Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Mining Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner level 8. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Mining Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner level 9. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Mining Mastery] has levelled up! It is now Beginner level 10.

'Just one shy... Shame it's time to wrap up for the day,' Lone lamented.

He was certainly tempted to just forgo the third day of killing bats just to gain a rank up in this skill. He almost felt compelled to, even, but he controlled himself.

Lone stood to gain far more by sticking to the plan. He could rank the skill up tomorrow. 'ignore your stupid impulses, idiot.'

He chuckled to himself as he put his pick away and nodded at Hamish. He then wandered down the tunnel back to their camp. The dwarf would clean up the tunnel's end before returning himself.

After a hearty dinner and some preparations, Lone and Soph were once again ready and kitted out to go back into Urd Grun.

"Do we have to go today?" she asked him.

"Uh, yeah," Lone answered, feeling a bit befuddled. "Why?"

"... No reason. Maybe I'm just a bit tired..." She smiled sweetly then put on her helmet.

Wasting no more time, Soph teleported the two of them back onto the guard tower's roof. It was as quiet and inactive as it was during the prior two invasions.

Without wasting time, Lone walked through the sky while Soph got herself out of sight and set up her barriers.

When he had confirmed that Soph was ready, he activated Wide Taunt and yelled, "If a tree falls in a forest but no one hears it, did it really fall?!"

Instantly, notifications blurred past his eyes which he pushed back for now. The buildings once again burst to life as Balor Demons Bats spilled out of them.

'Here we go again. Let's see how many I can kill today,' Lone thought with a small grin on his lips.

He prepared himself for the inevitable sound magic barrage as he began invoking, "Mental Des-"

"Enough of this, Lone. You've had more than your fair share of a free meal," a silky smooth voice spoke.

Lone recognised this voice but more importantly, his own voice had become stuck as if someone had shoved a tennis ball down his throat.

He couldn't issue a single sound.

The next thing he saw was all of the bats froze midair and a frightened Soph appeared in front of them, bound and constrained in rope as she hovered mere metres away from the bats.

"Choose. I kill all of the bats for you and your lovely little princess survives. Or... now this is the fun choice, you don't get me to kill them all. You try your luck but I keep her bound like this and prevent her from using her fascinating Teleportation skill. She'll die but you can probably get more experience, levels, rank ups... all of that stuff you so dearly love," the disembodied voice tempted.

'This voice... This is... Darkness? It sounds a bit different from inside of the dreams but it's definitely them... Fuck. This... I should have expected this,' Lone thought.

He had no idea what to do. All he could think of was willing himself to answer the being's question.

He obviously wanted to save Soph. As much as he loved the system and how he grew from it, there were always more monsters. However, there was only one Soph.

Letting her die would destroy him.

"The second one," his mouth moved on its own, much to his horror.

His eyes widened and he furiously tried to break out of whatever was constraining him to speak what his mind truly felt. He would never choose stats and skill levels over the person he loved!

"Excellent, her death it is," Darkness cheerfully declared.

The next second, the bats all descended upon Soph and ripped her limb from limb, eviscerating her. It took less than a moment for her to lose any signs of life. Her screams in those few short moments though... they etched themselves onto Lone's very soul.

She was just... a lump of flesh with some clothes attached to them at this point. The bats were completely ignoring Lone as he was frozen there, forced to watch.

"Stop it! Mental Destruction! Mental Destruction! Mental Destruction! I said stop!" Now his voice did as he commanded it to but it was meaningless.

This was Ranton's dungeon all over but a hundredfold worse. In place of Sir Ardus, his torturer was a Primal itself.

Replacing the children he had been forced to kill in order to spare an even worse fate then simple death, he had instead unwillingly consigned Soph and Sophie to an utterly brutal end.

Lone felt his mind collapsing as he decided to forgo his remaining unique skill slots. One to kill everything, Darkness included, and one to bring back the two woman he couldn't live without at this point.

Just as he was about to use up the slots though, everything... faded. As if a layer of the world itself had been peeled back, the truth of everything revealed itself.

Notifications flared up like a storm in the corner of his eyes again and nothing but madness and confusion filled his mind.

'Lone!' the sweet siren song that was the sound of his most cherished person yelled into his mind.

'Soph?! You're... you're not dead?' he asked, unsure of himself.

Had he gone truly mad? Did he just have the wildest hallucination in perhaps the entire history of hallucinations?

Quickly he noticed something wasn't quite right. Where were the bats? He glanced down and saw hundreds upon hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand, corpses of the B-ranked beasts.

"What... What happened..." he whispered to himself.

Lone quickly got himself together and shouted telepathically, 'Soph?! You're okay?! Where are you?!'

The girl appeared right next to him via Teleportation. "I-I'm here! I'm fine. W-What's going on? You just stood there with glazed over eyes when t-the bats all fell."

Lone didn't answer immediately. Instead, he grabbed her and hugged her tightly. "I thought... you were dead."

