"The lights have stopped," I pointed out, looking toward the mountain on which the battle had been ongoing. I wasn't completely sure we had direct line of sight, given that we'd come out somewhere other than where we'd entered, but I could still identify the correct mountain, and the flashes should have been obvious in the darkness even if they were happening around its other side.

  "Indeed," agreed the Enshrouded, picking me back up.

  The landscape blurred once more as he ran, far faster than our trip into the canton, leaping crags and gullies as if they were mere pebbles on the road.

  "Woah!"

  "Hmm..." said the Enshrouded, slowing his pace slightly, which gave me the chance to check my new Mark without worrying about throwing up.

  "Hmm..." I said, echoing the Enshrouded.

  "You read the description of [Guardian], I assume?" he said.

  "Yeah. I'll never say no to more skill points, but I'm not sure I like the idea of the gods ordering me to fight more of those things. Then again, it does say 'revelations' and not 'orders' or 'instructions'. Just getting information wouldn't be too bad."

  "I have never received such revelations, despite Count Harvent pulling this stunt within my kingdom. I can only assume that they would reserve such revelations for threats they cannot combat themselves."

  "Wait, you already had [Guardian]?"

  "Does that surprise you? After all, from the fact that the 'Unbound' has both a name and a known nature, is it not obvious that others have arisen in the past?"

  "True, but no-one has said anything to give the impression that one had arisen recently."

  "One has not. Rather, the problem I dealt with was... more insidious. If you ever join my organisation, feel free to request the full story, but for now, we are here."

  I blinked, not seeing anyone around, but then I noticed the floor. My travels hadn't been what I'd describe as extensive, but I was fairly certain that mountains weren't supposed to be made of glass.

  We'd crossed from regular rock to a black, shiny, flat surface that was obviously unnatural. We may not have found our army or the Unbound, but we'd certainly entered the battlefield.

  Other scars soon made themselves known. 'Gullies' that were far too straight to be natural. Entire flattened areas. Spikes of earth piercing the glassy substance and sticking ten meters into the air.

  Lumps of misshapen flesh, the colour darkening from a bright red to a muddy scarlet as we watched. For a moment, I was concerned they were the remains of our soldiers, but on closer inspection, the lumps had far too many... everything. Eyes of different shapes and colours. Tufts of hair. Teeth. Lumps of bone. Nails. Entire fingers.

  The warning of Old Three-eye came back strong. If only I'd included that when I'd given my report to the Knights of the Thorned Rose, could this have been avoided?

  We had to travel a little further to find any signs of life. Soldiers and knights working to erect tents. Hundreds of others laid out on the glassy ground, many missing limbs and most unconscious, armoured healers rushing between them. More men were arriving, joining the growing throng. Presumably the battle had been pitched, moving quickly enough that they hadn't been able to build up an encampment, and now that it was over, they were putting together something to let them rest and heal.

  The Enshrouded ignored them all, running unseen between the mass of bodies, until he found a fully erected tent, flying a flag with the royal canton's coat of arms, and knights standing guard in front. He put me down in front of them.

  "Who the heck are you?" one of them asked, eyes opening wide beneath his helm as he and his partner drew their swords. Sounds of metal came from behind me, too, so it wasn't only the guards who'd reacted.

  "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" I asked, jabbing my elbow at the invisible prankster. Alas, I hit nothing, he apparently having moved since dropping me.

  "Stand down," whispered the Enshrouded.

  Eyes opened wider, and more sounds of metal played as everyone in the vicinity sheathed their weapons. "Yes, sir!" acknowledged the knight. "I didn't know he was with you, sir."

  There came no response, even as the silence dragged on into awkwardness.

  "Uhh... Did you go inside already?" I asked the empty air.

  The empty air didn't reply.

  "Then sorry for the intrusion, I guess," I said, looking around to find somewhere to stand that wouldn't get in anyone's way.

  For their part, neither the knights guarding the tent, nor any other nearby soldiers, appeared to have any idea what to do with me either, so they just ignored me. Seemed a bit trusting of them, given that they only had a single whisper from an invisible man to go on. What if I'd faked it myself, or something? Then again, he seemed pretty high up in the hierarchy, so maybe everyone knew him and was used to his antics.

  Besides, it wasn't as if I needed to wait idly. I had a massive pile of skill points to spend.

  Despite getting me two levels at once, the experience gain hadn't been that large. To the Enshrouded, at whatever ridiculous level he must be, ten thousand experience would be little more than a rounding error. Perhaps he had items or Marks that boosted it, but above level one hundred, even my boosted amount of a hundred and twenty thousand would be a fraction of a level. Not even a full level for solving a problem that posed an existential threat to humanity? That seemed rather unfair.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Then again, there was no guarantee everyone got the same amount, and if everyone here got the same amount of experience, it was still an absolutely massive reward from a single kill. Heck, there was a chance it was processed as a kill, and the experience divided as if we were in a team of ten thousand. In that case, killing an Unbound solo would have netted a billion experience. That seemed... a lot.

