“An anomaly does not have a fixed entrance or exit. It is a terraformer, ever-consuming and forever mutating. Even the passageways you traversed on your way here have likely ceased to be paths by now.”

“An ever-growing, ever-changing maze?” Lukas felt something die within him. “Then how the hell do you get in or out of it?”

Back when they’d spoken about the mechanics of the world, Inanna had graciously given him a theoretical understanding about anomalies as a whole. But now— as he constantly travelled through perilous terrain, fought all sorts of nightmarish creatures, and trained relentlessly —he realized that such knowledge wasn’t as theoretical as he’d imagined. If he wanted to survive, he needed to learn more about them.

Chiefly, how to get out of the one he had found himself in.

“It constantly opens new entrances. How else would prey wander in?”

“So technically, I could just sit here and wait for his place to open up and let me step outside?”

Inanna shrugged. “You could, and then quite possibly sit in one place for the rest of your meager lifespan. Why not ask the anomaly to provide you with those sandwiches while you’re at it?”

His face soured. “That was an ugly, ugly thing you just did. Never come between a man and his sandwich.”

Something told him that her eye-roll wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

“And I’d rather not wait that long if I can help it. Can’t I just create a door by breaking the wall?”

“Assuming there isn’t a wall, or three, behind that one, then certainly. You can get out of it.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Then,” Lukas sputtered, “why aren’t we doing that?”

Silence blanketed him for a moment.

“Because fighting monsters is the best way to gain levels and skills, and stop being a weakling,” he chanted in a monotone.

“Good boy.”

“I’m not your pet.”

Her amusement rang through his ears. “What can I say? Righteous, stubborn, adorably foolish. You have all the makings of a poodle.”

“You try to pet me and our deal’s off,” Lukas stubbornly retorted. He didn’t want to admit it, but she had a point. After all, this anomaly was his training ground— his chance to fight things he had no business fighting, and gain skills and experience from it.

It was his Growth machine, on steroids.

And thinking of the anomaly also got him wondering about the world outside of it. Inanna had given him a brief introduction to the arrangement of the cosmos, but he knew next to nothing about the place— the subastra —he was currently on. Just what kind of world environment awaited him once he got out? Would they be human? Would they be able to speak the same language?

Was this his chance at becoming Tarzan?

He glanced down at himself. His shirt was mostly shredded by now through wear and tear, but he’d held onto it for sentimental purposes. His trousers weren’t exactly in the best form either, with the portion below his knees practically threadbare. A thick strip of monster hide was tied around his waist, doubling as armor and belt alike. It was where he kept his daggers, along with a pair of flints to light fires whenever he needed one.

And in hindsight, he was lucky he’d shaved a day before his world had turned upside down.

He really didn’t want to imagine himself with a long, scraggly beard covering his face.

“Most of the subastra revolving around the Origin have species capable of speech one way or the other. And several among them look human.”

“Just how many of them are there? These subastra, I mean.”

“A hundred and eight. It’s always a hundred and eight.”

Lukas raised an eyebrow. “Any specific reason for that number?”

“...For now, let us say that this number represents the unity and wholesomeness of all of existence, and leave it at that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a mortal,” she finished, as if that explained everything.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now I’m wondering what I’ll find outside of these caverns.”

“I cannot help you there.”

“Huh?”

“An anomaly can forge itself in any environment. For all I know, we could even be underwater.”

“I doubt that’d be the case here,” Lukas quipped. “The screen described this place as a Crypt. That means—”

“It is entirely possible this place is somewhere inside or beneath a mountain, or some other equally rocky terrain. Unless you manage to find a way out, it is impossible to tell.”

“Even for you?”

“For anyone.”

Lukas blinked. That certainly came as a surprise— he hadn’t expected someone like her to own up to her shortcomings so easily. “Either way, that means there’s land outside— mountains or not.”

“The floating mountains of Xaer would argue otherwise. If we are in Xaer, up is down. Gravity repels. Amongst others.”

“Alright, now that just sounds like bull.”

“...”

Her confusion was apparent, given the blank look on her face. After days of constant exertion, it was becoming easier to fully understand her face and mannerisms. Apparently, it had something to do with the resonance of souls upon coming into contact— Lukas hadn't prodded for more details, and Inanna couldn’t be bothered to explain.

“What has a bull got to do with anything?”

He paused, scratching his nose. “Say what?”

“What has a bull,” the goddess slowly enunciated, “got to do with anything?”

