Luke winced as he stretched out his shield arm, the limb was still sore two days after the vicious beating he had taken. He ran his fingers over the star-shaped scar on his chest. The barbed arrow had caused much more damage coming out than it had going in. Slowly, Luke reached up to touch the white line across his temple.

Another close call.

In a single fight, Luke had almost died twice, and the scars served as visible warning signs against hubris.

He smiled.

The scars made him look like a tough bastard without ruining his rugged appearance. He supposed that subconscious approval was why they had left their marks behind, while the uglier wounds healed without a trace.

Glancing up, Luke saw Frank coming in from his latest excursion. The viran’s albino fur was a mess of sweat and grime from clearing out the shamblers and plague rat nests as they slowly respawned.

There was a swagger to the little ratling’s walk, something he had gained ever since he ‘rescued’ Luke.

Luke let Frank have his victory. While Luke recovered, Frank had spent much of the last couple of days painfully purging his soul of [Thrall]-aspected aether. Looting Nemangor had been crucial to the process, and decoding the [Master’s Ring] had been child’s play to a crafter of Rurik’s skill.

By comparison, Luke had enjoyed a peaceful two days of focused [Recovery] cultivation. His wounds had been worse than he initially thought. Luke had been black and blue from head to toe when Rurik peeled his armour off.

Hopefully, he would recover before the warband respawned; Luke had a [Warlord] to kill.

Most of the gold they looted from the elites had gone straight into the marketplace, as Luke spent sizable sums to acquire top tier [Recovery] resources. He had already cultivated three additional points in the attribute, and while his [Initiate] soul could support more aether than before, he was already seeing diminishing returns.

“Are you done pampering yourself? Ready to hunt Maruk?” Frank asked, single-minded as ever.

Luke allowed himself a tight smile, rolling his injured shoulder experimentally. “I could use some practice first. Rurik’s been keeping me cooped up while he patches my armour. He says I’m not allowed to die.”

The dwarf had become oddly protective of Luke, for two reasons.

Luke liked to think that the first reason, that they were friends, played a larger role, but Rurik seemed equally if not more concerned with preventing a dungeon break. Such an event happened when the dungeon reached a sufficient aether saturation, and invariably led to areas of the dungeon being overwritten or forgotten as the lines blurred.

Rurik didn’t want to see even more of his city fade away, so was personally invested in Luke’s continued survival.

Not only was Luke single-handedly slowing down the rising tide of aether with his rapid cultivation and level gains, but his very presence made the dungeon less inclined to spill over. It was something to do with what Rurik called the observer effect, but the entire explanation went over Luke’s head.

He just wanted to get back out there, grow stronger, get richer.

In response to his sparring request, Frank nodded, and charged straight at Luke. Before their weapons connected however, Rurik stopped them like a tired mother keeping her rowdy children from killing each other. He took a break from his tinkering to blunt Frank’s axe with temporary runes, and put a pillow around Fenn. This act made the hammer pulse more angrily than Luke had ever felt before.

Luke promised Fenn that he would kill something soon, but the hammer continued to rage from inside the pillowcase.

With a grunt of effort, Luke lifted his shield into a ready stance. It tweaked his collarbone, but the pain was manageable.

Luke studied Frank carefully.

The lithe ratling’s muscles tensed beneath pale white fur as the two faced off. Despite his scrawny build, Frank moved with a feral grace, and had come a long way in a short time.

In the aftermath of their battle, while Luke hobbled home, Frank had retraced his steps, and slit the throats of the stragglers in Maruk’s warband that he left behind. The ratling made good use of the [Shadow Amulet] to blend in with the dark alleys. He had even returned to the corpse of the Nightwalker. The death echo was only a remnant after Maruk and his elites took their fill, but the scraps of [Shadow] and [Vastness] aether were still potent.

As a result, he had grown an inch and was close to building his own shadow domain. All of which was significantly harder without a soul to shape the aether, or the [System] to cheat the entire process. The system recognised him as level eight by whatever obtuse metrics it used to assess such things.

Despite this growth, Luke still towered over the little ratling as the squared off, and his soul was considerably more dense. A flicker of concern passed through his mind.

He didn’t want to hurt Frank.

Frank didn’t share his restraint.

As soon as Luke gave the nod to start, Frank launched an aggressive slash that Luke blocked with his shield. The impact rippled through his tender shoulder. Luke retorted with a careful hammer blow aimed at Frank’s side, but the ratling jumped back, out of the way, easily avoiding the strike.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The viran smacked his axe directly into Luke’s injured shoulder. A flash of anger surged through Luke’s mind and he rebuked Frank for playing dirty. “This is just sparring,” he growled.

Frank’s eyes glinted. “Amongst viran, there is no holding back,” he replied.

Luke studied the ratling carefully. “You remember?”

Frank shrugged, launching into a series of vicious blows - a kick towards Luke’s groin, a slice at his shoulder, and a jab with the shaft of his axe towards Luke’s helmet.

Luke’s anger flared, and before he could stop himself, he lashed out with a powerful kick that sent Frank tumbling across the forge. The ratling slammed into Rurik’s meticulously constructed model train set, sending pieces flying in all directions.

“You damn savages!” Rurik shouted, slamming his hammer down on the anvil. “This is my home, not an arena!”

Luke opened his mouth to apologise, but Frank beat him to it. “The defiler struck me first, master dwarf. I was merely defending myself.”

