The message waned away, and the grey world shattered. His blood still ran cold, but she was gone now. The trigger of the ‘Arcana’ didn’t end there though. The link poured a wave of vigor into his head which then sought the ends of his limbs. It filled his emptiness and alleviated the weakness from his withering heart. Thorin felt full for the first time in a long while. Even his perception of the Ghosts sharpened. He sensed their presence and their influence clearer than ever before.

  Archive.

  “I succeeded,” Thorin said after checking his panel. The reason for his change was the increase in his ‘Spirit’. He gripped his fists and released them. His arms had the strength. His core brimmed with verve. His current state could handle the Ghosts without losing himself. Not to mention he still had four more arcanas to go. Unless it was a one-time occurrence, each arcana should increase his ‘Spirit’ by some number.

  Quin and Clay gaped at him, dumbfounded.

  “What do you mean you succeeded?” Clay asked.

  “I just triggered my arcana,” Thorin said.

  “Just like that?” Quin asked. “You barely closed your eyes for a minute.”

  “Yeah,” Thorin said. “The tug was much stronger this time around. Mother also visited again, and my arcana got triggered. My first is Death Arcana it seems.”

  “Is it related to her?” Clay asked.

  “Probably,” Thorin said. The name of his first Arcana already bore an intimate connection with his ‘mother’, let alone the circumstances surrounding its initiation. His affinity with it had long spilled onto his normalcy, so much so that her frigid embrace had always warmed him up and comforted him. Even in that dark dungeon, her presence had soothed him.

  “I’m telling you, the interest she’ll ask for your heart one day will strip you naked.” Clay chuckled.

  “I’ll remember to wear my cool underwear when it happens,” Thorin said and laughed.

  “I hope she takes your underwear too.” Quin cursed with his nose wrinkled.

  “Hurry up and meditate,” Thorin said. Before he could continue, however, his perception caught the stir of the Ghosts outside the shack. Someone was here, and they all exuded an intent to kill. He shushed the two and pointed at his chained blades. They nodded with a sharp glint in their eyes. Clay took the window; Quin manned the door; and Thorin unfurled his chains in the center.

  “Explain how you did it. Don’t just tell us to meditate.” Clay resumed the conversation while marking the countdown of three.

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  “I’m already doing that, nothing’s happening,” Quin said, positioning his axe.

  “It’s a matter of talent then,” Thorin said. The presence outside had inched closer and separated into three. One guarded the door; the second aimed his blade at the window; and the third remained at a distance. “You guys just suck at this.” He finished his sentence, and Clay’s countdown hit zero.

  Quin yanked the door open, and Thorin hurled his chained blade at the gap. The man outside flinched back a step and guarded with his vambrace. But Thorin flicked the chain, and it slithered away. The blade now looked for the man’s throat. Yet, it still missed as he twisted his waist to an eerie extent and dodged his death. Quin caught the gap in his attention and hewed his axe on him. Alas, the shack stood against him. The axe shattered the door frame, and its blade could only lacerate the man’s forearm.

  “I missed his throat,” Clay said, backing away from the cracked window with his blade drenched in red.

  “That man was up there with us on the mountain,” Thorin said, sending his chained blades flying at the man before he could gather his bearings. He whisked the chains, and the blades danced on his command. “They probably want…our task’s diary so they can…get its reward too.”

  Quin’s eyes sparkled, and he joined the clash with his axe. “Doesn’t that mean we can get their reward if we kill them?” Where Thorin’s blades failed to slice the evasive man, his axe broke his flesh. When his axe missed the man, Thorin’s chained blades drew his blood.

  While Clay guarded the window.

  “It does mean that,” Thorin said, but the situation pained him. “My shack is destroyed though.”

  “Fuck the shack. We were going to leave anyway,” Clay said.

  The clusters of Ghosts had incited a frenzied storm outside. The blood and the possibility of death had excited them. Nonetheless, their existence still relayed information to Thorin. Soon, when the man with the vambrace landed a punch on Quin’s guts amidst the torrent of chained blades, the injured man by the window slipped away. Not only him, but the other presence at a distance also backed off.

  “Clay, he’s running,” Thorin said, and Clay dashed after him through the window. Though he too splintered the frame in doing so.

  “My house…” Thorin lamented, then piled all that anger on his target. “Don’t chase him too far!” he hollered before Clay vanished into the shadows.

