They’d dragged Torian a mile through the rain, putting as much distance between themselves and the Archive as possible, before collapsing in a shallow depression in a canyon wall.
Now, the adrenaline was gone. The cold was setting in.
Kellen ran his thumb along the flat of his dagger for the fourth time polishing a smudge that had stopped existing two passes ago. The blade caught firelight and threw it back at him like it was mocking his need to do something. Anything. With his hands.
Clean. Sharp. Perfect.
He sheathed it. Pulled it out again.
Still clean. Still sharp. Still useless against the memory of Torian's hammer coming at his skull.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Not the obvious kind of shaking that people noticed and asked about. Just a fine tremor that started in his wrists and worked its way up to his shoulders making his joints feel loose and unreliable. Like someone had replaced his tendons with guitar strings wound too tight. The physical echo of adrenaline with nowhere to go. His body was still keyed up. Waiting for the next threat even though the fight was over.
A notification blinked at the corner of his vision. He pulled it up.
[ANCHOR STABILIZED]
Second Anchor Restored: +2500 XP
Corrupted Anchor Restoration Bonus: +500 XP
TOTAL: +3000 XP
The numbers scrolled past. Clinical and detached. Kellen stared at the total. 3000 XP for nearly dying. For watching Torian get puppeted like a meat marionette. For stabilizing reality itself while it tried to eat him.
Generous, he thought bitterly.
A second notification bloomed.
[LEVEL UP]
Level 5 → 6
HP: 62/120 → 72/130
Free Attribute Points: +5
He dismissed it without reading the stat allocation options. The numbers felt hollow. Like someone was trying to put a price tag on trauma. What was he supposed to do? Pump points into Willpower so the next time someone tried to crush his skull he'd survive it better?
The overhang wasn't much. Just a shallow depression in the canyon wall where some ancient geological hiccup had shoved the rock out far enough to keep the worst of the rain off their heads. It was shelter, but it made Kellen grateful and miserable in equal measure which pretty much summed up his entire week. Water ran down the stone face in sheets pooling in the uneven floor before draining off into the dark.
"Sit," Nora said.
She sat on a flat rock opposite the fire, legs crossed with geometric precision. Her robe was pristine. Somehow still rejecting the mud that coated Kellen and Torian like a second skin. She held a brass compass in one hand the needle spinning lazily inside its glass dome. The one Oryn gave her.
"I'm fine," Kellen snapped.
"You're vibrating," she said without looking up. "And blocking the light."
Kellen stopped. He looked at Torian.
The Paladin slumped against the stone wall like a discarded marionette. Strings cut. His gauntleted fingers rested on his knees perfectly still. But Kellen could see the tremor running through the plate metal every time he breathed.
Too still.
Torian stared at the fire but Kellen knew he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing the Anchor room. The red light. The strings wrapped around his spine forcing his arms to move. His legs to walk. Forcing him to swing.
"Torian?"
No response.
"Big guy?"
Nothing. Not even a blink. His chest rose and fell. Slow mechanical breaths that had nothing to do with calm.
Fear spiked in Kellen's chest. Cold and sharp. Holy hell this was bad. He looked at Nora. "Fix him."
"Diagnosing," she said clipped. She snapped the compass shut, the needle had been spinning uselessly confused by the mana-scarred air and tucked it away. She moved toward the Paladin, her careful measured steps telegraphing every inch.
"Torian is it? I need to check your eyes."
She reached out her hand glowing with a soft diagnostic light. Pale green like spring leaves.
As soon as the light touched the air near his face Torian scrambled back against the rock wall. Boots scraping stone. Hands flashing up to cover his head. A sound tore out of his throat—half-gasp half-sob—raw and animal.
"Get out!" Torian roared. "Get out of my head!"
Kellen moved. "Torian! It's fine! It's just..."
Nora didn't flinch. She froze mid-reach holding her hand perfectly still. The light dimmed to a warm glow barely brighter than the campfire.
"I am not the Equine-kin," Nora said softly. "My name is Nora. I'm with Kellen." She kept her hand steady the green light pulsing slow as a heartbeat. "I'm here to help."
Torian shook. Plate armor rattling against the stone like wind chimes in a storm. He lowered his hands slowly. One inch then another. Trying to force his eyes to focus. Trying to map their faces onto a reality that had shattered an hour ago.
"He made me..." Torian's voice cracked. Split right down the middle like kindling. "I tried to stop. Screamed inside my own skull. Still swung."
"You missed," Kellen said. His jaw throbbed where Malik had backhanded him but he forced a grin anyway. "Seriously. Worst assassination attempt I'd ever seen. You telegraphed harder than a semaphore operator having a seizure."
It was a stupid joke. The kind you made when the alternative was screaming.
Torian's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile but close enough that Kellen counted it as a win.
"Heart rate one-forty," Nora murmured watching the diagnostic glow pulse like a strobe light in time with Torian's ragged breathing. "Elevated cortisol. Sympathetic nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight."
