Engle looked at Adam and Adam looked at Engle, both hesitant about the other. Although Adam could see that Engle had genuine feelings of fear and cowardice when he looked at him, a normal ghoul commander would never have these feelings. Engle was confused at Adam's appearance. No ghoul commander would go without their armor. Even if Adam was a new commander and had yet to get his armor, there was no way he could get two swords! It was impossible to have a sword but not the armor. Just who was this naked man covered in the blackish blood of ghouls?

While the two were looking at each other, a small commotion started among the ghouls surrounding the rock. Engle only controlled one third of the horde while the other commanders had controlled their own third. Now that they were dead, most the ghouls were leaderless. Just like when Adam had killed that one commander after he had escaped, the ghouls started to mostly disperse while a few fought among themselves. None approached the black rock since both Adam and Engle were on it. Even if the ghouls still held some confusion about Adam's existence, there was no doubt about Engle. The ghouls didn't try to challenge the commander and just went the other way.

Adam started out quite simply: “I have some questions that you will answer.”

Engle quickly nodded his head: “Y-yes, yes, of course!”

Adam gave a frown at this response. He was still unsure of a commander that was such a coward. Seeing the look Adam gave, Engle understood what he was thinking. Everyone else he had ever met in this plane was the same when they first encountered him. “Y-you are probably wondering why I, a ghoul commander, am such a coward. Quite simply, I was too afraid to let the death essence fully corrupt me into becoming a ghoul. Somehow, that intense fear allowed enough of myself to cower away from the death essence that invaded my soul and left that part of me alone. I became a ghoul commander in such a way, but I am forever a coward. I am afraid of fighting, but I am afraid of being hurt even more! The other two only kept me by their side because they wanted to use me to increase the size of their horde...”

Adam did not fully trust the commander's words. “Why were you so gleeful when you had captured that woman then?”

“You were here then? Perhaps... were you the one who caused her to die so early?”

An expression of displeasure passed across Adam's face. He didn't like thinking of killing the woman, even though it was the only thing he could have done for her; to giver her a quick death. Seeing this, Engle quickly moved on, he figured that if he pressed Adam too much, he might get beaten! “I-I was only gleeful because we managed to go back to the world of men, even if for a small hour or two. I don't like this dreary plane that is covered by monochromatic colors and where death is everywhere! I was just so happy to have seen the world for the first time in a long time, I was not taking any glee in the woman's misfortune.”

Adam could tell there was some truth in what the commander was saying, but didn't put any trust in him. Adam proceeded to ask Engle many questions about the rift. Adam learned that these rifts were a little different from the portal that Emery had set up. These rifts were randomly formed and were not as overt as a portal was, with the raging flames cast up high. The rifts might even appear invisible to most people, unless they accidentally step through it. At most, these rifts can only last for a day or two if left untouched. The moment someone uses the rift to go between worlds, it quickly destabilizes and collapses within a few hours. If there were many people trying to use the rift, it would collapse even faster. The rift Adam saw was already reaching the end of its rope and when the three ghouls and the woman stepped back, that caused the rift to collapse.

Adam eventually asked: “Spiritualists are able to open portals between our world and one of the spirit planes, that is how I ended up here. Is there anyone on this side that can open a portal back to the world?”

Engle responded: “T-there are but... they would be the generals of the spirit army. There is no way they would waste any time to open a portal from someone as lowly as either you or I.”

This started to make Adam worry; he had never heard of a so called 'spirit army' before. Adam cautiously asked: “What exactly is this spirit army?”

At this point, Engle already knew that Adam was somebody unique. Anyone who was a commander would know everything he was talking about, yet Adam did not. Even though Adam must certainly be a ghoul commander in order to retain his mind while living in a spirit plane, he did not even know the simplest of things all commanders would know. He even carried two swords but did not don a single piece of armor. Still, Adam was strong and Engle felt there was no way he could fight against Adam, even if he wanted to. He patiently explained everything to Adam.

“The spirit army is what its generals call it. They follow the orders of the spirits that exist in the currents of death essence above our heads. Every commander is ranked by both their personal power and the size of their horde. The two commanders you killed forced me to join them to use my own ability as a commander to increase the size of their horde and give them a higher rank. Still, they were just low unranked commanders. If you manage to attain a rank, there are various commodities that you could gain by allying yourself with various captains and generals. You can actually eat food, drink wine, or indulge in a variety of pleasures as long as your power is enough for them to want to keep. There are even a plethora of demonic and guardian beasts that are part of the spirit army! Some are even generals!”

