Burt took a moment to process what he had just heard, and once he was finally able to understand what his sister had said, it took him even longer to piece together all of the implications.

When Burt looked around again, he found that he was sitting in a chair, some sort of herbal tea in his hand and a blanket on his back. He could not remember moving, or having accepted anything, but clearly he had been too shocked to even notice what had been happening.

Elicia sat next to him, her hand on his shoulder, and the man who had to be her husband warily eyed Burt from nearby. The younger couple had left, though Burt could not have said when they had left or where they had gone. He could hear the children still playing outside, which meant that enough time had passed for them to have finished their food.

Looking between the two other people in the house, Burt asked, “What else do you know?”

“Nothing much. We heard about the invasion at about the same time that we heard about everything else. We still don’t get many visitors up in these parts, and traders only come by twice a year. We only heard about the war because some people’s family showed up, wanting to hide here. Seems we’re isolated enough that they don’t expect the empire to push this far.

“What we do know is that the capital fell within just a few weeks. There wasn’t any siege or anything, but instead, we’ve heard stories of soldiers wielding magical powers and impossible abilities, but all of the refugees have told us different stories. Some say that Guilone’s walls turned to sand and the invaders just walked over them, others claim that the empire’s soldiers flew into the city and opened the gates, but we really just don’t know.

“We haven’t even heard anything after that, so we also have no idea what’s happened to any of the other cities, or to the army. We did hear that the empire somehow got past our army to raze the capital, but even that’s not certain.”

Burt just nodded numbly as he listened. He lifted his cup to take a sip of his tea, more for something to do than because of any thirst, only to find the cup was empty. When had that happened?

“Well, this changes things a bit. Wasn’t thinkin’ I’d be able to stay for long, seein’ how the army’d be comin’ after me, but what you’re sayin’ tells me that it might be best to settle in fer a bit. I’ll find a spot in the woods fer now, and guess I’ll start puttin’ a house together. Might take a while. Never was the quickest at buildin’. While I do that, you mind keepin’ Hera with you?”

“Burt, who is that child? It’s clear she isn’t yours, but why do you have a child with you?”

Burt grimaced, reminded of what had happened at Triple Falls. “She’s the reason I’m here, El. She found me while I was scoutin’ a village in Tamar durin’ the invasion there. Not gonna tell you ‘bout what happens after a village gets taken, but I couldn’t let her stay for that.

“‘Fore I realized what I was doin’ she ‘n I was movin’ through the woods, headin’ here. She don’t have no family, but won’t tell me why.

“I just couldn’t do it no more, El. Stuff never sat right with me, but I dealt with it best I could, so long as what we was doin’ was worth the price, but I couldn’t do it no more in Tamar.”

Elicia looked a bit confused, but her husband’s eyes went wide, and when he saw Elicia ready to keep asking questions, he quickly touched her shoulder and gave a little shake of his head to stop her. Still staring into his teacup, as though it held all the answers he sought, Burt missed the little interaction.

“Course she can stay with us, but you are, too. We got an extra room, what with both Jan and Flor bein’ married now. It’s just us and the two girls, and Marta’s gettin’ hitched soon herself, so we’ve got the room now. No reason for you to be stayin’ in the woods when it’ll be gettin’ cold soon.”

Burt nodded, still feeling lost and numb. He knew that everything he had known for the last few decades of his life had vanished, and yet it just did not feel real to him. He felt as though he was just floating, not really touching the ground or anything around him, unsure of when he would land again.

Suddenly, with tears in her eyes, Elicia lunged forward and clung to Burt. He was a bit shocked, but because of both being back home with his little sister for whom he had cared for so many years, as well as his recent months with Hera, Burt instinctively wrapped his arms around his sister and patted her head.

For a moment, they were two children again, and Burt was comforting Elicia after their parents had been lost to a sickness that had swept through the village. For a few minutes, years rolled back, and two hurt, abandoned children clung to each other for comfort.

It did not take very long for Elicia to recover herself and pull back. She cleaned her face and looked at Burt. “I’ve missed you more than you know. It’ll be good to have you back again.”

Burt felt the same way. He felt exhausted, but more in his heart and soul than in his body and mind. It would be good to live a simple life again.

***

The weeks since the failed assault on the dungeon had been eventful for Aaron. He had been present for the doomed attack on the false dragon, and while so many others had frozen and been massacred, Aaron had been fleeing even before the beast had fully emerged from its den.

