Glaustro didn’t bother with much preamble. He sent off a chain of messages that quickly gathered the rest of our unit around him, then began pulling heavily on his mana.

The earth under our feet rumbled, shook, and eventually started to shift, rising up from under yards and yards of sand to form a gaping pit with a spiral staircase carved into its walls. Judging from the enthusiasm with which Glaustro immediately started down the stairs, I could only assume he had found something.

Naturally, I followed, both Mia and Bronwynn close behind as we descended into the bowels of the earth.

Our procession was rather large. With around eight hundred demons, and stairs barely wide enough for three people to walk side by side, we had no choice but to stretch out. I didn’t like it, this feeling that the troops in front were essentially cut off from the rear guard.

I also didn’t like the sense of being hemmed into a singular path. I kept eying the wall to my left like something would emerge from it at any second and try to swallow me, even though I knew that was unlikely. If the darkness of the pit was any more inviting, I would have dived into it, both for a chance to stretch my wings and to improve my sense of safety. Unfortunately, the large hole was a little too foreboding for that.

At least we were all out of the sand! Each and every one of us let out a breath of relief at that particular realization. I could deal with the spiral staircase and the ominous pit if it meant a break from the winds and their weaponized grains.

Glaustro then ruined the moment a little by sealing the hole behind the last line of demons.

The passage was plunged into darkness for a second before Methialia’s wings sputtered back into life, shedding a low light over our surroundings. To my shock, this was enough for my mutated eyes to be able to see. Even Mia seemed at ease. Only one or two demons grumbled about it, but they were easy to ignore.

The staircase went on and on. I couldn’t believe how deep we were descending. After ten minutes of nonstop walking, there was still no end in sight. The only thing I could detect below and ahead was the low rumble of earth shifting around, and that was just Glaustro making more stairs for us to descend.

“How deep is this thing?” I eventually dared to ask, then winced as an echo of my words spiraled up and down the passage.

Glaustro shot me an amused look, but he clearly wasn’t amused enough to give me a straight answer. “Deep enough. Just trust me. There’s something down here.”

Forced to put my faith in the demonic sergeant, I bit my teeth and continued walking.

The faith was justified just a few minutes later. Glaustro knew exactly what was coming. He didn’t even flinch when the earth rumbled and a whole section of ground collapsed several yards ahead of us.

Some of the demons behind me were not so composed. A few even yelped in fright, attracting scoffs and cold looks. I didn’t blame them, though.

My own shock was suppressed only by the awe of what I could see ahead of us.

Glaustro’s stairs were leading us down into a cave. The vast space was illuminated by a dim, greenish light from glowing strands of moss and vines. A small trickle of water flowed along the far wall, filled with bioluminescent algae. Along the water’s path and around the glowing vines hung clusters of large, fat flowers.

I couldn’t think of a single fitting comparison to their species from my own botanical knowledge, but they were still dazzling. They came in several muted colors like blue, dark red, and even a very dark purple that was almost black.

Over the flowers fluttered glowing insects, shedding scales or powder trails everywhere they flew. With their bioluminescence and wonderful colors, from pink to sky blue to green and yellow, they could have made for an enchanting sight.

If they weren’t each larger than an average man’s torso, that is.

As it were, the bugs were very much not a welcome sight. I was stuck between the urge to strike them all down for their temerity in daring to exist and the desire to run back up the stairs. Sure, there was every chance they were peaceful, beautiful, harmless creatures. Knowing my luck, though? Yeah, we were about to fight flesh-eating butterflies.

Being the smart cookie I am, I didn’t wait for something to lunge at us. This time, I drew my sword first, admiring the way all the green patterns on the blade left light trails wherever the weapon passed.

“Ready to fight the pretty butterflies?” Bronwynn teased, quirking a brow at me. I just glared at him. When the things tried to eat his face and I refused to help, he would be the one feeling silly.

To my shock, we stepped down onto the cavern floor without accident. The butterflies seemed content to ignore us as Glaustro held up the procession, fiddling with his device. At least when he lifted his head to face us, he did so with a smile.