He was shaking. Lone was afraid that if he let go of her she would just scatter to the wind as if she were some sort of illusion.

Lone narrowed his eyes. "Illusion..."

Darkness was known for being the god of illusions as far as the Church of the Primals was concerned.

It had control over a few other things, of course. No Primal was monogynous in their power. Illusions just so happened to be one of the areas of speciality though for the devious Primal that was known only as Darkness.

Lone's face morphed into one of disgust and anger. "Soph, bring us back to the camp."

"O-Okay," she fumbled as she remained in his grasp. "Teleport-"

"Be seeing you soon, Lone... Very soon..."

"-ation."

"'At was feckin' fast," Hamish noted.

Lone ignored him. His mind was busy processing exactly what had just happened.

Breena looked confused. "No wounds? Uh, that's good but... is everything okay?"

Lone found a seat at their camp and nodded slowly. "Something, yeah. You could call it that. I think I was shown an illusion. I mean, that's almost definitely what I saw."

Hamish frowned. "An illusion? Fae what? The bats only ken soond magic. The Milor dinnae ken any at all."

Lone stared into the fire of their little camp as he interlocked his fingers. "By Darkness."

Hamish just looked confused. "As in Darkness spawn? Those things are pretty common in the Farwinds, aye, but they've nae intelligence."

Soph said, "No, he means the Primal."

Hamish glanced back and forth between the two with an incredulous look on his face. "Ye'r feckin' wae me."

Lone looked up and chuckled sadly. "No, I'm not. You do recall the original reason Urd Grun was to be investigated, right?"

Hamish scratched his cheek. "Nae really, nah. Ewan was in charge ah all 'at pish. We was tae come 'ere an' investigate. Dinnae ken why."

"It's because he keeps getting summoned to this place but in a more pristine condition during his dreams. Every night," Soph explained in his place.

Lone nodded. "More or less, yeah. Darkness would meet me there and... try to fuck with me. It alluded to the missing dwarves of the krieg being in the urd somewhere. Probably underground. It stopped taking over my dreams recently though."

"... Forgive me if ah dinnae just immediately assume ya ate some funky rocks or somethin'," Hamish reasoned. "Ah mean, ye've nae reason tae lie but feck me in the arse if this isnae super farfetched."

Lone stared at the dwarf. "... Hamish. I'm a fuckin' nine-tailed Golden Foxkin from another planet who has eight unique skills and two Primals sealed within his own soul. A third Primal wanting to hop aboard and take control of my perfect vessel isn't that farfetched."

Breena's eyes widened while Hamish laughed in disbelief.

Lone didn't laugh back.

A few seconds of silence passed before Hamish's face stiffened. "Ye'r serious?"

"Deadly," Lone said. He then pointed to his eyes. "I didn't get the blue in here from awakening naturally to Sky. The black isn't natural either. I once found an orb that had the forgotten ninth Primal, Void, sealed within it-"

"Ah! Shut it! Nope! None ah this shite!" Hamish stormed off to his tent. "Ye do whatever ye've gotta dae, Lone, but dinnae involve me in matters pertainin' tea the topsider gods!"

Lone smiled wryly. "I kinda actually wanted to tell the full story... Not many chances I get to do that, what with this being the first."

Breena approached cautiously. "Um... I-I'd like to hear it."

Lone beamed from ear to ear. "Thanks, Breena. Well, as I was saying..."

Soph sighed faintly. "I'll cook us something to eat."

Later, after having told Breena everything regarding Void, Sky, and now Darkness, he was in his and Soph's tent about to look through his notification log.

The young Crimson Foxkin had already known a lot regarding his situation with Darkness but he still found it rewarding to teach her what he knew of the godly beings.

Void especially since it had been wiped from the history books of the entire continent, it seemed. He didn't expect the girl to show an interest in the Primals but he was glad to have something to latch on to.

Perhaps it was to be expected though since she, like him, was a beastkin. They were both already far closer to the Primals than most others with that fact alone.

If he could perform more research on those beings of great power in the future and somehow use that information to break Breena even further out of her shell...

Lone added that to his personal to-do list once this whole situation with Darkness was settled. Right alongside punching the true gods in the face, visiting the Crimson Foxkin Clan, perhaps seeking out the magic academy in the east, and seeing if he couldn't locate Grimsley, Gilbert, and Shana.

For now though, he checked through his notifications.

Congratulations! The host's active skill [Wide Taunt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5. Congratulations! The host's active skill [Wide Taunt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 6. Congratulations! The host's active skill [Wide Taunt] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 7.

"So it wasn't all an illusion if that is what I experienced," Lone concluded.

He was half convinced the entire thing had been false somehow from the moment Soph had teleported him in, up to the second she had teleported him out.

This skill levelling though proved that he had, indeed, managed to taunt several beings at once. This meant the bats weren't already dead or that he was simply seeing things from the very beginning.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 3. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 4. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 5. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Illusion Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 6.

