The world lurched back into motion.

  Kel felt the breeze on his face again, heard the rustle of leaves, the shifting of the people sitting nearby. The dice clattered onto the table.

  Two sixes.

  Chaos erupted around the table.

  “That’s impossible!” shouted the man who had asked Kel for help, snatching up the dice himself.

  Of course, they landed on sixes. Kel had made sure of that.

  “Maybe the dice are faulty,” he said with a sympathetic shrug.

  “But we’ve been playing with them all evening–everything was fine!”

  The man tossed the dice again. Sixes.

  “Then they must’ve gone bad with age,” Kel offered another suggestion. The last thing he wanted was to keep dragging out this tedious conversation. His face still burned, as if the skin had been scorched to the bone. Who had that been? What did it want? What kind of being could immobilize even him? The feeling of absolute helplessness was terrifying. That creature and its words should have been his first concern.

  But since he’d already gotten tangled up in the gambler’s mess, he needed to finish it.

  “See? I didn’t cheat. Luck’s just on my side,” the player said, placing his hands over the pile of coins, clearly intending to sweep them into his pocket.

  Kel couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Is he really that stupid, or just pretending?

  “Let’s do it this way,” Kel suggested. “Whether it’s luck or faulty dice doesn’t really matter right now. I propose that the winner doesn’t take these winnings–as a sign of honest intentions and fair play.”

  “What?! Are you completely out of your mi–aaah!”

  The last word turned into a pained groan. Kel had placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed with all his strength. Then, barely moving his lips, he hissed into his ear:

  “If you want to walk away in one piece–agree.”

  “Actually, I’ve thought it over–and decided it’s a great idea,” the man said quickly, pulling his hands away from the pile of coins. “My heart aches at the very thought that I might’ve offended such fine people by accident.”

  “And everyone will disperse quietly, without drawing unnecessary attention,” Kel added. “Commanders really hate it when their men get mixed up in trouble.” He threw in the extra argument for good measure.

  That settled it.

  “Thank you, lad! Truly, a huge thank you!” the man burst out once they stepped aside. “And honestly, what petty, jealous people. Instead of being happy for another man’s good fortune, they started accusing me of gods know what.”

  Kel snorted.

  “Have you ever tried not being so blatant? Throwing double sixes five times in a row? Anyone would get suspicious.”

  “I played fair! Luck really does love me.”

  “Is that why you ended up among the wounded? From all that great luck?”

  The man’s face fell a little.

  “Yeah. My whole squad died during the assault on the castle, and I got away with a scratch. Shame luck can’t be shared–I’d have lent some to the lads who didn’t make it. Anyway, remember this: the famous master Erhard owes you one. What’s your name, by the way?”

  Kel had no intention of making friends with anyone in the camp, so he replied that it didn’t matter and said goodbye as quickly as he could.

  Once alone, Kel decided to test the theory the strange creature’s words had planted in his mind.

  He opened the system and stared at the familiar lines.

  User Data

  Name: ____

  Class: Mage

  Level: 3021 (Unrivaled+)

  If these were the archmage’s stats, then why was his name missing? Why was there only a blank?

  Kel decided that nothing terrible would happen if he entered his own name there. He gave the System the command.

  He felt no change in himself at all. Out of habit formed over the past few days, he opened the archmage’s inventory and tried to pull out the sword hidden inside. Access remained locked.

  Then he entered the name Kelmir. The result was exactly the same.

  “It’s hopeless,” Kel concluded. “I know perfectly well who I am, so what did that thing want from me?”

  More than anything, he was troubled by the words about time running out.

  At least his face stopped hurting.

  Kel returned to the tent.

  Vanessa was still lying unconscious. Neymár, instead of resting, was helping the healers change the wounded men’s bandages. Kel waited until he finished, then pulled him aside to talk.

  “How much time do you need to recover?”

  Neymár thought for a moment.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Physically, I’ll be fine by morning. But mana will take much longer to build up again. Though, as I understand it, that won’t be a problem?”

  “It won’t,” Kel confirmed.

  ***

  Kel hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep since before he was dragged into this world. Tonight was no different. He spent the hours listening to the currents of mana that ran through the Wastelands and turning over the details of his plan again and again.

  The main problem was speed. If he miscalculated the timing or if any of them hesitated, even for a moment, a conversation with the Tower mages would be unavoidable.

  Why couldn’t they just leave already?

  Unfortunately, Kel remembered that the attempts to study the castle would go on for several more weeks. And he truly didn’t have that kind of time. Kiana was holding on by a thread, and the other children harmed by the lamia needed help as soon as possible.

  In the morning, leaving Vanessa in the care of the healers, Kel and Neymar set out from the camp. They were headed for the dry riverbed, located seven miles to the west. Kel decided that the spot was far enough from the camp, and the magical currents there were perfect for his plan. Soon, a new zone of corruption would begin to form.

  They had to move fast. Unfortunately, there was no spell that could instantly teach someone to ride a horse. And Kel didn’t need any extra witnesses.

  Kel carefully examined the riverbed. The dry, cracked bottom stretched across the land like a scar. Here he could work in relative safety – the mana flows were strong enough that the power he intended to use wouldn’t immediately draw the attention of the magical threads. At least, not for a while.

  Now, he needed to sketch the runes for the ritual. Kel surveyed the area once more, mentally placing each symbol where it needed to be. On the trees and rocks, he traced the runes simply with his fingers. As for the ground, he didn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he drew the runes with his sword instead.

  Neimar let out a quiet chuckle.

