It turned out the dangers within the dungeon were… dead.

The flickering light of the torch Rieren had purchased with her leftover Credits threw dancing shadows upon the dungeon guardians’ corpses. She had bought it in anticipation of facing them. The guardians of this dungeon were susceptible to fire damage. Even a simple torch would make most of them wary about facing her directly.

It turned out Rieren wouldn’t be needing it. She should have known that someone would have entered the dungeon and cleared it out. There were more than enough cultivators in Falstrom.

Not that the guardians would have posed a great threat. Just as she remembered, they appeared to be strange, plantlike beings. Some looked like humanoid trees, others were more amorphous constructions of vines and thorns. The actual dangerous ones had more recognizable bestial forms, just with the appearance of having been taken over by plants.

There was one that looked like a hound the size of a waywagon, except it was green all over, covered in a strange, fuzzy fungus. The parasite hadn’t been the cause of its demise, however. No, it had been burned to death.

Rieren forged onwards. “Do you sense anything, cat?”

The winged kitten gave no sign that something was wrong, nor provided her any other kind of warning. But Batcat was even more alert than before on her head. It was standing on all fours, leaning ahead just a little and threatening to tip itself off her temple. Not that Rieren had to worry about catching it. It had wings, after all.

Rieren decided not to deviate from on her path. She already knew the way through this dungeon. All she had to do was follow the trail of dead dungeon guardians. There weren’t any major traps for her to beware either, as far as she recalled.

Though, the stench of burned dungeon guardians was getting rather rank.

Rieren’s unease grew stronger the deeper she went. The farther she went, she was certain this wasn’t the work of any cultivator.

Almost all of them were at the frontier or otherwise busy in the effort to prevent the monsters from overrunning the Shatterlands. Yet, the corpses littering the tunnels were fresh. Many of the bodies were still smoking, and most of the wounds Rieren saw were raw, many still oozing blood. No, this was recent work, and there was no real cultivator to do it.

The corridors twisted this way and that, and there were some empty rooms in her path as well. Eventually, she came to the doors that led into the centre of the main dungeon.

“Ready?” Rieren asked.

Batcat growled low in its throat. Well, that didn’t sound pleasant. Rieren wasn’t certain what to find within the dungeon’s main chamber, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t stop her from her goal of finding the relic. She would get the sword and leave. That was all she cared about. Rieren pushed open the large doors. Her increased Body stat came in handy.

It was dark inside the vast room. Good thing she had her torch handy. Rieren raised it higher overhead to make the circle of light around her spread farther.

Batcat was still agitated on her head. Its fur was now standing on end. Clearly, whatever awaited them had it anxious. The only thing Rieren had seen that elicited that sort of reaction from the kitten was the presence of Abyssals. That there was a monster this deep within the city seemed unfathomable, but then, she was starting to suspect exactly what they might be dealing with.

It was no surprise, then, when a few more steps towards the centre of the room revealed enormous silver strands stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Webs.

The Gravemark Puppeteer was here.

In Batcat’s shoes, Rieren would have been a smidge agitated as well. She pushed aside the feelings, though. Her goal was the relic. Since she couldn’t sense any Essence being channelled anywhere nearby, she ought to be safe enough to search for it.

But Rieren only got to take a single step forward before she had to halt. Hers weren’t the only steps in the enormous chamber.

When Rieren paused, the other set of footsteps didn’t stop. The Puppeteer had to have taken over some hapless cultivator’s body. Now, it was approaching her, having finished destroying the rest of the dungeon to its liking.

Rieren frowned. Those steps… why did they sound familiar? She froze, her eyes stopping their blinking and even her breaths turning shallow. No. It couldn’t be. That was—

Mercion stepped into the edge of her torchlight.

“Hello, Rieren,” he said.

He looked perfectly fine. Rieren wasn’t going to be fooled again. A quick focus of Essence into her eyes revealed the many tiny threads carrying corrupted Essence all over his form. This wasn’t Mercion. This had the trappings of the Gravemark Puppeteer all over.

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Unless, Mercion had been in league with the monster all this time…

“Greetings, Lord Mercion,” Rieren said. “I see you are well and alive. Unless you’re really just a corpse and being possessed by a Gravemark Puppeteer.”

Mercion spread his hands outwards as though to welcome her into an embrace. “I’ve been dead for a long, long time, Rieren. You just failed to notice.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Even when she was looking closer, it was difficult to tell whether Mercion really was alive or not. But there was something just slightly off about the way he held himself. His limbs were held ever so awkwardly, his motion just a bit too stiff and artificial.

“Lies. I would have noticed if you were controlling him from the beginning, Gravemark.”

Mercion laughed. But now, he wasn’t speaking alone. A familiar guttural voice now accompanied his original one.

“I know why thou art here, ye young who are yet old,” it said. It was strange hearing that voice come from Mercion’s mouth. He looked so normal.

