Hours later, the stampede ended. I sent the force swords deeper down the tunnel, chasing the fleeing remnants of the monster horde and cut the MP supply to sustain them. They would last for a few more minutes and disappear. It didn't matter.

The city was saved but at no small cost. Almost half of the defenders perished. Maybe I could bring back a handful of these as their ghosts lingered over the battlefield but I found my heart colder and uncaring after the developments of the last year. My only fear was that Josie or someone else from the harem party was among the deceased, but I found none of them. Even as cold and uncaring as I felt, I was still among the compassionate ones. The adventurers and guards were greedily butchering the dead monsters or looting their dead brothers-in-arms. I could see people mourning, but those were a minority.

The mysterious client that hired the dark elves to push the stampede succeeded on the third try, just as the saying goes. I had no idea who they were or what sinister purpose all this death and suffering had. At least my killing sprees had the tenuous justification that only the truly wicked and unredeemable were punished. By my own shifting moral goalpost and standards, I admit. Karaxnoss the [Monster Tamer] died, but Kazuyran the [Assassin] was absolved. But all moral systems are subjective by nature. If mine was as good as any other, I'd stand for it as I was too biased toward others.

But honestly, I picked the brains of people such as Aristotle, Kant, Hume, Hobbes, and many others. I don't think my code would lose to almost any in this shitty world.

As I spent my thoughts on self-assurance that I wasn't a deranged murderer, I walked among the dead, searching. I was found before finding anyone I knew.

"Miss Honorcoin!" I recognized the voice as belonging to the guild master.

"Yes? How may I help you, guild master?"

"I didn't know you were in town. Thank you for your help," She replied. Her voice sounded stressed and tired.

"Just doing my job and farming a bit of Exp. I'm sorry I didn't use the same tactics as last time, but the number of monsters was bigger and I loathed the backlash from what happened."

She grunted. The greedy bastards caused me enough grief for my spiked cooking tunnel that I deliberately let them die this time. I knew from my kill contribution listed in the Exp notifications that I wasn't slacking even if I wasn't going full throttle. My DPS [1] outranked the second place by at least double. Not to mention the wellspring doubling everyone's MP regeneration.

"I also claim none of the loot," I waved my hand.

I still had hundreds of monsters and two dragons in Storage. I could use a few dozen magic cores but I was too disgusted by what happened and how people reacted after the fact to claim any.

"If you allow me one question, why haven't you leveled? You're still sixty-three."

"Oh," I mouthed my fake surprise. "My Exp allocation is on manual. Let me level up now!" I stayed quiet for a minute and adjusted my fake level to seventy-one. "Is it better this way?"

"Yes? Maybe? You withheld enough Exp for eight levels?"

"That's right," I answered truthfully. My last level-up earned me twelve.

"Exp multipliers?" She mumbled inaudibly but I had {Elven Senses} that gave me hearing superior to the average elf and I was blind. All my other senses were enhanced because my brain repurposed my visual cortex. "Nevermind," she said out loud.

"Glad I could be of help," I said and walked away. It took me some time to orient myself but I could sense people walking away and followed them through what I thought to be the gate. I stumbled just a bit but the one-meter range of {Skin Sight} saved me from hitting the wall head-on.

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

I found the harem part in Cedric's mansion. They didn't help with the stampede because the family had expanded. Two girls got their babies while I was busy playing "Kingmaker II". They were happy and the girls enjoyed each other as much as they enjoyed Cedric. I also met Cedric's official wife, Lady Alethea.

They regretted not helping with the stampede but their home defense came first. A few monsters reached the noble district and while none reached here, the sounds of battle came close to their home.

I got tempted to give Cedric's children a fairy godmother blessing but didn't. I'd meddled too much with fate. It was late so I went to the mansion to sleep enjoying Nenandil's company.

In the middle of the night, a pulse of power woke me up. I felt sick.

"Nenandil, did you feel it?" I asked the fairy next to me.

"I did, Silverstreak. A dark and wicked power awoke," She answered.

