Jenna was already waiting for the rest of the Losers when they appeared for breakfast. The last days had been hectic, and Billy and Bob had slept soundly until the sun was up.

  “How was your night, sweetest nectar of the daffodil?” Billy asked after giving her a good morning kiss.

  “It was quite productive, virtuous youngster, pride of your ancestors,” she answered. “I stayed up late like the cockerel before dawn, till I learned the local language. I only had around fifteen minutes of the sweet and always welcome blessing of sleep, but I shifted some freebies and made the most out of them, as a money-lender leeches wealth from his clients.”

  “That thrice-cursed language must be a tongue-twister for demons of the abyss, if it took you all night to learn it. Are we breaking our fast again with these demonic food cans?” asked Bob.

  “The thrice-cursed language only took me fifteen minutes to learn. I spent the rest of the night using Connection to teach you this overly complex menagerie of words,” she explained smugly. “Have none of you noticed we have been speaking in Beli?”

  “Shit,” said Billy, switching back to English. He remembered Aunt Ethel’s hidden lessons with a pang of pain. She had been trying to pull a “wax on, wax off” for five years. Jenna had nailed it on her first try.

  “Let’s go burn some of Discovery’s local currency at the nearest cafe,” proposed Bob. “We will get a feel of the place and eat something different from this canned food.”

  Everything in Belona was strikingly similar to Earth, yet also very different. There were no locks on the doors; anyone could enter simply by pushing them open.

  Their current home was on the twentieth floor of a skyscraper, but there were no elevators. Instead of stairs, a ramp spiraled all the way down to the first floor.

  “This is going to be a problem when we have to return,” protested Bob. As they descended the ramp, they were surprised by how smooth and fast their travel was. It felt as though the trip was much shorter than it should have been, even though they walked at a leisurely pace.

  “Some type of spatial distortion magic,” Bob suggested. Walking down twenty floors took no more time or effort than just a couple of them.

  The street was bustling with citizens dressed in bright, eye-catching colors, walking on the walkways. The Beli on them moved with incredible speed, yet somehow still looked like they were strolling. Some of the walkways were suspended at great height among the buildings, making the whole city look as if it were covered in spider webs.

  It must be the same spatial distortion magic we saw in the building, Jenna thought. These people can travel as fast as a car just by walking.

  The air had a sharp, fragrant tang. What struck her most was the complete absence of noise typically associated with traffic in any city on Earth. In contrast, Belona felt as silent as a church.

  As they walked by, people cast curious glances their way. “Sorry for your loss,” a stately matron said to them in Beli. Jenna assumed that their colour palette, overly formal for Belonian standards, must suggest they were in mourning for someone.

  They decided to have breakfast at a quaint café just two blocks from their house. Thankfully, not all food in Belona came from cans.

  They enjoyed toasts made from a springy black bread, accompanied by the local equivalent of coffee —a thick syrup with a nutty flavor.

  “Let’s split up, so we can cover more terrain,” Bob suggested. “I think I saw the local library when we were coming here. I will try to gather as much information from it as I can. You can both check the city in the meantime. We will keep in contact through the Blood Link.”

  Jenna smiled to herself. Of course, Bob had to check the local library; he was just too nerdy to pass it up.

  She didn't mind the idea, though, as it would give her a chance to spend some time with Billy. So far, their relationship had mainly been about trying to survive each day.

  Jenna felt generous; they would let Bob spend all morning at the cozy and comfortable library, while she and Billy investigated the city, doing all the tough fieldwork.

  They spent the rest of the day investigating.

  During the morning, they investigated a series of busy streets, filled with artists sketching passing people, a street theatre play, and some marching bands.

  Then they investigated the local cuisine at one of several restaurants and took a walk, investigating the beautiful and majestic Beli River (Belonians were not great believers in original names), which ran through the whole city.

  They approached the river for a closer look and discovered a beautiful riverboat boarding passengers.

  “Please, Billy, let’s investigate that!” Jenna said, happily clapping her hands. Some local currency exchanged hands, and they took their seats on the boat. It took off ten minutes later.

