The demon sent me off after that, his green eyes sparkling happily at my misery. Before I left, however, I did get him to tell me reluctantly that his name was Bronwynn. It was a small thing, but I felt like I had made some progress in the relationship.

I also still had all my souls. Bonus!

The demon’s revelations, though… well, they troubled me. Deeply.

For one thing, his final comment revealed a lack of faith in my ability to ascend within a hundred years. I rolled my eyes every time I remembered that. If I couldn’t pull it off by then, and I was somehow still alive, then my biggest concern would be arthritis, not the expiration of my contract. Or maybe my new body had better genetics than my old one, which had already started to ache in my late twenties?

Regardless, I now had two brand-new things to worry about.

First was the purchase of the armor and potions Bronwynn had recommended. Second was the revelation that I’d be pitifully weak after ascension if I didn’t find a way to grow my mana, pronto.

As I returned to my sleeping bag, this second problem rose to the top of my priority list. I mean, ‘lesser’ demon didn’t have a great ring to it.

Once again, I found myself desperately in need of knowledge I didn’t possess. The schooling Hayden received before I pulled a body snatcher covered only the very basics of mana manipulation. I wasn’t sure whether this was purposeful, because the demons wanted to keep recruits weak and compliant, or if the knowledge was just too valuable. That didn’t really matter.

What did matter was my need to acquire these skills. Yesterday.

Souls were the most obvious route to such power. If I could somehow get my hands on anything past a basic soul, I could probably get a mana accumulation skill out of it. There had to be something that made higher-tier souls special, and mana was the most obvious explanation, right?

This, of course, meant I would have to murder a local champion.

Or a mage.

Given a choice between the two, I decided to aim for the latter. The elite locals I had seen so far were all physically formidable. The one mage I saw up close and personal, even with all her power, looked frail.

If I could somehow get close to a mage, I stood a real chance.

My one advantage was my Legacy blade. After all Bronwynn’s hints, I was eager to explore all the weapon’s abilities. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the volunteers and facilities necessary for that process.

I had to content myself with my memories.

The next day, as we marched, I focused all my attention on my previous experiences with the sword. After a few moments of concentration, I began to notice some inconsistencies about the weapon.

For one thing, while the blade cut through flesh easily, it had trouble with any other material. I could cut off limbs and heads with minimal effort. Armor, even the thinnest and flimsiest, was another story.

So was fabric. I could distinctly remember a moment when I chopped off a local’s arm. The blade had barely cut through the first half of the peasant’s sleeve, sliced effortlessly through flesh, and then failed to sever the rest of the fabric. The result was a missing arm and a dangling, blood-soaked sleeve.

And lots of screaming, but I silenced that easily enough.

If the sword was so wickedly sharp against flesh and bone, why did it struggle with clothes? Why did I have to aim for gaps in armor to land a hit?

I drew my weapon, ignoring the eyes that immediately turned towards me from all directions. With great trepidation, I ran the blade lightly across my palm.

Nothing. My skin remained unbroken.

I blinked in surprise. Feeling bolder, I pressed the sword’s tip against my palm and pushed.

I might as well have tried to stab myself with a wooden spoon.

Feeling more baffled than ever, I sheathed my sword with a sigh. A glance at Bronwynn showed me that my ‘marching companion’ was watching me with a grin. He clearly found my confusion amusing.

I tried to ask him about it, later that day. He ignored me.

That was okay. Just the knowledge, and confirmation, that the sword I held in my hand meant something was valuable. I gripped the weapon’s hilt as we marched on. I would get my answers somehow and I would find an opportunity to acquire a mage’s soul.

I had to.

Then, a day and a half away from the city, we encountered a pleasant surprise.

Hundreds of humans, knights by the looks of them, had set up camp ahead. Cooking fires belched smoke into the darkening sky as the knights went about socializing, eating, and generally relaxing.

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The demons spotted them from miles away, well before the knights’ mortal eyesight could detect our approach.

For once, this didn’t result in an all-out rush to slaughter the locals who dared stand in our path. Instead, our sergeant called a halt and convened with her officers. She then sent them out through the demonic ranks to give orders to their subordinates, but we mere mortals were left uninformed.

Eventually, Bronwynn couldn’t pretend to ignore the looks I was sending him, and he took pity on me. I silently celebrated my ability to emulate a kicked puppy.

“It’s a scouting party from the city,” he explained. “Not a big deal, except they have a few mages. We need to sneak up on them and either kill them quickly or put up a barrier, to prevent them from sending messages to the city.”

Mages. The mere mention of them sent excitement surging through my veins. There I was, wondering how in the world I’d ever get my hands on mana accumulation techniques, and I had mages in my vicinity!

The trickle-down of orders reached the human recruits at that point. We scrambled to obey as the snarling officers quickly organized us into something resembling an actual army. Then four demons stepped out of the ranks and positioned themselves in a square around the formation, one at each corner. They didn’t even have to chant. Darkness boiled off them and stretched over all the gathered troops, covering the sky before flickering and fading away.

