More days passed. The assaults only got worse. They started tossing civilians through the windows to test if I was in the room before unloading a hail of arrows and kunai. Every trick in the “kill-this-guy” book was being used. And I was starting to question my own decisions.

I fought back the same way—psychologically. Swapped clothes with a ninja, used them as decoys. Once, I even made it look like I’d been blasted out a window by my own attack and hit the ground. Surrounded by enemies, they were so focused on the window that they didn’t realize one of their comrades in black garb… was me.

I slaughtered them one by one under the rain. Silent. The scent of blood was washed away by wind and water before the last one heard me coming.

After that, they started staying farther back. Only sending waves.

At this point, the chain blade felt like another limb. My tail. My partner. I barely even thought about the gun anymore—she was the mistress now. The chain blade was my doll.

‘You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 80.00%.’

Less than a week left.

Around the pagoda lay a crimson lake of bodies. To the ninja, this place must’ve looked like hell.

The upper floors were gone. Several of them had climbed to the top, only to die violently and bring down the structure with them. What remained was the lower half of the second floor and a first floor riddled with holes in every shape imaginable.

“Come! This is the last!”

A loud voice rang through the rain, jolting me awake right on schedule—the twelve-hour mark.

I opened the front door. It barely hung on its hinges and collapsed beside me. I stepped over it and looked through the rain, past the endless bodies, to find a massive man standing far off. Thousands of ninja surrounded him.

None had bows. They’d learned that I could knock away most arrows with the chain, and the rest either hit wall or clinked harmlessly off my metallic skin. Only a perfect shot would matter now.

Arrows could still pierce armor. But they were gambling against a man who wouldn’t stop moving.

“Why do you want her so bad?”

The man looked down, rain sliding down his face. “Because we are forced to acquire her… or we all die anyway.”

I felt it then—this world wasn’t just mine. Someone had created it, and they had a mission too.

“Come then.” I waved him forward and stepped out into the storm.

A handful of ninja spiraled through the sky and landed in the blood-soaked mud. I dashed forward, swung the blade in a tight arc. I didn’t extend the chain and then strike—that was too slow.

I’d learned to spin the weapon while compact and release the chain mid-swing. I came up with it from cutting chairs and broken furniture at the orphanage. One fluid motion. One clean kill.

They lifted their weapons—only to have them sliced in half. The second swing took their throats.

Don’t use wood to block this. I only need to cut halfway through to snap it.

This wasn’t the time for internal monologues.

“This demon…” the large man muttered.

A hundred more ninja stepped forward. Lightning flashed across the sky, reflecting in every blade. Another flash illuminated the blur of my whirling chain—too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Then thunder.

The man’s eyes scanned my body. I saw it. He was trying to make sense of the metallic shimmer across my skin.

“Armor? So thin, though?” His brow furrowed.

The glint came from exposed areas where the ninja garb had been torn away. I'd long since traded it for rags that gave me room to move.

Another bolt cracked down from above, arcing to the chain flung into the air. It struck me like a hammer—but I staggered only slightly before moving again.

They didn’t understand. It had to be the natural lightning for me to absorb it. And I had trained for this.

“What is this man… to call lightning onto himself… and look like a golem of metal?”

The man scoffed, then shouted:

“WE ARE THE TRUE ONI!”

Hundreds more dropped from above, using their fallen brethren as footholds in the thick, red mud to spring forward.

Whack.
Swish. Swish. Whoosh.

‘You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 95.00%.’

Thousands surrounded me. Yet somehow I could feel something was fueling me to continue. It was numbing something particularly within me mentally, and fueling my body. I hadn’t eaten in a day or two and yet felt more alive then ever.

My metal skin was torn in places, cuts revealing flesh beneath. I kept moving anyway.

I bit the cork from the potion, downed it, and tucked the bottle back under my tunic. My jacket was long gone—too bulky, too constraining.

Scooping up several blades, I absorbed them into my skin to patch what I could.

It would have to be enough.

