The Wraith Knight Ogre backed away from me as black tendrils coalesced around the stump of its arm and formed a hand of solid shadow that shifted with every movement. It pointed a nebulous finger at me.

  “Gather!” Its deep voice rumbled, echoing off the ceiling of the cavern.

  The wraiths attacking the rest of the party turned to me. More of them poured in through the cavern’s entryways, streaming in like tattered, ghostly sheets.

  It seemed that even though we had burned the corpses, the wraiths within them remained.

  They flocked to me, swarming over me in a mountain of darkness. But I had my hood up and my entire body was wrapped in the [Shadow Shroud]. The tide of claws scraping at me all passed through, leaving me unscathed. In return, my ravenous blade cleaved through entire swathes of them, the void edge tearing into dust any wraith that it touched.

  After I thinned the herd to only ten wraiths, I dove into one of them. Since they were made of shadows, it made sense that I should be able to hide in them. I wanted to see if it’d work, having grown tired of the meaningless slaughter. These were just empty shells with no souls.

  The wraiths dispersed, searching for me. My shadow-shrouded self emerged out of the one I had dove into, parting like two blobs of spilled ink. It turned to me and I stabbed my blade through it, causing the phantom to shrivel away with a sharp wail.

  I felt nothing, not cold, not numbness, just profound a sense of detachment. Not even the sight of Polly lying on the ground stirred anything in me. That was just a lifeless corpse.

  I surged at the ogre, and slashed my sword at it. The massive hulk of grey lurched back, moving lightning-quick, faster than anything that size should. It scrambled away, stumbling with hands pushing off the ground—a rather comical sight of a boulder fleeing desperately from an ant.

  I tilted my head. Wraith Knights were immune to fear… Perhaps it was the ogre part of the hybrid.

  The Wraith Knight Ogre came to stop some distance away. It looked back at me with the eye of flesh in the normal half of its face, and the black eye of the shadow helmet half. Its body fidgeted, a debate seemingly raging within between flight or kill.

  My toe struck something on the ground: Kamuel’s everbright torch. He must’ve dropped it when he went down. I glanced from the torch to the ogre and took aim. Squinting one eye, I kicked it toward the giant.

  The torch skidded between the ogre’s trunk-like legs and rolled to a stop past it. The torch was still lit. Everbright torches and candles stayed lit until their ‘flames’ were smothered; I knew that from experience. The flickering torchlight cast the ogre’s shadow back to the wall behind me and then up to the ceiling above.

  It looked down at the torch and then stared back at me in confusion. I waved, sinking into its shadow stretched out beneath my feet. Once inside, a few steps brought me to where the shadow ran over the ceiling. I emerged from the darkness above, dropping headfirst onto the giant, bringing my sword down in a wide arc upon its head.

  The ogre was still scanning the floor when it sensed me coming. It swung its club up to block, only for my blade to bisect it. My blade kept going, biting into the crown of its head and cutting a clean line straight down the center.

  The void edge reached its core. Its soul resided there, along with all the souls it had taken. I could sense the brightness within, and I knew that my blade would annihilate them.

  That’d be a waste. Hence, I pulled back, slicing just the surface of its core.

  I flipped in mid-air and landed on my feet, my pitch black blade at my side. The mountainous figure behind me peeled apart, starting from the head; two halves of bloody flesh mixed with writhing tendrils split down to the midsection before falling to the ground with a solid thud.

  Its exposed core hovered in the air before me, a bright, radiant pool of light. Its soul. And like the points of light rising from the fallen, it was a sight that only I could see, because I was the [Demon Soulfire Blade].

  All around us, wraiths shrieked as their ghastly forms dissolved into the air.

  Images of the fight flipped through my mind. I noted with detachment the adrenaline rushing through my body.

  “Nice! I leveled up!” Justin exclaimed.

  “And I as well,” Kamuel added, slowly rising to his feet with Serina’s aid. He clasped hands up high with Justin in celebration.

  “Good job!” Gorian shouted, as he slapped both of them on their backs.

  Justin turned to me, calling out, “Liege!” But the smile froze on his face when his eyes met mine. He stopped in his tracks.

  Just like my men when I first stepped out of the abbey with the demon sword, everyone here sensed my oppressive aura.

