David and Rhea continued hunting.

  Mostly to replenish his almost empty demonic energy reserve and to find food for her. After a while, they set up camp. It wasn’t much—just enough to keep going. David wasn’t in the mood to build some luxury cabin in the middle of a dungeon. While Rhea worked, David practiced trying to make larger portals. It wasn’t easy. The best he could manage now was a portal as big as a doorway. That didn’t do much for him, but it was progress—the skill levelled. He immediately shut the portal down after that. Not risking a high-level disaster. As soon as he found another herd to use as a distraction, he’d investigate the skill further.

  Through his connection with Corbin’s eyes, he kept an eye on the group of survivors to the west. Theo had taken on some role of group handy man—whether he liked it or not. The kid was teaching the group how to make tripwires with noise-makers. Those would alert the group to any creatures or intruders nearby. Probably not going to stop an ogre, but it’d alert them to any movement nearby. A decent idea, though David could see how it might backfire if they got caught in the middle of it. Who set off the wire? Who died first?

  And then there was the weatherproofing. Theo knew how to make shelters resistant to rain and heat, which, given the humidity of the forest, was probably a smart move. But it wasn’t like this place was just woodland—David could only guess what other environments lay hidden beyond the forest—or beyond the portals. Maybe they'd be up to their necks in freezing winds by the time they reached the next floor. Whatever. That wasn’t his problem, was it?

  David found himself listening in with some level of disdain. Sure, it was a useful idea—but it was also a terrible idea. But it was a choice, and that was something, at least.

  It seemed like the survivors had started taking things a bit more seriously, though. They were hunting now, leveling, and trying to get a class. Which was fine, except for the part where they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Getting a class could kill you. Did they think the System just handed out free power? No. There were consequences. David didn’t want to come back in ten days and find them dead, victims of whatever class trail or quest the System gave them.

  David had also learned a bit about Evans' skill. It was called Simulacrum. Essentially, Evans could create a body double of himself. The double could do whatever Evans could do, including hunting. Anything the double killed earned Evans experience. The catch was that both only leveled up after every two battles.

  Not the worst, but not ideal, either. What caught David’s attention was that the double could replicate whatever Evans was carrying at the time of its creation. That meant, essentially, unlimited ammo if Evans held his sidearm. If he had the right weapon, it could replicate that too.

  David couldn’t quite figure out how it worked—did the thing think for itself? He assumed so, since it could move and kill. But David didn’t waste time with details. It wasn’t unlimited in the way he wanted, but it had potential. And the part that still made David’s stomach tighten was how the simulacrum copied anything Evans was carrying. A body double, complete with gear. That’s what made it monstrous.

  Evans had tried to copy Corbin's cursed bloodsword, and sure enough, the simulacrum copied the sword—but it didn’t replicate its magic. Still, that was a hell of an advantage.

  David muttered a single curse under his breath, bitterness creeping in like a slow burn. If he had that skill... he wouldn’t need to risk his life, just farm levels off his double. How unfair. Earth-shattering skills, he thought. And they give them to Evans and the others? What kind of crap is that?

  The more he thought about it, the more he saw what Evans could do with it. Infinite ammo? Yeah, that was nice. But what if the skill leveled up enough? What if he could copy not just the weapons, but the magic, too? That would be the game-changer. At high enough levels, it wouldn’t just be a body double—it would be an army. David felt a familiar surge of jealousy. Evans seemed perfectly content just keeping the group safe and moving at a slower pace. But if David had the same skill... the possibilities were endless. He’d figure out how to make two copies. Hell, he’d figure out how to channel other skills through them. That would’ve made him far more powerful—safer, even. At least then he'd get the kind of power that wasn't tied to dumb luck.

  David muttered under his breath. “Sometimes the wrong people get the right things.”

