~~~Caffeine~~~

Dearest Human did only thinking all day for lots of days, but Caffeine didn't mind. He got lots of good cuddle naps. Sometimes with belly rubs!

When he got thirsty, he would go play with Croaker at the dangerous water. When he got hungry, he would run very fast back to the food place, where Food Human would give him lots of chicken! Food Human was the best!

Caffeine even got to play chase with Beast Lord again! Not just Beast Lord either. Lots of dogs played chase with him. It was the best! They chased so much!

But then Beast Lord accidentally ran into a giant death stream! Caffeine was very frightened, but he had to save his friend! So he risked his life to save Beast Lord from the deadly water. It almost killed him, but he dragged Beast Lord to safety. Then he had to shake the wetness off before he died!

Very scary!

He couldn't believe it when he saw a new big dog just standing in the deadly wetness! "Run!" Caffeine barked a frantic warning. "Before the wetness gets you!"

The new dog stood up almost like a human and lifted his front legs even higher. He was very big! Then he roared in terrible pain! "Have you come for my head, Beast Lord? I will not submit without a fight!"

Beast Lord ran away.

Caffeine woofed sadly at the Big Dog and eyed all the dangerous wet stuff between them. "He is too scared to help, but if you can get closer, I will be your friend and save you from the wetness!"

Big Dog stopped standing up and fell down with a big splash. He must be so tired... The wetness was killing him! Then he grabbed a fish out of the water!

Caffeine understood. Big Dog was only alive because he had food to save him from the wetness! Caffeine knew what the best food was. The only food that could save his new friend, Big Dog.

Chicken!

"I will bring you Chicken, and you will be okay!" he barked and then ran back to the food place as fast as he could.

"Holy shit! What was that!?"

There was a lot of noise, human shouting, and flying stuff when he got there, but all the Best Food Humans had chicken!

"Please give Chicken for my new friend!" Caffeine begged with his best hungry whine.

Two of the Best Food Humans made pain noises and smelled like upset, but Very Best Food Human only made a happiness noise. "Hi, Caff. I'm guessing you're hungry?"

"Yes!" Caffeine barked. He was hungry! "Chicken!" Then he remembered why he was here. "Not for me! I need to save Big Dog!"

"Here you go," Best Food Human said something and put down a big piece of Chicken!

Caffeine gobbled up the tiny piece in one bite... then gagged and dropped it back on the floor. Oops. I almost ate Big Dog's Chicken!

Instead, he grabbed it and, very carefully, didn't swallow the snack while he ran back to save Big Dog.

He found Beast Lord with his whole family waiting beside the wetness. They were all good dogs that liked to play chase! Now they had come back to help save a new friend. They were very good dogs!

"Beast Lord, we have no quarrel with Crushing Blow," Beast Lord's mom said. "The bear defends this region of the clean lands and does not stray into our territory."

She was a good dog. She took very good care of her family. Like how she was teaching Beast Lord something even when they were so close to the deadly wetness! He wanted to tell her she was a good dog, but his mouth was full of Chicken... Chicken!

He dropped it and howled to Big Dog, "I brought you Chicken!"

Big Dog stood up very tall again. "Is this your challenge, Beast Lord? You seek to poison me with the Human's tainted meat? Very well, I will meet your challenge with another."

He fell back down with a very dangerous splash and kicked a wiggling rope out of the wetness. It landed right beside Caffeine.

"Retreat!" Beast Lord's mom barked something, and all the dogs jumped away.

"Eat that if you dare!" Big Dog roared.

Caffeine looked at the wiggling rope. Eat a rope? He did like to chew on ropes sometimes... especially when Dearest Human played tug!

The wiggling rope jumped closer and hit him with tiny little teeth. He never knew ropes had teeth...

Debuff Resisted: [Drowning Venom]

It tried to hit him again, and Caffeine ate the rope in one bite.

Debuff Resisted: [Two-Step Toxin]

The rope was very spicy. It made his mouth tingly. He never knew you could eat ropes... or that they could taste so interesting!

"You are a Good Boy!" he thanked Big Dog. "But Chicken is still the very best snack!"

Big Dog looked like he didn't believe it, but he started walking through the wetness with big steps. "Very well, Beast Lord. You have met my challenge, so I will eat this thing you call Chicken."

"Hi," Caffeine said, wagging his tail happily when his new friend had finally escaped the wetness. "I'm Caff Caffeine. We should be best friends!"

Big Dog took a big bite of the Chicken and then stood there.

"Chicken is the best!" Caffeine barked while spinning in excited circles. "Isn't it!?"

"Yes," Big Dog huffed. Then he grabbed the Chicken with his feet, just like Caffeine liked to do when something was very good.

Caffeine watched his new friend eat and licked his lips. Then he felt Dearest Human get very loud!

Dearest Human was excited and not frightened, but then worried, and Caffeine realized he hadn't checked on Dearest Human in a long time! "Bye, new friend! I will play later!"

He ran. Running was the best!

