Joe’s voice perked up at the sound of Raverly’s name. He was still shooting at the bird monsters but he stopped for a moment to address his old friend. Dude. You can’t just wander off like that. Something happened to Wendy and we left to go save her. You need to stick with Melvin so you can help us out when the time comes.

I waited with bated breath along with the rest of the group to hear what Rave had to say. It was Stefanie who spoke next. Just wait there, Rave. These are good trolls. We’re coming for you.

No, wait!

I pleaded with Stefanie, still unable to see anything as I waded through the dense cluster of my makeshift army. I couldn’t see what Stefanie was up to and Rave wasn’t answering.

Stefanie, what are you doing?

She finally replied. I’m going after Rave. Don’t worry, he isn’t with the enemy. He’s hiding in some trees.

I froze, barking at Stefanie while redoubling my efforts to push through the crowd.

He’s not answering in group chat, Stef. Something is wrong. At least wait for me.

Stefanie was something else, able to keep singing while talking in group chat at the same time. I wondered if it was a bard skill. It’s fine, Mel. I have the guards with me. He’s an idiot but he’s one of us. We have to keep him safe.

Joe’s strained voice cut into the chat. Damnit, Rave. If you get Stefanie hurt, I won’t forgive you. Say something.

Still, there was no answer. Feeling a sense of urgency that I couldn’t explain, I pumped mana into my voice and shouted, “Everyone move! Clear a path.”

The troops around me melted out of my way, allowing me to take off at a sprint toward the front lines. The battle was raging all around me, trolls towered over plate-clad guards who were holding their own in a tight formation. Stefanie and the honor guard were nowhere to be seen.

Stefanie?

Her amplified melody still filled the air as she replied in group chat. I’m over here. Follow the wall to the right.

Following her directions, I looked off to the east where I saw the backs of the trolls that had been guarding her when I left. I scanned the crowd to find Esha, who was in the thick of battle. Using guild chat, I called out to the troll.

Esha, I need some guards. I’m going after Stefanie.

The troll froze when she heard my request in guild chat. My Lord? We need your help. The guards are pushing us back.

I froze, noticing the fallen trolls all around Esha. It was obvious that they were outmatched by the human guards. Fighting the memory of losing Wendy, I shouted desperately through group chat.

Stefanie. Get back here, now. I can’t be in two places at once.

Her reply was quick and indignant. I do not need you to protect me!

Grumbling about stubborn bards, I re-materialized my greatsword.While healing the fallen, I had let the weapon dissipate at some point.Joining the battle presented me with two very big problems.The first was that I had very little combat experience.It was very likely that I was about to be a one-hit-wonder.

The other problem was much trickier. Even if I did well, I had never killed a human before. Lady Shaw didn’t count. She died by biting me. I wasn’t forced to directly kill her. Could I take a life? Was it a good idea to go into battle without an answer to that question?

It was a moot point as I found myself at the front of the throng and was forced to defend myself from a sword skillfully thrust over a raised shield. I brought my greatsword up to parry the weapon.

To my surprise, the mana blade cut through the sword like a knife through butter. The tip of the blade spun down to the ground and stuck in the blood-soaked soil.

When I raised the sword to strike, the line of guards pulled back, raising their shields. Trolls around me whooped and immediately brought their weapons down on the formation, making loud clanging sounds as metal made contact with metal.

Still, I hesitated. If the sword was anything to go by, my next strike could very well cut the poor guards down. They weren’t criminals, were they? The guards were just pawns in some bigger game for all I knew.

Sensing my hesitation, a trio of guards advanced on me so fast that I was caught by surprise. When I went to supply my body with mana to enhance my reaction speed, I found that my mana pool had run dry.

Something had sapped my mana, all of it.I didn’t fall, however.Darkness enveloped my face, obscuring my vision.A liquid sensation spread across my body, massaging my muscles, making me move.My whole body began to ache as my prison abused my limbs, forcing me to do what felt like a dance.

