A soundless gasp escaped Mila’s lips as her consciousness returned to her body. The sweet moments spent in the middle of nothing, watching the boundless skies, had been a welcome respite…

… And far, far too short.

Mila’s fingers clenched as she slowly got used to feeling pain again. When it was constant, it was easier to ignore it. But now she had been thrown back into a sea of agony.

The dagger was gone, and for a moment, Mila panicked, thinking the old fart had lost it. But a second later, she felt the reassuring presence of her weapon at her hip. She retrieved the dagger while checking her condition.

…It wasn’t as bad as Mila remembered. She certainly felt better. Almost ready for a fight. It would still be a tall order to beat someone formidable, but she could move. Her limbs listened, and her head didn’t swim… as badly.

The tiredness was still there. The soreness, the delayed reaction, the odd stabbing pain here and there when Mila moved. It was just less than before her little pause. There was nausea that hadn’t been there before, but it was manageable with just gagging a couple of times.

Whispering a thank you to her ghostly teacher, Mila turned away from the minced pieces of what had once been several bodies. It was better not to know what exactly they had been because she knew they had not been human. At least not fully.

Perhaps another version of the monsters Mila had encountered before? The brush of the old being's anger against her tiredness made her drop the line of thought.

Instead, Mila pushed open the doors leading closer to the centre of the operations. The voices were still there, discussing, arguing and bickering - none the wiser of her approach.

Mila stepped inside the next room. To her surprise, this one was only half-filled with the pipes feeding the blood into the ritual. All of them vanished into the ground, out of her sight. She felt the concentration of mana being even higher below the floor. Still, it was hard to tell if it wasn’t just her imagination.

On the far side of the room, Mila saw a pile of corpses. All of them had their throats slit, blood pulling beneath them, igniting and agitating the mana around. All of them had once been guards and the retainers of the nobles if she judged their attires and weapons correctly. None of them looked like one of the nobles.

And they all had been slaughtered for just a drop more of the precious fuel. Mila averted her eyes from the sad sight. That was not how the loyalty and trust should be rewarded.

There was nothing else in the room, and when Mila didn’t receive any warnings, she proceeded straight to the next room, where the voices were.

“-YET!”

“Don’t patronise me. Your grandfather-”

The conversation was cut again. The construction trembled but endured. Mila stepped inside the pool of blood, crossing it to the doors. She put her hand on the doorknob and gently turned it.

Without much effort, the doors slid open. Mila prepared to jump back, to dodge, to fight back, but…

Strangely, nothing happened. The voices didn’t seem to notice Mila’s approach. But why? Surely, they had ways to detect her. Unless the old meddler had done something to shield her in addition to Mila’s running spell of stealth.

“-for years! And now you-”

The argument seemed to be heating up. Mila poked her head through the doorway, looking for the sources of these voices.

What Mila found was a large, round, open auditorium full of people. Three other doors lead into the room, which she immediately noted. It was a good practice to keep the escape routes in mind.

Mila was currently standing at the back of the gathered crowd, who sat in their seats, ready to depart from this shitty world. They sat mostly in silence, with just a few murmurs travelling through the watchers as they observed the stage at the centre.

Then Mila turned her eyes towards the centre of the room to look at the giant, spinning ball of mana. The concentration of energy was so great it was visible even with the naked eye.

It was still growing, fed by the fuel coming up from beneath the ground. Mila suspected there was a sizable reservoir down there.

While the ball was smaller, it mirrored the imitation of the sun high above the ground, hanging from what once had been a ceiling.

And it was hot. Mila wrapped herself in her spell, struggling with the control. The spinning ball seemed to ravenously reach out to her, sniffing around and attempting to rip her mana out of her body.

But Mila endured. She resisted the pull and managed to keep her spell running, if barely. Sweat began pouring down her back and brows as she stepped inside.

“-immediately!” The posh, garishly dressed man yelled at Mortimer’s father. Next to him stood four grim-faced guards, releasing invisible pressure against the mastermind behind this mess.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“It cannot be done! The ritual is not ready yet!” Zemny didn’t back down and hissed. “We need-”

“You had enough time!” The noble didn’t relent. The crowd released a murmur of agreement.

Mila shuddered as the eyes of the doorguards skimmed past her. She hadn’t noticed them at first. But at least three people were observing the doors. They were not the most keen-sighted guards, but they were powerful.

Or at least looked like they were. Mila’s mana sight was still useless. It just blinded her. But in turn, the concentrated energy also made other ways of finding cloaked intruders useless.

