Turns out my gut had been spot-on. Everything Alice told me lined up a little too well—this entire circus was choreographed to whip up as much chaos as magically possible. From where I stood, I could already see smoke curling up from parts of the Lower District. But with that many Gold Ranks prowling around, the mess was more or less bottled up. Their real prize had been the Upper District, but that masterstroke fizzled spectacularly.

Which left us with the Middle District. Just as sprawling, just as vulnerable—and they'd picked the Alchemy Tower as the beating heart of their little performance. Made tactical sense. It was as far as you could get from the Iron Pact HQ, tucked away on the opposite end. That meant more time, more surprise, and more bang before the cavalry could show up.

Also explained the sudden wraith parade. Necromancers. Lovely. Filthy ones, to be exact. And unlike your average shambling corpse, wraiths were more... spectral than skeletal. Less rot, more plot. Slipped through the cracks via the shadow dimension like greasy whispers, which made them perfect for covert invasions. Hard to stop what you can't even see coming. Can't punch what your fists phase through.

But the crown jewel of this disaster? The elves were in bed with the Vor'akhs. Yeah. I may have cursed us by joking about that very thing. One idle thought, and now the two most mutually detesting factions this side of reality were playing footsie under our noses.

Naturally, I had hoped I was wrong. Really, really hoped. But here we were.

And why target the Alchemy Tower? Easy. They were poaching alchemists. Like it was open season. Probably stocking up for something worse. Something I could feel creeping closer, that left a nasty taste in my thoughts.

Oh, and then came the cherry on top:

Active Mission: MISSION: Purge the Elven Scourge OBJECTIVE: The VILE ELVES have assaulted your city, unleashing SOULLESS WRAITHS to butcher the innocent. Their cowardly ringleader festers in the STENCHING SEWERS, pulling strings and corpses alike. HUNT THEM. BREAK THEM. DEVOUR THEIR FILTHY CORPSES!

TASKS: (The higher the progression, the better the rewards.)

Cleanse the Streets – Slay or capture wraith-summoning necromancers. (Progress: 5/7)

Follow the Rot – Track the leader. (Progress: 0/1)

Kill/Capture the Elven Commander. (Progress: 0/1)

REWARD:

+5 INT & STR (Permanent)

+15 Morphogen per necromancer captured/slain

+3 Skill Points & +30 Morphogen for taking down the commander

PENALTY: If you drop the ball, a massive chunk of the district becomes ash and bad memories. [ACCEPTED]

A mission. Finally. Guess that confirmed it—missions only triggered when I was in my own scaly skin. Last time the elves popped up, I'd been borrowing Brana's. Which, incidentally, made this the first time I'd seen elves outside the dungeon in the flesh. Or in this case, in various states of no longer having flesh.

The mission window had surprised me when it first popped up—but really, I should've seen it coming. I added one more limp elf to the increasingly artistic pile at my feet and glanced over the updated objective list.

Five down. I'd wrung what I could out of the survivors—if you could call them that. They mentioned two more lurking nearby, but they must've legged it when their friends stopped sending "still-alive" updates. Smart. Lucky. Or both. Either way, they slipped through the cracks.

For now.

I didn't kill them—maybe dislocated a few limbs, tore out a tendon or two, but they'd survive. Barely. Killing them would've been a waste. The mission didn't require it, and frankly, they were far more useful breathing, bruised, and broken than dead. Bruised lungs wheeze secrets; dead ones just stink. Plus, knocking them out had an unexpected bonus—whatever puppet strings they'd been using on the wraiths started to fray.

I'd seen it happen. Those massive abomination-wraiths under their control? Tough bastards, but the Iron Pact was holding their own. Once the necromancers lost their grip, the wraiths lost their rhythm. Started acting more feral than focused. And while that might sound worse on paper, to seasoned Iron Pact warriors, that kind of raw chaos was child's play. Predictable. Methodical patterns can surprise you—feral rage rarely does. Precision kills; chaos just needs a time-out.

So I left the mop-up to them and kept hunting.

Eventually, I found myself staring out a broken window, processing what I'd wrung out of the necromancers. According to them, the supposed brains behind this whole disaster—Doltharion—was holed up in the sewers beneath the Alchemy Tower.

Of course he was. If there's one thing arrogant elven necromancers love more than summoning wraiths, it's wallowing in poetic filth.

But something felt… off. The necros said Doltharion had gone quiet, stopped responding. But why'd he ghost his lackeys? Radio silence reeked of either betrayal or a much worse plot twist. And then there was the mission penalty—a massive portion of the district would be destroyed upon failure. The system didn't usually exaggerate. That meant something bad was brewing. Real bad.

Still, I shook it off. Didn't matter. I'd be diving into the sewers soon enough.