What I saw when my vision returned made me gasp. The three guards lay in pieces in front of me, scattered across the battlefield. The other guards screamed in terror as they turned to run away, their formations forgotten.

I turned around, looking for the source of their terror, and found my army running in the opposite direction. Only Esha stood beside me, looking nervous. “Lord Melvin? Is that you?”

I blinked at her, trying to rub the shadows out of my vision. “Of course it’s me. Who else would I be?”

The troll’s mouth hung open as she looked me up and down. “What is that form? You killed those three guards in a single blow. You don’t need an army to win this battle.”

Looking at the remains in front of me made me want to be sick. However, I had a task to complete. I pointed my hand at the STD, trying to decide if I had a spell that could destroy it.

Silence reigned as the only sound on the battlefield was a breeze that rustled a nearby tree.Suddenly, an earsplitting scream sent a chill down my spine.

Stefanie!

She didn’t reply as I realized belatedly that the bard had stopped singing. Looking over to her location, I saw the fallen trolls in a sea of blood before I located Stefanie.

The girl struggled in Raverly’s grasp as he raised a short sword to her throat. I turned and began moving toward them as Rave finally spoke. You need to stop right there, Melvin.

I was seeing red, something feeding me dark visions of myself beheading the boy.

Let her go.

It didn’t sound like my voice to me. While I knew my voice, it felt like someone else was speaking the words. Someone I agreed with. My pace quickened.

Rave grew more frantic. Drop that sword and surrender. I’ll let you both live. I swear. Don’t make me kill her.

Kalli’s terror matched my own. I felt her soothing consciousness inside of me but we were both powerless to stop what was happening. Joe, on the other hand, was furious. Rave. What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?

Rave’s eyes bulged as he touched the sword to Stefanie’s throat, forming a thin line of blood as the blade broke her skin. She whimpered as her feet kicked at the ground, trying to press herself into Rave and away from the blade.

I was running at that point, an action I was only vaguely aware of initiating. Whatever had possessed me was devouring my mana just as fast as I could regenerate it, keeping me in a near dreamlike state.

As I closed in, Rave pointed his sword at me and shouted, “I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t.”

Fifty more yards. Twenty-five. Just then a shadow emerged from behind Raverly and plunged a dark claw into Stefanie’s side. Kalli and I both screamed at once.

Not knowing what had happened, Joe shouted in group chat. Rave. Cut it out. Stop.

Raverly stared at the thing and asked, “What have you done?”

In a raspy voice, it spoke. “I have done as I must, master. All of the interlopers must die.”

He dropped his sword and held onto Stefanie as she coughed repeatedly. Rave pointed at me and said, “You were only allowed to kill him.”

It turned its gaze to me and replied, “The girl is meaningless to our plan. An acceptable loss.”

My great sword raised above my head, I slowed down, trying to both figure out how to dispatch Raverly and save Stefanie at the same time. The shadow threw both kids to the ground, giving me a new target to attack.

The thing was ten feet tall and towered over me. I wasn’t impressed. It was just a bigger target for me to attack. I took a leaping homerun swing, attempting the cleave the thing in two.

While the creature managed to get a plated arm between me and my attack, the momentum made a loud cracking sound and sent the thing flying backward.

I glanced at it momentarily then turned my attention to where Stefanie had fallen. Seeing her crawling desperately away with Raverly nowhere in sight, I made my way over to see if I could help.

Just when I was about to reach her, I dodged to the side as the shadow creature attempted to impale me with its claw the same way he had Stef.

In an instant, I spun on my heel, sending my greatsword straight at the creature’s head. It ducked and readied another attack but shadow me anticipated the attack and lowered the hilt of my blade onto its head.

Once again the creature collapsed to the ground and again I turned my attention to Stefanie. She had stopped moving and curled into a little ball, clutching at the wound on her side.

Just as I reached out to touch her, the thing pounced on my back. It drove both claws ineffectively into my neck before trying to choke me when the first attack was ineffective.

Rage flooded through me as I realized Stefanie would die if I didn’t end the fight quickly.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO ENGAGE RUCKUS MODE? Y/N?