My instincts were blaring like bugles summoning the apocalypse. "Get ready to fight. I think we'll find out why the stampede was so important very soon."

I shifted to my hybrid form and donned my fae silk bodysuit. My [True Hero] perks resized it for me. I let my fur take its perk-altered natural color, silver. Once we got out on the streets and Nenandil could see what was happening, she dismayed.

"It's the same thing as last time," the water fairy answered. "Another Demon Lord was summoned."

The deaths in the city were sacrifices to fuel the summoning ritual and break the barrier the gods created with the second Demon Lord's core. Maybe this city was in some confluence of ley lines, a place of power, or some other mystical bullshit.

I felt a pang of guilt at not doing my best during the Dungeon's defense. My half-assed efforts might've been what allowed them to finish the summoning ritual, but I'd never know. Criticizing decisions of the past with knowledge of the future is too easy. There are no emptier words, no harsher lie than "You should've known better." The past no longer exists. The future is in the making. All that matters is the now.

I roared and followed the trail of power. One thought crossed my mind. "Nenandil. Go to Cedric's house and urge everyone to evacuate. They are to go out of the city as fast as they can. Freeze Cedric's dick if he doesn't obey."

Ske kissed my furry cheeks and tugged my whiskers, "Take care. It is not yet time to die."

"Righ!" I dashed as she flew away. If a level 101 fairy can't get them out of the city, nobody can.

The Demon Lord entered my detection range. And so did a hundred other minor demons. As I approached, I sensed more demons appearing out of nowhere. Summoning? I couldn't tell you. What I could do was to try and kill all of these fuckers. I paused and focused. {Overcharge Magic} and cast the spell.

I summoned dozens of javelins of force magic around me and sent them into their targets, a handful for each demon in range, twisting and bending like a Macross Missile Massacre [2]. I moved a block closer and shot again. Each volley ate five hundred thousand MP but it was worth it. Scores of these lesser demons died with each one. Their levels were between thirty and forty.

Near the Dungeon entrance, I sensed the Big Baddie. The Demon Lord was surrounded by a group of sentients, not humans, and immobile. There were no other sentients around. These two added to the fact they weren't being murdered by the murderous demons told me they were the summoners.

I sped up and jumped, intending to clear the distance and start mangling the demonologists. I slammed instead in a wall of force that didn't block sound. I became incorporeal and used {Force Phasing} to cross the barrier. Slowly I started to seep through. One-hundredth of the speed was a lot slower. Eight seconds later, I was on the other side.

A wave of power washes over me. I start to receive healing messages every second for ten thousand HP. Healing. The inside of the dome is a blight zone. This meant these sentients I was sensing were either undead or powerful dark mages with the right perks. Like my {Blight Healing}. I can't see them but now I pictured them as skeletons with robes. Liches.

Stolen novel; please report.

So I was going with that. Until second notice, they were liches.

I pounce on one of them, my fang going for the neck. My momentum pushes the lich forward and I feel its body break underneath me. The soul escapes and I pull it, starting a tug-of-war with the hungry Demon Lord. Pulling it cost a lot of SP so I start to purify it at the same time. Once the lich's soul is cleansed, I dismiss it, depriving the Demon Lord of its level-enhancing morsel.

> You killed level 75 Demonologist. You gained 129,881,250 Exp. (base 56,250 x 2309 multipliers)

Actually, I think I should leave the summoners for later.

Already inside the circle because of the fall, I jump on the Demon. He's big but not huge. Of all three I've fought, he's the smaller but he's still at least as tall as three men standing on each one's shoulders.

I claw and rake as I climb the monster, using my common strategy to land many blows as fast as possible. The notifications flew up in my always-open screens

> Your claw dealt 809 HP of damage. (Base 24 x 0.5 size x 3.2 Skill x 1.56 Strength x 2.25 Demon Slayer x2 Silvered Soul x 3 Mana Strike).

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Mangle: Left leg is unusable.

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Bleed. (...)

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Demon Slayer. Strength and Dexterity lowered by 1.