First things first, though—tentacles snapped outward, curling around two elves, then another pair. I grabbed the last one with my claws. A beat of my wings and I launched myself out the window, distortion wrapping around me like a second skin as I dove toward the chaos below.

The moment I appeared, the battlefield tensed. Both Iron Pact warriors and Alchemy Tower guards jerked to alertness, eyes locked on me as I descended in a blur of wing and shimmer.

Banked on one gamble: that my draconic aesthetic read "Red Core drakkari beast-form" not "eldritch freelancer." Close enough for government work. Apparently, it worked—no one struck first, and I wasn't blasted midair. I took that as a win.

Zharitsa approached, hand hovering near her sword, cautious eyes tracking every movement. I half-expected her to recognize me. Maybe she did. Either way, she didn't swing—yet.

"Who are you?" she asked, firm and suspicious. "I don't recognize you from either the Iron Pact or the guards under me."

I shrugged and dumped the elves unceremoniously onto the ichor-slicked stones. One of them let out a little whimper. Ah—not unconscious. Cute trick. I might've chuckled.

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"Just a concerned civilian," I rasped, voice distorted by the two potion bottles and anti-divination charm tucked in my cheeks. "Found the puppeteers. Elven necromancers. Might wanna question 'em later."

Demonstration time: A tentacle flicked the groaning elf's arse like a schoolyard bully. His yelp hit a pitch only dogs and sadists could appreciate. Chef's kiss.

"Babysit these clowns 'til I drag their ringmaster topside." I smirked, stomped the cobblestone with a sharp kick, and launched myself skyward.

The street cracked beneath me from the force—intentionally flashy. If I was going to play the part, I might as well sell it. Let them think I was someone formidable. Someone not to be trifled with.

And while I might only be a high yellow core by mana standards, I knew my stats punched far above that weight. Core color might be the traditional measure of power—but it never told the whole story.

And I had plenty more story left to write.

Unfortunately, raw stats weren't going to cut it here. My mana capacity wouldn't increase just by leveling up or pumping my base attributes. It was locked behind evolution now.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder—how much more could I hold once I evolved?

I watched more wraith corpses piling up in the distance. At least the mission was good for something—morphogen. Plenty of it. And more on the way, once I was done with this mission.

Zharitsa stood in the distance, speaking to her squad. I didn't need to get closer to know she'd made a decision—one curt nod, and the guards began cuffing the elves in magic-suppression cuffs, dragging their smug, leaf-licking faces back toward the Tower. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

Guess this was my first proper rodeo. First time showing myself in this form and interacting with people instead of slicing them apart.

It had been… exciting.

And productive.

My gaze swept the battlefield one last time. No more distractions. It was time to hunt their leader.

With a push of will, I slipped into the Shadow Dimension.

***

The sewers were as revolting as ever. I had to drop back into the material plane after descending—something about the grey fog in this place made the Shadow Dimension thick, suffocating. Like swimming through smoke. Couldn't see beyond a few meters in any direction.

Not that it slowed me down.

My Air Sense was active, expanded to a full twenty meters, painting the world in pressure and motion. I had a trail—two tunnels off the main artery beneath the Alchemy Tower. The elves' intel wasn't perfect, but it was close enough.

I moved half-gliding, half-running—silent, fast, predatory. The closer I got, the stranger things felt. The man's breathing—erratic. Off-rhythm. But there was nothing else nearby. No enemies. No movement. Just him.

My brow furrowed as I rounded the final bend, slowing my pace. Charging in blind would be suicide. From the intel I gained, Doltharion was mid-red core. A necromancer, yes—but that never meant harmless. His strength might not be in direct combat, but the things he could summon? Those were what made him dangerous.

I activated Phantom Dragon Dance, wrapping distortion around my body until I shimmered like a heat mirage—flickering in and out of clarity as I crept forward.

He came into view, and with him came the feeling.

A pulsing, bone-deep unease. Familiar. Wrong.

He wasn't moving—just kneeling, clutching a pendant in both hands, whispering some high Elvish incantation. Symbols drawn in chalk surrounded him, sloppily scrawled in haste. Piles of mana stones glowed around the edges, already dimming. Being drained.

He was channeling. Feeding mana into that pendant.

And that feeling... I knew it.

That creeping dread, that cold breath brushing your soul. I was attuned to it. To the Shadow. To specters and the fourth-dimensional layer they call home. This wasn't some minor ripple. It was that sensation—but multiplied tenfold. Something was here. Lurking. Watching. Or… arriving.

I could've attacked. I had the perfect shot. But I wasn't stupid.

Interrupting an active ritual like this was the sort of gamble only lunatics took. You don't disrupt these things mid-channel. You either stop it before it starts—or you wait until it's finished and deal with the fallout.

