My first cut dug deep, dismantling the creatures scales and hide like butter. Warm blood started to fill the cavern and the beast wailed, its screech so loud the soundwave took me off my feet like a concussive blast. I hit the wall behind me and felt fuzz. I jumped forward just as the wall collapsed inwards into the waiting maw of another creature, something more twisted and evil than the giant wyrm.

This place, deep in The Pass, wasn’t a good place to be. The air tasted stale and it smelled earthy, like loam. One by one eyes lit up in the darkness, woken from their slumbers by the large creature’s bellow. Mana signatures popped up like daisies. Why hadn’t I been able to sense them before now?

I started to move as a tide of moss and chitin smashed into where I had just been standing. Something brushed against my arm, cutting into it and drawing blood. The loamy smell started to turn into something else.

All I could smell now was Iron.

The darkness seemed effervescent, almost tangible, but it constantly kept me on my toes. I moved with my [Mana Detect] more than with my eyes. I realized I was relying on the skill a lot, but I didn't have a choice.

I found the large beast as it tried to burrow underground and, for a moment, I considered letting it escape. I had already injured it, surely it wouldn’t come towards the cistern again…

But then I remembered that this Pass was used by other people, not just our group. Once the creature healed it would cause trouble again. Perhaps it would miss some travelers through sheer serendipity, but others would die if I left it be.

I swung my sword to my left and watched as a wall of fire lit up the dark cave. Insectoids burned alongside monsters made of plants and moss. Two rows of white teeth flashed in that dark cave, forming a strange smile. They were my own.

I dove into the newly dug tunnel, keeping after the large wyrm, wanting to finish the job I started. I couldn’t let such a dangerous creature get away. I couldn’t let such a delicious source of EXP get away.

I still needed another 200 levels before I could be confident in facing Nox, and even then I’d be severely beneath him. He knew how to fight in this post level 1000 world far better than I did, after all.

The tunnel turned and intersected another cave system. I could feel a breeze stirring in this new one, and there were lights shining alongside one wall where blue and clear crystals glowed, their luminescence almost like a fleeting dream. The light vanished as I followed the monster deeper still, down another bend and into more pitch-black caverns.

Up ahead I could hear the beast scurrying, trying desperately to get away. I wouldn't let it. I couldn’t let it!

I started moving faster. Belial’s Blade bloomed with red fire and a sun dawned in that dark world. The monster howled again as I grabbed it and cut deep into its back, bypassing its armor with ease. It started to thrash about, but I didn’t loosen my grip.

With my [Mana Detect] I could see the nodes in its body where its mana was the thickest. I could essentially see its most vital points, and I stabbed Belial’s Blade into those spots like a machine, like clockwork.

A high-pitched scream sounded in the tunnels, the death throes of a creature on the brink of Ascendancy. In that dark tunnel, surrounded by bugs and death, I stood up again. I looked down on my hands, stained red with blood, and I couldn’t help smiling, my mouth curving like a crescent moon.

I repeated the line that I affirmed to myself not too long ago, “I am defined by what I do.”

And what I do is kill monsters. I clenched my fist. In my eyes, the Fae were nothing but monsters too. I would kill them all and I would salt the ground they rose from.

I was living a normal happy life back on Earth, but because of my soul’s strength I was destined for destruction? To become livestock on their shitty EXP farm?

Assuming Nox didn’t lie to me (and why would he even need to?), then all the Fae were nothing but despots, overlords who raped, pillaged, and plundered the myriad worlds to further themselves in their sick endeavors.

And I would need to do the same. If I wanted to get strong enough to rise above this world, to rise above their shitty playground. I needed more and more power… And I needed strong allies I could trust with all my life.

-

I started making my way back through the dark tunnels, following the path I came from. Things were twisted in The Pass, and the tree roots growing through the rock and stone could shift, causing passages to change. Thankfully that didn’t happen to me. I first found the starlight valley of shining gems, and soon I found the dug out tunnels I previously chased the monster wyrm through.

Those tunnels lead me to the room of moss walls, where sleeping insects lied in wait, hoping for another battle to awaken them from their slumber.

Step by step I traced my way back and, after what felt like hours, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I could see the cistern valley… But I could also see a different problem.

In the entrance to the tunnel I was walking out of, sitting in conversation, were the two inspectors from Barbory. They had their maps out and were talking to each other.

I wanted, desperately, to sneak up on them and to see their maps. I wanted to know their plans.

My body melded with the shadows of the tunnel as my Heaven Garb turned a shade of black darker than midnight on a moonless night. I moved with speed and precision, and I climbed alongside the far wall, making sure I avoided their eyes whenever possible.

My [Mana Detect] started to go wild as I approached the men. I could see waves of mana coming off of them, almost like small pulses of radiation, and those waves traveled off through the walls and ceilings of the mountains towards the South.

I realized that the two men were communicating with their home country. One part of me, my lost innocence, wanted to believe they were asking for any updates on The Pass, in case there were any changes waiting up ahead.

The Realist in me understood that they were working as spies for their country, reporting our location and every move. I wondered, for a moment, if they were even sending information about me, too.

It made sense. They were from Barbory and we were a foreign group traveling to their country for medical aid. Of course they’d have someone watch us… But it still felt slimy.

Finally, once I inched close enough, I could hear their voices.

“Do you think the Demon will show herself?” The shorter one asked. He had a small tattoo of a fox on his left cheek.

“I doubt it. They know we’re watching them and, if what we’ve heard about her is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew we were sending regular reports back home.”

“Not all of those rumors can be true, Kasinko,” said the Fox Man. “They sounded more like myth, like a God descended...”

“But the Gods do descend,” replied the man named Kasinko. He was taller and wore a brocade robe. Numerous bangles and silver trinkets adorned him. “We know that better than any other country in the world. One even…”

“Hush, Kasinko. You never know if that Demon is listening…”

-

I almost wanted to laugh at that. The Fox Man was definitely the smarter of the two. While he argued against believing in rumors, he still took their warning to heart.

I finagled around a bit and, after a few maneuvers, I was able to catch sight of the map sitting between the two men. Their conversation lulled and moved on to talking about progressing forward, and they discussed the merits of which path to take and what countermeasures against beasts to employ.

The map itself was a robust thing, with numerous drawings and magnified sections, showing an almost labyrinthine world. I was reminded of the Calico Dungeon once more. That memory continued to haunt me.

I thought about when I rejected RED, I thought about my overconfidence in going to that dinner alone, and I thought about the first man I ever willingly killed, that poor man used as a [Mana Lock] to keep me tied to the return point of the Tartarus Charm.

I clenched my teeth.

I knew the only way to fix this fucked up world was to get rid of the shield blocking the reincarnation cycle that the Fae set up… But the Fae didn’t set up that dinner I went to. They didn’t set up the Prince’s coup. The Fae weren’t the ones that crippled Lily’s legs.

Man’s own evils did that. I did that through my negligence.

I still had a long way to go. I still had a long path to walk.