She reached out again. Slow. Slower than melting ice in winter. When her hand finally made contact with Torian's pauldron, metal on metal the sound quiet as a bell in the snow, something in the Paladin's breathing changed.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Breathe. The connection is severed. There are no strings left to pull."
She channeled [Calm Spirit]. Not control. Regulation. A spell designed to stabilize not subdue.
Green light spread from her palm seeping into the gaps between armor plates. Torian slumped like someone had cut his anchor line. The tension didn't leave, it was too deep for that, but the panic receded enough for him to breathe without choking.
He looked like someone had scooped out everything that made him Torian and left the armor standing out of habit.
"He's gone," Torian said to the fire. Not to them. "Gone... with the Word of Warrick."
His voice was flat. Dead.
"Up to no good no doubt," Kellen replied.
Torian stared at his gauntleted hands. The hands that had swung the hammer at Kellen's skull. "I prayed Kellen. When I felt him... inside... I called on the Light with everything I had. Every oath I ever swore. Every vow."
He clenched his fists. The leather of his gauntlets creaked.
"And it didn't matter. He just... took me. My faith didn't stop him. Didn't even slow him down."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
"You prayed for intervention?" Nora asked. There was no judgment in her voice. Just curiosity.
Torian looked up eyes wet and red-rimmed. "Yes."
"I broke the hold he had on you," Nora said. She tilted her head considering. "Kellen fixed the anchor. The corruption was purged. You're alive. We're all alive."
She stepped closer. Her voice lost its metallic edge.
"Maybe your prayers were answered. Just not the way you expected."
Torian looked at her. Then at Kellen.
Kellen shrugged sheathing his dagger with a click. "She's got a point. Hell of a timing right? You pray she shows up shoots a magic arrow that breaks mind control. Sounds pretty divine to me."
Torian let out a breath he'd been holding since the cave. His shoulders dropped half an inch. The first real movement that wasn't panic or tremor.
"Right," Torian whispered. His voice was still rough but steadier. "The Light... sends the smith. Not always the sword."
He looked at Nora with something that might have been gratitude.
She adjusted her cuffs. Precise. Professional.
Kellen stopped cleaning. He turned to her, firelight casting shadows across his face, it made him look older. "Speaking of being sent. Back there... at the anchor... you said Oryn sent you."
Nora adjusted her cuffs. A nervous habit she probably didn't know she had. "I did."
"To monitor. And to 'retrieve the Codex if I failed.'"
Torian looked up sudden attention sharpening his gaze.
"Those were the orders," Nora admitted. She didn't look ashamed. She looked like she was reading a grocery list.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and cold.
Kellen looked at her. He remembered the ceremony. Nora standing at the front of the line. Perfect posture. The devastation when the book stayed silent.
"You weren't just the retrieval team," Kellen realized. "You were the correction."
Nora didn't answer. She didn't have to.
"You could have waited," Kellen said. The realization hit him harder than the cold. "In the Archive. You could have let Malik finish me. The Codex would be free to choose another bearer... And Oryn assumed that bearer would be you."
It was what the Academy would have wanted. What she had earned.
"Yes," she said.
She didn't offer an excuse. Didn't wrap it in noble rhetoric. Just the truth.
Kellen looked at Torian, breathing steadily against the wall, then back to Nora. She had chosen to save him and a broken paladin instead of claiming the destiny she’d spent her entire life bleeding for.
"Wait... this doesn't add up. If Oryn sent you to monitor me, then I suspect you weren't supposed to intervene."
She sighed, "I couldn't just let you die." She looked at Kellen. "I have faith in the Codex and it has faith in you."
"So... by the transitive property, you have faith in me?" He smiled.
"I didn't say that."
"Well that's what I heard, you have faith in me... It's like your a groupie. Or a fangirl."
"I will shoot you in the face." She promised.
"Well, save your energy, we'll need it tomorrow, when we hunt down Malik."
"No," Nora said.
Kellen bristled. "Excuse me?"
"Look at the sky."
She pointed past the overhang. Out into the rain-soaked valley beyond.
"This could have all been fractured... but we stopped it." She gestured at the sky. "And sure, the corruption from that artifact, probably has caused distortions in reality, but the anchor is stable."
"Can you arrive at a point?" Kellen asked with frustration.
"If we hadn't been here that anchor would have fallen and if we don't continue, the next will fall... and that sky will splinter... our mission is greater than a single grudge."
Kellen considers her words. He looks at Torian, breathing steadily against the wall, then back to Nora.
"Fine," Kellen said. He sat down hard on a rock exhaustion crashing into him all at once. "We move on. Save the world first, punch the traitor later."
"Strategic," Nora said. She pulled a ration from her pack, some kind of dried fruit bar that smelled faintly of cinnamon. She broke it in half and offered a piece to Torian.
He took it. Didn't eat it. Just held it.