Luckily, the guards had been more interested in the spectacle on the pedestal at the centre of the room. But by now, their interest had fully switched to the open doors and were skulking back towards them, waiting for the intruder to enter. While they hadn’t noticed Mila yet, she could not linger.

With that in mind, Mila stumbled further inside and hid behind the seats. She held her breath as her body came to a stop behind a fat, greasy woman who was leaning on even fatter pig-like man.

The guards reached the doors right after, opening them and exiting the place to see who had opened them. They wouldn’t find anyone. Mila had to vanish in the crowd before they alerted the rest of the gathered people.

“-will reach us soon.”

“Lazlo’s illusions won’t allow them. They will die in vain.”

At this point, a new voice joined the rest. “You experiments are-”

“PERFECT!” Zemny screamed.

This caused the whole hall to seethe with displeasure.

“SILENCE!” The Noble ordered, his anger thundering over the quaking ground. The silence returned to the room. “And you, Zemny. Do not speak this way to me. Ever.”

Now, it was clear how Mila had not heard more voices. It seemed that there was a clear leader in this flock of chickens.

Not chickens…

Mila corrected herself. While the duo of nobles she was hiding behind were repulsive, she also saw several people who were clearly battle-tested. They had their weapons. They kept searching for any possible danger and had their most trusted aides close by.

While calmer, Zemny didn’t back down in front of the noble. “As I was saying, the ritual is about to be completed.” He studied the ball of energy behind him. “We need just a few more potent souls to join us before our journey starts.”

“More?” One of the retainers next to the leader of nobles growled. “We already slaughtered our comrades.”

“They were not potent enough.” Zemny airily shrugged the accusations in the retainer's tone away. “And keep your dogs on the leash, Azan.”

“They have earned their voice, Zemny. You, who never trusted others, you would not understand.” Azan smugly admonished.

“Don’t act as if you are any better than I.” Zemny spitefully returned. “Our hands-”

“We did what we had to. Oispio would have killed us all. I did it for my family while you…”

“Watch your tongue,” Zemny growled.

“You didn’t even tell him you are still alive.”

“He was… Still is - a failure.” Zemny didn’t continue arguing. “...If only all our batteries had survived until the last moment.” He lamented. “We wouldn’t had to wait.”

There was a scoff from Azan. “It was due to your instructions the sheep were positioned so far from here. It was impossible to defend those positions, to begin with.”

“It had to be that way.” Zemny became more animated. While Mila wriggled herself under the seats and began crawling towards the centre of the room, the man continued to speak. “Even I don’t fully understand the workings of this marvel. My modifications were already the limit of human understanding.”

Mila felt her inner teacher jeer. The feeling of disgust, fury and more almost overwhelmed her. She tried to send calming thoughts towards the ghastly menace, but it did little to nothing.

It didn’t help that Mila wasn’t calm herself. As she neared the spinning mana ball, the control of her mana started to slip. She had to pause under one of the seats to regain a grip on her spell.

A sound of doors opening and a shout of surprise travelled through the room. Someone new had entered. Hopefully, the new arrival would cause a distraction because Mila didn’t trust herself to be able to keep herself hidden when she got closer to the control point at the centre of the room.

“Lazlo! Why are you here?” Zemny was surprised. “You should be-”

“The outer defences have been breached. Everyone outside the walls is dead.” A new voice announced, earning a new wave of agitation above Mila’s head.

“How? They should have…”

“Sir-” Another voice inserted itself in the growing commotion.

“The wall has been breached. Most of the traps have been discovered and-”

“Sirs!” The new voice insisted on being heard. “Uh-” It hesitated after getting the attention it had wanted. “These doors opened a few moments ago, but no one came in. We went out to check and discovered the special soldiers dead a couple rooms out.”

“WHAT!” Azan’s voice rose above everything else. “Check the room!” Came an immediate order. “Search everywhere!”

Zemny had other worries in mind. “What about MY darlings? What killed them?” He tried to yell over the unrest.

The guards tried to explain, but Mila didn’t have time to listen. She had already learned the most important part.

Now, Mila and her Master had a clear target in mind. Zemny was responsible for the horrific sins happening down here. He had to die.

Bloodlust washed over Mila’s emotions, making her feel like a small boat in the middle of an ocean during a terrific storm. Aaers kept pouring more and more of his murderous intention into Mila’s soul.

“-stop…” Mila wheezed out. “Stop!” She demanded louder.

And while the oppressing feeling did become tolerable, Mila had to endure its continued presence. She received very clear orders - get closer, kill the man, and interact with the ritual.

Very simple. Except…

Mila frowned as a few guards combed the lines between the seated nobles. How was she to do that with the room at the peak of alertness?