  David’s frustration over the whole situation boiled over into a bitter chuckle. It was just ridiculous. The System handed out god-tier skills like candy, and he wondered just who was the latest idiot to get one. who was next? some idiot like henderson? or maybe harris? What could it be next? An immortality skill? Some stupid shit like that? David didn’t even care anymore. Harris would fuck it up, somehow. He always did. A guy like that didn’t deserve something that powerful. Of course, he wasn’t going to sit around just hoping for the system to get its comeuppance, or waste time dreaming of what could’ve been. He had his own problems to deal with.

  He had a plan.

  David turned to look at his newest inhuman thrall: the warlock—an old, robed, demonic creature who looked like it had spent far too many decades stewing in its own bitterness. It had an air of self-importance, practically dripping with ambition. It felt wrong, not just in the sense of being a beast but in how much it clearly wanted something beyond levels. It wanted power. More power. And David’s suspicion was that the thing wasn't looking to rise in a traditional sense—it wanted to be sovereign. The sovereign of all floors. What a nutjob.

  The warlock was level 27 now, after picking up a level during their hunt, which should have been good news. Should’ve, but it wasn’t. Just meant more maintenance. David’s new warlock had been a pain to maintain, but at least it wasn’t about to throw a fit at its low-level status. It just leveled up. Something about the mechanics of it didn’t quite sit well with David, though. You'd think, after all the trouble he had gone through, there would be some sense of satisfaction in leveling up a thrall. Not with the warlock. No. It just felt like extra work.

  David had stuck the same restrictive loyalty commands on it as he had with the hob—though the hob had at least had the decency to follow some half-assed warrior’s code. David hadn’t really wanted to kill the hob, even if he’d done it without hesitation. Its soul was still tethered to its corpse, which was… awkward, but necessary. If anything, it proved David needed to level up his thrall skill. He needed to figure out how to make his thralls better than whatever half-assed booby-trapped power the system handed out.

  David, Rhea, and his three minions—demon, wolf, and the warlock—had gone hunting. The warlock, with its ritual magic, had sacrificed a creature’s life to mend its own arm. The thing shriveled up, life drained, and the warlock’s arm was whole again. It leveled up too, naturally. The warlock had always been higher-level than David, though, David’s stash of demonic energy was higher than it had any business being. Thanks to his voracious energy affinity, David’s reserves were ridiculous. He’d spent almost all of it reinforcing the warlock’s loyalty, pouring hours into it, and reinforcing the Infernal Thrall skill every few hours. It was a pain, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. Better safe than sorry.

  David ordered the warlock to do a few spells slowly, studying what he could. So far, he’d seen five sigils and two demonic rituals.

  The sigils? Strange. There was a Sigil of Weakness, a Sigil of Madness Lightning, a Sigil of Eldritch Tentacles, one for Corpse Spirit Possession, and a Sigil of Dark Shield.

  Not the most intuitive or user-friendly set of tools, but they were powerful. They were potential, even if some of them made his skin itch.

  As for the rituals—there had been two. One was the Ritual of Spell Empowerment, where the warlock had sacrificed a stagfiend’s still-beating heart to make its tentacles grow. Twisted things. Giant, tree-sized, almost impossible to look at without getting a headache. Then there was the Ritual of Healing, where the warlock drained a flying imp Rhea shot out of the sky. It’d turned it into a husk, leaving the thing almost dead as the warlock fixed itself up with whatever dark magic it had at its disposal.

  The warlock couldn’t speak any language David understood, which was a problem. Not that it was much of a surprise; it didn’t exactly have a face that screamed "wordsmith." David wondered what made some creatures capable of speech and others not. Intelligence? Probably not. The imps were about as bright as a bag of rocks, and the regular werebeasts were basically cavemen with fangs. But the warlocks, now they were something else—crafty, clever. Same with the hobgoblins, now that he thought about it. Maybe speech was a skill? Some kind of translation thing that certain creatures didn’t have access to? Cinder, for example, could speak, but that was probably because her soul was made up of two humans and a demon, and the demon probably had a lot to do with that. David didn’t know for sure, but it made sense.