~~~Stanley~~~

Stanley wasn't sure if his Eye of the Storm trait was helping or not. It should be. Since he was meditating almost non-stop. The only question was if it helped with soul repair or just meditation.

Unfortunately, he had nothing to compare it to since he hadn't needed to fix his soul before getting the skill. Or rather, fortunately. It was fortunate that he had nothing to compare with...

Still, he felt like it was helping. It should also help with Still Mind... though he wasn't sure what boosting that skill did. Maybe increasing the cognition speed? Or did it also boost the mind attribute gains? If it did, he never saw it on his status.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He'd used the skill a few more times, intentionally. The first test had been to work on the soul wound. It worked. With the skill active, he'd gone hyper-focused and made great progress. The problem was that, without emotions, he always pushed too hard.

It turned out that a little fear might be better for self preservation...

Of course, Caffeine always snapped him out of it when things got to that point. He'd then have to recover for the rest of the day... so he wasn't sure if the gains were worth the cost. Mostly, he saved the skill for days when the nightmares were extra bad. When he really didn't want to feel anything for a little while. It was good for that.

It was good enough that he felt no remorse about choosing the skill instead of the attributes. His stats were fine. Beyond fine. They were great. His soul wound was the weak link. It was the only thing slowing him down. If the repair wasn't such a fragile endeavor, he'd have finished it already using brute force.

At least he had Caffeine for entertainment. The past however many days of this had been him watching the pug befriend literally every living thing he came across inside the purified zone. It got stressful occasionally, but Caffeine was living up to his class. He never took even the slightest scratch.

That alone was enough for Stanley to be happy. Though it made him feel worse about all the times Caffeine had gotten hurt on his behalf.

Speaking of friends... Caffeine had just met another animal. Stanley couldn't tell what it was, but its soul was wary. Not directly hostile. Not like the tiger. It felt like it was weighing a decision...

The wolves were with Caffeine, so worst case, they would help if a fight broke out. Not that Caffeine needed help.

Seal

Stanley sealed another bit of his soul together while he watched Caffeine's soul zip back to Nate's base, then back to the wolves and the new soul. He was very excited about something... Had he grabbed a snack? It felt like Jerry's soul had reacted to the visit.

Seal

Have fun, Caff. You deserve... Something changed. Stanley didn't see notifications while in his meditation, but he had a hopeful feeling about what he would find upon leaving.

Debuff: [Critical Soul Wound(Rune Seal)(Shielded)]

-1 Twin-Soul Attribute per 12 days

It's working. I can fix it! He'd known that it would work... on some level. But finally seeing a change to the debuff after days of work really helped to confirm it. "Fucking yes!" Stanley screamed his success to the sky, then clenched his fists. I'm going to fix it, Lee. Hang in there... I'll fix our soul and get out of this fucking prison... I will make it home!

Caffeine appeared in a burst of wind and dust, already in Stanley's face, his tongue smacking in between the happy barks that rattled the trees.

"Good boy, Caff. Best boy ever!" Stanley followed up his words with vigorous, full body scratching that only amplified Caffeine's excitement until he took off sprinting in circles.

Stanley chased after him, adding to the excitement.

He didn't stop chasing until the panting pug finally bounded into his lap and rolled over for belly rubs. Then he checked his status while administering the well-deserved belly scratch.

Status

Name: Stanley Cascade

Race: [Wrathstorm](E-grade Human)

Titles: [Titan Slayer] [F-grade Source]

Traits: [Adaptable](57%) [Source Nexus] [Wrath] [Eye of the Storm] [Source Burned] [Ruthless Soul]

Class: Soul Psionic (Epic) - Level 90 (Advanced)

Class Skills: Mind Over Matter (Legendary) - Level 68 (Advanced) | Premonition (Epic) - Level 42 (Intermediate) | Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) - Level 45 (Intermediate) | Harmonic Soul Meditation (Rare) - Level 55 (Advanced)

Attributes:

Strength: 130(+60%)208

Vitality: 128(+152%)322

Dexterity 132(+60%)211

Wisdom 227(+1181%)3199

Intelligence 228(+1181%)3212

Willpower 243(+2091%)5615

Twin-Soul 98(+495%)583

Non-Class Skills 2/6: Soul Awareness (Epic) - Level 45 (Intermediate) | Psionic Barrier (Rare) - Level 15 (Basic)

Buff: [Soul-Link]

Debuff: [Critical Soul Wound(Rune Seal)(Shielded)]

Nate had kept his word. Regarding keeping the cores coming, at least. As for the other stuff, well, Stanley was working on letting it go. It probably wasn't Nate's fault. Sure, he'd sent Stanley to find Zeke, where he'd almost died, where he'd unleashed the source and gotten another even worse monster hunting him down.