  Jenna was determined to make the most of the day. It had been the best day in the past month—scratch that, in the past nineteen years. However, she couldn’t help but notice the somber faces and overhear snippets of conversation among other Belonians in the boat.

  "...It is gone. I tell you, it is gone! They are trying to hide it to avoid panic, but some kind of strange forest has replaced the Guzzler’s Den. My cousin used to work there. He has been missing for the last day. No one knows where he is..."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "...It’s just like when the Apocalypse began. It’s all coming back again, I know it..."

  The last comment felt like a punch to the stomach. The fear among the population and the sense of impending doom mirrored what Earth had experienced just a few weeks ago when technology began to fail.

  The people of Belona had already endured this experience when the Compendium first arrived, likely generations ago. It had become part of their history, a cautionary tale told to scare children at night.

  Now, it was happening again; they recognized the signs this time—Belona was a has-been utopia on its way to destruction.

  Suddenly, the passengers on the left side of the barge erupted in joy. “The River Dragon has come!” a young mother exclaimed, lifting her toddler so that the child could see the magnificent creature rising from the depths. A sleek, silvery, snake-like dragon, the size of a train, swam gracefully alongside the barge. It didn’t seem hostile or afraid; instead, it appeared curious about the strange boat traversing its domain.

  “It is a rank seven Boss,” Billy calmly informed her.

  “Why is it so calm? Are there symbiotic dungeons also in this world?” asked Jenna.

  “I am afraid the only two symbiotic dungeons in the multiverse are the ones I created,” Billy answered. “I think this is not a combat boss. It is designed for fast swimming. Dungeon runners were supposed to catch him, not beat him in a fight.”

  “Do your weird Essence Eyes give any information about the dungeon? Where is it located?” asked Jenna.

  “You are seeing it now,” Billy answered, dipping his hand into the river. “The whole river is the dungeon. It is called the Endless River, a seventh rank inverted dungeon with a weird additional tag, one I had never seen before; the spatial tag.”

  Jenna used Expansion, allowing her spirit to encompass the entire river. It was an incredible experience. They had been traveling all around the planet without realizing it. The seven cities connected by the river felt like one single city. They had been traveling in the opposite direction from the sun, which is why it remained in the same position since their journey began. Belona was full of surprises.

  Jenna noticed that Billy was unusually quiet.

  “What’s the matter, Billy? Something is troubling you,” she asked.

  “I’m checking my respawn screen. I think we may be in trouble,” Billy replied, his gaze fixed on a screen only they could see.

  “How so?” Jenna inquired.

  “Ever since Chicago, I’ve been receiving passive achievement points just for being in a dangerous zone. That trickle of points increased when we swore the Oath and essentially declared war on the Compendium,” he explained.

  “However, I haven’t obtained a single achievement point since we entered Belona. My count is frozen at the exact number it was when we left Earth—897.”

  “That’s not good news,” Jenna admitted. “Could it be because we’re not in as much danger as we were on Earth?”

  “I doubt that very much. I don’t think Belona is a safe place. It feels like a powder keg about to explode. Even if that were true, the Oath would still be providing passive achievement points. Have you noticed any issues with your powers?”

  “No,” Jenna answered. “They seem to be functioning as usual. We should check in with Bob, though.”

  As Jenna looked around, she caught a glimpse of the massive shape of the River Dragon swimming gracefully just beneath their boat. It was a thing of grace and beauty.

  Jenna suddenly felt something was wrong; the whole delicate harmony of the city had just been disrupted.

  Without warning, a colossal object fell from the sky, splashing into the water mere feet away from them. The impact was so great that the displaced water almost capsized the boat. Passengers began to scream, with the young mother clutching her toddler tightly as if someone might snatch him away.

  Jenna saw two massive shapes wrestling beneath the surface of the water. Suddenly, the water turned a darker color. “Something is attacking the dragon!” she exclaimed to Billy.

