The next morning I woke up in our hut, laying in bed with my dear husband. I heard stuff like marriage was a thing at many places, but here, we just set our relationship to married and that was it. I guess it wasn’t really romantic, but I was more for pleasure than pure romance. I hooked my pinky with his and started to play around until he woke up.

“Uh- what are you doing?” he put his left hand on his forehead and looked around.

“Nothing. We should get out of bed.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s two in the afternoon…”

“Ah, well, we should be allowed to oversleep on our day off,” he laughed as he sat up and also pulled off the blanket from me. What an annoying movement.

“Hey!”

“What? It’s not like you’d feel cold,” he chuckled, seeing me covering myself. “You do realise that I’ve seen you naked countless times.”

“I don’t care, this and that are two different things,” I covered my body in my clothes and crept out of the bed. I had a simple white dress on with a pair of simple and small, crystal-like earrings. I also used a white rubber ring to tie my hair and let it down on my right shoulder.

Turning around, I curtsied in front of Dred, “What does my husband think about my looks? Am I pleasing to your eyes?” I smiled at him.

“You look like a pure lily, simple and beautiful,” he smiled back as he stood up and then gave me a simple kiss. I left our hut and looked around on the shore and found some of the dark scars sleeping on the ground while others bothered to make a few huts. I also came across an interesting sight since Urnoth and the girl he liked laid naked on the ground, quite far away from the group. They probably had a good night together…

After covering them with a blanket, I turned around to leave, seeing that everyone let loose.

“Uh, an angel?” I heard his voice behind my back.

Turning back to look at him, I found him squinting his eyes in a half-awake state. It was no wonder considering that my head partly blocked the sun while the rest blinded him.

“I don’t think anyone called me an angel before. I’m more often called the devil, the satan, the devourer, the murderer, the monster, should I list more of my nicknames?” I asked with a smile.

My voice probably made him to his senses, so he sat up in a hurry, pulling off the blanket from Rose, his lover.

“Look, why can’t you-”

“M-Master, this isn’t what it seems! We just-!”

“Firstly, don’t cut into my words. Secondly, I didn’t even want to wake you up, but since you woke up, I’ll congratulate you for getting together with her, after all. Thirdly, why can’t you guys watch out for this ‘let’s sit up in a hurry’ in the morning? It’s annoying when a cold breeze blows on you all of a sudden,” I reprimanded him.

“Y-yes. I’ll be more careful,” he bowed his head.

“Well, take care of her, bye~” I turned around to leave. But for some strange reason, I couldn’t find Audrey and Jake anywhere! I wonder why…

As I spread my senses, I noticed two presences underground, in the middle of the huge river. They were quite far away, but they were certainly Audrey and Jake. Eh, I won’t go down there for something like this, they’ll just join later on.

We agreed with Khax that he’d teach us his soul-related skill and I wanted to take care of that before levelling up. I didn’t want to call him over while those two weren’t here, but Audrey was talented when it came to magic and she could teach Jake later on if need be.

I took out the orb of seers and contacted Khax, “Hey, you. Come over to the demon island. We’re on the right side of the city, on the shore. You’ll find us.”

“Ah, Elena?”

“Of course, who else could it be?”

“Are you in a bad mood?” he asked after a few seconds of silence.

“I’d say the opposite since I’m in a great mood, why?”

“Then you’re just being a bitch.”

“...”

“I’m coming anyway,” he added and then I cut the connection. I could have remade it, but I had no reason to.

…

I should kill this guy one day, but well, I think I sounded bossy even though Khax is someone who has nothing to do with me other than our agreement. Hmm- I should ask Dred later.

“I can hear you even now, though. Did you forget that we connected our shadows? Now if you die, I go down as well, but I can also hear your thoughts and you can do so mine,” he said in my mind.

“Oh, right, you were just so silent I forgot all about it.”

“Well, I didn’t think about anything in particular,” he replied.

I didn’t know such emptiness resides in your head.

“Okay, that was rude. That’s not exactly true, I was just testing this bond unlike you. Other people can bond their souls, we can bond our shadows, it’s likely to be a bit different and I managed to shut you out as well. I’ll do it again and you should try to read my thoughts,” he said.

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“She can’t hear me now, she can’t hear me now,” he kept saying in his mind while I used our connection to read his mind.

“She can hear you now, she can hear you now,” I repeated his words a bit differently.

“This means the following things are true when it comes to our Shadow Bond. Generally, we can still shut out each other’s thoughts and not intrude on each other’s privacy - which I’m crapping on and will peek at you when I want to - but if we really want to, we can read each other’s mind all the time and range doesn’t matter. You could be in another universe and I’d still be able to communicate with you.”

“That’s fancy and my answer to your remark, I don’t care if you read my thoughts even if you do it all day. I’m pretty sure at this point we know each other enough to know what the other thinks even without this ability,” I laughed.

“Well, I can’t deny that.”

While chatting with Dred, I returned to the shore and entered the sandcastle that was still standing tall. Remembering what we did her, I covered my face in shame and used earth magic to make everything disappear. Considering that the smell of sex still lingered around and that the ground seemed to be soaked in our bodily fluids, it was for the best.

“Cleaning up? I was about to do it,” Dred said as he stopped behind my back and embraced me. I rested the back of my head on his shoulder and grabbed his right horn to pull his face towards mine. After giving him a small kiss, I looked at the river in a bit of a daze.

