--- Elena’s POV ---

“Haaah!” I sat up with a gasp, in the middle of the night. I wasn’t a bad sleeper, so I quickly looked around if there was anything going on around me, but only Dred laid beside me in his panther form.

“What’s up?” he woke up to my loud gasp and opened his eyes. “I have a bad feeling for some reason,” he added in the next moment, exactly what I wanted to say. Checking my soul realm, I found something strange. I couldn’t sense Audrey’s presence.

If she died, I’d have felt it. But that wasn’t the case. She was definitely alive, but I couldn’t sense her. Quickly dressing up, I rushed to her room and smashed in the door and felt something break in my soul realm at the same time. That bastard bear was lying on to of Audrey, whose body dissolved into a black liquid and returned to my body.

“What the fuck was that?” Roin clicked his tongue. “Well, you’ve had a nice servant, sorry for the loss!” Roin chuckled as he stood up from the bed and was about to teleport away, but I used space lock.

Dred appeared next to Jake and brought him out of the room.

“You see, it’s really a shame. I wanted to have some fun with her, but fate didn’t want it, it seems. It’s such a waste,” Roin shook his head.

“I assure you, you’re going to suffer,” I muttered and took out my daggers.

“What are you blabbering? It was just a servant. Would you really want to fight against me over a servant? Hahaha. It’s not like you can’t find another one,” he said.

Sensing Audrey’s soul leaving her body, I quickly pulled it in and stored it in my soul container. I was always hoping that I’d never have had to use it on one of my loved ones, yet here I was doing just that. The worst was that her body disappeared, so I couldn’t use necromancy to revive her and even if I could revive her, she would be nothing but a husk with no memories. After all, I never used Ekrok to copy her memories…

Biting my lips until an irony taste filled my mouth, I glared at the object of my hate in front of me, feeling powerless. The second worst thing about all this was that I knew that I couldn’t carelessly attack the person in front of me.

If I joined forces with Dred and the other blood servants, I’d be able to kill him for sure, but we’d have to use devour, which would definitely reveal my race. I wanted to destroy this piece of shit, but I knew I couldn’t, after all, the residents of the city would notice a battle between two legendary creatures.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I beat down my wrath and replied with a ‘serious’ look on my face, “Well, that’s true. But I hope that you’re going to shut up and stop talking about her. One more word and I’m going to kill you,” I pointed at him.

“Hahaha, okay, okay. I wouldn’t want that to happen,” he shook his hands.

I want to cry. What hurts more? The fact that I’m powerless or that I lost Audrey?

“It’s obviously the latter,” Dred thought, feeling all the broken soul links connecting us with Audrey and the blood servants that were made combined with her blood. Liz, Skeiron, Jareg, Anna, all of them turned into nothing but stored souls, along with about one-third of my blood servants.

Since not everyone in the mansion inherited Audrey’s and Liz’s blood, the remaining people took care of the fallen people’s souls and thanks to my precaution this morning, most of them were still around the other blood servants. I lost only a few hundred souls, but it felt much more…

“And how do you plan to compensate me?” I asked. The only thought on my mind was to kill him, but since that wasn’t possible in my current position, I wanted to rip him off as much as I could.

“Compensation?”

“Yes, she was a very useful servant of mine,” I raised my dagger threateningly. “Or are you trying to tell me that you killed one of my important servants and yet you plan to leave without compensating me?”

“Before that, what is that panther?” he pointed at Dred. “I can’t inspect you two, obviously, but I feel the aura of a legendary creature from him as well. But he isn’t a Tiger God, is he? What are you?” Roin tilted his head to the side.

“I’m your end if you keep questioning me,” Dred growled.

“Woah, you two are no fun. You keep talking about death all the time!” Roin shook his head in exasperation.

I’ll be sure to see that shitty head roll in the near future.

“We have yet to be compensated,” Dred picked up my lines and pressed on. “It’s better be worth it,” he added.

“Tsk- fine. I’ve got a few Symbiotes over the years. You can pick two,” Roin clicked his tongue and took out about ten head-sized eggs.

Dred walked over and stored all of them in his storage rings, “That’s going to be sufficient.”

“Wah-! Hey! Give it ba-”

“Do you have something to say?” I asked as I appeared in front of him and flailed my dagger in front of his face.

“But I didn’t even get to do her- ARGH! Fuck you!” his words turned into a scream as I thrust my dagger towards him. Even though I was at point blank range, I couldn’t cause more damage than a small gash. He almost avoided it, which clearly showed the difference between us.

Just because I lost someone dear to me, I couldn’t attack carelessly. There could be a way to recreate her body or give her life force, even if I had to give mine, and then maybe she’d come back to life. But if I killed myself by trying to take down this guy, that wouldn’t be possible. Luckily, I was pretty good at shutting out my emotions.

Clicking his tongue, he stepped back, “Keep it then! But I hope that our grudges are cleared!”

“It is, on our part,” I smiled at him.

Yeah, only when you die.

“Good then,” he nodded his head and as I deactivated space lock, he teleported out of the city and went back to his forest. I wanted to see that forest burn.

“Dred, I’ve decided on something. I’m going to destroy everything that is related to this damned bastard!”

“Count me in, but I’m more worried about Jake. He was here when it happened and couldn’t do anything. He didn’t even know about it. Should we lie to him? He could always blame it on us…” he asked.

“And how do we do that? He would realise that he was sleeping with Audrey,” I replied.

“Yeah, that’s the problem. I guess he’ll have to hear the truth,” he said as he turned around and looked at Jake. Since Roin knocked him out, he was still ‘sleeping peacefully’, but that’d be only until he didn’t wake up.