>

> Your claw dealt 640HP of damage. (Base 19 x 0.5 size x 3.2 Skill x 1.56 Strength x 2.25 Demon Slayer x2 Silvered Soul x 3 Mana Strike).

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Bleed. (...)

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Stunning Bleed (...)

>

> Your claw dealt 1,213HP of damage. (Base 18 x 0.5 size x 3.2 Skill x 1.56 Strength x 2.25 Demon Slayer x2 Silvered Soul x 3 Mana Strike x 2 critical).

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Demon Slayer. Strength and Dexterity lowered by 1.

>

> Demon Lord is affected by Bleed. (...)

Dozens upon dozens of notifications like these floated up.

I took damage from the demon's corrupted blood but the ten thousand HP per second from the liches blight more than compensated for that. I reached its neck before the stun wore off and paused to put a contract on him, then dug down on his neck with my teeth.

> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.

>

> For killing a level 65 Demon Lord, you gained 90,090,322,650 Exp (base 42,250 x 4,264,631 multipliers)

My silk suit leveled up and gained a perk. I chose {Chameleon} for it. This way it could change colors as I commanded. I needed two more Demon Lords to level up. This power-of-two Exp ramp was bullshit.

I jumped on the liches. Their desiccated bodies crumbled as easily as the first one. I stored them and bound their souls so they couldn't escape. A few more force bolt volleys and the demons were all gone.

An early kill. Neat. If the Demon Lord had time to kill and suck in souls, things would get dire. Despite the fact that there are no living sentients or souls in a kilometer around me when before there were thousands. No quest this time. Weird. But unless one of the deities deign to come down and talk to this humble not-so-mortal, I can't do anything about it.

Time to interrogate my dead undead prisoners. They weren't liches now that I can see their souls. At least not of the phylactery slash soul receptacle kind. They are revolting against my grasp and my attempts at purifying the bunch are met with heavy resistance. I think I only managed to cleanse the first one because he was too busy resisting the tug of the Demon Lord. I wonder what kind of torment souls devoured by a demon is subjected to.

I shudder. That's one of the few ways to truly kill me. The only one I can think of.

After giving it some thought, its the heavy blight zone that is hindering my attempts at controlling the souls and negotiating with them. {Cleanse Blight} demanded five million SP to fully affect the area. I begrudgingly pay, leaving me with less than twenty percent of this resource.

The ghosts tell me they were [Necromancers], not liches. There's a necromancer perk to become immune to blight and even generate it. I also learn there are infiltrator demons killing people and eating their souls out in the city. These demons would later return and merge with the Demon Lord, that's why his level was this low yet. But it was sixty-five, the previous one was fifty-nine.

I banish the necromancers and run to hunt the infiltrators. I had to choose between the slums and the noble district as they were on opposite sides of the Dungeon. I went for the slums, more people there. As I approach, the presence of sentients and humans pop in my detection and I find some of them vanishing. A brief ping in my {Detect Demons} but they are gone as soon as I notice them.

In the tripod of melee, magic, and stealth, they aren't a perfect cycle with one weaker than the other. Melee is weak against ambushes and long-range. Magic is weak against close-quarters. And stealth is weak against everything. Including other stealth users. Or to put it shortly, stealth is weak against being found out.

The tricky part was finding them out. I resorted to {Echolocation} and the trick works. The demons were invisible and silent, but they are not incorporeal. It takes me two hours to hunt all of them and send a throng of corpses to the storage, both human and demon. I didn't have to spend SP purifying the victims' souls because there were none. They were eaten. Once no more sentients disappeared, I left the survivors and went the other way toward the noble district.

It was devastated. I picked no demons as I entered the district, the guards and knights probably enough to kill them but at a hefty cost. {Echolocation} led me to dozens of bodies. The few surviving nobles took shelter in the castle with the Duke Regent and the young princelings. I sensed one flash of a demon in my detection then a sentient vanished from my perception. Then another.

I rushed there as more and more humans died. It seemed a very large demon was there, engorging himself with the power that came from double-dipping on the Exp of killing the nobles and devouring their soul.

