The air thickens when King Baalrek lifts his hand.

  The same red lightning that had killed the Boss in the Ninth Floor now fills this place, recoiling from his fingers and drawing back into the ceiling, creating a dome of death around them.

  Mana compresses so hard that Nimirea feels her ribs creak.

  Then a Skill Crystal appears above his palm.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  The Skill Crystal’s appearance creates folds in space, ripples that seem to threaten to destroy reality itself.

  That’s not bigger than a Diamond Ranked Skill Crystal… but then, what is that energy?!

  It’s a beacon of a myriad lights that shine so bright they’re blinding. The glow sears Nimirea’s eyes, who’s forced to avert her gaze. For a moment, it creates such a piercing light that the entire gigantic room is illuminated, the darkness banished away, and she can even see hints of cerulean in the walls.

  This is absolutely ridiculous, Nimirea thinks. That’s the densest Mana I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life.

  Nimirea raises her forearm in front of her face, yet the light stabs through her eyelids. Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and run down her cheeks.

  She activates the Eye of the Prophet. The power snaps on; it turns the world into layers and threads and labels. It should show her the Skill so easily. Yet, it shows her nothing. Where the Skill should be, she sees only a hole.

  The only explanation is that, somehow, that Skill Crystal has been imbued with Divinity.

  Her stomach twists. Her instincts scream. This is wrong.

  If there’s Divinity in that Skill Crystal, it would make it the strongest Diamond Ranked Skill in the world. And it would create an unshakeable foundation for whatever technique it’s linked to. If it’s an offensive attack, it would completely change Jacob’s potential forever, making it worthy for him to abandon the Affliction Specialist aspirations in favor of becoming a Breaker. If it’s a Defensive Skill, he should become a Shield. Whatever Skill it is, really, it would completely change what Jacob should do.

  “That’s an Infernal Skill,” Jacob comments coolly.

  “This is what you came here for. What you made your way through this Dungeon for. I suppose, this is what you’d like as a reward in case you ever won the bet.”

  Unlike Nimirea, Jacob doesn’t appear to need to shield his eyes.

  “No thank you.”

  The words cut across the humming air and hang there. Nimirea almost chokes. Her head whips toward him.

  “What?” she hisses. “Jacob—”

  “What?” King Baalrek, or at least the giant skeleton posturing as King Baalrek frowns and echoes the Half-Elf’s words. “What do you mean ‘no thank you?’ You stupid youngster, do you understand that this would change your entire life? Do you understand how powerful this is? Divinity has been infused into this Skill.”

  “You’ve been locked away for so long with it that it’s absorbed the Divine power of the Curse,” Jacob replies.

  King Baalrek raises an eyebrow.

  “Perspicacious, Cloud. Yet, this is not cursed.”

  “First of all,” Jacob says, “I know. I’m just saying, I’m not interested in that.”

  “Jacob, the power in that Skill is otherworldly!” Nimirea shouts.

  She catches herself, not even knowing why she’s helping.

  Jacob ignores her. He keeps his gaze on King Baalrek and forces himself not to flinch.

  “Keep the Skill,” he says. “I want one swing at you instead.”

  Silence. Even the buzzing red lightning seems to freeze.

  Then King Baalrek throws his head back and laughs to high heaven. The sound shakes dust from the ceiling and sends hairline cracks through the floor.

  Nimirea feels the laugh in her teeth and in the scars on her hands. Her knees twitch, and she has to lock them so she does not drop to the ground.

  “You refuse a Skill beyond what any mortal would be able to achieve,” King Baalrek says at last. His eyes burn with amusement. “You will waste your wish on a swing at me. You think you can do anything to _me?”

  Jacob shrugs.

  “Maybe,” he says. “You still owe me a bet. Are you chickening out?”

  A week ago, Nimirea would have grabbed Jacob by the collar and shaken him. She would have screamed that he was insane. She would have assumed this was another suicidal heroic fit from a human who did not understand how high true power goes.

  Now she stays quiet.

  She watches the line of Jacob’s jaw and the way his shoulders sit. He stands there with his stupid cloak torn and his boots half-charred, yet there is nothing loose about him.

  He has schemed this, the bastard.

  Nimirea’s fingers curl into a fist. A week ago, she would have bet against him immediately.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Now, her mental calculation of the odds has suddenly shifted.

  He’s going to win. The bastard is going to win!

  He has something prepared. He is not walking into this naked.

  Nimirea trusts Jacob’s mind despite the odds. That is why she does not scream when he throws away a Skill that would make kingdoms bleed to own it.

  “So you don’t want the Skill. You want to swing at me. Why?”

  King Baalrek closes his hand around the blinding Skill. The light vanishes as if he crushed the sun between his fingers. The cavern returns to red and black.

  “I need to get me and her out of here,” Jacob replies. “If I kill you, that’s it.”

  “Kill me?” the giant skeleton laughs, letting the jaw hang loose.

  “And why do you care about her?” he asks. He tilts his head toward Nimirea without looking at her. “Let’s say I kill the girl and I let you go. Do you take the deal?”

  “I’m good. I prefer my version.”

  “You refuse, Cloud?” the Mad King raises an eyebrow. “You refuse me? For her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could pretend you never crawled into my Secret Room. You could walk out and enjoy your mortal life. Why do you throw that away?”

  Jacob does not hesitate. “Because I am going to save her,” he says.

  King Baalrek stares at him for a heartbeat. Then he chuckles again. “You are not even going to save yourself.”

