It was only after endless minutes of racing across the planes, visceral flashes of everything he had done utterly wrong and absolutely right since he jumped back to Earth flashing in his minds eye, that he realized a key component of his strategy was most definitely not going according to plan.

“Tusker company… halt!” Eric turned to glare back the way they had come, the infantry left be hind a bunch of shambling silhouettes in the far off distance. “Oh come on. I’ve seen the same movies as anyone else. But even in Z-Wars, they at least had this mad manic ability to sprint like savage motherfuckers. Are you guys really this slow?”

Perhaps there was an indignant moan or two from way behind, Eric’s Tuskers even deigning to huff and send a few derisive squeals, back the way they had come. Because it was becoming painfully clear that his infantry was not at all built for fast skirmish warfare.

Eric sighed and shook his head. “What can you do, am I right? At least I can count on my cavalry to pull a Napoleon Dynamite.” This earned an agreeable snort, and Eric gave the Tusker a fond pat on the snout before thoughtfully rubbing his silver ring, now with exactly eight loops. He felt nothing but gratitude towards the skeletal lich who could somehow simultaneously pass for a very tall Haitian who somehow looked absolutely dashing wearing a beaver hat and 19th century frock coat.

But that didn’t change the fact there was no way he could fit a hundred units inside a single…

Eric blinked, eyes going vacant when he quickly began scanning his interface perk notes very, very carefully, almost certain that he had read, at one point… yes!

His legion was best suited to moving and acting as a cohesive unit while on the battlefield.

Now that he thought of it, each squad of five tuskers counted as its own unit, and as he proved a second later, each of the four squads of 5 tuskers in his ring counted as 1 unit each, or 4 total ring loops spoken for.

He then looked back at his awkwardly shambling troopers.

Could he really?…

Only one way to find out, he thought to himself, while racing back the way he had come.

Soon enough he was before his men once more, the night air redolant with the scents of fecund soil, honeysuckle, roses, wildflowers, and the surprisingly faint aroma of the battlefield. Hardly anything at all, really, which Eric thought a damned good thing. It meant that his Revenants were fresh, intact, and who the hell knew how close he might come to one day evolving them into revenants just a half-step away from actual life?

At the very least, he wouldn’t let them degrade to pathetic shambling corpses that were little better than brain-dead zombies.

Eric shook his head, snapping back into the moment, knowing he didn’t have time to waste with bullshit brooding. Because he already knew the real reason why he was letting his thoughts wander.

He was afraid.

Afraid of the massive drain to his resources that was no doubt coming.

Afraid that it wouldn’t work at all.

“But there’s no way in hell I’ll know if I don’t try,” he said aloud, furrowing his brow as he slowly raised his ring, preparing to pour quite a bit of Mana and Soul Reserves into making this work. But not to the point of injury, he told himself. With the goal of sooring a hundred kills with both blaster rifle and sling in a single night, he didn’t have any time to waste in recovering from his own stupidity.

Who knew how many unique, choice titles he had already lost any shot at claiming, after spending months trapped in a cultivation realm? Not that he regretted it in the least, or felt anything but joy and gratitude for his newfound power.

Didn’t change the fact that the Earth’s newly ascended status and all the unique opportunities that came with it was definitely on the clock.

“Alright, here goes nothing, you bastards.”

Eric braced himself, reserving a full 500 mana, spiritual energy, and all but the tiniest fraction of his temporary Soul Reserves to shove a hundred revenants now standing in parade rest into his ring.

His eyes bulged.

He thought was prepared for anything.

He certainly hadn’t expected it to work like an absolute charm.

With hardly any cost at all.

Almost as if his elite Master Necromancer perk had been designed with a ring very much like this one in mind.

He swallowed, shaking his head.

There was no way Grim could have known about how he would evolve, or the trials he would face. The choices he would make.

Absolutely none.

He still found himself shivering from something besides the chilly late night breeze, but that didn’t keep him from racing for the territory border as fast as he damn well could, frowning when he only detected a modest grouping of reds at the far end of the territory, and the occasional handful scattered elsewhere. He frowned at that, refusing to believe that he would have to deal with less than a hundred orcs in the entire territory.

He then shrugged, deciding that the details didn’t matter. He had spotted the enemy, just as they had no doubt spotted him crossing the barrier between territories, and now knew exactly where to go.

“I’ll bet it’s a trap. There’s no way seizing any territory could be this easy. It has to be a trap.” he declared, earning an agreeable grunt from his favorite pig, the only one not currently ringed away, Eric absently patting his snout as they continued forward.