  Two titans broke suddenly to the surface, shaking the boat so hard Jenna had to grip the railing. One was the River Dragon, squealing in pain and trying to escape from the clinch of its tormentor. The other was an inhuman beast that looked like a cross between a centipede and an alligator. Hundreds of appendages emerged from its sides, digging into the dragon’s flesh and cutting off any hope of escape. The creature was in a state of continual transformation; its limbs retracted into the massive trunk, only to reappear fully formed in different shapes.

  Jenna stared in amazement as the beast grew before her very eyes, its size now dwarfing even the dragon’s.

  She felt something strange about the newcomer and activated Connection to seek information about the monster.

  “It is not an Essential. It is an Experiential, a new type we have never seen before, something called a Progressor,” she told Billy. “Its progress is measured in Evolutions, each worth around 10 Avatar ranks. This thing has got seven.”

  Since she had copied the Compendium into her mind, Jenna could use Connection to gather information about the Experientials they faced, much as if she could read their status screens.

  However, the Progressor’s spirit was much too powerful for her to penetrate. She could only get the most basic information about him.

  Billy whistled in dismay. “The Hunters were around rank 40, weren't they?” he asked, already fearing the answer.

  “Yes, this creature is in a completely different weight category. It’s simply too powerful for us,” Jenna replied.

  The River Dragon was losing the fight badly. It clung to the wooden ramparts of the bay, struggling to prevent its enemy from dragging it under.

  “Jenna, wrecking ball, Dragon,” Billy ordered curtly.

  “Billy, you know I hate doing that to you…” Jenna hesitated.

  “Jenna, wrecking ball or this city is finished,” Billy insisted.

  Jenna finally obliged, mumbling all the time about killing Billy tonight... again.

  She dumped most of her points into Body and hurled Billy at the River Dragon with all the might and dexterity her enhanced body provided. Billy disintegrated into points of blue light as he entered the Blue Room just after impacting the dragon.

  “I think it worked,” Billy’s voice sounded strangely warbled over the blood link, the effect of him being in an intangible state. “I felt the charge shifting to the Dragon,” he added.

  Then the Progressor tore the dragon in half.

  Both sides of the dungeon boss twitched for a moment, and then they rejoined, leaving an intact and furious river dragon behind. The fight resumed.

  You have spent one corpse-camping charge. You get two achievement points back.

  “This confirms your theory, Billy,” Jenna said over the Blood Link. “Essentials can be corpse-camped just like beings without a system. Only Experientials are immune to it. Didn't the beetles grow more with each death?”

  “Each corpse-camping charge adds only 2 to 3 levels to the new form. The effect is much more noticeable when used on weaker creatures. The Dragon is changing, though, becoming bigger and more feral,” Billy explained. “It just doesn't show as much.”

  As the attacker grew more tired, fighting the increasingly powerful dragon, Jenna could penetrate its spirit with greater ease and gather more information. Its name was Goratan. Its only Intent—Hunting—was rank seven. Whatever all that meant.

  She could also perceive two artifacts of power secreted inside its stomach. One shone clearly to the Compendium’s perception, signalling a close tie to its nature. The other was almost impossible to perceive.

  Goratan managed to kill the Dragon twice more, but each time it took him longer and more effort. The third time, he was the one who tried to flee from the fight.

  The suddenly feral dragon did not allow it; it clamped its jaws on the hunter’s neck and beheaded him with a powerful bite. The dragon then roared with fury and swam into the depths of the river, capsizing several boats. The timid creature had turned into a dangerous monster.

  Once again, the Losers were left wondering if their intervention had helped or made things worse.

  Jenna asked Billy to wait in the Blue Room for a few minutes, and she used the time to swim to the bottom of the river, her enhanced perception and body allowing her to locate the two artifacts resting on the riverbed. The Hunter’s body seemed to have dissolved upon death. Jenna suspected it was a counterintelligence measure. It is tougher to fight enemies when they do not leave bodies behind for study.

  When Jenna climbed back onto the bay, Billy had already reconstituted his body and was waiting for her . She surfaced holding a glass orb in each hand—one glowing, the other swallowing the surrounding light. Hope and damnation, each held in a different hand.

  Now they only needed to find out which was which.