Magnus found himself exposed to the orange light of sunset. He squinted.
His eyes took a moment to adjust.
Around him were ruined buildings along a long street that went on until it reached some kind of makeshift wall in the distance.
Behind him was shadowed darkness. Clouds seemed to keep the area dark, pushing away the sunset and ushering in an earlier night. A mountain rose into the sky, with its slopes containing some of Hummolus' buildings.
An eerie atmosphere on one half, and a despairing one on the other.
Magnus felt the shivers.
The shivers of excitement.
Rarghh!
A blur was rapidly approaching him at that moment. It was a familiar movement pattern, and Magnus could easily recognize it.
"A ghoul," He muttered as he threw out his golden gravity sphere.
Gong!
The sphere smacked the ghoul dead on the face even when it tried to dodge. Gravity was applied to it, making it a homing missile.
Thud!
In the next moment, the sphere stayed stuck on its head, pulling it into the air and incapacitating it in an instant.
Magnus then shared forward. A stone sword was in his hands, the one ingeniously crafted by those primitive humans.
He slashed, and cut through the Ghoul's head.
Crack!
Bone against stone resounded.
In the next moment, a head rolled.
Magnus gave himself a pat on the back as he reached up to grab a piece of flesh to munch on. When he did, Spirit Energy rushed into him, replenishing his reserves and allowing him to use the overflow to train.
"Mmm," Magnus relished in the experience as he stayed alert of his surroundings.
He noticed several more blurs rushing to his area.
Swish!
A set of claws narrowly missed him at that moment as it was pulled by his golden gravity orb. Magnus instantly slashed at the ghoul, cutting its arm off.
He stepped back just as another one of its claws tried to slash him dead.
Swish!
Another near miss, but now the ghoul was stuck in the air, incapable of movement.
Magnus slashed at its neck and chopped off its head.
He quickly slashed another piece of flesh and dined on its suffering soul. More ghouls were coming, and soon Magnus was swamped.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Magnus had to resort to barely being able to dodge as he fell backwards and into the sunset light. There were three ghouls being pulled by his gravity sphere, and that meant that they could use each other as leverage. He tried having them spin, but it didn't work.
They just stepped on each other to escape the pull. Although, they were much slower than before.
It helped Magnus flee as more and more ghouls kept getting pulled towards his orb.
"I am the master and maker of the Hivemind,
The mind behind minds,
The one who stands above humanity,
And the one civilizations despise!"
Magnus made an invocation and Restiel immediately appeared in the air. He dashed forward, wielding his scythe and slashed.
Swaaaaaaah!
Ghoul limbs, nails, and even an entire head went flying at that moment as Restiel purified them in their entirety.
Divine Energy shone like a small-scale beacon as it melted the ghouls on the spot. Magnus had to hide behind a building to save himself from meeting the same fate.
"Ah, those souls, what a waste," Magnus muttered as he felt the souls get purified. His Soul Devourer Art was weeping within him.
After Restiel's display, suddenly the ghouls coming from everywhere in the city suddenly stopped. They felt the presence of a being that perfectly countered them.
Except for one.
Restiel's instincts suddenly flared up, and Magnus almost panicked.
"Disappear!" He hurriedly commanded Restiel's unsummoning as the air whistled and something dashed past.
Blood spurted into the sky, but Restiel was successfully unsummoned before the wound got too deep.
"Shit!" Magnus swore as he lay in his hiding spot, unmoving.
"3-star? That should be a 3-star ghoul!"
It was way beyond his powers at that moment. He circulated the Soul Devourer Art in the hopes of not smelling like a human.
Luckily, it seemed to work. Magnus was able to hide.
The wind continued to whistle as the 3-star threat moved around, looking for the angel, Restiel. It eventually left after an entire hour.
An hour that stressed Magnus out, and at the same time thrilled him. Whenever the ghoul got close, the suspense sent bouts of dopamine into his brain like he had been drugged.
He felt lightheaded from the fear, the panic, and the exhilaration.
His heart pounded in his incorporeal chest like crazy, and Magnus feared that the ghoul could hear it.
He would be dead for sure if he had been discovered.
"Sheeesh," Magnus whispered to himself as he peeked out of his hiding spot in the rubble.
