The Eclipse Spire settled into an uneasy silence.

Survivors sprawled across the lower levels, backs pressed against walls, heads tilted toward the ceiling. Some ate; others cleaned weapons.

Healers moved among the wounded and mended torn flesh and set broken bones.

The webbing dissolved from the walls. The Spire felt empty without its master, like a tomb stripped of its purpose.

Reidar sat near the entrance. Aldric, Kara, and Helga were there too.

"Just one quest remains," Helga said. She pulled a flask from her belt and took a long drink. "The most annoying."

"The Mire-Crawlers," Aldric said. "It should be straightforward compared to the other quests; it's just that it involves water."

"Nothing is exactly straightforward in this valley," Kara said.

Reidar said nothing. He stared at the entrance, contemplating the logistics of the last quest while worrying about the unknown activities of the Church of Unbinding inside that valley.

As for the quest, based on what the system said, the Mire-Crawlers were amphibious pack hunters. The terrain there not only would be treacherous, but the visibility would be poor.

<I have two skills that allow me to summon water monsters, but they are both at 10% proficiency.>

That was because Reidar rarely found an occasion to use those monsters. So, he could not share the skill. The alternative would have been to lure them out or to blast the mire away with as many powerful skills as possible. That would have needed a lot of time.

A shout grabbed everyone's attention.

"Reidar!"

Heads snapped toward the sound. A black shape descended through the Spire's entrance, wings beating.

The crow landed, and a man jumped from its back before the creature had fully stopped, stumbling forward.

The scout, one of Aldric's people, had a flushed face.

Every conversation died. Every survivor turned toward him.

Reidar looked at him. "Report."

The scout straightened. "The Sunken Mire... it's empty."

Silence.

Confused murmurs rippled through the survivors. Empty? The Mire was home to thousands of Mire-Crawlers. The quest required killing most of them plus their Alpha and cleansing the water sources there to turn the mire back again into the lake it once was. How could it be empty?

Reidar's expression didn't change. "Explain."

"I flew over it like you ordered. To scout the area before we moved in." The man paused. "The entire swamp... there's nothing. No movement. No creatures. Just... nothing aside from mud."

"They left?" Helga pushed herself to her feet. "Where the fuck did they go?"

"That's the thing." The scout's voice cracked. "I found them. All of them."

Aldric stepped forward. "Where? "

"Moving through the valley." The scout wiped dirt from his face. "They're sweeping through the entire place. Devouring everything that we failed to find."

Reidar's eyes narrowed. "Everything? "

"The scattered monsters. The ones left behind from the other quests. The monsters that fled the burning forest. They're hunting them down." The scout's gaze moved from face to face. "But that's not the worst part."

"What's the worst part? " Kara asked.

The scout swallowed. "Every single one of them... they're all at Level 100."

"What? " Helga said.

"I checked multiple times. They are at level 100. All of them."

Murmurs erupted across the area. Survivors exchanged glances, their expressions shifting from confusion to alarm.

"That's impossible," someone said.

"The monsters do not work that way," Reidar said. "Monsters get stronger through the mana in the environment. They can also get it from the monsters they kill, but there are two reasons both of them are not possible in this case. The first is that we killed most of the monsters. Therefore, the remaining monsters could not have been used as a means of getting stronger, unless we missed a huge chunk of them or they devoured the entire fauna in the mires. Second, the valley's too big; the mana from the monsters we killed couldn't have reached the mire. And all the quest areas are spaced too far apart."

"Then how do you explain this sudden level increase?"

Reidar didn't know, but he was sure it had to do with the church.

He thought through the implications. Mire-Crawlers in the 60s and 70s were the norm, based on the system's words. The Alpha might reach 90 or higher, but an entire pack at Level 100? That didn't happen naturally. Besides, if the average crawler level was 100, then what about the alpha?

"There's more," the scout said. "I spotted one more. The creature was alone near the center of the Mire. Level 130."

The alarm turned to fear.

"Level one hundred and thirty?" Helga's knuckles whitened around her hammer's shaft. "That's higher than Reidar."

"It has to be the Alpha," Aldric said. "It evolved."

Aldric pulled up his quest interface, checking the objective.

—[QUEST: Quell the Mire]—

Goal: Cleanse 5 corrupted pools. Eliminate 4000 Mire-Crawlers, Eliminate the Alpha.

Progress: 0/5 Pools Cleansed | 0/4,000 Total Defenders eliminated | 0/1 Alpha killed

Time Limit: 120 hours

Reward: 175,000 Survival Points, 600 C.L.A.S.P. Points, 80 Purified Mire Essence, Skill Book: Mire Purge (T3), Title—"Swamp Warden," Filtered Water Reservoir

Special Conditions: High volume of weaker foes tests endurance. Elites hide in pools, launching surprise attacks. Pools respawn waves until purified.

Description: The Sunken Mire's poisoned waters give birth to ceaseless hordes of Mire-Crawlers and lesser Thorn-Lashers, tainting rivers that feed the valley. Wade through muck, purge defender waves at each pool, and ignite the corruption's source.

Warning: Overflow poisons spread to other quest zones, debuffing all raid participants (-10% stats) until this quest is completed.

—[END]—

The goals hadn't changed, but the difficulty had increased exponentially.

The raid's average level was at 95. Facing an army of Level 100 creatures was one thing. Facing a Level 130 boss was another entirely. At least for the others.

Apprehension spread through the survivors. Conversations grew louder, voices rising in pitch. Some people backed toward the exits. Others gripped their weapons.

Reidar remained still. He already did something that crazy when he killed the Gloom-Web Arachnid Broodmother. That thing was even stronger than the Alpha. Now the gap between himself and the monster was lower than it had been back then, so Reidar was confident he could kill the creature without even having to use his trait.

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