I tossed an elephant steak to my always-ravenous mammoth lion, then we raced back to the blast zone. All the monsters were dead, so I quickly looted them all.

Of course, I got no level, even though the monsters were much higher- leveled. As expected, even the common foot soldier Cogroaches were level 60. Monsters got an entire magnitude stronger once they hit level 50, like us when we permanented another spell and evolved our class, except more dramatically.

I might be the only person to have defeated anything above level 50. The zombies had all been level 45, and the werewolves ranged up to level 49. I'd defeated all the bosses. The giant Colossus had been level 62, but he'd been way tougher than these bugs. Of course, he'd been a unique area guardian boss, while those insects were common variants. Another good reminder that levels alone didn't determine power.

Still, even my team and the other elites would face daunting challenges against the stage-3 monsters Nigel and I had just defeated. On the other hand, they'd probably level up fast. With some careful coaching and coordinated teamwork, we could manage.

The loot from the monsters was pretty basic. Some tier-7 mana crystals, a big jump from stage 2, along with a bunch of random clockwork gears and pieces of metal that Tomas would no doubt love. More interesting were the 6 potions of napalm that exploded into clouds of superheated flames that stuck to everything they touched and resisted being extinguished.

I did get one other interesting achievement from the fight, too.

"Congratulations, Lucas! For becoming the first human to defeat an entire squad of stage-3 monsters, you receive a platinum Exterminator loot box."

"Exterminator, as in terminator for bugs?" I chuckled as the large, softly glowing platinum box appeared in the air in front of me.

"Fitting, don't you think?" Cyrus asked. "Terminator was such a good movie, I should have included a Terminator team."

Yeah, a Terminator team could have gotten some good loot and weapons. When I willed the loot box open, it flashed and disappeared, leaving a pair of items and a scroll.

"Potion of instant rust, times 10. Uncommon. Smash against any clockwork creation to instantly rust all metallic parts."

"Shingle pin, times 10. Fasten this brass pin to any piece of clothing to activate its water deflection feature. Deflects falling rain away from the wearer like an invisible roof."

"Nice."

The scroll unrolled next, but my expectant grin faded to a scowl.

"Upgrade Scroll. Upgrade title Spartacus."

"Plus 25 to Luck."

"Plus 25 to CHA."

"Gain a sliding scale of additional damage for defeating higher-level monsters, depending on how familiar you are with that monster type and how easily you defeated it."

"Hey! What's up with that?" The other 2 items had been pretty good, but the title change seemed more like a downgrade than an upgrade.

Cyrus responded, his conversational tone sounding close, as if the invisible AI was lounging on thin air next to me. "Why look so glum, Lucas? This will be a good thing."

"So I get more experience overall?"

"That depends on how many new types of monsters you face and how challenging they are. No one likes a boring fight, but everyone adores a victory against long odds. You'll soon see mathematical proof of that."

What did that mean? "So when I fight a boss or a new type of monster, I'll get a lot more experience?"

"As you should. Just like when you exterminate weak monsters, or those you are experienced killing, the gains will be minimal."

"Even if they're so much higher leveled, like these clockwork insects?"

"Are they, though? Tier-0 common monsters don't pose any real risk to you any more, do they? You need to set your sights on the challenges no one else can handle. That's the whole purpose you chose this road, remember?"

I sighed. As annoying as it was to lose the bonus experience from even easy monsters that happened to be higher leveled, I had been expecting a change would come to my Spartacus title. Cyrus never made things easy. Still, on stage 2, I'd defeated several crazy-tough bosses. Now it sounded like I'd get bonus experience for doing that again.

"Fine."

Cyrus chuckled. "Cheer up, Lucas. You've set yourself up to fight the bosses no one else can fight. So you have to let others fight the monsters that are not worth your time."

His voice shifted to a very familiar one. "You have to trust that the people around you can do their jobs, so you can do yours."

That made me smile. "Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek. I don't remember the episode, though." Tomas probably would. He was a much bigger Star Trek fan than me.

