Xander scanned the chamber again. The ash-streaked floor. Candles that have been partially burned. The single cultist's body, slack and empty. And the rest weren't just corpses. They had been weapons. Now they were leftovers. All an elaborately staged trap built on ritual and suggestion. Not just to kill intruders but to bait curiosity.

He rotated the haft of his spear in one hand, turning slowly to face the sealed stairwell at the rear of the room. It was built into the stone like an afterthought, half-sunken and iron-barred. A green sigil shimmered faintly across the seam.

"Jo," he called.

She approached with the blade still unsheathed, not from paranoia but because she didn't feel like putting it away. The look in her eyes said she'd kill again without flinching if the stairwell so much as sneezed.

"Think this one goes deeper?"

Jo leaned in, listening at the door after giving it a shove. "Could be a vault. Could be a shaft that drops two hundred feet onto spikes. Or maybe a staging room. But it's locked. Feels dead bolted from the other side."

"I didn't get a dungeon notification. Did you?"

"Nope."

Xander raised an eyebrow.

Jo met his gaze. "Maybe you've got to do the other dungeon first? or there is some other requirement?"

He nodded. "Fair."

A faint hum rippled from beyond the metal, barely audible. Not a creature's noise but mechanical. Like tuning forks striking each other miles apart, their song bled through stone. Kane heard it too, turning his head toward the sound with a frown.

"Alright," Xander said. "We're not here to theorize. We're here to live long enough to report."

Darvos stepped up beside him, wiping green sludge off his blade with a torn strip of cloth. "So you going to mark it sealed?"

Xander gave the door one last glance. "No. We mark it unfinished."

Trace the Vanishing Dead Quest Update! You've discovered part of the missing population and that they were part of a trap. But is that all they were used for? Find out what the cult's ultimate plan is. Difficulty: Easy Completion Object: Discover what is taking the remains and where. Rewards: Peace of mind, isn't that enough?

The Simulation's message flickered in the corner of his vision.

Behind him, Ford ran a slow pass through the circle again, murmuring quiet blessings as he went. The holy light was faint now, just a ripple in the dust. Kane leaned on his shield as if it had taken a personal hit, watching the corpses for one last twitch.

Zoey stood nearest the doorway, arrow still half-nocked but pointed downward. "So… the good news is we only die if we're stupid, not unlucky."

Xander didn't smile, but something behind his eyes agreed with her. "I'll take those odds."

"Yeah. Not comforting." She replied.

"We planned to head all the way into Starlight," Darvos said, eyes still on the citadel. "But after this, I'd rather report back to Fort Octave as quickly as possible."

Xander turned. "Nope. I'd rather you didn't."

Darvos's eyes narrowed.

"You're coming to Starlight with us," Xander said, keeping his tone matter-of-fact. "We need someone who's seen this firsthand to back the report. And we need to formalize alliance talks before this spreads."

"Not sure I have that authority."

"Don't need you to," Xander replied. "Just need the leaders at Starlight to hear what you've got to say. Then we can make the trek up to see Rex together."

Darvos considered. Then gave a slow sigh. "You're asking me to walk into politics with blood on my boots."

Hask approached from the edge of the chamber, his attention split between the sealed stairwell and the bodies. "We pulling back now?"

Xander nodded. "Sweep everything again on the way out. Slowly. We don't sprint until we hit daylight."

They moved in formation through the complex again, retreading every inch they'd cleared on the way in. It should've felt safer now. It didn't. Every corner looked like it might birth another puppet corpse.

At the end of a side hall they had investigated on the way in, they found the second sealed stairwell. Ritual circles or ash lines did not flank this one. Just plain metal, heavy and cold. Xander paused in front of it, hand brushing the stone beside the frame. No glyphs or markings. But the steel felt colder than it should.

"Another dormant dungeon?" Zoey asked.

"Or one that hasn't spawned yet," Ford added.

Xander didn't answer. Not because he didn't know, but because the distinction felt academic. Either it hadn't opened yet, or it had opened and closed before they got here.

Both answers meant trouble.

He scrawled a quick mark beside the door with chalk and then stepped away. "Let's move."

