Chadrigoth of the Diabolus Diaboli, of the Eritreus Elite, hadn’t been in a good mood since he’d tried to kill Logan Murray and terrible cohort the year before. Things hadn’t improved since then. No, they’d only gotten worse. To be fair, the Terrible Twelfth weren’t to blame for Chadrigoth’s foul mood. There were so many far more important factors.

For one thing, Chadrigoth’s secret plan hadn’t gone so well that morning, unlike the summer. On that midsummer night, things had worked out perfectly.

Yes, seeing his old friend, Jimi Magmarty was fine, and Her Lady Elesiel of Everstar was as enchanting as ever. They would spend the year in the Palace Suites, a series of apartments in the second-year Azure Dragon dorm that were impossibly spacious—impossible because, like the continent of Arborea itself, they used dimensional magic to give them additional room.

Chadrigoth hadn’t slept much in the past couple days. Packing up his gear, dealing with his extended family on Eritreus, all of it had been exhausting. Then there was the trip through the BYE portal, which connected his father’s elite dungeon to the Tree of Souls.

Good old Dad. He might be protecting the Tree of Souls, but Huegoth the Unholy could be real a bastard. He did have a nice dungeon, though. The Weeping Hell was an expansive bit of abyss, deep in the crust of Eritreus, a place of shadows and magma and vast caverns and narrow stone bridges crossing unimaginably deep crevices. The inner sanctum was a cathedral of perfection, every column carved with intricate detail and shining veins of diamonds polished into sculptures depicting all manner of shrieking demons. Above the sanctum’s pedestal spun the Vanish Blade, a flaming sword that could both fight on its own and gave its user line-of-sight teleportation.

Huegoth was so proud of that sword. Whatever. Swords were so last millennia.

Seeing his old man wasn’t so bad—yes, he was a bastard, but at least he had some affection for his sons. But Chadrigoth’s brothers? His mother? They were a different story.

Chadrigoth couldn’t very well have spent the summer in the Weeping Hell, listening to his father tell stories about all the dungeoneers he’d killed or how many guilds he’ destroyed over the years. No, so Chadrigoth had visited his mother in Haven’s Home. Big mistake there. He’d had to walk the castle corridors halls he’d grown up in. As an official heir of the Diabolus Diaboli line, from an early age, all he wanted was to be reaped by Shadowcroft, so Chadrigoth could become the ultimate dungeon and protect the Tree of Souls. Carry on the family business. It was his destiny. If only he’d been the lone heir.

That family drama had made the summer unbearably stressful. One of the only bright spots was his secret trip back to Arborea on that midsummer night. Yet, even before the summer, the ending of first year hadn’t been as enjoyable as he would’ve liked.

And Chadrigoth didn’t know why.

Returning for his second year had put him in an even worse mood. That was why he’d shouted out during Shadowcroft’s welcome speech, and why he was currently holding Logan Murray by his thin tunic. Murray wasn’t the little red and white pipsqueak mushroom derp he’d been at the beginning of the first year, but this yellow fungal form wasn’t much of an improvement. Chadrigoth could feel how spongey his body was. Disgusting.

The fungal filth grinned as if the abyss lord wasn’t a threat. “Hey, Chadrigoth, buddy, welcome back for our second year. Are you happy to see me? I feel like you’re happy to see me.”

Chadrigoth activated his flame halo, which got the fungaloid sweating. As it should. Chadrigoth was a Azure Branch Rank 1—one of the most powerful students in this school. He was one advancement away from being on par with some of the lesser instructors at Shadowcroft, yet this pitiful excuse for a dungeon guardian vexed him at every turn.

“Hey, bully boy, leave us alone,” the foolish satyr said. Marko Laskarelis was the stupidest and the most pathetic of the Terrible Twelfth. The cohort wasn’t in twelfth place anymore, but they were still terrible. Nothing would ever change that, not in Chadrigoth’s book.

Marko tried to tear the abyss lord away from his friend, but the demon slapped the satyr away with his tail with casual ease.

Marko, on his back, let out a yell. “Get him, Steve!”

The plaster mannequin soon joined his master on the floor.

Inga Thora Therian, the only real talent of the cohort, started forward a scowl marring her otherwise lovely face, but Lady Elesiel appeared, circling the astral moth’s body with a rope of green fire.

The minotaur stood slowly, but Magmarty shoved him down with a big rocky fist, dripping mud. “Just keep chewing your cud. My boy Chadrigoth has business with your leader guy.”

Treacle swallowed the hay he’d been chewing. “Our leader guy, the same one that grew mushrooms in you and cracked you apart like an old brick outhouse?” The words came out flat, but they carried a sting all the same.

Magmarty’s flaming eyes narrowed, and his rocky brow furrowed. “Yeah. You know. Logan Murray. Your leader guy.”

“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget that my leader guy once grew mushrooms in you.” Treacle belched. “It seems like you might’ve forgotten.”

With the members of the terrible cohort in check, Chadrigoth could focus on his main rival. “Listen, Murray, I know you’ve been working with the Rector Prime all summer. It seems you might’ve leveled, but I want you to know that your little team of socially awkward miscreants here isn’t going to knock us out of first place. You still don’t seem to know your place, but I’ll be more than happy to enlighten you.”

This fungal idiot didn’t stop grinning. “Wet climates? Basements? Underneath rotting branches in the swamp? Or do you mean like on pizza or in your mom’s beef stroganoff recipe?”

This little worm was joking with him, but Chadrigoth wasn’t in the mood for humor. “No. None of that. You know, Murray, last year, you were a fly, barely worth taking a swipe at. But it seems you’ve evolved into a rat, a nuisance that needs to be exterminated. You think you’re going to kick us out of our top spot, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to happen.”

