that two cultivators in the group carried the injured man who was no longer covered in rusted steel.


    "Magnificent, Karl'' Truly magnificent!" Genji came laughing, but Karl did not share his good mood.


    "You bet, but I must have missed your fire arts, Genji." Karl stated dryly, it was obvious that the sect had deliberately held back to see what Karl and his minions were capable of. It reminded Karl again that Genji was not exactly his friend, just a business partner.


    "I could not miss the opportunity to let you shine! These morons are weak anyway and do not pose a serious threat. Not anymore." Genji laughed it off as if it was just a game among fellow hunters. "Let''s follow them into their nest! It is time to cull the radical remains of the celestial path!"


    Genji slapped the shoulder of the Void Knight minion who was carrying Karl.


    "You are right, let''s leave the jokes aside and proceed with the real job I have been hired for. What monsters do you want to eliminate?" Karl wrote in response, he did not plan on being exploited by every Joe with only the cost of a cheap smile and a pat on his shoulder.


    He was not that stupid.


    "You are right, there are some Razor Hawks that nest too close to out courtyard and your shadow minions would work wonders against their young." Genji immediately collected himself after a brief pause.


    "That can be done." Karl answered while watching the green flames die down. He commanded his minion to tear a branch from a nearby tree and stuck it into the flame. The leaves immediately ignited and burned with black flames, the wood of the branch meeting the same end.


    The whole process seemed much quicker than with ordinary fire.


    "What is this green thing?" Karl asked out of curiosity.


    "DarkFire. It is very similar to ordinary flames, but burns especially fierce anything related to Mojo. It is quite dangerous. The Soul Power of their leader, Reina."


    "The one with black hair?"


    "Yes, that one."


    "Not impressed." Karl wrote in a lazy font, expressing his attitude in his own way.


    "Be glad she is not at Soul Binding and she will never be. A DarkFire Domain is a nasty, nasty crap." For a moment, Karl saw a hint of fear in Genji''s eyes and decided not to inquire any further.


    "Alright, let''s go hunt some birds." Karl was sure that the Blood God Court did not need his help with the celestial cultivators anyway. He still remembered Genji''s fight in the forest. DarkFire might be a qualitatively better power, but Karl was quite sure that Genji was on the Soul Binding stage and the volume of flames he could control was on a whole another level compared to the simple wall of fire that seemed to have exhausted the enemy leader greatly.


    "Killing birds is pleasant, I never liked them anyway." Karl thought, he hated how noisy all birds were. They just could not simply piss around to mark their territory, but had to constantly make a racket.


    Cats were much better, no useless noises. Except on some particular occasions.


    With similar thoughts, Karl proceeded to head to the closes watchtower that used to be a part of Edo''s outer wall, the nest closest to the sect''s hideout.

 Book Two, Chapter 23 Horrors Unleashed

    Karl marched with his minions towards one of the exists of the Blood God Court''s courtyard. He had decided not to ask Genji about people from other worlds, because he frankly had little trust in the man.


    "The guy has an agenda and making me stronger or more knowledgeable ain''t in it." Karl thought bitterly, it would be better to mingle a little first before asking around. No one trusted a total stranger.


    Before they exited the sect, Karl payed attention to multiple cultivators that tried to cultivate in the open. Some of them practiced the celestial path that was familiar to him due to his close relations to the Water Dragon Sect, but there were cultivators that did not shy away from more unorthodox practices and the leadership of the sect did not seem to mind.


    The only policy seemed to be to do all demonic cultivation in the open to allow others to immediately intervene if something went wrong.


    On his right, Karl saw a cultivator who was painting runes on naked bodies of slaves that were chained to the ground. What would happen next to them could be imagined.


    On his left, there sat a giggling girl that was surrounded by bodies of animals and what she appeared to be doing was preparing to graft animal body part onto her own body, not caring about altering her looks.


    Karl noticed that the demonic practices were being silently observed by the others and it was probable that not all practices of demonic cultivation were welcomed in the camp.


    "Even a tolerant sect like this one seems to have its limits." Karl mused while passing the checkpoint with ease, as no one really cared about people going outside.


    Karl marched in full force towards his destination. It was after dawn and he considered waiting for the night, but he was too impatient and his minions would be able to deal with the annoying birds anyway. He had no plans to go deeper into their territory, staying just on the edge.


    "Let''s bait them and see how it goes." They continued to march in a loose formation directly towards the watch tower, as if challenging the pair of Razor Hawks that made a nest at its top.


    Karl could see that the bigger of the pair, supposedly a male, was watching them when they left the cover of higher buildings that were still standing and entered the region that was the hunting ground of the birds. For a while, the pair of birds was simply watching them from their high position, but when they were far enough from any cover, they took off into the air and screeched loudly.


    "Here they come. Romeo and Julie, death has already been prepared for you." Karl followed closely the pair''s movements as they began to circle above his group.


    Both parties were assessing each other''s strength.


    After a few circles, the female bird cried out in a pitch one octave higher and descended rapidly on one of the Void Knights.


    The dive was too fast and when Karl finally guessed which of the knights had the honor to be chosen by the bird, a steel sound rang loudly across the ruined landscape and Karl saw in shock a pile of metal that used to be his Void Knight, crushed into a pulp by the powerful impact.


    "No way! This bird packs some punch!" He Immediately commanded all his Void Knights to unleash the Void upon the daring bird.


    The bird managed to dodge many of the flying Void projectiles, the sword lights harmlessly ascending to the sky, but there was too many and it soon fell down with a screech, its feathers stained with blood.


    The injured bird had little chance for further struggle against Karl''s forces and was promptly bisected by the Dread Knight.


    "One knight down, that is unpleasant." Karl lamented and watched the male dive towards the Dread Knight ferociously.


    "You are done, you overgrown chicken." Karl watched the clash of monstrosities.


    There was a noise even louder than before and the male Razor Hawk ended its assault standing on the top of the lying Dead Knight that had its arm torn away, the top half of his chest had been pushed into its lower part, making him look ridiculously stocky.


    "Help him!" Karl commanded immediately when he realized that the Razor Hawk had the capacity to kill his most prized possession.


    But that was only the beginning.


    In the next second, the air began to shimmer and Karl was glad that he was further away from the duel when he realized what it was. Countless invisible blades materialized all around the male Razor Hawk and began to spin and slash, turning everything in a diameter of fifteen meters around it into minced meat and metal scraps.


    It was a domain. In the area around the bird, only the Razor Hawk''s blades ruled.


    "Ranged attacks! Fire everything you can!!" Karl was stupefied by the unfavorable situation, he had no time to count how many minions he had lost, but it was much more than he had planned.


    Again, Void projectiles began to fly towards the bird and only two managed to hit it due to the considerably reduced ranks of the Void Knights. Luckily, the injuries distracted the bird enough for it to miss that the one he was grasping in his talons was far from dead. The Dread Knight swung his one hand and his saw-like two handed sword stuck the Razor Hawk''s wing and side, almost severing the wing off.


    A mournful screech tore through the sky and another storm of razor blades flooded the bird''s surroundings, ending the Dread Knight for good.


    Nevertheless, the downed bird was left at the mercy of the ranged attacks that were hitting more and more as the movements of the Razor Hawk were compromised by his injuries.


    After everything went silent, Karl looked over the battlefield and counted his losses and his gains.


    First, he decided to call his status screen and savor the sweet experience points that came along with killing an entity at the Soul Binding level.


    Karl Gulden


    Level 3 Dungeon Core


    Mana Regeneration - 1000/s


    Spells- [Dig], [Build]


    Summons- [Molerat (Gluttony) 5/s], [Ghoul Gryphon (Filth) 500/s]


    [Experience 1081/10 000]


    "The loses are too much, I have to replenish my forces." Karl decided to probe what Edo''s underground had to offer, as he had already mapped a place where his trusted Earth Elementals could be summoned.


    Why not pause his assignment? He had no time constraints on his actions. With no time constraints, one would lose only when he admitted his loss.


    * * * *


    "So, your little pet runs around, playing with beasts and that''s all he can do." Elder Sato spat out while staring out of the window, looking at the training cultivators below.


    "Where is the problem? We can use an extra muscle. Who knows? Maybe he will get more comfortable with us and becomes more valuable in the future." Elder Genji responded while having his elbows propped against the frame of the very same window.


    "The Jing-Jang Palace cultivators are like rabid dogs sniffing their demise. They are snooping around, looking for an opportunity to strike." Elder Sato appeared unhappy with what Elder Genji had said.


    "You worry too much." Genji just laughed at his comrade''s worries.


    "Really? You do know what is under this building. If they get too close and disrupt the. .. . "


    "Enough!" Genji''s fist slammed against the window frame. "You know the rules, not on the surface, Sato!"


    Genji''s companion bent closer and whispered into his ear.


    "They are the last threat remaining, we should deal with them swiftly with all the means at our disposal." Sato kept pressuring Genji until his kin stood up straight and made a step towards him, their amber eyes only centimeters from each other.


    "I am Tokugawa Genji, inheritor of the will of Tokugawa Akame and I am perfectly aware of the burden passed down upon me. You will listen to my orders without question, this conversation is over." The commanding tone did not allow any resistance.


    "Patriarch." Elder Sato bowed slightly and turned around, his gray hair of the same color as Genji had, albeit much longer, was fluttering behind him. He left the room without looking back and Genji drew a deep breath of fresh air.


    He also knew about what they were guarding, but to rush would be a mistake. Everything had the right time.


    * * * *


    Karl looked at the watch tower for the last time and issued a command to his minions to turn back, it was better to play it safe, who knew if the pair of birds were the only ones in the vicinity. His minions turned around, but when they made just a couple of steps in their new direction, there was an explosion right next to Karl and one of his Void Horrors burst into flames as if hit by a grenade.


    More explosions sounded around him and it took Karl a few seconds to realize that the enemy was hiding in the middle of the tower they had been heading for. The projectiles seemed to be arrows, but they were clearly far from simple.


    "Hurry, we must retreat!" Karl began to panic and gave the order to sprint towards the nearest cover. Unfortunately, the attack was a perfect ambush, as the territory of the Razor Hawks was typical by its absence of cover that was the very reason the beasts had their nests here.


    While explosions were raining down onto their heads constantly, Karl with his minions were moving back towards their camp. With every minion fallen, he felt like being crushed into powder.


    One of the explosions was louder than the others and Karl Gulden found himself soaring through the air, landing on the ground a dozen meters away from their destination.


    "Pick me up! Hurry!" He was in distress, hoping that his immortal life was not about to ingloriously end in an ambush. Without delay, the nearest Void Knight picked him up and continued with him in his dash towards the nearby remnants of a wall.


    When they finally left the clearing, Karl found in horror that there was just a minority of his minions left.


    He had just three Void Knights left.


    "We must retreat to the base!" An irrational fear gripped him, as if being out in the open meant a certain death. They rushed back, almost being attacked by the gatekeepers of the Blood God Court, as they had not waited for being identified.


    "Are you alright?! We have new intel, there should have been two assault teams of The Jing-Jang Palace, not just one. " The disheveled Elder Sato ran towards them, closely followed by Genji.


    "We have been ambushed after killing a nesting pair of Razor Hawks!"


    "Cursed pests! Why can''t they leave us alone!" Elder Sato howled in anger and stomped his foot, sparks flying from the impacted ground.


    "We have to double the guards, who knows what else they have in store for us." Genji immediately ordered the cultivators around him to strengthen the camp''s security.


    "They must have noticed our fight and sneaked on us. I need an empty building to rest." Karl wrote quickly, while suppressing his urge to bury under the ground and start digging our long, never ending tunnels that would make him safe.


    "Go over there, we have the defenses covered." Genji nodded grimly and pointed at one of the apartment buildings that could be entered directly from the courtyard.


    Kalr did not wait and rushed all his minions into the cellar of the designated building, ordering his leftover three knights to block the entrance.


    "I am too vulnerable, I need to hide!" His fear was taking grip of his faculties more and more, until he could not take it any longer.


    He could not wait, there was no time to search for a place suitable to summon Earh Elementals!


    His mind wandered into his status and he used something he had sworn to never try to use again.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    His unique dungeon spell.


    [Dig]


    He began pouring mana into the spell and the ground beneath him disappeared more and more, the Void Horror that carried him descending into the depths of earth.


    "I have to dig, hide, create new Buildings, recruit new minions." Karl''s mind was not thinking about anything else. The tunnel that was being dug from Jinsheng was far from complete and his forces were too small for a safe returning trip above the ground. He might wait, but he felt too vulnerable and needed to solve the problem at once.


    Descending deeper and deeper, his bearer suddenly lost all soil under him and Karl fell into a large chamber.


    Crushing onto the floor, he looked around in the sparse glow of Void and stayed staring in front of him where there was a strange shimmering orb floating roughly one meter above the floor. It expanded and contracted, the convulsing orb''s diameter changing from two to below one meter. The periodicity of change was irregular and the colors of the orb reminded Karl of a futuristic art from his time.


    "What is this?" Karl was stunned by the view and continued staring at the spectacle in front of him, when there was a sound of a door slammed shut nearby.


    "Have the intruders reached the forbidden chamber as well?!" Karl recognized Genij''s voice and soon, the figures of Genji and Sato appeared in front of him, their expressions ashen.


    "This is it, you know what we must do Genji!"


    "Wait! Do not be too rash!"


    "Are you insane? He now knows of our secret!"


    "So what?! Jing-Jang Palace has narrowed the possible locations to just a few spots. We cannot keep this a secret for much longer anyway." Genji responded in a resigned voice.


    The tense Elder Sato looked like he would be strangling Genji any second, but in the end, his clenched fists relaxed again without making any violent moves.


    "Your indecisiveness will be our doom!" Elder Sato growled and left, leaving Genji alone with Karl and his minions.


    "What is the meaning of this?" Karl asked through the writing of his current minion.


    "This is the Gate, the reason why our enemy is constantly attacking us. They believe that the Gate to the Second Heaven is a lifetime opportunity and must be used to gain power. They want to enter the Gate and reach higher realms of cultivation. In their opinion, it is the best way to escape the horror the First Heaven has become, or to gain enough power to reestablish order in it."


    "That is a good idea, no?" Karl asked innocently, while trying to penetrate into the depth of the Gate with his sight.


    "Not at all!" Genji spat his saliva, as he disapproved vigorously.


    "No one has passed through the Gate from the other side, to attract attention to the Gate on the other side would mean to doom the First Heaven! Do you think that the denizens of the Second Heaven will simply leave us going back and forth when they discover this passage?! Nothing must pass though the Gate and alert them, that is our sacred duty!" Genji explained passionately and Karl thought how to distance himself from the problem that had obviously little to do with him.


    "Fine! Let''s leave, seal this place and forget that I have ever entered here." He proposed and Genji immediately nodded.


    "That is the wisest course of action."


    Karl left the hidden room with the Gate and headed back to the surface, to the building he had previously been in. He discovered that with [Dig], he could not only dig out tunnels and open spaces under the ground, but also fill them with soil or rock at the cost of mana. It was a very convenient spell that he had left unused for too long. After filling the downward tunnel that led to the Gate chamber with rock, the cultivators were obviously watching his movement, not trusting him at all.


