“Can you move?” A voice reaches his ears. Adrian looks away from the screen, and finally notices the clear eyes of Ji-a, no longer muddled by alcohol.

  “Yes. Sorry, there was this weird attraction from the black hole. I was trying to understand what it was, and lost control of myself.”

  “That would have been dangerous. You shouldn’t do it in your state, you are far too weak for it. But nevermind,” She says, standing over him. “we need to get moving. We have already wasted a lot of time. Let’s go see what is actually going on down there.”

  Adrian nods. He feels a bit weak as he stands up. Checking his status, he finds the cause very quickly.

  “I’m almost all out of Mana,” Adrian says. He has been fighting the whole day, and after the one just now, he has started to run low. Barely at 50 or so mana points, he would barely be able to bring 5 avatars before tapping out.

  “It will be midnight in a few hours. I’m not much better myself, but we just need to hold together. Maybe send your remaining avatars to find whatever they can,” Ji-a says.

  “That reminds me,” Adrian looks at the blinking message of the completed ritual. “I need to get to my room and get the cores from yesterday. I need to upgrade my avatar. It’ll make them much better at understanding the situation.”

  Adrian looks at the direction of his inn. It’s not that far from here, but he just couldn’t help but wonder if there’ll be more enemies on the way. More holes in the world. More absurdity from tonight.

  “Hmm, you can check on your party as well,” Ji-a says.

  Adrian nods. Suddenly feeling something amiss, he turns and looks at where the hole is…

  Nothing. The hole is gone. Somehow sniffed out of existence.

  “Where did it go?” Adrian hisses. If that thing can move and zip around, then the whole floor would be a catastrophic disaster, and not even he will be safe…

  “It’s gone. It came for a life, and it has taken it. Don’t worry about it now,” Ji-a explains from the side, “We need to worry about the hundreds more that are gonna be scattered everywhere. How many more do you think will be in the settlement?”

  Hundreds more? Adrian doesn’t understand why and how there could exist so many of these things. Who can make so many? Is a high ranker really here? He looks at the night sky, and it is still dark, a void of darkness.

  “Let’s talk on the way,” Adrian rushes her, sensing a bad premonition coursing through him. “Can you walk?”

  “I’m not drunk anymore, don’t worry about me,” Ji-a says as she climbs down from the branch. Surely her movements have become too sharp and her voice also normal for her to still be drunk.

  “Was it an upgrade ritual earlier? Something like fighting an enemy while drunk?” Adrian asks, catching up with her. His remaining few avatars follow him.

  “Yes. For my Hidden Hands. ‘Kill an opponent using the skill while under the influence of alcohol.’ This will give me exceptional long range precision with my hands, and also create a ‘Drunk Debuff’ on all my projectiles.”

  “It sounds good.” Adrian agrees.

  “Thanks!”

  “So what do you know about these ‘holes in existence’?” Adrian asks. He really wished to ask her the how of it, but imagined that that would be a long long conversation that should rather not be done while he’s still trying to parkour his way through the top of a giant tree.

  People are rushing along, everyone trying to get off the tree and go into the clearing where things aren’t so hidden. Occasionally Adrian would notice more holes, the presence of two people near it, sound of combat, and then one of them is snuffed out.

  “Black holes! They are created when a star is destroyed,” Ji-a says, stopping behind a building to let the rush of people moving towards them pass.

  “It can only be fixed with the sacrifice of an awakened life. The strength of the awakened Soul can often determine how bright the resulting star would be.” She says.

  “So they become stars? Why?” Adrian asks as they move again, jumping over flames which Ji-a sniffs out somehow, and broken debris of fighting. There is dust everywhere, so much of it that it clouds your vision, and chokes your eyes.

  Adrian would’ve fallen down a long time ago if he had his original Mind.

  “How do you think stars are formed?” Ji-a asks.

  “...from people?”

  “Perfect! Technically they are dead souls given a form in the Spirit Realm and then cast on the real world. It’s a whole process. Interacting with stars is basically the same as interacting with dead souls. Remember the first test?”

  How could Adrian ever forget it. Dead zombified babies who sought to kill him while trying to poison him at the same time.

  With a start he looks at her and asks, almost stumbling upon someone else–only saved by his last minute maneuver– “You’re telling me that was actually real? That something like that can actually happen?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Not exactly that, but yes.” Ji-a says.

  “If dead souls form stars, then shouldn’t there by more stars then just that? I don’t think so few people have died throughout time on their floor,” Adrian asks.

  “Every floor can only have so many stars. So once a saturation is reached, the other souls congregate to other souls, lighting it up with their own light. The stronger soul obviously becomes the core star though.”

  They finally reach his inn. The door to the building is caved in, the insides in shambles. Chairs and tables pushed to the side, the bar stool broken in places.

  All the alcohol is missing.

  Adrian quickly reaches his room, and expectedly, his part is gone. With luggage and all. Thankfully. Only his bag remains.

  He quickly brings out his cores as the night outside becomes more and more chaotic and more and more bright. A yellow-orangey brightness filters in through the window.

  Adrian looks at the cores for the last time before sacrificing it to the Tower.

  Avatar Upgraded!

