I first met Rick seven years ago.

A ten-year-old boy was crying alone in one of the caverns of the Sixth Labyrinth. His ears were tormented by the disturbing rhythm of water droplets. His eyes saw only darkness, and his heart grew weaker every second. He had a single wish—for his parents to appear. He knew neither their faces nor their names, but he remembered their warmth. This warmth he could never forget.

Time went by slowly, and eventually, an expedition passed through the nearby tunnels. An adventurer walked into the cavern and saw the boy in the light of a torch.

“What are you doing here?” the adventurer, Rick Adalwin, said. “You can’t be alone, are you?”

The boy didn’t answer.

Master Azemir arrived next. He was old and thin and had a large mustache that was pointed at its two ends. Despite his appearance, however, he was the leader of the guild and a master of martial arts who faced Aberrations with his bare fists.

“Who’s this boy, Adalwin?” Master Azemir asked. “What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“He couldn’t have reached here on his own,” Master Azemir said. “The Aberrations on these floors are worse than your common slime or Laikos.”

“Yes, there was someone else here,” Rick said, pointing at the black blood that covered the ground. “This boy survived something big.”

“You might be right.”

“I’ll take him back to Azuria with us.”

“Add a quest to find his parents. I’ll prepare the prize money.”

In the guild, Rick Adalwin filed the quest, but the boy’s parents were never found. Rick asked many questions, but none were answered. Even the boy’s belongings didn’t help. There were only papers in his pockets: some looked like magical charms, while others had senseless scribbles. The past was a mystery, and the future was uncertain.

“We will take you in, Lance,” Master Azemir said one day. “We don’t know the truth for sure, but the evidence suggests that your parents died in an accident. They’re gone from this world.”

The boy began to cry.

“You’re too frank, Guild Master,” Rick said. “You shouldn’t have said that. You could’ve chosen better words. Lance is only a child.”

Master Azemir wiped the boy’s tears with his finger and said, “I know a grey-haired man like me couldn’t possibly understand your feelings, boy. But listen, young or old, you should learn how to move forward in this unfair world of ours. There will always be people who care for you and love you.”

The boy was too young to understand, but the words evoked vague memories of his mother’s warm embrace. Then he felt a rush of love, fear, helplessness, guilt. His own emotions were as confounding as a hard riddle, but the look in Master Azemir’s eyes made him stop crying.

On the way to the boy’s new home, Rick said, “Look, Lance. Maybe I’m being too stubborn, but I can’t get myself to believe what Master Azemir said. If you become a good adventurer, you won’t only make a living, but you’ll also explore the labyrinths. If you’re curious enough to check around every corner, you might meet your parents again one day.”

Master Azemir had stopped the boy from crying, but Rick was the one who made the boy smile.

***

Belphegor’s roar echoed through the chaotic battlefield. He lumbered forward with steps that opened fissures in the earth, and his arms reached for the men scattered on the ground. Rick was in danger. Rick was about to get crushed by the monstrous hands.

“I can’t just leave him behind,” I said.

“Rick and his group will buy us time to escape,” Demetrius said.

“They will die.”

“If Belphegor had chased another group, you wouldn’t have stopped, Lance.”

“You might be right. But I can’t help it. Rick means a lot to me.”

“Commander Medina’s tactic was fair.”

“I don’t care about fairness,” I said.

“What will you do then?”

I looked at Belphegor with eyes full of hate. We’re nothing but ants compared to him. We tried to tie him with chains, but it didn’t work. And the ground troops’ attacks were futile because of the black fumes. Wait a second—the fumes… Why didn’t I think of this before?

“Are you onto something?” Demetrius said.

I nodded and said, “Can you summon your giant chains again?”

“Yes, but what good will they do? Belphegor is beyond my attack range.”

“You won’t attack him, Demetrius. Belphegor’s body is made up of ghosts, and I have the power to absorb them. You’ll catapult me at him.”

“My dear, you belong in the circus,” Demetrius smiled. He recited his incantations, and a red magic circle appeared on the ground around us. He summoned a sturdy metal chain and waved it in circles with his magic. “Grab it, and let’s hope you don’t get motion sickness.”

I caught the chain as it revolved. My hand clasped the cool metal and felt the texture of the small rings that it had been shaped into. Tiny beads of sweat covered my palm, but I didn’t let the chain slip. I hung on to it, motivated by all the hopes and fears that permeated my mind. My body spun in the air like a sling-bullet. Demetrius continued to speed up the chain’s rotation until I could see my surroundings only as colorful horizontal lines.

“Let go when I tell you,” Demetrius said.

“A-A-All r-r-r-right!”

The chain continued to accelerate until Demetrius said, “Now!”