Clearly, she still hadn’t fully assimilated the more subtle nuances of his language. That, or she’d just left cuss words for the very end. How did the assimilation of languages actually work?

“Your mental tangents constantly derail conversations, mortal.”

“You’re the one that decided to rent another’s mind. You gotta own it.”

“Not one of my wiser choices, I must confess.”

“So what is it? Bad product or buyer’s remorse? I can draw up a survey form if you’d like.”

Inanna raised a brow. “Was that your attempt at humor?”

Lukas scowled. “No one appreciates me.”

“Do not fret, mortal. I appreciate you. You are my castellan after all. Until I am free of these bonds, you will hold my vigil.”

Lukas fell silent as he continued to walk ahead. Between the time spent honing his skills and learning about Sumer from Inanna, he’d traveled well into the anomaly. The barren stone walls with the occasional moss outgrowth were slowly replaced by thicker bushes and vine outgrowths. It was almost like walking through a mountainous cave.

Inanna was right. For all he knew, this place may as well have been underneath a mountain.

Oddly enough, it reminded him of the trips he took with his late grandfather. Only this time, he was going at it all by his lonesome. Sure, he had a companion inside his head, but she was more like a passenger rather than an actual—

His thoughts screeched to a halt as an unearthly chill shot through him. It started at the base of his spine, slowly slithering its way up his back and over to his neck. Lukas slowly looked around as he settled into a defensive stance, lifeforce flaring from his palms as he scanned for visible threats.

…

Nothing.

He inhaled, keeping his senses sharp.

But there was still nothing.

Being in a world full of monsters has made you paranoid, Aguilar.

He exhaled, taking slow steps forward. He still had a single azolg tail entwined around his waist, a viable weapon to fallback on should things head south. With one hand on his makeshift whip and the other blazing with lifeforce, Lukas soldiered on. Maybe he was just being too jumpy. Maybe it was just some monster-squirrel looking around for flies.

Maybe it was just a fluke, and this would actually turn out to be a dull day.

The sound of something large scratching its way through the ground suddenly assaulted his ears. Even though it was outside of his Scan range, it was obvious that whatever it was, it was crawling along the rocky floor with multiple bony appendages. Either that, or it loved to incessantly scratch at walls for no apparent reason.

Knowing his luck, it was probably both.

Lukas turned around, just in time to see a spider. An honest-to-god tarantula— an incredibly grotesque one the size of a human with vine-like appendages —was rushing towards him. As it drew closer, he made out several other features that had no place belonging to a spider.

Monster or not.

A long, leaf-covered shaft stood ramrod-straight, resting on eight incredibly muscular, hairy legs. The entire upper body seemed almost plantlike, with vines jutting out from its sides and viscous liquid dripping out from the shaft. It had no face or arms, but multiple vines were lashing around, their ends looking too sharp, metallic, and lethal for his comfort.

Just my freaking luck.

Several pounds of angry, vicious monster came charging at him, baying for his blood. And in the face of such a dilemma, Lukas did the only reasonable thing he could.

He turned around and ran.

Being bitten.

It was something most people would just shrug off. But for Olfric, it was a horrible, horrible feeling— one that couldn’t really be explained or understood unless they’d experienced it for themselves.

He had been bitten on the side of his neck.

And it was oozing blood.

Constantly.

For the past several days.

Not that he had any proper way to measure time passing— especially with him being stuck in this dark, dreary cell and everything —but the point still stood. And his wound only grew worse and worse every time he checked it.

Olfric sighed. His flunkies were either dead or held captive by the same nutters at some other place. The desert was cursed, so it was no surprise that those who lived in it were barbarians by nature.

He touched his neck. The familiar feeling of wetness was still there.

Why doesn’t it just clot?

He’d been steadily losing blood for quite some time now. Not enough for him to just drop dead of blood loss, but enough to have that consistent, itchy feeling of something slowly being dragged out of him, against his will.

It was eerie. It was cruel. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Not unless he could find a way out of this hellhole.

He’d given his predicament a fair amount of thought while sitting inside his prison cell. Clearly, the two women wanted something from him, and it wasn’t money— or sex, for that matter. He hadn’t been killed, and his captors had the good sense to provide him with food, even if it was barely palatable, and water twice a day.

He rubbed at his neck again.

Just what had that beast of a woman done to him. No matter how tightly or how long he pressed against his wound, tiny amounts of blood kept on trickling out from the site of the bite. The last thing he needed now was to fall prey to some exotic disease while stranded in the middle of the fucking desert.