  Zadina felt it most of all. She gritted her teeth as she forced a step toward me. “My Lady!” she cried out, her voice sharp with desperation.

  I turned to a more important matter: the delectable core floating before me. That bright soul, so radiant and full due to all the other souls it had gorged on. My hand stabbed into the core, and my iridescent skin gleamed like real metal as I absorbed the light into my fingertips.

  The message flashed, fierce and quick, as warmth from the soul rushed into me.

  I waited patiently for the energy swirling within me to fully settle and take hold. I was solidifying.

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  Below the “10% Complete” was the outline of a sword with only a sliver of its handle filled: a progress bar.

  The [Demon Sense] kicked in immediately. I felt Zadina’s aura, hot, near searing as she closed in on me. The others, while not nearly as heated, were still palpable, throbbing with life.

  A bleak white washed everything away, and when the colors returned, I was standing inside a large orb that was sitting atop long planks of dark wood. Flat rectangular sheets of white lay a little further away. Strange characters were written on them.

  That’s a pile of paper. This is a desk. And… I’m standing in a crystal ball?

  A giant skull turned, and when it spotted me, the crimson points in hollow eye sockets flared. One of its skeletal hands clutched its dark robe while the other slammed down on the desk, knocking an ink jar over. “What are you doing here?! It’s too soon. My plans. Nothing is even in motion yet!”

  The dry, rattling hiss snaking around the glass was one that I recognized from long ago. This was Murion, the lich who welcomed me with the Demon Lord when I first arrived in this world.

  He jumped to his feet, and his bony face covered the entire surface of the orb overhead. “Why are you manifesting? You should be… only five. Too young to do anything. How could you have killed anything? Was there a catastrophe? Some natural disaster?” He fired off the questions in hurried, rapid succession, sounding rather manic.

  I felt no compulsion to answer, so I didn’t and stared silently back at him.

  Murion seemed to realize the issue. He began rifling through the rows of small cabinets stacked atop the desk, all the while muttering to himself. “Much too early. Yes, much too early. My plans aren’t ready yet. The trap isn’t set… But I still have time.”

  He paused, glancing back over at me before continuing to pull out more drawers. “Yes, only rank one. Not too much of an issue. He certainly won’t notice… No, he won’t suspect, at all.”

  His skeletal fingers fished out a glass vial half-filled with a dark-red liquid. He held it to the light, shaking the contents. Then he muttered a few words under his breath. Magic flowed in intricate swirls and jagged lines from his hand to the liquid. Blood magic.

  I watched, memorizing the structure of the spell.

  Murion nodded to himself, holding the vial up over the orb. “Now, I command you in his blood. Do NOT raise your rank above three until you’ve entered that human Academy.”

  This time, the weight of his words pushed my head down. I felt them being engraved into my mind.

  “Yes, that should give me enough time.” His head was drifting away, but he stopped himself and that skull snapped back to me. “And for the sake of the deep abyss, hide yourself. I’m shocked you haven’t been revealed with an aura that malignant.”

  A blade was sheathed inside me, metal grinding against my soul’s soft edges. The barrier of detachment faded, and warmth, cold, pain, sadness and rage flooded me, twisting into a pulsating knot in my chest.

  I raised my head and glared at the lich. This thing, it was the one responsible for her death. It had set my life on this course.

  What is it planning?

  Tapping his skeletal fingers together, Murion nodded his skull as if satisfied by my glare. “Good. Don’t get exposed and killed. We need more time.”

  He turned back to his papers and began to clean up the ink. Waving his hand, he hissed dismissively. “Now go.”

  Again, white washed over my vision. I was gently drifting when cold water splashed against my face. Some of it got into my lungs, making me sit up and cough violently.

  A hand patted my back. “My Lady, how are you feeling?” Zadina was crouched alongside, looking over me with concern.

  I wiped the water from my face and blinked, taking in my surroundings. I was back in the cavern with the peeled-apart ogre corpse beside me. Zadina and the rest of the Valiant Fist were either standing or crouching over me. In Zadina’s hand was an empty vial.

  I sniffed at my wet hand. “What did you pour on me?”

  “It’s just holy water from Lumus. Harmless, especially to you.”

  My fingers combed through my drenched hair. “Why would you put holy water on me?” I asked, even though I could guess the answer.