“Good thing it’s not even 10 PM. Plenty of time to figure things out and hit those goals, one way or another, even if things don’t work out as I hope they will here,” Eric declared as he quickly scanned the area with eyes as sharp as any eagle’s, seeing no trace of scout or thicket. Just windswept fields of wheat, as far as the eye could see.

“Bet you fifty imaginary Xianxia cultivation pearls its a TARP that would do even my Evolution Online corp proud. Probably trip wires, black powder shrapnel bombs covered in Bronze tier poison, with a half dozen fucking goblins having their sniper scopes on me right now.”

His mount snorted once more.

“Good point.” Eric quickly summoned his full company of tuskers, quickly forming a double ring of sentinels around him. “Just because I can’t see those asshole sniping goblins even with my ninety fucking Perception doesn’t mean they’re not there. Since I can sprint as fast as you guys run, no reason not to have my honor guard.”

Eric frowned at the chorus of squeals his outrageous claim garnered him. “What, you think I’m kidding myself? That I can’t keep up? Ha! 150 Quickness, baby, and my Vitality tops even that! So give it your best, and let’s see how I fare!”

His pigs immediately went from canter to full-on gallup along the remains of a highway that now seemed centuries old, for all that the straight-line road still served well enough as a flat, stable running surface. Even if it was one now covered by a thick layer of well-trampled dirt that would no doubt be sporting wheat as high as the fields nearby, come next year.

Eric couldn’t help but whoop and holler for the sheer rush of running on legs that reveled in the surge of blood pumping through them, feeling that same high he once had ending his jogs with a sprint, feet pounding against the ground. Only now that tingle in his limbs refused to evolve into any kind of burn, flush with that first surge of sweetness the very beginning of any sprint had always given him. His lungs pumping steadily, utterly free of any tightness or wheeze.

Like a varsity runner enjoying the first serious fifty yards after a light warm-up jog, if that feeling could be made to last forever. It was as if his insane Vitality would allow him to keep up his crazy pace forever, even with well over 500 pounds of exotic armaments expertly secured to his frame.

Even if his tuskers were ultimately faster, somehow Eric always ended up right in the middle of their formation, more than protected from any arcane sniper rifle that might be being pointed his way by hissing goblins that would love nothing more than to claim the lives of every member of his clan.

As much as the journey felt endless, his mind free to wander as it would, Eric twice slipping in to an almost cultivation trance, his interface made it clear they had actually traveled twenty miles in just a quarter of an hour. A fully alert Eric immediately commanded them to halt as reds blipped on his local screen. He quickly spotted the pair of scouts grumbling and meandering in the dark, glowing against the backdrop of the far cooler ground to his infravision almost as much as their torch did, the pair of them muttering and cursing as they peered into what was, for them, impenetrable gloom.

“You see anything?” said one musketeer to another, sniffling and picking his bulbous snout.

The second orc yawned. “Ain’t nothin’ here. Same as always. Shaman’s a paranoid fool. Made a whole platoon stay behind because of his visions. If we end up missing out on war spoils, I’ll give that fucker some visions!”

The pair barked with laughter, before closest one frowned. “What’s that whirl—“ a query cut off when his skull exploded in front of his surprised partner’s face, the startled orc squealing and lurching back, bayoneted musket jabbing in inky darkness as his torch sputtered in the rain-soaked grass.

“Who goes there? This is orc—“ Words cut off when he found it impossible to speak past the massive crater in his chest as he crashed to his knees in a shower of shattered chain mail links and the splat of ruptured organs flying everywhere before topping over on his back, bulging eyes unable to comprehend his own abrupt end before glassing over, now unable to comprehend anything at all, gurgling death rattle replaced by the gentle patter of rain.

Lightning flashed and Eric gazed upwards at the picturesque gabled rooftops silhouetted against the stormy skies along the road spiraling up a steep hill, just up ahead.

What had once been a picturesque town built at the base of what looked to be a collection of domed lecture halls and multiple grand edifices of pristine white marble now gave off an air of lonely despair, little more than a ghost town. Or perhaps… college campus, Eric thought, slowly trudging up the road as the rain continued to pound in sheets against tiled rooftops.

Not quite loud enough to drown out the desperate sobs and clinks of chain collars Eric could make out from the largest building in the town leading up to what he now was almost certain was an abandoned university. Almost certainly the city hall, the brick walls and colorful gabled roof tiles giving it and most of the other local buildings a renaissance fair that somehow meshed perfectly with the collegiate architecture above. But what truly puzzled Eric, despite the fear and despair he could taste in the air as he darted up the steps and smashed open the barred city hall doors, was why there were so few reds here at all.