  Whatever. It didn't change the fact that I'd gained five skill points from levelling, and another five from [Guardian]. Enough to start working on magic. It was also enough to purchase the Path of [Assassin]. Given that King Robeld had said he'd seen the power granted by that Path, I could guess that the Enshrouded had taken it. No assassination had taken place on this trip, yet his abilities had been very useful, so maybe my concerns about the narrow focus were unfounded. Then again, he hadn't fought at all on the trip. He'd just walked through walls and been generally invisible. I could guess that wasn't simply from B-rank Skills. There was no way he didn't have several at A-rank.

  I'd still put off choosing a path for now. As much as I wanted to evolve [Expert Stealth], I still suspected there was a better fit for me available somewhere. I really needed to hit the guild library again.

  So, first up, it was time to spend some stat points.

  I still wanted to bring them all back into line for my next growth marker.

  And second was evolving [Mana Sensitivity].

  I winced a little as my perception of mana changed. While I previously could sense its existence and the general location of its source, now I could 'see' it. The 'see' required the quotes because whatever I was 'seeing' with wasn't my eyes. My eyes didn't have three-sixty degree vision. My new mana sense did.

  I could 'see' the soldiers behind me, clouds of pink mana running through their bodies, red runes floating in the air around them. Or, at least, to [Mana Perception] they were floating. Adding my regular eyes to the mix showed that they were engraved into their armour.

  The tent was a black void, presumably cloaked in some sort of privacy enchantment that cut off my new perception at its boundary.

  It was all rather beautiful, but also somewhat overwhelming. I had the benefit of over a hundred and forty Processing. Dedicated mages would likely get this Skill when barely in the double digits. Admittedly they wouldn't jump from the first stage of [Mana Sensitivity] straight to [Mana Perception], but even so, I felt that it would be advisable to give it a few hours before advancing the Skill any further.

  I certainly would be advancing it further, though. I had enough points to evolve it to [Mana Manipulation]. Not enough to max out [Mana Manipulation], but I didn't need to. Having it at the first stage was sufficient to start learning spells.

  It actually seemed rather unfair. I hadn't needed [Dagger Mastery] to learn [Stab]. Nor was [Mana Manipulation] on its own useful in combat like [Dagger Proficiency] had been, let alone the C-rank [Dagger Mastery]. I suppose the perception had other uses, but even so, it meant that low-level mages weren't suited for combat.

  ... Although the mage of Charles Klendy's party had somehow managed to cast [Sleep] at level seven. Obviously, there was some way around it. Given that the party was obviously inflated by money, maybe they'd bought a bunch of skill point crystals, or maybe that mage had been conscripted into the party for having a Mark that gave extra skill points. Heck, for all that I knew, it may well be possible to store spells in a staff, such that anyone could use them. I hadn't yet learnt the full range of what was available.

  "Well, that could have gone far worse," whispered the Enshrouded from behind me, causing me to jump. As might be expected, my newly evolved Skill gave no indication of his presence whatsoever. "You weren't interested in joining the debrief?"

  "... I had no idea I was allowed," I answered.

  "You equally had no idea if you were not. Why not simply ask?"

  "I didn't think of it," I admitted. "It's not like I'm one of you leaders."

  "Hmm..." was the only response, and I could have sworn an empty patch of air looked vaguely disappointed. "In any case, casualties are not as bad as they could have been. They are still high. Enough that international relations will be fraught, as our neighbours sense our weakness, but low enough that should we manage to avoid a war, we'll be able to handle the next dungeon break."

  "That's... good?" I guessed.

  "As good as could be hoped, and it will extend the remaining lifetime of our kingdom by a year or two, but we are still in a dire position."

  "You can handle the next dungeon break, but that's still a dire position?"

  "I see little point in explaining the politics to one who has no desire to take part in them. We would still greatly value you clearing the Deep, so I shall return you to the royal canton at once, where you can resume your dungeon tour. Hopefully..."

  "You!" boomed a deep voice, interrupting the Enshrouded, which seemed like a poor career choice to me. "This is all your fault!"

  "Shit," exclaimed the Enshrouded, and then we were moving, the man sweeping me off my feet and blurring into a sprint before I could even process who had spoken.

  And yet, despite the landscape blurring around us, someone was keeping up.

  A tall man, completely hidden under black plate mail. Despite the lack of introductions, I felt safe putting a name to the metallic face. Sir Grysk Khris, the black knight.

  No, I was wrong in one important respect. He was not keeping up. Despite being fully clad in metal armour, which must have weighed considerably more than I did, he was gaining.

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