  It would still be good to know what they were hoping to accomplish.

  “You were possessed by that spirit when you destroyed its shell. We tried banishing it, among other things, including holy water,” Kamuel said from his crouched position opposite Zadina. “We were at our wit’s end.”

  Zadina exchanged a knowing glance with Kamuel. “Yes. Thank Lumus the miasma cleared. You seemed to have fought it off.”

  I wanted to laugh. If they only knew.

  “So what would happen if I stayed possessed?” I straighten up between them, giving each a smile in turn. “You would burn me like the rest?”

  Kamuel shrank from me while Zadina steeled her gaze. “Yes.”

  I nodded numbly. That was expected from her, but hearing it cut in unexpected ways.

  “I wouldn’t have let them.” Justin stepped forward, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Me neither.” Serina emerged beside me. She offered me a hand and pulled me up. “We don’t forsake our own.”

  Zadina shot up to her feet, her nostrils flaring and face fuming. “Do you realize what you’re saying? We can’t let evil possess someone of her caliber.”

  “We’d still give her a chance.” Gorian stepped in between us. “Listen, it’s been a rough battle for everyone.” He glanced over at Kamuel, still nursing his shoulder. “We are at the third level. There should be a dungeon wayroom up ahead. Let us head back topside and take a couple of days to reset before we forge ahead.”

  No one objected.

  I stayed behind and walked over to Polly. Kneeling over him, I closed his large brown eyes with a swipe of my hand. A swath of sheer white silk, anchored to a copper band, rested upon his chest, spread neatly amidst the blood, as if someone had arranged it there.

  “What is it?” Serina asked, approaching me from behind.

  The smooth cloth flowed around my fingertips as I clenched my fist around it. “What we will need.”

  Usually, the princess’s headdress could be obtained by going on a side quest of a side quest, laying to rest another ghost. But there was another, more straightforward option: one could sacrifice a troop in exchange.

  Naturally, this option wasn’t available if you had Joan as a general.

  For this run, it just assumed I’d chosen Polly.

  —

  Serina cast a detection spell, blowing waves of magic from her palm. A circular hidden door appeared, highlighted by a green glow. She pushed on the door and it rolled away, revealing an opening.

  We entered a small room with stone walls and floor. A magic circle with blue glyphs like the one in the guild wayroom was inscribed on the ground. A small pedestal stood in the middle of the circle with a purple gem sitting on top of it.

  “We all put our hands on the crystal to register and it will teleport us back to the guild,” Gorian explained to me.

  I placed my hand upon the crystal. “How long do we have?”

  “To come back? I believe at most a week.” He pulled off his gauntlet and placed his large, rough hand beside mine on the crystal. The others placed their hands on it as well.

  A message appeared in my vision.

  Do the others see this as well? Mama always dismissed me when I asked her about seeing messages in her mind.

  Thinking of Mama again set a weight upon my chest. I felt a longing for home.

  A dusting of light descended upon us. Our surroundings wavered and the clean, newer stone walls of the guild way room appeared before us.

  “Alright, let’s get to the inn and have a nice hot bath.” Gorian hollered and everyone bobbed their heads in agreement.

  All except for me. “Why don’t all of you go on ahead? I will be going back home.”

  Gorian raised an eyebrow. “You sure lass?”

  “Yes, I miss my… family.” It felt a little childish saying it, but I was tired and the words felt true.

  The others left, but Zadina dawdled.

  “I don’t need you to escort me, Zadina. I can get home safely.”

  “I know. I just wanted to make it clear that I meant no disrespect by what I said back there.”

  I inhaled deeply. “Zadina, do you believe I’m human?”

  “Of course, My Lady.”

  I shifted my gaze away from her and placed a hand over my chest. “Then can you accept that even though my mind understands, my heart cannot? Please give me some time alone. Tell the others I will be back in two days.”

  When she left the room, I raised my bracelet and mentally brought up [Waypoints]. I selected “Bedroom(Home)”.

  Light sprinkled over me again, and the walls wavered, slowly replaced by the tall windows of my bedroom, and my large four-poster bed.

  Smack!

  A broom clattered against the ground. The honey-haired maid who was sweeping the floor spun to me.

  “Jo! You’re back!” Claire screamed, launching herself at me.

  I spread my arms out to accept her fervent hug.