  The warlock had two types of demonic magic, at least from what he could tell. If there was some kind of translation skill, it’d be useful—though, honestly, David wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what the creatures would say if they could talk. Die, die, die, probably. That was the vibe they gave off. Still, whatever this magic was, the sigils, the rituals, the way it all worked, he needed it. He had to figure out how to use it for himself. Because if there was a skill for this, David was sure as hell going to get it.

  David Carter leaned back against a tree, arms crossed, watching the warlock. The thing worked with precision, but there was something off about the speed. Too slow for David’s liking. But it didn’t matter. It was still getting done. And if it wasn’t? Well, David would fix it. One mistake at a time.

  He glanced at the warlock. "Sigil of Weakness. Again. Slow it down. Focus."

  The warlock didn’t react, just nodded and got to work. It wasn’t hesitation—it was just an acknowledgment that this was the deal. They had a job, and David would be damned if it didn’t get done right.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Now, Sigil of Madness Lightning-wait, lets call it Frenzy, and follow it up with Corpse Spirit Possession," David ordered, his tone calm, but there was a bite behind it. "Let’s see if you can manage both at the same time."

  Without another word, the warlock began. The air around it shifted, crackling with energy as it manipulated the sigils. There was power in those hands, no question. But David wasn’t interested in the warlock’s potential. He was interested in its use.

  David tried to mimic what the warlock had done. He didn’t even bother trying the eldritch nightmare tentacle sigil—that sigil was an optical illusion in symbol form. If you took one of those endless staircase paintings, twisted it into a form that was physically impossible, and then added a dash of insanity, that was what the warlock had done. A mess of perspectives piled on top of each other, like trying to draw a staircase on a piece of wet paper, but nothing lined up right.

  Impossible. Seriously, if you wanted to fry your brain, that was the one to go for.

  No. He wasn’t touching that shit.

  Still, it wasn’t all bad, and it wasn’t all struggle.

  Because David had learned the basics of magic theory.

  He’d failed, yes, but understanding came with it. Demonic magic worked through the simplest rule: Trade something for power. It was a zero-sum deal, the more you gave, the more you got. Of course, what you gave was usually something worth keeping—your energy, your sanity, your soul, maybe. Demonic energy was just all about currency, and you had to put something down if you wanted to make a deal.

  David had been testing the warlock’s magic for a while, pushing it to its limits. The rules weren’t complicated—too much energy meant backlash, and that could knock you out cold or flat-out kill you. One slip-up in the sigils, even a slight one, and the spell failed. Below 90% accuracy? It was over. He’d had the warlock deliberately mess up, just to see what would happen. After a few sloppy attempts, it didn’t take long before the creature collapsed. It was all about the flow—shaping demonic energy required focus, a steady hand, and the right amount of power. Too little, and the spell was weak. Too much, and it burned you out. No matter how skilled, if you pushed too hard, you’d fall. He had learned that lesson the hard way.

  The sigils themselves were the weird part. They were symbols, intricate and layered with demonic energy, floating through the air like symbols that belonged in a language no human should ever understand. As far as David could tell, they didn’t just exist as images—they were spaces. The more pieces you fit into place, the more they became something you could feed energy into, something that would take that power and make the world shift around you.

  All he knew was that these sigils were complicated.

  He tried.

  He tried to learn the basics. David focused on one. The simplest sigil, or at least he thought it was. He wasn’t sure, because every time he tried to focus on it, his brain screamed at him to stop. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t get it right—it hurt. Like his thoughts were being shoved into a blender. Every time he tried, it slipped further away, like it was never meant to be something he could hold on to.

  It should’ve been fine, but no—it was him, shoving a boulder into a suitcase.

  He had tried to cheat. Used Battle Sense to try and learn the sigil more easily. He hung back and targeted a creature, thinking his skill would show him how to do it. And it did, to some extent. It really did. It tried to guide him in making the sigil, guiding him in causing harm. The only problem was, David couldn’t keep up. It was almost as if the magic wasn’t meant for a human mind at all.

