“Get up, you lazy bum.” Alice kicked Keynes.

  Keynes felt a faint spiritual jolt. Or should I say magical? He was no longer sure about it. Anyway, it was time to move. The Blood Hunger had retreated but it was just a matter of time before it came back. Keynes didn’t think the quest would let them rest indefinitely.

  He got up. Kora was meditating while a mana glyph was sitting between them. Keynes’s father had created some roughly working glyphs. Unfortunately, his specialisation fell in line with his Talent so creating a glyph wasn’t something he was very proficient at.

  “Ready?” Kora asked as she cracked an eye open.

  Keynes shrugged. His mana was very low, barely over a hundred points so he’d have to be careful using [Chaos Aura]. Though they still had an option for Kora to use her Talent on Keynes, boosting his skills.

  The door waited for them. On the other side was a spacious hall, exquisitely decorated but even though the place looked noble, it’d clearly been abandoned.

  “It looks safe,” Alice said.

  Keynes’s spiritual sense told him the same. They decided to proceed inside, it was this or abandoning the quest. As they stepped inside, the chandeliers and candle-shaped lamps came to life, their light warm, giving the place a homely feel.

  The hall ran for fifty metres, straight ahead. Without measuring the castle from outside they knew the space inside was magically expanded. At the end of the hall was a massive wooden door. It appeared normal. Alice and Kora agreed. They simultaneously pushed the door open. What they found in the next room surprised them.

  The great hall with a fireplace with fire crackling merrily. In the middle of the room stood a long table made out of a thick piece of wood, its edges irregular.

  In both corners, on each side of the fireplace, were two massive armchairs.

  The item on the table was what drew their attention. It was a large, golden chalice. Inside it was blood, it was boiling. The Blood Hunger aura radiated from it. For some reason, it appeared to be muted.

  “I hope we don’t need to drink this shit,” Keynes said.

  The door behind them slammed shut and a haunted laugh came out of somewhere. The great hall didn’t have other doors or windows. Walls were covered by paintings or sculptures. All of them unknown to Keynes.

  A red haze started to seep out of the chalice, cascading down the table and then onto the floor. They had a bad feeling about this.

  “The haze is dangerous,” Alice said. Even she distanced herself from it.

  Keynes used his spiritual aura to push the haze away from them. The haze slowed then stopped but at a cost. It was mentally taxing to keep the haze from progressing.

  “Okay, what should I do now?” Kora asked. Keynes didn’t reply because his entire focus was on keeping the haze from overflowing. Kora swept a look around the place, looking for a clue. But nothing stood out from the rest.

  “Help me,” Keynes muttered. “Use your spiritual aura and push the haze toward the chalice.”

  Kora nodded and soon her spiritual aura joined his. Their united paid dividends as the haze started to retreat back into the chalice. But they were far from finished. Each passing second drained more and more energy from them.

  “We must finish this.” They heard Alice say, but her voice was distant. Once again, Keynes realised the Blood Hunger aura was thrumming in his ears. His grasp on reality loosened and he started to question his attempt at stopping the haze.

  The haze was his friend. It sought to end his suffering, sought to heal him.

  Keynes… there was a voice in his head that kept repeating his name. Did he go mad? Perhaps. Perhaps fighting the haze was breaking his mind. He should stop it.

  Right?

  Keynes… another litany went through his mind.

  Time slowed, moving lazily. Yes. He needed to stop fighting the haze. He was needlessly hurting himself.

  He reached toward the haze…

  “Ouch!” a powerful spiritual shock woke him up. His mind snapped to a sudden clarity. Alice floated in front of his face, her fist clenched. She just punched him! “It hurt.”

  “Good,” she huffed. “You almost reached for the chalice.”

  Keynes frowned because he stood a few metres from the table. The haze still remained around it too. So what was she talking about?

  Ah. I get it.

  He must have used [Telekinesis].

  “Keynes, I can’t keep it from advancing,” Kora muttered next to him. Her face was covered by sweat, she looked exhausted.

  “I know what to do,” he said, then used [Telekinesis] on the chalice. There was some resistance so he asked Kora for help. “Buff me with your Talent. Now.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Kora turned to him but she didn’t question his request. Her Talent activated and his [Telekinesis] received a boost that gave Keynes a second wind. The chalice levitated above the table. Fire in the fireplace roared.

  You hungry? Good, I got something for you.

  He moved the chalice without spilling its content toward the fireplace. Gurgling sounds from the chalice got louder, which increased the amount of haze spilt over. Without no one suppressing it, the haze was free to spread. For every centimetre the chalice moved toward the fireplace, the haze moved two centimetres toward Keynes and Kora.

  They would not move the chalice in time. They knew it, and felt the corrupted power inch closer with each second. But they’d not let it touch them.

  At the same time, both of them used [Flight], going up two metres as the haze bathed the entire floor of the great hall. It only reached ten or twenty centimetres high.

