Unable to continue onward, she turned around and followed the right-hand path. They were able to follow it for a solid ten minutes before it widened into another room.

“Either I missed all the traps, or there were no traps,” Cass said.

I think there were no traps.

“So what now?”

Poke your head into the next room?

Cass rolled her eyes but obliged.

The room was wide, wrapping around to the right, out of sight. Pillars filled the room in countless rows. A single light glowed pale gold from a point out of sight. It cast deep shadows and unnatural pools of gold light.

“Recognize it?” Cass asked.

Sort of. It depends on whether there is a fountain or a statue at the end of the hall.

Cass rolled her eyes and took another step in, trying to peer around the pillars.

A SHUNK sounded behind her and she spun around, her stomach dropping. A heavy plate had dropped over the entrance, sealing it tight. She was trapped.

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Cass whispered.

It was suddenly very quiet in the room. It had been quiet to begin with, but the silence had gained a presence. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. The shadows around her unsettled her.

It is not ideal, no.

She took a deep breath and stepped further into the room.

But it is probably fine… Cass could all but hear the hesitant qualifier hanging between them.

“Unless?” Cass whispered, voicing it. She took another step forward, between the first of the many rows of pillars.

Unless this is the Shadow Hall.

“And if it is?” She scanned every inch of the shadows around her. They hung in the air, as thick as the silence. Nothing moved.

Then it should have an altar at the end of the room.

“That was not what you were hesitating to tell me,” she hissed. A cold had settled over the room. It cut through her tattered clothes to her bone and she shuddered.

Three things happened simultaneously.

One: she saw the altar at the end of the room. It was the size of a writing desk and made of a dark stone. On top, sat a glowing orb in a silver stand. It was the source of the light.

Two: Salos said, And, it would be full of living shadows.

Three: Dodge screamed for her to jump forward. Cass did.

She turned as she jumped out of the way, to see a tear in space where she had been standing and something resembling a figure behind it.

“SALOS!” She screamed, backpedaling.

The tear in space sealed again almost immediately. As soon as it did, the shadow figure was closer. Cass didn’t have another word to describe its movement. One moment it had been behind a pillar, the next it was beside her again. She hadn’t even blinked. It was just there.

Living Shadow

Lvl 13

[A piece of the void given body on a physical plane. They do not feel, but if they did, they would delight in dragging physical space into the void. They settle for tearing holes in the space they occupy instead.]

Oh, gods, we’re in the Shadow Hall…

Cass swung her staff at the thing. It passed through the shadow, neither slowed nor redirected. It was as if the creature wasn’t even there.

“Hell, hell, hell,” Cass muttered, backing up as the shadow swung at her with one of its arms. The form blurred as it moved like it left parts of itself behind.

Cass dodged out of the way, stepping back and right. The arm swung just over her head accompanied by frigid cold and the unsettling certainty that the space it occupied didn’t exist.

“What is the chance that it can do as much damage to me as I can do to it?” Cass asked.

It can’t do any physical damage, Salos said. But you don’t exactly have a physical body.

“Simple answers, Salos!” Cass yelled as she weaved between another sweeping swing of its blade-like arms.

It can’t break the walls or pillars but it will cut through your Spirit-body and damage your soul as if armor isn’t there.

“Don’t get hit, great. How do I kill it?” She manifested a Wind Blade on her staff and drove it through the creature’s faceless, featureless head. The vibrating blade of wind bothered it about as much as the staff on its own had.

That is to say, not at all.

A freezing cold on the back of her neck was all the warning she got to the presence of a second one. She threw herself forward, as another shadow-bladed arm bisected the air her neck had occupied.

She spun out from between the two, scanning the room as she again backpedaled away from the creatures. Two, three, four, six, seven…

She spotted at least seven of the things hanging in the shadows of the room. At least half were moving toward her.

They are the manifestation of shadows and the void. They aren’t affected by most attacks. Some pure mana attacks might work.

“I don’t have a pure mana attack.”

Oh. That’s reasonable.

“What do I do?” Cass knew she was whining. But fighting manifestations of the void was not covered in her college classes or her job’s orientation training. She emphatically believed she was not cut out for this.

I would usually attack with—A jab of pain stabbed her through her connection to Salos.

“What was that?” she asked, her already fiercely beating heart kicking up to a truly panicked pace.

He didn’t answer and there wasn’t time to poke him further. A shadow had caught up with her, it threw itself at her, trying to envelop her with its shadowed body. She stepped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the edges of its form. The second was close behind it, sword arms swinging.

