Nathan breathed heavily as he stared at the demon. It hadn't moved at all, other than to close its mouth once he had attacked. Two hours of attacks, and he had not taken out even 1 Health from the beast. He used up all of his bombs, shot at it with even the magic guns, and nothing worked. His force punches hurt him with their rebound.

"Are you done?"

He supposed it was only natural a demon that powerful could talk, but it was speaking in what was probably the native tongue of the Overseers or something, rather than English.

Rather than answering back in that language, Nathan answered with another force punch, then dropped to his knees, before quickly allowing himself to fall backwards so that he was staring up at the darkness above.

"Yeah, I think you're done," the demon chuckled. "Forgive me for not speaking in your language, Nathan Hunter, but my accent would be quite thick, and a demigod can speak fluently, without an unnatural accent."

"So they make the stronger ones intelligent?"

"I'm not a forged demon," the demon told Nathan. "I am what you know as an Overseer. Those demons are based on the lesser versions of my species."

Nathan snorted, then frowned.

"If you are an Overseer," he said. "Why are you here, if not to kill me?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to come out? I could probably distract him long enough for you to escape?"

"Hush, Ichtvar," Nathan said. "We both know he'd track me down after killing you."

"Sure, sure."

"Because of your experiment," the demon responded. "It caused the System to glitch. It cannot directly interact with your special cards, only store them and allow you to retrieve them. As a result, storing an item from this dimension within one resulted in it acting up, trapping you here. This has never occurred before."

"And so you came to kill me."

"No," the demon chuckled. "You are too valuable, Nathan Hunter. The creations you and Keith Ingram have created are useful. Once we are able to replicate them, we will be able to increase the rate at which we recover."

"Recover?" Nathan sat up, scooting back several feet. "So this place is your former home?"

"Yes," the demon nodded. "The dragon mentioned it. The disaster. There aren't many of our kind left, and our reproductive rate is low. The disaster truly was one, and it affected this entire dimension. The purpose of the System is as you suspect – to find and train up beings capable of completing the tasks necessary to eliminate the foul beasts that form and fix the situations we ourselves cannot handle alone."

"Despite being so powerful?"

"Despite being so powerful," the demon nodded, gesturing to the place where Nathan had planted the Seed of Life. "Without the Trees of Life on these worlds, we are not able to last for very long. Even now, I am drawing on a large amount of power to resist the disease that wishes to claim me. The Trees of Life both return life to these worlds and purge away the curse. It is a curse targeted at my species alone."

"You know we're looking for a way to destroy the System, don't you?" Nathan asked as he stood up.

The demon laughed.

"Of course we know!" He said. "We observe everything that occurs within this dimension or the ones generated by the System. As there is only ever one group within at a time, it is quite easy. What little we've heard of your plans from our observations of you here was enough to inform us of your goals. We honestly don't care, Nathan."

"Why not?" He folded his arms across his chest. "I will succeed."

"The engine that powers the System," the demon told him. "Spans an entire dimension, Nathan Hunter. It is designed to repair itself from any damage that could possibly come to it. Short of destroying a dimension, which is something even we cannot manage, it would be only an inconvenience so minor, it wouldn't be observable. Not even the gods can destroy dimensions, even if the entire council of High Gods united their powers.

"In terms of magical power in the System," the demon said. "A being just-ascended to the Divine Realm has around five hundred thousand Magic. A High God has at least one hundred million. There are twenty High Gods."

Two billion Magic wasn't enough to destroy an entire dimension, if Lie Detection worked on an Overseer.

"Do you see now why we aren't bothered?" The demon asked. "Because it is impossible. The System is older than what you humans believe the universe's age to be, as is the engine within it. It is too old and too well-developed for you to mess with."

Nathan nodded.

"My son is not to be initiated."

"We do not control who the System enters," the demon told him. "And by the time your boy is of age, the System will enter everyone from Earth. Even if you bring him to another world, he will be forced into it. Alone."

"Then I will find a way to destroy it," Nathan said.

"It is a foolish venture," the demon shrugged. "We know not why the Well of Souls decided to attempt it."

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"You know why it wants the game destroyed," Nathan growled. "What?"

"Would you like the answer?" The demon smiled. "Or would you like to leave the Isles of Darkness? Because I can leave you here with the answer, unable to tell anyone if you want. It is something only we Overseers and our Guardians know."

Nathan didn't respond.

"That's what I thought," the demon said. "Now, it truly is impossible for you to destroy the engine – and the dimension – running the game. Not even a black hole would hamper it for long."

"Tch!"

"Once they inform me the patch has been made," the demon told Nathan. "I will take you to the Fields of Choice."

"If I tell Keith, are you going to kill me?" Nathan asked.

"No," the demon chuckled. "We couldn't care less if Keith knew, and again, you're a little more valuable to us than some secrets. But we'll still kill anyone you reveal restricted information to. The System is already initiated for your world, just not activated on everyone."

Nathan frowned.

"It's how the System checks to see if those who aren't allowed receive information they shouldn't," the demon said. "We can't monitor everyone, so we let the System run it automatically."

"So you don't actually pay attention to what we do or say outside of the game?"

