Nefertut was not conflicted. Something was wrong.

  It should have taken only days for a new core to gestate after Urgnox fell. Instead, there was nothing.

  Then there were the gods.

  They were stirring again. The gods had never listened to their dungeons. They had reached out directly and dispatched a member of the D.D.D. to try to conquer the new dungeon—to prove that it could be done. Not only had they failed, but rumor had it they had not even made it past the second floor.

  “A crucible indeed,” he mused aloud. “If his monsters are already that powerful, then what is it he is aiming to fight?”

  Nefertut’s avatar strode in a slow loop around his core. He had sworn off the path of becoming a Demon King, but that did not mean he was any less infernal—only a different flavor of it. His avatar resembled a very old goat-man. His horns were coiled and gnarled from repeated damage and regrowth. His body was hunched beneath the weight of innumerable magical trinkets worn beneath heavy, layered robes. Golden light glowed from his eyes under the deep hood. He leaned heavily on a gnarled walking cane. His nails were thick, jagged, and chipped, and his heavy hooves clacked softly against the floor despite his careful steps.

  “The average level of the world is only in the mid-hundreds,” Nefertut muttered to himself. “This is not the age of heroes. Only a few monsters above level two hundred—let alone five hundred—still wander. So what is he aiming for? For only an Uncommon core, his power is… rare, to say the least.”

  “And as this oddity stands before me, my faction grows restless,” he continued. “Urgnox was the only core to never reach Legendary.”

  With a heavy sigh, Nefertut collapsed into the horned throne of ivory and obsidian he had crafted unknowable cycles ago. He propped his head against his fist and thought.

  “Maybe it is time for this cycle to begin its end,” he admitted quietly. “Mortals are but children, yet they are content to idle. They reached one benchmark of power and surrendered to stagnation. Even many of my fellow cores are becoming isolationists. There is nothing left to hold their attention.”

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  With a flicker of intent, he was suddenly standing in his War Room. He studied the map laid out before him and contemplated his position.

  “It will take time for a new Demon King to gestate,” he murmured. “Nergoz, the Deep Sea Dungeon, could likely be convinced to take up the mantle.” Nefertut nodded to himself. “That should work. But we will need a backup. Nergoz lies uncomfortably close to that swamp. If he proves a fool, he may bungle the entire affair. Perhaps Naliell could be convinced to become Demon Queen. Yes… two factions.”

  He traced a clawed finger across the map. “She is close to that Ilvir. We will see, then, who is more deserving of attention—Matthias, or Ilvir.”

  With a sharp slam of his cane, the room filled with shadow demons. They dropped to one knee in unison and awaited his command.

  “Go to every allied dungeon,” Nefertut ordered. “The world has known peace for too long. Mortals have grown complacent. The time for war has come again. The gods have begun meddling in the affairs of mortals and dungeons once more, and that new dungeon has already slain fifty of the mortal elites the gods were coddling.”

  His voice hardened. “We will not be undone. Light the braziers. Open the gates. Stir the armies. Wake the dead. I care not how it is done—but it is time to march. You will answer the call.”

  The demons did not reply. They simply melted into the floor.

  Once they were gone, Nefertut walked deeper into his dungeon. He passed rooms older than the current age, stone hewn before the first dragon had been born. He moved past paintings and murals no living soul besides him would recognize, down ancient halls he walked as a mortal might.

  At the end of the hall stood a door no different from the rest.

  Pain flickered in his eyes as he pushed it open and stepped inside.

  At the center of the chamber stood a dais, upon which rested an ornate stone coffin. It was covered in glyphs of a forgotten language, its base adorned with images that would make no sense to any living being today. Holy light spilled from within.

  Nefertut forced himself forward. Then he forced himself to look.

  There, where a body had lain for untold millennia, was his fairy.

  Kaldenia lay pristine, just as she had been the day she was taken from him. The divine brand upon her chest still burned, even now.

  Old wounds tore open anew. Ancient pain surged, and his rage rekindled like a long-bankrupted fire.

  The day she had been taken from him, he had sworn to find a way to kill a god.

  Perhaps this cycle would be the one.