The empowered lance flew, cutting a gash in reality. Robert expected the flow of Ether from the kill but nothing happened. He heard a sound of metal shattering and, when the void essence dissipated, the undead was grinning. Pieces of an amulet or talisman laid on the ground, smoking.

"That spell was dangerous," he said as he stood up. "And expensive. That talisman cost me a hundred souls."

Robert checked his reserves and he had enough for one more Zoltraak.

"The silent type, eh? Names Damien, who are you? Some rich young master?"

Robert knew that Damien was stalling for time. He fired another void lance, aimed at his solar plexus. He stared at the crown of Damien's head and fired.

Damien dodged, bending his head to the side. His faint a success, Robert's void lance claimed a chunk of the undead's shoulder, causing the left arm to hang to the body by only skin and sinew.

Robert sensed a buildup of energy. He used his talent, unwilling to stay near whatever the undead smuggler was cooking.

He returned three blocks away. A gray smoke cloud spread around and above the area surrounding Damien. A building near the undead Arch crumbled and collapsed. Visibility inside the smoke was close to zero.

Robert entered the liminal void once again and checked on Damien's location. Maimed as he was, he hadn't moved. At least he confirmed that Damien didn't have a way to heal fast. The smoke spell was surely expensive. Whatever essence reserves Damien had; they could be deep but they couldn't be bottomless.

But Robert couldn't linger and think. He had little time so he moved to the edge of the smoke. There, he waited as he planned ways to attack.

Back to reality, he touched a tendril of smoke. He felt it latch to his flesh and drain lifeforce. Robert pulled away but the insidious smoke tendril moved along stretching. He used a void punch to obliterate and cut the tendril. The part still attached to him dissipated.

Robert had plenty of lifeforce to give. His biomass absorption tempering made sure he did. He decided to act. He used his talent and moved back to where Damien was piecing himself together. Drawing his sword, he prepared. The moment he shifted back, the smoke attacked him with a vengeance. Robert beheaded the undead smuggler once again but this time, he touched the body and used his talent.

Robert felt drained. In the brief time he was exposed to the smoke near the source, he had lost days of accumulated biomass. But the smoke was gone and the body, inert. He picked it up and ran. This visit would last for less than two minutes. Outside the smoke, he dropped the body in the liminal void and returned. Robert wanted to loot Damien for any more enchanted items but for now, keeping the body and the head a dimension apart would suffice.

Half an hour later, the smoke dissipated. Robert only had himself to blame. He could've ended the fight with the opening move if he went all out from the get-go.

Robert walked up to the head, that was sitting on the pavement, glaring at him. Robert fired another empowered void lance.

The undead's face vanished in a cylinder of pure black that flashed once and then vanished. Only the neck, ears, and the sides of its scalp remained, forming a U of flesh.

Sense unlife, as he decided to call the negative sense life, showed him no traces of undeath in range. He inverted the spell back and tried on the positive side. No life either.

Robert felt a pressure in his soul and checked the Ethercosm. His second star had jumped from two to nine percent.

His void lance spell frame also gained a lot, filling by more than twenty-two percent. All of the spells he used had improved but not as much.

"I'm gonna kill you," a gruff voice came from behind him.

Robert turned and saw a desiccated green sphere with the ugliest face stretched across it. The fight made him manifest a Prime Vestige!

“What the hell are you looking for, you ugly bastard?” The Prime Vestige growled.

He picked up the Prime. "What are your powers?"

"If you bind yourself to me, I will grant you unholy strength whenever you kill an awakened creature. Enough power to crush rocks!"

"What about affinities?"

"I have the Unholy and Void affinities."

He didn't want to think this ugly Prime was the child between him and the undead smuggler but it was too late.

Robert gulped. This thing on his hand was a powerful and dangerous Prime. If tools could be evil (discarding the sentient and cursed ones) then this Prime was evil incarnate.

On top of that, it also had the two strongest affinities, as far as he knew.

Robert checked his essence and found he could splurge a bit. He used a two-star silent message for added range and sent it to Noah.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I won, manifested a weird Prime Vestige. City is clear."

*

*

Amanda was grinning as she saw Robert come out of the city. She jogged to meet him.

"A Prime!" She squealed. "Really?!? Let me see it!"

He took the hideous ball out of his ring. Amanda snatched it and admired the Prime like it was her godchild.

"Can I ask this time?" She glanced askew at him with a challenging face daring him to vanish with the Prime again.

"Go ahead."

Amanda cleared her throat. Robert wondered, could Amanda be a Prime Vestige aficionado? "Oh, prime vestige, reveal to me thy talent!" She declaimed like a Shakespearean actress.

"For each awakened enemy ye shall slay, unholy strength shall course through ye veins."

Amanda's eyes glimmered. "And what about thy affinities?"

"I shall grant thee domain over the Unholy and Void affinities!" The Prime Vestige boomed.

"Whoa!" Amanda gawked.

Noah approached. "Robert, would you mind trading this Prime Vestige for one of mine? I swear I will destroy this one so we don't have," Noah gestured at the crumbling buildings, "this happening to anyone."

"Sure," Robert replied immediately."

"Amanda glared at him, indignant. "You should at least see what he has to offer!"

"I assure you the Prime I have in mind is of similar value if not greater and much safer to hand over to someone else. It also comes free of any charges, no taxes and no ATA broker fees."