The man jumped down, bringing the last of his forces with him.

This was it. The final stand.

They couldn’t win inside the pagoda. So they brought it outside—all at once.

“Come on!” I roared through the storm.

The man raised his arm. “GO!”

The horde surged forward.

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‘You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 95.15%.’
‘…95.45%.’
‘…95.85%.’
‘…96.00%.’
‘…96.45%.’
‘…97.15%.’
‘…97.45%.’

 “AHHH!”

Jaeger and the man screamed at each other across the rain, locked in a battle of blood and fury.

Lightning split the sky—lighting up a land drowned in red.

The battlefield was paved in bodies.

The stepping stones of war—the dead.

Final Duel: Me vs. the Oni Boss

Rain came down in thick, hissing sheets, washing blood into rivers around the broken steps of the pagoda. My boots hit the sodden ground with a heavy squelch, the storm soaking through the layers I hadn’t already shredded in the last few days. Bodies floated, stacked, bled out in silence behind me—but I had eyes only for the man ahead.

He stood at the edge of the battlefield, big and broad, arms crossed like a statue of war. His hammer rested beside him—too massive for most men to lift, jagged like something carved out of a mountain with rage.

Around him? Hundreds. Still. Watching.

“You fought well,” the man called, his voice low and booming even through the rain. “But it ends tonight.”

“Then come make it end,” I shot back, my hand already curling around the chain-blade hanging by my side. The tip skimmed the crimson puddles, waiting.

He didn’t rush.

Neither did I.

Then I moved—spun the chain once, then launched it. The spear tip screamed through the storm.

He caught it.

Clang!

Sparks hissed off his gauntlet as the blade dug into metal. He yanked.

Hard.

The chain snapped taut and I flew toward him—but I didn’t resist. I leaned into it.

Ran with it.

I leapt, used the pull to drive a spinning kick into the side of his helmet. The impact rang through my leg and staggered him a step.

Chain slackened.

I landed, rolled, and lashed again—this time low.

He blocked with the hammer. The impact knocked me back again.

He didn’t give me time to breathe. That slab of iron came down like a falling tower.

I blinked—a flash of lightning, and I wasn’t there.

Boom.

Stone shattered where I’d been. I reappeared ten feet off, chest heaving, metal skin cracked and sparking.

"You're fast," he muttered, turning toward me.

"But are you strong enough?"

He charged.

I spun the chain, faster this time, and struck low. The chain snapped toward his ankles. He jumped—damn near floated over it—and came in swinging like a train.

I slid under him, boots skimming slick mud, chain already recoiling to my hand. I whipped it wide, circled it once—

Wrapped it around his wrist.

With a twist, I yanked hard.

The hammer flew free, landing somewhere in the shadows.

He didn’t slow.

He came in fists-first.

His punch cracked me in the ribs and sent me crashing through what was left of a pillar. I felt something snap. Probably a rib. Maybe two. The dent to my side ripped the wind from me.

I tasted blood.

Staggered to my feet.

"You’re tougher than the others," I said, wiping red from my mouth.

“And you're still alive,” he replied, cracking his knuckles.

We charged.

I blinked again—last charge, right behind him. Lightning still buzzing in my limbs.

Mid-air, I let the chain unwind, spinning fast, and then—

Snap. It locked around his neck.

He howled, grabbing at it, but I’d already landed behind him.

I kicked off his spine, used the leverage, pulled hard.

"Fall."

My whole body dropped with the force—dragging him with me, the chain digging in deep.

His knees hit the mud.

I didn’t hesitate.

Looped the chain once more, tight, and drove the spearhead down into the base of his neck. Straight into the dirt.

Everything went still.

The chain slackened in my hands.

Only the rain moved.

I stood there, chest heaving, the cold slicing through the cracks in my skin.

The battlefield…
was finally silent.

Those that watched drifted back into the darkness. I could hear a muffled beeping sound coming from my watch but my eyes glanced over to the pagoda. Cracked and glittering with shattered lanterns and glass.

