Victor scrutinized the black ocean within his mind. He made sure his bearings were correct. Terry was certainly in the north unless everyone had switched locations to mess with him. Many thoughts went through his mind, some were less polite than others, but they all followed a similar theme. He was baffled, confused, and downright annoyed.

Nothing was going right lately, and that irked Victor to no end. He lobbed a message toward Terry’s node within the black ocean network; due to the distance, it took a second to arrive. “Terry.”

A second later, the zombie answered. “Y-yes, boss?” He sounded a little on edge, as if he was in a less-than-ideal situation.

“How are you so far north? What happened?” Victor asked. He didn’t tell Terry, but it took Victor and Henry hours to reach the Delvers in the northeast at full speed, yet Terry was further north. There was no way that merchant had a jet plane in his back pocket, nor did he possess a teleportation artifact, so how had he gotten there? “And where is Alice? Is she with you?”

There was a long silence before Terry answered in a whisper. “No…”

“No, what?”

“Alice is not with me, boss.”

“Why not? Where is she?” Victor’s voice boomed through the connection, causing tidal waves across the black ocean. He tried to remain calm, but he was furious. Alice wasn’t overly significant in the grand scheme of things, but Terry had disobeyed his orders, which was a cause for concern. These new henchmen he had acquired were far too sentient for his liking.

“Dragons took her, boss! I fought with all my might but could not hold the powerful beasts back! Then a big black one called Xamrus kidnapped us from near our home…”

“Dragons?” Victor was dumbfounded. Henry had mentioned that dragons occupied the Grand Dungeon in the north, but why had they fought with Terry and taken him north? “How come you didn’t ask me for help?” This question had been bugging him during this entire conversation. He had explicitly told Terry to tell him if there was an issue.

“You told me to call for help if my life was in danger…” Terry said in a meek voice.

“Yes, I did.” Victor thought back to the conversation, and he did indeed say something along those lines. “So? Is your life not in danger?”

“Well, no. I am immortal, so how could it ever be in danger?”

There was a long silence before Victor let out a pained sigh. He didn’t waste any more time talking to this idiot and hijacked Terry’s view over the network. As a result, his vision distorted and became narrow, and the rest of his senses dulled. But with this, he could see what Terry could see and piece together this bizarre situation.

“Who is that?” Victor saw an ethereal beauty stepping through the air toward Terry. Her hands were behind her back, and a wicked smirk emerged on her perfectly sculpted face. With every step she took, flowers of starlight bloomed under her feet, and her golden horn shimmered in the midday sun. It was breathtaking.

“Oh, this bitch?” Victor saw Terry point toward the dragoness in human form. “Hyveth Acneface? No, wait, was it Arcplace? No, no, that sounds wrong…”

Hyveth’s eye twitched as the insolent zombie pointed a rotting finger at her face. “Communicating with your master?” she asked with a light smile that made Terry’s hair stand on end.

“Huh? How did you know?” Terry asked dumbly; he looked left and right as if trying to find the culprit that ratted him out.

Hyveth pointed a snow-white finger that ended in a magenta-colored nail far too sharp to be considered safe at her eye. Actually, is that even an eye? Victor struggled to see through the hazy view provided through the long-distance connection. Something seemed off about the eyes, as if they were slightly too solid and sparkly.

“Your eyes. They betray you.” With a flick of her finger, a mirror materialized and showed Terry his face.

He chuckled and ran a hand through his brown hair. “Hey, handsome. Looking good.”

Victor ignored Terry and looked in the mirror. Terry’s usual brown eyes had transformed into two swirling masses of pitch-black nothingness. It was like staring into the abyss; Victor thought he could see his purple eyes in that swirling mass. He blinked, and the eyes blinked. Well, that isn’t good.

The mirror shattered, revealing Hyveth’s face a mere inch from Terry’s. The zombie tried to swing a fist, but he was locked in place as if being in her presence demanded respect. Terry grunted and groaned as he tried to move, but he was unable. Suddenly an idea so foul yet brilliant crossed his dumb mind. He grinned, showing his few surviving teeth after years of neglect; he readied his mouth muscles and spat in her face.

As the green gunk slid down Hyveth’s cheek, her smirk vanished and was replaced with cold rage. Her hand came up from behind her back, and she clamped down on Terry’s head; her nails impaled his skull and dug into his decaying brain, causing him to scream.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Necromancer, I hope you don’t mind if I dispose of such a rude pawn of yours? Do stop by anytime if you have any complaints. We can have a joyous chat over some herbal tea.” The invite was hard to take seriously when it was said in a cold and condescending tone. The dragoness’s eyes that were indeed gems shone like headlights as she condensed something in her other hand.