Only a trio of snoring musketeers half-asleep in what had once been the central hall of this building, smelling of black powder and damp fur, having made a literal nest for themselves from furniture probablyi pillaged from the floors above.

“Human!” Said the closest one, stumbling to his groggy feet, looking for his gun. “There’s a human here!” The eight-foot tall beefy giant glared and snarled at a coldly staring Eric, beady eyes squinting only momentarily at the whirling blur in the blond-haired intruder’s right hand.

The massive humanoid snarled and spat as his companions lurched to their feet, all of them looking confused as to where their guns had gone, so they smacked their fists together instead.

“One of those stupid adventurers,” one snorted.

“You lookin’ to die, human?” asked a second, furrowing his brow, before picking his nose in thought. “Or maybe you’re here to join the winning team?”

Eric shook his head. “My interface map doesn’t show neutrals yet. I’m guessing the townsfolk are locked below?”

“Well yeah, of course they’re locked up!” the central orc snorted. “You expect the three of us to watch over fifty fucking slaves?” The three laughed, before the middle one glared Eric’s way. “Now you gonna take the oath and join Black Tusk, or are we gonna slap you in chains ourselves?”

Eric tilted his head as if seriously considering the question. “I think I’ll take option… C.”

The closest orc frowned as the rearmost one’s head exploded. “What options that?” he said, only registering the middle orc’s cry and the spray of gore on his side a second later.

“That’s the one where I make all three of your heads explode and get three points closer to my hundred kill count goal,” Eric said in a deadpan voice before twisting his hips and whipping his arm around, unleashing a second cannon ball with a fearsome crack in the air.

The orc opened his mouth as if to dispute the absurdity of the claim before the entire lower half of his skull was ripped open, the top half, including a pair of still madly blinking eyes toppling end over end through the air.

Eric flashed an icy smile for the final orc that had clearly failed its moral check, screaming as it crashed to all fours and began madly scurrying away, unable to resist stealing terrified glances back at theri coldly smiling executioner.

Eric gave a sad shake of his head. “Sorry, can’t leave just yet. Where are the keys to the slaves below?”

The whimpering orc gave a significant look to the largest headless corpse, before choking out a whimper, biting its massive lip, gazing at Eric with beady eyes dribbling fat greasy tears.

“You want me to let you go, don’t you?”

The monstrosity of muscled brutality that would have been so terrifying to the Eric of just a year ago gave a desperate grunt as clawed fingers continued to mark up the once finely polished hardwood flooring.

Eric tilted his head. “Maybe I will.” The creature’s eyes lit up with excitement. “If you can promise me that you’ve never brutalized, raped, or killed any human or elf.”

The creature’s face immediately fell. It trembled, unable to meet Eric’s gaze.

Eric’s laughter was chillier than the howling storm outside. “That was basically a trick question, wasn’t it? Quite mean of me to ask you something you couldn’t possibly answer correctly, already knowing by your flinch that I’ll spot your lie.” Eric sighed. “Least I can do is give you the mercy of a quick death, am I right? Even quicker than your friends,” he said, now addressing the gushing corpse that had managed to drag itself a good twenty feet, before Eric’s 7 pound lead bullet blasted through its cranium, killing it instantly, before instantly returning to his soul-linked sling pouch now twirling once more, sans any blood or gore.

With a final cold look at surroundings his interface assured him were now utterly free of hostiles, Eric went over to the fallen duo to retrieve the keys and see to whatever waited him in the chambers below, eyes not fazed at all by the brilliant flash of lighting.

Lightning that revealed so much, particularly to a goblin covered in dark pulsating sigils who proceeded to screech and hiss as he jabbed his crackling staff at the woman presently tied up on a stone slab in the topmost chamber of what might have ones been a dean's office of the half-built academy, complete with a dozen bookshelves, a pristine view of what had once been a beautiful countryside, and well-cared white-oak furniture that glowed with a faint golden hue.

It even had a cozy fireplace, giving the office that extra bit of ambience, though the atmosphere was forever tainted by the desperate screams of the trembling woman covered in bruises, torn flesh, and blood, as her flesh was made to sizzle once more with the red-hot brand the grinning goblin seared into her flesh.

“Submit, magus! Submit and reveal all your secrets to me, and the Bloodtear Syndicate will be generous, most generous, in choosing your master!”