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The princess was cradling her legs as she felt the tremors above, it seemed that the Pagoda had collapsed. As the rain finally let up, it grew silent all around. The light peppering sound that echoed down to here couldn’t be heard anymore. However in its place was the creak of wood being thrown back and forth and stone shoved away.

Someone was coming.

She put her ear to a listening tube that funneled into her side and listened as best she could, after a while the sounds stopped and someone arrived on the other side. She backed up slowly as she looked around for a weapon before grabbing a dagger off the wall. Holding it before her she braced herself to stab it into her own chest in case she was captured.

The princess soon dropped the dagger and weeped as she heard the light sound of….

*tap*

*tap*

tap

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I meant to wake up early enough, I did. However, I couldn’t. I physically was in so much pain, and agony, that it took over 4 hours of light stretching and movement to even get the appetite of even water into my system. If it wasn’t for the rain continuing to fall on my body that hung just off of one of the large piles of bodies I had fell from, washing away the blood I had spent several hours fighting within, I would be a hideous creature.

Moving pieces of strewn wood and debris to the side of the basement heavy door, with a quick look around I pulled the secret lever that controlled the door on this side while the Princess pulled the one on her side, and a mechanism finally slowly slid the heavy door apart with a groan.

She leapt out onto the ground and took a deep breathe in. Her hair was disheveled, her skin paler than before and her overall frame much smaller as well: but in the end she was alive. From the look beyond her she had long since eaten every dried dessert amongst the food stock. Never even got to try one.

“You okay?” I asked lighting up my smoke as usual, one of my hands was clenched while I fought the urge to cough due to the pain in my chest.

“Yes…how many were there?” She asked looking around the broken remains of the Pagoda.

“Oh uh…not many…” I clutched my side when she was looking away but took my hand off when she looked back over.

One potion wouldn’t heal him completely, the fight last night was horrendous and if it wasn’t for the constant lightning that occurred and the height in the atmosphere this town was in, he would be fucked right now. Even then, he had countless wounds that would take days to heal but since they had come all at once he had some time to heal back up now.

She walked up the basement steps to the first floor and looked around at the walls that had collapsed. In fact the second story of the building had collapsed down onto the first, with holes everywhere, the several hundred slices and thousands of holes had broken the structural integrity.

“I am sorry…I had to, they tried to go around me to get to you while we fought and so I had to collapse it.”

She nodded, “It doesn’t matter…thank you” She looked at me with heart felt eyes, admiration, and a tinge of love? I already had someone though, or I might very well take her up on the offer her eyes gave off. I was a stranger, I wasn’t a hero, I came for a reason. That reason was shared with now going home.

Her smile faded as she saw the bodies piling several stories up around the pagoda. In fact she gasped that one man could do all this and still be alive. I had the same thought as I studied myself in the broken shards of glass lying around.

“If they had come all once in the first several weeks I would be dead right now, or unintentionally or internally sent their weakest…they gave me time to become stronger, and that was their downfall”

I didn’t mention the dermal layer of metal that had saved my life countless times, or the frequent shocks of electricity from the sky to fuel my speed and mental processing because there was no need to tell her.

She nodded, and went into thought about what to do from this point forward.

I let her be, and went out to find a bed in a different building before collapsing on it. Another day passed and I finally got to have another potion but it was just water at this point, which took the edge off of the nerves that felt like they were on fire.

She came by to see me again, with the same eyes as before. He had even told her that he had a girlfriend in a different world, but this didn’t seem to stop her.

It felt wrong though, she was a complete stranger in most regards. Yes, by the end it hadn’t mattered if it was the metal skin or innate ability it was his own effort that had let him live. Yet, that same effort had allowed her to live. He couldn’t argue that, or the fact that she herself was consensually wanting to…

On the last day before I left, she came to me again and looked over my wounds from before.

“They’re all healed up, you have a lot of scars but it shouldn’t affect you.” I nodded thanks to her before lying back down on my bed.

