Nic spat blood onto the earth; the Internal-Sacrifice technique had lived up to its name and torn him apart from within, reducing his stomach and viscera to tatters. Any longer and it would have consumed his liver and kidneys as well, slowly grinding everything within to a red pulp to fuel his strength. For anyone without Nic’s talents at regeneration, this skill was a death sentence.

For him? It was unpleasant at worst.

He seized his hatchet from the ground as he moved to Redjaw’s rescue, cutting down the lesser sand devils at the knees. The Lindwurm form shrank away, becoming a badly wounded centipede that curled over Nic’s hand and vanished into the tattoo, leaving him alone at the center of a circle of sand devils.

There were six left.

They never stood a chance. Even a badly wounded Nic, without much aura, was more than enough to tear them apart now. As they rushed towards him he slipped between attacks, weaving, his strikes ripping apart limbs and leaving them crippled-

He led them on a merry dance, chasing him, and every time one slipped out of step and strayed too far from the pack, he reversed easily and tore them apart. Crippling, rather than spending the time to kill.

The dance lasted two dozen feet. With swift and efficient steps, Nic led the enemy to their doom.

As he finished off the wounded, the first of the people huddled under the barrier in the camp’s core stepped out. It was the priestess he’d met wandering through the camp, the one with the eyes that burned in zealous fire for her god. She had a child under each arm, sheltering them as they cried, and one immediately broke away to go running through the camp.

Looking for their parents, probably. Nic hoped they didn't find them lying in a pool of blood. Somebody must have gotten out of here alive.

“You saved us.” The priestess said. She had the same tone she always did- as if every word was a divine proclamation.

“Yep.” Nic’s hatchet thudded into the skull of a sand devil as it crawled across the earth.

“I knew you had a place in the Twin Gods’ plans. Even a monster is within their designs, and none of this- this horror- is without cause..” She continued, ushering children out of the barrier. Judging by the thickness of the corpses piled up at the shield’s edge, there had been a brutal press to get the camp’s most defenseless members to safety, fighting tooth and nail.

Some of the children were blood-splattered from where somebody had died inches from their face. They all had wide, shell-shocked eyes, and barely any of them were crying.

Crying wasn’t sufficient for the level of horror they’d seen. A dead, numb silence replaced it.

“I’m not seeing a good reason.” Nic said, pausing to wipe a bloodstain off a child’s cheek. They reacted so little to his touch it was cleaning a corpse.

“I don’t either…” She brushed back sweat-stained golden hair, staring out at the devastation and the bodies without reaction. “But that’s where faith comes in. The gods protected the children when the worst came. They have a plan.”

“Sure, and for most of the people here…” Nic tilted over a body. The Shards were gone. Blackened fragments of crystal stuck out of the craters where they’d been pulled from the dead. “For most of them, the plan was they died horribly. So be careful with that optimism.”

“If you’re looking for their Shards…” She finally blanched a little, her face going grey. “Those… things… tore them out and ate them.”

“Ate them?” Nic frowned. That couldn’t be right. Without cultivation, none of the normal sand devils should have gotten any benefit from Shards. And even the Ascended specimen didn’t show any Shard powers in their duel.

Which meant…

Eating Shards was probably key to how they became Ascended. If he hadn’t come along, it was possible the entire pack of devils would have evolved within hours. “Did any of them get away?”

“I think so? Hard to tell, isn’t it? Some people ran- and the beasts followed.” She reached out to touch him, and Nic immediately glared at her. “I merely want- you need healing, you stubborn beast. I can provide that much.”

Reluctantly, he allowed her to lay her hands across his wounded face. A bubble of light blue energy surrounded each cold palm and poured a soothing, healing strength into his skin. His wounds knitted together, and to Nic’s surprise, his natural regeneration was amplified. It was a Shard that didn’t just seal wounds and apply triage, but worked with the body’s natural capacities.

His meridians were actually being healed; cold relief poured through his veins as the cracks were reinforced and the bleed of energy ceased.

“There.” She said with satisfaction.

“Alright. You- take the children to the other camp, and warn them about this. I have to finish the hunt.” Nic lifted the axe over his shoulder and began to march towards the woods.

---

The first two were easy to find. He followed the trail of the panicked humans running through the woods, and at the end of each path of snapped branches and stomped-down mud, he found a corpse being chewed apart by a sand devil.

The third one was different. The corpse was there, but something else had attracted the sand devil’s attention. The body was left mostly intact, and a second trail led off from the bloodied corpse, leading…

Nic’s heart dropped.

He barreled through the woods, heart sinking lower and lower into his stomach with every moment as the trail led right towards-

Moira. Shane.

The beast had stumbled through the traps they’d set together. Snapping jaws, sprays of poison tipped darts, logs suspended in the trees to swing down as bludgeons. None of it had stopped the sand devil. It had torn its way through nets and snares, yellow blood dotting the undergrowth as it shoved towards its goal with single-minded fury.

Nic’s entire body was numb as he broke through into the clearing.