  “Lady Vanessa would definitely say that a true warrior doesn’t treat his weapon like that. She’d call it disrespectful.”

  And, in a way, Neimar was right. The thought alone would have infuriated Aygon – if his blessed weapon were being used in such an irreverent way.

  Kel realized he didn’t care anymore. Now, he saw the sword as nothing more than a tool.

  “I’m sure that once Vanessa gets better, she’ll find a hundred more reasons to point out our flaws. I believe in her,” Kel said aloud, though in his mind he thought,

  “First, she just needs to come back to consciousness.”

  Now Kel began drawing the circles. Three in total – one inside the other. They weren’t perfect. The outer circle, in fact, looked more like an oval than a circle.

  “Alright, I’ll never be a great artist. But here, the important part isn’t beauty – it’s closed lines.”

  He drove the sword into the center of the smallest circle.

  His plan was insane, which meant it had a decent chance of working. First, he needed to lure the lamia here.

  “Your task is simple,” he told Neimar. “When I sever the threads connecting the children to the lamia, you keep the children alive. You hold their lives while I kill the monster.”

  “Simple,” the young healer muttered nervously, giving a shaky smile. “My hands are trembling.”

  “That’s normal. Mine are too.”

  Kel lied. His hands weren’t shaking. Something else inside him trembled. Too much depended on chance.

  “Let’s begin.”

  The world seemed to quiet around him.

  Ever since Kel had discovered the thread stretching from Kiana to Janet, he had never lost sight of it. Now, he directed a portion of his mana along it. Let the creature think he was trying to kill it – it would walk right into the trap.

  A strike.

  Along the boundaries marked by the runes, a faint green mist began to rise. The zone of corrosion was starting to form.

  A piercing scream rang directly in his head. The strike had hit its mark – and drawn attention.

  The mist drifting through the lowlands began to gather into a single point, thickening, glowing with golden light. Shapes started to take form – first blurred, like a poorly drawn sketch, then sharper. The lamia had come to see her attacker.

  Madam Janet no longer looked like an ordinary woman.

  Her skin – unnaturally white, like porcelain.

  Her eyes – molten gold, glowing with an unnatural light.

  Kel kept a careful watch on his core. He couldn’t reveal too much, yet now he had unleashed far more mana than usual.

  It surged over his body, scorching his muscles. The world sharpened: he could see the grass trembling beneath the lamia’s feet, the nodes of other lives pulsing in her aura, the space around her bending unnaturally.

  “Why do you interfere where you’re not wanted? Why?” the lamia tilted her head.

  “Habit,” Kel replied – and struck first.

  A black lightning bolt shot from his fingers.

  The lamia didn’t even dodge – she simply dissolved into mist, and the spell tore through the void.

  “Fast. Too fast.”

  The mist coalesced around him. Exactly what Kel had been waiting for.

  It was hard to focus on dozens of threads at once, but he managed.

  “Sever!”

  He trusted that Neymar could catch the threads – and he was right. Kel felt the flow of mana from him to the healer surge. Neymar wove his spells, saving the children.

  The lamia laughed.

  “How touching. A Child of Calamity protecting humans. The world had definitely gone mad”.

  He felt the pulse around him. The lamia unleashed hundreds of new threads, all shooting straight at him.

  Kel clasped his hands in a magical sign.

  The threads flared and crumbled into ash.

  He lunged forward.

  “Form Destruction.” He knew exactly which spells to use.

  The lamia shrieked a sound that twisted the air around her like a blade. Her golden eyes flared, and the mist around her thickened, shielding her from Kel’s strike. But he didn’t hesitate.

  He surged forward, every step igniting the ground beneath him with faint sparks of mana. Black lightning arced from his fingers, slicing through the golden haze. The lamia vanished and reformed instantly, her body flowing like molten gold, twisting in impossible angles.

  Kel clenched his teeth, heart pounding, and whispered the next incantation.

  The lamia froze, completely unable to move. Cracks spread across her porcelain-white face, spidering further with every heartbeat. A chunk of her cheek broke off, falling to the ground. She tried to scream–but no sound came. The air around her shimmered with heat.

  Kel yanked the sword from the ground.

  Don’t look at the body. Don’t look at the form.

  He closed his eyes and felt a tiny golden spark pulsing inside the porcelain shell. Probably what served as the core for beings like the lamia. Kel aimed the mana-infused sword straight at that golden heart.

  The power he unleashed was far, far greater than anything he had used against the Wailer.

  Cracks in the lamia’s body blackened, and she crumbled into shards on the ground.

  “Neimar?”

  “I’ve got it. Holding,” the healer’s voice was hoarse with exhaustion.

  “Release it. Now they’ll survive the severed connections.”

  The corrosion zone finished forming.

  At its center, a massive monster covered in spikes emerged.

  [A Steel Warrior. Level 100 monster], the system helpfully notified.

  Strangely, during the fight with the Wailer it had screamed warnings, yet against this far stronger lamia it hadn’t stirred at all. Too many oddities.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Kel waved at the Steel Warrior. “You have no idea how much you’ve helped. But it’s time to go.”

  Kel deflected the monster’s strike, caught Neimar under the elbow, and teleported them both back to the camp.

  He could already feel the portals of the Tower mages opening nearby.

  “We did it!” Despite his exhaustion, Neimar’s eyes shone with excitement. “Just like real heroes.”

  “Yeah,” Kel replied, sinking to the ground. Everything before his eyes blurred. Waves of pain made him queasy. “Never thought I’d say this, but… I don’t think I like being a hero.”