  Avatar:

  17 mana charge

  Create avatars of yourself to guard your prisoners at your will. Able to share senses and issue orders directly with avatars in range. Can take over one avatar at a time, leaving the main body defenseless. All the life experiences of the avatar once dismissed or dead return to you. The physical and mental familiarity of the creation scales with Mind, whereas the speed of creation scales with Body and Kinesthetics. The range of its function scales with Mystic.

  “What the hell?” Adrian spats.

  He looks at Ji-a who also seems to be upgrading her skill. He waits for her to finish and asks, “Does your skill charge more mana after upgrading?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Mine is suddenly charging 7 extra. Why 7? What is this relation?” Adrian mutters. He takes his bag as they move and looks out of the window.

  In front of them, a tree is burning.

  One of the three trees which makes up this establishment is burning in front of him, the heat waves slamming into him through the window with dust and carbon dioxide. Buildings built upon it are crumbling, a rumbling of continuous cascading branches and buildings follow through.

  He can’t hear screams any more, so either they are already dead, or already out of the trees.

  He looks at the bridge below, and it is still intact.

  “We should go. Quickly!” Adrian says, and orders his avatars to jump first. He tries to share in with their senses, but it feels as impossible as it was earlier.

  “I need to resummon them for the upgrade to work,” He mutters, as he throws his bag and blade at his avatars. Two of them manage to catch his bag, but the last one fumbles the blade and it falls down somewhere.

  The avatar looks at him with his neutral expression and just shrugs.

  I’m gonna dismiss that one first.

  Adrian and Ji-a too jump soon, swaying the branch with their momentum.

  Descent from there is easy, and yet hard at the same time. They have covered a nice distance, but at the same time, the burning flames and the gas is making life difficult for both of them.

  10 minutes later, they finally fully descended. Adrian dismisses his avatars, as he doesn't wish to publicise his ability so openly. Showing it here and there is fine, but not like this. Not when hundreds of faces look at them as they make their way through the burning market just below the trees.

  Soon a distant yell catches his ears. Michael and Finneas are in the distance looking at him, shouting his name. Adrian goes towards them with Ji-a, very certain about the number of eyes tracing him.

  So many people have been attacked tonight. So much death and destruction. It will be weird if they don’t look at everyone with suspicion.

  “Where have you guys been!? We were looking for you everywhere?” Michael quickly takes his arm and moves him through the throng of people, mixing with the crowd. Behind him, Ji-a and Finneas too follow.

  “We were-” Adrian tries to answer, and yank his hand off Michael’s grip, but Michael cuts him off, solidifying his grip on the arm.

  “Save your breath for now. We’ll talk in a while,” He quickly says, as they continue to push past people. Adrian feels a little annoyed at his handling. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely. He had been attacked, and he was just making use of a very bad situation.

  After moving and pushing through very agitated people, he finally finds some familiar faces. His party and his friends bundling together, discussing something in hushed voices. Seeing his coming, they all turn towards him at the same time.

  Leah, being the party captain that she is, comes at him first, “Where were you!? We were worried!”

  Then she notices Ji-a coming with Finneas, her eyes widen a bit, as she leans closer to him and hisses, “For a girl!?”

  Adrian moves away, glaring at her as he yells, “We were attacked. We didn’t mean to stay late. Stop treating me like a fucking child, all of you.”

  Thankfully his voice is drowned by the noise all around him, but many faces still turn to look at him. Which also includes his friends and party members.

  He can see a retort at Leah’s lips, but Matthew cuts her before she can speak, “It’s fine. It’s fine, Leah. He has been through things too. Let’s not blow things up right now, okay?”

  She turns away, instead focusing on the burning tree in front of them. Buren doesn’t say, uncharacteristically silent tonight. He can see a trace of guilt cross Michael’s face, but he ignores him for now.

  From the corner of his eyes, he finds Mark whom he nods at.

  “Are you hurt somewhere?” Himari asks, taking the lead in dispelling the awkward moment.

  “No, we are fine. We were able to deal with the assassin from a distance using my avatars and Ji-a’s abilities. You don’t have to worry,” Adrian says, trying to match Himari’s calmness.

  “That’s good. Good. Do you have any idea who could’ve done this? We also met an assassin, but he ran away seeing our number. Also strange things popped up out of nowhere all across the floors,” Himari says.

  “I-” Adrian has been about to explain things about the stars, but then a memory comes to mind. A logical backdoor that he had ignored unconsciously, but suddenly became too obvious to ignore anymore.

  He looks at Ji-a with questioning eyes, and he is sure that she understands what he’s about to say. But before she can open her mouth, a loud roar echoes through the settlement.

  Everyone turns towards the jungle, the flaming tree behind them just a random thought at that instance.

  More noises follow that roar, and suddenly the jungle comes alive. Birds fly above, but they aren’t just simple birds anymore. It is only the dim lighting from the fire burning behind them that can even see them.

  In all this chaos, they all have forgotten the creatures living in the jungle. They have disturbed their sleep. Adrian doesn’t know it, but as the first creature comes in view without the alarms ringing, he wonders if someone has tampered with the runes.

  The runes whose presence kept the monsters outside is gone, and now they are coming for them.

  #