Chapter 1 - Trial Dungeon
Liesel Wyrn heaved. Her fingers clutched the sword's handle like a vise. Pain echoed through her entire body as she drove the sword through the hard shell. She bled from her shoulder. Somewhere around her calf, a beast was biting with its dying strength.
[Materiality +3]
She felt the tiny energy flow through her body as she twisted the blade between the crack of the mask. The tip of her blade had snapped, and now it was stabbing into her shoulder, while the broken blade tore the Mask of the Vizard Demon. The mask resembled her dead mother at the moment. It was sickening to watch so many human faces cracked like glass around her. It must have tried to use her most painful memories to create the mask. But it didn't understand humans. Very few things would give pause to her blade, and a mask was not one of them, no matter to whom it may belong.
She exhaled, pulling out the broken sword. She looked at the floor around, blood of human and demon mixing into a bitter grin tar. Of the twenty-five members, she was the only one left standing. The company she was part of had been completely wiped out. Half were dead a few floors above, and the rest… they were mauled to death here. She couldn't even recall how someone like her, the weakest member of the team on paper, survived.
She channeled Materiality into her arm, relieving the pain slightly, and used that boost to stab the demon between its jaws. The beastly maw opened like a mechanical device. She released the woven Materiality from her flesh.
[Materiality -1.5
Total Materiality: 24.2/40]
For this short exercise, she'd expect it to be less than one unit. The exhaustion and stress were affecting her channeling efficiency, and that was probably a death sentence in these circumstances.
Less than losing all of my teammates.
She still limped forward, her ears strained to catch a sign of breath from someone still alive, no matter how barely.
“Lis…” A faint whisper came from the darkest corner of the corridor.
She knew one person who had a healing scroll. She stole it from their corpse. Her calf was bitten, and every step made the pain echo sharper. She'd need to heal to survive. But she limped towards the source of the noise first. It was a familiar voice.
"Captain," Liesel said. "I am glad..."
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized the demon had fallen over his body and crushed almost everything beneath the torso.
The soldiers were trained, though. The pain was invisible on his impassive face, but the dilated pupils said everything she needed to know.
She unfurled the scroll and took out a Materiality core from her pocket. First, she replenished her own pool of Materiality.
“It won’t work,” the captain said. He understood she was going to use it on him.
“I know. It will only worsen your misery, forcing you to live another hour, I imagine. You should be numb to pain by now. So it shouldn't be as bad.”
As she unfurled the healing spell, he asked, “Why are you doing this?” There was a little worry in his voice.
“It’s my duty to make my best attempt to save your life,” Liesel replied. She was new to his team. This was their first official expedition. It was a total wipeout, despite the Soul Seeker's Seventh Company having quite the clean record so far. If she survived, her superiors would be suspicious of her, and she'd have to speak under oath. To make as clean a case for herself as possible meant using the last scroll on him rather than herself. Of course, it drastically lowered her chances of survival, but that was secondary to surviving under suspicion.
He chuckled. “Are you really going to torture me like that?”
“I am just doing my duty, Sir,” Liesel replied. She didn't want to contemplate the moral weight of her decision while she was almost going insane from pain. But she paused. "Iam still duty-bound to usethis healing spell on you."
She waited for a moment for his dying mind to catch the meaning behind her words.
"I am already dead. You can use it on yourself," he said.
Liesel invoked the spell circle drawn from blood. A ball of light manifested from it. She took out the stabbed piece of metal from her shoulder. The healing was an unpleasant experience. She could feel the flesh stretch and grow and weave together. The ball of light survived her shoulder, so she healed her leg, too. She exhaled in relief.
“Thank you, Sir,” Liesel said.
“Are you going to escape?”
“I will wait here,” Liesel replied. “If I return without your Crest, more than likely, I’d be charged for abdication of my responsibility.”
“It’s down there,” he uttered bitterly, pointing his at the dead demon and his torso beneath it.
Liesel considered that for a moment, but she shook her head. "I cannot imagine it would be pleasant, and I'd rather not bring you any more misery than is written in your fate.”
“I am burning in agony already."
"I imagine so," Liesel nodded.
“End it,” the captain said after a little wait. “Better it’d be if you start moving. I have no hope. Just end it… unless you can't.”
“I have seen people cling to life even after losing sanity, the body, and even their soul," Liesel uttered as she wiped the demon blood from her sword, "In that regard, you are very fortunate, despite this..."
“That was your mother,” he said. He'd have received her information when she joined his team.
“She was cursed,” Liesel nodded. Her sword had a grey sheen, an effect that many weapons bathed in demon blood produces. “It was unfortunate that she lived as long as she did. If she were like you…”
“Did you hate her?” he asked. Or maybe he was asking if she would hate him for this.