The rail-thin woman who still radiated the echoes of ethereal beauty underneath her bruises, blood, brutalized flesh and torn ears, beauty enough to have once charmed an entire ballroom’s worth of Sylvan investors with her charm, grace, and ethereal beauty, refused to grant the twisted creature before her the grace of her voice. Her answer was made perfectly clear when she snarled and spat in his face, trembling with a fury beyond words before the snickering goblin plunged his poker in places not even he had dared before, eliciting shrieks that echoed through the building entire.

“How dare you think to resist me further! Graslig the Great will have your confession, your tears, and all you hold dear, bitch!” He said, pounding her broken face with a furious fist, small as it was, before jabbing her cheek with quill and placing it upon parchment crackling with the vilest magics. “You will sign, woman! Or the pain you’re feeling will be nothing compared to the agony you will be forced to endure when I have all my men tear you open with their seed!”

The hideous creature’s mouth opened wide, revealing crooked blackened teeth. “Oh, I see how you tremble. The look of fear in your eyes.” He tilted his face and tutted. “How sad. To have risen to such heights, the entire Sylvan court eager to see what wizarding school you could forge in this realm, our realm! A realm our clan has fought and bled to claim as our own! A realm that will fill our pockets with gold and our ears with the shrieks and wails of countless billions of slaves!

The sound of a cracking whip could be heard once more, fresh shrieks tearing through the air, more desperate than any heard before as the orc shaman’s silhouette grew monstrous, twisted. Graslig’s mouth stretched in a smile so wide as he gazed down at the broken woman before him that he hardly sensed death slowly approaching from below.

“Still won’t sign? You will soon enough, elven bitch! You and your entire clan! Daring to set foot in our territory! Too stupid to realize that all this world’s administrators are already in our pocket, at a price we should never have had to pay! Billions wasted on this trash-heap! But that no longer matters. Because we’ve already won, bitch! Already won, and yet your kind still dares to defile our property with your cursed arts! This is our territory, elven bitch! Do you understand? Ours and ours alone! And still you would dare defy me? You will pay for that, little witch! With your every desperate shriek, you will pay!”

The heaving goblin seemed to sink into a trance as his black whip caressed the writhing form of the elf in his power, so distracted by her despairing screams that he flinched not once as one red after another blinked out of existence in the floors below.

It was only when the twisted shaman stepped back, chuckling gleefully as he beheld the broken sobbing form of the headmaster who’s desperate shrieks for mercy were that of a woman broken past all endurance, pride forever shattered, swearing to sign anything, absolutely anything at all.

The once beautiful elf gazed down at her own mouth in horror, as if some tiny corner of her fierce, once indomitable will was horrified to see that, in the end, even she had broken before the vicious caresses of the cackling goblin who had come before her just weeks ago, when she had still been at the height of her power, hat in hand, begging for the opportunity to teach her students the shamanistic arts, pleading for a place at their school.

The broken headmaster sobbed, closing her eyes with shame she knew would never end.

Knowing that her torments just begun.

“No! Why are you here? How did you get here? Impossible! My men should have— NO!”

Lady Arci didn’t dare to hope. She had already lost so much, been degraded and humbled so hideously, so utterly, forced to watch countless dozens of hopeful students be reduced to slave collars and tears as her territory was abruptly flooded with a purple wave of brutality and death. Countless thousands of orcs, the banners of multiple tribes marching as one.

And even that wouldn’t have been the end, if the hideous monster that had taken such delight in torturing her hadn’t single-handedly managed to disrupt each and every ritual ward she had been involved in weaving over this school, by the simple expedient of using her firstborn’s blood.

A son she had thought happy and protected, worlds away, only for the monster before her to gloat that he had the blood of her dying child’s final moments in his holding pouch, even while begging her for a job. Smiling the whole time. Mocking her with her son’s death, a boy she had loved so fiercely, before releasing him to find his own way, countless years ago.

And here she was, filled with boundless fury, a hate that transcended thought or reason… breaking after only a week of being brutalized and raped by the remnants left to guard this shattered territory as they strove to take out her queen, and do to Aurelia’s daughter what these abominations had so enjoyed doing to her.

At that moment, she prayed for death. A death to sweep all these horrors off the board of fate for all time. A curse to end all curses, and she could do nothing but sob at the bitter irony of it. For elemental arts alone were her province. Curse magics were the arts favored by abominations like the one that had so badly marked her, body and soul.

Yet much to a shivering Lady Arci’s awed disbelief, the shaman’s surprised shriek made her wonder if death had come after all.

In that moment she dared to open her eyes once more.

