“Wooh!” Lukas exhaled. “That went well.”

“You ran like a rat.”

“I prefer to think of it as ‘taking cover’. Sounds much more heroic that way.”

“Of course,” Inanna drawled. “Your fine instincts and decision-making abilities are nigh exceptional.”

Lukas scowled but said nothing.

“I must say, it is fascinating to see just how far the mortal mind will bend on the cusp of death,” she chuckled. “I have bore witness to lesser creatures doing many things to save their lives. Blasphemers recanting the very words they have built their lives around. Heretics praying to gods they fight against. Murderers begging their victims for mercy.”

She paused, her face the textbook definition of deadpan. “This, however, is the first time I have seen someone willingly jump into a puddle of urine to save himself.”

“That may be,” Lukas defensively retorted, “but it worked.”

It was a well-known fact that many predators tended to urinate on things they regarded as their property. Seeing as he found himself in an environment filled with all sorts of powerful monstrosities, he believed covering himself in the odor of a greater predator would protect him. And as expected, the hairy spider-vine thing came close to him— juices spurting all over and everything —and then suddenly decided to back away.

The reckless bet had saved his life.

It also covered him head-to-toe in monster piss.

And now he smelled like crap.

Literally.

“I am torn, mortal, on whether to think of you as unorthodox or just plain stupid.”

“Stupid,” Lukas answered, his tone still upbeat. “You can’t go wrong with that.”

“Sound advice,” Inanna whispered into his ears. “Any other words of wisdom you’d like to mete out?”

“Nothing right now,” he joked. “Ask me again after I’ve had a bath. Or ten. Because I really, really need a bath right now.”

“Duly noted.”

“By the way,” Lukas began, quickly sobering as he reminisced about the creature encounter. “That thing was fast. Those vines— I could hardly see any of them move, let alone all six. How do you defeat an opponent that’s faster than your eyes can follow?”

“With great difficulty.”

“You really suck at being a sounding board, you know.”

“The Supreme Queen of An and Ki, reduced to a sounding board. The mighty have well and truly fallen.”

“It’s not that hard, you know. Just nod at all the right places and appear interested when I make a point. Simple.”

She laughed. Heartily, without care.

It was almost enough to make him forget his profound and rational terror of her.

Ever since he’d landed in this crypt, he’d been encountering one monstrous murder-hobo after another, and yet not once had he been overcome by pure, unadulterated terror as he was when bargaining with her. The khorkhoi had been monstrous. The other monsters he had met were all dangerous in their own ways.

But none managed to truly impress him.

After all, when there was a great white shark buddying up with you for whatever reason, it was difficult to fear all the barracuda swimming around you.

Charade or not, things had become simpler between himself and Inanna after she’d come clean about her intentions. She was a shade of her true self, and she needed to regain what was once hers. But to do that, she needed a vessel to carry out her plans, and in return she’d help him survive and gain strength and— assuming he survived this entire mess —help him return to the world he’d loved and lost.

It didn’t help that after a week of endless nightmares, he had begun to believe that his planet— that small, vulnerable, blue orb floating in space —was no longer there. And even if it was, he’d not recognize it anymore. Not if his vision was anything to go by.

Normally, something like this would’ve been enough to make him all jittery.

Except he wasn’t.

If anything, it just felt like an annoyance, like a fly sitting on your back. If he were lucky, a single swat of the hand would send it flying. If not, it would come back and sit somewhere else the next time. All in all, it wasn’t a big deal, and it only registered because he couldn’t be bothered to remove it.

Instead, all he could really think about was power.

Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, his subconscious desires were brimming with anticipation, with greed, with thirst. A part of him, no matter how small, was thrilled at learning new skills from Inanna, learning how to become stronger.

Faster.

More powerful.

There were times when he wondered what would happen if he chose to drop the shackles of morality he held so dear. He wondered what it would be like to act without a conscience holding him back.

To become a predator, as Inanna had once suggested.

To make the world his hunt.

He felt a flicker of… something course through him. It was indiscernible, but the goddess had a knowing look upon her face.

That never bode well.

“You should relax, mortal,” her voice rang out. “I, more than anyone, recognize the lure of strength. I shall not stand in your way. I should remind you, we are in this together.”

“Even if I try to gain strength for my own purposes?”

“All power has a purpose,” she replied, with that same annoying smile on her face. “It is far too soon for you to understand that, I imagine, but do not fret. I have no intention of undermining your efforts.”

It should’ve made him feel better.

But for some reason, he felt as if he had signed up for something ominous without his own knowledge.

Dark chuckles reverberated throughout his mind.

“I’m going to have so much fun with you,” her gentle veneer did nothing to decrease the lethality behind her words, “mortal.”