[LEVEL UP]
Level 5 → 6
HP: 62/120 → 72/130
Free Attribute Points: +5
The notification popped up, again... compelling him to do something with the points. Kellen dismissed the window.
"You're ignoring it," Nora said.
"I'll get to it," Kellen said. "Later."
"Not just the attribute points," Nora said. "The Codex. You're ignoring the Codex. The skill points."
Kellen looked up. "What?"
"Have you never had a Paragon?" she asked.
"Holy hell," Kellen said. "First Oryn grills me on this, now you."
She gestured at the Codex sitting in his pack. "I've been watching you, Kellen. The Codex is a Paragon... it can teach you skills."
"I know that!" Kellen snapped. "I just haven't had time to mess with it!"
She moved from her rock, kneeling beside him. The movement was fluid, precise, but there was a stiffness to it, the hesitation of someone crossing a line they weren't sure they should cross.
"Open the book," she said.
Kellen pulled the Codex from his pack. The leather was warm, the strange, shifting grain humming against his palms. He opened it to the current page, a dense wall of ciphered text that looked like geometry having a panic attack.
Her hand brushed his as she turned the page.
It was a small contact, fingers grazing knuckles, but Kellen felt a jolt that had nothing to do with magic. Nora froze. For a second, neither of them moved. The fire popped, a loud crack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet canyon.
Nora pulled her hand back, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her expression tightened, retreating behind the professional mask.
"Page 412," she said, her voice a little too clipped. "There's a skill tree..."
"What skill tree?" Kellen asked.
Kellen looked down. The text on the page shimmered, rewriting itself before his eyes. The headache-inducing geometry resolved into clean, blue diagrams.
[SKILL TREE UNLOCKED]
"Oh, that skill tree."
I'm an idiot Kellen thought. I've had this thing for weeks and I haven't even looked at it.
"A Paragon can take the form of an artifact or a person, but it will consistently provide a skill tree to those under it's influence." She clarified.
Kellen looked at the book. At the knowledge now sitting in his lap.
He focused on the page. The text blurred into a list of options, each one pulsing with faint light.
[AVAILABLE SKILLS]
Skill Points Remaining: 6
[Void Syphon (Passive)]
Recover 5% of max mana when a summon deals critical damage.
[Haste]
Increase the speed of a summoned Umbral by 15%
Cost: 10 MP
[Extended Bind (Passive)]
Increases summon duration by 30%.
[Mana Leech (Passive)]
Drains 10% of the damage dealt by your summons as mana.
Kellen frowned. Mana Leech was tempting, running out of juice in the middle of a fight was his biggest weakness. But Haste looked pretty cool too. It could be fun to see his Stone Toad hop around like a jackrabbit.
"Mana," Nora said, as if she could read his mind. "You burn through reserves too fast. It makes you reckless."
"I prefer the term creative," Kellen argued, "I have plenty of points for both."
"You should put the rest into Void Siphon," Nora said. "At least until your mana situation stabilizes."
"Fine." He selected [Mana Leech].
A rush of cold energy washed over him, not the jarring snap of a level up, but a smooth, cool flow like water filling a dry creek bed. His headache receded. The constant, low-level buzz of exhaustion behind his eyes faded to a manageable hum.
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Mana Leech]
He put the first point into [Void Syphon]
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Void Syphon]
Then he dumped the remaining points into [Void Syphon].
[SKILL UPGRADED: Void Syphon]
Recover 8% of max mana when a summon deals critical damage.
...then the max mana recovery was 11%, then 14%, then 17%.
If he was going to be fighting things that wanted to eat his soul, he might as well get some mana back when his spiders bit them.
Kellen closed the book. The energy settled into his bones, heavy and reassuring.
"Thanks," he said.
Nora stood, dusting ash from her robes.
"We should get some sleep," Nora said. "We head out at first light. The third anchor is two days north through Thornwood Pass."
Kellen exhaled. He pulled his bedroll from his pack checking his remaining supplies by firelight. Three days of rations. One water flask. No healing potions. The Codex. Battered but whole.
His fingers brushed against something else, the [Anchor Shard (Corrupted)] he'd pocketed during the fight. The fragment pulsed with a dull sickly light. Warm to the touch even through the leather wrapping.
He should throw it away. Should've left it in the cave.
Instead he tucked it deeper into his pack.
Two days. We've got two days to get to the next anchor.
He didn't sleep well.
None of them did.
★ Lewd rude and Crude Comedy Isekai incoming ★
How A Slacker Replaced
The Demon Lord
Isekai Comedy Character-Focused Action Australian
Zachery MacDonald is a 23-year-old Australian slacker... Sure he's got a job, hobbies, friends but zero ambition. His days are anime, doom-scrolling, video games, repeat.
Luckily our story follows him after he dies. He wakes up in the lap of a beautiful succubus, in a brand new body that just happens to be the second most powerful thing alive. Unfortunately for everyone, that makes him the new Demon Lord.
A character driven adventure in an absurd world with plenty of art, lewd humour, crude plots and rude people.