The last of the citadel fell behind them like a bad dream as they exited through the same empty street they'd entered hours earlier. Dusk stretched long across the buildings now, tinting shattered glass and weathered steel in hues of bruised gold.

Kane's boots thudded beside him. "Think this whole site's gonna go hot?"

"Not yet," Xander said. "But soon. All the flavor text said there should have been more undead outside. Maybe in another week?"

Kane didn't look reassured. "Cool. Love playing chicken with the apocalypse."

The train station loomed in the distance, squat and stubborn, partially intact. A good fallback point. When they reached it, Darvos motioned for his scouts to begin a field inventory. Kane and Ford did the same.

Xander turned to Jo. "Thoughts?"

She tilted her head, watching the skyline where the citadel's silhouette knifed the light. "This wasn't random," she said. "It was a staging ground, and if what Darvos says, they're planning something."

He looked at her for a moment. Not with surprise but grim acknowledgment.

"We need to move fast. I need to have a word with Victor before he stops breathing," she added.

"Yeah," Xander said. "We do."

Darvos returned, dust coating the front of his armor. "Station's usable. Might even be able to fortify it if we have to hold here again."

Xander nodded. "Then we get this intel south. Instead of breaking camp for the night, we keep moving. You ready to go all night?"

Darvos gave a slight grin. "It's a full moon, so we should be good in low light."

Xander looked over the two squads, some catching their breath, others still too wired to sit.

"Then let's move," he said. "Next stop, Starlight."

They retraced their route through the ruins of Champaign with weapons half-raised and eyes darting through the dark. Most of the undead had been cleared during the earlier sweep, but some movement still stirred in collapsed alleys and hollow buildings.

Twice they ran into scavenging rodentia, their fur patchy with infection or sporting fresh scars from some other battle. One pack scattered the moment Kane shouted. The other held their ground long enough to hiss, ears flat and blades drawn, before a warning shot from Hask sent them running with sharp, angry chatter.

Stolen novel; please report.

No one gave chase. The rodentia were pests, but they weren't stupid. Outnumbered and outgeared, they chose retreat over bloodshed. They'd fight if the odds shifted. Not before.

The rest of the city let them pass in uneasy quiet. Some windows still held broken curtains. A few rooftops groaned under the weight of dead solar panels. But no traps sprang. No hidden cultists waited in ambush. It would take time before the monsters returned in force. For now, the world event had left the place scraped clean.

Only when the last structure fell behind them did the tension ease.

They moved fast once the city fell behind them. Torchlight glinted off broken signs and rusted rebar, casting hard shadows against cracked concrete. No one spoke. Not out of fear but because the silence earned inside that outbuilding hadn't worn off yet. It clung to the group like smoke.

The train tracks ran south in a clean, deliberate line, iron gleaming in the moonlight. In the last week, workers repaired the worst damage caused by the undead army, and bolted plates and replaced ties showed signs of fresh labor. Starlight was making it clear that they planned to reclaim the region, one mile of rail at a time.

They walked two wide and staggered, Xander near the front beside Jo while Kane and Ford held the flanks. Darvos's patrol kept loose formation behind them, crossbows slung and eyes up. The moonlight was full enough that they didn't need the torches, but they kept a few lit anyway. Some monsters liked the dark. Others hated fire.

Around them, the land stretched open. Wide fields of stunted growth and blackened earth rolled out in every direction. The only sounds were the wind, the occasional creak of ruined fences, and a distant howl that could have been canine or worse. The old farmland that was left appeared less like countryside and more like a battlefield someone had tried to plow.

Zoey squinted into the dark. "Hell of a change in the last four months," she said.

Ford stepped up alongside her, his staff thumping lightly with each step. "This used to be good soil," he said. "Champaign grew corn out this way by the ton. Now it's all leached out. Dead for miles."

"We'll get it all back," Zoey said.

Ford didn't answer at first. Just kept walking, gaze fixed on the horizon. "Maybe. But not soon. The undead wave that came through here ruined everything. Not just people. The ecosystem fled, and it's going to be months before anything but predators return."

Xander didn't hear drama in his voice. Just facts, laid out like a diagnosis.