  Jacob takes a step forward. The red lightning snarls at his boots and bends away at the last second because it recognizes the residue of King Baalrek’s mana in his veins.

  “I am going to save you first,” he says. “Then I am going to save her. No one is going to stop me.”

  Nimirea inhales sharply.

  King Baalrek bares his teeth.

  “You are going to save me,” he repeats. “Little miner brat. Little Guide. You think you will pull a Mad King out of his curse? You think you will rescue an Infernal who slaughtered his own people? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  King Baalrek finally turns his gaze on Nimirea. His eyes narrow. “And you think you will save that one. That girl reeks of the Monster God, a Child of Twilight. Her heart is blacker than any monster I’ve met. Madness is a curse and a blessing, it is something that seeps deep into your veins, but that some, indeed, escaped. Devotion to Asmodeus… no one escapes that. You must give all of yourself to the Vile One. She belongs to him, Jacob Cloud. Not to you.”

  “That is my problem,” Jacob says, narrowing his eyes.

  King Baalrek snorts. “It is mine too when his stench walks in my House. You want to save an Infernal King and a girl that Asmodeus has already marked. That is worse than childish.”

  Jacob rolls his shoulders once. His pulse hammers in his neck, yet he forces his breathing to slow. “Fine,” he says. “Can we stop talking and start the bet already? You can rant about my childishness after I win.”

  King Baalrek’s eyes gleam. “You are eager to die. Good. It would be boring if you grovelled from the start.”

  He spreads his arms. The red lightning gathers to him in thick strands.

  Infernal glyphs burn into the air around his wrists and elbows. Nimirea feels the mana patterns twist. They are old. They are wrong. They are not from this age.

  “I have chosen something to honor my Infernal roots,” King Baalrek says. “And I have added a twist of Madness. The Mad God will rejoice about this when he comes back again.”

  The lightning threads converge above the room and spin into a sphere. It pulses. It screams in Nimirea’s ear without sound. The pressure makes her teeth ache.

  “This challenge is impossible for anyone but me,” King Baalrek continues. “If you beg, I will consider it mercy and I will only torture your soul for a hundred years before I shatter it. That is my generosity.”

  “Do your worst,” Jacob says.

  He says it casually. Nimirea wants to punch him.

  Provoking such a monster is not wise. She knows it. Any Knight with a working brain would know it. This is the Mad King. His trials wiped out whole lineages of Infernals. His “tests” are whispered as curses.

  “Jacob,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Don’t die,” she says, glaring intensely at him.

  “I’ve got this,” he replies.

  * * *

  The Mad King observes the two mortals with a deep sense of satisfaction.

  The human stands there with his little promises and his little courage. The girl glares at him. They both look very young and easy to break.

  King Baalrek laughs. He enjoys the way the sound bounces from the cavern and comes back louder.

  “Very well,” he says. “I will be merciful. I will give you three attempts.”

  His mana surges. He raises one hand and closes his fingers in the shape of a claw. The air above the room tears open. Shards of molten stone and dripping symbols fall down into the sphere of red lightning and they fuse with it.

  The pieces twist and fold into each other until a structure hangs in the air.

  The giant puzzle looks simple at first glance. It is a cube the size of a house. Its faces are divided into tiles. Symbols move across them in slow patterns that never repeat. Lines of red lightning run along some edges. Thin threads of black smoke leak from others and sink into the floor. There are gaps where tiles slide aside and reveal labyrinths of gears and veins underneath.

  Nimirea stares at it for one heartbeat. Then she facepalms so hard that she almost knocks herself out.

  King Baalrek blinks.

  “What are you doing?” the Mad King asks, confused.

  She groans.

  “A puzzle. Of course it is a puzzle,” she mutters.

  “You understand despair, then,” King Baalrek roars rightfully. “Well, begin, Jacob Cloud!”

  King Baalrek folds his arms and watches.

  He knows Jacob will not survive the first attempt.

  The solution hides behind a pattern that only someone who has already conquered Madness can perceive. A Prophet of the Mad God could see it. An Apostle could see it.

  A kid like him?

  No.

  There’s not a single chance.

  The trick is simple and cruel. The puzzle rewards focus. The deeper you stare at it, the clearer the pattern becomes, and the more the pattern eats away at your mind. Madness will slowly crawl through Jacob Cloud’s mind and take it.

  It is a slow shift.

  It is the moment you trust the wrong conclusion because it feels right. The more you think, the closer you move to the wrong truth.

  King Baalrek has seen monsters claw their own eyes out in front of this cube. He has watched Infernals with iron wills stand straight and slowly sand their sanity away, little by little.

  He is already thinking about what he will do with Jacob’s soul. He might cut it apart and have him scream for the rest of eternity by his ear to have some good background music to his future terrible deeds.

  Yes, that sounds like a good plan.

  King Baalrek lets his mind wander as he counts the heartbeats, not really focusing on Jacob Cloud. The puzzle hums. The red lightning curls toward Jacob; it licks at his hair and clothes. Madness is a patient beast. It will climb into his ears and sink into his thoughts.

  He will come back and terrorize all mortals, bring the will of the God of Madness into the world once again and—

  “I think I’m done.”

  The words are casual.

  King Baalrek turns, ready to mock him. He is ready to see Jacob’s eyes glassy with the first roots of Madness. He is ready to hear the slurred speech and the wrong answers and the laughter that comes when the mind slips.

  Yet, Jacob just stands there with his hands in his pockets.