The sand devil was dead. A dozen arrows stuck from its corpse, guided into the joints and the soft places where the chitin bent. Its right leg had been crippled by a trap, giving her the time to pick it off with shot after shot, a death of a thousand cuts.

As Nic broke the last of the brush a crossbow bolt shot towards his head at tremendous speeds, only to suddenly veer away and strike the trunk of a tree instead of him. Moira held her crossbow in shaking hands, but she smiled to see him.

“Nak!”

He guessed ‘Nak’ was going to stick. Who cared. She was alive, and Shane was behind her. As well as another familiar face.

The wolf with the red-furred face and the tusks who’d originally warned Nic of this place was with them, limping, his already crimson fur stained with dark, oozing blood from a few superficial cuts. He grunted in greeting.

“Nak, this is- we’ve been calling him Tusk. He’s smart like you.”

Nic nodded. He wasn’t ready to tell Moira that nearly all monsters were smart like him. It was too much a distraction from her own survival, and she wasn’t going out to hunt and kill. It was a queasy lie of ommission but-

He was more concerned with Moira staying alive than the fate of anything that tried to attack her and Shane.

“I’m glad you’re alright. And hey, I don’t have a hole in my head, so your shootings getting better.” He said brightly, Inkspur slipping onto his shoulder to translate. The sheer panic of a few seconds ago mixed with the relief of now had left him feeling giddy.

“I don’t know how you keep a sense of humor these days. I’m getting grey hairs every time I go out to piss and something moves in the bushes.” Moira just sighed and pushed her hand against her face, trying to rub away the darkened shadows under her eyes with her knuckles.

“It helps that I’m only looking out for myself.” Whenever Nic had to fight for someone else, it was an instant spike of fear through his heart. He could risk his own life all day- but other people were too precious to play games with. “I don’t think you can stay here any longer. There are going to be more. They’re coming out from the Dungeon, and these won’t be the last.”

“We’ll head deeper into the woods. Most of the beasts here aren’t really that aggressive, and there’s enough food…”

Nic shook his head. “If things are coming out of the Dungeon, everything is going to get a lot more dangerous, fast. You’ll be better of with more people in the camp. And…”

Moira waited, expectant.

He wasn’t happy with what he was about to ask. “A lot of people died today. And they left a lot of orphans behind, kids who are going to that camp now. If it’s as bad as you say there, they’ll need someone to look out for them.”

“Goddamnit Nak. I’m barely keeping up with Shane…”

“But?”

“But I’ll do it.” She sighed into her palm. “Somebody has to.”

Nic blinked. Behind Moira, Shane was moving oddly. He was sitting with his knees up to his chest, staring down at the broken corpse of the sand devil with the most intense, almost obsessed look in his eyes. And behind him-

His shadow had sprouted feathered wings. Nic could almost hear the whispers of the strange angel speaking into Shane’s ear.

“Shane!”

Everyone turned towards the boy. The shadow shrank away, and he blinked, as if he was coming out of an open-eyed sleep. Tusk nuzzled against him, and he laughed. “Sorry, sorry Nak! I was just listening to Azel. He says these things are- heretics? And that you have to stop them.”

“Nicolas, about that.” Sofia tried to interrupt.

“He wants me to give you this.” Shane held up his hand, and bright silver runes rushed across his skin, forming a mark that floated up into the air. It was constantly shifting, wheels of runes turning within runes. Nic instantly recognized it for what it was: a System seal.

It was almost identical to the ones that covered Challenge Rooms.

“Nicolas, don’t touch that yet. It’s a Quest Seal, and it’s from Logos.” Nic froze, hand half outstretched. “I have another quest for you, and they’re in total opposition.”

“Whatsamatter?” Shane asked.

“Hold on a second.” Nic said, drawing his fingers back. “My, uh, my Azel is telling me something.”

“You have one too?” Shane’s eyes lit up.

“Pathos has taken an interest in this heretic. She wishes to recruit them, and to have you deliver a way to leave the planet. In exchange, you’ll receive your Moonseal Credit and a Secondary Shard tuned to your needs.”

“Shane, what does Azel want me to do?” Nic asked carefully.

“He says there’s an anchor. A place that, ummm…” Shane’s eyes went far away again, and he stared up as a dark whispering started. Nic noted Moira’s hand gripping her crossbow tighter. He was glad he wasn’t the only one who considered this ‘Azel’ a threat. “Azel says, it holds the world tight so people can’t get in. And the Inquisitor needs to get inside. So if you find this anchor and break it, he says Logos will um, give you a technique and a weapon. Really good ones.”

Nic turned back, looking at the dead sand devil.

These things were unleashed. The heretic, whoever they were, had no more regard for life than Lavhin did. And he’d seen how Pathos would enable someone like Lavhin to find all the victims they could.

“Nicolas, I know your concerns, but…”

He didn’t listen.

“I have something I want to add. Azel, I’m guessing you can hear me?” Nic looked past Shane, into his shadow. “If I do this, you have to come with me. And answer my questions about Logos.”

The shadow rippled.

“He says yes.” Shane declared.

And Nic reached out to take the quest seal.