Things had developed very, very quickly for the core in recent days. The fighting between the two groups of humans had produced an incredible amount of death, much of it right above the dungeon in the sewers.

The core had observed some of the battles, but since all of the magic being used on both sides had come from the core itself, there was really nothing much to learn from the battles.

The destruction of the city of Guilone had produced an incredible amount of death affinitied mana, which the core had greedily absorbed. It had been enough for the core to greatly increase its death affinity, but seemed to be just a bit short of the limit. The core wanted to reach that limit more than ever, as it could already sense some sort of resonance between life and death. The two belonged together, and the core wanted to see that happen.

Around that same time, one of the human priests had finally touched one of the core’s spell rewards, which had triggered the battle between the core and Hidde.

Unfortunately, their contest had broken something within the priest, and the core found that it was unable to learn enough about what had broken to fix it before the man died.

The god had been rejected by his own priest, and something deep within the core seemed to rejoice at being able to rob a god, but it could not address that reaction at the moment.

The core finally had a human in its clutches, but the human was dying. This was a unique opportunity, and the core did not want to lose it, but what could be done?

Examining the human’s body, the core realized that somehow the man’s life was draining away, and his vitality was fading, despite the fact that the man was physically unharmed.

Healing the body would do nothing, as it almost seemed as though the connection between the body and soul had been severed. Having never worked with souls before, the core had no idea where to even start with trying to reestablish that connection.

The soul was rejecting the body, and the body was rejecting the soul.

Unsure of what else to do, the core thought to fully separate the two. If the core’s being could exist as a stone, then it just needed to find something that could store a soul.

Hundreds, and soon thousands of different materials were checked for a resonance with the soul. There had to be some level of compatibility, or else the same rejection that was taking place between the human’s body and soul would repeat.

The core had simply too many materials available to use, though it naturally tried various gemstones first. If such a body was good enough for the core, it should be good enough for anything.

Finally, a resonance was detected, though not with any gemstone. Instead, it appeared with a piece of petrified wood. It had been far down on the list of things to try, but once the resonance appeared, the core moved quickly and pushed the dying soul into the petrified wood.

Instantly, the rejection stopped.

However, the core faced a small dilemma. It had a living human body without a soul, and a soul in a rock. Neither one of those would do much good.

Naturally, the ideal situation would be to re-merge the two together, so the core attempted to do just that.

The soul refused to budge from the shard of petrified wood, so the core moved the stone itself closer to the inert body. Nothing happened, until the stone touched the body. There was some sort of spark, and the body started to twitch.

The movement knocked the stone to the ground, but the twitching did not stop. The core could see that a connection had formed between the stone and the body, though oddly enough, the soul remained in the stone.

Careful observation revealed little to nothing. The body was still shutting down, and the trembling grew worse.

Suddenly, the human’s eyes snapped open, and he started violently coughing. “What in Hidde’s name just hap-”

***

Aaron cut off abruptly. Something was very, very wrong, but he could not immediately place just what it was. There were no injuries to his body, and the tearing pain that was the last thing he remembered was gone, but something seemed to be missing.

Thinking of the pain that was gone, Aaron realized at least part of what was wrong; the pain was gone. All of it. There was no pain at all. Nothing from his aged knees, nor from old wounds. In fact, his entire body felt somehow distant.

Aaron tried to examine his body a bit to find exactly what felt so off, only to find that he somehow felt separate from his own body. Why did it feel as though Aaron was on the ground next to where he was clearly standing? That made no sense, as all that Aaron could see in the place that he felt he was lying was a piece of rock.

Confused and curious, he bent down to grab the rock, and when he did, a sense of completeness washed over his entire being. The sensation was so sudden and so jarring that the rock slipped from Aaron’s fingers, shattering the moment of wholeness he had felt.

Just what was going on?

Aaron stared down at the rock, a mounting horror filling his soul. His fingers shaking, he reached back down for the fallen stone, and grabbed it once again. This time, Aaron steeled himself against the odd sensation, and instead of it startling him, he started to examine what he was feeling.

Somehow, holding the stone gave him a sense of wholeness, but why? Why did Aaron feel like he was actually in the location of the stone rather than his body? Why did he have a strange sense of being held in the air?

Closing his eyes, Aaron started trying to feel his own mana and his connections with the rest of the world.

