Is this really a Game?!



Reign sighed as he sensed the soul of the kobold leave his body. He didn't hesitate to take it, as he did for most of the kobolds that had died during the battle.

As he did so, however, he sensed something.

The soul was being drawn over below the ground.

He hadn't sensed that happen to the other souls, not because it didn't occur with them, but because he had been engrossed in fighting and Aethion was the one that would help him take the souls of the dead kobolds.

Neither one had noticed it as the pulling force from below was not really strong, but if Reign wasn't here to take the souls, they would have slowly been drawn below the ground.

'The artifact, is it taking the souls of the dead?' Reign asked in his head as Aethion stared solemnly.

"It does seem so, of course, there could be a monster below that can devour souls, we can't remove that possibility for now, but if there is no such monster, then it's probably the artifact."

'Could that be its power, or maybe just one of it?'

"Your guess is as good as mine boy, but if the artifact truly can take the souls, that might be one of the reasons why the demons want it, as well as why they might have learned of its existence." Aethion suddenly said, which drew Reign's attention.

"The souls of demons usually go back to their home world and get reincarnated, which is why it is hard to control them, even the leader of this region probably only has half of the demons under his control loyal to him."

"From what you already learned, the demons have an item that allows the souls of dead demons to go back to them, and they can learn what happened, but that is all, the item they have, or the artifact that they possess, can only allow the demons to draw the soul in for a short period of time before it departs for its home planet."

"If they can get an artifact that can hold souls in it, then it will be much easier for the leader to control the demons, after all, if a demon dies, their soul would go to him, and he would be the one that decides what happens to the soul, and you know just how much demons are afraid of anything happening to their souls."

Reign nodded his head at Aethion's words as he agreed with them. Such an artifact would definitely allow a demon to hold great power and influence over other demons, but still, as an artifact that had once belonged to a Saint, it would be too weak if that was all it could do.

He had already seen what an artifact can do back in Drayce's challenge.

The arena and the upper level of it were incredibly large and one could fight as much as one wished there without dying as death was not real there.

Its incredible size and power made Reign and the others excited about what kind of artifacts exist, and one that was used by a powerful Saint had to be, at the very least, similar to it, right?

"As I said, controlling souls might be just one of its powers, we won't know until you guys get it," Aethion said again, to which Reign nodded.

'You said this might be the reason the demons know it exists?'

"It's because of the demonic star up in the sky," Aethion said in a calm voice.

"It is the representation of a demon world, the race that holds the greatest influence and territory on the planet will have their home world create a phantom of itself that will slowly drain the power of the planet and empower the demon race."

"As you know, souls are very precious to demons, but also to their home worlds, and they have a will as well, so it wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary for the star to send a phantom and notify some demons about the existence of something that is taking souls on this planet."

"The reason why the demons here know about it could be because they were all notified and that is why they are working together to find the artifact."

'Got it.' Reign said as he nodded his head before looking over at Basred who was slightly panting.

"Well, I didn't expect to use up so much energy during the battle, it was truly bad luck to come across a kobold that managed to awaken his powers during the battle."

"You mentioned that during the fight, and even though I'm certain I understand the gist of it, just what does it mean to awaken?"

Basred blinked a couple of times in quick succession as he placed his hand on his chin.

"Well, you see, this kobold for example, he didn't manage to fully digest all the power that was given to him after his dragonification, which led to a part of it being locked, and even his psyche had been affected, turning him from an intelligent monster to one that relied heavily on his primal instinct to fight."

"To 'awaken' means that the monster managed to fully digest the power, which leads to its psyche going back to normal, its intellect returning, and its powers increasing."

"Luckily, we had already managed to injure the kobold before it awoke, so the rest of the battle was not difficult."

"Hey, who was it that said we should conserve as much energy as we could?" A teasing voice was suddenly heard behind Basred who chuckled as Siggurd walked over to them.

"A Tier V, huh?" Siggurd asked as Basred nodded his head.

"An inferior one, it managed to awaken during the battle, but Reign over there had managed to fight against it and was even winning before that," Basred said as he smiled at Siggurd whose eyes slightly widened.

"After awakening, however, I had to step in, you know how dangerous such monsters can become." 

Siggurd nodded at Basred as he looked at the mangled corpse of the kobold.

"You could have left the corpse in better condition, we could have gained some good materials from it," Siggurd said as Basred scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, you know my ability isn't really good for that, any opponent I face gets broken from the waves."

"I know, it's not like mine is any better," Siggurd said as the two of them glanced at each other with knowing gazes.

They both were unfortunate and fortunate enough to be blessed with their respective abilities. They were powerful abilities that allowed them to do many things, but their main weakness was that each time they fought, they would destroy the body of the demon or monster they fought against, making it nearly unusable.

The corpses of high-level monsters and demons were very valuable and could be used to create weapons and armor, but each time the two fought against them, the corpses would be completely broken, and barely anything would be usable.

"Something is trying to draw in the souls of the monsters." Reign suddenly said as the others arrived near them.

"What?" Siggurd and Basred, as well as the others, all looked over at Reign who sighed.

"I don't know for sure if it is the artifact or perhaps a monster, but something is trying to take their souls, of course, I managed to take them because I am much closer to them and the pull is not that strong, but I figured you guys should know this."

The others all nodded but said nothing. They weren't well versed in matters that regard souls as their powers had no connection to them as Reign's did. 

Still, to know that something deeper inside this place is capable of taking souls was nothing but terrifying. Wouldn't that mean that if any of them died here, their souls would be taken away?

"Don't worry, for now, I can overpower whatever is taking the souls, but the deeper in we go, the more powerful the pull will be, and without knowing exactly what is taking it, we should be a bit more careful." Reign said as he looked around them.

"The only thing we can do is move forward for now."

Reign glanced over at Liara who nodded her head before pointing in a direction, to which Reign quickly responded by sending a ball of light.

"Let's go."

Reign and the others made their way to the ball of light and found another tunnel.

'This is starting to feel very similar to dungeons in games.' Reign thought as he ventured deeper into the tunnel with the others.

The tunnel didn't give them any surprises and they easily made it to the end, during that time, however, Aethion was interrogating the souls of the kobolds, especially the dragonized kobold who was the leader.

He managed to find out that there were powerful monsters at the end of the tunnel, and some were just like the kobolds, monsters that had come from the outside.

The kobolds managed to get food by killing other monsters, but also by creating a small tunnel of their own that led to a different layer of the dungeon, one that was completely different from the rest as it had greenery and many plants.