“Need a hand?” I say while grinning.

  Toulif scoffs as he dodges another swing from one the many limbs of the Star-Nosed Abomination. It’s level 42, but Toulif insisted he handle it alone. With him down a sword and a hand, he is obviously struggling.

  He hisses “If I need your help, I’ll ask for it!”

  The abomination sneezes a bolt of lighting at him and he narrowly dodges. He blocks another swing with his right fore-arm and with his left hand he screams “Dark March!” and stabs into the giant red mass of fur.

  Three black spikes explode out from the other side of the massive beast and it slumps over. Toulif sighs and pulls out his now bloodied hand and flicks the viscera from it.

  The area around us is a mess of corpses of dead Abominable Moles. I blew off some steam by killing a few of them myself, but killing such weak monsters was boring. Gent easily cleaned up the rest of them with his magic.

  I playfully kick one of the dead moles, sending it careening into the darkness. Out of the range of our torches, which we’ve had the entire time.

  I looked back at Toulif as he rubbed the stump where his right hand used to be. Sucks to be him-

  Geltor, Jammie, and Eva rejoins the three of us and we keep moving. I find myself to be in a particularly good mood. We have been traveling together for about two days now and it’s the longest time I’ve gone without leveling since I got here.

  During that time I wasn’t idle however. First thing I tried to do was to get the final level for Magical Aura Perception, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to level 10. After a while I just gave up out of boredom.

  My second personal project did see some success however!

  I always felt that Soul Conjuration could do more, and that I wasn’t using it to its full abilities. Surprisingly, after talking to Gent about it, I’ve found out that some skills won’t level if you're not using all of their capabilities. That’s probably why Magical Aura Perception isn’t leveling.

  Anyway, Soul Conjuration lets me create more of my soul and manipulate it into weapons and other things. It also lets me repair my soul, but I feel that there is another function that I hadn’t discovered yet.

  So- Gent and Jammie had been teaching me how to properly chant. Even Eva threw in some pointers. Chanting is simple-

  Each word’s meaning is used as a guide to visualize casting the magic. In short, the words solidify intent. Saying the words aloud helps to bring said intent into the physical.

  I felt like a real evil fucking wizard by doing it. I did it to try to boost Soul Conjuration to alter my soul.

  “But why are you trying to change your soul?”

  I blink as I turn towards Jammie as we walk next to each other, then I smile and answer his question with a question. “Do you remember the fight with the Fledgling Atrocity?”

  He frowns, “Yes, that thing was fucking terrifying. Why-”

  I cut him off. “Well, that thing had an inward flow of mana, but do you remember what kind of magic it casted?”

  “What do mean by inward flow of mana? What does that have to do with its magic?”

  I sigh at his ignorance, “No, you see- The Fledgling Atrocity had its mana flowing in the wrong direction, inward, but it was casting magic on the world, outward.”

  He nods, “Ahh- I’m still not following.”

  I groan and rub my temples. Apparently the concept of inward and outward flows of mana isn’t widespread, so talking about it is kind of an issue. “Look, the Fledgling Atrocity shouldn’t have been able to do that. It even created a magic circle, which should be impossible with an inward flow of mana, and yet, it did it.”

  He nods with some real understanding this time, “Okay, but what does that have to do with your Soul Conjuration?”

  I grin wildly, “Because I think I figured out how the Fledgling Atrocity did it, and I’m going to use chanting to help imitate that monster.”

  I use Soul Conjuration to create a wand made of black fire and start creating streaks of flame through the air. It doesn’t actually work as a real wand, but I find the lines of fire pretty.

  I return the wand to my soul and focus on it. “Soul… Connect… Fear… Control… Overwrite… World…” And the fire is snuffed out-

  My face breaks into a darkened toothless grin.

  (Soul Conjuration) has leveled up! (5 → 6)

  It worked-

  ---

  Deep within this demonic dungeon a beast, a abomination stirs in its sleep-

  It stretches its six elongated arms and yawns. It lazily turns one of its heads and cracks open an eye-lid. “Oh?”

  It pulls its massive body off the ground and dust shifts off its body. It has been decades since this being last decided to get up.

  It looks deeply at the wall of its cage and its gaze softens. “A sister-”

  ---

  A large ball of black rocks sits where my soul used to be. No, it still is my soul, but now changed.

  I attempt to manifest this new configuration of my soul, only for it to ripple and shift. As expected- I split a piece from the main soul and manipulated it to my hand. My hand is then covered in that cloud of black rock.

  I stop to place my hand onto the ground and the rest of the party stops to look at me. The soul fragment leaves my body and merges with the ground.

  I push and the ground ripples-

  The Fledgling Atrocity was never casting magic onto the world, it didn’t have the means. What it was doing was turning the world itself into its soul.