“Hey, my muscles still have knots which a potion can’t mend…you could rub my back?” I gave her a light smile, and she finally felt like she could return a favor. She ran over to several buildings before finding a jar of medicinal oil to use on me.

Slowly she massaged my shoulders, arms, legs, even my pecks and forehead which had seen a lot of action from bo staffs. As I was about to fall asleep, her hand slowly glided down my stomach stopped above my lower robes. I flinched for a second, but slowly stopped myself as I looked up at her. She gave me a determined look, and I slowly closed my eyes. Please for the love of god, tell me this isn’t this cultures way of thanking people.

‘Well…I did kill ten thousand men, and this isn’t a real world…it’s…just a dream right?’

She stood up and was about to undress when I shook my head, and as the night fell and the rain slowly came back in a maelstrom, I simply held her and slept.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She woke up to find him missing, she layed her hand on the pillow where his head used to be and sighed.

‘He was a really good man too…what a man, not so good with the mouth though, but those hands, so manly. Was he maybe into men? Why else would he turn down the ritual of thanks? She had been pleased by many suiters of choice for simply assisting their families with wealth. Though she never fully gave herself, thanks was to be given for the others enjoyment. She had tended to make use of that often.’

“Who the hell is going to clean up this mess"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I quickly checked the items hidden under my robes, the derringer, pistol, chain spear, and the bracelet. The only thing missing was my old clothes, the set he wore now was the robes of the ninja he had killed off. It was pretty comfortable too, so for now I might as well wear it till I got back.

The jacket from Solomon of course still remained, but for now I was good without wearing it, keeping most of it tucked away under an arm. Dusted and dirty from where I hid it but operable.

“Only seconds have passed in the world since I entered the portal…to think a month went by inside” I shook my head and thought of the woman inside. Because I soloed it, nobody else could enter it again with me if I ever came back. I flipped open the display of my watch to see the newly acquired rewards.

“You now have 100.00% proficiency in the finesse weapon ‘Chain Blade’.”

Under that was the skill it said it would give me.

“Skill: 10,000 Fold Slayer: With each consecutive attack, raise your damage .1%.” .1%? That means for every slash, it was the equivalent to that of a fraction of my strength, adding it up it meant that after a ten thousand slashes it would be the same as one thousand men striking one point!

“Worth” I laughed silently as I peered out into the fog of the space oh so familiar to before.

Undead were currently walking the streets, and it seemed far more than before. I looked back down at the watch to see an update there.

“Your skill has been raised, the difficulty of the environment has been raised fractionally.”

“So the fog matches the strength of everyone total or myself regionally? Strange…”

I arrived half an hour later back at the sanctuary following the route on my watch. When I arrived, everyone near the fountain looked over to the black robed haggard man that was walking up to them. Damon looked me up and down and asked, “How many?”

I smiled “All of them” which caused everyone around to raise their brows. Ten thousand! No person before had been able to do that. Those that could didn’t see reason to. The swordsmen being one.  

Alexandria ran over with Ana who looked me up and down, scars peppering my arms and body.

“Just heal my face, I want to keep the rest. Keep the scar over my eye too…that was earned after fighting the boss, I don’t want to forget that…” I looked off into the distance to remember that horrendous battle. Alexandria wondered exactly what I had been through, but shook her head and nodded to Ana who complied with my wishes.

I’ll admit, I could tell everyone felt differently about me. It was the aura I gave off, the aura I felt, of a man who had conquered a war within himself and that with a weapon. One, that resembled Solomon’s and Jack’s. Though, it was inherent in my bones, it was an aura none the less of slaughter.

Frog popped out onto my hand after I pushed for him to be summoned, “If anyone needs material, these weapons are pretty good” I had collected everything I could find that I had used for myself throughout the battles. Frog’s interdimensional ingestion was miraculous in more ways than one.

“I’ll go trade it to Craft for you, should earn a good amount of currency back for us…cost us a pretty penny for what we bought you!” Damon smiled and ordered several people to help pick up all the weapons and bring them over to the shop. He came back not long after that and tapped his medium to mine and giving me half the money.