Gasping despite the pain of shattered ribs and broken teeth, beholding a vision of terror and beauty to rival anything she had ever glimpsed before.

A youth, perhaps an adventurer, radiating the potency of a Sylvan Prince with sapphire blue eyes that teased and captivated with incomprehensible secrets and the essence of fury in its most primal form. The boy radiated the killing aura of a Bronze Tier abomination, which should be impossible so far from the black zones of this world, arcane energies and space itself seeming to warp around him as he moved with such predatory grace that it sent shivers of horror and wonder racing down her spine.

But all Graslig could do was shriek in outrage, hissing at the intruder. As if he couldn’t even sense the aura of death surrounding the boy.

A boy who looked so much like her queen that it left her breathless.

Eric Silver.

Aurelia’s missing son.

It must be.

The boy, for he was hardly more than a boy, despite the storm of fate, eldritch magics, and other powers she sensed swirling about him like a whirlwind, met her stare for long moments, ignoring the shrieks of the hideous shaman that had so utterly destroyed her life with such hideous glee.

Arci choked out a surprised sob as she fell helplessly into the boy’s gaze. Shamed to the core of her soul before piercing blue orbs that somehow read the scars in her very soul.

A glimpse she would have allowed only her husband, before this day. Before her cackling foe had informed her with exquisite delight that her beloved had been killed just as ruthlessly as her son.

Only then did Aurelia’s lastborn turn to face the snarling goblin as Graslig shrieked a curse and lashed out with his staff, the very stone blocks adjoining the window blackening and crumbling to dust by a bolt of death energy so potent that Arci was forced to admit that this twisted creature was indeed her equal in the mystic arts.

He was no more a level 30 than she was. And how bitter an irony it was that she couldn’t even report that ugly truth, lest the crime of her own presence be revealed.

But what left her breathless wasn’t the power of her foe’s spell, but that the boy had actually MOVED so fast that even the shaman had been caught off guard.

Before cackling with glee, now protected by a crimson shield radiating blood magics so potent that Arci knew she wouldn’t have a chance in hell of piercing his shields, even if he had challenged her on the first day.

It was all she could do not to shriek with bitter fury. Because it could have been no accident that Graslig was a perfect counter to her. And that those hideous monstrous bastards had been so ruthless, their schemes so far reaching as to strike and kill her husband and son, worlds away, a horror she still hadn’t processed, couldn’t bear to process, having sworn to her little boy that she would only be gone for a few years…

She shuddered with terror, unable to bear wondering what their last moments of life had been like. Had her husband come home to find her son’s crumpled body, crying out with horror before finding himself keeling over a second later? Her family’s dreams of hope and happiness torn free with the squeeze of a trigger, goblin assassins feared above all others, for good reason.

“Blood magics?”

Arci was pulled free of her awful reverie by the boy’s mocking smile. An utterly unexpected thing to see.

“You think you can stop me with blood magics?”

Much to her disbelief, Eric Silver actually began to laugh.

Graslig’s already ugly countenance warped into a truly hate-filled mask of incomprehensible spite. “You dare to mock me? So be it, human! Your agony will be beyond what even what this bitch will be forced to endure before I’m—“

The goblin’s eyes bulged with horrified disbelief to find Eric’s gloved fist around its neck, slowly lifting the gurgling shaman off his feet, ignoring its frantic kicks, effortlessly tearing free eldritch staff from shattered fingers with a contemptuous flick of his other hand.

Arci’s eyes widened with wonder, a shiver of something she couldn’t quite fathom racing down her spine. She now understood why the boy’s hands had slipped right through the crimson ward.

Blood magic.

His gloves, helm, legs, scale hauberk, all of it was covered in a crimson lacquer that must be blood. Blood that radiated with essence affinities it near burned Arci’s eyes to even gaze upon, forced to wonder for a split second just how dark a path young Eric Silver walked as he stared dispassionately at the now shrieking goblin, swearing to curse him to the ends of the world.

Before Eric abruptly twisted back Graslig’s wrists, one at a time.

Vicious acts that made the chamber echo with the crack of shattered bone and the shrieks of a monster finally earning a taste of his own torment. But Aurelia’s lastborn wasn’t done yet, it seemed, the mask of cold dispassion cracking to reveal a hideous wrath Arci felt a fierce kindship with, armored feet stomping down to shatter first one, then the other ankle, before jerking Graslig upright by the top of his head, glaring at the whimpering creature, now pleading like a child, its towering arrogance and contempt of just moments ago shattered just as badly as his hands.