  I drop to my knees and gasp for air. Just slightly manipulating the world like that had drained over 90% of my mana instantly. The soul fragment I sent into the ground had dissipated as soon as I let go.

  Jammie's eyes widened at the spectacle. “What was that?”

  I grin back at him, “Progress!”

  I exhale and my soul bursts into flames once again. I jump back onto my feet, feeling refreshed. I still don’t know what was up with the massive magic circle the Fledgling Atrocity created, but I think I’ll figure it out with time.

  Geltor jumps onto my shoulder as the party continues moving. “So… Are you going to explain what that was or?”

  “No, I’m just expanding my horizons, is all.” I chirp back at him.

  He nods his head, “Alright, alright… You know, my offer sti-”

  “Nope, and cut it out. Your pragmatism is annoying.”

  He scoffs, “Your loss-” He then crawls on my head to lounge casually while giving directions.

  We walk for a while more. Killing monsters, talking occasionally, and eventually I find myself walking right next to Toulif. I grin at him while he attempts to remain stoic under his mask.

  “Heyyy, Toulif.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  His soul immediately becomes annoyed. “What do you want?”

  “I was thinking-”

  “That’s a first.”

  I stop and I blink at him, and my face contorts into a wicked smile. “Was that sarcasm? I didn’t know you had it in ya bud!”

  He groans, “Just tell me what you want, so you can leave me alone.”

  “Oh, no you don’t-” I wrap my arm around his shoulder, and I wave my hand in front of us like I’m painting a picture. “Toulif the sarcastic asshole, and the terror of Tiffany Day. I can see us on the big screen now!”

  Toulif pushes me off him and I chuckle as I raise my hands defensively. He snaps at me, “What the hell are you even talking about?!”

  I shrug, “I was just having a bit of fun, but if you insist I just get on with it, I will.”

  I clear my throat. “Toulif! I have a gift for you!”

  His soul is now filled with confusion and doubt. I grin as he scoffs and shakes his head. “A gift? I don’t want anything from you.”

  I fake a frown, “Are you sure? It’s a very good gift, and you hadn’t even seen it yet!”

  “I don’t care.”

  I groan and continue to walk next to him. He flinches when I suddenly push a piece of my soul through the palm of my hand in front of us. I use Soul Conjuration to turn the ball of flames into a soul-sword and I grab the hilt.

  Toulif grimaces and starts to inch away from me as we walk, but I make sure to stay by his side. I close my eye and chant at the soul-sword.

  “Soul… Fear… Permanence… World… Break…”

  The fire of the soul-sword is extinguished, leaving behind a shiny sword constructed of slightly glowing black rock. The hilt is opaque, bumpy, and uneven, but the blade is like translucent smooth stone with fine cracks running through it.

  I crack my eye back open to look at Toulif, who is now silently staring at the sword.

  I grin, “Are you sure you still don’t care about my gift?” I speak sarcastically, “I don’t know, this seems pretty lame to me!”

  My smile deepens as Toulif's previous aw is once again replaced with annoyance, but before I can prod him more, Geltor jumps onto my shoulder and eyes the sword with great interest.

  The Nav Imp gawks, “That’s- That’s impressive.”

  Before I knew it, everyone was looking at me. Huh… My grinning gaze turns back to Toulif. I flip the ‘Dark Soul-SwordTM’ and catch it by the blade. I present the hilt to Toulif.

  “My gift to you.”

  Toulif's soul is suddenly filled with shock, more than I expected actually. In fact, everyone is shocked by my words. Especially Geltor-

  “Are you serious?! You’re going to give a mortal your own essence!”

  Oh? Is this a much bigger deal than I thought it was?... Interesting!

  I turn towards Geltor with a pout, “Aww, does baby want his own soul-sword?”

  He stammers, “What- No! It’s just th-”

  My laughter cuts him off, “Pfft- Ha, I’m sorry! It’s just!” and I switch my mood on a dime, “I. Don’t. Care.”

  I turn back to Toulif who is still staring at the sword's hilt. He flinches at my words, “Take it. You need a sword, and I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my own heart.” I glance at Eva. “Although your free to think that-”

  Toulif slowly reaches for the hilt and takes the sword from my hand. I roll my eye as he continues to gawk at it. He whispers behind his mask, but I still catch it. “A weapon made from true demonic essence. Maybe-”

  He glances at me and his soul becomes unreadable, but his look- I squint back at him. I don’t like it.

  I shake my head and try to ignore it. I attempt to change the subject, “Toulif, you know that big demon transformation thing, you and the vice captain can do? What is that?”

  “That’s classified.”

  I frown at that. Classified? What does that mean? Suddenly Toulif stops, and I look back at him. He stands there staring at me for a moment and his soul is still unreadable.

  I raise an eyebrow, “What?”

  He speaks softly, “Me and the vice captain?”