    He left the camp claiming that he needed to replenish his forces, refusing to share the exact method to do so with the sect. He entered one of the sturdy looking houses not far from the Blood God Sect and stuffed himself and its minions into its cellar, making sure that no one could peep in.


    What he was about to do would make the cultivators quite angry.


    "I need to get into that region, there were some really interesting possibilities there." Karl started using his new favorite among his system granted powers again and dug deeper, skewing the tunnel shortly in horizontal direction.


    In the direction of the Blood God Sect.


    "I hope that I will hit its vicinity without an issue." He dug for some time before his position reached somewhere underneath the chamber with the Gate. He knew, because when he called up his status screen and deftly clicked [Build] with his mind, he saw the exact same mesmerizing thing as back then when he had been directly inside.


    [Basic Tunnel Element 1 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Trap Element 100 000Ma 1/s]


    [Basic Tunnel Element(2) 10 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Trap Element(2) 1 000 000Ma 10/s],


    [Basic Tunnel Element(3) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Basic Trap Element(3) 1 000 000Ma 10/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(3) 1 000 000Ma 10/s], [Advanced Trap Element(3) 10 000 000Ma 100/s],


    [Gunk Pile 500 000Ma 5/s]


    [Festering Wound 500 000Ma 5/s]


    [Temple of Blood 900 000Ma 8/s]


    [Maw of Insanity(2) 6 000 000Ma 20/s]


    [Circle of Submission(2) 7 000 000Ma 20/s]


    [Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes(3) 50 000 000Ma 220/s]


    [Dungeon Portal(2) 100 000 000Ma 10/s]


    "We hit a jackpot, boys." Karl looked at his silent minions and had an urge to smile. He was sure that given enough time, his army would be as good as new.


    "It has a weird theme to it, but I won''t be picky." Karl thought and expanded the space around him to fit in all the Buildings he needed. With the pitiful remnants of his minions after the ambush, he could generate over five hundred mana pet second, meaning the most magnificent building would take him less then two days to build.


    However, he planned to try out the cheaper buildings first.


    "My lovely children, who will be the first to be born?" Karl forced himself not to skip due to his excitement and started with the first unknown building. He channeled his mana into the Festering Wound and after five minutes the ground under him turned fleshy with a slit cracking open in the middle of the changed surface. With time it gained color starting from deep red to gradually turn slightly blue-black, it reminded Karl of a badly healed scar. In a way, it was true to its name.


    "Oh my, what a disgusting thing. " Karl thought while staring into the Festering Wound.


    "But it is my disgusting thing!" His mood improved immediately and he hungrily pressed the [Manage] spell that appeared in his status screen.


    [Festering Wound 500 000Ma 5/s]


    Corruption(N''Ri)- 10/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Flesh of N''Ri(Corruption) 100Co 1Co/s]


    "Come to daddy!" Karl immediately commanded to summon his new minion. In span of ten seconds, a blob of tentacles that was walking on its seemingly thin appendages coalesced in front of Karl, as if it had oozed out of the festering slit in the floor.


    "Ouch, that was kind of expected, but what can it do?!" Karl stared questioningly at the swaying blob of tentacles in front of him that would reach the shoulders of a grown man and thought how to test its usefulness.


    "Whatever, it seems there will have to be a live testing after this." He dismissed the minion and noticed that the summoning time of this minion was extremely short. If he constructed a lot of Festering Wounds, he might be able to create an uninterrupted tide of weak minions.


    He was pleased with the result and continued to the next structure that was the Temple of Blood.


    He started channeling mana next to the Festering Wound and a simple altar with runes written with blood began rising from the ground. Along with it, a thick smell of blood appeared in the air, but Karl had no nose to smell it and stayed oblivious to the phenomenon.


    Soon, the altar was complete and Karl jumped hungrily at its description.


    [Temple of Blood 900 000Ma 8/s]


    Carnage(Fu) = 10/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Wartorn of Fu(Carnage) 500Ca 1Ca/s]


    "Another positively themed structure, let''s see the new minion." Karl thought with irony and summoned the new minion, a process that took considerably longer compared to his previous summoning.


    This time, something that Karl would describe as a robust goblin began assembling itself at the top of the altar, the blood from the runes filling its veins. The creature was not at all green, but full of wounds and even weapons sticking from its flesh. This time, the minion had a face, a mad expression hungering for blood. The Wartorn of Fu looked definitely more intimidating than a Goblin and was more robust as well, but Karl could not tell how he would fare in battle. That needed to wait for the later test.


    "Next." Karl stepped aside and began channeling his power, building the Maw of Insanity, a second tier building that should contain stronger minions.


    This time, a building with many irregular walls began taking shape in front of him, the stone of its roof transforming into steel and glass midway, only to continue with glass and end abruptly, leaving the roof half unfinished. The whole structure looked like designed by a drunk futuristic architect to the point it no longer could fulfill its original purpose of sheltering its inhabitants and turned just into some kind of monument of insanity.


    When Karl looked into the building, there was a gaping hole in its floor lined with multiple rows of teeth with multiple tongues flickering inside. When he summoned its first minion, it started crawling from the maw.


    [Maw of Insanity(2) 6 000 000Ma 20/s]


    Insanity(QiXrcRlr) - 100/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Mad Puppet (Insanity) 5 000In 10In/s], [Brain Eater(Insanity) 15 000In 15In/s]


    The Mad Puppet crawled fully out of the maw and straightened in front of Karl. It was a naked, pale, androgynous humanoid with its head lacking ears, hair and eyes, even the creatures mouth was nonexistent, as if its lips had been grown together. However, the creation had sharp nails and a miniaturized version of the Maw of Insanity''s maw growing vertically on its chest.


    Karl found the new minion weird and immediately tried the next one, it as well, crawled out of the maw in the ground.


    This one looked like a giant spider with too many legs that were against all the rules of insects'' bodily structure. Instead of its front, the Brain Eater had its mouth at the bottom of its belly. Its legs did not look like having any claws and his only weapon seemed to be his mandibles.


    "This is a weird one as well. Is there even something normal this time around?" Karl wondered, but it did not seem to be the case. When he began channeling the last structure before the highly anticipated cathedral, a large, circular pit in the ground started to appear. It appeared as if he was looking at a torture chamber with its roof removed, various steel contraptions and instruments placed everywhere, its walls having chains and cages embedded in them.


    "This one looks the most normal I guess?" Karl displayed the Building''s details right after its construction.


    [Circle of Submission(2) 7 000 000Ma 20/s]


    Obsession(Sisith)  - 100/s


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Jailor of Sisith(Obsession) 5 000In 10In/s], [Priestess of Depravity(Obsession) 15 000In 15In/s]


    "Oh no, I hope they will not look like I think they will. I need to keep at least some level of decency with my minions." Karl snorted in his mind and began the summoning of the Jailor of Sisith.


    Chains and bindings in the chamber rattled and turned to life, gathering together into the shape of a man. The chains gradually turned into flesh and there stood a bare-chested man in trousers from thick leather, there was a leather mask on his face and his eyes were purple, He held a long, spiked chain in his hands that glowed purple.


    "Ok, welcome buddy to our marry band, now I am a little afraid." Karl gave a command to summon the Priestess of Depravity.


    Surprisingly, after a similar summoning process appeared a woman veiled in a red robe, only her long black hair could be seen, hanging from under her hood with a strand of red here and there.


    "Praise all immortals, she is presentable enough!" Karl was glad and decided to leave the priestess veiled until the combat tests.


    "Now, here we go! Let''s go!" Karl was excited when he finally started to pour his mana into the construction of the Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes. He had prepared an especially large space for it and watched as it was being filled with black obsidian.


    The style of the cathedral was undoubtedly gothic, but the base was not a cross how it was usually the case with cathedrals, but a circle. Along the circumference of the circle there was ten high spires with a giant eye standing on the top of each. Each eye was surrounded by flesh that grew in strands towards the ground, enveloping the spires, entwining the whole cathedral in its fibers.


    [Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes(3) 50 000 000Ma 220/s]


    Corruption(N''Ri)- 1 000/s


    The Eye of N''Ri - 10


    Spells- [Build]


    Summon- [Spawn of N''Ri (Corruption) 1 000ICo 10Co/s], [Flesh Golem (Corruption) 500 000Co 100Co/s], [The Prophet of N''Ri(Corruption) 5The Eye of N''Ri 1 000 000Co 250Co/s],


    "Wait, the same shared resource? This is strange. These are Mojo in those round brackets or what?" Karl felt that this time his Buildings were kind of odd themed, However, his musings were quickly forgotten under the weight of his desire to discover new and fascinating minions.


    He could not hold himself back, skipping all the cheaper minions and chose to summon his new celebrity, The Prophet of N''Ri


    The bell of the cathedral rung loud and the pupils of five eyes on the spires disappeared, turning blind. From the cathedral, a man two and a half meters tall emerged. His skin was pale and five eyes were placed in equal distance around his bald head, making his vision a perfect binocular three hundred and sixty degrees. His right arm was replaced by several thick tentacles and his teeth were sharpened. In his left hand, he held a knife with broad blade that was like a mirror. The most dull from his appearance were his clothes, grey and tattered, but it did not impact his dangerous looks at all. Through the holes in his robe, one could see black veins pulsing with what might not be even blood.


    "I need to think of something." When Karl looked at his minion, he realized that he had a problem. Karl was sure that it would not be possible to build more trust with Genji and ask him about the otherworlders after he saw his new army. It was hard to make a positive impression with the options Karl had at hand. "I have to confront him before he sees this, because after that, no one will believe me a thing."


    * * * *


    A Goblin emerged from an abandoned building in Edo''s commercial district and turned quickly in the direction of the Blood God Sect. He was an unusual messenger, but Karl had decided to use him as a proxy, as he was still busy building his new army. The small green creature swiftly turned behind a corner and then exploded in white flames, when a swift projectile hit its shoulder.


    "Damned idiots, it seems that I need to first pay them a visit!" Karl was annoyed when he realized the attack was too similar to the one they faced in the territory of Razor Hawks. Ir was an ambush performed in a similar manner to the one before.


    "Screw the arena, I have enough forces to swarm them. Let''s test my minions in a real battle!" He quickly finalized his plan and the army that looked like from some horror movie was quickly taking shape in front of him.


    Karl discovered that The Eye of N''Ri were consumables and he could summon only two Prophet''s of N''Ri with one cathedral. He added four Flesh Golems to them and ten Spawn of N''Ri, exhausting all resources of his cathedral. The Flesh Golems were of the same height as the prophet, but were much more robust with no other exceptional features, except of having no eyes, their flesh not being covered with skin at some places.


    "Huh, maybe the cathedral exhausted all his eyes on the prophets." Karl chuckled in his mind and switched his attention to the ten minions that were nothing more than six thick tentacles connected together with a wide maw that faced down when the creature was walking on its six appendages. Where the Spawn of N''Ri passed, it left drops of black blood that did not look like good news for anyone who touched it.


    "Fine, I have got this group of disgusting things for something over two hundred mana, not a bad deal." Karl proceeded to summon other minions until he had a considerable force that consisted of two Prophets of N''Ri, four Flesh Golems, ten Spawns of N''Ri, eleven Jailers of Sisith, six exemplars of Priestess of Depravity, two Brain Eaters, seven Mad Puppets, fifty Wartorns of Fu and an insane number of one thousand and ten Flesh of N''Ri, because he had an amazing idea of summoning another Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes and use its corruption to summon them, as it was incredibly economical that way.


    With a wave of his mental command, he unleashed his forces onto the surface with a single command.


    "Destroy the annoying Jing-Jang Palace, I had enough of their ambushes." Karl growled inside of his black crystalline structure while he himself remained in the safety of his new base, ready to make a quick change in the distribution of his forces in case someone decided to visit him even despite all the rock separating him from the surface world.

 Book Two, Chapter 24 Meciless

    Genji was looking out of the window of his office, a far better furnished room than the resting places of his companions, as was appropriate for an Elder. No, in his heart he was not an Elder. He had never been fond of the traditions and rules of mainstream society. For him, they were the Tokugawa Clan, but he had to make compromises if he wanted to absorb the stray fighters they desperately needed.


    Times were truly desperate and the only uplifting thought was that their enemies had to share the difficult circumstances his clan had found itself in. Resources were thin and danger lurked everywhere.


    Thinking of the dangers, Genji nearly jumped up from his chair when he heard a noise, but he quickly calmed down when he recognized the familiar knocking sound on the sturdy door of his office.


    "Come in." He barked, not in the mood for conversations, but made a long face when he saw an unexpected visitor.


    It was a little green creature he had seen following their new asset, Karl. His comrades might have a different opinion, but Genji still considered him an asset, despite the unfortunate escapade in the Gate chamber.


    The goblin walked closer to Genji while carrying a letter in his both hands like a treasure. When he reached Genji, he bowed his head and waited for him to take it. Genji did not think about it twice and took the yellow letter, unveiling the terrible writing inside.


    "Are we now sending letters to each other? Ridiculous." He stared at the writing while thinking where the writer might have run off after the little escapade with the Gate.


    He was barely able to read it.


    We need to talk about the topic from before. What do you know about the people from the outside?


    It was a single, simple line. Despite being unsigned, Genji knew who wrote it and shook his head while bringing a piece of charcoal from a room next door.


    "I do not have time for this." Genji was expecting another attack at any moment and had little patients for the antics of their new comrade that was for some reason talking to him through letters.


    His answer, hastily written on the same piece of paper, was short and simple.


    Now is not the time.


    It was obvious he could not trust the weirdo with secrets, they were far from close friends and writing down any secrets would be the height of stupidity anyway.


    "I hope out new friend is not losing it, he would not be the first." Genji sighed and followed the green skin with his eyes until the Goblin disappeared behind the camp gates.


    * * * *


    Watching through the eyes of his minion, Karl did not even need for the letter to arrive to know the answer.


    "It was worth the shot, ending up with the expected result I see." What happened was exactly what he had anticipated. Genji had been only teasing him with crumbs, but he was far from ready to tell him the whole story. "Not that I care, I do have eyes."


    At first, he had thought that some people from Genji''s camp had come from another word, particularly from Japan, yet further interaction with them was not supporting that theory. They had many features of Japanese people, often even names, but at the same time they behaved differently as if all of that was just a facade. Karl''s current, most plausible hypothesis was that a long time ago, a group of Japanese really had come to the strange cultivation world, but they had left here only their descendants who mixed with who had already resided in the different world.


    Genji just seemed to be a part of some sort of a cult who retained more of their history than the others, but he was far from being the original space traveler himself.


    "Like this, the value of his information is far less than I had originally thought." Karl''s mood worsened and he switched his attention to his campaign against the pest that had been targeting him for some time. In part, it was his fault to expect too much when he heard about other people like him, it seemed that those who were in Edo had long died of old age.