“Mhm, but we’ve learned about Roin’s racial trait. The ability to cancel any magic upon physical contact,” I muttered. Sighing loudly, Dred scooped Jake up from the ground and took him to our room. I was really not in the mood to sleep at this point, so we moved out to continue our training. We had to become stronger than that bastard.

The next morning, Jake received a huge blow hearing the news of what happened at night and wished to move around on his own in the universe to find a way to bring back ‘dead’ souls to life. After commanding him that he should avoid Roin and every other legendary creature and if he came across one he should run away instantly, we agreed to let him go. I was sure that we wouldn’t see him for a while… not until he found a way.

I commanded the remaining servants to notify me and Jake of any hear-say stories that are about reviving people. Since many of them were spread out through the universe, I had high hopes for them. Sadly, even after a week passed by, I heard only about idiotic tales.

I was in a rather bad mood, which cost the lives of quite a lot of guys in the city who were a bit more brazen than they should have been… I quickly became infamous in the city, especially among guys. ‘The girl with the black panther who kills men’ and such lines spread about me and Dred, who often followed me around without hiding himself. Since I had a noble ID card, the guards let me off every time. Nobody cared about a few hoodlums dying in the city, even if it was against the laws. Plus, a bit of threatening or bribing did wonder.

I really couldn’t feel sorry for the souls who fell victim to my bad mood and wrath, but I still didn’t start killing indiscriminately. That wasn’t what I decided upon. Either way, Roin just enforced the idea of turning everyone into my pawn even more. The only real problem was that since half of the workers in the Greywing mansion disappeared without a trace, the head of the house, Attis Greywing, became suspicious.

After commanding a few blood servants to mimic Anna, Skeiron, and Jareg, they made appearances in the mansion, so the old fart didn’t think that his grandson died. But he told ‘his grandson’ that he should disown me because I was suspicious and I had a bad reputation in the city.

To avoid complications and reveal that Jareg was dead, the fake Jareg told him that he’d leave the mansion as well, along with his family. I pretty much moved out of the city and made a place of my own at the southwestern part of Trigon, next to the border of the Forest of the elves. The news of the devourers robbing the mines of Trigon spread in the city soon after, since the entourage sent to the elven forest returned with the news of the elves stating that they had nothing to do with it.

Everyone believed Zurdon’s words and nobody questioned our existence. It turned into common sense that the devourers were in this universe, which made me think that moving out of the city was for the best. I had to move around carefully since there were eyes watching me everywhere…

----

*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*

“Weak!” a two meters tall, black-haired handsome man shouted. A pair of long horns curved out of his forehead and pointed towards the sky.

Ten people laid on the ground around him, groaning in pain.

“Is that all you can do as the elites? The descendants?” the man shook his head. He was none other than Dred Syracia.

Wiping his blood-filled mouth, one of the fallen people stood up from the ground and took a stance. “I’m ready, Master!”

Raising his brows, Dred appeared behind the boy and knocked him unconscious with a flick of his fingers. “I don’t think so,” Dred chuckled and then looked at the young girl sitting on the sidelines. “Scoop them up and take care of their injuries.”

Nodding her head, the girl quickly got to work and followed her Master’s orders. Seeing it, a small smile formed on Dred’s face and then he turned towards the large wooden building in the middle of the camp.

The area was mostly filled with smaller trees where one could easily take a short rest or hide away from the scorching sunlight, but there were numerous open training fields and a bigger lake as well. The camp was surrounded by four meters tall walls built from adamantine, a legendary metal at the lower levels. But at places like Ketarn, it was pretty common. Either way, it was enough to keep away the curious eyes of some monsters nearby.

In the middle of the camp was a mansion built from fine wood, which was imported from the elves. It had four floors and a secret basement. The top floor was Dred and Elena’s private residence, while the lower floors were for the stationed descendants and pawns. Four months passed by since Audrey’s death. In the meantime, Jake came back to visit his friends only twice, and spent the rest of his time wandering around in the universe.

Dred infiltrated the Demon Burrows as a Demon God and took control of numerous demon groups, though he had yet to turn everyone into his loyal servant. Of course, those servants turned into pawns or descendants, who Dred trained personally. That much time was more than enough for Cor to turn the entire Skeleton Hill into his domain, so he returned to Dred and Elena’s side two months ago.

Upon entering the mansion, a pawn-class ran up to Dred. “Master! Please wait a moment!” the girl shouted as she fixed her blonde hair, hoping that she wouldn’t look improper in front of her master.

“What is it, Vanessa?” Dred turned around.

“I spotted that elven woman again, should I make contact with her when she returns?” she asked.

“Did you inspect her? What is her level?”

“My inspect was blocked by a spell, but she should be somewhere in the middle of the six hundredth level, unless she’s hiding her true strength,” Vanessa replied.

Placing his hand on his chin, Dred murmured something inaudible to himself and then said aloud, “I’ll go and capture her. I was going to meet with ‘the queen’,” he chuckled. “But since this came up, please go and tell her about it. I’ll be back soon, hopefully…”

Happy to meet Elena, Vanessa nodded her head and ran up the stairs, while Dred left the camp and made his way to a lush part of the forest. About two weeks ago, they noticed a young elven woman passing by the borders and moving towards the capital city of Trigon. But before entering it, she used a spell and took up the shape of a human.

The elven woman never realised that Vanessa noticed and tracked her down, so Dred commanded her to continue trailing the elf. The elf moved back and forth between the capital city of Trigon and the elven forest every fourth day. If she was a spy, she’d definitely have some useful information, so Dred decided to act up.

But there was something else awaiting him. Soon after he made contact with the elven woman, a voice resounded in his head.

It was the call of the Abyss.