"Rewal'eh's Illusionary Dome never gave me a level up even after going through it a few times... It only gave me the start of the resistance. Just how powerful was this illusion?" Regardless, Lone was glad to have his theory confirmed.

The more he knew about Darkness and its methods, the less he could be thrown off by random things it did to mess with him.

Honestly, seeing the woman he cherished so dearly dying in front of his eyes without him being able to do anything to prevent it, even if only an illusion, was a sight he would likely never forget.

It made him feel powerless. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and he'd make the Primal pay for forcing him to go through something like that.

Needless to mention the fact that Darkness had effectively removed his current best source of levelling his skills and vastly increasing his stats.

'Whatever that fucker is planning, I'll make sure it fails for dicking over my own plans here,' Lone decided.

He did still have two more notifications left, however.

Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Darkness Corruption Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Expert Level 2. Congratulations! The host's passive skill [Darkness Corruption Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Expert Level 3.

Lone frowned deeply. 'Was Soph exposed to this too or was I the only one since she didn't get trapped in an illusion like I did?'

As if summoned by his thoughts, Soph carefully entered the tent while holding two bowls full of food.

"Someone looks proud," Lone commented as he got a whiff of whatever she had prepared.

The rich sent of mixed spices and carefully stirred tomatoes soothed his mind. 'No wonder she asked me for a bunch of our few leftover tomatoes. She was making soup. Fuck, it smells amazing.'

"Heheh! I finally got the Cooking Mastery skill!" she exclaimed happily before freezing. "I, uh, know now isn't a great time after what happened but... um... I'm really relieved though. I thought I'd suck at cooking forever..."

Lone smiled warmly. "I knew you had it in you. You're way more talented than I am."

He leaned up and summoned Kyuubi. The sleepy fox looked around in confusion for a bit before seemingly losing interest. She then quickly curled up on Lone's lap and began purring.

"Such a simple creature, you are," Lone whispered as he accepted a bowl of soup from Soph. "You've never been bad at cooking. Honestly, it takes real skill to be shit at cooking. It's such a simple thing. Being great at cooking is what's difficult."

"R-Right..." Soph found a place next to him and began slurping on her own bowl. "Um... what level is your Cooking Mastery?"

"Hmm? Well, it's Intermediate-Level-five. I honestly haven't dedicated myself to it that much. I think you need to use different recipes and ingredients as well as cook things from different cultures to advance the skill," Lone explained.

"Huh..." Soph looked ahead blankly as she enjoyed her own hard work. "It's so tasty..."

"Indeed it is. Everything is better when you do it yourself. Maybe not literally, but there's something special about it when you were the chef," Lone commented. "All of your meals have been delicious, by the way. Not just this soup."

She blushed a bit. "Thanks... That means a lot... Uh... Um... What are we going to do?"

"In regards to?" Lone asked.

"... Darkness. The tunnel too. Is it needed anymore?" she questioned.

Lone nodded. "For Darkness, I have a plan. A risky plan, but a plan nonetheless. The tunnel? I honestly don't know. It depends on if my dream-kidnappings start up again. I'd kinda like to finish it if only to level up Mining Mastery more."

"And if the dream stuff continue?" Soph asked, worry lacing her tone.

"Then we abandon the tunnel and enter from the front. I'm confident I can crush the Milor with my tails if Darkness didn't kill them too. We find wherever Darkness is hiding inside of and proceed with my plan from there," Lone explained.

"What do you mean? It's inside something?" Soph wore a puzzled expression on her face.

"Well, Void was sealed away in an orb, right?" Lone pointed out. "And you told me Sky was a bright blue ball. It moved really fast before it entered my body, but you saw it. Surely we can see Darkness then going by the same logic."

"Huh... That does make sense," Soph replied.

Lone grinned. "Right?"

"... Um, one last question," Soph said sheepishly as she reached over and rubbed Kyuubi's fluffy ears.

The fox purred louder and pushed her head into Soph's palm. Lone saw the girl practically melting from the affection. Pets were scary. Such good manipulators and controllers of the heart, were they.

"Shoot," he said.

"... What did you see in the illusion?" she asked with a certain tension in her tone.

"Ah..." Lone wasn't quite sure what to say.

He didn't want to lie or just ignore the subject. In light of that, he just said the truth. "I saw you getting eaten alive by the bats while I couldn't speak or even move."

Soph's expression stiffened. "... I wish I was immortal again. If I was, you'd have known straight away that it wasn't real..."

Lone clenched his fist. Now Soph was getting upset over this. He didn't want that.

"You will. I'll rank up and keep ranking up, eventually, you'll get your Immortality skill back. We'll also make Darkness pay for quite clearly trying to drive me insane," he said as he turned to face her. He flashed her a charming grin and added, "I've been through worse though and come out the other end. Whether better for it or not could be debated, but come out I did. We'll manage."

Soph returned his grin with a weak smile of her own. "Mmm."