She tried to block the first strike, but the arm sailed right through her staff and sliced into her chest.

The world froze the moment it touched her skin through her clothes. Cold radiated out from the point of contact. She couldn’t move. Time itself had stopped. There was only cold. It wanted her. To snuff out her core.

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Not to devour or grow stronger from her death. It just wanted her dead.

Cass jerked away, she’d only touched that thing for a moment, but she felt like she’d been trapped in its grasp for an eternity. She could feel a wetness under her shirt. Blood.

Dazed, only Dodge was able to keep her out of harm’s way of the second and third strikes.

Salos was still silent. What happened to him? What was that pain? Was he okay? Had the shadows done something to him?

She didn’t have time to be worried about him, she needed to focus on herself. On surviving this. Except, she had no idea how to kill things that barely existed.

A quick scan of the room told her there were no exits. There was just her, a growing sea of shadows, too many pillars, and the altar.

She angled toward the altar, directing her endless retreat toward it. If nothing else, maybe they would be slowed by the thing’s glow.

They weren’t.

They continued just as persistently into the pools of light cast between the pillars of shadow.

There were twelve of the shadows now. The only consolation was they seemed uninterested in ganging up on her. Only two or three would try to pin her at once. However, as soon as she was out from one constellation of shadows, another one or two joined the fray to pin her again.

They hid behind the pillars, floating just out of sight, only to appear behind her just as she thought she was safe, their cold existences grabbing her soul and slicing deep.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to curl up and die.

But she couldn’t. She Dodged another pair, avoiding their deathly touch by inches, finally landing herself before the altar and orb.

Which left her with an important question she had not yet considered: What next.

Touch it? Break it? Pick it up and throw it at one of them?

For every scenario she could imagine such an action helping, she could just as easily imagine it going horribly wrong.

Maybe touching the orb would calm them, or maybe it would let an even bigger one possess her. Maybe breaking the orb would dispel or banish the lot of them, or maybe it would enrage them. Maybe throwing it at one would capture the target, pocket monster style, or maybe it would power up the one it hit. Or maybe it was just a pretty, ominous, decorative orb that she was critically overthinking.

There was no way to know. She could only do something and hope for the best.

And she had to do something. Nothing was the only critically wrong option. If she waited any longer her luck or skill would run out. Dodge was great, but she wasn’t willing to try to keep this up forever.

“Hell,” she muttered again, dodging another swing. She turned with the momentum, slapping her free hand down on the orb.

The world went white.

It took a full minute for Cass to realize she wasn’t stunned or blind. She really was standing in an empty white space.

“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody there? Salos?”

Her demon didn’t answer, but a shadow appeared in front of her. A shadow with gold eyes.

“Salos?” she asked hesitantly. The thing in front of her looked like her demon—specifically how he’d looked in that first moment before he’d tried to possess her—but there was a shallowness to its presence she didn’t know how to explain or quantify.

“Good day, Trial Taker,” the shadow said. There was no indication in its tone or bearing that it was responding to her words. Rather, it reminded her more of a recorded message. Like an answering machine. “Congratulations on reaching the Shadow Hall in my trial of the Deep.

“If you have made it this far you have proven yourself capable—that or lucky, but luck to that degree is no less deserving of praise. As such, I have provided an additional reward and trial for you in this room. You may pick one of my skills to carry as your own. Use it to defeat the Living Shadows that will awaken once you exit the mental space of this skill orb.

“Please Choose One:—”

The choices appeared before her in a system window.

[1. Gain Skill: Mana Blade (Mana-based, bladed attack, modified by Dex and Ala)

2. Gain Skill: True Strike (Guided bladed attack, modified by Dex and Per)

3. Gain Skill: Last Gasp (Attack modifier: Enhanced damage, modified by Str)]

Cass inhaled. It wasn’t even a choice. Only one of these gave her anything close to what she needed right now. She picked one without a second thought.

Skill Earned: Mana Blade (lvl 1)

[A blade of steel cuts flesh and bone. A blade wreathed in mana cuts deeper still.

Sheath your blade in your mana to increase damage inflicted by your bladed attacks. Inflicted wounds are healed with less effective Vitality. Damages incorporeal bodies.

Cost: minimum 1 MP/sec

Modified by Ala.]

Cass cursed. “Wait. Why does this say ‘sheath’ my blade? I don’t have a blade!”

The gold-eyed shadow figure didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “An excellent choice. May it serve you well and carry you far. Should you survive my Temple, present this skill to my representative. Your growth with this skill will be judged and rewarded.”