Instantly, he caught upon the fact that his connection to Hidde, which had been an integral part of Aaron’s entire sense of self for decades, was gone completely. There was no connection to be sensed, no hook towards which to direct his prayers when he tried to cast spells.

The thought of losing his magic sent another wave of terror over Aaron, but oddly enough, he found that not only could he still sense mana, the spell that he had received from the dungeon still existed, and Aaron felt an odd connection to it.

Seizing upon anything that could distract him from his rising fear of what had happened to him, Aaron focused on this new magic he had been granted at great cost.

It was an earth affinitied spell, which matched with Aaron’s greatest affinity. He had a major affinity for earth, and a negligible affinity for fire. Oddly enough, this spell did not include any prayer at all, not to Hidde, nor to anyone else. This was a spell of pure mana manipulation. As he tested it out, Aaron realized that as he pushed his own mana through the spell form, it created a resonance between his own reserves and the ambient earth-affinitied mana, granting him control of it for his spell.

This was an entirely different method of casting spells, and realizing the potential of what he was doing shocked Aaron to his core. This method of spell casting would grant him direct control of spells, which had always been regarded as an impossibility. No longer did his connection to Hidde and his position within the hierarchy of the temple determine the strength of Aaron’s spells, but instead, his own elemental affinity and mana control determined everything.

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Already, Aaron was able to see aspects where he could improve in his spellcasting, using the knowledge of the spell that he had obtained with the spell itself.

Pressing forward to complete the Earthen Tomb spell, Aaron felt the resonating mana grant him control over the earth around him, and he reached out to open a grave that could potentially close upon a target and crush them to death, but as the resonance formed, the stone in Aaron’s hand that he had been deliberately ignoring was also within the range of that resonance.

In addition to the resonance with the earth mana in the stone, Aaron felt another resonance, and it instantly confirmed his worst fears and suspicions, even as his spell failed.

He had felt a resonance with his own soul.

The man had never felt a soul before, not even his own, but as it was the very essence of him, there was no mistaking what he was feeling.

Aaron’s soul had somehow been ripped from his body and placed in a stone.

Minutes passed without Aaron moving a single muscle. He was trying to process what had happened to him, but unfortunately, having his soul torn from his body meant that physical restrictions no longer applied to his thoughts.

Aaron’s mind raced, even as his body was frozen in shock. He knew that he had somehow lost his connection to Hidde, but how had that led to his soul being torn from his body and placed in a rock? What had happened after Aaron had touched that book to receive the spell from the dungeon?

Wait, could that be it? The dungeon?

Considering the possibility, Aaron realized that it was a very distinct possibility. The excursion had been sent to destroy the dungeon, yet after getting stranded in the dungeon, Aaron had accepted the dungeon’s gifts. Only after accepting a spell had Aaron lost consciousness and his connection to Hidde, even if the connection had somehow already been disrupted by the time in the dungeon.

The more Aaron considered the possibility, the more he realized that it was not only possible, it seemed likely.

Accepting the dungeon had severed Aaron’s connection to his god, while also somehow ripping his soul out his body.

Why was he still alive, and what should he do next?

Rather than merely hold the stone that housed his soul, Aaron suddenly clutched it to his bosom. Rather than his heart or mind, this stone had just become Aaron’s greatest treasure, as well as his greatest weakness.

The man’s eyes darted about, suddenly seeing threats and greedy eyes in every shadow.

At that moment, a troll and a unicorn entered his sight. Aaron tensed up, terrified to see both of the monsters arrive before him at the same time, particularly since he had avoided both types of beasts during his time being stranded in the dungeon.

The two beasts looked at Aaron, but showed no aggression whatsoever. In fact, if the former high priest were to be objective about the situation, there was a lazy look to the troll’s eyes, while disgust positively blazed in the unicorn’s gaze.

The beasts just stared at him for a moment before turning around, as though to walk away. However, they both turned back to look at the human, seeming to want something.

Aaron felt confused and uncertain. Something was clearly different, as the beasts were no longer aggressive to him, but what did they want?

The unicorn whinnied like a horse, and the troll pointed its tree trunk of a club forward while grunting at Aaron.

It became clear that they were telling him to follow.

Hesitant and fearful, Aaron took a step forward.

The unicorn walked forward a few steps before glancing back again.

As for the troll, it just stomped off, never looking back again.

