Eventually, they excavated all the way to the bottom, reaching the ground floor of Castle Helmund.

And that's what they found. A floor. Nothing strange or bizarre in the slightest.

The rebels were beginning to question if this was going anywhere. Simon risked another Identify. His eardrums burst, blood gushing down the sides of his head, serving as the proof he needed to direct everyone to keep digging.

Cyna's face twisted with shock when she impatiently swung her greatsword at the floor – only for the oversized weapon to bounce. She swung again, not even making a dent in the unassuming stone tile.

Simon didn't need more proof after that.

First, they mapped out where the reinforced floor began and ended. Instead of beating their heads against a brick wall, the Hurricane dug around, pulling up the normal tile floor adjacent to it. They quickly discovered that the reinforced section formed a diagonal tunnel which descended far below Castle Helmund.

From then on, their pace slowed to a crawl. Any attempts at breaking into the tunnel from its side walls all failed. Every inch of it was impossibly durable.

Which honestly ended up being a silver lining. Uncovering the mystery behind Duke Helmund's hidden passageway helped distract the rebels from how few survivors they'd managed to save. It gave them a job, a purpose, letting them immerse themselves in work to stave off their grief.

Simon was in the same boat. He much preferred hard manual labor to replaying Helmund's last words or recounting how many innocent people he'd murdered today.

Hours passed. Progress went from slow to nonexistent. There was a limit to how far they could dig even into the non-reinforced sections, and the tunnel walls didn't appear to have any weak points. Simon felt convinced that they would've withstood a max-MP Landmine.

Thankfully, Victoria provided the breakthrough they needed. When it became apparent that they'd hit a roadblock, she left in a hurry, then returned later with a bundle of Artifacts fetched from her personal workshop.

"They said that developing these was a meaningless endeavor." She cackled to herself, affixing a glowing gem onto the tunnel's still-closed entrance. "They said that I was 'engaging in folly'. Cretins. This is why my name is synonymous with Artificers, and theirs will scarcely be a footnote in the annals of history."

With the enthusiasm of a bonafide mad scientist, the Lady Artificer set about running a series of experiments. She seemed more enamored with the concept of getting to test her inventions than whatever information they might actually learn in the process.

Nevertheless, it didn't take her long to ascertain the crux of their problem.

"This tunnel is fortified by hundreds of Artifacts attached to its inner walls," she concluded. "We would need a truly devastating show of force to pierce through – it is nearly impervious to harm."

Katarina raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard of Artifacts capable of that."

"Neither have I. And considering my wealth of expertise, that isn't a statement I often have to make."

Her eyes lit up. "Yet fear not, as I have determined a solution. The tunnel's top entrance is designed to open if its protective Artifacts are depleted of mana. Now, it will be difficult to drain that mana from outside the tunnel, but I have several devices which might–"

Simon walked past her, standing next to the passageway. He placed his Shapeshifted right arm on the entrance, touching five silver claws to the cold stone floor.

"Fell Harvest."

Mana flowed into him. The top section of the passageway casually slid off, revealing a dimly-lit staircase that went down farther than Simon could see.

"Oh." Victoria's mouth was open. "How did you know that would work?"

An image came to mind: Duke Helmund placing his own hands on the entrance and uttering, "Reap."

"Had a hunch." Simon motioned for her to step closer. "Look inside – tell me what you see."

There were indeed hundreds of Artifacts attached to the walls, but some of them were different Artifacts, devices of all shapes and sizes crammed beside each other. Simon, Katarina, and the Hurricane gathered around Victoria as she stared at the assorted collection in silence.

"I believe..." She gestured at a dark red crystal, of which there were many. "Those ones fortify the tunnel, strengthen its defenses. As for the rest, their functions vary, but most of them appear fashioned to obscure mana. They are likely intended to prevent anyone from detecting the existence of this passageway. In fact–"

She blinked. "That's Julian's handiwork."

"Who?" Marlene asked.

"Julian. Acquaintance of mine." Victoria pointed at an oblong Artifact with a 'J' carved into its shape. "He can't help but leave his moniker on whatever he creates. Odd fellow. Haven't heard word of him since Duke Helmund took control of...the Artificers..."

She trailed off, the color draining from her face. "Is that why he confined us to our homes? To force Artificers to invent new tools for him? To keep us sequestered so that we wouldn't know what the others were doing?"

Everyone fell silent. Helmund's co-opting of the Artificers had been a massive scandal among the nobility, almost provoking them to revolt. He'd risked all that...

Just to conceal and safeguard one passageway?

Simon let out a long, tired sigh. This was getting...a bit much. It's not even noon yet. Even though his HP was back at full, and his MP was halfway replenished, numbers going up on his Character Sheet couldn't stop mental fatigue from setting in.

"Let's reconvene tomorrow," he muttered. "Helmund's secret hidey-hole obviously needs to be explored, but we're all exhausted and hardly at our best. Will give us more time to form a cohesive plan. Not like the tunnel is going anywh–"

Wait! Simon!

The transmigrator flinched, glancing up at the sky. A familiar, booming presence desperately barged into his mind, like a man jumping through a glass window when the front door was unlocked.

Listen carefully, Simon! Heed my words!

Voice-In-The-Sky? What was so urgent that it would contact him now? He couldn't exactly respond with this many people around – who were currently staring at him, wondering why he'd paused mid-sentence.

I cannot tell you anything new, but remember what I said on the day we first spoke: all life in Valtia shall vanish within the span of one year!

The presence vanished as abruptly as it had arrived.

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Simon froze, ice water racing through his veins.