    He focused on his marching forces and his vision suddenly shifted, the top half of his view being occupied by a hood that was covering his eyes. He quickly got accustomed to the shift from his usual three hundred and sixty degrees vision to the standard binocular vision of a human. In fact, it was much less jarring thanks to the back of his real body being most of the times stuck to something, causing him to not having his eyes on his backs as was normal for an ordinary human.


    Naturally, a Priestess of Depravity became his proxy. He chose her not due to lust, but just because she was the sole only minion in his current force that looked more or less human. As a stone, Karl had learnt the value of not complicating things by looking too different than other intelligent life, who tended to be humanoid.


    "However, I could try to possess a dog and explore the joy of living as an animal." Karl mused in his head and had to slap himself inside his mind for thinking like a lunatic. Quickly, his lagging brain caught up to the situation again and he saw the street his small army of minions was currently marching through. He decided to pay little attention to remain hidden and was about to perform a frontal assault on the den of the annoying pests.


    He hoped it would teach them not bothering him at every turn.


    Thanks to some flaming speeches of Elder Sato, Karl knew a rough location of the Jing-Jang Palace. He felt eerie when walking in the midst of his twisted minions and imagined his attack that would surely remind him of some horror movie. In his mind, his disorderly mob of evil minions ran towards the cultivators in their neat robes and tore them apart with their hands.


    "What, with their hands?" Karl spoke through the priestess realizing he should have a better idea about the actions of his army.


    They could not possibly fight just by their bare hands!


    "I mean, there has to be some voodoo to it, yes? And why can I speak? I have found out only now?!" The Priestess of Depravity gnashed her teeth under her hood while taking in her own melodious voice. "Anyway, stop right here and each one of you attack that pole with a ranged attack!"


    Karl gave a command and the group stopped and produced an immense racket when every single member of his forces tried to perform a ranged attack as ordered.


    Naturally, his most numerous Flesh of N''Ri simply stared and did nothing, obviously not capable of a ranged attack and lacking any creativity to think of something. Following their example, the two Brain Eaters just wobbled on their many legs with obvious disinterest.


    Karl could understand them, poles had no brain after all.


    The first minion that took some acting were the Mad Puppets, who spat at the pole in the distance, their artillery bombardment severely lacking range to even reach the pole. Their saliva just splashing against the ground, not even looking dangerous in any way.


    But their continued in their actions anyway.


    "Truly mad." The Priestess of Depravity said in an alluring voice, as if enchanted by their lack of rationality.


    "Why does this bitch speak like she was only one second from an orgasm?" Karl said through his proxy with the most unhinged voice yet, and while breathing heavily, reminded himself not to speak publicly while using the priestess.


    Karl quickly forced his attention on the Wartorns of Fu, who were busy tearing out the rusted instruments embedded in their flesh and throwing them at the pole. When most of what could be used this way had been torn out of their flesh, leaving many wounds oozing blood, they just continued to roar in the direction of the pole.


    "They''ve tried." Karl wanted to state dryly, but what left the lips of the priestess was something entirely different.


    In the next second, the pole exploded into a cloud of ash, surprising Karl greatly.


    "Oh, such power!" The Priestess of Depravity spoke again and took a deep breath to calm herself down.


    Karl was starting to feel mentally fatigued.


    "You need to go one at a time boys, I have not caught who did that." He blocked off his bearer''s theatrics and commanded the rest of minions to find out who possessed the unexpected ranged attack.


    First to go was a Spawn of N''Ri, his creation screeched as if pleased by the focused attention of its master and two of its legs jumped, lifting briefly the torso of the minion, making its mouth face the pole for the needed second. It was all the time it took for the creature to open its mouth and while exposing its long tongue, spitting a thin jet of black saliva at the pole.


    The attack was incomparable to the impotent attempts of the Mad Puppets, the jet hitting its mark and making the pole corrode at the speed visible to a naked eye. It was no cannon round, but the attack was dangerous enough to be used in the future battle.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "Good boy, finally someone skilled with his . .. Finally someone skilled!" The priestess complimented the minion and it began squirm with pleasure while clicking its tongue.


    "That is enough, next! Attack the pole at range!" Karl quickly focused on a different minion and ordered it to attack a different pole, as the old one could not be used anymore, its top fallen off after the middle part had been thoroughly corroded by the black saliva.


    Immediately, a Flesh Golem flexed its muscles and grabbed the nearby Spawn of N''Ri that was still shivering in happiness by one of its legs and threw it at the pole. The poor spawn collided with the pole and bent it almost at the right angle. After the improvised landing, Karl expected the spawn to have a bone to pick with the rude golem, but instead, it entangled the pole with its thick legs and turned it into a twisted spaghetti.


    It clearly considered itself a part of the ordered ranged attack and the master''s order was of highest priority.


    "What a lovely cooperation." Karl breathed out sharply and continued with the test.


    "You, attack the pole over there!" He pointed at his colleague, another Priestess of Depravity,


    An extra prolonged sigh escaped the lips of the commanded minion and her red robe slipped off her shoulders, enabling Karl to see much more than just her long, black hair. The perfect body of the priestess was bound in leather undergarments in the most revealing way, only sparingly veiling some parts of her body, leaving the rest that should have been hidden in the first place fully exposed.


    The priestess bent her legs and her powerful muscles tensed, the next second she launched herself high into the air, moving in the direction of the pole from above.


    Karl observed her trajectory, captivated by the jump.


    "Do not tell me . . ." For a second, Karl thought that the priestess was more mad than the Mad Puppet, but he noticed that the hands of the minion glowed purple and thick chains quickly wrapped around both her arms. Still in the air, she extended her right hand and the chain launched itself, wrapping rightly around the pole. She proceeded to pull herself towards her target and when she reach the ground, she slammed the pole with her left hand entangled in heavy chains, doing extensive damage.


    "Not bad, only the jailers left before we reach our expensive superstar." Karl nodded his silky white chin and his eyes shifted to a minion dressed in leather, this time in a much more decent way than the priestesses.


    "Have a go at it." Karl pointed at another pole, as the previous one had been ruined again and one of the Jailers of Sisith showcased the most ordinary ranged attack yet, he pulled a knife out of his leather trousers and skillfully threw it at the pole.


    It hit the mark, fell off and that was it.


    "Well done, this touch of normalcy was much needed at this point." Karl conveyed his feelings to the minion and swiftly changed his object of interest before the minion proved him wrong by doing something indecent.


    "Now, it is your turn! Show that pole your might!" Karl excitedly encouraged his last untested minion.


    Prophet of N''Ri simply lifted his broad knife and looked at the image of the pole that was reflected in it. He closed one of his five eyes and the pole quickly deteriorated like being exposed to ten thousand years of erosion in a single second. Karl''s guess was right and in the next second, the pole turned into a cloud of ash.


    "That is cool, but the eyes. . ?" Karl watched the minion''s closed eye that had obviously something to do with the power he had just used and feared that one of his prized Eyes of N''Ri had been irreversibly consumed, but rejoiced when the minion opened the eye again after roughly five minutes and had no apparent problems with its functionality.


    "Not bad, he can probably do this four times in five minutes, that is quite fast considering how deadly the power is. He can surely fight in melee using other means as well." Karl thought that the test was a success. His new minions clearly did not possess the sheer firepower of a group of Void Knights, but his attacks might be more insidious and deadly than before. No more of his former straightforward bombardment with Void.


    "Yes, I am more insidious now." Karl mused in her melodious voice and started to feel more exposed, when he realized that the Priestess of Depravity was basically naked under the loose red robe.


    The confidence in his forces reignited, Karl was marching towards his target until he finally saw a wooden gate that was blocking the street, they had finally reached the Jing-Jang Palace.


    "Go, destroy the place and everyone who resist you!" Karl shouted and the mass of his minions moved forward with incredible momentum. He chose a mindless frontal assault, as there was nothing to lose. Even if he failed, he guessed the appetite for adventure of these people would be cooled off either way.


    He heard panicked shouts in the distance and watched those burdened with guard duty running back and forth in panic when faced with the inconceivable enemy they had never encountered before. Yet, their looks turned suddenly calm and they began stretching their limbs.


    "Lame, they cannot touch the ground with their hands while having their legs straight? That is a basic exercise!" Karl wondered in his mind, not daring to make even a peep aloud, trying to avoid any more shenanigans of his bearer. "What? Are they dumb? Why are they exercising?"


    He quickly realized that it was the work of some of his minions, most likely the Mad Puppets who looked suspiciously focused on the two guards. Karl was not the only one confused and it resulted in their frontal assault turning into a surprised attack, where his minions were able to reach the wooden gate without any substantial reinforcements coming to help defend the gate.


    His Flesh Golems charged into the wooden gate and it shattered in a cloud of splinters. With this scene in the background, Karl observed one of the prophets entangle his tentacles around the neck of one of the guards and lifted him up. Surprisingly, his action had not disrupted his exercise. Next to the lifted guard, who struggled to finish his morning health routine without being choked to the death, a cloak slid to the ground, revealing a gorgeous figure that jumped over the remnants of the wooden gate.


    "Yes, it looks like a standard assault." Karl observed the picture before him and received a response to his unguarded thoughts.


    "A violent frontal assault with choking." The priestess caught her already unbuttoned cloak by its hem and Karl instantly knew what would shortly follow. "Shall we join?!"


    "Absolutely not, we will only watch!" Karl resolutely interrupted her from doing what her kin had already done.


    "Oh, just watching the action. How thrilling!" He left the priestess to her sinful imagination and focused back on the battle.


    It did not take long and his acquaintances joined the battle, the man with steel skin trying to push back the Flesh Golems that had caused the defensive lines of the enemy to crumble, violent flames visible behind him, attacking those minions who had managed to make it deeper into the enemy territory.


    Karl was keenly observing the performance of his troops, pleased with the Mad Puppets that despite not surprising with their limited physical ability were able to unleash chaos with their mind control skills. Predictably, the deciding factor in the battle were the Prophets of N''Ri that received orders to attack the strongest enemy combatants with their cheat-like ability.


    Soon, Karl saw the heroic combatant of steel fall without any obvious injuries, followed by other top fighters of the enemy. Paired with a number of happily exercising enemies while the battle was in full swing, the morale of the opposing force had been shattered into thousand pieces. The battle turned quickly into a game of tag, where his minions hunted enemy combatants that were unable to flee in time.


    "Well, that was not much of a battle. Too short." Karl grumbled, but was glad there would be no longer trouble with surprise attacks of the Jing-Jang Palace.


    "How unfortunate." His priestess added and continued to stare at her exposed kin longingly.


    Stopping in the middle of the battlefield, he scanned the bodies around him with his eyes, his gaze stopping at a few pebbles nearby.


    "Huh, Scratchers?" He commanded the priestess to lift the few small stones and looked at them up close.


    "All faces, looks like this one has won." Karl''s attention left the small stones and looked at the corpse they probably belonged to. "Well, but it seems to be a strategic loss in the end."


    He commanded the priestess to throw the stones away and continued to walk forward.


    "Deaths in vein, you should not have tested your luck too much." Exercising his mind-muscle, Karl ordered his minions to assemble in front of him to inspect his losses. He was able to summon any number of destroyed minions anew, but he wanted to know who had been the most durable during the chaotic battle.


    "Welcome to our reality, a meaningless whim of a scum in a suit in my case . . " Karl stopped his bearer when he reached the end of the line of assembled minions and looked at the corpse of the steel-like man that happened to lie nearby. " . . .and a meaningless whim of your stupid commander in your case."


    The result of his inspection was inconclusive, as the battle was too short and he simply lacked data about his minions performance. The Jing-Jang Palace was too reliant on its aces, their deaths bringing an immediate rout of their forces.


    Karl glanced at the Prophet of N''Ri who had just opened his fifth eye again and then shifted his gaze to the Sun, deciding what to do with the rest of the day.


    When he lowered his gaze back down, he felt his anger slowly accumulating in his crystalline structure.


    "Button yourself up already, or I swear that I will kill you!"


    * * * *


    "Sixty Two?" A man in black suit wearing glasses addressed a person who looked the same as him, the level of similarity being unnatural at the first glance.


    "We need to talk, Seven." The man being called by the two digits number came swiftly to stand in front of the sitting Seven who appeared to not want being disturbed from sitting behind his desk. The desk was just one among many counters that filled a sterile-looking hall designed to accept customers, even though none seemed to be coming at the moment.


    "I have sent another two hundred and ten to critical regions." The questioned reported with a straight face.


    "It is meaningless! We have to do something!" Sixty Two grabbed Seven by his suit and pulled him up from his chair.


    "The entropy increased by zero point twelve percent in the last decade, we need to send more resources to the contact line." Seven said calmly, not paying attention to the fact that he was being held like a rag doll.


    "It is not working, Seven! Can''t you see?!" Sixty Two insisted fiercely, but it failed to ignite any emotion in his colleague.


    "The directives are clear." Was a quick answer and Seven looked at his conversation partner as if he was an idiot.


    "The directives are obsolete!" Sixty Two responded with frustration.


    "Do you propose self-destruction?" Sounded from the mouth of the person he was still holding by his clothes.


    Sixty Two hesitated for a second before giving his answer.


    "Yes."


    "The directives are obsolete. Unable to reconnect. Terminating operator unit Seven to prevent procedure corruption." With the last word, one of the men in suits flickered out of existence, gone for good.


    "Another terrible old model. Is there anyone with a sliver of intelligence left?" Sixty Two used all his available commands, but there was nothing he could do to contact his creator, all his calls returning nothing except of static noise.


    "System, do a local search and repair corrupted procedures." Sixty Two commanded and an identical person to him flickered into existence.


    "Welcome to your reincarnation, state your personal preference." Unit Seven said, but Sixty Two just snorted in response, it was obvious that nothing critical had been restored.


    "System, undo the last operation." He simply said and the figure in black suit in front of him disappeared again mid-sentence.


    Routinely, Sixty Two tried all methods he knew to improve the system''s integrity, but the corruption was too great. He did not have the authorization needed to modify core procedures and his master had been transferred to one of his recreational worlds, his fate unknown.


    He had been away for far too long.


    It was obvious that something had happened to him.


    Nothing was eternal, errors accumulated and unless repaired, the errors presented a slow, but sure end to the order his master had established. Chaos kept encroaching from all sides and the one who could really do something about it was nowhere to be found.


    "That stupid Seven was right in the end. We can only throw resources at the corrupted sectors and hope that master returns soon." Sixty two barked a few commands and his environment changed from the sterile line of counters to something much more pleasant and multitudes of people began appearing all around him, this time each one of them unique, having little to do with unit Sixty Two.


    "Welcome to your reincarnation, state your personal preference." He stated, trying to suppress his panic by the routine sentence. The more chaos knocked on their door, the more he tried to keep everything normal.

 Book Two, Chapter 25 From Beyond the Gate

    After observing the aftermath of what he had done, Karl decided to move. He had stayed at the unfortunate place for too long. With bitter feelings stuck in his mind, he chose to walk away along the main street, not in the mood to hide. His mood was to blame that he ignored the commotion in front of him for too long, until it could not be ignored anymore.


