The sun glared down at them with burning fury by the time Celme dealt with the biggest Skarnveil and some change. Bathed in their blood and teeth, with enough wounds to show for it. She dragged herself, wincing, across the broken worms, holding one torn arm with the other, blond hair smeared with smudge and gore.

Valens counted a hundred and twenty Skarnveils in total, and it took everything for him not to interfere after Celme completed the Trial and decided to keep at it. The change in her Class was visible through not only the Identify skill but also the air that settled about her demeanor. That, and the little streaks of blood that had been drawn toward her after every kill.

"Bloodbound," Nomad said admirably. "That's a good variant."

Valens managed a Lifesurge over the gaping hole on her calf, holding her still with the other hand, lifemana pouring into her body. Torn muscles and internal bleeding, but at least most of her organs remained safe. There was a lot to appreciate about that fact.

"Hey, be careful!" she winced when Valens stretched one of his stitches tight, with more strength than necessary. "I'm hurting here."

"Should've thought that through before you initiated that suicidal last push," Valens said, frowning down at her. "This will teach you to keep your mind in place even if the blood makes it light. You can't lose yourself like that again."

The image of her turning and twisting, pulling at the worms, dragging them by the dozen, biting into their hard shells with her teeth… That wouldn't go away soon. Valens always knew she had an untamed side to her, but today he saw a real beast unbound by her human shackles. In a horde of Skarnveils that gave her the ability to crush them senseless. Against a more clever enemy, though?

That would make her vulnerable.

"We learn from your mistakes," he muttered, more to himself than the bruising Bloodbound. He stretched another Lifesurge and managed a dozen stitches in the back of her head. Clumps of blond hair fell down when he finished it. "And you're due a haircut."

Nomad reached for his belt, pulling a dagger from the hidden sheath, its tip gleaming sharply under the sun. It looked like a toy in his hand, but Valens had felt good when the undead at least accepted that gift. Now, he wasn't so sure of it.

"Stay still. This won't take long."

"Hey!" Celme swatted his hand away, groaning as she pulled herself to her feet, glaring at the undead. "What do you know about cutting hair? I won't let you make a mess of it. Give me that, I'll do it."

"Well," Valens commented. "Maybe we should wait until after we find a place for you to… wash yourself. The haircut should be the least of your worries."

Nomad pinched his false nose. "Disgusting," he said, the rotting dots around his mouth wrinkling. "You stink. You know you didn't have to slash their guts open too, no? Fresh blood is not brown. There was something else in that mix."

Celme gave the both of them a glare, then splashed some water into her face, shaking her head as she combed what hair was left on her head. Then she was staring, face turned against the warm winds, body bloody but straight.

The relief she felt was almost palpable as Nomad and Valens let her have the moment.

Completing a Trial wasn't just about gaining new skills and power. It was, especially for Valens, a giant weight off one's chest. In a way, it felt much similar to his graduation from the Academy, less bloody and twisted, of course, but just as complicated. The possibilities it brought and the new path it offered were equally exhilarating and dangerous.

"Rest now," he said, peering out into the endless acres of Dead Lands ahead, one hand still on Celme's shoulder. "You've earned it."

…

The afternoon saw them bounding across the desert, with more than a few Skarnveils keeping them company. Valens found drilling them with a spike fashioned by Gravitating Earth was the most efficient way of keeping the path clean. Unfortunate as it was, these things were mostly around level 120–130, which to him meant little experience.

Checking his status, a quick calculation told him that he would have to kill about a thousand or two thousand of these creatures to get more than a dozen levels. The number hardly intimidated him since he was rather well-occupied to deal with hordes of creatures. What barred him from trying that, however, was that the desert had only so many Skarnveils.

That was why they let Celme get used to her new Class by allowing her to deal with the more crowded groups. It quickly became clear that a Bloodbound was, well, bound to blood in a literal sense. So long as she kept spilling the blood of her foes, she could replenish her energy by absorbing tiny, almost invisible, bloody streaks.

Nomad tried not to show it, but Valens could tell he envied the character of Bloodbound. He wasn't at fault there since the Underworld was scarcely popular for its variety of classes. It was a strictly regulated army, one that was established on rather simple terms.

The Undead Soldiers and Chiefs formed the majority of it. Completing the First Trial didn't make one a Chief, not directly at least, but from the Second Trial and so on things changed. Nomad talked about the Undead Knights and the more specialized forces of the Underworld, utilized only when it was necessary. According to his words, the Legion couldn't afford to send them to the surface since they were the main strength keeping the demons shackled in the bowels of the world.

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Valens had never seen a demon. Not one that fit the description shared by Nomad, at least. They were, to his words, sickly, bloody abominations of rich variety. Separated by their colors—which Valens found odd—they ranged from being focused on strength to masterful manipulators of mind.

"The balance is a tricky one," Nomad muttered as they bounded toward another mountain ahead, a hazy promise barely visible in the distance. Valens was trying to guide them to the Mourning King's place, hoping Seris gave him the right location. It wasn't all too far from Ashen City, about a week's walk that stretched through a desert and a number of mountains. "Opening the Gates makes it a lot more tricky."