“I was correct. This is the level we need to be on. We are back on track with reliable directions to the golem.”

He sounded so proud of himself that I couldn’t bear to say anything mean or sarcastic.

Bronwynn had no such compunctions.

“The golem we need to somehow kill on our own, right?” he growled, quietly enough that only our small group could hear. “The extremely powerful kind of golem that was almost a struggle for Crewe to defeat? Oh, that’s great. I can’t wait for us to find it.”

Glaustro flushed before shooting Bronwynn a glare. “I understand your apprehension, but this won’t be the same at all. We know what we’re facing now. High command has left us detailed instructions on how to proceed based on their study of the constructs.”

“A couple more high-ranking demons would have been nice, too.” This earned Bronwynn an even harsher glare, but he just grinned. “Oh please, what are you going to do? Punish me for my cheek?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There was something in his tone of voice that made Glaustro scoff angrily and look away, but I couldn’t for the life of me pin it down.

“Let’s just find the stupid thing,” Glaustro snapped, “and try not to trigger it somehow. Your personality is probably not enough to make it want to wake up and kill you, but we can never know for sure.”

This time, Bronwynn was the victim of several quickly hushed chuckles. If I was one of them, he couldn’t prove it. And if he somehow did, I was more than happy to drag Mia under the bus with me.

Glaustro confidently strode forward, leading the front lines into the cavern and slowly freeing up space for more of our unit to venture off the stairs. This was a good thing. They were getting antsy, and antsy demons don’t tend to make the smartest decisions.

As we pushed deeper, I was further distracted from all the Bronwynn-drama by one of the butterflies deciding to circle around my head. It almost looked like it was eying a good place to land, which I did my best to discourage with plenty of arm-waving.

I wasn’t the only one experiencing this particular issue. A couple yards back, one of the demons snarled out a curse before slamming a neon green butterfly into the wall next to him. Startlingly cyan blood splattered all over the place.

The more paranoid among us froze, watching the other insects for any signs of rage or preparation for a revenge-swarm. Instead, the butterflies fled. They vanished into the darkness of the cavern with astonishing speed. In less than a minute, I couldn’t spot a single insect buzzing around us.

“Huh.” I tilted my head to the side. An odd tension lingered in my belly, like everything was about to go wrong. Still, if the butterflies weren’t particularly murder-y, then all the better for us…

I had barely finished that thought when the walls of the cavern started to shake.

Immediately, I looked to Glaustro. “What’s happening? Is this you?”

To my growing fear, the wide-eyed demon shook his head. “No, it’s—”

Claws tore through the walls, and then a host of crystalline scorpions surged out, all madly dashing towards the remains of the smashed butterfly. One of the scorpions, a particularly large specimen, was already emerging from that very spot. It hiss-bellowed in victory as it swallowed the insect’s carcass.

For a few seconds, we all just stared in horror, tracking the progress of the dead butterfly through the scorpion’s translucent insides. But then, we had much bigger things to worry about.

Literally.

The scorpions were all at least twice the size of the dog-sized versions we had fought before. Their carapaces were much thicker and tougher. On top of all this, they just looked healthy in a way the previous ones did not.

They had also finally noticed us, and were now starting to swarm.

Disgust and a pinch of fear rushed through my body. Then, along with a trace of my mana, the emotions slipped into my sword.

The blade responded by igniting with emerald flames.

I almost dropped it in shock. Only the deeply engrained instinct not to relinquish my weapon prevented me. My eyes fixed on the flames, noting that they appeared to be surging from the engraved patterns Crewe had left on my sword.

Then I was a bit too busy getting swarmed by scorpions to pay any more attention to my weapon.

Mia was protecting my right side, but no fewer than six of the things were already closing in on my left. I needed to take them out before they could bring those tails of theirs into play. Neither Mia nor I had gotten stung during the previous encounter, and I intended to maintain that record.

I surged forward, aimed, and tried to chop off one of the scorpion’s limbs.