Jo adjusted her stride to match Xander's, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of her blade. "You think we're winning?" She asked, voice pitched low enough that it didn't carry.

Xander didn't answer immediately. The line between a win and a reprieve felt thin these days.

Jo gave him a sidelong look. "You used to believe in that stuff. Hope. Victory. Triumph. Now you talk like survival's the only stat that matters."

"I still do. I'm adjusting my metrics a little," Xander said.

"Which means?"

"It means I don't know if we're winning. But I know we're still standing and you're still beside me. And that's enough for today."

Jo smiled, but didn't push further. She just nodded once and let it hang there between them.

They passed through what had once been the village of Tolono. Street signs leaned at wrong angles. Houses sat half-collapsed on mold-choked foundations. Someone had set up a makeshift barricade around the town hall at some point, weathered boards and welded scrap still clinging to window frames like a memory of resistance.

Xander slowed as they crossed the center intersection, boots scraping over old gravel.

Four months ago, he and Zoey had pulled survivors out of a police station not two blocks west, forced to fight through a dozen spawned horrors just to crack the doors open. They had fortified that building, and it was full of desperate civilians who held their breath behind bulletproof glass until help arrived.

Zoey glanced sideways at the barricade and gave a small shake of her head.

They cut through a crumbling side street where moss had overtaken the gutters. Somewhere just east, a massive brute of a troll ambushed them, tearing through a building as it rampaged toward the refugees. It had taken the three of them to drop it. Even then, only barely.

Now the village was dust. The threat gone. But the shape of that danger still hung in the air, like heat long after a fire.

The group pressed on, cutting through the husks of the village and back onto the tracks. The open land stretched ahead like a bruise that wouldn't heal.

It was past midnight when the pace finally slowed. Not by much, just enough that people started checking over their shoulders less and watching the terrain more.

Xander let the rhythm carry him for a few more minutes before falling a step behind the line. Just enough space to think without the others reading his expression.

The Cult. The staged corpses. The sabotage. All the pieces in a pattern and in the center of it was Victor.

Victor, who had worn a mask of compassion and leadership while civilians bled under his oversight. Victor, who had escaped Saint Joseph when his plans were foiled. Victor, who had caused the death of Alex and tortured Jo.

Every thread pointed back to him.

Jo had asked him earlier if he still believed in justice, in hope, in anything more than just making it through the day. He had deflected the answer. Not because he didn't believe, but because belief didn't matter without action. He still believed. In people. In the idea that they'd band together for the greater good when given the chance.

But there wasn't a path forward for any of that. Not until Victor and the Cult were ground to dust.

So he'd clear the way. However, he had to. If belief needed space to survive, he'd make that space.

No Sanctuary for the Wicked Quest Notification! The Cult has taken root. It festers in shadow, poisoning hope and defiling the emerging world. You are not sent to reason, redeem, or negotiate. You are the blade drawn across the throat of corruption. Hunt them. Burn their shrines. Shatter their strongholds. Leave no altar standing, no disciple breathing, no stone unbroken where their filth has taken hold. This is not justice. This is reckoning. The unworthy shall not endure. Difficulty: Mythic Completion Object: The Cult must no longer possess viable influence within the region, and Victor must be destroyed. Rewards: Experience, Gold, Seal of the Crusader or One (1) Magic Item. Rewards variable dependent on the size and disposition of the cult engagement.

WARNING: As a Crusader who has expressed conviction, this quest is automatically accepted.

WARNING: This mandate is not for public knowledge. Share it only with those whose loyalty is absolute. Heresy spreads faster when it knows it's hunted.

The prompt settled in his vision like a brand, sharp-edged and absolute.

No Sanctuary for the Wicked.

He didn't flinch. He'd already made the decision. The Simulation was just confirming what he already knew. Victor and the Cult were a cancer, and the only cure left was fire.

Still, the difficulty level gave him pause.

That wasn't just hyperbole. Mythic-level threats didn't show up for flavor text. If the Simulation had flagged this as a top-tier crusade, then the Cult had spread farther than he'd suspected. Wide enough to destabilize the region. Wide enough that Victor might not be at the top of the pile after all.

Which meant the real enemy might still wait, buried beneath the rot.