“Wait, answer my questions. Can I only use this on bladed weapons?” She could feel herself fading as she yelled. A moment later she was again in the shadowed room before the altar. The light had faded with her return but all the shadows were right were she’d left them.

Dodge yelled for her to move. She rolled out of the way, narrowly missing the downward swing of a shadow’s arm. A quick scan of the room and she could see that the number of shadows had tripled and all of them seemed a lot more motivated than they had been a moment before.

They rushed her. Silent and passionless and cold. She wove her way through them, Dodge guiding every step as she frantically tried to imbue Mana Blade onto her staff despite the description. It didn’t take.

She tried and tried. Again and again.

It felt like trying to shove her hand through a wall.

Dodge faltered as she realized the skill wasn’t going to work. A shadow arm slammed into her shoulder. Time stretched onward. Barely, she could feel herself drifting out of the attack’s range as the attack continued down through her arm. Cold consumed her.

Another shadow arm hit her barely seconds after the first. This one struck her from behind, slicing across her back.

This was how she was going to die. Not this attack. Not the next. Not the one after that. It would be death by a thousand glancing blows. Each barely bleeding her. Each slicing at her soul.

There was no escape.

She wanted to cry. Or to scream.

She wanted to blame Salos for bringing her here. For not warning her properly of the dangers. To blame the gods and the universe and unseen malice for her predicament.

She could feel herself crumbling. Hadn’t she already done better than any could have expected? Wasn’t this enough? Couldn’t she give up now?

She took another hit. She couldn’t have said how much time there was between the strikes. Time wasn’t something she understood intuitively anymore. There was only the eternity of shadow bodies passing through her.

The cold consumed her. It bit deep and tore at her.

There was no color. No warmth.

Just a certainty of slow, impending death.

Just a certainty of nothing.

Just nothing.

Just… a strange flickering at the edge of her consciousness? Checking it was unimportant. Everything was unimportant.

She checked it anyway.

It was Soul Guard. It flickered the way Dodge or Staff Mastery often did when they had advice to give. It begged her to activate it. Begged.

It couldn’t possibly make a difference. She flicked it on and—

—The world shot back into full color. Cass found herself lying on the floor, a circle of living shadows pressed around her. They leaned over her, their formless hands pressed into her skin.

She screamed and rolled through them. It was cold and unpleasant, like wading through scum-filled water. But it didn’t hurt and time didn’t slow. Rather, she felt an increased drain on her Focus as she rolled through them and struggled to her feet.

Her breathing was ragged, her pulse irregular. She was bleeding in several places but she wasn’t in critical condition. The damage to her soul was worse than any physical damage they might have done but she could feel Soul Guard around her, pressing her frayed soul into something resembling its proper shape. Like a cloak or heavy bandages, it swaddled her.

The shadows didn’t immediately follow her. Instead, they all turned, their heads cocking to either side.

She had seconds to form a new plan. Salos was still unresponsive. It was up to her to figure something out.

What did she have? Salos said to use a mana attack. Her only mana attack was Mana Blade. She didn’t have a blade. Elemental Manipulation was about manipulating physical parts of the world, so was Wind Blade.

She blinked, an obvious idea sprouting in her head.

No. That couldn’t work.

Could you apply skills to skills? She was pretty sure she hadn’t been able to use two instances of Elemental Manipulation at once. But, she’d definitely used her extra senses alongside Stealth. And Dodge and Staff Mastery were always on together.

It could work, couldn’t it? She summoned another Wind Blade to her staff and held it there. She had a blade.

The first of the shadows stepped forward. The rest stumbled after it. Like a breaking wave, they crashed forward.

She swung her Wind-Bladed glaive. Just before it hit the first shadow, she empowered Mana Blade, willing—begging—the skill to recognize the vibrating blade of wind as a valid target for the spell.

The blade lit up, glowing blue in the dark. It plunged through the enemy line. They melted under the attack. One after another, they evaporated, another after another.

She completed her swing, the Mana Blade flickering out. Still more tumbled forward.

She empowered it again, stepping forward with the attack, ripping through them. She swung again and again. She was screaming. Not in fear, but in unrestrained frustration finally finding release.

She didn’t choose this fight. She didn’t choose this world. She didn’t choose this life.

Given the choice, she would never have left Earth. She would have stayed with her siblings and her boring job. She’d never have fought with her life on the line.

But forced, she would fight. Forced, she would live.

And God help anything that stood between her and finding her way home.