This was simply too much. When talking about portals or even just the spirit planes in general, Cathryn should have talked about this spirit army at some point. It sounded disastrously large and was surely full of strong ghoul commanders and demonic or guardian beasts. Just from the description that the ghouls Adam has fought were unranked made him feel that any of the higher ranked members of the spirit army would require an army of spiritualists and martial artists to take down just one of them! And yet, there was seemingly an entire army full of these monstrous creatures! Couldn't they just sweep across the world of men and kill everyone? Adam was unsure if he could believe Engle. “How come no one has ever heard of this spirit army before? Wouldn't it be a huge threat to the world?”

Engle could understand Adam's reluctance to believe in the existence of the army. When he fist learned of it, he could hardly believe it too. “I don't know why, but the spirit army is being held back from invading the world by the spirits. Instead, the spirits are making them build up their forces to become stronger. It's possible that every spirit plane has a spirit army like this and that the planes will wage war on each other. I am just a lowly commander, there was no reason to tell me why the spirit army exists when I was informed about it.”

None of that helped Adam to believe in this spirit army, but it was the only sure way home that he could find. “If this spirit army truly exists, how do I find them? How could I possibly get them to open a portal for me?”

Engle reached into his armor around his collar and pulled out a small hexagonal box that resembled a compass. He tossed it to Adam. “Take my spirit compass, you can use it to find the generals. There are no maps of the spirit plane but the spirit compass will direct you to the highest concentrations of death essence. There, you will find strong commanders that would typically be ranked. All I know is that the places where generals gather is far from here so it only appears faintly on the compass, if at all. As for getting them to open a portal for you, I don't know that they will! If they would open a portal, they would only do if for one of their own. Right now, you are just a random human that has stumbled his way into the plane of death, why should they help you? Your only chance is to attain a rank for yourself and ally with a general who would open the portal for you.”

Adam skeptically asked: “And how do I attain a rank?”

“You need to make a name for yourself. Gain fame for killing other commanders and building a large horde of your own. Then, when you meet someone who actually does have a rank, you might be recognized for your strength and they would give you a rank as well!”

Adam thought about Engle's words as he looked at the compass in his hands. The armor of the ghoul commanders had preciously hidden this item from his elemental sight, so he had never noticed it before. Looking at it, he could tell that there were a few spirit formations laid in the compass, but couldn't discern their function. Adam pressed a button on the side of the compass and it flicked open. Since Adam couldn't see, he wasn't even certain he would be able to use the compass. However, the way it functioned still worked in his favor. He could see faint streams of death essence pouring into the spirit formations on the compass, each pointing in a certain direction. In fact, Adam's elemental sight made it far easier for him to read the compass, compared to everyone else. The spirit formations in the compass transformed the spirit essence it could detect into mechanical energy to spin various needles around so they could point in the direction of the spirit essence. There were a multitude of these needles and it was actually a very complicated device to understand. All Adam had to do, though, was to look directly at the spirit essence the compass was gathering to read it.

Adam wasn't certain about actually getting a someone from this spirit army to open a portal for him. Realizing that the compass was detecting spirit essence fluctuations, Adam asked: “Can this also point out rifts?”

“Oh, yes.” Engle replied, he then started to give Adam a detailed description of how the compass worked and how to read it. It was so complicated, Adam stopped paying attention since he actually didn't need to know all that. From what Engle was telling him, a rift would appear as some type of anomaly that was different from everything else and Adam would surely be able to tell that something was off.

After Engle's brief tutorial on the spirit compass, Adam closed the compass and then frowned slightly. He now had too many items and couldn't hold them all in his hands! Now having the time, Adam took the belt off one of the dead commanders and both their scabbards. Adam also found a pouch on the belt where he could put the compass. Engle had been curiously watching Adam while he did this. Adam still did not have any armor on, so he looked even more weird for being naked except for a belt that held two swords and a compass. Although Engle had been getting more comfortable about speaking with Adam, he was too afraid of arousing Adam's ire to ask just who he was and why he didn't don a commander's armor. Adam was carefully monitoring the amount of death essence that was attacking his body from the belt. The concentration of death essence in the belt was actually less than the swords, so he found the death essence attacking his body and soul had become just a little weaker than if he held onto the swords. Adam had noticed one other thing, however. Using the technique that utilized death essence to pull out another person's true soul had caused the death essence in his own body to quickly spread! It would be a technique he should only use if he absolutely had to.