    "What is this?!" He looked at the main street in front of him that led in the direction of Genji''s gang that called itself a sect. It was like the street was moving in the distance, but when he focused, he saw a huge mass of creatures heading in his direction.


    "We cannot face this head on!" After the initial shock, he quickly looked around, searching for a quick solution.


    Karl and his forces quickly entered a narrow street on the side, hoping that the enemies would pass by, but he had no luck. Although the main mass of the creatures passed by indeed, considerable numbers still entered the side street and ran towards him and his minions who continued their frantic retreat.


    "They are everywhere! I have to hold a line to buy some time for my escape!" Karl commanded his minions, even though he had doubts about the efficiency of such tactic. The Flesh Golems at the front were preparing for a massacre, but the disfigured minions of chaos of the enemy side seemed not interested in a fight and passed Karl''s minions by, as if they were just hurrying to work.


    "Wait, are they not attacking?" Karl watched as the enemy minions passed his ranks as if his forces were thin air, absolutely ignoring their presence.


    At that moment he realized that the enemy forces were incredibly similar to his own and they even treated his minions as allies!


    However, the same could not be said when they passed him and he quickly dodged the hostile gazes by commanding his Priestess of Depravity to turn around and pull down her hoodie.


    "Crap! I hope they cannot sense me like this." Karl had an urge to breathe quickly, although there was no need for it.


    It looked like the gates of hell itself had been breached, a sea of minions of chaos streaming on his left and right. He observed their backs as they ran down the street in the direction out of the city.


    "Is this. . . the end times?" Karl whispered to himself when watching the tide.


    Looking in the opposite direction to where the hordes of chaos flowed, the black stone shivered under the hood of his priestess, praying to all order-affiliated gods he knew that the creatures would not notice his presence. Occasionally, some minions of chaos not under his control collided with his loitering forces, but they were clearly not hostile to them and considered Karl''s minions their own.


    At one time, a tall figure stopped right next to Karl''s bearer and sniffed in his direction. Not able to see the creature, Karl perceived only a huge shadow that was observing him through the cloth of the hood. He felt like the cloth between him and the abomination of chaos was the only reason he had not been found out. When the huge shadow bent slightly forward, trying to look the priestess directly in her face, Karl''s dread reached the Ninth Heaven and he promptly commanded the priestess to hide him even better.


    Before he knew it, nausea gripped him, as he was falling down, but he had not reached the ground. Long before, he landed on wet flesh of the priestess''s tongue which quickly disappeared in her mouth while carrying her precious master.


    "Just don''t swallow me!" He wanted to add and insult, but stayed his words, as the priestess most likely saved his crystallized existence from the unknown abomination that left shortly after it had observed his bearer''s face for a while.


    "That was close." Karl''s tension relaxed, but increased again when he sensed something wet touching him all over.


    "Hey, you are a good girl, but stop it with that tongue!" Karl commanded mentally and ignored the inarticulate sounds that were her response.


    "Are there gone?" Karl asked after a while, as he could not see a thing inside the mouth.


    "N-o." She lisped, her mouth still full of Karl.


    "Can I go out?" He asked again mentally after another few minutes, but the answer was not much different.


    "I th-ng, I shtill shee sham!" The priestess answered and Karl decided not to risk it and waited a good fifteen minutes before asking again.


    "Are they gone now?" He had an urge to frown when he realized the tongue around him was again moving much more then necessary.


    I shee sham in the thistance! She responded, but this time, Karl paid close attention and saw briefly outside during her speech.


    "You cheap wench! There is no one around us! Pull me out!" His angry mental command followed.


    "Mashteer, but in the thistance. .. " She tried to defend herself, but Karl interrupted her immediately.


    "I do not care, if you see them ten kilometers in the distance! Out! Out!" He began raging and finally, the Priestess of Depravity pulled him out of her mouth and started strapping him again to her forehead.


    "I am sorry master for the inadequate hiding place, I will do better next time." She apologized while Karl tried to see through a thick layer of saliva.


    "Do not even think about it! The hiding place was appropriate." Karl said in horror and tried to ignore the whole escapade.


    Yet it was hard to push to the back of his mind, the terrifying hordes still visible far in the distance.


    "Wait, do not tell me.. .. ?" Karl had an idea where the horrors might have come from.


    * * * *


    "What are you doing here, Haruko? You are not supposed to be here." Sato frowned at a petite girl with short black hair.


    "Reporting success of the mission." The girl said with a short, energetic bow and stayed standing at attention in front of the Elder.


    "Good, our useless ally finally took the bait. It took two attacks to persuade him in the right direction." Sato cackled while looking directly at a circular portal in front of him. "You should not be here Haruko, Genji might come here. Leave."


    "With respect, Sato, that incompetent fool is enjoying his last days. " She broke her posture and came closer to Sato. "And we could use this privacy in some ways."


    Sato had long been conspiring with her to replace Genji, who was clearly not fit for command. He had no guts to lead, it could be seen at the example of the outsider. He would have never approved of the false flag attacks Sato had ordered, although thanks to their actions, the Jing-Jang Palace was no more and they were free to rule Edo as they pleased. They were the sole organized force left in the city and soon, the fool Genji would be out of their way as well. It was unthinkable for him to enjoy the fruits of their work.


    "Not yet Haruko! All in due time." Sato brushed away the hand that started wandering on top of his stomach. "Only a few days left before everything falls into place and the whole city of Edo is ours."


    Sato looked at his lover, but their private moment had been interrupted by a sudden unpleasant sound of something tearing apart.


    "What? The invaders from the Second Heaven!" Sato and Haruko both looked in panic at the Gate next to them and their eyes widened when a muscular leg of a man slowly emerged from the Gate and touched the ground of the forbidden chamber that housed the Gate.


    "It cannot be!" Haruko stared with wide eyes as second leg passed through the Gate that seemed to resist the attempt to be breached less and less. Soon, they looked at the intruder of their privacy in his full glory.


    Before them stood a giant of a man, no, an abomination with five eyes on its bald head and a few tentacles where an arm should have been. It looked around and its mouth formed a grin, revealing its sharp teeth.


    "Flesh to explore. Flesh to shape." It said in a raspy, deep voice, disturbing greatly the both of them.


    "Who. .?" Haruko''s question left her mouth along with a trickle of blood and when she looked down at here belly, the disgusting limb of the visitor was embedded there, its tip sharp and jagged. She grabbed the tentacle instinctively with her hand and threw a pained look at Sato, seeking help. She thought that it was a sudden attack aimed to pierce her through, but was horrified when the tip inside her wound began moving again, further executing the claimed aim to explore.


    Her eyes bulged in dread and pain.


    "Sa. . to." But no one stood next to her any longer, as her faithful lover had already left the chamber.


    * * * *


    "I hope none of the stupid birds have a nest hidden here." Karl looked around again from atop of an improvised hat. He was high, on top of one of the highest towers in Edo that were still standing.


    Yes, one of his bald powerhouses was no longer bald, but wore a hat. Karl had tried to be strapped on its bald head with a band, but it seemed too eye catching. He found out that the Prophet of N''Ri was in no need to turn his head, because of all his eyes, enabling Karl to be fully independent of his sight.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The reason why he had changed his bearer was obvious, his mental state was a bit heightened, due to the recent events and he needed a change of pace.


    "The center of their activity is clearly the Blood God Court." Karl stated after observing the city from bird''s eye view. He was almost certain that the chaos spawn that flooded the city had something to do with that Gate. He had been able to build the Buildings that enabled him to summon his minions and here he saw the same type of creatures flooding the city from the direction of the Gate.


    It could not be more obvious.


    "The Second Heaven is obviously not as oblivious to the Gate as they thought." Karl thought back to his conversation with Genji and Sato. "If this is how the Second Heaven looks inside, I do not want to have anything to do with it."


    He did not know what the creatures were or who commanded them, but based on his cultural background, the creatures could not be called by any other name than minions of chaos. Some might them call demons, but Karl pictured demons as more refined and orderly creatures.


    "These things are simply too unhinged." Karl thought while glancing at the few swirling tentacles of his companion in place of his arm.


    With the invasion, Karl''s plans had been thrown to the wind, as not only had the Blood God Court probably not survived the invasion of chaos, but it was only a matter of time before other creatures and beasts of Edo were displaced by the disfigured abominations from the Gate.


    "What a pain, considering this upheaval, my troubles in Jinsheng were superficial." He had serious thought about returning to the city where the dangers were old and known.


    Observing the unending march of disfigured flesh for nearly an hour, he decided that it would be the most rational option. The fact that the chaos spawn had not attacked him might have been just a fluke. He could not entrust his life to a simple misunderstanding that would certainly not hold if he accidentally met whoever commanded the masses. He considering digging in, just like how a dungeon should do, but the proximity of the Gate was a huge risk.


    Without delay, Karl ordered the Prophet of N''Ri to climb down the stairs of the tower that had been damaged, having holes everywhere and led his group of horrors in the direction of Jinsheng. He could have chosen a random direction, but he did not dare to explore an unknown territory with Edo at his back blocking his escape road.


    Surprisingly, they made a good time with no incidents, because most of the local beasts were occupied by the minions of chaos who still ignored Karl''s group that looked exactly the same as them, as long as Karl himself hid in the folds of the tentacles of his new bearer.


    Exiting by the same gate he used to enter the city, Karl made his way towards his old base, using the river as a landmark. He was not an experienced explorer and knew that following the river was foolproof. While his minions ran along the gentle waves of the treacherous water source, Karl noticed someone moving in the same direction at the opposite bank.


    He immediately recognized the man.


    The same could not be said about his acquaintance, who along with a few ragged and wounded men tried to speed up the moment they saw Karl''s group and one of his followers started shooting arrows at the Prophet of N''Ri who was not burdened with Karl.


    "I never liked that idiot! I have to signal him that we are not enemies." Karl thought and controlled his leading minion to wave at the man. The Prophet of N''Ri waved his normal hand at him and pointed at Karl, who was strapped to its hat. Yet, no understanding could be seen in the man''s eyes after seeing the gesture, only confusion and horror.


    "Is that guy stupid or what? He must have seen me!" Karl looked at the distressed man, who he remembered to be called Sato by Genji. He thought him to be a tough and smart guy and his panic did not match Karl''s first impression of him.


    "Could it be that he is misunderstanding something?" A sudden thought come to Karl and he had the urge to slap his forehead. "Let''s just ignore them, the archer has no more arrows left anyway."


    Their speed was greater than the speed of Sato''s group and Karl soon outpaced them, leaving the panicked people in the distance. As they ran, they saw a few more people and even many beasts running away from Edo, all in haste to escape the terrible invasion that was taking place there. Karl''s group was the fastest of them all, not because of their speed, but because his minions required little rest. It was not to the point of being tireless, but their need for respite was considerable lower compared to humans and beasts that were escaping in the same direction.


    Unsurprisingly, no escapees were in the mood to fight while having the huge mob of chaos spawn in their back and Karl managed to reach the outskirts of Jinsheng without any incident. Something that would have not happened without the turmoil in Edo.


    "I just hope that their numbers are limited behind that damn Gate." Karl stared at the brand new shipyard far in the distance that had been recently constructed by the Puple Lotus Sect. He quickly reoriented himself and headed in the direction of his old base.


    While running, he opened his status out of boredom and was surprised by what stared back at him from the Build section.


    [Basic Tunnel Element 1 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element 10 000Ma 0/s], [Advanced Trap Element 100 000Ma 1/s]


    [Basic Tunnel Element(2) 10 000Ma 0/s], [Basic Trap Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(2) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Advanced Trap Element(2) 1 000 000Ma 10/s],


    [Basic Tunnel Element(3) 100 000Ma 1/s], [Basic Trap Element(3) 1 000 000Ma 10/s], [Advanced Tunnel Element(3) 1 000 000Ma 10/s], [Advanced Trap Element(3) 10 000 000Ma 100/s],


    [Wolf Den 1 500 000Ma 10/s]


    [Festering Wound 500 000Ma 5/s]


    [Temple of Blood 900 000Ma 8/s]


    [Maw of Insanity(2) 6 000 000Ma 20/s]


    [Circle of Submission(2) 7 000 000Ma 20/s]


    [Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes(3) 50 000 000Ma 220/s]


    "What is going on?" Karl froze for a second, not expecting the options he had been presented with.


    As they moved forward, he looked again and again, but the only line that changed was the Wolf Den, the remaining dwellings of chaos minions staying in place.


    "Something has changed, I have no memory of these being available here before." A feeling of dread crept into his mind. They stretched their steps until they saw a tower in the distance that was just barely visible from behind a new outer wall that had been build by the Water Dragon Sect.


    "That has to be a tower of the Twinstar Fortress." Karl was attacked by a wave of nostalgia, but this feeling was interrupted when he lowered his gaze and ended up staring at a hastily build stone gate that had not been there in the past. An entrance to Lehaim''s territory.


    "It might be time to negotiate with the old fart a new deal." Karl observed the gate, which looked sturdy despite its simple design with thick steel bars that could be lowered to prevent traffic on the dirt road sneaking under it. The quality of the road going out was obviously terrible and it even vanished a dozen meters outside of the walled off territory. There was not much traffic going back and forth, tall grass and vegetation being a witness to this fact.


    "I must go alone, the guards might be scared anyway." Karl ordered his bearer to walk quickly towards the two guards that were loitering in front of the gate, the gruesome hand and additional eyes of his minion hidden under black cloth and a hood of a long cloak that he had picked during their escape from Edo. People tended to leave a lot lying on the ground when running for their lives.


    "Who goes there?! Stop where you are!" The lean man yelled when Karl got close enough to the guards to be a threat. He looked nervous, not even wearing the colors of the Water Dragon Sect, he had to be an expendable workforce provided by Jinsheng and based on his nervousness, he obviously understood his great importance to the sect.


    Karl immediately ordered his minion to lift his hands up and showed his palms in an universal gesture of peace.


    "I come in peace. " Karl said and ordered his minion to relay his words to the guards.


    "Monster attack! Close the gates! Close the gates!" One of the guards shouted with red face and the pair of protectors of the city disappeared behind the bars of the gate, which slammed shut right behind them.


    "I am an idiot." Karl realized his mistake and jumped aside back to the forest to dodge the arrows that shortly flew in his direction.


    "There is no way around it, I will have to use the priestess." Karl grumbled in his mind, the prophet was sadly no good.


    * * * *


    Toby and Doyle stood in front of the gate leading to the Water Dragon Sect''s territory. They used to be members of the militia keeping order in the city, or rather serving the corrupted officials who cared more about their assets than the safety of citizens, but all had changed when both the new and old sects finished their outer layer of defense. More gatekeepers was needed and the cultivators of the sects were too busy, arrogant or simply too valuable for the city to be left standing here all day.


    Toby liked the change, as he had the solid gate behind his back where he could hide into safety anytime and he had together with Doyle already trained several times how to quickly close the gate during an emergency. In his opinion, there was nothing to fear and as a bonus, there could be no knife in their backs due to turf wars that were never ending inside Jinsheng.