“YES. A thousand times YES. KIll this thing, please!”

A red filter came over my vision and my shrouded hand gripped the claw that was pathetically around my neck. I easily peeled the creature off of myself, holding onto it in a viselike grip as it tried desperately to free itself from me.

Then, swiping my great sword between us, I disarmed the creature. Black sludge dripped from the wound as the thing fell to the ground, leaving its appendage in my hand.

I wasn’t done yet. Leaping over onto the shadow creature, I gripped its torso with my legs, holding the greatsword above its head. With a final thought about having to save Stefanie, I plunged the mana blade into the creature’s face, impaling it to the ground.

Leaving the stricken creature to twitch with my blade in its head, I began to make my way over to Stefanie. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the fact that Stefanie had stopped moving.

Congratulations. You have reached level 29

I ignored the bliss that came from leveling. Of all the times I didn’t want to level up, that had to be it. The nightmare followed me into the dream and I sat there curled into a tiny ball of my own in a world of shadows where dark creatures with glowing red eyes danced in the darkness.

My core was too empty to form tears, so I sat in the darkness, glaring at my demons, daring them to emerge from the shadows. Suddenly, something approached. A wall of flame cut off the darkness, surrounding me in a glowing red cocoon that radiated warmth and a love I knew all too well.

Kalli appeared before me, wrapping herself around me and pulling my face to hers. Our foreheads touched and I whispered, “Is she dead?”

She closed her eyes and whispered back. “Probably. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.” I groaned, not feeling the impact of my statement. “I didn’t save her.”

She shook her head, her red hair falling in her face. “It’s Raverly’s fault. He brought that thing with him.”

“But I could have…”. I began, trailing off as I couldn’t think of anything I could do.

Kalli blinked a few times, tears streaming down her face. “You did everything that you could. From what I saw, you won the battle for the trolls and fought off whatever that thing was. I also watched you save all of those people who were injured by the arrows.”

My throat felt dry, even in my dream. I croaked, “I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I…”

Kalli cupped my face in her hands. “You can cry, you know. It’s okay to cry.”

The floodgates that I had been subconsciously holding back burst open causing me to cry in Kalli’s hands. She pressed my head to her shoulder and gently stroked my hair as I sobbed quietly.

I don’t know how much time passed but after what felt like an eternity, I did something that I had never done before, I fell asleep in my dream.

I stood in a waiting room, surrounded by ancient-looking artifacts of different shapes and sizes. Each was resting on a marble column topped with a velvet cushion. I ran my fingers over a dark mask with a red gem at the top of it as I walked past. There was a mirror that reflected the face of a strange man that I had never seen before.

At the end of the hall, just before a white door, was one final pedestal with a ring resting on it. Having a strange feeling that I could do it in a dream, I inspected the ring.

Item:

Ring of ??? Souls

Components

Mana, ???, ???, ???

Item Rank:

S

Item Level:

100

Item Owner:

M

The instant I touched it, the ring curled itself around my right ring finger. I tugged at it for several minutes before resigning myself to the fact that it didn’t want to come off.

With only one real way to go, I opened the door and stepped through it. The next room was a long room with a red carpet that led to a throne. In the distance, I could tell that the throne was occupied.

Whispering caught my attention and I was suddenly painfully aware of dozens if not hundreds of women sitting in lounges on all sides of the room. Some of them whispered behind their hands to one another while others openly pointed at me.

The man on the throne rested his chin on his hand with a bored expression on his face as he looked at me. Two beautiful women stood at either side of him, one feeding him grapes while the other fanned him with a large leaf.

Thinking this was a very strange dream, I strolled down the red carpet to get a closer look at the man. Stopping around ten feet away, we stared each other down for a full minute.

When I tried to inspect him, I got an error.

ERROR: NO SUCH PERSON EXISTS.

I blinked away the error, wondering why the system worked on the ring and not the person in front of me. He stared at me with a bored expression on his face. “You were the last person that I expected to find this place.”

Then I woke up.