The density of the released mana nearly made me choke. To my surprise, I was one of only a few humans affected. The rest of the mortal troops just kept staring straight ahead, oblivious to the power surging through our ranks.

Sergeant Wilhelmina ordered us into a march then, all in-step and orderly-like, and we drew steadily closer to the humans’ camp. Soon we were only yards away from their tents. I kept expecting them to notice us, but the demonic mana had done its work. The locals remained completely unaware of our presence.

Somehow, this was not good for my nerves.

The demons’ behavior was also unsettling. They were eerily quiet and focused during the whole thing, their faces perfectly blank. This could only mean the encounter was very important to Wilhelmina. If we screwed this up, there would literally be hell to pay.

By the time our procession paused one final time, right at the edge of the camp, I couldn’t even hear the knights’ jovial chatter over the pounding of my own heart.

Our commander drew a pair of wicked-looking daggers, pointed forward, and grinned.

The magical darkness materialized over us again. Then it exploded outwards, enveloping the enemy camp in less than a second. It lingered in the air like a deadly fog, shrouding the whole area, snuffing out the sun’s last weak rays. The only remaining light came from the locals’ bonfires, so when the charge started, that’s what we flocked to.

The humans panicked.

A demonic army materializing inside the camp was bad news for both morale and readiness. We met minimal resistance in the initial charge. I managed to slit a man’s throat and then skewer a woman before they even reached for their weapons. Of course, their training kicked in eventually, and they managed to mount an organized resistance.

That was then ruthlessly demolished by the demons.

The spawn of the Abyss didn’t care about polished armor, sharpened blades, and human training. Even the keenest blades shattered against demonic skin, and armor crumpled like wet tissue paper under infernal claws.

The sudden efficiency of the demons’ assault only hastened my steps. The search for mages pushed me deeper and deeper into the camp, heedless of the defenders trying to rally.

My haste cost me bitterly.

I was slipping past yet another tent when the flap opened and a knight stepped out. He was fully equipped, and by the way, he was holding his weapon, also quite well-trained.

The man’s shock faded faster than mine, and then he was on me.

I barely dodged the first slash, and only because my dagger flashed out, deflecting the blade. I parried the stab that followed, then lashed out with my sword, aiming for the man’s forearm instead of his body. He managed to get his shield between us. His grim expression revealed he was now taking me much more seriously.

The lighting-fast exchange was easy and natural, even though I suddenly realized I had my sword in my left hand and my dagger in the right. This bothered me, but not enough to take my attention from the knight as our clash continued. My mind was entirely consumed by combat, by how to angle my blades just so in order to deflect his attacks without damaging my weapons, by the necessity of lightning speed to take advantage of every opportunity.

Face to face with an actual challenge, I realized something strange. I was enjoying myself.

A lot.

Unfortunately, this discovery also made me want to excel, not just win.

That was when I started… overthinking things.

I had memories of ‘my’ training. Every second of it, in fact. The absorbed soul’s memories were actually clearer than most of my own. But when I focused on them, when I tried to find a path to swift victory, I faltered.

I knew what I wanted to do, how I wanted my body to act, but my actual body wasn’t identical to the one in my memories. My reach wasn’t the same, and neither was the movement style required for my physique.

When I ran everything on autopilot, this wasn’t an issue. Now that I was taking a hard, close look? Well…

It was like forgetting how to breathe, where instead of it happening on autopilot, each breath of air had to be forced manually into the lungs.

In other words, I messed up.

The knight scored a deep, vicious cut right through my left arm. I bellowed in pain and started backpedaling. Pressing his advantage, the knight rushed inside my guard. Then he bashed his shield into my chest and sent me sailing backwards.

I tumbled over the ground, but my grip on my weapons remained firm, and I somehow avoided stabbing myself. Even better, thanks to some benevolent unholy deity or the Abyss itself, my left arm was actually still functional, despite the damage it took. The fear and adrenaline surging through me also managed to knock me back into the groove, drowning out my fumbling thoughts.

That was how I managed to lash out desperately with my sword. By some miracle, it actually stabbed deep into the approaching knight’s right ankle. I had just enough time to angle my dagger as the man screamed and crumpled forward. His face fell directly onto my cold steel, silencing his pain. He did, however, manage to give me a parting gift of agony when his sword found purchase in my thigh.

I wasn’t ashamed of my whimpering as I pushed the man away and struggled to my feet. The wound was not ideal, and I knew I would have to see to it relatively soon, but I pushed myself onward.

I assumed the mages would be at the very heart of the encampment, and I was right. A trio of fancy, colorful tents separated them from the knights of the scouting party. The rich fabric also made the tents rather appealing targets for all enemies.

Including a demon who was laughing as he hoisted three severed heads in front of the crumpled, burning tents.

I almost collapsed as bitterness swept through me. I was too late. I skipped out on weaker souls, got myself ambushed, took two bad wounds, and still failed. I had missed one of the few advancement opportunities I was likely to get.