Adam then looked out over the rock to the surrounding ghouls. He then looked at Engle and said: “I would like your help, Engle. The rest of the ghouls here were not as lucky as you and are trapped in a state of misery. I need your help to kill them and free their souls from this eternal torment.”

Adam had been watching Engle's soul and knew he was not a terrible person, and even more a coward. If Adam could only trust him to do one thing, that was to not attack him. He had seen how afraid Engle was of the mysterious method Adam used to kill the ghoul commander by just pointing his finger at him. Engle was very confused as to why Adam would want to get rid of a horde that could potentially become a part of Adam's power, but still answered: “W-what would you have me do?”

“Have your ghouls attack the others. I will take care of the rest!”

Engle hesitated for just a moment. Adam was just too weird, too unpredictable. Engle decided to follow Adam's orders, rather than going against him. He ordered his ghouls to attack the others. While it was one hundred ghouls against two hundred, one side was organized and the other side was not. Both sides were fairly even and it would seem they would wipe each other out, given enough time. Adam pulled his two swords free from his scabbards. He then jumped off the rock and entered the fray. The ghouls were all confused and disordered by the sudden attack of Engle's ghouls, giving Adam ample room to make his own attacks. He could also easily just jump back on the rock if he needed a break and the ghouls wouldn't follow him. In just a brief hour, the battle was done. Only a handful of Engle's ghouls were left, the rest lay dead on the ground. Adam then even had Engle order the remaining ghouls into a line, where after he swiftly beheaded them all! Engle was trembling, terrified of the scene in front of him. Surrounding the rock were hundreds of corpses covered in black blood with only Adam standing among them. Adam looked indomitable, being covered in a voluminous amount of black blood! Adam, on the other hand, saw a completely different scene. For each corpse that was on the ground, Adam had seen a soul uplifted and freed, no longer confined to the despotic life of a ghoul! This was the only thing Adam could do to save them from their current fate.

Adam then turned to look at the frightened Engle: “I am leaving now. Thank you for the information, Engle.”

Adam didn't kill Engle, since he wasn't the same as the rest of the ghouls. He had his own mind and could make his own choices. It was not Adam's place to try and take Engle's life, in his belief that it would be better for Engle in the end.

Adam flipped open the compass and went in a direction that would lead him to another commander and his horde. Closing the compass, Adam cast his gaze upwards. Engle had said that the spirits live in currents of death essence above their heads. With Adam's limited gaze, though, he could see nothing. The currents of death essence existed high up above, around the same distance that clouds would be above the land. Adam's elemental sight simply could not see that far. Adam pondered, he had been attempting to escape this spirit plane of death and the ghoul commanders that inhabit it but... had he never actually escaped their gaze since he left the compound he woke up in? Were there spirits looking down on him in contempt and plotting his capture or death? Adam shuddered at the thought as he quickened his pace. The sooner he got out of this plane, the better.

While Adam was walking in the direction given by the compass, he started to notice something flitting in and out of his sight above him. Adam worried that it might be a demonic beast or a spirit following him, but there was nothing he could do about it. After a few hours of walking, Adam stopped to try and utilize the wind formation to push against the death essence that had advanced into his body due to utilizing that soul technique. He had not done this earlier as he did not want to show a moment of weakness in front of Engle. Even though he was a coward, there was no guarantee that Engle would not pounce on a moment of opportunity to kill Adam. Adam was very careful to try and not disturb the balance of death essence in his body too much. He needed to keep enough to sustain him, but he also needed to push it back to keep it from fully corrupting his body. After an hour or two, Adam got back up and continued on his way.