With the unicorn’s attention on him, Aaron did not dare dally, and he hurried to catch up to the beast.

It was literally head and shoulders above him, but there was no denying that the creature was stunningly beautiful. At least, when it was not trying to impale Aaron upon its twisted horn.

Aaron followed the beasts, occasionally muttering a few words to himself. The lack of any reaction from the beasts simply encouraged the man to continue, as he needed to vent a bit to release some of the tempestuous emotions raging within him.

Aaron got so caught up in his own monologue that it was over an hour before he realized where they were heading: the false dragon’s lair.

The man instantly stopped walking, and even took a few steps backwards, pulling back into the shadows of the massive trees.

“I won’t go to be eaten!” The man adamantly refused to walk towards death, but was shocked to hear the unicorn nicker. Did the beast actually understand human speech, or was it nothing more than a coincidence?

The troll sighed, and then slowly turned around to face Aaron. The giant creature pointed its club at Aaron, and then towards the wyvern’s lair.

The motions repeated a few times as the troll tried to communicate with Aaron, but it quickly gave up.

With another sigh, the troll’s massive hands reached down, and, with surprising gentleness, it cradled Aaron like a small child in an arm before gathering its club again.

Aaron was too petrified by the actions to even react, and by the time he finally processed his situation, he was being carried forward with shocking care by a beast that would have tried to crush him to paste just a few hours earlier.

The troll moved quicker once it no longer needed to slow its pace to match Aaron’s, and they soon arrived at the cave in the cliffside.

The false dragon was outside its lair, and it stared at the unicorn and troll as they approached with the human. Despite Aaron’s fear, the beast did nothing more than stare as they approached, not even blinking.

The troll did not even glance at the enormous beast, and proceeded into the depths of the cave and into the tunnel that lay in the depths.

The tunnel followed a steep decline that twisted about, and Aaron lost all sense of direction. After a while, he noticed a light up ahead.

The tunnel grew brighter and brighter, and soon, they stepped out of the tunnel and into another massive underground space.

This place had few plants, but an exceptionally high roof to the cavern. Aaron could not even estimate the size of the place, but while the previous cavern had offered the impression of an ancient valley forest, this new cavern had the look of the cliff sides of a steep mountain. Rocky precipices could be seen extending out of sight, only a few trees and a bit of brush clinging to the cliff sides.

Down below was a raging stream that ran the length of a narrow valley.

In the sky above, below, and before Aaron and the solitary troll—when had the unicorn left?—birds soared and flew about.

Wait…

Aaron struggled to accept what he was seeing even as the troll continued down a narrow trail that had been carved into the cliffside.

Those birds were not birds, but dozens or even hundreds of false dragons like the final guardian of the previous cavern, as well as other winged monsters.

Aaron was stunned speechless, understanding that even if he and the rest of the temples’ crusade had succeeded in fighting past the false dragon, they would have almost instantly been eradicated by the beasts in this terrifying, lizard-filled cavern.

The troll continued on its way, ignoring the threats that lurked in every direction. However, despite Aaron’s nervousness, the false dragons never moved closer or made any aggressive movements whatsoever.

On and on they continued, Aaron so caught up in what he was seeing that he never noticed that even after hours and hours had passed, he had never grown hungry or even tired.

Just where were they heading? The end of the dungeon?

Aaron had heard of the successful destruction of the blasphemous dungeon in Tamar that had been destroyed, but clearly, the dungeon in the Savaren Empire far surpassed what the humans had discovered thus far.

Days passed, and though Aaron grew bored with the monotonous landscape and the boring company, he never stopped being enamored by his surroundings. He was not entirely certain, but he felt that he had seen some sort of lion-eagle beasts flying around, as well as other odd creatures in the air.

After a full week of walking, the troll finally reached the end of the cavern. There, just outside another cave, lay an actual dragon.

Aaron was stunned speechless at the sight of the creature. Even if it was smaller than the false dragons he had seen for nearly a week, there was something more majestic about the dragon.

The small green and brown creature looked at Aaron. A bright intelligence could be seen in its eyes that outclassed anything else the man had seen in the dungeon.

The troll dropped Aaron to the ground, and then simply turned around and left.

The man stood about ten paces in front of the dragon, looking around at the nearby cliffsides that he suddenly realized were filled with silent beasts, all staring at him and the dragon.

“What dost thou desire, human?”