Everyone rushed to the spot the sound was coming from, a seemingly endless horrific blood curdling scream.

We arrived to find a shadowy almost shapeless form hovering over one of the villagers, sucking the life out of her. She was agonizing, unable to move. All she could do was scream.

"This is bad." Cara said in my mind. "This is one of the creatures created by the mages on our home world. They are the reason that we left."

Fenon was the first to react, rushing towards the dark creature when suddenly a second dark cloud shot out from the trees and coalesced in front of him. He let out a cry as the creature started feeding hungrily on his life force as well.

"Get back" I shouted at the remaining villagers, giving them a shove with my aura as I retrieved my armor and my sword. The Blade of Celestial Dominion shone blindingly bright against the darkness and the creature which had attacked the first villager released his hold on her, escaping into a black mist and reappearing in the shadows at the edge of the clearing where yet another shadow creature appeared next to it.

"We are not here for you, mage." The new one said. "You cannot protect all of them, they belong to us, you should go."

I lunged at the shadow which was still feeding on Fenon and heard a faint rasp of pain when my sword passed through it, just as it was dissipating. After leaving Fenon, the black cloud headed towards the center of the clearing where the villagers were huddled together.

"Oh no you don't!" I said and instinctively formed a thin hollow sphere of pure mana around the smoky cloud that was moving rapidly towards the villagers. Once I saw that it couldn't pass through my mana barrier, I immediately did the same for the two others which were already beginning to dissipate.

"Gotcha!" I said, as I now had two mana spheres holding the three shadow creatures who in the meantime had re-solidified, but were still unable to break through the translucent barrier.

"You cannot protect them from us." one of the shadows shrieked. "No, you cannot." said another.

"We'll see about that" I replied compressing the sphere as I had done when first learning to use mana. When the sphere was the size of an apple, I took out my sword and placed it against the sphere with the single shadow figure in it. At this size, it was completely engulfed in the light from the sword there was a shriek from the sphere and when I removed my sword, I saw that there was no longer any trace of black visible in the mana.

"You will pay for what you have done!" the other creatures screamed. "You have no idea how powerful our creators are. You will regret your error!"

"What are you exactly? " I asked. "My sword banishes demons, so I assume that you are at least partially demons, but there is more to you than that isn't there?"

"We are souls hungry for life and we are powerful demons" they laughed hideously. "Our hunger cannot be satiated, and even if you banish us, there are thousands more that will take our place. Many, more powerful than we are, yes, much more; yet not even close to the power of our masters. You will pay dearly mage, you will become one of us and you will know our hunger and be food for our masters when they come for you."

They laughed and then finally screamed when I cleansed them with my sword as well.

"How many in the village have basic mana control?" I asked the villagers. Almost everyone replied by touching a hand to their chest.

"Can you form mana the way that you just saw me do?" They were more hesitant this time, but most raised their hands to this question as well.

"If you want to have a chance for the next time they arrive, I suggest that you all practice creating mana containment barriers." and with that I excused myself, and took a walk into the forest to have a long discussion with the dungeon in private.

"Will" I said, calling out to the dungeon. "I now understand better now why you needed a champion, and, just to be clear, I don't mind helping you and the villagers, but you are going to have to explain to me what is actually happening here."

"First of all, why do you need me? Why couldn't you help these people yourself? And why couldn't you just keep those creatures out in the first place."

"I guess you are right, I do owe you an explanation." Will said with a sincere tone. "First and foremost, dungeons must abide by rules. The rules are built into our cores and we simply cannot go against them. That is why dungeons need a champion, that is why I needed you. I can’t keep the demon-wraiths out of the dungeon and I am limited in what I can do for the dungeon’s residents."

"A champion can do things that a dungeon cannot. A dungeon is free to reward its champion more than most ascenders, including certain physical upgrades. Not only were your mana core, channels and meridians greatly improved when you entered the dungeon, but your muscles, bones and organs were also improved. I did not go against your fundamental makeup though; the improvements were within your abilities to achieve given time. I just sped up the process. Significantly." He added after a brief pause.

"Why were those creatures after them? I am sure that there are plenty of other life forms here in the dungeon, or outside of the dungeon for that matter. Why them?"