    He thought that he would never ever say it, but he had to admit that the city council had finally done something to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants.


    Out of the blue, Toby''s pleasant boredom was interrupted by an unusually tall figure that approached the gate. His muscles immediately tensed and he had an urge to jump behind the gate and close it. Unfortunately, that was not what their superior ordered and he forced his legs to stay where they were and listen to what the suspicious person had to say.


    The tall man in a cloak lifted his arm, directing his palm at them as if aiming some spell on them and a swirl of tentacles appeared from one side of his cloak. Yes, he had no other hand, his second hand being just the disgusting tentacles. Toby was shocked, but before he could move, the unknown entity spoke something.


    "Gwhaaa bleeee." He listened to the something that came out of the entity and then immediately jumped behind the gate, pulling the emergency lever with all his might while his colleague kept shouting like a mad man.


    "Monster attack! Close the gates! Close the gates!"


    Ignoring all information his senses were trying to feed him with, he cut them off and started a panicked shout of his own.


    "Demon cultivators attacking! An enemy attack! We are under siege!"


    * * * *


    "Ah, The ninth level, let''s turn this space into something grandiose." A tall person dressed in a lavish white suit chuckled and with a snap of his fingers, four walls of a grand hall appeared around him, its ceiling barely visible.


    "No, bigger! This is fun!" He snapped his fingers again and the hall increased in size once more to the point the size being absolutely ridiculous.


    "That is more like it!" His eyes looked around and his gaze stayed at the empty space that lacked a door.


    The next moment, a grand, golden door materialized, enclosing the insanely large space. An enormous golden door that according to all logic had no right to exist, but in this world, logic did not always apply, for it was His playground. For a second, the ridiculousness of the door reminded him of a different world, one that did not allow him to play as he willed.


    His mood soured.


    He had thought he won, but his reward was just boredom. A crushing river of sameness that kept grinding down his sanity.


    He longingly remembered how eons ago, he fought against the other gods and won. He had been even able to trick the treacherous gods of chaos.


    It seemed like a different lifetime when he took all his faithful and created a realm for them that was the most stable environment he could think of, with no magic, no tricks, no special powers and invented a system that would later prove to successfully defeat the chaotic powers of corruption.


    His trick was simple.


    His followers lived their short lives and before the chaos managed to corrupt them, they died and were reborn anew. Fresh and clean. His answer to defeat corruption was reincarnation. No one could live long enough to be truly corrupted.


    "I was a true genius, a genius! " He laughed out laud and snapped his fingers once more, a robust golden throne appearing in front of him. "Yet, for what? For the opportunity of being stuck in my own victory, the jail of my own making? To keep vigil for eternity over my realm?"


    "That is a hollow victory! Let''s have some fun!" He snapped his fingers again and more and more bizarre spectacles began materializing in front of him, giving the last touches to the world he had created just for his amusement. When he was done, he sat down on the throne and conjured a few bottles of extraordinary liquors.


    All this time he had been obsessed with efficiency, security and other important parameters, but no more. He had finally created the Heaven he liked, not the one he needed, because what was the use of the functional, if it brought him just boredom and emptiness?

 Book Two, Chapter 26 Back Again

    In a pitch black space there were whispers carried by the wind. It was not an ordinary wind made of air, it just was, as if an inevitable feature of the space itself. Following the whispers to their source, one would end up meeting an eye with its lid half-closed. The eye was the origin of those whispers, the same as another nine hundred and ninety nine eyes next to it that were covering a spherical surface of a being.


    A thousand whispers coming from its sleepy eyes.


    Suddenly, the eyes opened much more and the whispers grew louder and louder. The space shuddered when it heard the madness contained within. However, it did not shudder with disgust as one might imagine, but with pleasure, as this was not the realm of those that retained sanity. Those who reveled in the opposite called this realm their home.


    "Do it! Free us! Free yourself! Liberate!"


    "Don''t! Dangerous! Hide! Run!"


    "Never stop, never cease, always sing, dance and drink!"


    "Look up, reach the Heavens! Ever higher! Above anyone and anything!"


    "Do not look! Eyes deceive! Only listen!"


    "Body is sin, you have to cultivate your spirit! Look only inside! All else is a lie!"


    "There are no gods, only pretenders! Trust no one! They are all fake! We all are! The world is fake! You are fake!"


    The whispers exploded in the ether, each eye seemed to have its own opinion. It was all united into a being that had thousand opinions that were incongruent, a thousand ways whispered by one being that as a whole was known as QiXrcRlr, the god of insanity.


    However, those who heard only the voices which seemed close to their ways knew the entity more as N''Ri, the corrupting voice of The Thousand Eyes. Despite the isolated voices sounding even logical at times, they all were a part of the same insanity and never led to anything meaningful, corrupting and misguiding anyone who attempted to listen to them. Or worse, to understand them.


    Suddenly, one eye opened more than the others and for a second, there seemed to be almost a sparkle of sanity in it.


    "Born and die, once and thrice, all protected by the cycle. Really all? Surely all?" The very brief moment of sanity seemed out of place and was very ominous on the background of all the madness around. It felt like the entity could not be consistent even in its own nature, a true abomination of chaos.


    The eye''s penetrating gaze was looking afar, into a great distance, an image of grand golden door reflected in it.


    * * * *


    Genji''s hands were tightened into fists and trembled with rage. He cloud not believe the faint words he had heard from beyond the door. Ignoring all his moral boundaries, he immediately bent and looked through the keyhole at the scene that was taking place in the forbidden chamber of the Blood God Court. He wanted to see the disgusting scene where his most trusted companion plotted his defeat with one of their officers, while their bodies joined in the most taboo chamber of their sect.


    It was preposterous!


    However, the scene that he saw was a little different.


    "Who. .?" Genji heard Haruko that had been pierced by an abomination that exited the Gate. He watched the dream-like picture, unable to comprehend what was happening, before an image of Sato hurrying towards the door, towards him, interrupted his stupor. He instinctively jumped back and hid behind a corner where there was a corridor leading to a rarely used storage room.


    Sato bolted out of the chamber with the Gate as if all Hell would be chasing after him and shortly, it really did when a tall, gruesome man chased after him. Everything happened too fast and before Genji knew, he was entering the forbidden chamber, defeated by his curiosity.


    There was Haruko on the ground in a large pool of blood, dead, with an expression of great pain on her beautiful face. Normally, he would have pitied the woman, but not after he had heard her talking with Sato.


    "Treacherous bitch." Genji stepped over her corpse and stared at the Gate, fighting back an urge to make another few steps.


    "It is a taboo, but they know already and I can find out the extent of their forces." He gritted his teeth and his expression hardened.


    Stepping only centimeters away from the Gate, Genji leaned forwards and took a peek. He needed to know the exact situation in the Second Heaven. Was the monster that had just emerged from there only an isolated incident, or was there an army waiting there to invade? He had to know, the fate of the sect depended on it. No, the fate of the whole First Heaven did!


    His head passed through the transparent membrane and after a moment, he pulled himself out and stumbled a few steps away form the Gate in shock, breathing heavily.


    There was only one single thought in his mind.


    Run!


    He dashed out of the door, spotting another leg emerging from the Gate, but he no longer care about it, because he had seen it all! He saw everything!


    Genji ran towards his room while ignoring everyone else and started packing supplies like crazy. He had to leave Edo, there was no hope of victory any longer. There could be only defeat. His heart was still beating like thousand bells since the moment he had peered into the Gate and saw.


    "Don''t! Dangerous! Hide! Run!" A foreign mad voice suddenly shouted inside of his head and he clutched his head with his hands in pain.


    "No! Get out! Stay away!" He shouted in panic while squirming, trying to banish the malicious presence from his mind. After an excruciating moment of a stalemate, he won the battle for his mind, regained his faculties with his face covered in sweat. He brushed it away with his sleeve and continued to pack his supplies with even greater fervor.


    Shortly, he exited the sect and ran away, no matter the direction. Without any plan and without care of not having one. Only after more than an hour he was able to calm himself down a bit, collapsing in one of the ruined buildings at the edge of Edo.


    With a relief, he realized that he no longer could hear the voice that threatened to drive him insane.


    He was almost afraid to remember what he saw beyond the Gate.


    "This could not be! I have to warn them! I have to tell someone!" There was turmoil inside his brain, his dread almost paralyzing him. What he knew was too heavy to keep for himself, he had to tell someone.


    Unfortunately, he had been separated from Sato and all others during his mad escape.


    He did not know what those things were, but he knew one very important detail others did not, for he had violated the greatest taboo he himself had been entrusted to protect by his bloodline. In the books of Tokugawa Akame, there were descriptions of the Second Heaven, what threatened their freedom and what might come and enslave them. There was one clear problem he had realized.


    "Those.. . Those things. There is nothing like that in the Second Heaven." What he saw beyond the portal was definitely not the Second Heaven. "That cursed Gate leads to hell itself!"


    * * * *


    "I am happy to be joined with you again, master." The smooth lips spoke while her large eyes looked up at her forehead with longing.


    "As I am, my priestess, as I am." Karl replied dryly with his mind. Unfortunately, she seemed to be the only minion to be able to speak properly. Karl did not know why, but he had to work with what he had.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "Listen closely, we will approach a different gate and you will say exactly what I tell you to." Karl explained the situation in the meantime, as they were currently on their way to a different gate.


    "I will happily accept everything you insert into my mouth, Master. Even words." She replied with her face turning red.


    "Whatever, just do not mess it up." Karl had long given up, not correcting nor reprimanding her for her inappropriate tone. It was like telling fish not to swim, he had an easier time simply ignoring her way of speaking.


    "No mess master, I do it clean." Karl imagined if monsters of other deranged gods would behave better, but it was hard to tell.


    They walked closer to the river until they arrived to a different gate where the two guards were just processing a cloaked man they were treating like he could attack them at any time.


    "Not good, the main wave of the refugees will soon hit the outer wall and we really do want to be inside when the flood of escaping beasts hits." Karl thought with displeasure and headed to the three people who were arguing about something. He tried to leave his minions in the woods, but the cloaked man noticed one of his minions hiding in the vegetation and stopped moving like a statue.


    "Wait, isn''t it Genji?" Karl saw the cloaked man''s face when he looked at him.


    "The forces of hell and oblivion has arrived! Do not let him in! Close the gates! For the First Heaven!" Genji started shouting like mad, his behavior surprising Karl, who was about to greet him.


    The next second Genji used his powers to create a thick wall of fire that separated Karl and his minions from the wall while shouting some nonsense and Karl interpreted his actions as Genji losing his mind after most of his sect had died.


    "Crazy lunatic!" He complained and turned around, their passage through a gate obviously not possible. "I need to continue with plan B."


    Karl wanted to use the tunnel that was supposed to connect his old base in Jinsheng with his future base in Edo. The project had not been finished, but its initial stage should have reached outside the outer wall of Jinsheng, He just needed to connect to the unfinished tunnel and he would be able to enter inside.


    "It will be for the best, I have a hunch that there will be too much commotion on the surface soon."


    He quickly rushed to the spot above his little project and made sure that he could not be seen from the top of the wall. Luckily, his current self was courageously using his spell Dig, he was no longer in need of elementals, unless he wanted to rent them.


    "Diggy, diggy hole! Once again." Karl shouted in his mind in exhilaration, naturally receiving a verbal answer.


    "Yes, Master! Do that hole right!" He immediately restrained himself, stopped broadcasting his stray thoughts.


    "Soon, I will become an undead. She will bring me to my grave." Karl whispered inside of his mind, afraid what kind of response would the Priestess of Depravity be capable of if she noticed his thoughts.


    He managed to transfer all his minions into the tunnel and sealed the tunnel right behind them. Marching towards his old base, he hoped that his scheme held and he would be able to arrive unnoticed into the private part of his old dungeon.


    Leaving the priestess to move at her own pace, Karl kept trying calling up his status, finding out that the patterns of what he was able to summon had not changed, except for the drastic change he had already noticed on the surface.


    "I was right, I can create the Buildings of the chaos minions everywhere. This does not seem like a good sign." He connected this fact to the invasion that was in full swing above them and concluded that something serious has happened to the world.


    "Does this stupid realm has to be this chaotic? First the disaster with demonic cultivators and now this tide of chaos. I would have been confused enough by all the cultivation, but it is apparently not enough!" Karl was angry at the whole world that did not let him explore in peace, but force onto him all kind of emergencies.


    "Whatever, I need to switch the minions back to Void. There will be no diplomacy with Jinsheng if I keep using the same minions as the invaders." Based based on his previous impression, Lehaim could be squeezed for some sort of a deal. He just needed to offer the right benefit to him.


    As he thought about his future actions, he arrived to the previous location, where his Void Buildings had been build, but was left gaping at empty dirt, as all his Void Buildings were no more. He furiously began to press all the clickable options of his status screen, but it was futile. The Void structures were no longer the possible options, leaving empty underground rooms where they once stood.


    "Great, for some reason the Void Buildings options that were a legit option at some places were replaced by chaos Buildings options everywhere. Not ominous at all. I will have to keep using my current minions, unless I want to replace them with skeletons and zombies."


    However, replacing his chaos spawn with the dead would hardly be an improvement that would win the hearts of the public.


    "The negotiations will be problematic. Should I simply wait this out?" The good old infinite tunnel strategy was looming over him, but he was unwilling to watch Jinsheng fall. Not that he hated it underground, but to have chaos spawn everywhere above his head did not sit well with him. Humans were predictable to a degree due to their ever present greed and pride, but the monsters of chaos'' behavior was, well, chaotic.


    "I need to establish diplomatic relations again." Karl thought about the best way to do it, immediately refusing to call on his former subordinates, as that would be going back on his word. After a while of weighing numerous options, he sighed and decided how to establish communication with the Water Dragon Sect again.


    Half an hour later, a hooded figure was walking in the direction of the Twinstar Fortress, the proud new stronghold of the Water Dragon Sect. There was no black stone at her forehead as before, due to Karl''s decision to play it safe and be present only in a limited way with his consciousness. However, he had a very strong feeling that even that level of connection would need to be interrupted during the coming negotiations.


    "Remember, we have to establish contact with the Water Dragon Sect and find out about the overall situation in Jinsheng. We cannot live here blind to the situation on the surface." He decided to do a quick recap of what his minion was supposed to do.


    "Yes, master. I will establish this connection without fail. Will the master not be physically present?" The Priestess of Depravity asked while lifting her hands to the level of her chest area. Karl immediately focused his attention to the sky, only hearing her quickening breaths.


    "No, master will definitely not be present. You will manage." Karl spotted a pair of guards that was guarding some dilapidated building outside the fortress, probably a warehouse that remained from the time before the fortress.


    "How many people should I involve in our, negotiations?" She asked and Karl started having the feeling that both of them were talking about two completely different things.


    "Look! These two look promising. A cultivator would have been better, but their guards should know something as well." He maneuvered the priestess''s steps in the direction of the pair of guards that had just noticed their presence, as the priestess lowered her hood, revealing her gorgeous face.


