Of course, as Unferth noted, it was still highly unlikely that undeath could make its way here.

Dark Zones possessed inherently high levels of primal energy, and primal energy was effective against warding away Undeath.

​​

Especially here, on the northern edge of Fjall bordering the Rift where primal energy became so dense that it cloyed into environmental markers like this fall of Grain.

But an Archmage's words were not to be taken lightly. They among all their Sorcerer ilk knew well the significance of their sworn duty to order.

If Thorian, an Archmage respected even among those of his ranks, possessing influence perhaps just shy of a Zenith, said there was daemonic presence here and, consequently, possibility for the spread of undeath, then Unferth was not going to question it.

Not to mention the bribes.

Unferth smiled underneath his helmet.

He was a man of duty, to be sure. He truly did believe in the good of his cause, the cause of the Undeath Containment Force, but why not make some coin while carrying it out?

Thorian's bribe was two-fold.

The first part was simple. Predictable. A sizable sum of coin for Unferth to start this investigation and keep it as secretive as possible.

Of course, there were certain procedures Unferth had to follow. But by using his authority as a captain to classify this excursion as an emergency expedition, he could report minimally to any higher authorities.

No need to alert the League or Order.

Only a quick initial report to Mercian High Command as to where he was going and a brief summary of the nature of the investigation. He had to provide a probable cause for the investigation too, but that, Thorian had provided adequately with a sample of Undeath energy signatures.

Whether they actually came from this location or not, Unferth could not tell. Nobody really could.

Undeath energy was notoriously inscrutable to even the most knowledgeable of Sorcerers or the most expert of dwarven Magitechnicians.

Did not matter, really. Unferth would trust the words of a respected Archmage on that one.

The second part of the bribe was what Unferth was both curious and uneasy about.

If Unferth found a daemon here, a young girl, by his description, then he was to retrieve her without harming her if she was not undead.

Or, if she was undead, to try and keep her body as whole as possible and to bring her corpse to Thorian, containing, of course, the spread of undeath to a minimum.

Now this part of the bribe was the most rewarding.

If Unferth found this supposed daemon girl, then he could quit his job as a captain entirely and live out the rest of his days in complete luxury on some Faoresian treehouse, or perhaps kick back on a seaside estate in Xin.

Unferth was growing old, and though he upheld his duty to the UCF well, he was growing tired, and this job was taxing.

He had a wife he barely saw and children who knew little of their father's face.

Retirement benefits for a captain were good, but not excellent, and he would not settle on only granting his family merely a 'good' life. He had crawled his way up from the gutters of Mercia's underground cities, and he would not let his children taste anything but sun-kissed peace and luxury.

The deep rumble of a C-class Gunship sounded overhead, beaming down bright lights on Unferth and his surrounding area. The light pierced through the Grain in the form of several spotlights, focusing on the pile of goblin bodies and, beside it, the pile of dwarven bodies that had fallen.

Unferth felt a measure of loss at the sight of his fallen brethren, but it was muted. He had long since trained to steel his heart to the loss of his men. All he could do now was grant them respect for their afterlives.

Hopefully, their spirits would make it to Aetheria.

Unferth looked up at his Gunship, a sphere of metal crisscrossed with a circuit pattern of glowing golden energy, his helmet's optical systems adjusting to the sudden glare of light.

He had been a captain for ten years now but seeing his gunship in the air never ceased to amaze him.

A forty-meter diameter of steel reinforced by being folded four times over with sixth degree arcanite – the refined form of processed mana crystals. The pale blue glow of Arcanite emanated from the grey of steel, granting it an almost icy luster.

Not as good as the Redcap Fleets that were geared for war and extermination.

Those were made of Adamant-Mithril alloy, with the A-class ships reinforcing even that with ninth degree crystals or above, for any Arcanite created from mana crystals of a lesser degree were too impure and would only degrade the Adamant-Mithril.

Once, Unferth wanted to be a captain of one of those ships, ships that could take down legendary monsters by themselves, but it was a pipe dream he had forgotten about with the years.