I let go, and my body was hurled through the air. I flew like a cannonball, and the wind blew against my back and pushed me forward—the way it drives the sails of a ship. I could see the guards stopping to look up, the mages pointing at me from the hills, the adventurers identifying me as their only hope. At the end of my flight, I crashed into Belphegor—a rather painful halt.

Before I started falling, I planted my sword into his back. The blade slid down a little before it stopped. Then I secured my footing by straightening out my legs, as if I had been a ballerina doing a relevé. I was now attached to the dark-red flesh like the most irritating leech, unreachable and unstoppable, and it was time for me to execute my plan.

Please work.

I removed my throwing knives from my belt and stabbed Belphegor’s back, opening three wounds. When the black fumes emerged from inside, I aimed my left hand at them and concentrated my mind. “Come on, come on, come on,” I said as the fumes thickened around my hand. They condensed into tiny droplets and seeped through my skin.

I did it! I’m absorbing Belphegor’s power!

At that moment, however, a firebolt grazed the side of my body. It was an astonishingly close and accurate attack, which seemed to have come out of nowhere only to spoil my celebration. I looked up and saw Faust leaning over Belphegor’s shoulder. Despite the chaos of the battle, he had noticed me.

This is bad.

While I continued to absorb the fumes, Faust hurled one firebolt after the other. He adjusted his aim regularly and tried to predict the trajectory that his flames needed to follow. But Belphegor’s constant movement prevented him from landing direct hits.

Even without a fatal bullseye, however, Faust was already doing a lot of damage. The explosions that happened around me left me dizzy and disoriented. The flashes irritated my eyes. And while it hid me from view (an unintentional side effect), the smoke also made it difficult to breathe.

I need to do something before I fall off.

I pulled one of my knives out of Belphegor’s body and threw it at Faust. He was too far away, however, and it fell back to the ground without achieving its purpose. I couldn’t defeat gravity, which chose to side with my enemy.

If attacking Faust won’t help, then I must speed up the absorption somehow.

More firebolts approached. This time, two were aimed at the center of my body. A swing wouldn’t have been enough to avoid them, so I jumped sideways and grabbed one of my knives for support. As this knife began to come off, I jumped again and reached for another.

They asked me to kill the Aberration, and I’ll kill it!

As more firebolts exploded, I let the last throwing knife drop and stuffed my hands into the wound it had left. As soon as I did, Belphegor cried in pain and stopped chasing the people on the ground. He stood upright, flapped his giant wings, and tried to knock me off his back. But I was beyond his reach.

“Kenos Vir!” Belphegor roared. “Why do you rebel when you are destined to serve? Do you not fear the punishment that will come one day? The eternity in my temple!”

I pushed my hands deeper inside the wound, and Belphegor screeched. He shook and convulsed in a fit of pure madness. He had to knock me off by any means, but it was impossible to get rid of me now. As he continued to struggle, his muscles lost volume, and his skin aged and shriveled up. His power and might were sinking into my soul without return. The old saying goes: “With the right trick, the dwarves imprisoned the dragon.” And no words could have described this moment better.

Belphegor fell to his knees and then onto his face, knocking Faust off his shoulder. The ground shook and announced a turning point in the battle. I heard wild cheers and cries of victory. From their vantage point on the hills, the Azurian mages summoned new chains to bind Belphegor’s remains. His hands and feet were shackled, and many stakes (probably Demetrius’s work) pinned him to the earth.

I removed my hands and sword from Belphegor’s wounds. Then I raced to the edge of his back. His flesh was already decaying and crumbling, but it was too early to cheer. It was too early to be intoxicated with triumph. Last time, Belphegor broke into thousands of bodiless demons. The ground forces need to evacuate. If they don’t, the tragedy that happened in Ashenbrook’s fog will repeat.

I looked down at the Azurian forces and shouted at the top of my lungs, “Retreat, now!”

The adventurers and guards looked at me in confusion. They couldn’t tell that they were in danger, even as the fumes and ghosts gushed out like the steam and water of a geyser. Rick stepped forward from among the crowd. I was happy to see him, but I focused on communicating the warning.

“Belphegor’s body is breaking apart,” I said. “There will be thousands of ghosts. Everyone should escape to the hills.”

“You heard him! Retreat!” Rick shouted. The Azurian forces began to turn around, first reluctantly but then more responsively. As they ran for shelter, Rick turned to me and said, “Come on, what are you waiting for? Jump down.”

“I’m not coming with you.”

“What? Why?”

“Faust fell off Belphegor’s shoulder, but I’m sure he didn’t die.”

“Lance, that nobleman’s life is over—”

“No, I can’t let him escape.” I extended my hand toward the black fumes and showed Rick how I could absorb them. “Leave this to me, and head to safety.”

“All right, Lance,” he said. “You know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I smiled. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Strengthening my resolve, I took a deep breath and turned away. The battle wasn’t over for me yet.