  It was frustrating. He could feel the power, but no matter how hard he tried, it slipped through his grasp like sand through his fingers.

  So, he adjusted.

  David decided to be deliberate and tactical. He didn’t have time to bang his head against the sigil he really wanted, so he went for efficiency. He picked just one sigil, the simplest one, and focused on a single corner. The dark shield was the easiest sigil, still complicated, and by far the weakest demonic spell. But that was exactly why David picked it. The shield itself? Weak as hell. He didn’t give a damn about that. What he cared about was progress, something the system could actually recognize. Like portal magic, he needed a skill that didn’t feel like someone was trying to jam a blender into his brain.

  The rituals were simpler than expected, at least on the surface.

  David had seen through the warlock’s eyes and felt what it felt as it performed the ritual. He studied the energy as carefully as he could. He hadn’t figured out all the details yet, but he had learned enough to make some conclusions.

  So far as he could tell, the core principle behind the demonic rituals was Sympathy. The idea was straightforward: establish a mental link between two objects and treat them as if they were one. Then, lifeforce was sacrificed and transferred across the link, obeying the laws of conservation. A source of demonic energy was required to hold that link together. The rituals also seemed to need a kind of belief—something bordering on fanaticism. The more you believed in the link, the more effective the ritual. The sacrifices so far had mostly been organs or lives. Some were more potent than others.

  David had the creature test different sacrifices: animals, rocks, whatever it could find. The heart seemed to be the most powerful. No surprise there. But David was curious if something else could be used—maybe something less physical. Willpower? Emotions? Maybe even years of a life? There had to be something more powerful than a heart—something that wasn’t just flesh and blood.

  Demons were known for making deals, after all. Surely there were more valuable things to sacrifice.

  He hoped so. Carrying spare sacrifices around sounded like a logistical nightmare.

  The demonic rituals were surprisingly easy to understand once he got the basics down. At their core, they were just trades. But David suspected they could do far more than what the warlock had been using them for.

  The only problem was the belief—that was the tricky part. It wasn’t just faith, but something closer to insanity or piety. Humans believed in things, sure, but they didn’t invest their belief in them. You believe in the air around you, but you don’t actively enforce your will on it, do you? It was different here.

  Belief wasn’t just knowledge. It was an emotion, something humans had always taken for granted. On Earth, belief was synonymous with knowledge—knowing something was the same as believing in it. Here, though, belief was will. Knowledge wasn’t enough. You didn’t just know something—you had to will it to be true, impose it on the world like it was greater than the laws that governed everything else.

  And that was the problem. David knew it worked. He could see it, feel it, but getting himself to that level of unshakeable, infallible belief was a struggle. The knowledge made it harder, not easier. The more he understood how it should work, the more his mind tried to dissect and analyze it, pulling apart what needed to be a simple, forceful act of belief.

  David walked with his group, deeper east—always east—sometimes he almost swore he could see something like rocky slopes between the redwoods. They paused to kill some creatures. He watched Cinder across the clearing. The demon was methodically sorting through the remains of the werebeasts, pulling teeth and claws and arranging them in some pattern that probably meant something to her. He grumbled under his breath.

  "Bet Cinder would be an archwarlock by now. A master caster. Probably have her own tower and everything."

  Rhea looked up from sharpening a javelin. "Master of what? Curses?"

  "That's the problem. I don't know. The thing had sigils and rituals and I can't just... watch it do them and copy it. There's something missing. Some piece I'm not getting."

  Rhea set the javelin down. "You've been staring at that old beast for two hours."

  "I've been studying it. There's a difference."

  "You've been staring. You look like you're trying to solve a puzzle that keeps changing shape."

  David ran a hand through his hair. "The rituals require... belief. Not just knowing the steps, but actually believing in them. In what they do. How do you believe in something that you're also trying to take apart and understand? It's like trying to worship a clock while you've got the back off."