Adan walked on for days. He did not know exactly how long it was, only that he had to sleep four times. On the fifth day, if you could call it that, Adam opened up the compass to check his direction again. He had been heading towards a distant but strong stream the compass had been giving, but today he noticed a new stream had appeared. It was far weaker but, if he was reading the compass right, was far closer. It would probably be a group of one or more ghoul commanders and their hordes. Adam decided to make a detour in that direction. He wanted a better sense of the hierarchy of ghoul commanders and by checking this stream out and knowing how strong they were, he could guess the relative strength of the other streams the compass showed.

Two days later, Adam found the source of the stream. He tried his best to hide himself among the ashen sand as he tried to survey what lied ahead. It appeared to only be a single commander with a horde of around seventy or so ghouls. If Adam wanted to get a general of the spirit army to open a portal for him, he would have to have enough strength to ask for it. To show his strength, he would have to at least beat a few unranked commanders and their ghoul hordes. Adam would have to have the ability to take out this horde in front of him, but no matter how he looked at it, it was impossible! If he could kill the ghouls off just a few at a time, maybe he could win in the end but all the ghouls would surely attack him at the same time when ordered by their commander! Adam was at a loss of what to do. In the middle of all his thinking, Adam saw that spirit or whatever that was following him flit into his elemental sight. At the same time, that incessant chattering started up again! Adam was caught too much unprepared to even shout 'no' in his mind before he once again blacked out!

When Adam started to come to, he found himself surrounded by a small horde of ghouls. Adam was mindlessly shambling on and it seemed the horde was following him! As Adam started to collect himself and spread out his elemental sight, he was surprised to not find a single ghoul commander around. “Who is keeping this horde together?”

Adam also found that he was currently holding one of his swords in his hand. As Adam started gaining more control over his soul and body, he started hearing a bunch of odd sounds. Adam had a feeling that he was somehow connected to them, but he had no idea how. It was obviously something to do with spirit essence, but Adam could not find the source of the sounds with his elemental sight. Before too long, Adam regained full control of his body again. Adam was preparing to fight his way out of the horde if needed, but something curious happened. As soon as Adam stopped when he gained control of his body, all the other ghouls stopped with him! They then looked in Adam's direction, but not in a manner as if they were confused about his existence. Rather, they seemed to be waiting of Adam! As Adam cautiously looked at the ghouls, he finally noticed something. There was a thin thread of death essence connecting Adam and all the ghouls!

Adam hurriedly followed that thread, afraid that it was drastically increasing the amount of death essence in his body. He became surprised, however. It seemed that he was somehow using the excess death essence in his body to make these threads that connected him to these ghouls. So instead of the essence attacking and further devouring his body, it was instead used to create these connections. It was also these threads that Adam was hearing the odd sounds from, like a bunch of instruments randomly playing notes. Adam felt some vague knowledge about the threads appear in his mind, much like the technique where he used death essence to form a thread and take someone's soul out. This was obviously something he learned when he blacked out, but how? That spirit that was flickering in and out of Adam's sight suddenly came to mind. Was this spirit somehow teaching him these things? Did it want Adam to truly become a ghoul commander, or was it just trying to help Adam? Adam felt unsure of what was the true answer.

Using the vague knowledge in his mind, Adam was able to command the ghouls to walk a certain distance away so he could think more comfortably. Should he just kill the ghouls and free them? What if they started to rebel the moment he started killing them? Various thoughts raced through Adam's mind and, for now, he decided not to kill the ghouls. He could always kill them and free their souls later, after all. Adam looked at the sword in his hand and noticed some newer splotches of blood on the blade. A thought came to him: “Did I somehow kill that commander from earlier and then steal his horde!?”

Adam could never know the true answer, but he felt sure that was what happened. He had no idea how he could have gotten to the commander while he was in the middle of his horde, but somehow he had done it. A new thought came to Adam as well. The primary problem with taking down the commander from before and dealing with his horde was that Adam was alone! Now, he had allies. Although they are just ghouls, he could use them. Use them to increase his power and standing. Use them to kill commanders and to kill other ghouls to free their souls! Adam knew that there was a limit to how many ghouls one could control, so any that Adam could not control he decided he would kill and free their souls. And before Adam leaves this plane, he would make sure to kill his horde and free their souls too! Adam now had a plan and a means to accomplish it! Adam opened up the compass, the only way to increase his strength was to fight others and win! Kill all others and free their souls while increasing his horde! Adam chose a direction and walked, while commanding his horde to follow.