Right now, all he knew was that they were waiting for someone— or something —to arrive.

To cast judgement upon him.

The whole thing was just maddening. He was an Asukan. A scion of noble breed, born to lord over ordinary bremetals. The average person could hardly bind a low-tier monster to themselves without obliterating their own mind in the process.

But not Asukans.

Asukans were capable of bringing powerful monsters down to their knees, and bending them to their will.

His mastery over his kami, Mesciel, was proof of that.

And yet, this prison somehow resisted his abilities. No matter how much he tried, summoning his kami was just impossible. No matter how much he called out, how much he ordered it to obey him…

Mesciel would not answer.

And so, he sat alone. Bleeding from his neck.

Waiting for his sentence to be passed.

Olfric grit his teeth. While he was wasting away there, Banski and his bitch were probably exploring the anomaly and excavating new resources. Who knew what sort of riches he had run into—

The sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears, and Olfric lifted up his head to look.

It was a soldier. An armor-clad, Cyffnarian soldier. He boasted average height and an incredibly forgettable face, with brown bangs for a hairstyle. And over one shoulder rested a long, praitine-made spear.

Are these people aligned with Cyffnar? Olfric wondered, before he noticed the person’s eyes.

No. That’s—

The man had a strange expression on his face— an odd contrast between happiness and downright hysteria. His facial expressions were ever-changing, even as he stood, as if he were trying to say something and keep his mouth shut at the same time. The constant state of tension seemed obvious in the way his fists remained clenched, even though the man stood in complete silence.

There was no doubt about it— this man was under a thrall.

It was a form of compulsion magic through which the practitioner forced the victim to behave in a certain way. Every thrall was different, attuned to the nature of the practitioner. For example, a thrall cast by the sacred prostitutes back in Haviskali could invoke incredibly powerful feelings of arousal, able to turn even the shyest of idiots into a wild animal in heat. A thrall by a powerful wraith, on the other hand, could petrify their victim’s nervous system.

And, if he understood it right, the person in front of him was underneath one that forced him to do the caster’s bidding. It was powerful enough that it overrode the person’s free will and put the caster’s at the helm.

Only someone incredibly talented at psionics could perform such a feat.

Is that what I’m dealing with? Psionicists?

Olfric tilted his head in confusion. The psionic arts weren’t exactly illegal by any measure, but bremetans had a long-standing prejudice against the practice of enthrallment. None but the elven races, who possessed a natural faculty with the mental arts, were allowed to develop those skills.

And even then, every practicing psionicist had to register with the Empire’s Conscription List.

But that wasn’t all. Olfric knew elves. He’d slept with enough of them to understand their species inside out. They may have been gifted with the mental arts, but they were hardly exemplars of physical strength.

Whoever these people were, they definitely weren’t elves.

So who were they?

They looked like bremetans, but they weren’t. They clearly had some lifeforce training, like the black-haired beauty. And they— or at least one among them —were capable of putting others under a powerful thrall.

And that wasn’t even mentioning their resources, if the shadow-forged steel prison he was currently stuck in was any indication.

Olfric inhaled.

“Greetings,” the soldier spoke with a monotone, his lips still constantly twitching. “I am Mynak. The Leader wished for me to see if you needed anything.”

That was interesting. Whoever this leader of theirs was, clearly they had some interest in him. Why else would he have been kept alive for so long? Perhaps they had finally understood who he was and his standing, and realized they’d bitten off far more than they could chew?

The soldier adjusted his spear. “I am here to ask if you need anything.”

Amateur, Olfric chagrined. He couldn’t stand it when soldiers made stupid mistakes like that. As long as he was inside this prison, he had a handicap. He couldn’t summon his kami.

But once he was out, everything was fair game.

Perhaps these people weren’t as much a threat as he’d imagined. If nothing else, he could capture this so-called leader and drag him or her back to Haviskali.

Show them the might of true Asukan nobility.

And perhaps make the black-haired girl his newest concubine, while he was at it.

“Finally, someone with a modicum of sense,” Olfric drawled. Thralled or not, this soldier was a pawn, and should be treated as one. If this leader of theirs was using him as a messenger, then he’d do the same.

“Tell me soldier, has your leader finally come to his senses and decided to pray for mercy?”

The dazed man didn’t even flinch. “No,” he went on, his tone as bland as before. “She told me that a person’s last wish must be honored before their execution.”

“...”