“That was disappointing,” Amyra scoffed as she sheathed her cleaver-like sword that was almost as rge as her.

  Behind her was a steaming pile of molten steel. It was still glowing crimson as Amyra was walking from it. The Living Armour, also known as Dagon, had been defeated by Amyra with only minor difficulties. Being an entity comprised mostly of steel, Dagon was a terrible opponent against Amyra, whose fir was fire. In terms of swordsmanship, they were equally matched. However, Amyra had the edge with her Fire Magic. Dagon’s body was imbued with Fire Resistance spells, but even those contingencies had their limits against an adept of fire and sword. The fight was over within minutes.

  “His Grace has waited long enough,” Amyra muttered to herself and sprinted down the hallway. She had no map of this pce, and not a single clue as to where she was going. All she had was the connection she shared with her lord and master. Being his Apostle, she could vaguely sense his whereabouts. Her face beamed with hope when she felt the connection strengthening as she took a left at the end of the lengthy hallway. Her lord was close. She increased her pace.

  There were no guards or any other sort of personnel in this dungeon, which was odd. For a pce that was filled with damning secrets and illegal practices, there were next to no security measures. The Living Armour was just one individual, so far, in this vast dungeon. It was unthinkable for such a pce to be devoid of any means to fend off intruders. Even the gaolers she came from had better security than this hidden dungeon of secrets.

  “Oh, whatever. Fewer problems for me.” Amyra shrugged off her suspicions and devoted her focus to finding Aedan.

  A turn at the end of a corridor took her into a room which appeared to be the mess hall. It was empty like the rest of this pce. However, the dungeon was not uninhabited like Amyra had believed. There was food on the tables, half-eaten. The food was cold, but there was still some slight warmth. The chairs were in disarray, pushed away from the tables or toppled over on the ground. The cutlery was also scattered. All signs of people leaving in a hurry. Even the liquors were left open, but unfinished.

  “Where did everyone go?” Amyra questioned as she slowly trode through the mess hall. The connection did not grow any stronger. Aedan was in this room. “Your Grace, are you here?” she called out.

  “Yes?” There was an answer.

  Amyra immediately dashed towards the voice, which was outside of the mess hall, in another hallway that was much simir to the ones she had passed through. And there Aedan was, limping while using the walls as a clutch. He was bloody and full of wounds, especially his mangled face. “Your Grace!” Amyra excimed and hurried to his side.

  Aedan groaned when Amyra barely touched him.

  “Your Grace… just what sort of torture did they—”

  “Oh, this wasn’t them,” Aedan said. “This is a result of my own actions. My hands were bound and so were my feet. So I used my head, although not in the usual figurative manner that one would expect.”

  “Well, you’re in one piece and you’re breathing. That’s what matters. Come on, Your Grace. Let’s get out of here.” Amyra scooped Aedan into her arms and cradled him as she began to walk down the hallway.

  “What about the others?”

  “I didn’t have the fortune to cross paths with them. Perhaps they are not in this dungeon.”

  “They are in this dungeon, or at least Erin is.”

  “Her Grace is?”

  “I can sense her presence. If she’s here, it can only mean that this dungeon is situated below the Marsh’s mansion.”

  “Shall we go look for her, Your Grace?”

  “No. We leave here by ourselves. Numbers would only burden us in narrow, closed spaces. And—”

  Amyra noticed Aedan’s sudden silence. “Your Grace? What’s wrong?”

  “That door in front of us, to our right.”

  “The one riddled with pnks and iron ptes?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “Is there something in the room?”

  “Something dark and foul… Death. I smell death. And the Spirits are crying. They aren’t just running away. Whatever’s in there, it is wretched enough to invoke the sorrow and grief of the Spirits.”

  Amyra took a sniff of the air. “I smell nothing, Your Grace.”

  “It’s not the stench of corpses. It’s something else that only death would ooze. We must look inside.”

  Amyra obeyed and approached the door. It was locked, but that mattered nothing to Amyra, who kicked the wide open with ease. The room was dark. There were lights, but faint. With a heavy feeling weighing on her heart, she entered the room. Her eyes adapted to the darkness in seconds and the contents of the room filled her with terror and anger.

  The room was huge, rge enough to house hundreds— or even thousands of people who were all locked in cages and stacked upon one another like a three-dimensional puzzle. All the individuals in the cage were emancipated or dead. There were no bowls or cups. They were given nothing to eat or drink. There were also no means for them to relieve themselves.

  “So… this is where he kept all the people he kidnapped…” Amyra gasped. “Such atrocity… This Marsh person is extremely sick in the head… Did he kidnap them just so he could starve them to death?”

  “No. It’s much worse,” Aedan said. “These prisoners are fuel for whatever odious and vile scheme he had. Each of the cages is enchanted with a nasty parasitic spell that drains the life force of the prisoner, converts it to Mana, and funnels the converted Mana to somewhere else.”

  “What do we do, Your Grace? Should we free them?”

  “It’s no use. It’s already too te. Even if they are still alive, they are in no condition to live on. Their fates were decided the moment they were put into this cage. The spell doesn’t just drain their life force. It tears the soul open and allows for their life force to be drained more efficiently. Even if the draining is stopped, their souls are already broken. They would die slowly and painfully.”

