He remembered stalking through the bridge of the Nathir Expedition Flagship itself.

  Uncovering the location before the rest of the rats had, and racing as fast as he could to break into it first at the very start of the round. Past all the other trapped expedition ships, until he found the final resting place of their ancestor's greatest weapon of war.

  Old, decaying, the systems slowly failing. Speared through with bones and parts of the Arcane Realm here, holding it like a trapped insect in a spider's web. The navigation plotting had equally failed the expedition. They hadn't jumped anywhere the fleet could have fit within. None of these ships had. Not a single one had managed to jump into even a cavern wide enough for an assault ship.

  Even more evidence of their failure.

  Now the great flagship itself was just scrap to be broken into, collected and repurposed before the night was over. Greater weapons waiting within that had once been reserved for only the old elite. He'd ripped the panels open, and forced his way into it, killing anything in the path.

  And what weaklings that he'd found cowering inside. The pleading. Oh, he remembered the sickly desperate pleading from the Captain, waking from stasis still crippled and dying from the original jump - only to find a younger, stronger, genetically superior version looming over him.

  Weakling.

  The death was swift.

  And soon he'd be killing his real target: The feral slaves of this new world, waiting just on the other side.

  Those ignorant slaves were breeding out of control.

  Infesting a world that was never meant for them.

  He cracked the neck of his new form's shape, jumping down the ladder, down to the lowest section of the demonic city. The new shape was vastly smaller than his original body, but he would make do.

  It was time to hunt a pest.

  Level 102 Blackrotten Fungal Fused Colony

  It was coming. Wade peeked over the bottom corner of the nook they were hiding in, and he could see it in the distance: A four legged rhinoceros-sized animal. Tendrils like an octopus were wiggling on the top, while the rest of the body looked more a blackened misty blob. He couldn't tell what the original creature had been.

  "No wonder there weren't any other blackrotten creatures around here. That thing's patrolling the area." Medy tutted, her head peeking right above Wade's. "Should have known we were getting lucky with run-in's."

  Eri clicked his jaw, the third head peeking out the corner.

  Wade took an entire one second to consider if he had a chance at beating this thing, and decided no, he most certainly did not. "We're going to play this one safe."

  The skeleton clicked his jaws again, upset.

  "That thing is twice your level." Wade hissed, looking past Medy at the battle-maniac. "And blackrot's more immune to explosives than I appreciate, so there's an upper limit to what we can pick a fight with."

  Medy looked down. "I have been curious about what kind of weapon you used before when you killed me. Still haven't tied it to anything I know of, unless mortals developed something new in the time I was under here?"

  "Part of that long story I promised earlier." Wade said. "For now, what exactly is that?"

  "Oh that? That thing's what happens when a fungal trap thingy catches a larger animal, it hitches a ride and then things get worse, and it keeps growing over time."

  It was ambling forward, the tendrils on it's back spearing into the grass nearby, as if compelled to tap and touch everything. But Wade saw what was actually happening. "It's eating the insects."

  "It's eating the blackrot out of the insects." Medy corrected. "The insects themselves don't do much of a dent on it's actual hunger. Fungal colonies in the first place attack and eat anything, so that got carried over. Usually these things just keep growing forever. It's the tendrils on their back. Lets them fight smaller groups, so there's no attacking it from the back like most blackrotten hunting packs do."

  Eri clicked his jaws again. He loved a good challenge.

  "And besides running, what's the way to beat these?"

  "It'll outrun you for one, so no chance of running. But they're not too bad!"

  Wade looked over to Medy who looked completely serious. "Not too bad?"

  She glanced back. "Well, not too bad for demons I mean. At that size, that thing is perpetually starving, and it's originally a fungal colony. It means it's instincts to spread the rot are completely overpowered by it's biological want to eat. Basically more hungry than anything else. It actually serves a pretty critical part of the blackrot ecosystem as a janitor of sorts that prevents blackrot from spreading everywhere by concentrating it within itself and leavi-"

  "Medy." Wade said, watching at the monster was slowly ambling closer down the path. "I wouldn't mind learning more about blackrot trivia, given we're down in the weeds of it, but right now, why is it not too bad for demons? I get the feeling whatever you're talking about doesn't apply to mortals, and I need to know that first."