For someone who had earned that, and was being commissioned to go into the sanctuary portal to save THEIR friends, he could have cut me some slack. However, this would give me something to gain later if need be. For now, it was a favor to ease the schools pockets. I also didn’t have a need for the currency at the moment, and thus felt no need to pry. I did however give him a look after he tapped my watch, to say ‘it’s okay…but remember this’.

“What now then?” Solomon asked looking over from the fountain. He might have meant me but I answered it with a comment back at him.

I gave him a speculative look, “Go to that portal…choose a weapon, and master it within. Trust me…it will be worth it. I don’t think it will be as heavy on you mentally as it was for me…” Solomon was caught off guard, but understood that they couldn’t just wait near the fountain or live here and that they needed to get stronger. He had vied for the very thing, maybe it was in the way I put it but he understood that I confirmed the portal was safe enough to earn something from.

It would be his first, just as it was mine.

Alexandria nodded and I heard her light mutterings ‘if she was to stay by his side she needed to be as strong as him or at least supportive during fights’ was the best I could translate it as. She was smart, but I had had moments in my life where I had to kill others. What I had just gone through was on another level entirely then self defense or luck. She saw that just from those within the fountains portal. It was what had spurred me on as well.

“Are you going for any other skill next?” Damon asked after a while.

 “Yeah actually…just one more…the skill mending.”

Damon didn’t understand what I meant, “Why would you want that? To fix like an item or armor?”

“Yeah to be able to re-mend material could come in handy” I wouldn’t say that I wanted it to use on my own body. I got the inkling that if my flesh became metal which was a material, why couldn’t I use it on myself? It is like a self-healing ability but also something I could use elsewhere.

“Well…alright, you have to buy it as a skill book from Craft, he should be willing though.” Damon shrugged.

Nodding I departed and left off to Craft again and after arriving was met with the echo of Craft’s voice from multiple places “Hey! How was using the chain blade!”

“I love it so much…Craft I can’t thank you enough for it. I was hoping to be able to acquire the skill Mend from you…” I waved my Vanilla smoke back in forth to one of the Craft clones who smiled and walked outside to talk with me.

“You know what it costs right?” Craft asked after several puffs back and forth between the two.

“Yeah some moolah, right?”

“No…you have to pledge yourself to me. You will become my disciple and only through this will I let you take that skill.” Craft gave me a nod that and look that said it was non-negotiable.

I smiled, “in fact…I was thinking about getting into craft, maybe make my own items hahaha…how about it then? Take me as your disciple?”

Craft looked me up and down and scrunched his lips, “Yeah alright…rule number one, if you aren’t in this shop and earning something from it…no mending of other people’s equipment other than your own. It only works for you and for nobody else got it.”

Nodding Craft handed me a small tome with golden calligraphy titled “Mending”. I pressed my hand to the tome and it disappeared, melting into my hand and it flooded my mind with information. It was fascinating, and told me all the more that the book I received must have been a skill, ability, or power that had given me the ability to do what I could.

If that had given me the information on how to use it too, that would have been great. Sadly not was the case.

It was like learning several years’ worth of experience at one moment, but it wasn’t too overwhelming. Craft looked around and picked up a stone before smashing it in his hand like it was tin foil. He held it towards me and looked down at it as a test. I lifted my hands over the stone, and before my very eyes the stone reformed back together as if it was never broken.

“Hey are you the transmutation type?” Craft looked at my ease of use with the skill with glee.

“Yeah…actually an old man told me that I am a transmutation type, hell my very power is related to it as well. If I work with any craft type it would probably be best to what seems to work for me. If I remember some of my schooling on Application types. Though for me it have to be Spiritually based since I am a Spirit vessel type.”

Craft nodded, “interesting….interesting…hmm…” Craft looked at me with a more intense glare that I didn’t quite understand.