The reason why they were dying was obvious. The survivors taking shelter weren't just nobles. Servants and guardsmen were burdened with carrying treasure, paintings, and even porcelain. The Nobles would rather die than get caught impoverished.

She giggled,

Let's hope these demons don't reproduce.

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

I hunted the demons inside the castle and swept all objects into my storage at the same time. Treasure, furniture, tapestries, corpses. I also shifted my level to ninety-one and my title to {Hero}. Funny that I had both genders to pick from. {Hero} and {Heroine}. {King} and {Queen}. Proof that the System needed maintenance. Being the equivalent of a computer virus, I hoped this maintenance didn't happen so soon, or ever.

The sound of battle drew me to the last demons inside the castle. They were all - guess - in the throne room. As I slinked inside, I sensed four demons fighting against twice as many humans while some others cowered behind the defenders. I approached the strongest one among the outsiders. This Demon was no longer one of the stealth infiltrators. It had ranked up. I pounced and went for its neck.

> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.

>

> For killing a level 87 Demon Brawler, you gained 32,278,989,450 Exp (base 75,690 x 426,463 multipliers)

An evil part of me told me to wait for the demons to fatten up before farming them. It disgusted me. Despite everything, I still clung to my Earth morals like Jack should've clung to that door. Or maybe stayed on top of it. Rose was soaked and exposed to the April night air, being a few inches inside the water wouldn't kill her until the rescue boat picked her up. And what about the humongous amount of floating debris around them? But I digress. People I didn't like too much (not at all) were fighting for their lives.

I canceled my invisibility and roared. These shitty low-level demons - the one I killed was hoarding the souls for himself - didn't even award the trouble to put a contract on them. I didn't want to be too low on SP. Bundeus could be watching and send a message to the nobles in Windemere.

The jungle fury ran wild. Like the legends told by the natives of the Amazonian Basin, The great jaguar slaughtered her prey. When all was said and done, the humans surrounded me.

"Who are you, Beast? Answer me!"

The Duke Regent shouted. I answered by taking all objects and corpses nobody was holding onto. I stood silent. I changed my vocal cords to use Lily's voice.

"You know who I am, unless the legends of the Scorched Continent didn't reach this far out," I answered.

The hushed whispers of "First Hero" coming from the civilians told me they did.

The Duke shouted, "Kneel, beast!" I felt the power of a {Royal Order} wash over me. That didn't work on other Royals. Neither I could geas him. Another reason to not fail the quest and let go of my perks.

"Terrible mistake, Your Haughtiness. I mean, your Disgrace," I said and jumped him while casting {Force Binding} at the same time. I felt a barrier made of divine magic shatter as I touched it. A practiced instinct, he had a contract on him as I bit his neck off.

> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.

>

> For killing a level 77 Duke, you gained 4,145,081,175 Exp (base 59,290 x 69,912 multipliers)

The Duke went into storage, as did all corpses. I wiped the blood off my muzzle and taunted, "I'm really in a bad mood right now. Do you guys still want to see the sunrise?"

What a cringy edgelord line.

I heard the weapons going back in their sheathes. Someone approached.

"Lady {Hero}," the underage King, the kid I let live two years ago came forward. "We are grateful for your service. What boon would you ask for your help?"

If the "service" was to kill the demons or the controlling Duke that was turning him into a puppet, that remained to be seen.

"That's two services I did for you. I require two boons."

"Fair enough. Our Kingdom is rather impoverished. I'll pray to Bundeus to award you in our stead."

He prayed. I think he knelt also because I heard shuffling. I couldn't tell and using {Echolocation} was dangerous if any of them could hear ultrasound frequencies.

> Bundeus offers you the following Perks:

>

> * Corrupted Blood Resistance III (very rare). Damage taken by Corrupted Blood is lowered by 87.5%.

> * Corrupted Blood Resistance IV (very rare). Damage taken by Corrupted Blood is lowered by 93,75%.

Lo and behold. The young King's prayers were answered. Funny enough he offered me something I'd burned to remove the curses.

"That settles it," I told him. "I'll take my leave. Good luck rebuilding your country, young King."