  "Well, it is starving. So if it catches any demons, it'll completely eat us instead of going for infestation to spread itself into a new host like other blackrotten creatures might. Despite how savage you think about blackrot, quite a lot of them are communal if their original host is. We just don't get to see that since Demons by nature are more solitary predators, so all my time walking around was just by myself, it's quite lonely." She paused. "Deep down at our roots I mean, we're civilized right now of course. But blackrot doesn't dig out that kind of thing, it acts on the host's original instincts and I'm doing it again, aren't I? Oh damn it." She winced. "Sorry, sorry!"

  "That's fine, but I really don't understand where you're going with this, why exactly is it a good thing that you get eaten completely?"

  "It's because there's no way to outrun one of those. So it's going to eat us." She said that with her usual general cheer, completely unphased. "And between you and me, I can come back to life just fine later. But you can't. We can't even chance you getting a small infection on your arm or leg even." She crawled forward slightly, and poked her head out just a tad to get a look at it before reaching back to safety. "Yep. Still coming this way. And it's a coin toss if it finds us or not here, real issue is that this nook isn't deep enough to protect you. If it sees you first, you're basically dead."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Wade realized her plan before he even got a chance to tell her to sit down and mull over a new one. She stood up, then pointed further down the road. "You can see some of those ruins over there, right?"

  Wade could. Looked like a ruined tower of stone that was missing the roof. And half the tower. The rest of that was all scattered over the ground, like some kind of wrecking ball had hit the top.

  "It's on the centerline path, so it was probably something military or a ranger tower. Maybe a belltower? Dunno, but there might be a way to hide in there! Or at least break line of sight, just make sure to check there isn't anything lurking inside before you go in." Medy continued. "After that, you wait until it passes you by. If you can find a smaller cave that's deeper, that'll be even better because terrain's the only real defence. Okay, you got that? Good! See you again in an hour!"

  "Wait-wait, we can send Eri to harass and distract for us," Wade turned to the skeleton who seemed locked in, watching the giant monster amble forward while idly eating up everything around it.

  On his part, Eri looked back at him and began to almost vibrate in anticipation. Big game hunting was his life's calling. Was a lot more metalic back when he was alive, but he still felt that bloodlust calling his name. The fight, the charge forward, the heavy greatsword on his back ready to cut.

  "Yeah but... he's like, dead?" Medy said, looking up at the skeleton with that same befuddled expression.

  Eri clicked his jaw twice. He was very much alive and only technically dead, thank you. Alive enough to go cut something in the wrong neighborhood at least.

  "The fungal colony here is looking for food, there's no food on your minion and blackrot can sorta sense life. It's not gonna work for distraction, err, probably? Plus, you need him to clear out the next cave you go into, you can't afford to stomp bugs yourself."

  "I-"

  But Wade didn't have another chance to say anything. The giant up ahead stopped. Then extended a long neck and head outwards, past the roiling mass of tendrils on its back.

  New Personal quest: Challenge Gauntlet - An enemy forty levels or higher above you is hunting you down. Evade or defeat your hunter. Reward: One storefront coin and one randomized additional stat point if your pursuer is eliminated.

  "Ah for fuck's sake." Wade hissed.

  "Start running while I distract it! Go-go-go-go!" Medy said, then jumped out of the nook, and started sprinting ahead.

  Eri clicked his jaw, impressed. She clearly deserved the arm floaty he'd handed her.

  "Yeah, you said it." Wade agreed, then immediately started crawling out of their hiding nook.

  Medy was taking one for the team. Getting outright eaten alive by something did not sound at all appealing to Wade, even knowing he couldn't die exactly here. It would certainly be painful the entire way out.

  But she kept going with her usual cheer, and raced off before he could stop her, so Wade felt compelled to make her last stand mean something.

  They moved low, using the rocky terrain as cover for the moment, scuttling from rock to rock.

  Behind them, Medy now began to shout like a lunatic, trying to draw attention. She very quickly stopped, and swapped to a few curses, and after that it became clear she was focused on putting all her breath into running rather than distraction.

  Highly effective, since the entire monster turned and began to charge after her.

  "We're clear!" Wade said, now certain there weren't eyes on him. He uttered a call to start up his identify, and the duo jumped out of the rocky terrain on a full sprint of their own. Water Mastery once more paid dividends here, helping Wade basically fly over the terrain with minimal stamina loss despite the clunk of their gear and backpacks.