Stanley felt his anger rising... and let it go with a long exhale. He wouldn't be angry today. His soul wound was getting better, he was more powerful than ever, and so long as he didn't think about certain unpleasant memories...

"Caff, you want to go see your other friends? Like Princess?" He'd put off visiting them for too long already, and with his new confirmed progress, this was a day to celebrate. He also kind of wanted to test his massively increased power against a lair—the lairs full of monsters that were also constantly getting stronger. Hopefully, he hadn't fallen behind. That would be just perfect, wouldn’t it?

Of course, Caffeine scrambled upright the moment he heard the word go. He didn't know where they were going, but he was absolutely down for it. Classic Caffeine.

Stanley took to the sky but hesitated before heading out. The tower was supposedly short on food. What if he brought them one of Nate's giant chickens? Birds eat other birds, right? Cheesesteak wouldn't mind eating a chicken, would he? He and Adrian were the ones he wanted to thank most, the first for saving his life and the second for... probably the same thing. At the very least, Adrian had suffered a lot when Cheesesteak temporarily died.

Princess should be fine with chicken. Didn't wild foxes regularly hunt chickens? Stanley wanted to get on her good side too; he was both anticipating and dreading the chance to communicate with Caffeine. What if Caffeine hated him?

Stanley shook his head and flew toward where he suspected the chicken lair to be. He was being stupid. He'd seen Caffeine hate someone or something only a few times. All of them had been undead. The pug, panting happily in his lap, loved almost everyone he met, sometimes even when they tried to eat him first.

The chicken lair wasn't a standard lair. A variety of different colored and sized chickens roamed around a long row of identical buildings. A chicken farm turned lair. There was even a group of humans already there, picking off birds from the edges of the flock.

It was only when he got there that Stanley realized Caffeine might be a problem. If he wanted to be friends with the chickens... He sighed and grabbed one, dragging it up to eye level. Might as well find out.

The giant bird twitched its head and stared at him. "Bawk!" It kept staring. "Bawk!" Caffeine woofed at it. "Bawk!"

"I think they're really stupid, Caff." Its soul was one of the simplest he'd ever felt... just hungry. It didn't even seem to notice it was in the sky... or it didn't care. "Let's go, bird. I'll give you a nice last flight before you become someone’s dinner."

He had no problem carrying the bird while it was alive. It was completely effortless and nothing like any previous living creature he'd ever carried. It was either a very weak monster or a good sign for his new power level.

Stanley kept Soul Sight running as he headed out of the green zone. He felt stronger than ever, but you never know. It also let him see just how much things had changed outside of Zeke's purification—a stark contrast that really brought home the fact that the undead were not gone.

In fact, the miasma was winning.

So maybe saving Zeke had mattered more than he'd initially thought. If only for access to food... Stanley had glossed over that little tidbit in his bitterness. Maybe the undead also wanted him more than I thought?

Or did they not really care? Zeke's purified area was only a small patch of resistance in an otherwise massive zone of corruption. Even some of the lairs he passed weren't immune.

The monsters inside weren't undead, not yet, but their souls had a familiar tinge of rot to them. They were losing the battle. How long until the entire city and surroundings were all undead? What would happen then? Could the invaders command them if that happened? Would everything in the dungeon march on Zeke?

Stanley didn't fear that eventuality too much, but it was a big dungeon... he hadn't even explored half of it. Just how many undead monsters would there be if it all fell to the miasma? When a never-ending tide of undead crashed against Nate's little shipping container walls or assaulted the tower, how long would they last?

He dropped closer to the ground before reaching the city proper and zeroed in on a corrupted lair. It wasn't big. Nothing close to the scale of the skyscraper lairs. So he sent his mind inside to touch all the corrupted souls he could see from the sky.

Cut

There was barely a dip in his energy by the time everything died. Sure, it was only around a hundred monsters, but it was cores. Gathering them up felt almost nostalgic as he dragged the glittering rocks to his hand.

Then he flew to the next lair and tried something different.

Burn

There was some screaming... but only from the souls of the queen and her stronger guards. The rest burned too fast to scream. It was good, but it felt unnecessarily sadistic when he could just cut them down without resorting to burning them alive. Though, if he met another invader...

Ideally, he should scour the dungeon with Soul Sight until he found the invader's hiding spot, then burn them to the ground! He should be strong enough to deal with even the immortal skeletons... at least the E-grade ones. The lack of another D-grade coming after him or Zeke this whole time had him leaning toward the suspicion that there wasn't another one in here.

Unless they were too scared?

That couldn't be it. Another D-grade with soul magic would probably kill him easily... Since they hadn't yet, he was safe. For now. It was the only reason he'd flown out here alone with Caffeine.

As for scouring the dungeon, fixing his soul was a higher priority. The E-grade skeleton had also used soul magic, and while he didn't fear taking on an E-grade right now, it was better not to risk it. Unless they came after him, then he would kill...

Something appeared inside his domain without warning. Directly next to his head...