  The chalice started to rock, trying to spill the content on the floor. This wasn’t something Keynes and Kora wanted. The resistance of the cursed item grew, trying to wrestle control from Keynes’s hand and it maybe it would if not for Kora’s Talent. In the end, it made a difference and allowed Keynes to transport the chalice into the hungry mouth of the fireplace.

  The second flames touched the item, Keynes lost his control over it. It didn’t matter. The chalice was inside the fireplace. It was melting before their eyes. The haze was sucked from the room into the fireplace, leaving the floor safe to land.

  Both of them dropped, breathing heavily.

  A high-pitched scream came from the fireplace and suddenly the Blood Hunger aura vanished. The roaring flames calmed down, returning to their initial state.

  Keynes and Kora exchanged a glance. Was that it? Well, it was not easy. That for sure. He didn’t see anyone else, except for Persephone, to get out of this alive.

  For all their effort, it looked like they were not out of the woods yet. On their left a small door appeared in the wall. They sensed a presence behind it. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem powerful but Keynes had a sense that the presence was heavily muted.

  “Just let’s kill the monster behind the door and get back home. I need a shower and a soft bed,” Keynes said.

  “Stop whining,” Kora said. “I can’t believe you’re such a crybaby.”

  Keynes scoffed at her rude remark. He walked to the door and swung it open, giving Kora a stink eye.

  The next room was smaller than the great hall and looked much more like a study or an office. It had a desk with two chairs, a heavy bookshelf on the leftmost wall, filled with thick tomes. On the rightmost wall was a fireplace but it was currently cold. One of the chairs was occupied by a noble man. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt. His long lustre black hair reached his waist. His pose was rigid, his back straight like an arrow. His attention was on the letter in front of him.

  There was no reaction from the man at the desk until Kora joined Keynes inside.

  They blinked in surprise at the notification. There was also one that confirmed the clearance of the rift. Then the man spoke up.

  “Congratulations, ascenders, you have cleared the Blood Hunger that corrupted my castle. You’ve completed your quest. I’ll reward you now.”

  “Wait,” Kora said. “What are you?”

  “Count Radon,” the man answered. “Here, take this.”

  Several items appeared on the table, red gems and two rift orbs among them.

  “How is this possible?” Kora asked, clearly meaning the presence of the count, who vanished without answering her.

  Keynes swept all items from the table into the spatial bag. He glanced at the bookshelf. What were these books? He walked to the bookshelf and pulled a book at random, then opened it.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered. The book contained diagrams, recipes and a lot of seemingly useful information. “These books are valuable.”

  Kora stepped next to him. Her aura told him that she was very confused right now. He understood why.

  “The count was the System’s entity. I met one such entity albeit a different one inside a Level 3 rift, in a hidden room called the Chamber of Secrets. These entities seemed to be far more aware of their own position than a standard NPC should. The one seemed like he was in a hurry.”

  Kora listened to Keynes while she grabbed a book of her own, her eyes licked the content. She frowned initially then her eyes started to widen, her expression becoming even more puzzled.

  “Keynes, I worked for Untainted Paradise for long enough to get a good grasp of what the rifts were. I’m beginning to seriously question all my assumptions.”

  “As you should,” Keynes said, putting the book into his spatial storage. “From what I know, rifts lay beyond even the System’s control.”

  “Do you think the Greater System created them?” Kora asked. She also put a book inside her spatial pouch. “Or could it be the Higher Realms?”

  “No idea.” Keynes shrugged. He had wondered about the rifts many times in the past but eventually realised that was not going to learn the truth about the rifts until he reached the Higher Levels or even the limits of the System. Lem Solaris knew a lot about them but not everything. During some of their conversations, she explained that she wasn’t allowed to share any extensive knowledge because of the System’s severe rules. Back then, Keynes had thought it was unfair because the universe Lem Solaris was from didn’t have the same restrictions. There the High Levels shared their knowledge freely with the new ascenders. However, over time, Keynes began appreciating the sense of unknown and danger that made him feel alive. “But I don’t think it really matters to us right now.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” she nodded.

  They took all the books then returned to the great hall where they found the reward chest. Inside it, they found three skill shards. But they had no Level 6 scrolls of identification. So for now, the shards would have to stay unidentified.

  There are various appraisal and identification skills, Alice said to Keynes telepathically.

  Great, I can’t wait until we found one, Keynes scoffed.

  Don’t be like this, she shot back. Or you’ll regret it!

  It’ll not happen again, I promise, he said with a smile.

  “What now?” Kora asked. “Do we return to the semi-soul space from here or from outside the rift?”

  “From here. We want to keep the access to this instance. I don’t want others to risk clearing it.”

  “I agree,” she said, then both returned to the semi-soul space.

  The difference in the air quality was instantly noticeable to Keynes. We are definitely going to get the air from that Level 6 rift here.

  “Guys,” Kora said to the group that argued over plans scattered on the table. “We may have something of interest!”