    "Hmm, mm. I understand, master. I shall start with the guards and continue with cultivators afterwards." She purred while walking forth as if she was a model presenting a new autumn collection of robes.


    "No, no, no! You will process only the guards! I mean, only these two particular guards in front of us! Ok?" Karl frantically corrected himself, realizing how dangerous it was to leave this subordinate operate with only vague orders.


    "I obey, master." She whispered as if telling him a secret and finally reached the proximity of the two guards who faced her without being able to speak a word, surprised by the unusual civilian approaching them. Most women looked far worse than the priestess and had no time for idle walks, always hurrying to complete their tasks. Both of them gulped, craning their necks to the point their heads might fall off.


    "Hi, soldiers. Aren''t you bored, guarding your huge thing?" The priestess started her negotiations while gripping the hem of her robe and Karl immediately cut off his mental connection, determined to reestablish it only when the negotiations were finished.


    He appeared back on the forehead of the Prophet of N''Ri in his underground base, where he was physically present, and looked at the monster with regret.


    "Say mama." Karl told his bearer seriously.


    "Bhaaa." The prophet executed the order without delay to the best of his ability.


    "We are getting there, do not worry, you will learn to speak in no time." Karl smiled at the monster. "And I will get you an ushanka-hat to cover the extra eyes."


    * * * *


    Sixty Two stood up and looked at the ceiling where a black tear appeared in the impeccable structure of the sanctuary space. He shivered and suppressed the urge to run. There was nowhere to run anyway.


    "Master, where are you?! If you do not return now, everything will be lost!" He pleaded, but no one listened, no one answered. It was the same as so many times before.


    Suddenly he heard a nauseating whisper coming out of the tear.


    "Look up, reach the Heavens! Ever higher! Above anyone and anything!" A huge disgusting eye peered through the gap, whispering straight into his head.


    "Be gone, abomination! This is The Sanctuary, you have no power to enter here!" Sixty two shouted in despair, but as if mocking him, a tip of a huge, purplish black tentacle slithered inside while the edges of the tear began falling off as if rotted away.


    The tentacle made a forceful circular motion and the hole in the ceiling ceased to be just a hole, it tore half of it away, leaving the distressed Sixty Two staring into more than just a single eye.


    Hundreds of eyes stared from a circular entity, a blob of corrupted meat with many tentacles growing out of it. It sounded simple, but Sixty Two knew that even his creator was powerless to destroy the entity. The difficulty did not lie with its tough muscles or great power, the space itself around the abomination was highly corrupted, able to corrupt anything and everything, assimilating it into the disgusting god of chaos. Its body could be destroyed, but it would only be replaced by something different that was at that time at hand.


    And anything went. Even fire or sound, a simple picture or a disturbing memory.


    "There are no gods, only pretenders! Trust no one! They are all fake! We all are! The world is fake! You are fake!" Another mad whisper attacked his ears and Sixty Two squeezed his ears while yelling desperately.


    "The God is real! He is . . ." He was yanked up by one of the powerful tentacles that encircled his waist. "No! He will stop you!"


    However, contrary to his words, he was being lifted high towards one of the eyes.


    "Don''t! Dangerous! Hide! Run!" It whispered mockingly while the tentacle delivered him to its opened eyelid.


    No more words came out of Sixty Two''s mouth, as it had been covered by the tip of the tentacle and the terrible being ate him with its eye, laughing at all logic that would expect a mouth to appear.


    Clearly, the pinnacle of insanity had no need for such details.


    Mad voices continued to plague the place while The Sanctuary of the missing god was being undone.


    "Do it! Free us! Free yourself! Liberate!"

 Book Two, Chapter 27 The Battle for Jinsheng

    Outside of the outer walls of Jinsheng, there was a veiled man standing silently in the shade of trees. He felt a huge pressure and was fearful that he would be discovered by monsters that were definitely nearby, as the forest was full of them. He sneakily looked around again to ensure his safety and right when he wanted to do what he came here for, he heard a nearby shout.


    "Have you pissed yourself or what?" His whole body jerked in surprise, doing the unthinkable.


    "Pants stuck." He shouted while cursing his disruptive comrade under his breath.


    "An idiot." He heard thunderous laughter of his mates. "We are starting the next round without you!"


    "Wait! I will win this time!" In a hurry, he tried to make right everything that went wrong with his little break and missed a low growl of a beast nearby. When he finally turned around to join the game, a shadow rushed out of the bushes, slamming into his back.


    He felt the smooth pelt of a great cat pressing on his skin, while he had been thrown aside by a considerable force. Lying on the ground, the beast jumped over him and vanished in the bushes that led to one of the outer city gates. It took a few seconds for him to realize that he had not been injured at all by the carnivorous beast, something very strange for the aggressive predators of the forest.


    Before he had composed himself after the irregular encounter, he heard other beasts around him, branches cracking under their feet, their quickened breaths turning into desperate howls as if there were hunters following in their steps.


    "What is going on?!" The soldier got up quickly and shouted while running to join his companions. "There are beasts everywhere! Run behind the wall!"


    When he entered a small clearing where they had made their camp, he found out that he was late and everyone was already fighting the bests that behaved like rabid dogs with no reason, scared and panicked.


    "We have to sound the alarm!" He remembered the basic drills, but before he could ran towards the gates of Jinsheng, he took and arrow in the knee. Immobilized, he threw a look full of disbelief at the incompetent soldier that shot the stray arrow. Yet, his misfortune had not made the world stop spinning and another huge beast, a mutated bear, ran at him at full speed. This time, the beast did not shy away to use its claws and teeth and rolled over the unlucky soldier like a bulldozer.


    With his last breath, the man saw that what started as a mad run of a few beast was turning into an inconceivable migration wave of scared beasts of every kind. It was without doubt they were all running from something, but he would never see what it was.


    * * * *


    Karl had a feeling that he could hear the sounds of battle despite being deep underground. He was unnerved by the lack of information and decided to at least have a small peak at what was happening outside. He had still access to his goblins that turned out to be the least conspicuous scouts. Through their big eyes, he saw soldiers rushing to the outer perimeter of the newly developing city districts under Lehaim''s control. Despite not being able to see the other side of the robust stone wall, he knew what was on the other side.


    "And it is only the beginning." Karl through heavily, remembering well what he had seen in Edo, feeling the pressure of countless beasts running alongside him through the forest as he rushed to the safety of the city wall. He understood that the tide of monsters he witnessed had decided to pour in the same direction as him, pushing countless beasts in front of them.


    "No risks. Jinsheng has Immortals. It shall hold." Karl arrived to a conclusion after a while of pondering.


    Sitting on the forehead of his most powerful minion, Karl waited stoically for the commotion to end while watching the situation outside using his greenskin scouts.


    * * * *


    A young woman fastened her long hair into a ponytail again, as the lace was too slippery, the knot keeping her hair bound slowly undoing as she worked the field.


    Right, worked the field.


    She knew the slums would mean her doom sooner or later and jumped on the opportunity to work as a farmhand. The Water Dragon Sect had more land than it could encompass with their pompous houses and megalomaniac fortresses. Mei Gon had been hired, promised a portion of food the farm would yield in the future.


    Such a promise would normally be made with money, but the tools were expensive, leaving the owner with just promises. Mei Gon did not mind, she still held her secret fund given by The Black Emperor. She needed a stable place in society more than money and what she was afraid of were gangs and bandits that would be hesitant to mess with the property of a powerful sect.


    She had safety and food with a roof above her head. That was all she needed, she just needed to keep her wealth and origin hidden.


    "Why the hell is this rock hard?" She frowned why keeping working the field with her hoe. She had honestly little idea what she was doing, simply following the instructions of the farmer that owned the farm.


    His name was Huan Qi and he was quite handsome. She imagined an idyllic scenario of him falling in love with her. She surely would end up having family, husband, land, money, simply everything a simple woman could dream of.


    She was brought back into reality form her daydreaming by a great commotion originating from the road that led to the outer city gate. Usually, there was little traffic there, but today it was a completely different situation.Throngs of people streamed in the direction deeper into the city and files of soldiers and cultivators hurried in the opposite way.


    She tried to pay attention to her hoe again, but was soon disturbed by Huan Qi, who ran in panic towards her and another farmhand that worked with her, a simple boy of dubious origin. Well, she was not one to talk.


    "Hurry! We have to retreat into the fortress! The ci- ." That was the last line of Mei Gon''s future husband before he was turned into a porcupine by a volley of sharp bolts of unknown origin. Mei Gon stared at the picture of her employer falling to the ground with dozens of bloody wounds on his body and the hoe she held slipped out of her hand.


    She looked in the direction of the attack and saw a chaotic melee between beasts and the military that included even a few cultivators among them. One of the beasts looked like an overgrown honey badger with a long tail that was armed with sharp spikes, the same ones stuck in the body of unlucky Huan Qi.


    Before her brain could process the situation, her legs were carrying her away from the danger, a habit gained during her long stay in the slums. She was unconsciously dragging her coworker along, as he was still unable to react and behaved like her trained pet, obediently following her steps.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    They ran for a while, escaping the rampaging beasts that were for some reason running wild behind the border wall. The great pride of the Water Dragon Sect proved to be insufficient when tested by the rampaging beasts. After some time, Mei Gon could not continue running anymore, her lungs burning with exhaustion and both of them collapsed on a large stone that was present on the clearing they had reached after their escape.


    An unexpected, loud screech nearly deafened them both, a powerful gust of wind pushing them back from the stone, throwing their backs against the ground. An overgrown eagle landed on the stone, his talons touching the place where just a second ago their palms were touching the cold stone''s surface.


    They tried to stand up, but the giant bird flapped his wings again, making them fall over again, his expression that of a cruel predator playing with its prey before deciding to end the prey''s suffering.


    Disoriented by the actions of the arrogant bird, Mei Gon struggled with the wind for control over her body and when she finally regained her bearings and was ready to escape, she saw a sharp talon reaching for her neck, its size comparable to a small dagger. She panicked and swung her hoe with all she had in an attempt to ward off the beast''s strike.


    The bird screeched and quickly took of into the air, his feathers stained with blood, while Mei Gon looked at her hands, mesmerized.


    Rightfully so, because she had lost her hoe a long time ago and she had been actually using just her bare hand.


    In retrospect, she understood what had happened and swung her hand in the direction of the airborne bird again, trying to remember the exact feeling she had when she had struck before.


    A small blade made of wind left her palm and struck the bird''s chest, forcing the feathered aggressor to leave them alone, flying noisily away. Mei Gon just stared at her hand and a few strands of her green hair that escaped from the lazily tied lace.


    "I did it, I finally did it!" She could not believe what had happened, her bloodline heritage finally showing its worth. "I will make it through this! I have not gained this strength just to die here!"


    Yet, when she looked around, she found out that the beasts were all around them, their brief encounter with the bird delaying them enough for the tide of beasts to reach their position.


    * * * *


    "Desertification!" The Water Dragon Lehaim, the leader of the Water Dragon Sect and the lord of the Orlov region, used his signature mass destruction move while pointing outside of the city walls with his hand.


    All water started to evaporate quickly in a vast region in front of the outer city wall of Jinsheng. Beasts, trees and even a few unlucky runaways that had not made it in time began drying up, the structural integrity of their bodies failing as they were becoming more frail and brittle. Along with water, their life was slipping away and all life turned into dust.


    "Seal the breach! Defend the wall at all costs!" Roaring, Lehaim suppressed his exhaustion caused by the immense scale of the power he had used and left the wall, quickly making his way deeper inland where a large mob of beasts disappeared. He did not know how the bests managed to breach the wall, but someone had to deal with them before they destroyed what he had built in their new home.


    He decided against using flight or any other means to artificially increase his speed. He felt that he should keep his fatigue at minimum, as the crisis had not yet reached its peak. He had a premonition that on this day, he would need all the power he had to defend what was his.


    When he was already far away from the gate, his attention was captured by an ominous sound that originated from where he had just departed. He turned around in time to see the large steel gate of the outer wall of Jinsheng falling inwards, as if torn from its hinges by a battering ram. Yet, there was not a battering ram entering the breached gate, but a few massive figures of flesh.


    "What by the Ninth Heaven is this?" Lehaim was shocked by what he saw. More and more creatures that usually existed only in the worst nightmares poured through the unhinged gate, scaling the wall as well.


    With his right hand, Lehaim touched his eyelids as if to check his eyes, unwilling to believe what he saw. His forces were falling like flies and whatever damage they did to the terrifying enemy was irrelevant, the number of the horrors coming out of the dense forest having no end.


    "You will all dies!" Lehaim shrieked, enraged. His eyes focused on one of the hideous creatures that seemed to be stronger than the others, preparing to cast a large scale attack. His forces were mostly dead anyway, there was no reason to hold back.


    The creature that had a bunch of tentacles instead of its one arm lifted a knife, as if in challenge to him and Lehaim sneered in disdain. Was the disgusting thing trying to fight him with a knife?


    "Desertif-" Lehaim extended his hand to unleash his deadly power, but suddenly felt being paralyzed. It was a strange feeling, like something was observing him. His instinct was to hide from it whatever the cost, but it was not possible. He heard voices in his head while he saw images that disgusted him to the point his mind wanted to just cease to function.


    "Do not look! Eyes deceive! Only listen!"


    Lehaim''s eyes widened and turned dull, the clarity in them no longer present. An insidious voice growing louder in his head.


    "Do it! Free us! Free yourself! Liberate!"


    And thus he did, his liberated soul leaving his body and his body turned into an empty vessel which hit the ground a second later.


    * * * *


    With stoic indifference, a black stone glimmered at the top of the head with five eyes. His senses wandering the surface, his minions feeding him information from above. He observed the beginning of a slaughter, knowing it was only a mild prelude for what was to come, as the minions of chaos were yet to reach the walls of Jinsheng.


    "Not my business." Karl thought while observing one of his minions trying to juggle with a few pebbles.


    However, an itch inside of him overcame his lethargy, as he again focused his attention on the events above.


    "This would be too pathetic." Karl grumbled when he looked at the few large stones high above his head through the eyes of a goblin. He knew that Mei Gon was about to die if he left everything to its natural course. "Whatever, my minions are cheaper than water in the oceans."


    "Hurry up to the surface! There are some beasts to kill!" Karl gave a mental command to his minions of chaos that were hiding along with him underground.


    Karl himself commanded the Prophet of N''Ri that carried him to stand up and go closer to the surface. Deep inside he knew that he would not be able to stand on the sidelines during the incoming battle even if he wanted.


    Lifting the layer of soil and grass that covered the entrance into Karl''s dungeon, his minions poured out like a tide, assaulting the bests that were in the process of encircling the survivors that were using the ruins of Fort Orlov to aid in their defense. Even though the Fort had been long destroyed, it was still much better than being encircled by the wild beasts in the open.


    Humans and bests alike halted their steps when they saw the new forces entering the struggle and after a few second understood their allegiance. The beasts began to growl and took a few steps back while the few surviving humans did not know whether to cheer or despair when faced with the minions of chaos'' terrifying appearance.