  Quin’s axe took another swing at the man’s shoulder and gouged a chunk, while the dance of Thorin’s blades continued to lacerate him. When he tried to back off, Quin blocked him. When he tried to fight back, Thorin thwarted his counter. His blood stained the grass red before long.

  “Quin, keep him occupied,” Thorin said and ran for the kitchen. Without his chained blades, the man only had Quin’s axe to worry about. But his condition had already failed him. He wobbled on his feet, and his punches barely held any weight. The gleam in his eyes still held life though. To prevent his suicidal attack, Quin chipped away at him.

  Thorin found the boxes he was looking for in the kitchen and dashed outside. Before the man could dodge, he flung and showered him with salt and chili powder. And the man who hadn’t even groaned from the wounds finally screamed. He collapsed with his wail.

  “Salt and chili both?” Quin gaped at him then sneezed twice.

  “They should work the same as that white powder back then,” Thorin said and sneezed as well.

  Clay returned, shaking his head, and looked down at the flailing man. “They used the woods and slipped away,” he said.

  “It’s alright, we can get some information from him,” Thorin said. Quin and Clay held the man down, and Thorin rubbed more salt and chili on his large wounds.

  “Stop please,” the man whimpered, shivering. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  Yet, Thorin sliced him and poured even more on his new wounds to drag him to the fringes of death. Once he lost his chance to live, his desires and expectations from life would end. Protecting his task’s information would hold no value for him anymore. The possibilities of his lies would then hinge only on his want for revenge. A chance that Thorin was willing to take, for the information wasn’t vital to them.

  The man screeched and thrashed around. “Please!” He begged. Finally, when his howls dimmed into dying groans, Thorin asked, “How many were you?”

  “T-Three,” the man said.

  “Why did you attack us?” he asked.

  “T-To get…your task,” the man said.

  “What was the task you received?” Thorin asked.

  “P-Please, kill me.” The man pleaded.

  “Don't worry, I will make it painless once you answer my question,” Thorin said. “What was your task?”

  “To f-find information on the Life Arcana,” the man said, his breath teetering at the edge of his end.

  “How will you submit that information?” Thorin asked.

  “M-mountain…incense…,” the man barely mumbled. It was the same as their task.

  “He won't last long,” Clay said.

  “Do you have any treasures hidden away?” Quin asked. But the man only groaned now.

  “Let’s finish him,” Thorin said, and Quin clicked his tongue. “Death washes away the hatred. It concludes all conflicts. Even though you tried to kill us, I still hope you rest in peace.” He joined his hands and prayed for him then plunged his blade into the man’s temple, ending his life in a swift strike.

  “I chased the other two until they went out of the town, couldn’t catch up,” Clay said.

  “It’s fine, we already have their task,” Thorin said. “If they intend to complete it, we’ll eventually cross paths again.”

  “That is if this bitch was telling the truth,” Quin said.

  “We don’t lose much either way,” Thorin said. “Our priority is still our own task. If we have some capacity left, we can try doing this one too.”

  “Should we do the same as them?” Quin asked. “We can kill them and get more tasks. We’ll get all the rewards this way.”

  “No,” Thorin said.

  Clay hummed and agreed. “There’s a reason why that Magus distributed the tasks like he did,” he said. “Maybe he can tolerate some killing among us, but if someone kills all the groups and takes all the task, that’s deliberately creating problems. The chances of completing those tasks will decline sharply. He won't be happy with that.”

  Quin frowned. “So should we not retaliate if any of those groups come after us?”

  “It would be the best-case scenario if we can do that,” Thorin said. “But unless our strength pulls a huge gap from them, we can't afford that scenario. So, we kill whoever comes after us, but we won't look for them actively.”

  Clay patted the corpse down while they chatted and emptied his pockets and pouches. Apart from the man’s bloodied vambrace and a knife, he only found two small icy stone shards—they were mana shards.

  “Also, if these tasks are as important to that Magus as I think they are, we probably aren’t the only ones he issued them to,” Thorin said. “We might clash with someone even for our own task, we should be prepared.”

  “We’ll handle it all,” Quin said. “Let them come.”

  “Let’s bury the guy and move now. It’s getting late,” Clay said.

  “Yeah,” Thorin said and looked at the Ashfall Mountain. “This is not an optimal place to hunt for Ghosts anymore. Let’s head out. You two can trigger your arcanas on the way.”