Cervain was a knight, and that fact shaped every thought he allowed himself to have. He carried himself with discipline born from long habit rather than conscious effort. He had served banners, crowns, and causes whose names had been engraved in stone long before his birth, and he had learned early that loyalty was not the absence of doubt but the decision to set it aside when duty demanded action. Even now, standing guard beside a chained abomination that produced shrieking creatures on a predictable schedule, that instinct held firm.

  “FUCK!”

  Still, he would have been lying to himself if he claimed he was not at least a little curious about what was happening.

  “I’LL FUCKING BURN THIS SHITTY BUILDING DOWN!”

  The outburst reached him not through sound alone, but through the strange, ever-present awareness that bound him to his summoner. The words arrived distorted by distance and walls, but the intent behind them came through cleanly enough.

  There was shouting. There was profanity. There was a distinct sense of something being kicked with considerable force.

  Though, Cervain did not move. Through the link, he felt no spike of danger, no flare of pain or panic that would have demanded immediate response. Whatever his master was experiencing was not a threat to her survival, merely an expression of intense dissatisfaction. Given what he had already observed of Enochia, he filed this away as a probable personality trait rather than a crisis. She was, after all, a demonic entity, one aligned with Wrath in some fashion, and while her current form lacked the scale and presence he would have associated with such a title, the temperament appeared to have survived the transition intact.

  He tightened his grip on his sword and returned his focus to the node, even though nothing emerged.

  Minutes passed in silence broken only by the ambient creak of chains and the faint, unpleasant sounds from within the pillar itself. The spawn point remained active, the structure intact, and the integrity of the chains well within acceptable parameters. When another imp finally appeared, it met the same efficient end as the others, its existence reduced to ash with no deviation from the established pattern.

  By the time Enochia returned, roughly five minutes later, Cervain had concluded that whatever incident had occurred elsewhere in the dungeon had resolved itself, though not, he suspected, to her satisfaction.

  She entered the room without hurry, boots leaving pale prints on the floor, her armor dusted so thoroughly white that for a brief, deeply confusing moment, Cervain wondered if she had been caught in some form of snowstorm. The substance clung to her hair, her shoulders, even the edges of her expression, which was set in a flat, dangerous line that promised retaliation should anyone be foolish enough to comment on her appearance.

  She was carrying a torn piece of cloth, bundled and knotted into a rough sack, its contents shifting heavily as she walked. Another scrap of fabric was tucked under her arm, similarly abused, and as she crossed the room she deposited it unceremoniously in a corner, where it slumped against the wall like an exhausted animal.

  Cervain met her gaze by reflex and immediately regretted it.

  The look she gave him was enough that it sent a very real chill through his spine. She said nothing, and wisely, neither did he. If he had still possessed a tongue capable of speech, he suspected it would have failed him anyway.

  Enochia moved past him, the tension in her shoulders easing only slightly as she dropped the heavier bundle beside the first. A faint cloud puffed up on impact, confirming Cervain’s suspicion that whatever had coated her was not ash, snow, or residue of magic, but something far more mundane and, in this place, deeply unexpected.

  She sat down beside the pile, then, after a moment of reconsideration, eased herself back until she was lying on it instead, using the sack as an improvised cushion.

  After a few breaths, she lowered her arm and summoned her interface. Her fingers moved as she shifted the map’s perspective, zooming out, then sliding to a secondary view. The first drone was nearly in position, its altitude so absurd that the feed captured everything at once.

  The camp had ended up farther from the church than she’d predicted, which briefly annoyed her, but the irritation fizzled quickly, drowned by interest when the camera stabilized.

  What she saw was a cluster of buildings, maybe a dozen, arranged in a crooked semicircle. The houses were medieval in silhouette, built from what looked like blackened timber or compressed charcoal bricks, their roofs triangular. Imps prowled between them in packs of two or three, roaming the exterior alleys and yards, more than thirty of them. Spirits drifted apart from that chaos in smaller number, five or so, lingering close to the tallest structure.

  That structure, the “main house,” made her jaw tighten. It was bigger than the rest by multiple stories, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was built like a fortress. It had many things, like: barred windows, thick iron frames, metallic floor spilling a bit out from the main entrance and a single rear aperture leaking a ribbon of magma that spilled outward. She felt it in the back of her throat, a pressure like swallowing a marble. Just from the feeling she was getting, she knew something predatory and organized was leading these demons.

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

  She leaned back. “Alright. Ruling out beasts,” because her brain was already braining. Demonic beasts were predictable XP pinatas with no restraint, evolving from spirits at level a hundred, but losing whatever counted for cognition along the way, turning into berserk brutes that only knew forward, scream, and kill. They were actually a lot smarter than them, but only in matters related to combat. Anything outside of that, they were just idiots, and that disqualified them instantly. A beast could captain a massacre, not a settlement, and this place had administration in its posture.