“Surrender the relic.” Rieren raised her sword, pointing it at Mercion’s chest. “And I will consider leaving you in peace.”

“Oh, dost thee not care about this body, then?”

Rieren tried to look at Mercion critically once more. She couldn’t be sure in the low light, but he appeared a bit too pale. Like a corpse. But even if he was dead, he ought to be treated with respect. Not desecrated as a puppet for a monster. “Why have you taken over his corpse, Gravemark?”

“What makes thou think ‘tis a corpse already?”

“How else would you have claimed such total control over his entire form?”

The Gravemark Puppeteer laughed. There was nothing of Mercion’s voice in it anymore. “Thy knowledge does not go so far as thou might wish. Fear not, this form yet holds on to some vestige of meagre life. But harken, ye young who are yet old. I will claim the power I seek, and thou shan’t stop me.”

Around Rieren, rustling went up. All around her. Rieren’s throat constricted. All those dungeon guardians the Gravemark Puppeteer had killed were rising again because of the monster and its webs. Mercion alone wouldn’t have posed Rieren a great threat, even if he was being controlled by a powerful Abyssal. But with all the guardians together…

Ah right. All those burns. Rieren had no doubt that the Puppeteer had been the one to kill them in the first place, using Mercion’s skills. And now it was reanimating the corpses to do its bidding.

“We could have settled this more amicably.” Rieren’s words were undercut by Batcat hissing rather aggressively at the approaching monsters in the gloom.

The Gravemark Puppeteer laughed again. “I recall well how thou treated my generous offer. I shan’t be making the same mistake again.”

Rieren lunged. Thanks to her raised Body stat, she was fast enough to catch her monstrous opponent by surprise. She faced no opposition at all in tackling Mercion’s body to the ground and raising her sword high over him.

And then she froze. Something had lashed in from behind to hold back her right wrist. A quick look showed a rotten vine wrapped around her hand like a shackle.

The momentary distraction was enough for Mercion to kick her back. Rieren tried to reach him before he could get away, but the combination of the vine and the Abyssal’s greater alacrity made it futile. Mercion’s body threw itself back as though there was a string attached to his shoulders tugging him rearwards. More evidence that he could not be alive.

“Cease thy measly efforts and continuous tricks,” the Gravemark Puppeteer. Now its voice came from all around her, as though the reanimated beasts were speaking its will. “Thy efforts are futile.”

Rieren slashed through the vine keeping her in place and made to rush to Mercion, but then all the resurrected beasts came in. There were too many. Snarling hounds, roots and vines shaped into serpents, trees twisted hulking like Shadeborns. All of them blocking Rieren from reaching her target, who proceeded to dash away from the site of battle entirely.

“No!” Rieren shouted.

She charged after Mercion, but the monsters were too packed in front of her. Even as she slashed through the nearest ones, several more took their place. She wouldn’t be reaching Mercion so easily.

But that was alright. Even if Rieren couldn’t go after him herself, she had someone who could.

“Batcat,” she yelled over the cacophony created by the undead guardians. “Go after him. Do not let him leave your sight.”

The kitten acted like it had been waiting for Rieren to say something of the kind. It shot off her head as though it had been launched from a sling, zipping over most of the monstrous heads to get into the corridor Mercion had taken.

For a second, Rieren was almost miffed that it hadn’t even waited to see if she would need any assistance against the hordes of reanimated monsters. She pushed the thought aside. They both knew that she was more than a match for the undead monsters strung along by the Gravemark Puppeteer.

Rieren turned around to face the monsters approaching her. The Puppeteer’s actual presence had faded along with Mercion’s departure. If it was still actively controlling the undead monsters, then it was doing so remotely.

As if Rieren needed things to be even easier here.

She summoned her Domain. Water burst outwards, the stormy waves pushing back the monsters before they could reach her. Even that was enough to crumble some of her weaker foes. Those that looked like little more than twigs wrapped together with vines, others that moved haphazardly as though the strings holding them together had been lazily tied.

Several of the rest were relentless, though. Rieren wasted no time attacking those ones directly.

With the power she had obtained from recent achievements and cultivation, this dungeon posed even less threat than the one previously. Her sword sliced through the guardians like a farmer scything crops. All it took was one use of Gale Blade, and she swung through the monstrous horde in barely any time.

When Rieren came to a stop, all that was left around her was a pile of dead plant matter. She could sense nothing further. No more monsters awaiting her anywhere nearby, likely anywhere else in the dungeon at all.

Just to be sure, she headed over to where the relic should have been in the dungeon’s main chamber.

Nothing there. Just a hollow hole. Of course, the Gravemark Puppeteer wouldn’t have left the dungeon without it. Rieren didn’t know how long it might have sat on the old sword of legend, but it clearly hadn’t intended to leave. Her arrival had just forced its hand.

She grimaced. A monster controlling the sword that Rieren needed to save the Shatterlands. Well, she had better get to recovering the blade before this area of the world ended.