‘Application type’ was a way to differentiate the actual systematic use of energy. I won’t go off the deep end with explanations on that. If I was a good transmuter, it be the same as being good at math or applied physics. It just made a bit more sense to me. Frog happened to be able to transmute himself, maybe that was simply why it was easy to mend materials. I didn’t know, just was.

However, it was merely a title and gave no true context to a ‘transmuter type’ then anything else would. I knew faint few things about aura. Magic, and the things inbetween. More so about powers.

“Why did you want mending now and not earlier?” Craft asked after handing back the last portion of the vanilla smoke.

“I didn’t realize just how much I needed it…until I did.”

Craft didn’t know exactly what I meant, but he nodded anyway and waved me away as he went back to work, I stopped him though “Wait I need a new item I almost forgot!”

Doing a 180 he grinned, “What? What do you want come on tell me” he was busting at the seams to craft more. What a guy. To still think I was talking to a god left me a bit starstruck but he was just so…human.

“Could you craft something that generates electricity?”

Craft shook his head, “I could…but what I feel you are looking for is at the mage tower, they have magical engineers there…go to them.” I nodded and waved him goodbye before running over to Damon. I wonder why he didn’t want to make that, it felt right up his alley. He must have a reason, just like Enigma. Please don’t be a vague god Craft, please please please.

“I need one last thing from you…do you have a small handheld portable electricity generator? I need one”

“Uh…” Damon looked over to a tall skinny male that I think was named Daniel? Danny? Who in turn shrugged “Yeah…we do, we made one quite a bit back for when you enter portals like the fountains and need a jump for most systems…I think we have couple on hand in fact, portable though? I think the smallest we have is about a foot by 8 inches diameter and has some heft to it?”

“That’s perfect” I nodded.

The skinny guy looked over to Damon who shrugged. He ran off to the mage tower, and about 20 minutes later came back with something in his arms. It was a cylinder with several lines etched across its body. A crank was on the left side, and a crystal like ball was on the right side jutting out several sharps edges.

“You crank this side…and as you can see it has a tube that is turned by the crank. Thousands of loops of copper wire draw in electron….turn the crank, electricity gets stored in the right side. Here ya go.” The skinny guy didn’t want to go over the logistics, and I didn’t push him for it, though I might later.

I took the portable gen and placed a hand on the crystal before turning the crank with my other hand. It wasn’t too hard to do, one handed maybe just because it would have to be held down. The crank was smooth in its motion just from a quick check.

“Whoh… Woooh…don’t shock yourself dude, it hurts like a bitch. You usually point it away from yourself and touch the thing you want to supply” The skinny guy reached his hands forward, but Solomon stopped him in his tracks with an arm.

“It’s…part of his power, don’t worry about it”

The skinny youth nodded and lifted his hands up to say sorry before slowly backing up. Damon opened his mouth, but after a stare from Solomon quickly shut it again.

I turned the crank slowly, and after a minute or so the runes on my right palm were full. This thing created quite a jolt, but it had to build up a certain amount before it discharged and so it took a little while it would seem.

I summoned Frog and motioned him to warp the generator into his mouth before disappearing through a small handful of mists. He was looking extra handsome today.

Damon gave me a look and I nodded before turning to our friends, “While I am gone, take those seconds to think deeply about what you want here as well…I love you Alex. Solomon lead the group, and most of all become stronger, but also smarter. It’ll be seconds for you, but just incase I don’t come back up.”

Solomon nodded along with Jack and Malcolm. Alexandra blew him a kiss, and Ana waved.

I stepped onto the edge of the fountain. Chain blade in one hand. Gun in the other. Jacket draped over my back.

Splash. Gone.

Seconds later, I burst back out, bleeding. Grabbed a potion. Chugged it. Dived back in.

This happened again.

And again.

To the others, it was a strange rhythm—blinks in time, moments in silence. But for me? Weeks. Months.

And with every plunge back into the portal…

I got stronger.