  “Next guess: high-level spirit,” she muttered, immediately shaking her head because she would not feel existential nausea radiating through an enemy window from a spirit alone, no matter how many levels it had chewed through. She’d fought spirits. She’d bullied spirits even. The strongest spirits total stat points would be around or near half of hers total. If she only had a few more skills, she could probably beat a few of them without taking a single point of damage.

  That left only one answer she hated saying out loud, even internally: “A Demonic Knight…”

  They were the next evolution right after beasts, usually level one-fifty and upward, tacticians built to enforce infernal order, capable of structured thought and layered skill kits. If you were to think about it, they were the kinds of mobs to have a second phase.

  “Fantastic,” she hissed. Her build was strong, sure, but unless she had more skills, such opponents would simply get in close range to her, and she would have no way to counter it. Even with Cervain, the odds were swampy and uncertain. A knight against a knight was at least a fight that made sense, but add thirty-plus imps, five spirits, unknown terrain variables, and the situation went from risky to deeply irritating.

  Her level 50 skill was the thing she needed most right now. While she was mage by all accounts, she only had a single target skill right now, and her level fifty skill was a really good AOE one. She just needed the XP to reach it in normal time, since she was already bored as hell.

  She had no idea why she thought of it, since logically it wasn’t the case, but she felt that the next part of her quest was there. She knew that she didn’t advance the quest by these two places mentioned there, but compared to that place, that was different level. And let’s be honest, she got some stupid broken stuff from the ones she went to.

  ─────────────────────────────

  QUEST: Exploration- The Man in Sorrow

  Category: Legacy

  Objective:

  Collect all 7 Diaries of the Man in Sorrow.

  Progress: 1/7

  Description:

  A man once walked these halls bearing grief so vast that even Hell wanted to spit him out. His memories have fractured into seven lost diaries. Recover them, piece together his life, and reclaim what this world tried to erase.

  Primary Reward:

  ?The Black Key

  ? 100,000 XP

  ? 500 Grade Two Materials

  ? 5 Randomized Blueprints

  Additional Rewards:

  These rewards will be granted incrementally as each Diary of the Man in Sorrow is recovered.

  ? 1× Full Grade Three Armor Set

  ? 1× Grade Three Weapon of Choice

  ? 1× Grade Two Accessory

  ? 1× Soulstone

  ? 3× Shardshare

  ? 5× Grade Five Accessories

  ? 25× Instafix

  ─────────────────────────────

  Accessories were likely next, and the emotional spike she felt at the thought was embarrassingly real, because upgrades meant reclaiming the tempo she’d been robbed of. If the construct rewarded her incrementally, that meant every diary, every step forward, every piece of loot would be useful.

  [+1,000 XP]

  She glanced at Cervain, who sheathed his sword only after the newest imp evaporated into ash, and she grinned at him. “Good job, bro!”

  She flipped to the second drone feed, watching it coast over some sort of cave-hole. The feeling she felt from it was a lot less intense then the feeling she got from that house. Behind it, and all around it was a desert, and that main thing that got her attention was the fact that the sand there looked far more normal. There was that ashy-black sand, sure, but there was also normal brown and yellow sand. It wasn’t that interesting to her though, since it went on for the seeming infinity, without a break in sight.

  ‘Bleh, I’m already thirsty enough to consider drinking my own pee, fuck to the hell nah with exploring the fucking Sahara desert in Hell.’

  Though, she was more than convinced that that was THE hole the guy was talking about. It was basically confirmed in her mind since he mentioned that last, it was some sort of gateway or portal, or boundary to the next part she needed to get to.

  What she loved about this system, was the fact that humans were dumbasses, and she loved them so much for it. Angels took forms most humans would understand and get along with, and it was basically this gamelike system. They also set up quests in a way that were logical to us, and in a way we could best understand them. This quest was set up by her beloved Roo, who himself… herself… itself? Did angels have a sex? Nevermind that, Roo proved himself capable and understanding enough, and out of all angels was the most reasonable she had ever heard of.

  Meaning, she will trust that her guardian angel understood her, and was able to understand her, and know what… She was repeating herself now…

  Enochia let out an unwilling yawn, as she realized just how tired she had become.

  “Baby drones, if you can hear me, good job to the both of you, mama is proud of you. You, who is closer to the village, return to my location and stay above the fallen tower. Buzz me if you see someone trying to enter, or if you even see anything moving. Drony number two, you fly up a bit higher and check around a bit. Return to the church and just look around it. Notify me if anything interesting is seen. Again, stay safe and fly high. Mwa!”

  Enochia felt the little drones buzz with happiness, which made her feel a bit warm. Good warm though, not the nonstop heat from the fucking lava around her.

  “My main man Cervain!” Enochia yelled as the knight only lowered his head a bit. “Keep up the fucking awesome work. If you get tired or can’t handle something that comes, please let me know, and I’ll help you out.”

  Cervain wished to do exactly what he was ordered to, but he more than that wanted to prove himself, even though it was unlikely this early on. He shook his head slightly; though it did not matter, since Enochia was fast asleep.