Beneath the trapdoor inside the keep, Tybalt clutched the ladder and tried his best not to breathe too loudly.

  The space was lit only by the gentle glow of the sword he held in his right hand, which he was now using like a weak lantern, to look around the space.

  He could hear every movement of the monsters above as they searched what remained of the building for him—he had listened in astonishment as the building seemed to crumble away to nothing rather than collapsing with a loud crash.

  And he waited.

  Tybalt was not even certain what he was waiting for now. For the monsters to pull the trap door open? For his hiding place to crumble around him?

  There was no point in coming out, though. That much, he knew. The heavy footsteps he heard all around his position told him that the monsters were there in force, though they seemed to have no idea where Tybalt was.

  They spent several minutes stomping around searching for him.

  Then Tybalt almost swallowed his tongue.

  Because the heavy footsteps all moved a little further away, and a much lighter tread replaced them.

  Is it possible…?

  The skeleton mage had really decided to investigate the ruined keep itself.

  Yes. Yes…

  Tybalt waited, and he listened. The footsteps moved back and forth in the keep. They moved closer and then further away. Then they moved back toward him.

  As the skeleton mage drew closer, Tybalt stuck the sword in his mouth, clenched between his teeth. Slowly and quietly, he pulled himself up on the ladder and got as close to the trapdoor as he could, bracing his hands to shove the wooden barrier out of the way at any second. He ignored how the sharp blade cut into his lips at the edges.

  Those wounds could be healed, but he would only have one chance at this.

  At the moment when he felt the footsteps were right on top of him, Tybalt shoved the trapdoor open and threw himself with all his strength, up and out—and caught the skeleton mage several feet from its nearest defenders, staring down right at him.

  As his body flew through the air, Tybalt yanked the sword out of his mouth with his right hand, tearing open the left side of his mouth in his haste. But he ignored the gushing blood and offered the creature a pained, reddish smile.

  The skeleton mage reached toward him with one arm, outstretching its bony fingers toward his neck. But everything seemed slow compared to Tybalt now. He felt the power of the sword in his hand flowing through him, like a reversed version of the usual flow of mana into a weapon. He felt ready to destroy everything in his path.

  Finally, Tybalt had the upper hand.

  He slashed through the air, and everything happened at an insane speed.

  The skeleton mage conjured aura around the hand that wasn’t reaching toward Tybalt, the one closest to the arc of the blade. At the same instant, one of its freakish undead threw itself between the mage and the sword’s edge.

  The sword only seemed to glow even more brightly in close proximity to the undead and the mage, though—as if some special property of the blade had been activated.

  It struck the aura around the mage’s hand and chopped through both aura and hand in a single smooth motion.

  The barrier the skeleton mage had protected itself with earlier popped up again—automatically, Tybalt guessed, considering how quickly it happened—as the blade drew close to the skeleton mage’s body. The sword cut through it like it was made of paper.

  The skeleton mage’s eyes glowed more brightly, and its mouth opened slightly, in what Tybalt could only interpret as a shocked emotional reaction.

  The blade slashed through the enemy's arm raised defensively, its upper chest, and the gold-encrusted pendant that hung at the center of its chest. The edge kept going until it emerged through the other side of the cloak.

  The skeleton mage’s voice rippled through the air as its upper body tumbled away from its lower half.

  “Well done, human,” it said in a grudging tone. “You pass.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  All around him, Tybalt saw the legions of the dead collapsing in broken heaps, separated into their component pieces as if they had never been recreated following their first defeat.

  I guess I really was only ever fighting one enemy this whole time…

  Tybalt had heard of undead monsters before tonight, but he had never heard of a leader of such monsters that could be killed to destroy all the monsters in an area. That might be because he had not actually heard the full story of any of these undead encounters, but he suspected it was because undead typically had more ontological inertia than these creatures—that is, they typically continued to exist without needing a master, regardless of how they might have initially been created.

  These monsters might have been different, because rather than normal undead, they were amalgamations of random pieces of dead flesh, crammed together like bits of clay, reanimated once more by the power and will of the skeleton mage.