  Rhea was quiet for a moment. "When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make me sit still for twenty minutes before school. No phone, books, or talking, just sitting. She said it helped me get ready."

  "For what?"

  "For whatever came next. Didn't matter what it was. Math test, fight with a friend, whatever. The sitting was just to clear the space."

  David looked at her. "You're suggesting I meditate."

  "I'm suggesting you stop trying to take the clock apart and just let it tick for a while. You might hear something you missed."

  He wanted to argue. The reflex was there, automatic. But she wasn't pushing. She wasn't selling it as a cure or a solution. Just an option. Something that had worked for her.

  "When you sat," he said. "What did you think about?"

  "Nothing. That was the point."

  "That sounds impossible."

  "It's hard at first. Your brain keeps throwing things at you. You just let them go and go back to nothing."

  David looked at his hands. Then at a werebeast warlock, slumped against a tree, enthralled and drained. Then at Cinder, still arranging her trophies.

  "Nothing," he repeated.

  "Twenty minutes. What's the worst that happens? You sit there and think about all the ways you could die. You do that anyway."

  A short laugh escaped him, dry and quick. "Fair point."

  He slid off the log and found a spot on the ground, sitting cross-legged. Rhea watched him for a second, then went back to her javelin.

  "Eyes open or closed?" he asked.

  "Whatever works."

  He closed his eyes. The forest sounds pressed in. Movement. Breathing. The distant crackle of whatever Cinder was doing.

  "I feel like an idiot," he said.

  "You are an idiot. Meditate anyway."

  He let out another quiet laugh. Then he tried to find nothing.

  David walked and thought about warlocks. The ones from earth myths, from stories. Pact or deal. In most versions, a warlock got their power through a pact with something else—a demon, a spirit, some ancient entity. That distinguished them from wizards, who learned through study, or sorcerers who had it naturally.

  That made sense. It would explain why the sigils made his brain freeze when he tried to parse them. They weren't meant to be learned. They were granted. Given. You didn't understand them so much as you were allowed to use them.

  Dark or forbidden knowledge. Warlocks always had access to things people weren't supposed to know. The pact opened doors. The knowledge came with a price. It made them morally ambiguous, or just straight evil depending on who was telling the story.

  David thought about that as he walked. He was trying to get that same knowledge for free.

  Someone somewhere would be pissed about that. Probably.

  Rhea stopped walking. "Wait. I think I see something."

  David turned. "What?"

  "Not sure. It's weird. Might be dangerous."

  He moved up beside her, following her gaze through the trees. "What is it?"

  She pointed toward the distance. "Elevated land. A hill. Big one."

  David looked. She was right. The terrain rose ahead of them, a massive swell in the earth that pushed up above the canopy. "We're going scouting. Get info."

  Rhea nodded.

  They climbed, using a thick redwood for cover, working their way up until they could see over the trees. Not too high—David kept them low enough to avoid whatever might be hunting in the branches above, but high enough that the terrain opened up in front of them.

  "Don't fly too high," he said.

  Rhea didn't argue.

  What they saw stopped them both.

  The hill was enormous, wide and sloping, rising out of the forest like a slow wave frozen mid-roll. But the ground around it was wrong. Floating rocks drifted in the air, boulders and debris hanging motionless or rotating slowly, as if gravity had decided to take a day off. Some spun. Some just hung there. Others drifted in lazy circles, bumping into each other with soft, distant sounds.

  David went stock still.

  He saw it.

  The cavern entrance gaped in the side of the hill, a dark mouth ringed by stone. Outside it, strung between two massive rocks, was a clothesline. Human clothes. Shirts, pants, socks, all hanging there like a campsite laundry day. Bloodstained. Dried brown and rust-colored. One shirt caught his attention and held it. He’d seen that shirt before.

  A massive wooden club leaned against the cavern wall. It was the size of a telephone pole, thick as a man's torso, studded with chunks of jagged metal that had been hammered into the wood. The metal was stained too.

  Finally, they found the ogre's lair.