"Correct," the demon told him. "We let the System determine if it violates the rules or not. The Administrators, the five of our kind assigned to each world, have their hands full enough as it is, and we need to have others ready for when we initiate new worlds."

"You really think highly of yourselves, don't you?" Nathan stretched. "Acting like gods, controlling those of other worlds and dimensions to deal with your problems. Forcing us into slavery, killing us, and more."

"We are the gods of this realm!" The demon laughed. "All other species are beneath us, Nathan Hunter. Only those of the Divine Realm could do a thing to us, and they ignore us. We are superior, and it is the nature of the strong to abuse the weak."

"And it is the nature of the smart," Nathan chuckled. "To destroy the strong. Just wait, 'Overseer', because Keith and I will find a way to take you down."

"I look forward to your attempts," the demon smiled in amusement. "As you won't have been the first to try, nor the first to fail."

"We'll succeed."

"You won't," the demon gestured with his hand, and the pearl floated up, hovering for a few moments before landing on the demon's palm. "But I can assure you that you may, one day, succeed in taking items from this dimension out. You already meet the first requirement to unlocking the Special Skill for it: twenty-five or more consecutive Dungeons. You may meet the other requirements in the future. The item rewards that you can take out have a status in the System as 'Artifact'. This Skill will allow you to turn many items into Artifacts."

The demon's gaze shifted to the side for a moment, before it looked back at Nathan.

"It is time to return you to your friend."

The demon stepped forward and placed a hand on Nathan's shoulder, and a moment later, the pair were in the Fields of Choice. Keith reacted immediately, sending a slice of air at the demon, only for the demon to disappear, the attack passing through the space where it had been.

"What the fuck?" Keith asked.

"That," Nathan told him. "Was apparently an Overseer."

Nathan told Keith everything the Overseer had told him, leaving out the part about when they were watched. That would be mentioned once they were out of the game and back at his house.

"Alright," Keith said. "Let's rest a bit, then go into the-"

"I want to go home now."

"Nathan," Keith said firmly. "We are going to take advantage of already being in the game to do more research and to work on your social skills a little."

"I want to see Samantha. Now."

"She'll be exactly where she is right now when we finish the challenges," Keith told him. "Now read your notices and set up the next run."

"But-"

"Or I will not be Cyrus's godfather."

Nathan grumbled under his breath, then looked at the notices.

Dungeon Completion Rewards: (With 14.5x bonus for 30-completion Streak) 217,500 Points 2,175 Stat Points 2,175 Skill Points

Bonus Completion Rewards: For completing 10 consecutive Dungeons: You are exempt from the next 1 (one) Mandatory Challenge For completing 20 consecutive Dungeons: You are exempt from an additional 2 (two) Mandatory Challenges For completing 30 consecutive Dungeons: You are exempt from an additional 3 (three) Mandatory Challenges

Nathan gave Keith an inquisitive look.

"500 Points per Dungeon," the mage said. "And 5 Stat Points and Skill Points each per Dungeon."

Nathan nodded, then went to pull up the Challenge Creation menu.

"And our next Mandatory Challenge," Keith said. "Is in almost two years, which means that after the first three, they remain at six months. We only knew that the fourth was at six months before."

Nathan checked his and confirmed it. Two whole years without being required to go through the game, but it was also a Level 350 suggested minimum, which meant it was still the seventh one – they went up 25 Levels each one.

"That gives us time," Nathan said. "But the others-"

"We can try to find a multi-Dungeon Dungeon with them later," Keith said. "After we power them up a bit, so that we aren't as helpless. While I was waiting for you, I was checking every Dungeon in this strip. I found myself yanked back here when you arrived, actually."

"How was the banana?" Nathan looked around.

"Delicious," Keith answered, causing Nathan to snort. "Our theory that time didn't pass in here was correct. It's probably intended on acting as a sort of storage for while players are in a Dungeon or Challenge – if they're planning on doing several, they might bring gear for several with them, but only want to take a few. The same could be true for food."

Nathan nodded. That was their initial theory regarding the Fields of Choice after the marble experiment worked, and the banana surviving confirmed it. Thinking about the banana caused Nathan to give Keith a sly look.

"You really couldn't wait to eat a banana, could you?"

"Nathan!" Keith exclaimed, then shook his head. "Get some rest, Nathan, if you want. I'm going to return to logging the Dungeons available, so we know what we can handle once the others are powered up a bit more."

Nathan shucked off his backpack, then removed his tie and shirt and laid down, using his backpack as a pillow as Ichtvar and the wind elemental exited him. Closing his eyes, he pulled up his Stat Points and added as much as he could into Speed before receiving a notice.

Stat: Speed has reached its cap. It will no longer increase.

Odd, Nathan thought, then he looked through his memories of what he put into it. If I'm right, then it has a cap of 2,000 Points.

He then dumped the rest of his Stat Points into Endurance to raise it up further. If it had a cap, he didn't reach it, and by his math, it was nearing 4,000 Points. The warrior made a mental note to tell Keith about that, then increased Item Box and Card Box up to Level 20 each, before allowing himself to fall asleep, where he dreamed he was the slave once more.