  I tilt my head at him, I don’t get what he means. I turn to Eva, who is now staring directly at me with an intensity I’ve never felt from her before.

  Why do I feel like I just fucked up?

  Toulif swivels on his feet and turns directly towards Eva and gets right in front of her face. He looks directly at her and she turns her head. Toulif says two words.

  “How much?”

  Everyone is now looking at the two, and at this point. I want to know what Eva’s feeling, but decide to hold back. I told myself I wouldn’t do that to her anymore. But she is obviously upset. Toulif repeats himself.

  “How much?”

  I grit my teeth as Eva quietly whispers under her breath.

  Toulif takes a deep breath and pulls away from Eva’s face. “I see.”

  With that he turns back around and continues walking. The rest of the party just look at each other in confusion.

  But I know what happened-

  Back when I was with Eva, when I was pretending to be a demon, she used something called Forced Demonic Banishment. Whatever that was took 200 years off her lifespan. I’m guessing she didn’t want Toulif to find out about that-

  I hesitantly look back towards Eva and she is now staring directly at me once again. I don’t need to read her soul to know what she is feeling.

  I turn away from her and start walking with Toulif. “Shit.” The rest of the party starts walking in silence from the awkwardness of the recent interaction.

  My eye widens as it snaps towards Toulifs soul.

  Why the fuck is he happy?

  I blinked a few times to actually make sure I was seeing this right. Why in the fucking shit is Toulif happy from learning that his sister lost a massive chunk of lifespan?!

  I gawked at Toulifs soul, completely not understanding his emotions. For the first time, I lost trust that Magical Aura Perception was working properly.

  Unless… Does Toulif hate his sister? That’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense. But it's not a mocking happiness, not the kind of happiness you get from watching your enemies get hurt. He is simply, completely overjoyed!

  Suddenly my opinion on Toulif changed, and I had to stop myself as my bloodlust lashed out. Toulif flinched and turned back to me. By the time he saw my face, I had calmed my soul and was wearing an innocent smile.

  He slowly turned back and continued walking.

  I want to kill you Toulif-

  I wrestled my emotions back under control, but I don’t know how long I could keep this up. Maybe he might make a mistake during a fight. I smile to myself and my gaze darkens.

  Maybe that sword will break at a bad moment-

  I blink to myself as I realise what I was thinking about. I can’t kill Toulif! He is still Eva’s brother!

  Unless- Does Eva also hate her sibling? I give her a sidelong glance. She is looking at Toulif. I could read her soul and find out-

  I shake my head and sigh. You can’t make principles if you’re just going to go back on them the moment it’s convenient. Since I don’t know whether or not Toulif dying is a good call, I’ll just have to let my emotions go.

  I close my eye as we walk. That is until I hear a strange grumbling in my ear. Huh?

  I turn to see Geltor sitting on my shoulder and staring at me with disgust, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the emotions and actions of an Eldritch Horror.”

  My mood does a 180 and I nearly spit at the mention of me being an Eldritch Horror. I completely forgot that Geltor doesn’t know and I almost busted out laughing at the mention of it. I hear Eva and Toulif audibly groan at Geltor words, and that makes it so much harder to keep a straight face.

  Geltor tilts his head as he continues to stare. It’s not even funny at this point, but since I was holding back my laughter, it’s getting harder to hold back by the second. Geltor squints his eyes and moves closer to my face. The muscles on my face and neck start to strain from the forces I’m applying in my attempt to not laugh no matter what.

  While Geltor is mere inches from my face, he lets out a guttural, “Huuuh..”

  The dam breaks- I fall forward and grab onto my chest and stomach, laughing my ass off. Everyone stares at me like I just broke. To them it looked like I just fell over laughing for no reason and I couldn't explain it to them until it had run its course.

  I take a few deep breaths as everyone stands over me. “Oh man. Thanks Geltor, I needed that.”

  He scowls, “What did I do?”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine-”

  Geltor twitches and cuts me off. “What’s that smell?”

  I furrow my brows. “Hey! I’ll punt you like a football if you say that again!”

  “No, not you!” He sniffles his nose. “Does anyone else smell that?!”

  I blink at Geltor and attempt to smell the air around me. It smells like… Sulfur? I sit up and check the area around me with Magical Aura Perception to find nothing. That's strange-

  New Objective / Escape The Dungeon

  -

  Leave the dungeon with your life(0/1)

  -

  Reward / You get to live

  I blink at the notification and the smell suddenly gets far worse. Echoing starts coming from down the cavern like halls of the dungeon. Sounds of clicking and squelching permeate from every direction.

  I quickly jump to my feet and swivel my head around to see where they are coming from. Everyone else also readies themselves. A grey screen with black lettering appears in front of me.

  You should start running

  A titanic ball of warped green metal and sputtering flames appears at the very edge of my perception. Its mana flows in every direction-