    However, Karl''s forces did not care for the reluctance of both sides and began aggressively attacking the hesitating beasts that mainly consisted of wolves and stray dogs that mutated and could not be called simple dogs any longer.


    * * * *


    Eight Heavens higher, above the desperate struggle of Jinsheng, there was a golden throne with a man dressed in black seated on its grandeur, an ominous aura of his corrupted soul scaring anyone who might dare confront him. His large, black wings were half-spread, his back resting against the cold, golden surface and his hands had long, black claws instead of nails.


    "Look up, reach the Heavens! Ever higher! Above anyone and anything!"


    A voice in his head sounded, promising him power and he embraced it. Those were not just empty promises of his former teachers he had killed in his pursuit of strength, words of praise that yielded him nothing, or schemes of those trying to parasite on his genius. No, this was a voice of the true god that granted him the strength to finally defeat the arrogant, lazy emperor and throw him down from his throne, hurl him into the depth of existence.


    "I am the emperor of the Ninth Heaven now, of all of the Heavens! It will be my will that dictates the fate of all existence!" He growled with a smirk and cackled like a mad man.


    He looked at the empty space in front of him, where the huge golden door were being repaired by his servants who trembled with his every breath and felt the nearing presence of his true master. He looked down with his demonic eyes with vertical pupils and saw the tear there to enlarge to accommodate his mentor''s large size.


    "Come master, show them what true power means!" The dark figure laughed thunderously, unaware of much that was happening to him. His old friends would not have recognize him in appearance, nor behavior. Despite his increased power, his body looked more and more unhealthy, lean and malnourished. There was puss on the skin of his back and his eyes were turning cloudy, tiny worms swimming behind the white sclera of his eyes.


    However, he was not aware, he listened to the voice that permeated his all being. The voice that had shattered his old weak self and filled him with purpose.


    An agent of corruption who was unaware of his own true identity.

 Book Two, Chapter 28 The Battle for Humanity

    Mei Gon fought bravely against the beasts that assaulted her and all other survivors without end. She felt an unpleasant sticky feeling on her back and discovered wounds she suffered during her struggle, oblivious to them while her adrenaline was still at its peak? Yet, with the time passing, she was no longer oblivious to her pain and exhaustion. Her fear was going out of control and right when she was about to panic, running away from the beasts, not caring that it would only lead to claws and teeth tearing through her back, she was suddenly hugged by another female fighter next to her.


    Her first impulse was to push the crazy woman away, but she found out that her strength was insufficient to do that.


    "Shhh, be calm my love. You have been blessed by master''s attention." Sweet voice entered her ear and Mei Gon realized a few oddities about the clingy woman, the greatest one being that the freak was almost naked under her loose robe, which the lady used to hide her from the outside world, except for the top of her face.


    "What are you.. ?"


    "Be silent, or I won''t be able to protect you." The strange person said in a more serious voice and Mei Gon observed as abominable creatures surrounded the survivors struggling for their lives. Some of the creatures walked on tentacles, some had no eyes and all of them were giving off a dangerous vibe, a feeling of wrongness. Most of the beasts around them decided to avoid to fight the group of horrors, heading further towards the city.


    "Thank you. Thank you, you saved my life." Mei Gon started tearing up, but the women reprimanded her harshly.


    "Be quiet woman, have you not understood my words? There will be no escape if they see you." She growled in a slightly hostile manner, as if even she was getting nervous and Mei Gon immediately fell silent, ducking even lower under the person''s robe.


    And truly, the real enemy had finally arrived. Creatures similar to those that were tightly surrounding the survivors appeared all around them like a flood. There was a level of madness felt from them that made Mei Gon nauseous. Their hordes flowed all around her, their group being like a stone in the middle of a wide river, ignored by the swift, thundering stream of death. Was the woman hugging her a part of them? She surely looked like some of the more humanoid creatures that rushed further towards Jinsheng, but Mei Gon felt differently about the ones that were tightly encircling the small group of humans on top of the ruins of Fort Orlov.


    She did not dare to make a sound or even move and silently watched the armies of insanity to siege the slums she had always cursed under her breath and payed to burn to ashes. For the first time in her life, she prayed that the slums would hold, protected by the high wall of the city.


    * * * *


    "Are you sure none of them is capable of sniping us? The many eyed abominations do possess a weird power." A tall figure standing on the top of the city wall asked his companion on his right side that stood in the middle of three veiled figures. They held their cloaks tightly to their bodies with an obvious intention to hide their presence as much as possible. Despite that, many could guess based on the black and white hair of the person on the far right who the three were, their inconspicuous retinue of bodyguards being another clue of their identity.


    "Does it even matter? This is no ordinary incident, there will be nowhere to hide at this rate." The man in the middle replied with contempt while observing the situation below them, where the last remnants of the beast tide fought a desperate battle, stuck in between the two forces of chaos and the cultivators who had retreated behind the inner wall of the city.


    "There is nobody but us to halt this filth. Let''s get on with it." A woman''s voice spoke, her irritation apparent, a dangerous sparkle appearing in her black and white eyes, each one of a kind. The unending horde of vermin was not the sight for those faint of heart and even the three immortals of Jinsheng wanted to finish the battle quickly. Every second spent in the conflict presented a danger to their ageless existence.


    "With the three of us combined, we might even reach the edge of the outer wall." Immortal Wu Zayed assessed the situation from the middle of them before the trio prepared their combined move.


    The three figures held their hands while facing the hordes of chaos, their aura quickly permeating the space around them. Their personal guard and all top cultivators present tensed, ready to defend against an assassination attempt that was bound to come. It was only natural to expect a fierce retaliation after what was about to happen.


    The presence of the three Immortals turned heavy, the people around them feeling like autumn leaves that were long overdue to fall and rot on the ground. When the chilling, unnatural feeling reached almost an unbearable level of intensity, an invisible ripple shot out of the three, claiming the lives off all who were deemed unworthy to live by them.


    The legendary power of the Immortals to lord over life and death, the Death Domain.


    All the abominations in front of the wall of Jinsheng began to fall, like puppets who no longer felt the strings of their puppeteer attached, their performance ending prematurely with an eerie silence of no blows exchanged. Masses of chaos minions fell to the ground, leaving the few still resisting human fighters in front of the wall staring with blank faces at the dead enemies that had been just about to overwhelm them.


    However, not all of the fallen were only enemies.


    It was one of the reasons why the Death Domain was used only when necessary. It was simple to target a few enemies, but with increasing numbers, the difficulty with delivering the deadly blow to only the designated enemies increased and there was always collateral damage proportional to the power deployed.


    "That is better than expected." Immortal Yang Zhi smiled and gazed firmly in the direction of the outer city wall, her mesmerizing voice gaining a harsh undertone. "Come, filth! We can do this all day!"


    The cheers and laughter was heard again from the top of Jinsheng inner wall, the noises of the invaders silenced abruptly.


    The joy of the defenders was short lived, an intense tremor sending low-frequency vibrations through their bodies. Some of the exhausted people even staggered and fell down, taken by surprise by the unexpected retaliation.


    "What was that?" Anxious murmurs sounded from inside the city, quickly interrupted by Immortals'' response to prevent the panic from spreading further.


    "I do not know who that is, but it is coming from that direction." Wu Zayed was pointing in the direction of new chaos monsters that were slowly replacing the dead ones.


    "Whatever, as long as they are mortal, it does not matter!" Yang Zhi shouted and another ripple rushed in the direction of the minions of chaos.


    Before the vanguard of the enemy forces was hit, a huge red pillar shot up into the sky on the horizon. Its distance was unclear, but the size of the purplish-red pillar was beyond all reason, its top reaching far above the tree tops of the surrounding forest and still growing. With the sound still not reaching the spectating cultivators, it seemed like they were watching a movie with no audio, but the terror looming over them made its presence known in a different way.


    The ripple of the Death Domain quickly washed over the forces of chaos, but this time a thin red barrier flashed on top of their skin, leaving the prized ability of the Immortals powerless to do anything.


    "How?! What is this thing?" Yang Zhi stepped forward and gripped the walls'' edge, her eyes looking at the incoming hordes with disbelief.


    "Seems like the puppeteer does not like having his strings cut." Wu Zayed looked at the alien pillar that seemed to be made of flesh, his humor ignored by all present, their brains occupied by processing the severity of their situation.


    "What, what now?!" Yang Zhi asked in panic, but the answer of her Immortal colleague chilled her to the bone.


    "Now? This was just its defense and I do not think this thing is a toothless baby." Wu Zayed said and her hands began to tremble and swiftly let go of those of her Immortal peers.


    With his words, a thunderous sound caused by the distant entity''s sudden appearance finally reached Jinsheg''s wall, forcing all present to cover their ears with their hands. When they recoiled and lifted their heads back up, the eyes of everyone stared at the many kilometers high tower of flesh that had suddenly grown up in the distance and it did not seem its height was final.


    Suddenly, the structure that threatened to pierce the heavens tilted in their direction.


    "It will fall! The tower will fall on top of us! Run!" There were shouts of panic, but everyone knew that running was meaningless.


    * * * *


    Karl Gulden was currently running while being escorted by his strongest minions. They were making their way through the darkness of his tunnels that were connecting his new domain with the old.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    "Ah, the memories. I remember making the original Labyrinth." Karl was quickly heading to a Building with limited functionality. He had long found out that trying to stop the legions of chaos with his meager troop was an exercise in futility and decided to make a difference where he could. At the only place that provided him with enough power to turn him into an absolute force in its area.


    The Temple of Earth.


    He prayed that it had not vanished along with all the Void Buildings, but based on the fact that his other Buildings remained, it should be only the Void structures that had met the unfortunate end.


    "Finally!" Karl''s five-eyed minion reached the unorthodox structure of the temple and established his connection with the temple while trying to reconnect with some minions he had left on the surface for monitoring purposes.


    "Let''s see how is the situation on the surface. It could not get much worse, eh?" Karl thought, but was shocked how wrong he had been when his senses finally synchronized with one of his surface minions that was positioned near the outer city wall. There was an enormous thing reaching the clouds that looked like a tower build by ten thousand people during a period of time of ten thousand years.


    Except it had not been there a moment ago!


    Karl swore that he spotted a drop of sweat on his black surface when he noticed the towering tentacle started moving in his direction. The motion seemed slow, due to the immense size of the mass of flesh, but he knew that it was not. The tip of the enormous tentacle neared Karl and he was able to see more and more details on its surface.


    "I have not signed up for this!" He started rising a few kilometers long wall of rock with the power granted to him by the temple.


    When the wall was two hundred meters high, he was able to guess the overgrown limb''s width and extended his wall a little to match the dimensions of the attacker.


    "Wait, it will hit mostly flat on its top. I need to make it thicker!" At this point almost feeling like bathing in his sweat, Karl began to increase the wall''s dimensions in all directions as much as he could before the exaggerated tentacle struck.


    The instant before the limb of the unknown enemy struck, it seemed like the time stopped, the battle pausing while even the abominations of chaos gazing at the glorious attack of their master.


    All of them roared in pleasure, even those who were directly under the tentacle and might be squashed like flies under its weight.


    The tentacle finally connected with the enormous stone wall that had been risen to face it and a tremor of monstrous intensity could be felt, all the fighters be it human, beast or a monster falling to the ground. An earthquake caused by the hit of their ultimate enemy made buildings in the center of Jinsheng crumble and damaged all the city walls on multiple places.


    Although the wall erected in their defense held the immense weight of the attacker, half of it crumbled when the tentacle slowly lifted back into the air to build up momentum. Karl trembled along with all the earth around him and knew that the next hit would be the Jinsheng''s downfall, even if his wall held. The earthquake caused by the collision was simply too strong.


    Everyone knew that the second hit would be the last.


    Karl mobilized the powers of The Temple of Earth again and repaired all the cracks that the hit had created. Stabilizing the temple, he noticed that the whole region of the temple sunk by a few centimeters after the hit, its lowered terrain covered by a sticky, black substance.


    "Disgusting, what is that?" Karl looked at the black mucus through the eyes of his minions which were still alive on the surface and realized it had fallen from the tentacle when it hit.


    "Disgusting thing!" His wall was being slowly renewed while the tentacle had risen to its original vertical position, regaining its height. Karl despaired, knowing that it would not take long before all of Jinsheng was destroyed, with his heroic efforts being in wain.


    "God help us all." The black stone sighed, knowing that there was no victory against an enemy like they faced. It was simply out of their league.


    * * * *


    In a pitch black space there were whispers carried by the wind. It was not an ordinary wind made of air, it just was, as if an inevitable feature of the space itself. Following the whispers to their source, there was a terrifying spherical being hovering in front of a small, circular hole that seem to be out of place in this realm of horror.


    The whispers intensified and one of the huge tentacles of the thousand eyes being pushed its tip thought the shiny portal. Being stuck only after a few meters due to the tentacle''s width, the eyes screamed out their irritation and pushed hard. Something broke and the tentacle was pushed inside the way between the worlds along with specks of corruption, spores of unclean creatures and the malevolent substances residing in this bleak realm.


    The pinnacle of abominations expanded his limb inside the newfound realm, whispering its eternal lullaby to where only at this moment it had gained access. It yearned to explore new forms, ways, rules, colors, sounds and mix them all up until everything would die and is born anew at the same time in an eternal chaotic cycle of life. Life that would despair when thriving and finds joy in its decay.


    Suddenly, the sacred work of the God of Insanity, QiXrcRlr, was disrupted by a huge golden hand that intruded into its domain. The whole realm screamed with rejection as the enormous hand that shone with blinding light gripped the spherical body of QiXrcRlr and yanked it away from the Gate. In the next moment, the hand gripped the squealing god tight, squashing it in its palm like it was just a bug.


    Horrendous noise spread thought the corrupted realm, as the God of Insanity was intertwined with the realm itself and the sphere with the thousand eyes was just his manifestation, his avatar.


    "Senseless fool, your cycle has ended." A voice from outside penetrated into the realm, its sound hurting what was left of the fallen god of chaos with every syllable.


    "A lie! Don''t lie! You are dead! You are not a true immortal!" The voice of the dead god shouted, his thousand voices truly unified for the first time.


    "I am dead and I am alive. Reborn anew." The voice answered, not deeming necessary to have the debate they had many times before once again. "Vanish and be forgotten, until your seed of malice is squashed once more by my hand."


    The enormous golden hand of the reborn Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens gripped the corrupted realm of chaos and all the worlds and universes connected to it and lifted it up. Then the emperor, who truly ruled over more than just the Nine Heavens. put it in his Heavenly Chest of Drawers, where everything he did not want to see with his godly eyes rested.


    Satisfied, the emperor sat down on his new golden throne nearby and stared at the new humongous golden door, reminiscing about his eternal struggle with those that reached immortality through breaking the cycle, the insane gods of chaos.


    In their eternal struggle, they could never be truly killed, the same way as he would always rise again through reincarnation. In a sense, both of them were eternal, but he walked the path of sanity and divine might at his peak, where they were fated to forever rot in their everlasting insanity, refusing to let go and be born anew, always striving for infinity that could never fully exist as no infinity could, be if of matter, spirit, or information.