“I have wished she were a cruel, heartless monster many nights. She could've asked. Perhaps I hate that part of her.”
"Maybe, I am the cruel one for tainting your hand with human blood," He chuckled.
“I’d have only felt relief in ending her pain.” Liesel drew Materiality into her blade. Life of an Ascendant was like a stubborn leech. It was also the reason why he was still alive. A demon could kill humans easily, for their magic destroyed the soul as well. Her sword was just a normal steel weapon. It couldn't touch the soul.
"Don't you feel any hesitation, killing a human?" He asked.
“Am I killing you?” Liesel asked. “Or am I cutting your pain short, sir?”
"Even so..." He didn't finish whatever he was going to say. "Try to survive as long as you can."
"It won't hurt," Liesel said.
Materiality thrummed in the blade. Materiality was the only substance that existed in all shades of reality, so a blade enhanced with it could touch the soul, which was not a physical object. But it drifted from one shade to another. Except for a very precise window, it was impossible to touch the soul directly with this kind of weapon.
[Soul Shade Resonance Established!
Shade Severing Strike executed!]
Liesel swung her sword, layered with Materiality. It cleft the captain’s head, as well as his soul. His eyes were hollow. He shouldn’t have felt anything.
She liked that the System took the initiative to let her know when she was successful. Though it equally stung when it informed her of failure.
Her entire arm was stinging from overuse of magic.
[Materiality +120 → 40/40
Additional Materiality discarded.]
She wouldn’t say she was sad to see her Materiality fully restored, but it did feel a little abnormal, which was a very typical human thing to feel. Of course, since she killed him, she acquired a portion of the Materiality that escaped from his body. That’s just how the System worked, though it could use a slight distinction between a human and a demon. Not that Liesel had any hope of that ever happening
It took a lot more effort to get his Crest, and she was vindicated upon witnessing the state of his body.
The crest was a heavy metal plate. Three strikes cleaved through the dense material that represented his rank. Liesel’s own crest was a leather patch on her coat with two red stripes sewn on it. They were part of a suicide military squad, loosely linked with the regime. Just enough to be held accountable for failure of duty, but never enough to be responsible for the misfortune while on duty.
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The Soul Seekers were an external branch of the Golden Crusader Guardians. Their whole purpose was to investigate any anomalous incidents that the Empire would rather hide from the public, who believed the Imperial Core was the safest place in the entire realm.
Liesel was part of one such investigation. On the outskirts of the capital, an entrance to an unknown space had opened. Since no one knew what might be inside, the Soul Seekers were deployed.
As far as Liesel had gathered so far, it seemed like a dungeon filled with almost infinite demons, and it was divided into different floors. Even though she had collected the crest, there was no way to escape.
The only path was forward, deeper into the dungeon, and she’d die in the next encounter with a demon. So, regardless of how she had spent her last few minutes, she was going to die here.
At the end of the passage, there was a stair leading to the floor below.
— — —
The Custodian watched the young girl toil down the stairs on a floating screen. The seven golden rings inside its red iris revolved like wheels.
“Are you interested in her?” The spirit hovering in front of the screen asked. “Well, not that it matters. There are like twelve waves of Ratakers on the third floor. The trial’s already over.”
The Custodian didn’t share the spirit’s nonchalance. He was tired. And he needed a successor. Of course, the girl was impressively weak for her age. Her soul was incapable of growing, clogged by the Ash-dust from the curse. “The Shade Severing Strike, it was impressive.”
“It’s not,” the spirit argued. Auram was the spirit’s name. It had stumbled into the Library a few centuries ago, and since then, she had remained here. A precious being like her would be hunted down like a golden-furred rat. The Custodian had no right to ask her to leave, for she had sought shelter here.
“For the mortal kind, especially simple creatures such as a human, killing familiar people is hard. The Soul Severance requires an unfathomable calm to time it perfectly. To achieve it while injured, aware of their own demise awaiting, we might have a chance."
“Not after they chew her bones into dust,” Auram argued. “And it’s still only the third floor, out of like Fifteen? Or is it fourteen?”
That was true. Even if the mind was almost there, the body certainly lacked the power to be useful. But the mind was harder to cultivate. A body could be fixed with a bit of knowledge. He could spare. He would spare it, if...
“Mind…” the custodian’s amorphous hand morphed into solid human fingers as another system screen manifested beside him. “We must test mind, little one.”
The system showed a diagram of the floors. He disconnected the second floor from the third floor first. Now the stairs would loop infinitely. He considered. He clicked the twelfth floor. There was a single demon in it.