“Girl, you’re shining like the sun,” Dred squinted since my white clothes reflected a part of the light right into his eyes. After a bit of time, he was forced to use his mana to enhance his eyes and stop his annoyance which just made me laugh more and more until I couldn’t hold it back.

“Yo!” Khax stuck out his head between my legs, under my dress. My face froze as I felt a cold breeze and realised that I forgot to form panties as well. Before he could look up, I stepped on his face and pushed him back underground.

Clearing my throat, I said, “This amount of time was sufficient.”

“Haha, okay, silly,” Dred let go of me and sat down on my sunbed. Khax crept out of the ground completely this time and sat down next to Dred.

“You call me here and then kick me in the face. What an unruly woman! But I see that you’re disciplining him,” he said as he looked at Dred and then pointed at a stain on the sunbed.

I’ll burn that sunbed and my shame with it. But the same awaits Khax!

“Dear, he’s just teasing you since you’re so cute. Now stop interrupting him,” Dred soothed and then annoyed me. It was as if his left hand was caressing my face while his right hand was slapping it. I wasn’t that kind of masochist!

Seeing that I held back my wrath and only my lips quivered, Khax continued, “The spell I’m going to teach you is called Soul Capture which I mainly use to capture the soul of fallen people… as its name says. So, just common sense. Anyway, with the help of this spell, you can gather souls and devour them to strengthen yourself, but be warned that it could alter your personality and looks. I wouldn’t take many souls of men in your place, for example,” he pointed at my face.

“Uh… I can see where this is going.”

“Anyway, it’s unwise and not recommended for people other than undead to take souls and devour them since it can affect both the body and the mind. If you gave it to Cor, though, it’d a different matter since undead aren’t affected by the properties of a soul. On a different note, my ability to heal Cor’s soul is due to my years of experience. After seeing, touching, and even eating so many souls in the past, I’ve learned how to do one or two things with them. But I wouldn’t recommend you to go overboard,” he explained.

“Oh, that makes sense,” I nodded my head, much more interested in this spell than originally. Even if we could use it only to capture souls for Cor to devour, it’d be a good thing already. We wouldn’t have to hunt for him anymore to make him level up since he isn’t good when it comes to offense. This was likely the most common way for undead to level up other than eating brains.

Under Khax’s guidance, we sat down in a meditative position and tried to sense our souls. It was probably very easy for people who were born in a world of cultivation, but it was much harder for us. Our senses were mostly focused on mana and different types of energies, not on our souls.

It took us twenty minutes to finally succeed and then we used our ‘soul force’ as Khax called it, to create a container.

New Skill Acquired: Soul Container

This spell uses a part of your soul to create a container where you can store the soul of other people. The only condition is that the body of the soul must be dead and the soul must be in a ‘passing’ state. Every soul after death is put in this state automatically and can be revived only by the creator or a few other treasures. The passive state is active only for thirty seconds before the soul disappears. The size of the container will keep growing alongside your soul.

“If the container is done, then you’re finished,” Khax said, but his explanation was unnecessary since notifications appeared in front of us.

“We’ve got it. Thanks for your guidance,” I said with a smile.

“Are the heavens falling? This woman knows how to thank something?” he opened his mouth wide in surprise.

“You were much nicer when you were just a king we had business with!” I gasped.

“Of course, I wouldn’t joke with the great devourers I didn’t even know,” he replied. But seeing his behaviour, he made me remember Cor. He was quite similar compared to Khax, but it changed when he drank Dred’s blood. Having blood servants was indeed a bit sad. It partly killed their characters, even though that was what made many things fun. The diversity of the characters!

“Why the long face? Should I have a bite?” he leaned closer, but this time Dred pushed his head back.

“No, she just had some random breakdown or what,” Dred said.

“Ah, certainly, you two have your problems. Anyway, shouldn’t you two go already?” Khax titled his head to the side.

“Well, we should. I’ll miss this planet a bit,” I hung my head.

“Now, now. Even if the universe will hate you in the future, at least, the people here will still revere and respect you. You can come back here anytime and I dare to say, you can call this planet your home!” Khax beat his rib cages, all having a different sound.

He’s like a piano.

“Don’t say that in public in the future. It will get you killed. Well, maybe not on this planet, but still,” I warned him seriously.

“I know, you don’t need to worry about my old bones.”

“I’ll pay you if you stop the bone jokes,” I held my forehead.

In this last half a year, we met up with Khax many times and he also helped us sort out the remaining kingdoms. He had nothing in it since we devoured the people we killed and he wasn’t there to take the souls within thirty seconds either. He seemed to be interested in my concept of ‘cleaning up the trash’.

“Alright, I’m going now, but you should forward a message to Cor. As a Wraith King, he has the ability to unite large hordes of undead in no time. You two could make use of his race in the future. After all, very few races are so strictly reliant on their leader as the undead. Only the legendary creature, Undead God would have higher priority in control than us, Wraith Kings.”

“And considering how dangerous Undead Gods are, there are very few of them and most of the ones alive are likely to be hunted,” Khax explained.

To me, it sounds like we’ll be getting allies, I thought as a smile formed on my face. When Khax left, we went back to our huts and told the dark scars who woke up to not let anyone close.

It was time to level up and move on!