The fungaloid’s eyes went from amused to deadly serious. “Oh, but it will happen, Chadrigoth. Because this isn’t about my own personal gain. I have my planet to save, and either you’re part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem. And me? I deal with problems.”

In seconds, the fungaloid’s body doubled in weight, and the lines of chitin on his yellow frame thickened, gaining mass. One of the rings on his fingers flashed, and Murray suddenly wore armor, true armor. Thick plates of iron running over his forearms, a massive war belt, a leather skirt, and a spiked pauldron on one shoulder.

The sudden shift in weight surprised the abyss lord, and dammit, he dropped the mushroom man.

Another of Murray’s rings flashed, and twin silver rune-etched short swords appeared in Logan’s hands with a glimmer of pent up Apothos. Those were new, probably prizes from his final exam, which by all accounts, had been an epic success.

Chadrigoth had a surprise of his own. From out of his core, he summoned his soul cutter—a long scythe made of fire, steel, and pain. He wasn’t just going to cut through Logan’s frail body, armor or not, he was going to chop through the damn fungaloid’s gem. The abyss lord could claim it was an accident, some good-natured bullying that had gotten out of hand. Chadrigoth had almost killed him the year before, on Rockheart’s orders, and this wouldn’t be so different. He would probably get a slap on the wrist, perhaps some points would be taken from his clan—but nothing he couldn’t earn back during the course of the year.

Besides, Shadowcroft Academy valued strength over everything else, and if Murray couldn’t hack it, then sending him down river was the right thing to do.

Chadrigoth snarled, raising the scythe high. A blur of light stopped him cold.

A pixie with translucent, aquamarine-colored wings, short green hair, and eyes like emeralds—eyes full of rage and hate—appeared before him. Back when he was human, Chadrigoth might’ve done any number of stupid things to try and get a few moments alone with such a beauty, however small—she was only about twelve inches tall. That twelve inches sure was beautiful, however, and there were any number of shape-shifting spells they could use for a quick kiss in a Haven’s Home alleyway.

The pixie was dressed in drab green clothes and big black boots. With a flutter of her wings, she was suddenly surrounded by glowing green pollen.

Her voice boomed like a dragon out of her tiny frame. “What kind of idiocy do we have here? A couple of complete asswipes who ain’t got the good sense of a shoe. Or whatever the shoe stepped in. Students! You both will stand down this minute.”

Chadrigoth re-absorbed his soul cutter. “Yes, professor.” Damn, this wasn’t just any pixie. Not by a long shot.

The pixie flew up into Murray’s face. “What about you, fungaloid? You holding those swords like you wanna use ’em. You think you’re a tough guy? I heard about you… some hot shot fungus who thought he could level up to S-Class in his first year. You a tough guy, huh?”

Two rings on the fungaloid’s hands sizzled, and he lost the swords and the armor. What does that third ring do? Chadrigoth wondered idly.

Murray smiled. “Well, professor, I think Chadrigoth must be the tough guy in this situation. I’m just a casual observer.”

The creepy plaster man helped the satyr to his feet. Chadrigoth glowered. Logan might be willing to downplay the encounter, but he knew Marko wouldn’t shut his dirty goat mouth.

“Yeah, Professor,” the satyr said. “In this situation, the First Cohort are the bullies, and we are the bully-ees.”

The pixie whirled on Marko, tiny hands planted on tiny hips. “That would be the bullied, goat boy. You will not be making up words on my watch. Do you understand me, goat boy?”

Marko snapped a salute. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

That softened the fearsome pixie. “Yes, maggot, that’s right. You’re right to salute me, because I am your superior in every way possible way.”

She spun around, with the sweet green pollen following her. She pointed two tiny fingers at both Chadrigoth and the fungaloid. “There will be no fighting in the Golden Serpent Hall. There will be no fighting outside of the arena. If you have a grudge, if you desire to bully the weak, you will do so at the appropriate time, in the appropriate manner. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Chadrigoth thundered. He did not want to get on the pixie’s bad side. He knew exactly who she was and what she was capable of.

“And you, maggot?” she roared at the fungaloid.

Murray glanced at Marko, then at Chadrigoth, a look of wonder in his eyes. “Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“That will not do, maggot!” the pixie professor erupted. “Do you understand me?”

Finally, the fungal clown got it. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

“I am not pleased, fungaloid. I am not pleased at all. By all that is holy in this world, by the Tree of Souls and by its roots, when you are in my class, you had better be far more impressive, or I will make your life a living hell, do you get ME!” She flickered around and stared at the students with such a fury that everyone stepped back.

The pixie then went soaring away, a flash of light, here then gone.

Chadrigoth let out a sigh of relief. Before shoving the fungaloid. “Nice going, you worm. You just got on the bad side of Zuzanna Zantho.”

Murray winced. “Our Offensive Dungeon Design professor?”

Chadrigoth shoved the plaster dummy back down to the ground and then thumped Logan’s mushroom cap. “That’s right. You sure do piss off a lot of people around here, Murray, You best watch your back. Lady Elesiel. Magmarty. Let’s go.”

Chadrigoth marched away whit his cohort—minus Tet-Akhat, of course—following in his wake.

As the First Cohort walked toward the exit, they passed some moronic ghast in chef’s whites, a dumb fedora, and blinding white shoes that covered his abnormally large feet.

For no reason other than he could, Chadrigoth shoulder checked the ghast and kept right on walking.

Yes, the abyss lord had started off his second year in a foul, foul mood. And woe to everyone who crossed him, because Chadrigoth of the Diabolus Diaboli had plans…