“The Mind Eater,” the spirit uttered, horrified. “C’mon. That’s cruel even by your standard.”
“We must test the mind,” the Custodian answered. He only cared for a sufficiently capable successor. He could seal most of the library until the rest of the floors were cleared. Perhaps a tiered system would be best to keep the successor working hard. But first, itmust pass the test.
“Test the mind… we need to check your mind! Did your brain melt and peep out through your snort? It’s on the twelfth floor for a reason. She’s alone.”
It was unusual for the spirit to be bothered by something. She had seen enough carnage in the trial dungeon to find pity in her heart anymore.
“So is the Mind Eater,” the custodian tried to soothe the spirit—an ill tendency he’d been developing for a while now. “It matters little how tainted we must become, how it comes to be, only that we produce a successor.”
“No. You are dumb if you think she’d be sane after meeting its gaze. There’s no point in changing this. It’s only a worse way to kill someone. You can’t be evil. And what you are planning is.”
The Custodian glared at the spirit for a long moment. He could, and probably should, ignore her. At the same time, he felt a little pity for himself. He was too old to deal with the spirit. “What do you suggest, little one?”
The spirit hummed for a moment. “If the Mind Eater cannot eat her mind in five seconds after casting its magic, you will save her.”
“Five seconds? That is too low. How about two minutes?” The Custodian would prefer a victor, but he was willing to compromise. Some prey were harder to consume for a Mind Eater, so a two-minute period was a perfect compromise.
“It will probably eat an entire room full of that girl in two minutes. Ten Seconds. She could still be sane until then, if you are lucky."
“Two minutes. A successor of mine must have at least that much capacity, or this attempt would be in vain, bound to end in failure. We believe killing the Mind Eater is the appropriate job, but if we must negotiate, two minutes is all the leniency.”
The spirit kept glaring at him without a word.
Eventually, the Great Custodian had to budge. “One minute.”
“Too high.”
The Custodian found himself tempted again to simply connect the twelfth floor. Let it play out its course.
“Okay, let’s settle for fifteen seconds. That’s a long-ass time for a Mind Eater, you know. If she can resist it for that long, then she has the potential that you can nurture… there’s no need to name her successor right now.”
“Fine. Thirty seconds. If she survives for half a minute, we’d deem her a prospective successor, while we still open the dungeon to seek new participants elsewhere.”
The spirit fumed over the counteroffer for a long minute, and then she extended her hand. “Deal!”
“Deal.”
The Custodian and the spirit shook hands.
Neither of them realized how evil they would appear to a normal human. A Mind Eater was considered the most sadistic demon, the vilest of its kind, amongst imperial academics.
“Anyways," the spirit said. "Should I ask her if she wants to face the Mind Eater? I mean, if she doesn't even have the courage to say yes, you are likely not going to find a survivor in her."
The Custodian contemplated. He reluctantly agreed. He'd rather see her reaction without the knowledge, but courage was part of the equation.
Leaving behind a poof of smoke, the spirit vanished.
—-------
After what felt like an hour, Liesel finally reached the bottom of the stairs. She was already tired.
“Heya!” An orb of light jumped out of thin air. It formed into a human-like shape with a pair of butterfly wings. A spirit. Its body was glowing as though created from light.
Liesel’s fingers tightened on the sword. She had never seen a spirit before. They were supposedly extinct.
“I am Auram. Consider me a guide to your predicament.”
“Liesel Wyrn. Where am I?"
“So, you are currently taking on a trial for something very important and powerful. It can change lives,” the spirit grinned.
"It has changed lives already," Liesel said. "From living to dead, about twenty-four of them."
"That," the spirit seemed to stumble over her word for a moment. Maybe she had not been expecting something like that. “So, you are in a fifteen-floor dungeon that you have to clear to get that very important thing.”
“I will probably die in a few minutes, so I don't know why you are wasting your time on me right now. And mine too."
"If you are going to die, aren't I extending it right now?” the spirit shrugged.
"Is that inherently a good thing?" Liesel couldn't help but grin when the spirit's entire body flushed in anger and frustration.
"Besides that, things are going in your favor. The Master of this dungeon thinks you have a chance to reach the end one day.”
“I probably won’t,” Liesel said. Unlike an Ascender who could cultivate their soul and grow strong physically and spiritually over time, she was stuck at her current state for the rest of her life. There was no further future for her.
“With our knowledge, you can. At least, the Custodian's. I don't know much about human magic. But first, you must prove yourself. So, instead of having Rattaskers eat you for breakfast, we are throwing you ten levels down, directly onto the twelfth,” the spirit dove down through the air. She swam back up to Liesel’s eye level. “Don’t get your hopes up. The Custodian has no clue what mortal kind can or cannot do. So he might be overestimating you. He thinks you should be able to kill a Mind Eater."