Lukas swallowed.

“This place looks like a warzone,” Elena whispered, taking in her surroundings with wide-eyed surprise. The entire place looked like it had survived a major explosion. The stone walls were in jagged splinters, broken and on the verge of falling apart. The ground had more holes in it than she could count, and the flora and fauna lay dead and rotting— victims to the dance of death that must’ve passed through this way.

“Seriously, I’ve already counted seventy-one dead monsters so far. I thought it was our job to kill them. You think something’s wrong with this place?”

Tanya’s eyes twitched. She had no clue if Elena was really this oblivious, or she was just fucking with her— it was always impossible to tell. The changeling exuded a helpless aura, something that made it incredibly difficult for anyone— even Tanya herself —to raise a hand to her. And yet, despite showing signs of a razor sharp mind, Elena constantly kept acting like an oblivious bimbo.

She didn’t know why, but it drove her nuts.

Normally, she’d have insulted the changeling with a well-placed quip or barb by now, but the surroundings had grappled her attention.

The explosion had to have been the work of an immensely powerful monster. Given the large holes in the floor and the crevices on the walls, she could picture something with a large, powerful tail lashing about. Maybe this monster had been after something that was burrowing through the ground?

Or was something even fouler afoot?

Her nostrils flared as a pungent odor overtook the clearing.

“Eww!” Elena complained, her face scrunched up as her hands tightly covered her nose. “What is that smell?!”

Tanya strode to the opposite corner, where it was coming from, and stilled.

In front of her lay the carcass of a giant worm— easily twenty feet, if not longer, by the looks of it. Its entire form was blasted apart, as if someone had implanted a powerful explosive inside of its body and triggered the detonation. The body had been ripped to shreds, with rotten blood and burnt gore splattered all over the place. The exoskeleton was charred black, and the bones were ruptured and slowly decaying.

This was the creature that had rampaged the area they were walking past.

This was the creature that had destroyed the walls and floors merely by whipping its tail.

This was a creature that even she, with Ezzeron’s might, would be hard-pressed to take on in a fight.

And someone had slaughtered this creature, burning it to the point where it was like… this.

Tanya gulped. This wasn’t the act of some random adventurer. It couldn’t be the act of some random adventurer. She’d faced fire-type spiritists multiple times in the past, and none of the ones she knew had enough juice to pull off something on this level.

So who was it?

What was it?

What was—

“Tanya.”

Zuken’s unspoken question had shattered her ongoing reverie. Blinking, she turned her head and glanced at him through the corner of her eye. “I… I have no idea who or what did this,” she admitted, fear and awe coloring her tone. “I mean, is this even the act of a spell?”

The Banksi looked to be at a loss as well. At first glance, the entire thing looked like an overpowered fire spell. Fire manipulation always lent itself to emotional practitioners with explosive tempers, so it wasn’t uncommon to see a fire spell go awry.

But this? The sheer temperature needed to melt a behemoth of this size and power? It would have been easier to just go ahead and create lava.

Not to mention, the explosion had happened from within, which spoke of fire manipulation from a distance. And it all had the effect of a single, lethal attack. Nothing lower than a mithril-ranked adventurer could have done this. And even then, she had trouble believing such a thing was possible.

But there was still something… off with this whole picture. Tanya sniffed at the air.

Strange.

She sniffed again, and her eyes widened.

“That can’t be possible,” Tanya gasped.

“What can’t?” Elena quickly asked.

“There’s no mana residue here,” she answered in an absent-minded tone. “That— that’s not possible. A gigantic fire-spell like this in action would leave mana residue. It has to.”

Every spell performed with the aid of a kami left mana residue in the environment. A good forensics specialist could trace down said residue and track it to its originator. Tanya was no export, but she was a dab hand at recognizing the existence of mana signatures, at the very least.

And this place had none.

“I didn’t know you could sense mana signatures,” Zuken observed.

“It’s a gift,” Tanya blew a hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “But seriously, this doesn’t make any sense. The only possible explanation is that someone cast the explosion spell from somewhere else, sent the worm flying until it landed here—

Her throat went dry as she realized just how far the monstrous worm had to have travelled for her senses to not pick up any mana.

“—and then activated the explosion remotely.”

“That’s insane,” Zuken countered. “Casting a spell that powerful is ludicrous to begin with, even for a Mithril-ranker. But activating it remotely from that far away. That’d be the act of a demigod or something.”

“Or something is right,” Tanya muttered, kneeling down as she laid a hand on the charred hide and—

RageFiReDeaThRAgePaiNDEathFirEPaInDEaTHFIreRagE—

She promptly staggered back, losing her balance and falling on her bottom.

“Wh— what the hell was that?”