Before, I had managed to pull off this maneuver thanks to thinner carapaces, the relative fragility of the creature’s limbs, and my inhuman strength. My sword had contributed only its capacity to sever the soul.

This time? The blade sank through the creature’s body like a hot knife through butter, even though it was eventually stopped by a thin layer of armor.

Pushing my luck a little further, I used the thing’s moment of agony as an opportunity to deal a second blow. This one was meant to connect solidly with the top of the creature, right against the thickest part of its carapace. The cut wasn’t perfectly smooth, but my blade did get through, sinking deep into the scorpion’s body.

The beast went still as the familiar weight of a soul crystal materialized in my pouch. I noted that the carcass did not have any visible burn marks from the emerald flames, but I didn’t care.

A feral smile took hold of my features as I ventured into the fray, slashing and hacking with wild abandon. I didn’t go all-out cackling like I did in the previous scorpion battle. Still, it was so liberating to see demons struggle while my weapon tore effortlessly through insectoid bodies, reaping souls and leaving corpses for Mia to harvest later.

My rampage only paused when my eyes fell on the biggest specimen, the one that had claimed the butterfly. This one was twice the size of its kindred, but it wasn’t in any condition to fight me.

The large creature was swaying like it was drunk, legs scrabbling to keep it upright. I would have thought it was sick or crippled if not for the fact that I could see through to its insides.

The butterfly carcass had reached a sack-like organ within the scorpion, probably a stomach of some kind. Tendrils were unfurling from the former butterfly, digging into the scorpion from the inside. The butterfly was rapidly shedding its own body, revealing nothing but an empty husk that leaked cyan fluids. And those fluids were spreading. Already, they covered roughly a quarter of the scorpion’s body.

Now, I wasn’t exactly an expert on all things biological and supernatural, but if I had learned one thing from the video games I played in my past life, it was never to give my enemies the leisure of transforming right in front of my eyes.

So, like the little go-getter I was, I surged forward and stabbed my sword as deep as I could into the creature’s body.

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t too deep.

The beast’s enormous size, coupled with much tougher armor, meant only half my blade managed to get in. I was just about to pull the weapon out and try for another blow when the creature started twitching again.

But this twitching was different. The previous scrambling was the result of a butterfly-parasite turning the scorpion into a puppet. This felt more like pure pain and absolute panic. My guess was only proven correct when the scorpion released a tortured shriek, then started scrabbling madly to do something.

I retreated to avoid its flailing limbs, but my sword was still buried inside of it. No way I was going to leave the weapon there.

I glanced around to see if I would get some support fighting the thing, only to find more than a few of the nearby demons staring at the scorpion in silent horror. Confused, I turned back, watching both the beast and the beast inside of it freak out.

There was thrashing, there was bashing into the wall repeatedly, and the dark tendrils of the parasite within the scorpion were spasming out all over the place. Thankfully, the torment didn’t last long. Only a few seconds later, the scorpion collapsed, and both creatures fell still.

I was about to reclaim my blade when I realized there was no reassuring weight of a new soul slipping into my purse.

Is it really dead? I mused. Or is it faking, somehow?

I decided to ask the experts. “Hey,” I said, turning to a group of demons, “is this thing still alive, or…”

I trailed off when every demon in the vicinity jerked away from me, looking vaguely ill.

Finally, one of them saw fit to answer. “It’s dead. Thoroughly. Just… keep that sword away from us.”

I frowned, stepped forward, and wrenched my blade out. It looked just as immaculate as before. The flames had been starting to gutter out, but they surged back into life as soon as my hand on the hilt gave them access to my mana again.

The demons have an issue with my sword? But… oh, ooooooh.

I grinned down at my weapon, and at the Abyssal flame that wreathed it.

I hadn’t given much thought to the prickling warmth in my chest, past a slight annoyance at the constant discomfort it caused me. Putting up with that, though, in exchange for a flame that could directly assault the soul of my enemies?

Definitely worth it.