“Please! Please let Graslig go, and he will promise to serve you! To teach you all his arts! I… I will even sign a contract, great warrior. I swear it. Please!”

“Don’t trust it!” Arci forced herself to utter those pain-filled words that sounded nothing like her once-sultry voice that had charmed countless dozens of suitors before she finally found the man to claim her heart. A man, who, according to this creature, was now no more. She choked back a sob. “This monster’s fork tongue is itself a curse. He… he’s responsible for Silver Academy’s defenses crumbling. All he needs to do is see you to be able to release his curses!” She said with a coughing sob, wheezing with pain, and completely not expecting the ruby flask being gently poured down her throat.

She gazed up at the young man in numb gratitude, ignoring the fresh shrieks of the shaman who was now missing both his eyes.

She flashed a broken smile, surprised to feel her teeth already healing. “Ruthless,” she whispered.

The boy nodded. “I am. I hear my kind often are.”

She blinked, but of course she understood what he meant. He was a Roundear, like his sister and mother. The most ruthless and savage of all their kind, able to blend in so very well with humans. Both in terms of appearance and, of course, temperament.

Arci flashed a bitter smile as he wordlessly handed her too large clothes before casually turning away to glare down at the goblin shrieking curses, swearing he would see both their souls in hell before begging to make a deal. “You’re not the only one who can hate,” she said, whispering the first words to what would have been liquid bolt of fire, before breaking it off with a sob and a cry.

“What’s wrong?” he said, his voice filled with unexpected concern.

She swallowed, strangely touched that he actually seemed to care. That he had risked his life to save her in the first place, a complete stranger to him, who had been forced to suffer such shame, so many indignities. She had given up all hope of anything save pain and despair til death claimed her at last.

“He broke my magic,” she sobbed, glaring down at the creature before her with a hate that transcended mere words. “His whip shredded my very soul!”

Eric frowned thoughtfully. “Are you sure? The Mana Pool derived from Arcane Potential is distinct from Soul Reserves.” He shrugged. “Or at least it is on my character sheet.”

She gazed at him for long moments before her eyes widened, suddenly getting it. “You’re a Classer.”

He gazed at her for long moments. “And you’re the head of a magical academy straight out an HP novel, and you’re telling me you aren’t?”

She chuckled ruefully. “That’s a difficult question to answer, I’m afraid.”

Eric furrowed his brow. “But why? That makes no sense, unless...” He stared at her for long moments, before flashing a crooked smile. “I see.”

He gazed down at the screeching goblin. “I… overheard some of what he said.” He glared at the foul creature, now hissing and spitting like the twisted rat he no doubt derived from. “He’s going to have to die soon, so I can claim this territory.”

She felt a surprising jolt of alarm at those words, suddenly understanding at least part of the storm of magic flooding through her adopted home. As if the magics of fate and destiny were both in strange flux, shaping reality itself to the will of a Contender.

“But before we finish this dance… I'm guessing there are some questions you need to ask him.”

Arci swallowed, jerking a nod. “There are, Eric. A hell of a lot of questions this twisted little monster is going to answer, I promise you that.”

Eric smiled, his gaze strangely intent as he squeezed her shoulder. “Can I make a suggestion?”

She struggled not to flinch under a gesture meant to reassure. “I will at least consider it.”

Eric sighed. “I know this might be hard… but don’t ask for any specifics about… well...”

“What happened to my family?”

“Correct. Do you have any pictures of them that I could take a look at?”

She gazed at him with a look of utter incomprehension, overwhelmed by feelings of gratitude, fury, despair, and fierce resolve all warring in her heart as she gazed at a boy whose request would have been so utterly offensive, so beyond the pale, in almost any other circumstance. But after saving her life, now radiating so much potency she felt as if she were a tiny passenger surrounded by stormy seas… she could only choke back a sob as trembling hands pulled free an exquisitely rendered oil portrait showcasing herself and husband standing proudly behind their seven sons and fifteen daughters. The family she loved with all her heart, blossoming and growing together as one, over a hundred year span. And soon it would be time for her daughters to have families of their own.

She blinked back tears, hating herself anew for not being there for them. For not being beside her husband and their youngest, still just a tiny boy. If only she hadn’t let herself get entangled in yet another one of Aurelia’s grand schemes. But properly funding the ascension of over a score of children was damned hard. Even as an arcane instructor who made a very good living, after daring to embrace the unorthodox, mastering her craft without the aid of a System Interface or the power of a class. An eccentricity that had revealed unexpected secrets of Sylvan Magic to her, even if she was far below many of her former peers in terms of actual raw power.