Midway?

That was how you got unmade.

There was only one choice.

Without another thought, I slid back into the Shadow Dimension.

Fog.

Thicker than before. Suffocating. Wrapping around everything like wet wool.

But through it, I saw light—red, slithering motes weaving through the air like fireflies. They coiled around the elf, orbiting in slow, deliberate arcs. A thin thread of darkness tethered them to the pendant in his hands.

And then I saw it.

Something like an eel. Massive. Floating. Twisting slowly in the air as if swimming through the fog itself. Its body pulsed with mana—raw, unstable. Two eyes like swirling voids snapped toward me the instant I appeared, and a cold bead of sweat trickled down my spine.

What the hell was that thing?

It didn't even look that threatening, not compared to that clown-thing I'd seen before. It didn't feel like that nightmare, not quite. But the amount of mana pouring off its skin… it was suffocating. Wrong. It made my bones itch.

Our stare-off lasted a nanosecond.

It twitched.

Not a lunge—a reality hiccup. One moment there, the next here, jaws unhinging like a broken elevator shaft lined with obsidian shivs.

I'll admit it: I screamed.

Internally.

Like a professional.

But I dodged at the last moment, but not cleanly—its bladed fins grazed me, slicing deep. Pain flared. But I was ready. The moment it passed, I spun, forming a matrix for Light Bolt without thinking. Aimed. Fired.

It twisted mid-air, sinuous body corkscrewing to dodge, but light is faster than reflex. My spell tore through its tail, and the thing screamed. A high-pitched, keening shriek echoed through the Shadow, sharp enough to vibrate my skull.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Its mana surged. Hard.

What the actual fuck was happening?

The elf still knelt, still muttering, still unaware—or uncaring—of what swirled around him. Either way, he was locked in. That ritual was still going.

More vermin closed in. Wraiths—three of them.

The first one dropped before it could unleash a psychic shriek, my tentacle launching a Light Bolt straight through its face.

I lunged, claws crackling with light. A summoned matrix formed a glowing blade as I carved through the second, then spun into the third. Wraiths didn't stand a chance—not against me, not here. Not in this realm.

They weren't hunting me in their home.

They were trapped with me in mine.

But that damned eel wasn't done. Another lunge—I dashed aside at the last second, its maw snapping shut where I'd just stood. Then it opened its jaws wide, a beam of condensed dark mana tearing a burning path through the fog.

I moved before it fired, instinct taking over. Another Light Bolt, this one from my right arm. It missed—barely. It twisted again, weaving through the air like smoke.

I could end this.

Four tentacles, two arms, all capable of casting. I could conjure six Light Bolts in a blink, overcharge them, fire them all in an instant, overwhelm and erase it before it could so much as twitch.

But I didn't.

Because of the mana.

That overwhelming, grotesque flood of power radiating from it. Wrong in ways I couldn't articulate.

My body moved on reflex. My mind knew exactly what to do.

But somewhere deeper—something held me back.

And then it clicked.

That gut feeling. That pit in my stomach. The way every fiber of my being screamed at me not to finish it.

I knew what it was.

Even if my brain didn't want to admit it.

This thing wasn't just some guardian. It wasn't a summon.

It was a bomb.

The moment it died… all that bloated, volatile mana would detonate. This elf—this lunatic—had force-fed it until its body was practically screaming with power. And worse, it was necromantic. Crafted. Engineered.

Its death wasn't an accident.

It was the plan.

A walking, flying, slithering bomb designed to turn everything nearby into ash the moment its heart stopped.

The second my thoughts locked into place, I felt it—the tether. That thin strand connecting the eel to the elf's pendant snapped like a drawn bowstring.

And then it shifted.

Slipped back into the material world.

I followed.

The air down here was still heavy with fog and blood, but there he was—the elf, standing beside his chalky, mana-drained ritual. Grinning. Wild-eyed. Feral.

"Don't know who you are," he spat, "but sadly, you're too late."

Before I could move, the eel shrieked—loud enough to shake the stone. And then it launched, crashing upward through the ceiling like a spear through silk. It tore through the sewer's reinforced stone, leaving a massive rupture in its wake as it surged toward the surface—toward the fight.

The bastard wanted a show.

One final distraction before the end.

I locked eyes with the elf, memorizing every deranged crevice of his face. Later, that smile would make a fine hood ornament.

But now?

Now I became ballistics.

Wings snapped wide as I rocketed after the eel, its shadow already swallowing the fissure's edges. My claws sparked with half-formed spells, but truth detonated in my gut:

Let that thing die mid-brawl, and everyone around wouldn't just fall—they'd evaporate.

The district's last thought would be "Huh, so ash does taste like irony—"

Not. Happening.

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