"Consider it a melding of several of his other quotes to best fit the moment."

Cyrus usually just twisted an actual quote, but this worked too. It was a great statement, and he was right. I'd gained enormous power on stage 2. I had to trust Cyrus would keep setting me up for great gains.

The other loot would come in handy. I'd share those potions with Ruby. With her replication ability, she could make more. They sounded perfect for quickly taking down the clockwork insects.

I fastened one of the shingle pins to Nigel's collar, but didn't equip one myself yet. My mana barrier was proving effective, and the minor mental drain from keeping it in place was great practice. It would come in handy if I needed another layer of defense against magical attacks too. I could easily pour in more mana to strengthen it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

We proceeded deeper into the ruins, following the original road. We encountered 2 more roving monster squads, identical in makeup to the first one, and quickly destroyed them all. We got more napalm potions and clockwork parts, along with several clockwork cores, which sounded really interesting.

"Clockwork core. Common. This sturdy power source can animate a clockwork construct for up to 24 hours."

Both Tomas and Tony would probably like to tinker with the golf-ball-sized cores. We pushed on and the buildings grew taller and slightly less destroyed. None had roofs, but some internal skeletal frameworks remained, and I could start guessing at what some of the buildings might have been used for.

A few seemed more like giant mansions, while others might have been government or office buildings. Maybe shops too. I could easily imagine a bustling metropolis. The stone pillars in the center of every intersection improved the deeper we moved too, until I could tell they'd once been statues carved into demonic monsters.

Some vague markings on a few of them might have been runes, or maybe just street identifiers. Kind of weird, but probably effective in helping people navigate the enormous city. Had demons been the symbol of the city?

"Did you pull these ruins from some other planet?" I asked as we paused in a wider intersection, almost clear of rubble and studied the demon statue more closely.

Cyrus chuckled. "No, transporting an intact ruin so far would not be worth the expense. These are replicas of the famous city Eryndale before it fell."

"Huh. Sounds like an interesting story."

"More tragedy than comedy. You'll get more information soon, so I don't want to ruin the surprise."

"Ruin the ruin?" His cryptic answer only piqued my interest.

Around the next corner, I spotted a faintly-glowing dome a few blocks away. We had pushed the same quarter mile into the city that Elizabeth had guessed she had. Looked like she was right again. More likely, one of her team members had tracked the distance for her.

As soon as we stepped through the faint, golden barrier, the rain stopped and a large plaza spread around us. The wide expanse was perfectly flat, every cobblestone in place, no rubble anywhere, and perfectly dry, as if someone had swept the place clean for us.

It stretched about 100 yards square, empty but for more of those demonic statues placed every 10 yards or so along the perimeter. That seemed like a pretty big space until I imagined the city council castle taking up a huge chunk of the center, stone walls ringing the perimeter, while shops and Base Camp tents jockeyed for space all around. It definitely would be tight, but we could manage.

In the very center of the plaza stood a slender circular pillar made of beautiful blue marble, polished smooth. At the top was a huge precious stone cut like a big marquise diamond, about the size of my fists combined. It glowed like quicksilver and its edges were jagged, as if someone had chipped at it with an ax. The odd, glowing gemstone was encased in a clear crystal cube, and it pulsed very slowly, the silver glow waxing and waning in a cycle every 30 seconds.

"Odd," I said as I slowly approached the pedestal. Why hadn't Elizabeth said anything about such an obviously important landmark? Stranger still, Identify did not trigger.

I activated Spellseer's Gaze and the crystal blazed like a silver sun. That thing had a lot of power. The rest of the pedestal looked unremarkable, but that gemstone had to be important. I didn't spot any traps or active spells, so I risked reaching out and touching the crystal cube encasing the gemstone.

Maybe not the smartest thing to do, but this pedestal was standing in the center of what would soon be our town. Someone was going to touch it, so it might as well be me. No explosion of magic blasted out to shred my body, but Identify did trigger.