Terry was too busy screaming, but Victor saw the spell forming. Is that a black hole? The sunlight seemed to orbit and swirl around an orb of pure darkness. Such power. So this is what a dragon is capable of? He now realized the whole meaning of a race worth ten points. If this dragoness could summon black holes, then he should be able to perform a similar feat.

Hyveth sneered as she rammed the tiny black hole into Terry’s ugly mug. It all happened in slow motion. Terry’s nose was the first to go as it was ripped off by the intense gravity into the swirling darkness, followed closely by his eyes and mouth. Victor suspected that he was the first to see spaghettification from the victim’s point of view; slowly, the black hole ripped Terry apart, atom by atom, into a long string. Never to be seen again. Weirdly, the connection never cut off. Then, from a disjointed view, Victor saw Hyveth open a wormhole, gather up scattered atoms of Terry, and dump them through it.

The connection ceased, and Victor returned to his location in the forest. He floated there for a while as he tried to process what he had just witnessed. “Okay, new rule. Never piss off a dragon.”

“What is the situation, my lord?” Henry carefully inquired from the side. The apocalypse horseman strained his neck to look up at his overlord, who floated ominously above the tree line. From Henry’s little time with his new overlord, he had already found a way to gauge his lord’s mood. Right now, Henry knew he was frustrated. The black mist swirled around like a primordial storm, and copious amounts of it evaporated off his overlord’s form, shrouding the area in a blanket of darkness. But the most significant sign was his overlord’s eyes. They blazed with power and fury like miniature purple suns.

“Situation?” Victor brought a long, shadowy hand to his chin. What is the situation? The dragons have stolen and broken my new toys, but from my brief interaction with them, I have confirmed that I don’t want to antagonize them…too much… Hmm, what should I do?

Every second was precious. Victor had already wasted time on the Delvers, and his stats were falling fast. Ideally, I would like to rescue Alice as she is my ticket for infiltrating the cities for information on Hackers. Hard to read books or ask questions as a six-meter-tall void creature. But I also need to fix my falling stats…

He stopped. All the points started connecting in his mind. Alice has been taken by the dragons. The dragons inhabit the Grand Dungeon, which is filled with monsters… If I go there, I kill two birds with one stone. I can rescue her and level up! Although that Hyveth dragoness was terrifying, I should be on a similar level in strength to the dragons, and if there’s one thing I was designed for, it’s sneaking around.

During his last few months, Victor confirmed that not a single creature in this vast forest could see through his maxed Stealth skill, and it was time to put it to the test. Against a fellow apex predator, the dragons.

Having concluded his thoughts, Victor addressed his henchman. “The situation is somewhat complicated, but Terry is dead. First, he was thrown into a black hole, and then his atomic remains were flung into the universe…” After narrating Terry’s death, Victor realized how brutal it was. Never really spoke to the guy, but what a way to go. Tragic, really. If only he listened to my instructions. He decided to ignore Henry’s triumphant smile and continued. “For my next course of action, I will head toward the Grand Dungeon and sneak inside.”

“What about me?” Henry asked.

Victor turned his head and looked down on his henchman. Henry nervously trotted back a few paces under his glare.

“You will cause a distraction as I sneak inside, of course…”

***

“Yo, mate? You all right? Hey? Hello…”

Terry had a banging headache as he felt something poking him. His eyes slowly opened to reveal a nervous-looking young man. “Hey…” the man whispered. “We aren’t supposed to do drugs while on set!”

“Wha—” Terry asked, but his accent was different. It sounded so…wrong. He looked around the weird room. His head was inside some bizarre porcelain bowl filled with water that smelled of urine, and he was surrounded on all sides by tacky blue walls. He focused on the man; his attire was weird. He looked scrawny and pale, and his hands waving in front of Terry’s face had no callouses or signs of hard labor. Was he some ditzy noble?

“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” the man asked. “Your name is Terry, right? The new extra that we hired?”

Terry looked down at himself. He was still wearing the same torn clothes with his rotting insides hanging out. “Extra?” he slurred, unsure of anything.

“Yes. For Zombie World ’s second season? You are an actor, right? Love the costume, by the way; it’s amazing how talented our makeup artists are!”

Terry gave the man a confused look. “I’m an actor? What do they do?”

The man laughed. “How fucked up are you, dude? Just get on set in fifteen. You just have to stand there and sometimes run at people. I know the pay isn’t that great, but come on, bud, maybe if you impress the director, you could make it big someday.”

Terry closed his eyes as the man walked off laughing. Within his mind, a black ocean spread out in all directions. He could faintly see the blinding light of his overlord as a mere speck in the distance. He focused on the direction and hurled out his question. “Boss, what the hell is an actor?”