"Why?" Celme asked, leather armor smeared with blood. "The Gate is for the Broken Lands, right? It allows direct passage to dwellers to invade Haven's Reach. How is that related to the Underworld?"

Nomad gave her a side-eyed look, then sighed regretfully. "Put a few stats into Intelligence when you can. This is just painful."

"I suppose the Underworld is similar to Haven's Reach," Valens said, after rolling his eyes at Nomad. "A safe place, separated from the outside world. The gate under the Golden Cathedral had an entrance in the Underworld, too. Now the dwellers could, and likely would, try to infiltrate into the Underworld."

"The Tainted Father works in mysterious ways," Nomad said, face creasing. "We have fought against the demons for centuries, but we still don't know the connection between the demons and the Shadow. If he's commanding them, pushing them to keep the Undead busy, then we don't know why the hell he bothers. But one thing is clear. If the Underworld falls, Haven's Reach will be doomed."

"It… doesn't make any sense," Celme said, furrowing her brows. "We have been taught the Tainted Father's obsession to take the pearl of the world. Haven's Reach is his final prize, the forbidden apple hanging from the tallest branch, but I've never understood why. Why would he want to destroy a world? Just because he can?"

Valens nodded absently as he thought back to his conversation with the Evercrest woman. She had told him the Shadow was born because of the Surgemasters, that his forefathers were the real predators, but this whole mess was too much to just be the result of internal fractions between a group who had managed grand feats such as weaving the Spiritum.

There was more to this tale than measly conflict, more to the fact that they had decided to take shelter in another world, one that was established by them as a strict prison.

"I don't care much for reasons," Nomad said, staring out into the distance. "Never makes much sense, the business of the Forsaken. But I know it ain't gonna be all about crazy children trying to please their parents. At some point, we're gonna come across the real thing, and best we prepare for it."

He gave Valens a look just then, false eyes deepening, then turned and bounded ahead.

"This makes him uncomfortable," Celme said, scowling after the undead. "He doesn't know a thing, either. If the fall of the Underworld means hell for everyone, then why would the Ninth Legion agree to take part in that crazy woman's scheme?"

"There's likely a complicated answer to that question," Valens said heavily. "But on the other hand, I don't think they need any other motivation as it is. Think about it. You're robbed of your own mind, given the control of your body and strength to a bunch of Liches. You're bound to a life of endless battle in the bowels of the world. This thing was bound to explode. The Evercrest woman was just a timely spark."

…

The Mourning King lived in a singular mountain separating the desert from the scarce population of crooked trees that loomed in the distance. Riddled with hundreds of wind-wrought entrances, it seemed like a lone giant left here as the last guardian of the dark forest. Slowly, the heat hanging across the desert gave way to a refreshing breeze, rustling the knife-like leaves dotting the long branches of the dark trees.

Rather than going in blind, Valens's group decided to circle around the mountain from a distance to come up with a sensible way to approach this. Seris's suggestion, after being through that hellish confrontation, was that they use the natural pathways stretching underneath the mountain, a network of clay and mud busy with a variety of monsters.

That sounded like a good way to get yourself surrounded, but Seris had told him the creatures inhabiting the tunnels didn't work for the Mourning King. If they could handle those without making a big fuss, then they could find their way to the King's inn and catch him unprepared.

"He has eyes all around the mountain," Nomad said as they crouched behind a particularly tall tree, peering at the mountain from a good distance. He pointed a hand at the jutting patch of stone that was connected to one of the bigger cave entrances high up where a pair of bird-like creatures perched waiting. "See those birds? Those are Gloom Wings, and they look nasty. Around level 160–170, I reckon. There's no way we can approach without those bastards seeing our asses."

"I don't like the tunnel idea," Celme said, looking down on the ground. "It feels too risky. And tell me, why are we here again?"

"For riches and gold," Nomad snickered. "Better get used to it. We're adventurers now."

Celme's frown deepened when she heard the word. Never much of a fan of adventurers, she was, thinking they were people who chased money and empty glory. But then, it seemed her cult's approach of saving the world changed something in her, since a frown was all she gave when normally she would've gone for a spiteful, long speech that would involve a great deal of curses and righteous anger.

"I can work with a tunnel," Valens said, feeling the earth with his palm. The Resonance was different here, richer with thousands of songs. His sound vision caught bug-like species scuttling around while small birds pecked at them with dutiful procession. The thick tree line hid a battlefield in its stretches, and life, even if it was rather twisted, flourished here.

"If that creature is as clever as your boss told you, there ain't no way he isn't aware of the tunnels," Nomad said. "If we're going to do this, you'll have to settle for throwing rocks rather than bending the earth to your own satisfaction."

"I'll be careful, don't worry," Valens said. If he couldn't move the walls, he could always burn them anyway. His new shield also would see more use in a narrow space. With the recent boost to his stats, he was confident in his power. "Come on, there's a way. We have to find a big rock."

"Big rock?" Celme asked.

"In the shape of a sword," Valens said, nodding.

Celme and Nomad looked at him.

"What?" he said. "That's what she told me. Use the entrance under the sword-shaped big rock. That's about as clear as clear gets, no?"

A united sigh was his answer as his two companions rose to their feet.

........

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