I finally came out after staying inside for a full year straight. My body ached like a motherfucker, and I can’t even begin to explain the amount of profuse cussing I had incorporated into my daily life. I took my time crawling across the ground, savoring the complete lack of stress and pressure—at least for the moment. Still needed support just to drink a potion or two, though.

“What happened?” someone asked.

“Remember how I killed, like, ten thousand men and women… two years ago for me—or half an hour ago for you?” I paused, letting the absurdity settle in. “Well… they were just people. From an older era. But the shit inside this time? It was like a horror movie. You ever have a tentacle monster come spiraling through a goddamn wall at you? Hundreds of undead swarming your surroundings while you’re scrambling to find an engine part? Fuck me… so much happened…”

I shivered. Not from the cold.

Damon looked like he genuinely felt bad for me. I caught some of his mutterings—“Poor bastard…” and the classic, “We honor your sacrifice…” The kind of phrases you throw out when someone’s gone through hell and somehow crawled back out.

But I could tell—he also thought something else now. Something different. If I could make it to the one-year mark alone, even at a slightly lesser difficulty for going solo, then maybe… just maybe… the others inside could too. I could see it in the way his eyes shifted, the way his tone turned from sympathy to cautious hope.

“Maybe it really is possible… maybe…” That one actually felt good to hear especially after a year.

“You see the woman?” Damon asked gently, after a beat.

“No… but I felt her,” I said, my voice low. “Every time I went in, she felt closer to the fort. At first, it was like she was a hundred miles away—didn’t even notice her. But by the fourth run, after several months inside… I felt her just a few miles off. Like a wave of cold, coming from that direction.”

Damon frowned. “Do you know how you’re sensing her like that?”

Honestly? I didn’t. It was like a sixth sense, I couldn’t explain it but I had the obvious theories. The best comparison was how you feel warmth from a heater or cold from ice—it wasn’t physical, though. It came with a kind of... flavor. That’s the only word I could use. It wasn’t just temperature—it was presence. Emotion. Color.

“I don’t know. Maybe my dad had it. Maybe my mom. Never met them, so I wouldn’t know. Best guess is that it has something to do with me being a Spirit Vessel type.” How could I possibly understand what I was born with?

“Good luck.” People started crowding around me, shaking my hand. I had to wash the blood off it first in the fountain before they got too sentimental.

Damon was still just standing nearby with a frown on his face, “Wait, you aren’t a mage? I thought that’s why Enigma talked to you…to give you a boost as a Mage?...”

Most of them sighed after the fact. It was like they were sending me off to my death, and we all knew it. That edgy, funeral-march kind of vibe. Damon asked one last time if I needed anything before I went back in.

I kept it simple: more dry goods, a few accessories for the ones still inside, and water. All of it got tossed into Frog’s internal space. I also grabbed some specialty things I had some plans for.

Waiting for my friends to return probably wasn’t the best idea—not if I wanted to keep the mindset I’d built over the last few months. Grit, focus, survival,

Without another word, I turned and leapt back into the fountain

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I arrived in front of the fort, the icky swamp smell blasting up my nose like a cannon peppering a wall.

“Geez... yak.” I took a deep breath until I could stomach it, then looked around. A camera mounted above and to my right blinked repeatedly. Before I could even wave to it, a creeping cold swept over me. I spun and launched a shot into the air.

She was here.

Closer than I’d ever felt.

But nothing was there.

It was like a mirage—no, a hallucination—but I knew better. She had set her sights on me. I could feel it in my bones.

And then... she was gone. The presence faded, retreating like fog in the wind. I slowly backed up to the door, waving offhandedly toward the camera. It blinked a few times and panned around before settling back on me. Felt like a creepy one-eyed creature lurking just outside my periphery.

My real focus, though, was on the swaying dead grass and brittle shrubs clinging to the earth beneath low-hanging trees.

Several mechanical locks clicked, and the door opened just enough for a disheveled engineer to yank me inside.