  Which was deeply needed given the sheer amount of crap the two of them were holding. Anyone else watching from above would basically see a pair of pack mules legging it across the slightly muddy ground as fast as they could.

  At least up until they hit a roadblock. This was what Wade had been worried about, and the reason he'd been running Identify from the start:

  Level 1 Blackrotten Beetle - 100%

  They'd gone beyond the range Eri had cleared out. The System nametags started to pop up everywhere.

  Wade slid to a stop. Then looked behind him.

  He couldn't see Medy from this distance, but he could see the giant blackrotten spore colony running after something, so that meant she was still alive or it was chasing something else that got caught in the crossfire. Then he heard her shout something, the voice echoing across the valley, so she wasn't out of the game yet.

  But it was also running fast. No chance Medy was going to escape for long. And no chance to dodge or juke around a monster with that many prehensile tendrils on top ready to grab and eat.

  He had to make a decision fast on if they had the time to sneak through the blackrot minefield here or not. But before he could make a choice, Eri did it for him.

  The skeleton scooped Wade up and over his shoulders, and then started on a sprint forward through the blackrotten bugs, kicking any in the way, squashing others, and generally running like a chicken forward through the grass, directly after their target: The ruins.

  "Oh, that works!" Wade called down, already unhooking his Glock and getting ready to start something with his grenades just in case things got inevitably dicy.

  Given his luck, it would be a monster or twenty inside the tower.

  And then he noticed something odd on the ground: Rope.

  Good quality, non-rotten rope that looked like it had been here for only a few years compared to every other evidence of ruins around here that looked ancient.

  And, it was snaking in the same direction they were going. Not just in the general direction - exactly where they were going. All the way to the doorway of the ruins.

  There was something there. Metal that looked wedged into the empty doorway. Shimmering in that bismuth type sheen he'd started to recognize as potential safety in his madhouse of a world.

  "Identify."

  Demonic Emergency Supply Crate (Low Quality)

  …

  "Eri, FORWARD!" Wade called out, one finger desperately pointing.

  The skeleton complied, and doubled his speed, burning mana to empower his steps.

  It really was just a fat crate of shimmering metal, which he'd bet twenty dollars was Mithril. High certainty.

  It looked slightly dented on the bottom and had a large loop at the top where rope they'd been following was tied to.

  He had zero idea what was inside it, but if it was there wedged in the doorway, that probably meant nothing was inside the belltower itself.

  Wade took a look behind him, and saw the monster had stopped running. Which meant it had caught and likely already killed Medy.

  Eri yanked Wade off his shoulders, boots sliding on the mud to a stop as he set Wade down on the ground.

  A moment later, the skeleton was vaulting over the mithril crate into the dark tower itself, checking the inside for danger.

  Wade heard a jaw click from deep inside.

  So he followed right behind, scrambling over the crate onto the other side.

  There was a gloom here with only one source of light: The rotten staircase leading upward to a second floor. Large metal beams were holding this up, and whatever had been used to cover those beams had long ago broken down, rotten away, or just been ripped apart by any passing animal.

  But, perhaps because of the giant clunky crate stuffed in the only way into the building, no bugs had crawled through inside here. The foundations had no holes Wade could see.

  However, he was certain there wasn't anything above the second floor. It was functionally serving as their ceiling now.

  "Think we're safe here." He said, then turned and crouched down to make sure line of sight was broken.

  And that's when he realized something else:

  This wasn't just a crate of mithril.

  It was a loot-filled crate of mithril.

  Wade's eyes shot out wide. His phone buzzed, but Wade could already tell what the other loot gremlin was texting, since the same thoughts were going through his own head right this moment.

  And whoever had dragged this up into the doorway clearly hadn't looted the entire thing, taking only some items out while leaving the rest.

  "We can work with this." Wade said, nodding along as he read the nametags over everything. "Oh yessssssss, we can definitely work with this."

  Because among the random survival gear found within the crate, writings, directions, and tools - there was one tool above all others, something held within a wooden box to insulate it from all the mithril around. Ten of them. All looking aged from the environment, but far more put together than any other wood he'd seen thus far.

  Nine were opened up like clams, items within lost forever.

  But the tenth? It was still sealed shut.

  And Wade could see the nametag right above it.

  Wooden Mana Crystal Travel Box (Low Quality)

  Magic time.