Crackling meat and human misery served as background audio to the stare-down between man and wyvern.

What Leon had thought a dragon turned out to be its lesser kin, a blue box spitting out a description.

"Level Fifty-Seven Bahamduin- Once the Volcanic Monarch, this creature bowed its neck to keep its head. It despises its name. Those scales will make for good armour after you butcher it."

Breaking their stare down, Leon jerked his head to the side.

"Go on. Beat it. I don't want to kill you."

A puff of smoke followed his remark, the wyvern's eyes locking on the wailing crowds.

Leon knew what it wanted to do.

He just didn't care.

Slowly approaching the blood-red beast he put a hand upon its scales as he spoke.

"You want permission? You don't need it. You're free and you're stronger than them. Kill them, eat them or leave them be. The choice is yours- a prerogative of the strong."

Another puff of smoke followed his words and with a roar to the skies, the wyvern took flight, vanishing from sight.

The Swordfiend breathed in and it did nothing to quell his rage.

Murdering the first True Demon candidate poured a droplet of relief upon an inferno of hate.

He needed more battles.

An uncaring universe heard his plea and saw fit to mock him.

A man with tears in his eyes and a charred corpse in his arms saw fit to approach Leon.

The Swordfiend didn't hear his words, for they did not matter.

His reply could only have ever been one thing to the mewling of the puny.

"I don't care about your dead family."

He shocked the man to silence, the crowd that had gathered stilling as his aura ramped up again.

"They were weak so they got crushed. That's life. Crush or be crushed."

He saw the way he cradled the meat, every move sending more melting flesh sloughing off her bones.

So weepy, so emotional over a woman he'd loved.

A wife or a daughter?

The Swordfiend supposed it didn't matter since he didn't care to find out.

Words reached him this time, from someone he actually listened to.

"Swordsman. We need to leave."

He'd half-expected recrimination or scolding from her, but then she knew better than to have it out with him in front of these insects.

Swivelling on his heels, Leon turned, his seething hatred cooling to a smoulder.

She still had that look of piteous anger, lips chewed to the point of drawing blood, hand outstretched to take his.

Knowing an uncomfortable conversation lay in his future he took her hand and the world vanished.

The irritating sense stretching sensation irked him for a moment before it stopped.

He stood on a hill overlooking a small town, a sturdy oak at his side.

"You're not going to like this suggestion."

Her heel tapped against the dirt beneath their feet impatiently as he mulled over a response.

"Hit me. Not like today can get any worse."

"Tell your uncle. A soul mage, even one who purports to be a True Demon, is an existential threat. She needs to be put down."

He really didn't like it.

It went against his desire for personal and bloody revenge.

He'd still hear her out because she wouldn't have suggested such a cowardly course of action if she'd believed any other viable choices existed.

Leon continued smothering his hatred and kept his voice deliberately neutral.

"Okay. I'm not saying no. Walk me through why. Quickly, I'm dead on my feet."

The longer she spoke, the more fearful she sounded.

"Soul magic is filthy. According to her, she purely altered your mental condition. Regular mental magic, psionics and the like can alter memories and emotional ties, but cannot do so permanently. Your soul, the blueprint of who you are, eventually corrects the alterations. Soul magic lets a mage rewrite the blueprint. Your body, your mind everything you are becomes a thing to be changed when they get their hands on you."

She paused taking a deep breath, before continuing.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"With enough mana and time, they will make you into whatever they want. Trap you in a blob of meat with no limbs, no mouth and no mind to even scream inside of. Make it so you were born with no limbs, so your arms and legs wither off your body. Inject false memories which drive you to suicide, most victims choose suicide anyway knowing they are irreparably and unknowably compromised. The lazy ones just compel blind obeisance to themselves, armies at their backs both fearless and amoral, capable of anything their master desires. That's why they are killed on discovery Leon- anyone willing to use that power is too dangerous to be permitted a continued existence."

Steely conviction and bare-naked terror made for an odd combination, a deathly paleness that left her skin like marble.

That thought spurred a mental tangent that terminated in wondering just how flush her skin would turn if struck, red blood rising beneath pale cheeks and were he not mulling the implication that she expected him to turn his blades on himself, Leon might have realised the strangeness of such a thought at this time.

She noticed his distracted state and allowed it for a moment, before snapping the swordsman back to reality.

"Leon! Enough daydreaming! You were lucky to walk away with only a few disconnected attachments. I'm not saying set Sha on this Versa character, just let him know she exists. Even the True Demon Sect will want a soul mage dead and he'll put that knowledge out there if you ask him to."

Through grit teeth, his answer slipped forth.

"Fine. On one condition. I'm going to fall asleep and when I get up you're going to find me the hardest fight you can, one that will let me work this hate out."

Not waiting for an answer, he made a bed of the earth and a pillow of grass as he allowed his body to finally collapse, his sleep mercifully bereft of dreams.

Distant violence woke him, the smell of fire and sulphur.

Octavia still wore her more defensive combat robes, a small campfire burning beside the tree over which a large fish roasted.

Below him the town died, green-skinned monstrosities of horn and claw tearing through both meat and concrete.

The skewered fish rose from the flames, Octavia extending an arm in his direction.

Wordlessly he accepted the offered fish, bones crunching between his teeth.