He went over to the streets to pick up his gravity sphere and store it in his Storage Scroll.
"That was an experience for sure."
Magnus went into a moment of reflection as he thought about his recklessness. Fighting without any attempt to collect information? That would kill him.
At the same time, however, it was fun.
Magnus chuckled.
Next time, he would survey the area while fighting. It was a small compromise, but it would likely preserve his life.
"I can send Javelin out to monitor the place as he also has the best senses out of all of us."
It would just cost quite a sum of Spirit Energy to have three people active for a long time.
Magnus then switched with Javelin, ready to sneak around and see if he could find the other humans. He was going to see if he could find any information on the monsters in the area and what their main characteristics are.
.
.
.
The city was larger than Quarteridge.
It was something Magnus discovered as he scaled one of the rare towers in the area. Thanks to the more forgiving landscape, the city took up much more space, with its wide streets and low, wide buildings.
But that meant that after scaling that tower, Magnus found what he was looking for. He found torches moving around in the distance. Their fires bobbed up and down in the deceptively peaceful night.
Magnus headed over and discovered all the grim expressions of the humans there. Squads of humans were heading out to fight while some were coming back with wounds and loot. Magnus did not know what their threat rating was without them moving, but from the way they wielded weapons made from ghoul nails and fangs, he assumed them all to be above 2-stars at least.
Some of the particularly strong looking ones even had armour made out of their bones.
It was an intimidating sight.
Magnus found a place to switch back to his human self despite the risk of looking out of place. He carried his loot with him though, so at least the humans who would see him would assume he was on their side.
As he walked Magnus passed by a large central area where shops, shacks, and a large map could be seen.
Magnus first went to the map and discovered a list of the regions where different monsters were reproducing.
Ghouls in the west, skeletons in the north-west, and zombies in the south-west. The humans occupied the eastern areas of the city, taking up more than 40% of it.
'The strength of the people here seem to be greater than Hummoi on average,' Magnus thought to himself as he watched a group of people play cards. The speed at which their hands moved was beyond his capabilities to watch.
Sleight of hand wasn't even taken into account.
"Oi! Cheating again, aren't you!" One of the players smacked the card shuffler on the head.
"Haha, I'm not, I'm not. I'm just testing to see if you're still paying attention. You lost like five games already." The card shuffler replied as he took the smack and remained unfazed.
Magnus then went to one of the ghoul shops and handed in his loot.
"That'll be 12 bronze coins," The storekeeper said as she handed Magnus a small cloth pouch of coins.
"Thanks," Magnus habitually nodded his head in a slight bow.
"You're not from here, are you?" The storekeeper suddenly spoke up. An inquisitive look on her face.
"I... I'm not. Why? Is there a problem?" Magnus asked.
"Have you registered at the city hall yet?"
"I haven't...?" Magnus could feel where this was going.
"Then go and register! You can't just roam free in this city without doing so!" The storekeeper shooed Magnus away as she slapped a piece of paper onto his forehead.
"I..." Magnus was about to say thank you again but the storekeeper slammed the door in his face.
"Will she be penalized for making deals with me or something?" Magnus rubbed his forehead as he retrieved the piece of paper.
It was a map.
And encircled there was the city hall.
Magnus followed it, making a beeline towards its steps just in case someone would find trouble with him.
Thankfully, everyone seemed too busy to notice him. Although a few gazes scanned him for a few moments, the stench of the undead on him made them reconsider.
"That little stick looks new, ey, Blinker?"
"Nah, brother, he's got ghoul stink on him. No newbies have such a thing. Fall back."
Magnus arrived at the large stone-brick building and promptly entered. He followed the convenient signs and found himself sitting in front of a lady over a table.
"Where did you come from?"
"Why are you here?"
"How long are you staying?"
A barrage of questions was being sent his way as this lady wrote down all of his answers. When it was all over, he was given a small card that contained his information and his fingerprint of blood.
"This city functions like one big adventurer's guild," Magnus chuckled to himself as he traced back his steps to the central marketplace.
He wanted to see the prices of the few items that caught his eyes. That, and he wanted to see if there was anything worth using Mirror World Thief on.