Alex stepped out from the portal and into the Ancestry with his magic ready. He threw himself into a dive the moment he felt the world materialize around him, prepared to dodge an attack from the Forsaken Revenant and buy himself enough time to fight back.

But the attack never came.

He shot to his feet, only to find the looming body of the Revenant standing just inches before him. Alex leapt back, reaching out to summon his anchor, only to find that the monster hadn’t so much as budged.

It wasn’t waiting.

The Revenant wasn’t moving at all. It stood like a sculpture of ice frozen in time, seemingly completely unaware of the fact that the very one it had been chasing stood right before it.

Alex stared at the monster. Then he slowly lowered his hands. He took a step to the side, craning his neck back to look up at the huge, shadowy monster. Even the threads of gossamer blue had stopped swaying. They, too, were locked in place.

“What the hell?” Alex muttered.

There was always a chance this was some kind of trick… but that didn’t really line up with any of the other methods the Revenant had used thus far. This thing wasn’t exactly the smartest enemy they’d ever fought.

If the Revenant had been forced to communicate with something else to figure out what it was meant to do after it actually caught them, then he didn’t imagine it would have had the ability to lay a trap like this.

There’s no way. Was the connection to its host — or whatever it was communicating with — completely severed when I pulled it out of the Mirrorlands?

A grin stretched over Alex’s lips. He nudged the monster with his foot. It didn’t so much as budge. He could still see the creature’s system information floating above it, but it might as well have already died.

“That all but confirms it, then,” Alex said, his smile fading slightly. “The Revenant really was basically just the puppet of some other monster. That must be why I can’t see any information on it.”

That was simultaneously a fascinating and deeply concerning thought. The Revenant was one of the strongest monsters he’d ever fought. And it hadn’t been anything more than a weapon in the hands of something that was doubtlessly far, far stronger.

Alex scratched the side of his neck. Then he shrugged to himself.

Well, that’s something to look forward to dealing with later. I shouldn’t count the Revenant down until it’s actually dead. Would hate to find out it has an auto-defend feature the moment you tickle it the wrong way.

He held his hand out and activated Armament Elegy. Black sludge poured down his arm, twisting into the shape of his chainsword. The white hooked blades blurred to life with a dull roar that sent a vibration down his arm and into his chest.

Then Alex grinned. There was only one way to get the soul of a monster, and it sure as hell wasn’t just leaving it standing around while he stared at it. He kept his legs tensed to leap out of the way at a moment’s notice as he brought the weapon over to the revenant’s side.

The chainsword tore into the Revenant’s armored body in an instant. The sound of crunching chitinous material tore through the air as the sword chewed into them. It carved right into the monster’s shadowy flesh with practically no extra effort from Alex.

Not once did the Forsaken Revenant even respond to the damage it was taking. If it was aware of anything, it certainly wasn’t letting on. The monster also wasn’t regenerating. It just stood there, letting him cut it apart.

So much for that soul attack stuff, huh, Berith? Unless you count a really hungry chainsword as a soul attack, it looks like I found a way to kill this thing without needing your help at all.

Berith didn’t respond. That, if anything, was proof that Alex was right. The demon had been hoping to trap him into owing a favor.

Alex’s grin grew wider. He merrily continued carving into the Revenant. As huge as the monster was, it was going to take him a little while to fully finish it off. He wasn’t even sure how one finished off a puppet, but he was certain there was a way. The System wouldn’t have identified it as a monster at all if there wasn’t.

Moving it into 274-50 did more than just sever the connection between the Revenant and its brain-host-whatever it might be. I think it forced it to become corporeal as well. All those regenerative properties are gone.

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I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t imagine this will be the last time I run into a monster like this.

Alex hummed to himself as he worked. The whirr of the chainsword cut through the room around him as he steadily carved huge cuts into the Revenant’s body. It wasn’t long before he’d climbed up onto its back to get better access to its center of mass.

After all the trouble this monster had caused him and Claire, he took more than a little pleasure in finally getting a victory. The hard part had been getting everything to this point. Now all he had to do was cash in his reward.

A faint thump in the distance just barely reached his ears over the sound of the sword tearing through the Revenant’s body.

Alex’s eyes snapped over toward it.