He hadn't eaten fish since the first night in the Proving Grounds.

"Oh spit the bones out you animal!"

Her familiar imperious tone had returned, a desire to put the events of last night out of mind guiding her.

"Nah. I need the calcium. That my fight?"

"No. Merely a diabolist cult. Rabble not worth the effort, they'll burn themselves out eventually."

He hummed noncommittally in response, idly inspecting his storage ring.

Aside from the weapons he'd yet to sell and the ever-dwindling pile of food, he had precious little else.

A broken blade, more a pile of slag metal than a sword.

An unopened chest.

The corpse, a man he'd promised to bury.

Leaves overhead rustled in the wind.

Silently he rose and began digging the grave, Octavia too consumed with her own business to comment on his activities.

A manic energy drove his fists at the earth, tearing until a shallow hole lay before him.

He placed the corpse within, heaping the dirt back on top.

For a moment he considered a marker, a cross to mark this spot before moving on.

Burying Mike had been important. He'd sworn to do it and keeping his word mattered when it didn't get in the way of a fight.

An old chest sprang from his storage ring, opening to reveal a pouch full of something that smelled like home.

Focusing his intent on the bundle revealed more information.

"Aged Wakeleaf- Potent psychedelics, normally smoked. Also induces extreme arousal."

That last line spurred his memory- this must have come from one of the trial dungeons.

Throwing the pouch to the back of his storage ring where it bounced off an innocuous scroll, Leon took a seat by the fire again, waiting for the call to action.

Where Octavia had acquired one of the crystals that everyone seemed to carry around would have been a point of conversation were Leon not still waiting on the other shoe to drop- he'd gotten a light touch so far and fully expected a proper dressing down to occur.

Whatever she'd been doing, her fingers stilled after a while and she gave him an appraising once over before she spoke, as though still expecting a mental breakdown.

He hated to disappoint, but Leon had hit quota on psychotic breaks for the year.

"We have options you know. But, I know you'll want the worst one available. A wight intends to expand his empire's reach. He is young, foolish and already has an army of thousands at his back. Raiding cemeteries is such a common play for these undead. In another life, he succeeds and continents fall under his sway. In this one? Well, you'll cleave him and his forces in two. The portal will take you to a town under siege. Their survival... well, to be blunt they are expendable. Save them, condemn them, either will serve, just ensure the woman I've tethered to lives to inform me of your victory. Will this suffice?"

A fight, a horde of undead. An unambiguous threat and no need to worry about the little people.

This would do very nicely, a grin breaking his mask of reflective silence.

"You coming along or am I riding solo?"

"Do you need the help? Does the big strong swordsman really need little 'ol me to help him kill the nasty undead army?"

It wasn't an unfriendly smirk she shot his way, so the Swordfiend shot one right back.

"See, we both know you're playing me- but you're right. I don't."

Blue mana swirls coalesced into a fixed portal, Octavia offering her parting words as Leon rose to depart.

"We have things to do in the coming days. Leon? Pull yourself together."

Checking his swords as he walked, settling on Silent and Scream as his implements of destruction, Leon acknowledged her words for what they were- an order to get his shit under control.

"Got it."

He hated portals and would never fully adjust to the sense stretching sensation, his body ejected into an argument in progress.

"...the fuck do you mean 'he's coming', who the fuck is he?!"

"I don't fucking know Lucian, that's all she said, then she opened this fucking portal and told me to stay put!"

Taking in the black armoured swordsman in their midst, twin blades near unsheathed as his eyes darted from person to person a tense silence consumed the room, broken by the woman closest to the portal.

"You're him? Caesar's guy?"

Slowly sliding his scimitars back into their sheaths, Leon answered.

"Sure. That description works fine. Point me at the bad guys, bring me food and healers when I tell you to and stay out of my way. In exchange, most of you will survive."

A ranger-type, sword and bow slung across his body spoke up to challenge Leon.

"Look buddy, I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you need backup. No one fights an army alone and wins."

Scanning them with more intent this time, Leon evaluated their gear, their posture and their will to kill.

The results told him they were weak and tired. These people weren't warriors of any real calibre.

Gesturing to the woman nearest, who wore a ridiculously skimpy outfit for fighting in, Leon lowered himself to explain just how flawed their assumptions were.

"You. Octavia must have carried your ass through the Proving Grounds so I know you've seen me before, back at the Selection, remember? Don't know about these chucklefucks, but you? You know how tough the Tutorial was. Bet you felt you had it rough until she swept in to do the work for you. I beat it alone. By myself, no team. Every boss, every dungeon. I even killed the shark. They had to give me a harder final boss, the regular one would have been too fucking easy. I eat armies for breakfast. This undead invasion is a nightmare for you. For me, just another notch on my belt. No more talk. Show me to the battlefield."

From the way the woman paled, he surmised she did remember him. Her arm snapped to the door across the room, her words rushed through a haze of fear.

"Right out there sir, they've only sent skeletons to test our walls so far. Caesar said to expect worse."

A genuine smile slipped forth as Leon cast off civility.

"I'd hope so. You, girly. Stay alive or Octavia'll get all pissy with me when I'm finished up. One of you should bring along one of those fancy crystals and record this- it'll be one hell of a show."