“I could’ve been caught out there coming in—what the hell are you doing, standing around like that?” he hissed in a whisper, clearly the poor bastard who’d drawn the short straw to let me in.

“I was sent,” I said simply. “By the God of Magic. And by the players who figured out the loophole of reaching this level solo. I have a sixth sense for her—the woman who haunts this place. I’ve seen her.”

I kept it concise. The guy was jittery, heart practically beating out of his chest, emotions laid out raw like an open book.

“Why… Who? why would you condemn yourself?” he asked, eyes wide. “If we can’t stop this ‘her’, what makes you think you can? This only means you’ll see her when you die… at least we get to be blissfully ignorant.”

I felt it too—unsettling, yeah—but after spending what felt like years surviving wave after wave of death, this was honestly just another walk through hell. This guy? I’d been alone. No squad. No break. Just the burden of mortality and isolation gnawing at my mind.

“You act like she’s the source,” I said after a moment. “What if she’s not? What if she’s just a set of bones out in the forest somewhere, like one of those vengeful spirits you hear about? Maybe she’s bound here. What if she wants you to think this is the safe place—sends that big monster out there just to chase you back in—so she can stay in control? Recoup her strength. Let you rest just enough so she can drop something even worse on you next time.”

I paused. “This feels like the purgatory of the third boss. A trick. Make you think you’re progressing—when really, you’re just caught in a loop with no end.”

He clutched a wrench like a toddler might grip a teddy bear. Weak, yeah—but it was something. Safety blanket. The more I spoke, the more I saw it in his eyes—maybe they hadn’t sent him a death sentence after all. Maybe… I was hope.

Funny how my gut was right more and more lately. Maybe I really was getting intuitive.

The inside of the fort was industrial, but with just enough style to feel almost homey. Dead potted plants littered the front hall. The outside walls were sloped and hard to scale. Up top were tiny reinforced windows—bulletproof and narrow, built for giants or people desperate for a sliver of sky.

Metal walkways crisscrossed the floor, a jungle of wires slithering beneath them like steel snakes. Don’t even get me started on the echo—my boots clanging through the silence like thunder in a crypt.

There was a front desk tucked away in a side security room, facing the gate. Monitors lined the walls, most functional—except one. The one for the front gate was ripped out, a wire stretched down the hallway toward wherever the engineer was guiding me. Smart kid.

He led me down a side passage, metal walls humming. We stopped in front of a thick door—I remembered this place. The safe room. The heart of the fort. I'd never stayed here long, not during my runs, but I remembered it clearly.

I passed at least ten broken salt lines getting here. Cracked jars, remnants of white powder, scattered like broken rituals. I could hear the hum of a generator ahead. When the door opened, a few not-so-unfamiliar faces turned to look.

The swordsman was the first to rise. The same one I’d watched before.

A wave of killing intent poured off him—thick and heavy. Like a blade to the throat. Goosebumps prickled my skin. We locked eyes for a long, still moment… and then, he held out a lighter.

I smirked. “I brought gifts,” I said. “Cigars? Smokes? Brandy for the guy in the back. Fruit—you like fruit, right?”

A soft pop of mist and Frog appeared, landing beside me. Items poured from his belly like a fountain of goodwill. Boxes of food, bottles, bundles of cloth.

The swordsman looked me over again, gave a slow nod, and picked up a cigarette. He didn’t touch the food. Just sat down and began cleaning his blade with a cloth and whetstone while puffing away.

The priest grabbed incense, some jerky, a coil of hemp rope. He started painting symbols onto it with gold ink—something old and sacred. Others gathered up food or spare clothes.

“Thanks,” the burly earth manipulator grunted before lying down in a corner.

The swordsman paused, blade resting across his knees. His eyes drifted from the weapon to me, sharp and contemplative.

“If we want to hit that spirit where it hurts,” I said, “then we burn this place to the ground.”

The others stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

But the swordsman?

He smiled and nodded.

“Out with a bang”

He approved.

“Ehhhh…” the rest muttered, unsure, glancing between the two of us.