When her daughters had made it clear that they wanted to pursue System enhanced paths, they had done so with her emphatic blessings. The chance to ascend beyond all their contemporaries with the power of the mightiest elementalist classes, further enhanced by the secrets regarding the very fundaments of the elemental arts that their mother just begun to unravel over two centuries of research, was exactly what they needed to make their mark in society. It was also the underlying motivation for her chosen path, literal centuries having been invested into its forging. For she had dreamed, even as a girl, of finding a loving husband, having a beautiful family, and giving them all an edge that no competing clan could match.

She froze to speechlessness when the boy’s eyes lit up with an eerie transcendence that was as wondrous as it was terrifying to see.

As fast as an adder, he bent down to the squirming goblin, lifting him up high “Surrender this territory to me, body and soul.”

“Never!” The blind goblin shrieked. “I will never sur—“

A single twist and crack as the goblin’s left elbow was bent backwards as effortlessly as one of Arci’s students might have bent a sheet of paper was all it took.

“I surrender! Solaris is yours!”

And Arci felt it then, crumpling to her knees with a sharp cry.

A world’s worth of endless possibilities, magic of a wonder and beauty incomprehensible slipped and faded before the nightmare creature before her, now glowing with an eldritch light that left her soul trembling within its too fragile vessel, as if it were the tiniest of flickering flames that could so easily be extinguished by the crashing waves of life and death all around her. Somehow not blowing her out in the blink of an eye. As if she truly were caught in the eye of the most terrible and glorious of all storms.

A storm comprised of the halcyon memories of realms that never were, now fading away like the bone-dry deserts of Yis, with no trace of all the that could have sprung from the soil of infinite possibility, countless existences overlapping their own, just a single divine blessing from any one of them becoming their reality.

Yet no sense of that endless potential remained now, save the sudden evolution of a monster that had no place in this realm.

No place at all.

Until she heard a voice that sent tears to her eyes, sobbing with the agony of hope so painful she couldn’t bear it, utterly subdued with a single cry.

“Mom?”

“Yiovri! Yiovri!” Arci’s voice was a mother’s wail, darting across the room so fast the thunders of change hadn’t even finished howling with the last of the storm as she tore open the door to her chamber and beheld her husband and her lastborn son, both soaked from the rain, panting for breath with a big stupid grins on their faces.

“Mom, we escaped! We broke free!”

The terrified arch magister didn’t ask for explanations, didn’t dare utter a single whisper that might dispel the magic, the wonder before her far greater than any spell she could conceive or imagine as the goblinoid shaman shrieked and crumbled to dust behind her, as all the awful wounds and memories of wounds that vile shaman had scarred into her body and soul faded to dreamlike insubstantiality.

As if Graslig had been no more real than any number of countless other possibilities. Just as unlikely as her husband and son having been captured instead of killed, added leverage and a steady source of blood deemed far more prudent than two bodies left in one of the most prestigious Sylvan halls, all but an open declaration of war.

“Yiovri! Beloved! Thank the gods!”

Her husband chuckled ruefully, “You wouldn’t believe the adventure we had just getting here, my treasure. I’m just glad we got here safely by your side.” He squeezed her so tight she hoped he’d never let her go, even as yet another interface message blared across her soul.

Contender Eric Silver has successfully Conquered Solaris Territory!

Contender has forsaken territory! Territory has not been auctioned! No claimance has been established!

Solaris Territory is now open for conquest!

She turned impossibly wide eyes a grinning Eric’s way, the night so filled with wonder that she hardly thought twice of a chamber fully restored, no goblin shaman or sacrificial slab in sight.

As if it really had been no more than a dream.

“Are you sure?”

The gaze of Aurelia’s youngest froze her, warm smile laced with a chill warning as inevitable as death itself. “You know they can never leave, right?”

She froze at those words, her husband and son looking at her strangely. “No… oh no, no, no!”

Before she could say another word, he was there, a gentle finger, sans gauntlet, against her lip. “It’s fine. They’re all fine. So long as they stay here, in Solaris.” He then flashed a bemused smile. “But I see that my sister, in all her resourcefulness, has managed to infuse this territory with no less than three delves and the first seeds of a powerful magical aura, all by herself.”

