The stairs led him deep underground, the boring wall occasionally interrupted by a small alcove, holding a torch that was lit with cold blue light, providing zero heat. Hell, Sam would have sworn that they were actively absorbing heat…

After a minute of descent, the stairs ended, the darkness behind him seemingly slithering forward with tendrils, occasionally flinching from something, while in front of him was a room filled with the same torches, bathing everything with cold light, and a giant gothic door.

'It seems Lucky is having fun,' he mused as he glanced behind himself. The shadows seemed to spasm, and tendrils of them seemed to retreat beyond the light of the torches.

The door, in all its gothic splendor, was adorned with cast iron bands, and motives of trees with deep roots and droplets of a liquid – presumably blood – while a moon illuminated it.

Not even stopping, he thrust his hand forward, opening the double doors with a bang, causing a small shower of dust and dirt to fall upon him, which got instantly vaporized by his shields.

Beyond the door, instead of the cold stone, he was greeted with walls made of the same darkened wood that he saw on the tree on the surface. The ground itself was a mix of stone with the mortar between them replaced by black roots. Though the blue flames on the torches remained.

As he took his first step into the halls of this grotesque creation, he suddenly heard gentle footsteps approaching him.

On guard, but cautious, he prepared a spell, but otherwise simply waited.

His caution was rewarded as a humanoid form emerged from the shadows.

It, or rather she, was a gorgeous-looking woman, dressed in a mix of gothic lolita and French maid outfit. Her skin, however, was a mix of ashen gray and green, with veins of red crisscrossing everywhere.

Sam was about to start talking when he saw her eyes.

They were empty.

She stopped before him, bowed, then began to speak.

"Greetings, honored guest. The master is waiting for you," she declared in a monotone tone that told Sam everything he needed to know. Not a servant, but a simple puppet, dressed up for the entertainment of her master.

'Still, that skin color doesn't look exactly human…' he observed her as he simply nodded and began following her through the corridor.

The corridor itself was straight as an arrow, with only the imprint of the doors hinting that this wasn't actually a real place, but something created by the dimensional energies. An imprint of a memory…

As they walked, he also noticed that they were going a little downhill until the maid puppet led them to another door. This was twice as big as the first one, and instead of proper wooden slabs, it was made of roots and vines tangling up into a facsimile of a door.

The puppet bowed and motioned for him to step forward as the vines and roots making up the door retreated into the wall, revealing a giant circular hall, with a platform in the middle holding a throne made out of the same black roots and vines.

Upon the throne sat a figure whose look sent a shiver down Sam's spine.

"Ah…another…guest…how…fortuitous…" spoke the figure in a halting speech that was barely above a whisper but could be heard clearly by Sam. It reminded him of the sound of chalk made on a blackboard, mixed with a roar of rocks being ground together. Odd and discouraging…

The figure, ashen skin, long grayish-yellow hair, dressed in something that may have been a noble's dress, long fingers like claws, ending with overgrown, but sharp nails, raised one of his hands and raised one of his fingers, shaping it into a hook.

The message was clear: Sam was to approach.

"Come…closer…guest…this…" A coughing fit interrupted him, but after a moment, he recovered and continued. "This…old one…would…like…to…see…thy…face."

Sam's current deepest wish was to simply annihilate the being, but as he had no idea what the anchor of the fracture was, he had to play along, no matter how much he was creeped out.

'I'm never watching another horror movie…' he complained inwardly as externally he bowed his head slightly and began to approach the throne.

The being on the throne smiled slightly.

It was not a pleasant sight.

With the maid following him, he approached the platform and stopped in spell range, just to recoil in surprise. What he saw as torn noble's clothing was actually thin vines wrapped around the being's body, occasionally merging with the body and throne.

The being looked over him as the maid puppet walked next to the throne. Maintaining eye contact, the being's hand snapped out so fast that Sam was barely able to follow. It ended up around the arm of the puppet, whose empty eyes still didn't react.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Then, with a disgusting slurping sound, the being seemed to be taking a deep breath while the puppet's entire body shrank and became wrinkly, reminding Sam of the grape's transformation into raisins. By the end of it, the once humanoid-looking puppet was nothing more but a wrinkly, gray sack the size of a basketball, which turned into black dust as the being on the throne exhaled in relief.

He visibly looked much more energetic, skin shining with a little more vitality.

"Ahhh…so much better!" he exclaimed softly, his halting and whisper-like speech nowhere to be heard. "I kept that last nugget of tasty vitality for emergencies, but I think we both agree this occasion deserves some high-quality…catering."

Still creepy as fuck, but Sam noticed that the being didn't move from the throne. Instead of commenting, he chose to stay silent, hoping that the monster in front of him would succumb to monologuing.

"Once more, one of thy kind enters my new domain. Though thy behavior is much different compared to what the agreement dictates…" continued the monster as he curiously looked over Sam, seemingly dissecting him with his eyes.