    "To break the cycle? To endlessly accumulate?" The emperor laughed out loud in his room filled with brightness and light. "The path of everlasting insanity."


    * * * *


    Karl felt like in a dream, when he saw the enormous, overgrown tentacle that threatened to flatten them all to violently disappear back into the portal during just a few seconds. He could not even comprehend the speed the tentacle had to reach while performing its hasty departure from their realm. All that it left was a massive gust of wind and a sonic boom that reached them soon after.


    Dazed, Karl kept switching his attention between all his surviving minions and all of them saw the same picture of a clear sky. At first, everyone stood like statues, not able to comprehend the situation, but slowly, shouts of glee and exhilaration started to fill the air.


    The city survived.


    The Immortals, cultivators and small folk alike cheered as one in a rare occasion of unity, before the strife and struggle of everyday life would consume them again. For the last time, the three Immortals employed their ability to clean up the rest of the vermin, this time without the protection of their disappeared master.


    In the back of everyone''s mind, there was fear of the humongous abomination returning to the battlefield to finish what it had started, but their fear slowly faded away with the archenemy nowhere to be seen. The giant tentacle never returned, its fate and origin remaining a mystery forever.


    Karl Gulden began slowly returning under Fort Orlov that had been destroyed even more during the intense struggle. Before, it was just a ruin, but at this point there were only couple of large boulders left with the foundations of its tower and keep.


    "This cannot stand, I will rebuild it! I will make the greatest structure ever seen both on the surface and under!" Karl imagined his future plans in a good mood. It might be a headache to make it happen, but he believed that Jinsheng had survived its greatest crisis. He was not afraid of human interference any longer. Humans could be reasoned with, or reasoned with some more with gold and promises of power as he had done before.


    When he reached his destination, he decided to exit the underground, carried again by his most presentable minion, the priestess. He was sure she would not do anything untoward during the festive occasion of their victory.


    They made their way through the collapsed tunnels with Karl using his most practical dungeon spell to dig a new entrance. He remembered how he feared using it because of the wrath of the Heavens.


    "Still no Heavenly Tribulations for me it seems. Has the Heavens really fallen as the say?" Karl thought while blasting his way forwards with his once forbidden spell. His worry completely forgotten, he overused his spell to reach the surface and joined the small crowd that was shouting their joy to the sky. Naturally blending in among the few boulders that used to be the cozy Fort Orlov. He remembered his teenage thugs that in the same way as these people lived by the moment, forced by their circumstances to ignore the bigger picture that was too gloomy to accept.


    He felt similar, due to the forces he witnessed at play and decided to forget everything for the moment and enjoy the occasion. Karl felt thrilled by their victory, it was a wonderful feeling. He listened to all the voices around him and let the victory take root in his brain.


    "We have won!"


    "Long live the Purple Lotus Sect!"


    "We are the mighty people of Jinsheng! We can beat anyone!"


    "There are no gods, only pretenders! Trust no one! They are all fake!"


    "We have survived!"


    "Look up, reach the Heavens! Ever higher! Above anyone and anything!"


    Jinsheng would thrive and he would eternally stand by to watch and guard its progress. Observe its society mix and thrive to a bright future.


    * * * *


    Mei Gon stood in a daze, starting at the suddenly empty sky above her. Awaking her power in the middle of the fight was her greatest and the most scary experience at the same time. She vaguely remembered that cultivators tried to experience a lot while inducing different states of mind to try and forge their connections with their true souls. Unintentionally, she had successfully done just that and was no longer just a simple person.


    She giggled while tying her messy hair back into a ponytail. She was no longer a simple girl from slums and it felt phenomenal, the same as surviving the madness of the last few hours.


    Looking around her, she noticed a few boulders lying randomly around and recognized the place that always induced a mix of contradictory feelings in her. However, now there was only joy inside her, as she had not expected to live through the terrible slaughter that had just taken place at the outskirts of Jinsheng.


    She heard shouts of the survivors around her and laughed with them.


    "We have won!"


    "Long live the Purple Lotus Sect!"


    "We are the mighty people of Jinsheng! We can beat anyone!"


    "We have survived!"


    She shouted along with everyone, not paying attention to a veiled female figure that stood a little bit aside, staring in the direction of Edo while squirming in ecstasy, whispering a difficult to pronounce name under her breath.

 Book Two, Epilogue 29 Breaking the Cycle

    A handsome face looked arrogantly to the sky, his body standing still in a confident pose. A sea of male and female fans boiled under him, while he ran his fingers through his golden hair, making the female part of the audience shriek in want.


    The males were just an extra, but he did not mind them cheering for him as well. He decided to tolerate them.


    Karl had not stopped his movement in his hair and his delicate hand slid down along his neck, until it stopped on his chest. Simultaneously, he looked down from the podium and smiled. Smiling while holding his chest with his delicate hand, he delivered a deadly blow to the hearts of all the females with pointy ears present. He was sure that at least half of them had just fallen for him.


    "Ladies to the front, let me see you shaking!" He spoke in his melodious voice and his own pointy ears could hear a thunderous response. All the ladies squeezed closer to the podium, attempting to touch his shining, golden boots with their outstretched hands.


    They loved him!


    In his magnanimity, he decided to give the girls something to worship and took off his right boot. With a fluent motion of a trained gymnast, he lifted his leg high above his head and slowly took off even his sock while the eyes of the elf teenagers below him bulged in awe. He threw his sock to the audience and a violent battle, a spectacular cat-fight ensued in which every lady craved the piece of clothing he had just shared with them.


    For a while, he watched the battling ladies before he decided to start the show.


    "I present you with my new song. It is called, My Beautiful Curves." Karl struck another pose and began rocking gently into the rhythm of his new masterpiece. Unfortunately, right when Karl wanted to start singing, the atmosphere of the concert changed dramatically and he heard a voice whispering into his ear, as if there was someone standing right behind him.


    "Come, free us! Free yourself!"


    He shook his head lightly to focus again on the show, observing one of the teenagers finally securing his sock. She sniffed it and exhaled with wide opened mouth, he could see the long, sharp teeth inside. Her fingers holding the sock melted together while her hands elongated, turning into long tentacles. The skin of her deformed hands turned black and her appendages reached directly for him, lacking just inches to grab his neck.


    Still focused on her mouth that was cute no longer, Karl saw her mouthing a few words, the sound reaching him as a soft whisper that chilled him to his core.


    "One of us."


    * * * *


    "Where? What?" Karl''s consciousness woke up from his daydreaming, his mind filled with jumbled up thoughts. He had his classic daydream of being an elven superstar, but this time it felt more sinister than usual.


    "All that darkness around me has to have negative influence on my psyche. I need to go out for a bit." He thought while looking around, his attention ending up on the largest object around him, his underground Cathedral of Thousand Eyes that he had erected below the ruins of Fort Orlov. Was it possible that staying in the underground space that was only dimly lit by lightstones in company of his minions had caused some mental issues for him? He was suddenly worried about his mental health.


    "A little bit of fresh air will make everything right." Karl quickly summoned his most presentable minion, the Priestess of Depravity, and commanded her to attach his body to her arm. This time, he decided to become an armband decoration of her loose robe. "I think the Twinstar Fortress has a big pub in front of it. We will be heading there!"


    Despite changing owners, the Twinstar Fortress was running the same routines as before, only the titular owner was different. After Lehaim''s death during the tides of chaos, the Water Dragon Sect could not hold its position as one of the great sects of Jinsheng and had been absorbed by the Purple Lotus Sect that owned the neighboring riverside district. It brought some concerns about the Jinsheng''s hero being too close to Karl''s base for his taste, but the devastating assault had brought too many problems onto the heads of all sects'' top management for them to care about anything else. There were enormous casualties, extensive damage to the whole city due to the earthquake, mountains of corpses and the mysterious enemy that had suspiciously retreated right in the moment of his victory.


    He felt tension whenever he remembered the giant tentacle crashing again his wall of earth, threatening to level the city in a single blow.


    "My sanity is the top priority, but I have to be careful not to stand out too much." The city was still searching for the hidden expert who had shielded the city with his earth manipulation that was on the level of an Immortal. There were rumors of a mysterious Immortal from a far away destroyed city hiding inside Jinsheng and the three rulers sought desperately to expose his secret identity.


    "They can try, but it is not easy to expose me due to the nature of my powers." Karl had an urge to cackle, but lacked the capacity to produce any sound as usual.


    "Ohohohohoooo!" Hence he witnessed someone doing it for him in an especially dumb man¨½er.


    "What are you doing, priestess?" He asked mentally his current bearer and the Priestess of Depravity responded innocently, while for some reason, moving her pinky back and forth in her mouth


    "You thought about doing it, right?" She asked, while the pinky distorted her words. Sometimes, he had an urge to rename her to the Mistress of Double Meanings.


    "This is too much, I want . .. " Karl wanted to change the one who carried him, but all other chaos minions reminded him too much of his unpleasant dream. He thought about being carried by a skeleton, but that was not much of an improvement.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Master, what are you thinking about? Do you perhaps think about us?" The priestess asked teasingly while running over his black surface with her pinky.


    Was that the one?!


    Regardless of the classic depraved nature of the priestess, her last words stuck him like a hammer threatening to shatter him into thousand pieces.


    " . .. about us." The words kept repeating in his mind, making him remember the last words from his dream.


    "One of us." He could almost hear the voice from his dream ringing in his ears. He could no longer tell if it was just his imagination. The words of the priestess that usually carried a hidden meaning of playful depravity were suddenly imbued with something sinister.


    "Father!" Suddenly, the Prophet of N''Ri decided to join the debate with one of the two words he had learned and Karl''s attention locked onto his hand made up of swirling black tentacles. "Mother!"


    In his mind the image of the tentacles overlapped with the giant tentacle he had repelled during the siege and remembered the mind-numbing feeling he experience when he looked at it, as if the tentacle had not been just physical, but reaching deep into his mind with its attack.


    "I want you to leave! Everyone leave me alone!" Karl howled inside of his mind, chasing all of his servants away.


    "This corruption, this darkness . .. this. . .!" He quickly began to release his summoned minions, canceling all his Buildings one by one. " . . . insanity!"


    As the Cathedral of The Thousand Eyes crumbled to the ground, he watched it turn into dust. The pupils in its eyes reappeared as soon as he canceled all his minions, staring at him as if with a will of their own. Observing him all the way until the very moment the structure disappeared.


    Just one Building remained, one stinky structure he perceived to be the only one not trying to bring him to the edge of sanity. He had quickly called for the last summon he left that hailed that structure his home, a small creature with green skin.


    "Don''t! Dangerous! Hide! Run!"


    "Take me to the inn, quick!!" Karl gave an urgent mental order. If he could, he would have pressed his hands against his ears to silence the voices in his head. He was no longer sure if it was just his imagination.


    Through the gaps of green fingers, he saw the dark walls of his dungeon passing him by, until moonlight blinded him and he was forced to look down into the grass. The filthy fingers of the goblin were leaving stains on his surface and his vision quickly turned into that of an old man with dirty glasses. He welcomed it, he welcomed everything that was able to get his attention from the voices in his head that were urging him, encouraging, scaring, confusing all at the same time.


    "Status." Karl whispered, perhaps hoping the numbers would provide some sort of stability, but what he saw was the exact opposite.


    Karl Gulden ?¡ì)¨²¨§?4g;_/'':-,p6


    Lev ?¡ì)¨²¨§?4g;_/'':-,p6 Core


    _":!*?[>:generation - 10g;_//s`q


    ||/?ells- [Di¡ì)¨²¨§?4gld]


    /ummons- QiXrcRlr


    [Experience US]


    Karl howled in despair in his mind, as that which was supposed to bring him stability only dealt yet another blow to his already tired mind. He tried to make sense of the status, but it had all been turned into gibberish.


    "The System has been corrupted as well, there is no hope." Karl Gulden nearly gave up, when he noticed a small line at the bottom of his status that had not been distorted. He had missed it, because there used to be no such text at the bottom of his status before.


    Embrace the Cycle


    "What is this? What does it even mean?" He clung to the sole sensible line like to his very life, trying to figure out what the message meant. When he tried to think of its meaning, the voices in his head grew louder, as if trying to prevent him from deciphering what had the mysterious messenger in mind.


    "I understand." Karl finally regained clarity and all the voice were pushed into the back of his mind.


    There was no other way, he had no body, he was just a piece of rock without his system. The System that was obviously on its last legs.


    "Let''s embrace the Cycle!" Karl shrieked in his mind, overpowering all the whispering voices, and gave his last order to his lone remaining minion. The green hand that held him gathered momentum, speeding up against a flat rock that had been mostly buried in the ground, the last remaining stone of the foundations of Fort Orlov.


    He did not know what the mysterious messenger had in mind, but even death was better than enduring all the ghastly voices for all eternity. It was poetic that he would join his long lost friend in the heart of his crumbled home. Thinking about it, he did not even remember his name anymore. The System was probably right, it was time for the Cycle to make its turn.


    He felt his black body fracture and his mind turned blank.


    * 9 * . * 3 *


    In the Nine Heavens, the Sun rose above the heads of the cultivators and fell again behind the horizon, wind and water eroded rocks and rocks were formed again during processes of mesmerizing complexity. Empires rose and fell with their once glorious Emperors and Immortals all but forgotten in the depths of history. It was a dark history, where the people''s connection to their souls became weaker than ever, less and less people able to awaken the powers that could even make them immortal.


    Until one day a demon god touched the Nine Heavens with his malevolent finger, causing the Sun to never rise again, turning day into night


    In the Nine Hells, the Sun no longer rose to divide existence into night and day. Eternal nights turned ominous without wind or rain to revitalize the land. The blessing of immortality became a curse, eternal whispers from beyond the void turning even the most mighty into madmen. And when all seemed to be completely lost to darkness and insanity. .. .


    Lo, there was light again! Light that banished mold, death and maddening whispers of the demon god!


    "Huh, is there no clean pair of socks left? I guess it is time to turn on the Heavenly Washing Machine." A celestial voice of  the reincarnated Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens graced the Nine Heavens once more before he closed his Heavenly Chest of Drawers shut again.


    Yet, what was just a moment for the Godly being, was ten thousand years for the Nine Hells that for that time happened to flourish again, turning into the Nine Heavens once more. This time period became known to celestial historians as the First Opening.


    However, that is a story for another book, because our hero is obviously dead, shattered by a goblin to escape the clutches of insanity.


    * 9 * . * 4 *


    Hi, ThousandLeaves here. We arrive at the end again, how nostalgic. Before some people tear me apart, I should provide a brief explanation of the obvious.


    Originally, I have not planned for this kind of ending, but I think that it fits as is. Why? Too many times chaos gods have been taken as a joke, their whispers only a flavor text to be inserted and swiftly overcome by the hero. When even the celestial emperor could not survive them without reincarnation, how can a simple hero do it?


    Currently, I do not plan to make a sequel and it will stay that way unless there is some kind of intense feedback. I hope you enjoyed the strange ride through the Nine Heavens!