“Are you sure you can do this?” asked Zeke.

Pudge didn’t immediately answer, but instead stared ahead at the castle in the distance. It was miles away, but even then, he could smell the necromantic power wafting off of it. Finally, he said, “I’m the only one who can.”

“The Inashi –”

“They’re not good enough,” Pudge cut in. Normally, he wouldn’t have interrupted anyone, much less Zeke. But the fact that they’d had the same conversation dozens of times over the past couple of weeks contributed to his annoyance. He didn’t blame Zeke for his concern, but he wished his brother would accept that he was capable of doing the job at hand. He repeated, “I’m the only one who can do this.”

It was entirely true, too. For all the power at Zeke’s disposal, he was completely unsuited to infiltrate the castle and search out the necromancer’s phylactery. Pudge, on the other hand, could remain hidden from even the most astute observers, and with his enhanced senses, he could find their target more easily than anyone else.

Besides, of late, Pudge had felt constrained by circumstances. He could fight the Imperium as much as he wanted, but none of them had given him much trouble. And the few who might have given him a good fight ended up being buried under an army’s worth of attacks. He didn’t resent it – in fact, the current tactics kept a lot of people from being killed – but he did sometimes wish he could let loose and fight someone worth fighting.

Like Zeke often did.

Sasha likened it to letting his brother rub off on him. But then again, she didn’t have the most favorable opinion of Zeke, who she usually regarded as a battle maniac who could easily get them all killed. The only reason she tolerated him was because he was Pudge’s brother. Otherwise, she’d have long since moved on.

“Do you really think it’s there?” Zeke asked Talia, who stood at his other shoulder.

“There’s nowhere else. If it’s not there, then we’ll never find it,” she rasped.

The idea was a simple one. There were two options – either the phylactery that held Micayne’s soul was somewhere familiar, in a location that held some significance for the necromancer. Or it was somewhere entirely disconnected from his past. In the former case, they had a chance of finding it. But if it was the latter? There was no chance. So, they approached it from the first perspective.

“No sense in waiting, then,” Zeke said. “I don’t really like this plan, but I can’t really argue against it, either.” He turned to Pudge and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Be careful. Don’t take any undue risks. Your job right now is to find it. Don’t try to do it all on your own.”

Pudge nodded. He knew the plan. He’d helped formulate it. However, if Zeke expected him to let any opportunity to end the necromancer pass by, he had another thing coming. If he found the phylactery, he would destroy it, and that was that.

But Zeke didn’t need to know his plans.

“I’ll be okay,” he said.

Then, before any other mushy exchanges had a chance to occur, he slipped into stealth via [Shadow’s Embrace], which was the latest evolution of his favorite skill. He winked out of sight, then set off across the flat terrain. It didn’t take him long to reach the edge of the cliff, and for a long few moments, he stared down at the waves crashing against it.

Even as the wind swirled all around him, he could taste the salt in the air and feel the gentle spray of those swells. Before he could think better of it, Pudge dove over the side. Because of his high strength, dexterity, and agility, he went sailing through the air, and when he crashed into the water, he did so nearly a hundred yards from the cliff.

The frigid water enveloped him, so cold that it very nearly stopped his heart. But after only a few moments, he banished the budding panic and righted himself. A second later, he was cutting through the waves with powerful strokes. Swimming as a bipedal creature was much more difficult than it had been before he’d ascended, but he’d long since mastered the skill. So, even with the massive waves, he had no issue covering the gap to the boulder-strewn island in the distance.

Soon enough, he found himself climbing free of the ocean. The huge rocks almost seemed manmade, their sides were so sheer. Some almost looked like perfect cubes, while others were slightly more irregularly shaped. Pudge pushed those impressions aside and continued his journey.

As he did so, he paid special attention to his senses. The smell of decay hung heavy in the air, but beneath that grotesque scent was something else. Something both cleaner and more disturbing. He recognized it as death-attuned mana, though he wasn’t certain precisely how. The only thing he could think was that, via the bond he shared with Zeke, he gained access to some small part of his brother’s attunements.

Whatever the case, it marked the trail he intended to follow. The problem was that the entire island was drenched in the stuff, and there were areas of dense concentration of death-attuned mana around the various undead creatures in the castle. The worst were the enormous skeletons atop the wall, though if they were bonfires, they were surrounded by comparative torches that were almost as difficult to ignore.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

So, finding a single thread amongst all of that was more than difficult. For most people, it would have been entirely impossible. However, through a combination of [Bestial Senses] and the nature of the borrowed attunement, he managed to narrow things down to a few different paths. With that, he proceeded forward, eventually climbing the castle wall and entering the stronghold itself. It was then that he began the long and arduous process of eliminating one avenue after another.

Pudge trusted his twice-evolved stealth skill to keep him concealed from the undead he passed along the way. Most were almost entirely inert, but there were a few that seemed almost sentient as they moved around the castle on various tasks. In a way, it reminded him of the ice castle he’d entered so long ago, but instead of goblins, he was looking at zombies, skeletons, and other forms of undead.