You little shit, Luke thought.

The help Rurik provided using the [Master’s Ring] had garnered a deep respect in the angry ratling. Luke was fairly certain the forgemaster just enjoyed taking the ring apart to see how it worked, and that helping Frank had been an afterthought.

Rurik rounded on Frank, the flames of his beard blazing. “I wasn’t born yesterday, son.”

An idea struck Luke. “Perhaps you could join us, Rurik? Provide some... supervision?”

The dwarf’s brow furrowed. “I think not. A slight slip on my part and I’d cook you.”

Luke hadn’t forgotten the fireball incident, but he saw a raw chance to get a measure for what Rurik was really capable of and pressed on. “We could make it a learning experience. I could practise fighting purely defensively with my [Bulwark], then you could try taking both of us on in the same way, using your [Fire] to defend only.”

Rurik seemed to consider for a moment before nodding slowly. “Fine. Your armour repairs are almost finished anyway”

The next couple of hours passed in a blur of clashing steel and scorching flames. With the new upgrades to his armour Luke barely broke a sweat and the runes made the metal look practically alive. Luke focused solely on defence when fighting Frank, who relied on an aggressive fighting style and underhanded tactics.

Conversely, when fighting the forgemaster, Luke went all out on the offence and still felt inadequate.

Rurik’s fire formed a shimmering barrier, flickering patterns of light and heat that danced across the forge, and proved a tough nut to crack. [Fire] was ill-suited to defending, and Luke broke through a few times, only for Rurik to materialise little floating shields from his soul storage. This was technically cheating, but Luke didn’t make a fuss; it was nice to see Rurik having fun.

Finally, drenched in sweat and panting heavily, they called a halt. After Luke and Frank caught their breath, Frank disappeared for a moment, and came back with a heavy sack that clinked promisingly when he dropped it at Luke’s feet.

“I went back to the alleyway and found these beneath the body of the giant,” the ratling said. “Can you purchase [Shadow] cultivation resources for me? I think a new domain could ground the foundations of a new soul, like an aspect.”

Luke eyed the pile of gold coins, unable to shake the dark thought that crossed his mind.

Those were his coins; he could so easily kill Frank and take them back.

He banished the idea with a slight shake of his head. No, he would not become that kind of murderhobo. He would shape the domain to his will, not the other way around.

“Fine,” Luke said, echoing Rurik from earlier, as he absorbed the gold coins into his credit balance, giving him a nice ten thousand to spend on Frank.

Luke opened the marketplace interface and browsed the various items and vendors. Not much seemed to have changed since his last visit, even if the items on offer and prices changed every time he looked. He had to imagine that many of the people were trying to play the market, but it wasn’t something he had time for.

Why would he when he could turn any aetherling into a pinata filled with gold?

However, he wasn’t so busy that he was averse to turning a little profit. Luke saw that spider silk products were selling well, so reached into his storage space. His personal pocket dimension had grown from the size of a shed to the size of a garage now, and Luke mentally grabbed the bundles of spider silk he had bought from ‘Black Widow’ on the cheap and listed them with a hefty markup.

Feeling a pang of curiosity, Luke searched for the ‘Black Widow’ vendor to see if she had restocked her inventory. To his dismay, there were no new listings from her at all.

A sinking feeling crept into his gut.

Morbid curiosity taking over, Luke browsed through some other vendor names he remembered from previous shopping sprees. The ‘Jade Goddess’ and ‘Jonas Hewitt’ were still very active, with impressive high-end offerings. Jade had a rare [Heartwood Hatchet] listed for a staggering fifty thousand credits, while Jonas was selling an epic [Ascendant Sword] for a jaw-dropping two-hundred thousand credits.

It made Luke a little nervous, as he wondered if he was looking at two of his fellow [Apex] holders.

For a moment, Luke wondered how much his own armour would sell for. He didn’t seriously entertain the idea, but was curious how it would stack up to the [Ascendant Sword].

Luke resolved to ask Rurik if he would be interested in purchasing items from the marketplace for his own crafted goods. Rurik could be funny about the items in his forge, so Luke would have to think about how to best approach the dwarf.

Continuing his browse, Luke came across a vial of [Umbral Dew] listed for just under ten thousand credits. It was in their budget, so he bought the vial and gave it to Frank. The ratling thanked him, and went to find somewhere quiet to meditate on the meaning of [Shadow].

As he went back to scrolling, Luke gradually realised that nearly a quarter of the names he remembered from previous searches were conspicuously absent from the listings.

A thought suddenly struck Luke.

Heart pounding, he searched for ‘Nathan Evans’. He found items listed, but there were three different people sharing the name, with no ability to distinguish between them. He had a similar result when he searched for ‘Christine Reid’.

Then, Luke took a different tract. He searched for Nate’s gamer tag and a couple of the different permutations he knew his brother had used in the past.

Finally, he found what he wanted to see. Luke looked at the listings of a guy going by the alias ‘Illumi-Natey’. If he hadn’t been so relieved Luke would have rolled his eyes. Nate was selling a range of low-value items in bulk quantities, mostly with [Sea] and [Water] aspected items listed.

Gaia had told him that Nathan was alive, but seeing tangible proof lifted an immense weight off his shoulders. He desperately wanted to reach out, but he had no way to interact with Nate, beyond buying his crappy items.

With only seven days remaining until the second wave of invaders, Luke had recovered enough.

It’s time to get back to work.