"The Fall of Eryndale is still considered one of the great tragedies of the multiverse. That black day is known as the Covenant's Tears. Eryndale, the capital city of a once-mighty people, was a jewel of the multiverse, showcasing the might of a rare nation with highly-developed technology blended with powerful magic."

"The Ashen Covenant ruled the world of Myrrhos for over 800 years in a time of wondrous advancement and peace until a bitter new rival sent assassins to murder the empress. That galvanized the entire world to push the limits of their technology and magic to create a super weapon to destroy their enemies in one fell swoop."

"New Quest: Echoes of Calamity. Discover the secrets of the epic downfall of Eryndale by collecting the relics imbued with their history and the power to chart a course into the future. Found: The Heartstone Shard, 1 of 10."

The world blurred and my mind was swept away in a vision. I no longer stood in an empty ruin, but at the center of a breathtaking city. Great buildings rose all around, built with sweeping curves instead of boring square angles, while skyscrapers rose hundreds of stories in gravity-defying shapes that seemed ready to float right into the bright, blue sky dotted with silver clouds and a huge, orange sun.

I barely got a chance to gape at the grandeur of the enormous city before dark clouds swept across the sky like an invisible giant yanked dark blinds closed. Crimson lightning danced from one horizon to the other in jagged sheets, shaking the world with ominous thunder.

Then the clouds opened up, releasing torrents of black, corrosive rain. The downpour lashed the city, clinging to the glorious buildings, degrading the shining technology into clunky clockwork mockery of their former glory. Buildings began to run with rust and melt in rusty waves of falling debris.

With the sound of 10,000 sheets ripping at once, huge rents gaped wide in the fabric of space, and nightmares poured through. Demons of every shape and size rained down upon the city, their gleeful screeching howls punctuated by the screams of people fleeing for their lives but with nowhere to go. Like locusts, the demons fell upon everything, tearing and rending and sweeping the city with total destruction.

One spider-like demon leaped off a building straight at my face, long razor claws reaching for my throat, its cackling laughter making my ears bleed. I couldn't move, couldn't call upon my spells or abilities. I was stuck, rooted in position as death leaped upon me and claws flashed at my eyes.

The vision ended so abruptly, I staggered, hands reflexively raising to snatch at demon claws. My heart hammered in my chest at the memory of the devastation that swept the alien city.

"That was the fall of Eryndale?" I exclaimed.

"Our best artist's rendition of the event," Cyrus said cheerily. "They really nailed the visceral feel of absolute despair, don't you think?"

"It was horrible." Had such a disaster really happened, or was this all make believe, a story woven into the game to add another layer of stress? Hopefully it was the latter because otherwise those poor souls had died in terror and agony.

With an effort, I pushed aside the vision and focused on the present. "So we have to find more relics somewhere in Ruin?"

"Exactly."

"What happens if we fail to finish the quest before we have to leave stage 3?"

"That depends on if you want anyone to survive long enough to face Queen Marisara."

"All right, then. Definitely complete the quest."

"Wise choice."

Great. Just what we needed. A vague quest on top of everything else we had to do. At least we were getting the quest right off the bat. Hopefully the rest of the relics would be pretty obvious and not buried under tons of random rubble.

"What did you see?" Nigel asked.

I'd been so distracted by the vision, I'd totally forgotten about my little buddy. I quickly summarized it and the quest I received.

"Will the other relics stink like sulfur too?" Nigel asked.

I hadn't noticed a smell. Leaning closer to the pedestal, I focused my Perception on my nose and sniffed. Sure enough, I caught a whiff of sulfur. Not sure that would help us to literally sniff out more relics, but it might help confirm something was a relic. Or maybe I could pick up a sniffer spell at the system store?

"They might. Good catch. Keep a sharp eye and, uh, nose for any more."

"How do you keep a nose sharp?" Nigel asked, cocking his head to one side.

I grinned and scratched his ears. "Just an expression."

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