Just looking at them sent a chill up his spine, but being inundated in the aura – and smell – of death made it immeasurably worse. Still, Pudge continued on, creeping through the castle and steadily ruling different paths out. It took hours, but eventually, he found the right thread.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious. It pulsed on a subtly different frequency than all the rest. A different smell. It was only after he’d been following it for a while that he recognized it, though.

In any case, he kept going, progressing ever deeper into the bowels of the castle. At some point, he started to descend, and it felt like he kept going like that for miles and miles. Perhaps he did. The simple fact was that with the nature of the Eternal Realm, a castle that was much larger than it seemed from the outside wasn’t that far outside the norm. Perhaps it was even common in some places.

In any case, Pudge continued to follow the thread, progressing past the well-structured walls and stairwells of the castle proper and into rougher catacombs that were absolutely infested with undead. There were thousands of the creatures just milling about, aimlessly staring at nothing. They were so closely packed together that he had difficulty traversing some of the corridors. Eventually, he ended up clinging to the ceiling at times.

After a few more hours, he left even those catacombs behind, exchanging them for natural caves and caverns. From his understanding, such tunnels should have long since flooded due to the proximity of the ocean, but judging by the roughly carved runes he periodically saw, the original builders had taken that into account. They still pulsed with mana, so he knew they were active.

He pushed those details aside and continued on.

Soon enough, the horde of zombies thinned until he thought he was alone. That feeling persisted right up until he noticed a wraith coming in his direction. He barely managed to avoid it by flattening himself against the wall and waiting for it pass. He didn’t even breathe as it paused next to him. The vaguely humanoid-shaped collection of ethereal mist turned in his direction, and he could have sworn it sniffed the air.

But then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it flowed down the tunnel and disappeared around a curve. Still, Pudge didn’t dare breathe. He held his breath for a few long minutes until, at last, he felt certain that the thing was gone. Only then did he continue on.

On a few occasions, he was confronted with similar situations, but after that first encounter, he was ready. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to traverse the tunnels in relative safety until, at last, he found the cave.

Inside was a shrine comprised of hundreds of black candles that burned with green-tinted light and a golden statue depicting a man holding what looked like an urn. Or at least that was how it was shaped. It was also made of crystal so dark green that it was almost black.

It was also opaque, and it wasn’t until Pudge looked closer that he realized that the crystal urn’s color and level of transparency was due to the swirling mist it contained. That, as well as the fact that it blazed with deathly energy, told him that it was precisely what he’d been looking for.

There was only one issue.

The room was not empty. Indeed, there were three guards, and the moment he’d stepped into the room, they’d all turned their ghastly heads in his direction. Pudge stopped, but he knew that no matter how still he stood, there was no changing the fact that they knew where he was.

The creatures themselves reminded him of Talia, though less intact and far less sapient. Once, they might have been elves, judging by their pointed ears. Pudge had no idea where Micayne might have found such creatures, but it was clear what was coming.

He moved, already embracing [Shadowfire Evisceration]. Time slowed as a wave of darkness erupted from his position. Normally, when he used the skill, he was moving so quickly that his foes looked like they were standing still. This time, though, the three figures tracked his movements without issue.

He raced forward, and they reacted. They didn’t move at full speed; rather, they seemed like they were underwater. However, the implications were clear. These things were incredibly fast, and unless something changed, he’d be overwhelmed by their speed the second [Shadowfire Evisceration] wore off.

Fortunately, there was more to the skill than that.

He ducked beneath a blow that very nearly took his head off, then rammed his claws deep into the first creature’s stomach. He latched onto her spine, then ripped it free. He didn’t stop to see the results before he pounced on the second monster, tearing through his neck and nearly decapitating him. The third got the worst of it, though, when Pudge ripped it limb from limb just in time for the wave of corrupted darkness to reach them.

The creatures collapsed as the shadowfire finished the job.

And just like that, the room was empty.

He knew precisely how lucky he was. If they’d been even a little more durable, he never would have been able to finish them off. And if [Shadowfire Evisceration] had worn off before he completed the job? Those things would have ripped him to pieces, and there wasn’t much he could’ve done to stop them.

But now, the phylactery was exposed and unguarded. He padded forward warily, but nothing attacked him.

Only a second later, the mist erupted from the urn and rammed into his mind, gripping it as pain erupted across his entire body.

“Naughty, naughty beast,” came a disembodied voice. “You truly thought you could sneak in here and destroy my phylactery? Please. But you…you might make a nice base for my next guard template. Would you like that? Would you like to live forever?” Pudge was in no shape to answer. “Oh, I’m certain you would. Who doesn’t want eternal life? Now, let’s see about getting rid of that pesky mind of yours…”

Pudge screamed as agony raked his mind.