In the weeks after that, Aaron had lived in the dungeon. He had created his own little cave which he used as a base, and after his rations had been used up, he had started hunting some of the dungeon’s creatures for sustenance. He did not trust any of the plants growing in the place, as it was impossible to know what was poisonous or safe, so he opted to behave as a carnivore instead.

While he wanted to leave the dungeon, Aaron did not have the confidence to defeat one of the strange horned horses that lived in the forest on his own, and several seemed to be standing guard near the exit tunnel. Unfortunately, Aaron had seen Irene and a small group of survivors push their way into the tunnel, but Aaron had been too far away to catch up and escape with them.

He had been abandoned to the dungeon, and was trapped.

Even worse, Aaron had lost his connection to Hidde. The high priest, who had felt confident of eventually taking the position of Hidde’s next Champion, could no longer even feel his god. While Aaron still had access to some of the spells he had been blessed with by his god, there was a powerful resistance that he needed to overcome every time he prayed a spell, and even worse, the resistance seemed to be growing stronger with each passing day.

Aaron was one of the elite few who had developed the ability to sense mana, even if his sense was a bit hazier in the dungeon. It felt as though something was shrouding Aaron’s senses, and that feeling had even started to permeate his body. Each day in the dungeon and each meal that Aaron ate from the dungeon’s bounty worsened his condition, and he feared the final outcome.

The day that changed things for the high priest came two weeks after becoming lost in the dungeon. It had been Aaron’s third day of needing to hunt for food, which had been made more difficult by how quickly the bodies disappeared after dying, and his latest prey had dropped what Aaron had recognized as a boost.

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During the invasion of the dungeon, the temples’ forces had deliberately avoided so much as touching any of the dungeon’s rewards, at the Saintess’s orders. However, Aaron had already seen for himself some of the results of those rewards. Also, he was Hidde’s priest, not Yur’s, and Hidde had not given his clergy any commands to avoid touching things from the dungeons. After a bit of hesitation, Aaron had touched the floating orb of light that held a faint hint of blue to it.

As the light had entered Aaron’s chest, he had felt his own mana reserves increase. While mages did not use their own mana, it was what allowed them to resonate with ambient mana, and greater personal reserves meant greater resonance and greater control. This allowed for both stronger spells and greater endurance, yet this was also something that was understood to increase only with time and age. The boost that Aaron had received from the orb was equal to his total gains from the previous dozen years combined.

At the same time, Aaron’s mana sense had grown cloudier than ever before, yet he had also felt an odd resonance that he had never felt before. Whatever was shrouding his mana sense was such a foreign sensation that even after weeks, he still failed to make any sense of it.

Wary of the sensation, Aaron had become reluctant to accept any further rewards from the dungeon when hunting for his meals.

However, the day came when Aaron was no longer able to resist temptation. His latest prey was slightly more difficult, and the increasing haziness of Aaron’s mana sense only exacerbated the problem. Instead of easily putting the creature down, Aaron struggled and nearly exhausted himself. In the end, he collapsed to the ground as soon as the beast had died.

At that moment, right before Aaron’s eyes, the greatest prize offered by the dungeons rose up, and he stared at a glowing book. He could not tell what power it might grant him, but he did know that the books always matched a person’s mana affinity.

Aaron had not been granted any additional spells from Hidde since the day he had become a high priest and replaced Avery. The temptation for greater power was irresistible, and with a shaky hand, Aaron reached out to touch the book.

In the same manner as always, the book transformed into a stream of light that shot into Aaron’s head. However, at that exact moment, something happened that shocked two other, very different, beings.

Aaron lost consciousness, as his very essence of self became an unexpected battlefield for the two beings which each held power to undo Aaron on the most fundamental level.

At this moment, the core’s spell, which was essentially a memory packet that could grant a human a spell or a skill, had triggered a war within Aaron between the core and the god Hidde.

The core’s mana had been seeping into Aaron for weeks, both from his surroundings and also from the meat he had ingested. This was what had clouded his mana sense, as the high priest had started to possess two different, conflicting energies that came from different origins.

