(Luca)

WARP TIIIIIIIME!

"Stop that!" Mr. Zack bops me on the back of my head as we appear in Praevar.

"What did he do?" Gavin frowns.

"He screams in his head anytime he warps," Mr. Zack tells Gavin. "It's part of his excitement at everything."

I can't help it, I'm ten.

Mr. Zack smacks me in the back of the head again, and I grin at him.

"Alright!" He says. "Let's get going. We'll be heading pretty deep into the mines, though not too deep. To an area that I think will work best for the four of you to work on acquiring Levels. We'll do this one session, then come back another day for another."

"Yes, sir," Braden and Gavin say at once.

"Yes, Boss!" Max cheerfully adds because of that, his tail wagging.

"Let's go," Mr. Zack says.

He leads us through the small camp outside of the mines, where he greets a few of the people here by name. The way they respond to him… has he been coming out here or something? In secret? Without us?

Is he doing training here in addition to his other prep stuff, like clearing the fields of the strong things we can't handle?

Mr. Zack begins to lead us through the mines, and I notice him stabbing the walls every now and then. Somewhat frequently, but not too frequently. We aren't coming across any monsters yet, which is both disappointing and okay.

I manage to not step in any holes as we walk, because I'm also paying attention to the ground. I'm sure Mr. Zack would rescue me if I did start to fall into a hole. He'd probably rescue me before I started to fall into a hole.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Gavin asks after awhile.

"Stabbing the walls?" Mr. Zack asks.

Isn't the answer to that obvious? He's marking a trail.

"Yes," Gavin answers.

"So that if we get split up," Mr. Zack tells him. "You guys know where to go. Braden can create a mental map while Max can just follow our scents, if they remain around long enough, but you and Luca would have a difficult time doing that. So if we get split up for some reason, you can just use the marks on the walls to follow our trail."

Yeah, stuff like that is hard to keep track of. I'm ten, and I'm not some sort of super-genius.

"We might get split up?" Gavin asks.

"Never discount that possibility," Mr. Zack nods. "Even as much as I might do my best to prevent that, the unexpected can sometimes happen."

Yeah, especially with you around. Who knew you were a badass immortal demon? Certainly not me! And then there was the way you took out that big thing with only one hit! That was awesome!

Ow!

Why did he smack me again?

"Luca!" Mr. Zack says. "I'm not immortal, and you saw Nik and Travis fighting that thing, too! And it was Nik who killed it! After the three of us fought it for several minutes!"

Keep telling yourself that.

Mr. Zack groans and shakes his head, then continues leading us through the mines, eventually reaching a chamber with a ton of monsters in it. Whoa. I forgot how ugly kobolds were.

"Uh," Gavin says. "Not to be, uh, rude, but what in the Boundary, Zack? There isn't a chance in the Boundary we would be able to handle this on our own!"

"Hm?" Mr. Zack frowns Gavin before looking at the miniature horde. "Oh, that. Yeah, I wasn't expecting this, but after awhile, all paths led to a horde, based on what I could pick up and my checks with my sight. It seems the Shadow of Life intends on just ending me here, along with all of you. Seems he thinks this little thing is enough to take me down.

"It's not," his voice drops, his expression turning dark. "But the four of you need to get going. Now. There are some potent forces on the way. A small army of Fallen Adventurers. At least twenty or thirty. They're going to focus on me. The four of you need to flee."

"But you said-"

"They won't go after you," Mr. Zack shakes his head. "They're here for me, not you. The Shadow of Life sees me as the threat. As long as I don't become the child of the vision, the tide of war will remain in his favor. He couldn't care less about you as long as I'm not around. Now go. I'll be fine."

Yeah, because you're immortal.

"Go!" Mr. Zack calls out as a wall of what looks like blood forms between us and the horde. "Because if I run with you, all of the other hordes set up to intercept will give chase as well! You'll be fine, I promise! I've already looked at this!"

I don't want to run, but Max suddenly lifts me up onto his back and starts running. Gavin and Braden follow, and even following the marks Mr. Zack made in the walls, we get lost and turned around a few times. Max and Braden must be really confused right now. And worried.

I know the others are worried, because of the horde and Mr. Zack's mention of Fallen Adventurers, but this is Mr. Zack. He has to be fine. He has to be. He's immortal. Because if he's not, who's going to protect me and sneak into my head to chase away all the bad dreams?

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I'm not sure how long they're running for, but we eventually come across a group of warriors who notice their panic and my tears.

"Whoa," one of them says. "What's wrong?"

"Boss be fight to death!" Max whimpers.

"We were apparently ambushed by a horde of monsters," Gavin says. "Zack told us to get going. He knew about it, and… he said he'll be fine, but he said there's at least twenty or thirty Fallen Adventurers, and-"

"Where?" The Adventurer interrupts him. Yeah! Don't delay, just hurry! "Lead us there!"

So we go back the way we came, this time following the marks Mr. Zack left in the walls. The Adventurers probably don't need us anymore, and they'd go a lot faster if they just left us behind. Hurry! Save Mr. Zack! Who's going to save me if he can't?

When we finally reach the chamber where the monsters ambushed us, we all come to a stop.

There are corpses everywhere. Dead kobolds everywhere. There's blood and guts and bones and brains everywhere.

But no Mr. Zack. Is he under some of the corpses?

Where is he?

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

(Zack)

Once my team has left, I check my armor. I'm glad I switched to Zack's Blood from the Primordial Dark Armor, just in case something happened. Crimson Wall takes a lot to sustain, and every moment of changing armor is a moment more sustaining that, even if moments take less than a second.

