By the time the last scorpion fell and I trotted smugly over to Glaustro, the demons of the unit were looking at me differently.

Now, there was nothing strictly wrong with the way they looked at me before. There was no unfriendliness or hatred or the like. True, some were resentful over the whole sand issue, but the majority were still more than happy to tolerate my presence, or perhaps ignore it.

Some were even decently friendly. This group was the minority, sure, but they did exist. A few had been willing to chat with me on occasion, providing invaluable nuggets of information about the Abyss.

Still, there had always been one thread that linked them all together: the instinctive, casual disregard for my abilities.

Again, it wasn’t malicious. Some truly did seem to enjoy talking to me. But it was generally understood that nothing I did could kill them. A single strike from my sword would hurt, but it wouldn’t prove crippling in the long run, and it was unlikely I would get a chance to make a second strike.

Now?

Well, perhaps it had much more to do with my sword than with me, but there was definitely a new tension in the postures of my ‘allies.’

Those who actively disliked me due to my environmental advantages, and had said as much, were looking particularly wary.

I was caught between intense satisfaction and the need to frown. Realistically, I still couldn’t take down a demon through legitimate means. However, if the flames spread quickly enough from the blade’s point of entry, there was every chance I could succeed through assassination.

Problem was, I couldn’t exactly do that when everyone was staring at me like I was about to eat them.

“Good work,” Glaustro chuckled when I strolled up.

I had to tilt my head in question at his current situation. My friend and commander had his large hand closed around a demon’s throat, and he was lugging him around like a particularly large dog with a favorite chew toy. The demon looked familiar…

My eyes widened a little as I recognized the man who had killed the butterfly. He still had a cyan stain on his hand.

Carefully constraining the glee within me, I pretended a hesitant tone.

“Um, am I…. interrupting something?”

Bronwynn broke out into cackles while Glaustro frowned thunderously.

“No, you are not. I was just discussing with Feraldon here why it’s a horrible idea to take your frustration out on flora and fauna you know nothing about.” Glaustro shook the demon a little, and he ragdolled in the most amusing manner, head and limbs shaking all over the place.

“So, we’re sure it was the butterfly’s death that triggered the attack, then?” I asked, trying to get Glaustro’s mind off of playing with his new toy.

Really, Feraldon did me a solid. I had been seconds away from killing one of the butterflies myself.

“Correct. I killed another butterfly, carefully, as well as several of the scorpions, so I could study them. Practically all of the butterflies are nothing but shells for some kind of parasite. They release pheromones upon their host’s death that makes them irresistible to the nearby predators, then aim to upgrade to a new, better host.”

I shuddered a little at the description, then squinted at the poor demon’s hand. “Hmm. That kind of stuff can’t work on demons, right? And they wouldn’t leave eggs through their blood or whatever…. Right?”

Feraldon paled and frantically started brushing his hand off on the nearby glowing flora. Glaustro’s grip had him dragging along the ground anyway, so the moss was easily accessible to him.

“Maybe we should test that?” Glaustro wondered idly, his eyes landing on Feraldon. The unfortunate demon froze under those burning orbs worse than a deer in headlights. “At best, it doesn’t work, and then we know. At worst, it’s a single rebirth.”

Glaustro spoke menacingly enough that someone who didn’t know him would actually believe he was willing to follow through, but I could detect the undercurrent of amusement easily enough. The cowering demon had upset him, and this was his minor revenge.

Really, it was exceedingly nice compared to other commanders out there. Those would have just smashed the poor demon’s head open and moved on.

“Maybe we can do that later?” I suggested. “The battle won’t have messed things up for us, I hope. No way the golem wakes up just because of that?”

This finally sobered the mood, and Glaustro dropped Feraldon dismissively. The terrified demon shot me a thankful look, but I ignored him and kept my attention on Glaustro.

“It shouldn’t have,” the sergeant said. “As far as the lieutenant general could tell, the golems require a trigger spell to awaken. Otherwise, they remain in their storm form indefinitely, shrouding the surface of Lagyel with their interference.”

“How close are we, then?” Bronwynn jumped into the conversation as I spared half an eye on tracking Mia.

The cat girl had actually ventured away from me during this battle, putting all of her newfound skills and training to good use as she, too, managed to mow down a respectable number of scorpions. She was collecting parts almost as gleefully as before, and storing them—

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Is that my dimensional pouch? How? When?

I scoffed a little under my breath and shook my head, refocusing on my commander.

“Very close. As far as I can tell, we are some five to ten minutes away from our destination.” He announced the second part in a loud voice, drawing the attention of his other soldiers and sending excited whispers racing through their numbers. “So, be careful. If there are any traps here, we don’t want to spring them.”

“I’m still confused as to why there’s no city here, to be honest,” I admitted, looking around curiously as we resumed our march through the cave. All the glowing flora and the butterflies were a little creepy, and the parasites had to come from somewhere nearby, but that didn’t seem like the kind of stuff to halt the progress of civilization. The caverns were an ideal place to establish a settlement, especially when compared to the surface.

“It’s not a matter of want, I don’t think.” Bronwynn looked thoughtful. “Even the cities we visited were somewhat sparsely populated. As a world, I don’t think Lagyel is welcoming enough for more settlements to exist. If humans were around, sure. Humans breed like cockroaches,” he said teasingly. “But the locals here seem to have much fewer children.”

For some reason, that struck me as nonsense. I wasn’t an expert on the subject, but as far as I knew, one of the best ways for a species to survive in adverse conditions was to have a faster and more productive breeding cycle. The numbers game seemed to be nature’s favorite answer to the issue of high mortality rates among newborns. The idea that mortals on Lagyel didn’t follow the same pattern felt iffy to me, but I simply shrugged.