Sam turned over his words in his head before his eyes widened.

"You remember?"

The monster on the throne let out a throaty chuckle, clearly amused by Sam's surprise.

"Something as paltry as death cannot stop someone as prepared as myself… This dimensional…anomaly is just a small roadblock to my return," came the reply from a self-satisfied monster. "Thy kind's greed for power and riches just made it easier to achieve my goal," he stated with a smirk. "A little promise of power, some hidden knowledge, and the blood just continued to flow…"

'Well, shit… now I know why they were rotated…Fuck…'

The monster chuckled. "The realization on thy face is as delicious as the blood of thousands I had been provided with," he declared with a sibilant hiss. "A shame really…a few more of those pitiful fools and I would have attained my freedom from this accursed prison…"

He looked over Sam, pausing at his sword and equipment, before letting out a long sigh. "Alas, thy presence informs me that it shall not be possible to wait furthermore. Nevertheless, thy power is exquisite and should be fuel for my ascension!"

"Is there any way I could convince you not to do whatever you're planning to do?" he asked, already planning what he would do in the eventual confrontation.

The monster just laughed. "Nothing can stop my ascension, young fool! Nothing! I shall ascend and break through the dimensional barrier, and the lands shall once again be bathed by my blessed blood! However, thy power intrigues me…" his eyes practically gleamed with greed as he eyed Sam. "Join me and I shall grant you unimaginable power in exchange for helping me ascend. Come, young fool, become the servant of one who shall become a GOD!"

Sam was about to say no when a screen popped up in front of him.

[Congratulations! You have been offered a race change!]

[You were offered the race Simulacrum!]

[Simulacrum: An artificial race, having many different types, but all of them are incapable of using magic. They receive their power from their creator; thus, the more powerful their creator is, the more powerful they are. As an artificial race, they are much more durable than regular humans, as well as have increased endurance, stamina, and vitality.]

[Would you like to discard your Human race for the Simulacrum race?]

[Yes/No]

Reading it answered some questions, but otherwise it didn't really interest him. Why would he eschew the use of magic when he was so good at it? Pure insanity…

'I wonder if he offered it to anyone in the Blood Army…' he mused as he firmly pressed the No button.

"Thank you, but I'm comfortable as I am now…" he stated equally firmly.

The monster didn't lose his smirk. "Shame. Truly a shame… We could have been great together. Thy power would have grown to the heights of the very heavens under my care… Alas, it seems it is time for my ascension."

As the last syllable left his deformed mouth, the roof of the cavern moved, like the door, vines and roots retreating and leaving dirt, stone, and other debris to fall into the cavern, while Sam saw the full moon shining into the hole, illuminating the platform, and with it, the throne.

The monster's hair turned from grayish-yellow to shining silver, his skin smoothed out, blemishes vanishing, as the vines that made up his clothing detached from the throne, allowing him to stand up with a satisfied groan.

Instantly, the mana in the air, which before this was slowly swirling around, almost aimlessly, began to rush toward the monster, filling up his body, causing muscles to appear, turning the emaciated look into something quite elegant.

"Now…thy last chance, great fool," he spoke up, the voice once more undergoing a chance, turning into a buttery smooth voice that would charm the panties off any princess. "Join my side, or I shall… have to express myself in a rather…forceful manner on thy corpus." He punctuated the statement by holding his hand out as if offering it to him to take.

Sam let out a sigh. "If I kill you, will you vanish, or be reborn when the dimensional energies cycle?" he asked.

The monster let out a bark of laughter that sounded rather charming despite the situation. "Hah! Thy question amuses me greatly. But I shall enlighten the uninformed. Thy should count it as thy last gift from a generous host!"

Sam said nothing; after all, one should never interrupt their enemy when they were revealing vital information.

The monster spread his arms wide and looked up at the moon, basking in its vitalizing light. "I have transcended the pitiful limits this dimension anomaly placed upon myself. My very soul was too strong for it to contain, thus I have been able to store more and more energy while the cycle continued above me. Truly, only someone as great as myself could have done this…" he ended the mini-speech with a self-satisfied sigh as his eyes returned to Sam. "Now, young fool, allow me to introduce my august self." He swept one of his arms forward and bowed deeply before straightening out. "You stand before the great and magnificent Zephyr van Luyt, the lord of many holds all over creation, and the one they fear as the Crimson Root!"

He stared at Sam after his dramatic introduction, just as Sam stared back at him.

For a moment that could have been a second or hours, they just kept staring at each other, as if daring the other to make the first move, before Sam let out a small 'huh' sound.

"Never heard of you…" he stated simply. While inwardly going over his memories and wondering why the hell the system was doing this to him.

The monster, Zephyr van Luyt, snarled, clearly angered by the fact that Sam didn't recognize his name.

"Then, foolish mortal, allow me to engrave my name into thy bones, for when I return to the world, thy skeleton shall be the flag of my army that will conquer the world!"

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