Checking my sword, I draw it as I release the Crimson Wall, facing the horde. At the back of the rather large chamber is a tall and wide tunnel, and from out of it step several figures. Fallen Adventurers en masse, thirty-two of them. The ones who caused the failure against the Demon Kobold King, as well as those who fell against them and it, and a few others.

They're accompanied by the Demon Kobold King itself. Twenty feet in height, with brown fur and probably still those white spots on its back, a pair of horns a brown so dark, they're nearly black atop its head.

I probably could have just grabbed my team and fled with them. My Agility is enough for that to have been a viable option.

Except that these things should not be here. They're normally several Levels lower, which means that something brought them up here, and that something could only be Alexander, the Shadow of Life and Lord Pain in the Ass. And as long as these things are here, especially the Demon Kobold King, Adventurers will be slaughtered.

Alexander knew I wouldn't let that happen. I can't let that happen, because this is the best place in the area to train at upper Levels. One of the few places where monsters at Level 40 and above can be found.

Which means that if upper-Level Adventurers want to train here, this thing needs to die before it kills too many. This thing and the Fallen Adventurers gathered here.

There are no other Adventurers around who could possibly help kill this thing, though. My goal now is to either somehow kill it myself, or draw out the battle enough for someone to send a messenger back to fetch Nik.

I'm sure that someone will do that, if they see my team in a panic. Especially if Luca's crying, because I know he's going to start doubting my immortality.

Touching my tunic, I send it into my Inventory, then smile at the horde. Even if I die here, I will make them regret provoking Luca's tears. That's simply unacceptable.

"You think you can fight me on even terms?" I ask, then snort. "Pathetic. You're nothing more than a force that has to act in numbers to form any semblance of strength. Weaklings. Cowards. Useless cannon fodder."

I walk forward, flicking my sword a couple of times as I do, allowing my Rage counter to reach max in an instant as I fill myself with the fury of a Child of Existence. No one makes Luca cry.

"I am the incarnation of hell itself," I growl as I transition into my Demon Form.

Then I lunge forward, cutting through the pathetic creatures at the front of the horde. Alexander's already begun moving the other ambush hordes towards this chamber. I want to berate myself for not using my sight earlier. If I had, then I'd have noticed this sooner and put a stop to it. I'd have gotten word to Nik before we went too far for me to be able to leave without provoking the horde.

But by the time I did, it was too late, and then I noticed the arrival of the Demon Kobold King. It's definitely tougher than the Kobold King.

Demon Kobold King Level Null Health: 25,871,943 Mana: 1,732,493

And it's a caster, too.

My sword clashes against a Level 58 Kobold Knight's, and I thrust my hand forward, feeling it cut through the monster's armor and into its flesh. I grab its squishy, wet, warm heart and rip it out of the beast's chest, throwing it to the side as I let out a snarl.

Then I move my hand to the side, stopping a Fireball from doing anything but slamming into my hand and taking out only a few points of Health.

"Weaklings," I snarl.

I'm able to easily cut through the kobold army that Alexander brought up here, but they are meant to slow me down. Any kobold over Level 60 takes me more effort to kill than one or two attacks and blocks, and the Fallen Adventurers and Demon Kobold King are what's truly here to end me.

There's a giant hole in the center of the room, from which more kobolds climb out as I fight. A pair of lightning bolts shoot at me, and I dodge to the side, though one manages to strike me in the chest, mostly absorbing into my armor.

The impact still sends me tumbling back, and I snarl at the Fallen Adventurer mages who cast those spells, before I lunge towards them, taking off into the air to soar over the kobolds they had attacked over.

They attack again, this time using Flame Jets, and I cut through those with my sword as I fly beside them, before reaching the bastards. As I strike at them with my sword, they summon up Barriers, which my attack cuts through.

At the same time as I do that, three Fallen Adventurer knights attack me, and I twist to the side, using my tail to assist in the fight as I block and parry their attacks, doing my best to avoid the spells of the two mage Fallen Adventurers.

Snarling when that gets me nowhere, I take off into the air, soaring towards another part of the chamber as I evade more lightning bolts. The Fallen Adventurers are spreading throughout the room, so that I can't just target them as a group, but will still have to face them in groups. Mages are in each group, attacking me as I move around.

Snarling in frustration, I soar straight down, using kobolds as body shields as I slaughter them some more. Charging, I make my way towards one of the groups of Fallen Adventurers, which has what appears to be a Death Knight in addition to two knights and a mage.

The fucker keeps raising the dead nearby into zombie kobolds, and that's getting real tiresome.

When I reach them, I use Dash, ignoring the pain of the acid cloud the mage summoned up. The added burst of speed sends me zipping to the Death Knight, my sword cutting through its armor with ease.

"Tch!"

I barely missed its heart.

"Strike of Darkness!" I use a Skill as I push down with my sword, dealing extra damage to it from the attack as I cut it mostly in two.

The Fallen Adventurer turns to that crumbly ash-dust that they become when they're put to rest, and a Stone Spike shoots up from the ground, stabbing into my left calf.

"I FUCKING HATE STONE SPIKES!" I Roar as I pull my leg out of it, my rage and bloodlust too high for me to truly feel the pain.

I lunge at the mage, the pair of knights blocking my path both using Counterstrike. I manage to block their Counterstrikes, holding up a hand and blasting them with Fireballs as I jump, flying over them and tackling the mage to the ground, punching it in the face repeatedly, stopping only once my fists meet ash.

Picking up the sword I dropped at some point, I turn around to face the warriors, a haze of pure, primal rage filling me as I lose myself to the fight, dropping all sense of reason. If they want to wear me down enough for the Demon Kobold King to survive killing me, they're going to have to make a pretty large sacrifice.