"I can't be sure of all of their reasons," Will said, his voice sounding suddenly thoughtful, "but the mages were furious when I gave refuge to the Leopard folk and closed access to the dungeon from their world. I suspect that their primary motivation is pride, spite or revenge. Maybe all three."

"I am thankful that you dealt with those creatures before they could report back to their masters. As you may know, the dungeon is in a dimensional space, similar to the space you access through your ring, just much larger. I think that the mages do not leave their home base plant very often and also, most of the dungeons on their world have closed their towers for reasons similar to mine. On top of that, they will only travel if they are sure that they will be able to return. Imagine if one left and then a dungeon closed off the possibility to return. This is the reason that they are using the wraiths to enter the remaining dungeons to search out Cara's people. They can enter most dungeon’s undetected and aside from banishment artifacts, there is little that can be done to stop them."

"There are many doorways to this dungeon, towers, on many different worlds. Some worlds have many towers, many of which lead to different dungeons in different dimensional spaces. My fear, is that they may find a path to one of the entrances to this tower. These mages are extremely powerful and if they manage to enter into the dungeon, we will all be in danger, myself included. Also, any worlds connected to the dungeon will be in danger for that matter, including your own."

"How many mages are there?" I asked, to understand better what we were up against.

"There were 12 mages when we closed the portal to their world. They are quite jealous of their power, so their number should still be about the same even now, I believe. Of course, they have many thousands of those demons, as well as many followers. As you saw, the demons feast on life force. They keep people and other beasts as cattle to feed on. Over time, their prey loses its will to live and they need to find new livestock. They extract the souls from the ones that are no longer useful to them, removing any memories from the soul as well, that is why they are also referred to as lost souls. When a person dies, its soul returns to where it came from originally. But these souls have had these memories erased so they are incapable of returning.

“Once they have a detached soul, they summon demons and then extract their essence, killing the demon in the process. They found a way to attach that essence to the lost souls, to create the creatures that you saw. These creatures will then feed on the life essence of others. They are constantly famished for life, and are also bound to their masters. When they return to their masters, the mages feed on them, and that is how the mages become stronger."

"The demon world cannot be happy about the demons being summoned and killed by these mages," I said, thinking out loud. "I don't exactly like the idea of working with demons, but in this case, they could possibly be powerful allies. I know nothing about demons, mind you, only what I gleaned from the memory stones and fantasy novels."

"True, that is not a bad idea, aside from the fact that it is insanely, dangerous! I am biased, of course, as I have lived through demon wars in the past, which I wish I could forget. What you suggest may be an option though."

"Can you do anything for the villagers? If those creatures return, they will be helpless without some way to banish them."

"No, unfortunately I cannot help them directly, but I can help you to help them, and me for that matter." Will said.

"I have an idea » I said “and I am hoping that it will at least help the villagers against the shadow creatures. I would need to return to my world though, preferably without having to pass through all of the floors of the tower. A direct access to this floor. I also would like to enter my world somewhere where I won't be noticed. By now, the entrance to the tower must be surrounded by the police, the army and news agencies and all sorts of religious fanatics. Lastly, I would need the runes which banish demons; like the ones used on my sword. Is that possible?"

"I think that is a fair request.” Will replied, to my relief. “I will provide a portal for you, at this very spot, when you are ready to leave. It will take you to a discrete area not far from the tower. You will also be able to return here from there. Be aware, your world does not yet have much mana, especially the further you are from the tower. We will only be able to communicate if there is an uninterrupted mana connection to the tower. You should have more than enough mana for your personal needs with the beast cores you collected. I have also added some items in your storage, including a new memory stone for runology and a red and black demonology stone which I prefer that you only use as a last resort.”

"While you are back in your world, you may want to start working on setting up an Ascenders Association” Will added. “It will be needed to train ascenders, enforce the rules and set up ratings for each level of the dungeon. I think that with the ascenders memory stones that you have already absorbed, you should have enough information to perform these tasks."

"It sounds like I have my work cut out for me." I said, suddenly realizing the scope of the tasks what I had accepted. This was looking to become a long-term project.

"If you wish, you may take a villager with you, I am sure that Cara would appreciate it.” After a brief pause, he added “And in case you were wondering, your two species are compatible."

If a dungeon could wink, I am sure that it would have.