The boy radiating such terrible potency that Arci trembled at his touch, nodded thoughtfully. “And those blessings are stable still, despite all that had happened since. So who knows?” he said, gazing at Yiovri with an older brother’s approving smile. “Maybe your youngest has it in his heart to become an adventurer himself. I would not be at all surprised to find that his story will grow so great in the years to come that not even a dream’s beginning will do anything but encourage him to ever greater heights. Maybe grand enough, once he reaches double digit levels, that I’ll see him daring the endless delves in Ashland Province once day.”

Eric ignored the dumbstruck parents, gazing down at the boy peering back at him so intently.

“If you could be anything you wanted to be when you grow up, Yiovri, what would it be?”

The boy didn’t have to think about it. “Elementalist! Like Queen Elonia!” he declared, giving his mother a fierce squeeze. “I’ll be a delver just like Uncle Riori and my father, and drive out the orcs for good, so they can never hurt us again!”

Eric positively beamed at those words, gently brushing back the child’s locks, now so like his own.

“Then study hard, Yiovri. I think you have the potential to be anything you want in life. Anything at all,” he said, before leaving the way he had come with a final wave, so shaken by the awed look Arci had given him that it was all he could do to flee through the town as fast as his feet could take him, his stride even stronger than before with +10 to Strength and Vitality from a territory claimed by the very arts that had given such a priceless boon in turn.

The power of blood and a lifetime’s worth of memories truly giving life from the dreams of endless potential, love, crimson magics, and a high mage’s desperate yearnings breaking boundaries beyond measure with a Contender’s mantel leading the charge against entropy itself.

But all things had their price, Eric fiercely pleased to find that a certain shaman was now no more real than a figment that had never been, experience never earned a worthy price to pay for a child’s smile.

Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling a strange mix of gratitude, relief, and hope when he finally slipped free of that territory and the swirling maelstrom of power and impossibility that it had become. At least now, claimed by one of Aurelia’s champions, it had a chance to blossom anew, Lady Arci’s husband and youngest by her side, for so long as their claim held true.

You have successfully claimed a single swallow of Solaris’s endless potential, and given a priceless Crimson Bounty in turn! You now enjoy a permanent +10 to Vitality and Strength! The citizens (and headmaster) of Solaris now have a permanent +10 reaction modifier to you!

Critical Success! You have dared to challenge Entropy itself, channeling the power of desperation, dream, and blood to bring back that which was lost, reforging reality to your whim!

Beware the price to be paid for daring such a boon.

Be grateful that a karmically corrupt shaman was around to foot the bill!

You have defied the natural order! (Not that you care.)

You have surrendered 1 full level in your primary class with your mad gamble! (Be grateful you didn’t lose far more…)

You have shaken the foundational bedrock of necromancy with your daring!

(Grim is dying to speak with you!)

You have saved versus Oblivion!

Rituals of Summoning and Binding is now Rank 27!

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 23!

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 24!

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 25!

Flesh Sculptor is now Rank 22!

Blood Mastery is now Rank 27!

You have gained 1 level in your primary class with your feats, kills, conquest, and daring!

Master Necromancer is now level 9

Master Necromancer is now level 10

…...

Master Necromancer is now level 14!

You have successfully channeled the power of a conquered territory in heretofore unexpected directions!

YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE!

You have earned the Adept title: Arcane Trailblazer

Where others spend lifetimes striving to master and understand the magical precepts that serve as a foundation to all the arcane arts, you have DARED to shatter multiple precepts with your unorthodox manipulation of fate, destiny, dream and blood, in a synergism not even you fully understand!

You have broken laws binding the mortal coil that no Terran Necromancer before you has managed, successfully resurrecting the dead! (Limitation: Geographical location. Resurrected targets may not leave the territory of Solaris in a mortal state! - Adventurer status (of level 10 or greater) will supersede this limitation, as the living dream of a Delver supersedes even supernatural Elite tier Revenant origins!

Additionally, you have DARED to grant a resurrected being a CLASS! Synergizing the rights of Dominion, Conquest, and Blood to force-bind a living revenant with the Advanced Class: Elementalist!

Your Adept Title has been transformed to ELITE!

You have dared to push the limits of Necromancy and System Enhancement both!

Cultural Heritage exemptions are in effect! Terran blood throws through your veins. Sylvan blood flows through your veins. You have NOT been struck dead for your daring!

All individuals resurrected this way will be classified by the System as Revenants (Elite Tier) with fully functioning metabolisms, self-awareness, and the ability to replicate. Any offspring will lose Revenant sub-race and geographic limitations.

Arcane Potential, Spiritual Energy, Soul Reserves, Scholarship, and Willpower each increase by 5 points!

You now learn all unorthodox arts 25% faster than ever before!