Within the span of one year. That wasn't a time limit – it was a time frame. Voice-In-The Sky hadn't known precisely when Valtia would meet its end.

And despite how difficult it was for the Voice to communicate with him...it had immediately rushed over the moment Simon suggested that everyone leave and come back tomorrow.

'The final curtain was falling anyway.'

He leaped down the staircase and took off running.

Confused voices shouted after him. Simon didn't answer. Every breath in his lungs, every thought in his mind, every molecule in his body was focused entirely on reaching the bottom of the passageway as swiftly as possible.

I did this. It can't be a coincidence. He'd only been in Valtia for a month, and Voice-In-The-Sky just so happens to start panicking the day he kills Duke Helmund?

No. Things were changing because of him. Simon's actions had moved the doomsday clock from 'within one year' to 'right the fuck now.'

Helmund's life may have been responsible for instigating Valtia's apocalypse, but his death was the trigger that set it off.

As Simon sprinted down the staircase, taking four steps with each bound, memories of a talk he'd once had with Bastian came surging back. "Half of the Harvester's mana tithe simply isn't used for anything. Which begs the question – where is it going?" They'd thought that Helmund took it for himself, empowering his body with the land's stolen essence...

But was that the full answer? While the Duke had definitely embezzled mana for his own twisted gains, half of the nation's Harvester tithe, every year, for centuries on end, was an astronomical amount of energy. Conceptualizing that much mana was like trying to imagine the entire breadth of the ocean.

If Helmund had truly absorbed all of that for himself – with a portion set aside for Piers – then he would have been fundamentally unkillable. Simon's warped mana-bomb would've done little more than tickle him. And even at the apex of his logic-defying strength, Duke Helmund hadn't been a god. Just a man who likened himself as one.

He had absorbed some of the Harvester tithe, but not all. Not anywhere near all. Which still begged the same question – where was it going?

Where had it gone?

Simon could no longer hear his allies calling for him. An overwhelming silence had engulfed the tunnel, so quiet that the sound of his own heartbeats echoed like thunderclaps. It wasn't natural. Nothing about this felt remotely natural.

He kept running.

The light faded more the farther down he went. A mounting pressure built on his shoulders, grinding agonizingly against his bones. As if he was diving deeper and deeper into a fathomless dark sea, the water's weight threatening to crush him if he dared swim a single inch lower.

He kept running.

Whispers emanated from nowhere and everywhere, assaulting him with poisoned praise and golden lies. Turn back. You aren't needed here. You've done your part. Isn't this enough? Take a rest – you've certainly earned it. Just be proud of what you've already accomplished.

He kept running.

The whispers ratcheted to screams. Unfeeling drone. Cold-hearted automaton. In such a hurry to leave your soul behind. It's always about goal, the progress, your oh-so cherished *progress*. Was it worth 385 innocent lives?

With bile rising up his throat, he kept running.

Running.

Running.

Until finally, all at once, everything stopped. The silence, the pressure, the whispers, the screams – gone.

He'd reached the bottom.

An enormous cavern stretched out before him. Light-giving Artifacts had been embedded into the walls, illuminating what awaited at the opposite end. Simon could see it clear as day.

He wished he couldn't.

It was...a sphere. An orb. An egg. Made of flesh, blood, muscle, bone. A haphazard amalgamation of impossible biology. Fifty feet tall, and wider still.

The cavern was gigantic, with plenty of room to spare, yet the creature's presence seemed to fill it from corner-to-corner. An aura of absolute power and guaranteed death permeated the air. It smelt of congealed corpse-blood, it sounded like an unending death rattle, its appearance was a waking nightmare–

And Simon found himself unable to look away.

Grand. Awful. Magnificent. Appalling. The organism pulsated and throbbed with mana and life; an existence that was nauseating in its grotesque beauty.

Simon's eyes vibrated painfully the longer he stared. He had a feeling that a person without Levels and Vitality would've already been reduced to a weeping pile on the floor.

Hello, transmigrator.

For a fleeting moment, he thought Voice-In-The-Sky was talking to him again. The notion immediately felt absurd. This presence retained the same booming gravitas as the Voice, but it was so alien, so...empty. There was none of the surprising warmth Simon had come to expect from a being of divinity.

Voice-In-The-Sky had spoken to him as a human would speak to a human. This creature wasn't even going to try.

I did not anticipate your coming. You were meant to perish much sooner. Rather than an insult, it was a mere statement of fact, completely lacking emotion or inflection. The time of my birth should have been later. It shall be an imperfect genesis, yet still a sufficient one.

Simon's throat was dry. He had to respond, somehow. Had to–

"WHAT IS THAT?!" a new voice cried out.

The transmigrator whirled to the side, recoiling with horror when he saw Katarina standing at the bottom of the staircase.

"You..." Simon's mouth opened and closed. "You followed me?"

"Of course I did, that's what I'm supposed to do when you act weird and don't explain things!" Her eyes wide as saucers, Katarina's hands shook as she lifted her crossbow. "Simon, answer me, what in the Ancient's name is that–"

Mana surged.

Simon dodged without needing to think. He'd been on high-alert since the instant he set foot in this cavern, expecting the creature to strike at any moment. A piercing bolt of mana flew past, missing him.

Missing him by far too much.

Because it wasn't meant for him.

Both he and Katarina stared in shock at the apple-sized hole that had punched straight through her chest – through her heart. You could see into her body and out the other side.

Her crossbow clattered to the ground. A second later, so did she.

To answer her question: the denizens of Valtia know me as an Ancient One. You would know me as a god of Evil.

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