"What?" Amanda blurted. "How?"

Noah tilted his head as his ears twitched. "That's classified, Miss Samson."

Robert choked on a repressed chuckle as he took the Prime Vestige out of Amanda's dejected hands and handed it over. The evil Prime vanished into Noah's storage with a faint pop.

"Thank you for trusting me, Robert."

"Why didn't you warn us that the leader was undead?" Robert demanded.

"I wasn't entirely sure. Going into a fight with the wrong intelligence is worse than going without knowing. Everything I told you then was the truth."

"But you knew somehow we would win," Robert glared at the painted blue eye.

"I knew. Please pry no further," Noah replied with a bitter tone.

Robert nodded.

*

*

"I never felt so useless in my entire life," Amanda complained as they returned to the empty city.

"It was a bad matchup," Robert replied.

In the world of Archhumans, affinities countered each other. The only who had a definite advantage against Unholy was Holy. They kind of overpowered and countered each other, like Light and Dark did. Then Unholy overpowered Life, while Holy overpowered Death. If Robert didn't have the Void affinity and his talent, he would have to run, because all he could do with his Life affinity alone was feed the undead. Amanda's Nature affinity was in the same category. Even her rot spell conjured living bacteria and fungi.

"The guy had the Unholy affinity. He would kill any plants you grew and keep leeching your lifeforce. And neither Water nor Earth have good long-range offense. And I underestimated Damien."

"D-Damien?" Amanda stammered. "The Profane Priest Damien?"

"That’s correct, Amanda," Noah said from behind them. "Which means Robert can claim the bounty now."

"A bounty?" Robert asked, surprised.

"Damien has wiped out entire cities!" Amanda added exaggerated hand movements. "And he trampled over anyone who tried to stop him."

Robert glanced back at Noah. "Professor Actus, would you mind sharing your thoughts, please?"

"Sure," Noah said and moved past them, pointing at the furniture in front of a closed coffee shop. "Let's take a seat."

They sat on French-style wrought iron chairs, circling a French-style wrought iron table. One would only need to add a patio umbrella and some mimes to make them feel like they were in Paris. And some pastries behind that glass window. And coffee. And maybe a few other things that weren't as much cliché as these.

Noah cleared his throat. "Environment and circumstances may change drastically the odds of a fight. It's our duty to grant us a favorable environment and hinder our adversaries. Damien was unstoppable in cities because they are full of living things to drain. He had several large-scale spells to leech lifeforce wholesale. So long he had stored stolen lifeforce, he was unkillable. And he had enough ways to escape a confrontation.

"When I came down here alone, I removed his only source of energy, his minions. Damien grossly underestimated the two of you."

"Did you know we were going against the Profane Priest?" Amanda's breathing was erratic and she grew flustered. "We could've died!"

"I have complete trust in Robert's ability to extract you from the situation before anything bad happened. As far as bodyguards go, you won’t find anyone better than him to keep you alive."

"But you knew I would be powerless against him!"

"No, not entirely powerless. You could've shifter the ground underneath him and trapped his feet or even the legs. You could try to trap him in a bubble of water. Impale him with stone spikes. You need to use all your affinities in battle. Do you want to know why I sent you regardless of your obvious handicaps?"

"Yes, please! Enlighten me, professor!" Amanda was oozing sarcasm. Robert could tell she was using all of her willpower to keep herself from blowing up out of sheer frustration.

"To let you could experience exactly what you are feeling now and come out the other side stronger. Your life so far since your awakening last semester has been a sheltered one, Amanda. If we let you grow like that, you will be a weak leader. Look at your Ether shells. By the time the vast majority of Archs earn their second star, all of their shells are at the peak of stage one or have already absorbed a vestige or a remnant and ascended to the second stage.

"We need to work on that. Both of you need to become proper two-stars before this trip ends. Both of you will return to Earth as seasoned veterans. But warriors are forged in the crucible of combat. Down here in the realms, you are not the Samson heiress. You are a newly ascended Arch. But when you return?

"Your classmates will envy the opportunity you two earned when you crush everyone else in the tournament and claim first and second places."

"Uhm, I–" Amanda started to talk but Noah raised a hand, halting her.

"I do not enjoy cruelty, Amanda. I know you believe your talent is weak. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It reached seventy million in a flash auction. But you can believe when I say I will do my best to make you stronger and bring you back home alive."

Amanda lowered her head and rested it on her hands. She made faint noises as she got absorbed in thought. She then sighed, dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, and straightened her back. She stared at Robert, sitting across the wrought iron table.

"You burned all your essence, right?" Amanda asked. Robert was surprised. What did that question had to do with the conversation? He nodded back. "We need to finish my hundred wet hells tempering. And the others."

She shook her head. "So, why did you bring us to this shitty realm? It wasn't to claim that bounty, was it?"

Noah wagged a finger. "Absolutely not. I had no idea they were here, scout's honor. The reason I brought you to this realm was the unique facilities this place has to offer. We need to make one stop first, though. Let's see what Damien was smuggling, then I can show you what it is."

Amanda bit her lower lip, shook her head, clenched her fists and then opened them. She looked at Robert, then at the two puffblooms playing on the rooftops.

"I don't want to stay weak," She said, more to herself than the others. "Let's go."