“Maybe food’s the more limiting aspect, rather than their numbers?”

The conversation quickly devolved into an argument between me and Bronwynn about the survival chances of various species and why Lagyel was so bare. Glaustro looked amused, but he didn’t jump in. He seemed entirely focused on his compass. When Mia finally slunk back and tried to casually attach my dimensional pouch to my waist, I grabbed her wrist and dragged her into our silly discussion, too. To my surprise, she had a lot to say on the subject.

We didn’t get to talk for too long, though. Mere minutes afterwards, we all fell into a shocked silence as the cave we were following suddenly opened up, feeding into an absolutely massive cavern which would have no trouble fitting a city.

All over the cavern, shiny flora ruled. Everywhere I looked, I saw bushes, ferns, even trees, towering and proud in their attempt to scale all the way to the top of their limited space. They almost looked like deciduous trees, with prickly leaves that threatened to stab away any attempts at feeding on them. Judging by the leaves’ crystalline sharpness, I would honestly bet on the tree over anything that tried to nom on it.

More giant butterflies flitted among the various plants, along with the shadows of other animals. I caught brief glimpses of a crystalline doe, something cat-like, a badger of some kind with metallic fur, and many more. There was an entire ecosystem down here, vibrant and thriving.

Maybe we had just entered through an infested cave. All the animals in this cavern looked perfectly healthy. I couldn’t spot any trace of parasitic influence in the crystalline doe or the metallic badger. Even the butterflies here were far more lively and flighty, fleeing at our mere approach.

Overall, the cavern was a beautiful sight, and I wanted to spend at least a few hours admiring it.

Unfortunately, the space was also spoiled by the gigantic golem core embedded in the ground at the very center.

The core coruscated with an inner glow, but otherwise didn’t budge. It was surrounded by a remarkably clean stretch of stone, bare except for the carvings of a runic matrix that centered on the core. I couldn’t tell easily, especially not from a distance, but I thought I noticed some amplification and strengthening runes.

This was smart. Even for a golem as remarkable as this one, maintaining a storm over Lagyel for hundreds of years had to be difficult. Putting some extra runes in place to help it out would minimize if not eliminate the need for hands-on maintenance.

Glaustro took a deep breath. “We’re going to set up. If someone finds any signs of alarm or trigger spells, or anything of the like, do not mess with them. Let me know immediately.”

We began descending carefully into the middle of the cavern. The ground gently tilted downwards, making the overall shape of the space sort of like an American football. The whole way, I could hear Glaustro complaining under his breath about how his job was far too similar to herding hyperactive and unruly children.

Which… fair. I didn’t always make the smartest decisions myself. Not recently, anyway.

Or generally, ever.

I thought back to both my pasts and had to wince a little.

Yup. ‘Generally, ever’ works.

I shook my head, refusing to let myself get distracted. Step by cautious step, we approached the core. All of us were on the lookout for the things Glaustro had named, but neither my eyes nor my mana senses could detect a thing.

Once we reached the rune matrix, which was much larger than I originally thought, Glaustro started to pace along it. Eventually, he nodded and let out a breath of relief.

“So far, everything is as the lieutenant general said it would be.”

He ran his thumb idly along a ring on his pointer finger. Suddenly, a large, rune-covered cylinder with an opening on one side materialized in his hand. I almost jumped at the realization that the ring was a dimensional item, too.

Glaustro carefully paced out some measurements, then lay the cylinder on the ground. Extending a claw, he quickly but carefully began to carve runes around the cylinder.

I watched, transfixed, as the demon worked. It came so easily to him, runes strung together in an endless cycle that reinforced itself with every new component. My understanding of runes was literally improving in real time just from watching him work. When he made a full circle back to where he’d started, I wanted him to continue.

Alas, he’d already placed a total of eight cylinders, and created a full mana matrix to support them. His hand was shaking as he rubbed at his forehead, but he smiled in satisfaction.

“That should do. Now, in theory, our job is simple. From what the lieutenant general could glean and from our experience in the last battle, the waking of a golem is not a fast process. It needs to gather mana, exhume itself from the hidden spot it was placed in, and then finally form up. Our lieutenant general more or less let it happen just to test the golem, but there were several points when he could have acted to diminish its strength or destroy it entirely.”

I wasn’t in charge of the legion, but that sounded as stupid to me now as it had on the day I watched Crewe just stand by and let the golem assemble itself.

But this was not the time to voice my disagreement with the lieutenant general’s whims. There were more important matters at hand.

“So, we just strike now and hope we can damage the core enough to take it out of commission?” I asked.

“Essentially.” Glaustro nodded. “It should work. Really, golems were made to be pre-assembled defenses. The way the jinn are using them is ingenious, but it opens them up to exactly this kind of sabotage.”

Glaustro hesitated, then looked me in the eye.

“I also want you to stab it with that sword of yours as soon as our first volley does its thing, just in case. These golems definitely have souls, so it should work. Don’t worry, none of the runes in this matrix are defensive, which is another thing I’d like to have a chat with the jinn about. It makes no sense, but…”

The demon shrugged, as if to say it worked in our favor, and that was that.

“Okay. I can do that. Sure,” I mumbled, drawing my sword and readying myself to stab a city-ending, region-enveloping golem.

“On my count, then,” Glaustro concluded. He offered me a reassuring smile.

Somehow, listening to him count down to our insane assassination attempt, I did not feel particularly reassured.