Only dwarven nobility with their royal Inhera could interface with magitech like that without overloading their brains and spirit roots.

All Unferth wanted now was to settle down.

But for that, he needed coin, a lot of it, and there was no daemon girl to be found. His fleet comprised of one Gunship and ten Seekers - smaller, more maneuverable airships – and though they fanned across the area, they had found nothing resembling a daemon.

They did find a barrier of extremely dense primal energy underneath this cliff of ice, but it was so dense that any attempts to breach it were impossible, nor did any form of sensor work. The energy was a bright, blinding white, so it was impossible to see through as well.

However, Unferth did not care much about this. Gatherings of primal energy like this were not entirely uncommon.

In remote areas like this, Unferth had read that there could be sudden outpourings of environmental mana. Natural surges in the world's mana flow. Quite like a burst of lava from an active volcano.

An entirely natural process.

Regardless, he had ordered his fleet to fire an initial volley of bullets at the barrier to test it, but as expected, the barrier repelled them.

What happened afterwards was that goblins came swarming out from the barrier, and the investigative ground force was quickly exterminated, prompting Unferth to command a large-scale aerial attack that in turn wiped the goblins out.

If there was something in there, Unferth determined it was going to be the goblin lord, with the goblins likely having developed into champions and elites due to being submerged in such high quantities of primal energy.

Perhaps a dungeon forming, for he knew that around this area, there was a known dungeon called Vimur, though very few adventurers dared to travel to it due to how cut off it was.

Regardless, that was something to report to the Adventurer's League, for it was unrelated to Undeath.

If there was any lone daemon girl in there, she was likely long dead, torn to pieces by the goblins.

And besides, a Bluecap Fleet like Unferth's was suited more towards expedition, not combat.

The fleet did not have enough bullets or bombs to properly raze a full army of goblins and monsters, though it did have more than enough to shred this small contingent of goblin champions.

"Officer Shield, put up a half-blue signal," said Unferth. Blue meant to continue a search, and half-blue meant half the fleet was to engage in it.

He knew full well the possibility of monsters emerging from the primal barrier, and he himself acknowledged his dislike of traveling through Dark Zones, but the image of his retirement kept him from following his better instincts.

He did not want to leave empty handed. "Finding the daemonic and undead presence is our top priority."

Unferth waited a few seconds but found no response.

"Officer Shield?" Unferth turned around to see that Shield had walked up to the very edge of the cliff face, peering down.

Trembling. Conduct entirely unbecoming of a trained officer of the UCF.

Officer Shield pointed a shaking arm down. "Sir…wh-what is that?"

"Calm yourself down, soldier," said Unferth as he trudged forwards, the mechanical parts of his body armor whirring.

Even as Unferth neared, Shield did not stop shaking, nor did he stop to look at Unferth. The officer's face was glued to the sight below, where there should have been nothing but a barrier of white primal energy.

"Ready a red signal if goblins or monsters are approaching. Compose yourself, Shield. Any monster down there will have to scale a hundred meters to get to us. We'll be back on the Gunship long before then." Unferth came to Shield's side and peered down also.

"What in the name of Wodin-," was all Unferth could utter before an enormous shadow swallowed over them. A gigantic head peered down at them. It looked like a helmet fashioned in the shape of a dragon's head with slightly agape jaws and teeth carved from jagged edges of the metallic white plating.

Each one of those teeth were larger than Unferth. The sheer scale of this…thing was immense. As large, no, larger than the Gunship up close.

For a split second, Unferth wondered whether he was gazing at a dwarven mech, but no, those eyes, those four red eyes that shone with a raging brightness belonging to the depths of Hel itself, promised anything but the soulless gaze of a machine.

There was intent in there. Pure, absolute, undeniable killing intent.

The ground rumbled, and Unferth only had time to barely twist around to run before he saw a flash of white and blue rise up from the cliff face. It was an enormous open palm of plated white metal rapidly falling upon him like a meteorite.

Then, nothingness.

==