  “Monstrous…” Amyra growled under her breath.

  “All we can do now is to make sure we give them a quick and painless death.”

  “How do we do that? My fire would only be agonising.”

  “I have a way. I—”

  Before Aedan could voice his method, screams erupted from the entire room, screams from the emancipated prisoners. They had been too weak to even croak, but now, they were screaming at the top of their lungs. At the same time, the cages were shaking intensely.

  “Your Grace, what’s happening!?”

  “The spell’s going into overdrive!”

  “Over-what?”

  “The spell’s being triggered to its full capacity. It’s completely tearing their souls apart and sucking them in like a typhoon.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Nothing.”

  In the next moment, the screaming stopped, the cages ceased moving, and silence fell on the room.

  “...They’re dead… Damn it. Just what was that? Why did the spell suddenly—”

  “Come,” Aedan said. “We must find the benefactor of this heinous spell.”

  ****

  “Oh, fuck…” Erin muttered as tremor struck the room. The tank was empty. Katya was gone, but a circle of inscriptions was left in her pce. A tremendous amount of Mana was converging onto this room. More specifically, it was converging onto the very circle of inscriptions, an amount tremendous enough to be even felt by those who weren’t sensitive or receptive to Mana.

  “I don’t like this. What’s happening, Erin?” Lyra asked, shivering. “What the hell was that?”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion, but I’m afraid something terrible is coming.”

  “Something is coming? Is that a summoning circle?”

  “It would appear to be.”

  Bck steam rose from the circle as it glowed in a strange dark hue. Steam rose more and more until it became opaque to look tangible. The ink of the circle was peeling off from the floor of the tank, turning into steam.

  “Lyra, you must leave this pce at once.”

  “What about you?”

  “Someone must stop whatever is coming.”

  “No! I will not leave you.”

  “This is not a request, Lyra!” Erin shouted. “This is dangerous. I won’t be able to protect you, and you won’t be able to protect yourself. Now, leave!” As soon as she let those words pour out of her lips, Erin shot towards the tank as she let loose her Aura Domain and imbued both of her bdes with Mystic Bde. She sliced the tank into pieces and continued her onsught towards the gathering steam.

  However, something sshed the steam apart, along with the space itself. A bde peeked through the slit of the space, followed by an arm with cws for hands. The bde blocked Erin’s attack.

  “This cannot be,” Erin muttered.

  The cw reached out for her.

  Erin pushed herself off from the cw and retreated a good distance from it.

  The cw and the bde parted the slit, and out came the body, crawling through the spatial rift.

  “A demon…” Lyra gasped.

  It was indeed a demon. It was quite simir to the Ashen Knight, which was the product of the necromancer, Baal. But this one was stronger and more… whole. It was less ethereal and more corporeal. It was less humanoid, with a very vague beastial impression, almost a werewolf. Its skin was akin to armour and skeleton fused into one. It was as bck as shadow. It was wielding a sabre with a jagged edge.

  “Lyra, run!” Erin gnced behind and shouted— only to see that the demon was already in front of Lyra. “LYRA!!” Erin yelled— but it was too te.

  The demon swung its sabre, and Lyra was too slow to react.

  An arm flew, and blood sprayed into the air.

  “LYRA!!” Erin bellowed in despair and rage as she charged right at the demon.

  The demon spun around and blocked Erin’s bdes. With just a huff, it pushed Erin away.

  “Fuck you!” Erin roared and came onto the demon again. She forwent dual bdes, devoting her focus to a single sword.

  With holes for eyes and jaws that seemed to give it a perpetual sinister smile, the demon parried the blow and countered with a jab.

  Erin deflected the stab and retaliated with a wide swing.

  The demon took a step back and let the ssh pass by harmlessly. It lurched forward with its cws extended towards Erin.

  Instead of sshing the cws off, Erin let it come to her. But before it could touch her, the demon’s cws were shredded into pieces by her aura.

  The demon neither cried nor yelled out in pain. It calmly retracted its arm and responded with a flick of its sabre.

  Erin caught its bde, letting it coil into her guard, before lurching forward with a light yet quick ssh at the demon’s face. The tip of her sword gouged and cut across its face, but the demon showed no sign of pain. Then, Erin felt a chill, the kind that was only felt when death was imminent. She looked above the demon. She saw two instances of whirling darkness. It was an unfamiliar sight, but she knew what was coming. She leapt away from the demon just as the whirling darkness shot two bolts of dark energy at her. The projectiles were faster than arrows. She was fast enough to cut down only one. As for the other, it struck her shoulder, and she went stumbling.

  Another instance of whirling darkness appeared above the demon. But before it could be fired, fmes engulfed the demon from seemingly nowhere.

  “DIE!” Amyra cried as she flew through the open doorway and bisected the burning demon.

  “Keep an eye on it!” Aedan shouted from behind, rushing to Lyra’s side. “That thing’s not dead yet. You two keep it busy while I tend to Lyra.”

  “Lyra’s alive!?” Erin blurted.

  “Yes, she is, but barely. She’s missing an arm, there’s a deep cut on her face and torso, but she’ll live now that I’m here.”

  Erin heaved a sigh of relief. Now, she could fully focus on killing this damn demon.