When a god granted a priest a spell, they also marked that priest. This mark was what formed the connection between the priests and their gods, enabling the priests to cast spells as they wished. This freed the gods from needing to individually grant each prayer-spell, while retaining the control over magic that they required. This mark tainted the priests’ mana, giving their entire being the touch of their god’s essence. This was how priests could frequently identify which god another served, and was also how the core had come to identify mage priests separately from any other mana user.

The core was stunned by the sudden battle that stole its attention, though Hidde was also terribly confused. The god had lost track of Aaron after their connection had been severed. That had happened when Hidde had worked to protect his Champion’s soul from the grasp of the dungeon. Once severed, the connection needed to be reestablished away from the dungeon’s interference.

Hidde did not know exactly what was happening, but could tell that he was being challenged for something that belonged to him.

The god of battle could never step back from a challenge.

The god fought blindly, struggling to bring his oppressive momentum to bear against the unknown opponent who was attacking in an unknown location. Fortunately for Hidde, he retained some level of control over all that was under his sovereignty, so even without a connection, he was able to try to stabilize his power within Aaron and resist the foreign influence that was attempting to purify or purge Hidde’s mark.

As for the core, it felt both intrigued and motivated. If the gods were able to mark a human in such a manner, could the core do the same? It had always believed that humans were outside of its control because of their souls, which rebuffed all of the core’s attempts to seize them, and yet the gods had clearly found a way to bypass or overcome that limitation.

The core pushed, changing directions, locations, and intensity of its power as it continuously tried to erode the god’s control of the human. The battle took place in Aaron’s mana and the layer that surrounded the core of his soul. This was the part that the core harvested human memories from when they died in its dungeons, as this layer was stripped away from the central kernel of the soul.

Blunt force, grinding power, sharp strikes, and overwhelming pressure were all used, yet nothing seemed to be able to force the god from the human. It was as though there was an anchor, keeping the god’s influence in place no matter what the core did.

Time practically froze as the two entities fought for the human, the attacks happening at such an accelerated rate that no mortal would ever be able to react.

Suddenly, something changed, and the core realized that it was running out of time.

A crack appeared within the human. This was not a physical crack, but the breaking of something more fundamental to his being.

The man screamed, not from his mouth, but from his soul, and the shockwave left both the god and the core momentarily stunned.

At this moment, the core understood what it was missing to be able to take over. The god had been allowed entry to the human and allowed to leave a mark there, while the core was regarded as an invader. So long as the human chose the god over the core, it would be impossible for the core to win, and trying to take over forcefully would destroy the human entirely.

Uncertain of how to proceed, the core knew that it needed Aaron to somehow welcome the core’s influence.

But how?

***

Aaron had lost consciousness, yet he was still somehow aware of his situation. He had no feedback from his body’s senses, but was fully immersed in the tug-of-war that was being fought for control of him.

He felt as though there were immovable hooks holding him in place while some unstoppable force fell upon him, trying to crush him.

Both of the forces were trying to destroy Aaron, and yet, oddly enough, it was just as clear that they were fighting each other, and the attempts to destroy Aaron were nothing more than aftershocks from the battle between the two monstrous powers.

The human could feel himself being unmade. He had fought in battles and been injured, and while he was no melee fighter, as a priest of the god of battle, Aaron was no stranger to pain. Even so, what he was experiencing was worse than anything else he had experienced in his entire life.

Then, the agony suddenly spiked. Aaron felt some part of himself snap and nearly break. The pain was so intense that Aaron believed that the agony alone was enough to kill him.

Luckily, the moment that the crack appeared, Aaron was granted a momentary reprieve, as the force that was attacking the power that had its hooks in Aaron seemed to finally notice Aaron’s presence, and the attacks paused.

As for the hooks, it felt as though they were trying to pierce even deeper into Aaron, strengthening their hold on him. Despite his odd state, Aaron subconsciously recognized the two powers at war as the dungeon and Hidde fighting for him. The man’s mind might be unable to process any real thoughts, but his instincts still worked just fine.

There was an instinctual knowledge that Aaron would not survive the next clash. He reacted out of reflex, and his survival instincts took an action that he would never have consciously made: he rejected Hidde.

While Hidde’s power had a hold of Aaron, he was physically in the dungeon, where his god’s power was negligible. Even if Hidde managed to win without killing Aaron, the man would never survive to leave the dungeon.

Aaron’s decision made, even if it was an instinctive one, Hidde’s hooks were driven out, and the dungeon was allowed in.