Liesel paused. That would be the most delusional strings of words Liesel had ever heard, and she had heard a lot of those.
"I felt a tiny speck of pity for you, so I managed to convince him to let me ask you," The spirit said, proudly puffing her chest. "So you can say no, and we'd not toss you in front of the Mind Eater."
"If I refuse, what happens then?" Liesel asked.
The spirit paused. "Well... I was so excited when he agreed, I completely forgot about that part. I will try to convince him to send you back to your home. But most likely, he'd send you to the third floor. I have never seen a single person survive in the centuries that I have been here."
Liesel didn't reply. The Mind Eater was most likely a painful way to die, but the question was whether the demon rats would be better.
"C'mon. You can't really weigh the Mind Eater and some random demon on the same level. It's worse."
"You are asking me to choose which way I want to die," Liesel said. "And like it or not, that's not an easy question. But the Mind Eater might be a better option."
She did know how a Mind Eater was killed, and she wouldn't need any special skill or spells to kill it. And her Mental Fortitude Attributes had the highest points, into the thirties, more than three times her Strength Attributes.
The spirit, surprisingly, didn't push her to reconsider. Instead, she smiled like a proud salesman. "Well, wouldn't you know. I have negotiated another deal for you. So long as you can survive thirty seconds under the Mind Eater's spell, the Custodian will save you. But it will be the longest and most unpleasant thirty seconds for you.”
“Thank you for your kind words,” Liesel nodded. She tried to keep her hopes from internalizing the promise from a stranger. "But, Auram, why did you negotiate a deal for me?"
"I am just trying to wipe off the nasty taste of the Custodian's doing." The spirit vanished, leaving behind a puff of smoke.
Liesel was somewhat worried about the random spirit and how nonchalant she was. It was just a normal day until morning. The most work she did regularly was cleaning out estranged monsters born from the rancid waste in the sewers. Now, she was here. Perhaps too tired to be curious about their intentions. It was probably not in her favor if she had imagined.
A dome-shaped room awaited beyond the entrance. It was grey and dark from the ceiling to the ground.
She could hear a sharp, scraping noise from the other side of the dome. Its echoes were painful. Mist filled the dome, and the faint outline of the five-meter-tall demon’s silhouette was soon visible in it. It looked horrifyingly human-like, and those were the worst kind of demons to face, even among the Mind Eaters.
It seemed to be entranced by whatever was behind that wall. In that sense, it was completely different from the demons she had faced until now. They were only blood-hungry. Mindless and barbaric.
It paused once after she crossed the halfway point of the dome. It was brief, and then it resumed scraping the wall with its metal claws.
After she was two-thirds of the way there, it stopped again. This time, it glanced her way.
Liesel’s feet stopped.
The demon’s face was like a bat's. Two wing-like ears stretched from the side of its head, and a large orb sat in the middle, covered under a slithery, translucent eyelid.
Liesel’s feet stopped. She drew Materiality into the sword. A Mind Eater… It needs emotions. Breath. I die the moment I care about anything, I think of anyone. I feel human. Draw it all out.
"I am an empty vessel," Liesel whispered. "I have no future of my own. I have no will of my own. I exist to perpetuate the will of the Divine and the Empire. I exist as no one beyond. My will is dead."
She kept repeating those words. Slowly, her nerves were tranquil.
It turned back to the wall again, smashing its hand on the wall. It deemed her mind unworthy of whatever may lie beyond those walls, which may not be a bad thing.
A Mind Eater was a class Six demon that put entire prefectures into total isolation until the demon was dealt with. The Empire trained orphans since their birth, drew out their will and desires, and forged a special army that may stand the magic of a Mind Eater. And yet, they failed so often, either from burgeoning desire for a partner, or a fleeting moment of peace in their torturous life.
Perhaps a wiser person may have turned around and left the dome. Stabbed the broken sword in their neck rather than facing the demon. They’d have died regardless, but one promised much less misery. She kept walking. In the silence of her mind, even her own breath was too loud, her steps too heavy.
As she crossed another threshold, she was close enough for it to care.
It turned around. In a blink, it was there. Towering over her. She was unable to move, already trapped in its magic.
It turned her head up.
The eyelid snapped to the side. The green eye stared into her soul. There was a mouth inside it.
In a blink, Liesel was back in her old home. She was standing there, watching her mother’s ashen face. The pillow was stained with blood. The broken sword was still in her hand. And a thought inside her mind, not her own, but the Mind Eater's.