He filed that thought away and scanned the rest of the message. The magic items, gold, and experience rewards were all standard and all vague, like most quests. It was the last reward that caught his eye.

Seal of the Crusader.

He didn't know what that was. He'd never seen it in any other Crusader notification, not that there had been many. And the player wiki, Data Forge, was useless when it came to his class.

For a moment he thought he could ask Thalindra.

The idea settled uncomfortably in his gut. The valdren had a deep memory and a long view of the Simulation's past from before the original crash. But asking her would mean tipping his hand that he had a Crusader class and that the Simulation was feeding him sealed mandates.

Which brought him back to the last line in the prompt.

Share it only with those whose loyalty is absolute. Heresy spreads faster when it knows it's hunted.

He'd never seen a warning like that before. Not on a quest. Not even the first time he'd been handed a Crusader directive. Was that part of the class? Or did this one come wrapped in a different kind of danger? One already watching from inside the walls of Starlight.

Either way, the message was simple. He was an instrument of destruction, and it was time to bring ruin to the unworthy.

When he looked up, Cabbot was watching him from a shattered post up ahead. Her eyes caught the moonlight at the wrong angle, and for a moment, Xander could swear twin points of blue flame glowed within them. Almost like she'd seen the quest notification too.

She didn't make a sound at first. Just stared, still as stone. Then, low in her chest, came a growl like simmering coals, quiet and full of promise. Xander didn't know what she'd seen, or how much she understood. But for a creature named Cabbot the Destroyer, she looked ready to burn something down.

Cabbot turned away without a word, stalking ahead along the rail line a moment before disappearing into a puff of ethereal mist.

Thankfully, no one asked Xander questions about Cabbot's behavior. Spectral cat is going to cat.

The walk stretched on beneath a pale sky. Moonlight continued to flicker off the rails through the rest of the night, the iron still warm from the day. The air smelled of scorched dirt and something older beneath it, like rust and sorrow that had soaked into the land itself.

They marched in silence, boots thudding in rhythm, until Zoey finally broke it.

"Tell me I'm not the only one looking forward to a shower."

Jo gave a grunt that might have been agreement and shot Xander a look. Not quite a glare, more a reminder. You exploded a zombie on us, remember?

Kane snorted. Ford, mercifully, didn't start another sermon.

"You're not," Xander said. "But you're last in line."

Zoey smirked and adjusted her bow. "Just saying, if anyone here smells like zombie casserole, it's not because of me."

"Fair."

The quiet returned, but it wasn't oppressive. With Tolono's dread behind them, they passed collapsed silos and half-sunken farm machinery, metal monuments of a dead age. The farmland had been broken, but not claimed. Just the absence of everything else.

A low sound echoed from the south. Not howling. A train whistle, distant and sharp.

Kane looked up first. "You hear that?"

"Sounds like Starlight's back on schedule," Jo said.

The group picked up their pace. Fields fell away into drainage ditches, then open gravel plains. The path grew straighter, more maintained. Someone had recently cleared debris from around the tracks. Even the weeds had been trimmed back.

"Look at that," Zoey said, pointing to the work crews moving around in the pre-dawn hours. "I didn't think they would go full throttle with the heat off for once."

Ahead, faint and low, the outer lights of Starlight shimmered against the approaching morning haze. The wall rose behind it, partially repaired, with scaffolding still clinging to the north breach. The northwestern towers had new plates bolted to their sides, and steam vented in steady bursts from the station's refurbished stack, sharp against the gray morning.

"Home sweet slightly less monster filled home," Zoey said.

Darvos exhaled a laugh. "Never thought I'd be happy to see civilization again."

"Then you're welcome," Xander said. "We dragged it back with us."

As they drew closer, the outer watch noticed. A figure moved along the top of the main gate tower, pausing to wave once with both arms. It was JT.

Xander raised a hand in return.

Starlight stood, bruised but breathing, its engines turning and defenses rising. They had made it back. But the actual work hadn't even started yet.

Xander glanced at the others, then gave a quick nod. "Clean up and resupply. I'll brief JT and we'll regroup outside the admin building."

Then he kept walking.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.