  If it was just the mage’s magic that had kept those creatures moving, then the mage’s class had made it capable of performing incredibly complex tasks on a large scale. Most mages Tybalt was aware of worked to be able to either perform highly complex tasks or large scale magic—not both.

  And that was their end goal, not something the mages he had met had actually fully achieved. Lieutenant Sperry, for instance, seemed to be at a fairly early stage. The destructive power of her magic was great for clearing up a beastfolk village, but she was not precise enough or powerful enough to be very useful in a real, pitched battle.

  He shook his head. Even making the comparison was silly. The skeleton mage would have killed Sperry before she could have even launched an attack. Close range combat was typically a mage’s weakness, and even so, Tybalt had only been saved by luck and a magic sword in this case.

  The soldier did not fully let down his guard until the announcement appeared a moment later.

  Damn right… I earned that!

  Finally certain that he was finished, Tybalt dropped to his knees, his body spent, though his hand still clutched the sword that had proved his salvation. His fingers seemed to be locked into a death grip around the hilt.

  “Thank the gods,” he murmured. “Fucking finally.”

  His mind raced even as his body wanted to collapse and sleep for eight hours.

  I guess the gods were on my side this time. Or good old Lady Luck! He added, in case anyone or anything out there was listening, Do not worry, Astara, I will absolutely fulfill my end of our bargain!

  “Well done, human,” said a powerful feminine voice. Tybalt only dimly recognized it from hours earlier, at the beginning of the challenge.

  “Thank you, um, goddess or angel or spirit…” Tybalt replied uncertainly.

  A crack opened in the air in front of him, and then it widened to a gaping fissure.

  “I know that you must be happy to have acquired five levels in a single night’s work, but of course, that was not the prize for passing the Tower’s tests. Come through this portal to receive your real prize… and to be measured for additional reward.” The voice sounded almost playful again, but sultry this time rather than mocking.

  Tybalt smiled redly at the offer, his mouth still slowly bleeding from the place where he had ripped it open with the magic sword, but he did not move. Not just yet. He could see another space on the other side of the chasm in the air, but it was extremely dark in there. He had no idea what sort of landscape he would be walking into.

  “Is there more fighting on the other side of that opening?” he asked after a moment, cocking an eyebrow. He thought he had just barely enough strength to stand back up, if he had to. But he would not be winning any more fights this evening.

  “No,” the voice replied. “On the other side of the portal is the realm of the God of Death. Your new patron, should you accept your rewards. I will also heal you once you step through.”

  Tybalt processed that for a moment. He knew the religious doctrine of the land he lived in—as far as he knew, throughout the world he lived in—was that there were only two noteworthy good gods: Vika, the God of War, and his wife Astara, the Goddess of Love.

  All other gods, according to the priestly class, were either false idols, weak, or evil.

  The God of Death, whose name Tybalt did not even know, would definitely be in the evil category. Most people recognized that he was real, at least in the back of their minds. No one offered him praise or worship.

  If he obtained a class from the God of Death, he would receive what normal people would consider an “evil” class, with “evil” powers. He would be turning his back on a thousand years of religious dogma and embracing the forbidden. He would be denounced by everyone in any position of power or influence as evil.

  But in exchange, he would have his own strength, his own source of influence. If he was careful enough, he could become too strong for even those who thought themselves powerful to mess with him.

  It was his only chance to achieve what he wanted in this life—all the passions, ambition, and resentment that together made up the cocktail of his soul.

  “Well, then I will join the evil side,” Tybalt murmured.

  I wasn’t particularly good at being good to begin with. The choice was more of a small step than a giant leap for the soldier, who had, after all, killed hundreds of people over the last few years, despite being just twenty-one years old.

  He didn’t allow himself to think any more about the decision. It wouldn’t lead him anywhere interesting. The decision was fundamentally a simple one: stay in the same place, or take a risk with a huge potential upside.

  Tybalt rose and stepped through the portal, out of the world of dark skies and gray, powdery soil and into a place that seemed to be of near complete darkness.