Standing at the doorway on far side of the room was a blue-skinned man wearing beaten down armor. He held a pair of blood-splattered swords and leaned heavily against the wall for support. The patch bearing his house affiliation was covered with blood and unreadable.

It was clear he wasn’t in any shape to fight… and there was a rather large pack on his shoulders. One bulging in ways that suggested it bore quite a few treasures within it.

Alex stopped humming, but his Chainsword continued to merrily crunch away at the Revenant’s body. The weapon was enjoying its feast far too much to stop now, even if it was interrupted. It seemed it didn’t mind an audience.

The man stared up at Alex, his face pale from fear or lack of blood — or possibly both. Neither of them said a word. A second ticked by. The man swallowed. He glanced over his shoulder, then back to Alex.

He swallowed again, gaze lingering on the Forsaken Revenant’s menacing form and the crazed man in a bone mask that was still cheerfully carving it to pieces. Another second slipped by. The man’s mouth opened, then closed again. Then his eyes flicked back to the hallway in a clear plea.

In an incredibly careful motion, the man reached up to the flap of his pack with one hand. He kept the other held out palm-first before him. The man slowly pulled out a spatial ring and slowly slipped it onto his finger.

He turned his hand over, still moving with the speed of a snail. A shimmer passed over his hand as what seemed to be a tightly packed bundle of toilet paper materialized above his palm.

The man gingerly set the ball on the ground, then pulled the ring off and slipped it back into the bag.

Glowing words shimmered through the air above the strange object, and quite a few of them at that.

Makeshift Crimson Godflame (Epic) — Consumable

Upon Destruction: Explodes in a large radius, covering everything nearby in sticky, burning tar developed by Crimson’s Demolitions Engineers. This item will detonate upon any significant impact with another surface.

Engineer’s note: Carry it in a Spatial Ring. If you add to the list of incidents related to this item, your descendants will not be paid out hazard concessions. Do not attempt to carry two Godflames at the same time. Do not wet the Godflame before use. Do not even look at the Godflame wrong. Just keep it in your pack and pull it out when you’re ready to send a large group of doofuses straight to the afterlife.

For any inquiries, contact Demolitions Expert Sparkfinger at: Go fuck yourself. I’m not giving anyone my contact. Have you seen the idiots they send on these—

The words cut off, as if somebody had torn somebody away mid-way through while they’d been writing them.

What the hell? I’ve never seen an item like that. It’s clearly from the Crimson family, but that description definitely isn’t from the System itself. The guy who made the bomb looks like he wrote it himself.

The man glanced at Alex again. Then he flicked his eyes back to the tunnel.

Is this meant to be a bribe?

Alex shrugged a shoulder slightly. He wasn’t going to abandon the Revenant just to kill some dude who hadn’t even tried to attack him. Especially not one that was only trying to run. He hadn’t even been planning to try and extort the guy… but only an idiot said no to a free gift.

The man spun on his heel and sprinted off in the direction he’d come without another word.

Good talk, that.

More Outworlders should be like him.

Something within the Revenant let out a crunch.

Alex glanced down. While he’d been watching the Outworlder, his chainsword had worked its way all the way over into the center of the Forsaken Revenant’s body. The top half of the huge monster had cracked and split back halfway like a broken tree branch, revealing a craggy, hollow center. The blue void that had once filled it was snuffed out.

But, floating its center, was a shimmering blue and black Soul Flame.

High Grade ??? (Forsaken Revenant)

“Well, would you look at that?” Alex asked with a wry smile. “It looks like even puppets have souls.”

He grabbed the Soul Flame, shoving it unceremoniously into one of his Spatial Mirrors before banishing the Chainsword and dropping to the ground with a soft thud.

Alex strode over to the bomb resting on the ground. Then he carefully touched his spatial ring to it, pulling the item into its magical space with little more than a thought. He got the feeling that something like this could end up being quite useful. Alex had what he’d come here for. The others were waiting for him… and it was just about time he summoned a new monster.

Something told him the Forsaken Revenant was going to be a perfect fit.

He turned and walked back into the still-burning portal to the Mirrorlands without another word. The portal snapped shut behind him, leaving behind only the ravaged remains of the Forsaken Revenant and a terrified Outworlder still running as fast as his feet could take him in the opposite direction.