The third territory announced itself before Roman could see it.

The smell reached him first, thick and damp and carrying something underneath it that he couldn’t immediately name but that made the back of his neck tighten. Then the sound came...

Low, rhythmic, like something large breathing slowly in its sleep.

Then he crested a small ridge and saw it.

[Location: The Murk Basin. Home of the Hollow Fin Colony.]

[Inhabitants: Hollow Fins.]

[Chances of Survival: 58%.]

The Murk Basin was a wide, shallow body of dark water sitting in a natural depression in the valley floor, its surface completely still except for the occasional ripple where something moved just below it.

The treeline around it was thick enough to block most of the available light, and the whole place carried the particular stillness of somewhere that had learned to be patient.

Roman had read about Hollow Fins on the Forum two days ago. The article had described them as one of the more unpleasant discoveries in the valley, not because they were individually powerful but because of what happened when you killed one without preparation.

The dozens of smaller parasitic creatures that burst out of the body on death.

Roman had thought about this problem during the walk over.

"This one needs the Alpha," he decided.

He opened the Soul Bank and selected the third entry.

[Soul Summon: Dire Wolf Alpha.]

[Do you wish to summon the Soul Servant, Dire Wolf Alpha?]

"Yes."

The light that opened this time felt different from the other two. Darker somehow, the amber carrying more weight to it, and the creature that stepped through was exactly what Roman remembered from the worst fight of his life so far.

The Dire Wolf Alpha was massive. Charcoal grey, near-black streaks running from shoulder to haunch, pale amber eyes that found Roman the moment they opened. The ground beneath its paws gave slightly under its weight.

Roman looked up at it and took a quiet breath.

"Murk Basin," he said. "The ones in the water. Don’t let the small ones scatter when the big ones go down."

The Alpha looked at him and grrred for a moment...

Then it looked at the basin.

Then it moved, and the ground shook just slightly with each stride.

What followed was the most controlled display of hunting Roman had witnessed since arriving in the Badlands.

The Alpha did not simply charge into the water. It circled the basin first, slow and methodical, its nose reading the surface.

Then it picked its entry point and went in at a speed that sent a wave across the entire basin, and every Hollow Fin in the water reacted at once.

They were fast in water. Roman had read that. What the Forum had not mentioned was just how fast, because watching them move beneath the surface toward the Alpha was like watching something thrown rather than something swimming.

The Alpha met the first one head on, jaws closing over the body and shaking it with enough force that the parasitic creatures inside were scattered across the water before they could properly emerge, disoriented and exposed. Then the Alpha’s paws came down on the water surface repeatedly, churning the area around the kill into a chaos that prevented any coordinated response from the parasites.

It was deliberate. Roman was almost certain it was deliberate.

[Soul Servant Kill: Hollow Fin. EXP forwarded to Host. +55 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Kill: Hollow Fin Parasite x9. EXP forwarded to Host. +18 EXP.]

[Soul Servant Kill: Hollow Fin. EXP forwarded to Host. +55 EXP.]

The basin was cleared in just under thirty minutes, and when the Hollow Fin Boss surfaced, its bloated body nearly filling the centre of the water, the Alpha was already waiting at the point it had calculated the creature would emerge.

Roman watched the Boss fight from the bank and said nothing.

It was over in four strikes.

[Soul Servant Kill: Hollow Fin King. EXP forwarded to Host. +620 EXP.]

[Uncommon Drop Delivered: Hollow Fin Core.]

[Soul Servant Soul Points: 68.]

Roman collected the Core and looked at it. Uncommon Grade. That was going straight to the sales list for sure, since he wasn’t sure if it’ll be of good news for him.

He dismissed the Alpha and stood at the edge of the drained basin for a moment, looking at the cleared water.

Three territories. Three soul servants. Not a single significant injury.

He checked his level.

[Level: 10 {19840/20500 EXP}.]

Close. Very close to Level 11.

He converted more accumulated souls on the spot, the from the smaller to the bigger kills kills from the Murk Basin, this time adding another two hundred and forty-one Attribute Points!

It was now that Roman was getting to understand what this might lead him to.

It was going to be some crazy advancement! 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

He was about to turn and head westward toward when the BSP flagged something ahead from the map.

A red location pinpoint! He was taught in the academy that such locations are regarded as very deadly territories. It was rare to see territories like this, but even though it was a monster territory in Blood Trial Valley, it mustn’t be underestimated!

Roman stopped.

He looked at the notification, and then looked up at the direction it was pointing.

The fourth territory sat at the furthest point of the valley’s eastern edge, where the valley floor dropped into a wide ravine that most rookies did not venture near during the day, let alone after dark. Roman had seen it marked on the BSP terrain map since his first week and had noted it the way you note something you intend to come back to when you are ready, but still hesitant.

He wasn’t entirely sure he was ready now.

But he was also not turning back.

[Location: The Ravine of Bones.]

[Inhabitants: Bone Crawlers.]

[Chances of Survival: 37%.]

Roman stared at the thirty-seven percent for a long moment.

That was higher than the number as his summoning chances had been on the day of the Red Zenith. He had shown up in the Badlands anyway.

He kept walking regardless, having himself pushing forward with thoughts of courage.

The Ravine of Bones was exactly what it sounded like. A deep cut in the valley floor with steep walls of pale rock, and covering almost every surface of those walls and the ravine floor were the remains of monsters and Entrants that had not walked back out.

The bones had been there long enough to bleach completely white, and they covered the ground so densely that each step produced a soft cracking sound that Roman forced himself not to think too hard about.

The Bone Crawlers were already moving.

They were long, flat creatures that seemed to have no fixed shape, flowing across the bone-covered surfaces like liquid, their bodies carrying the same pale white colouring as the remains they moved across, which made them almost invisible until they were already close.

There were a lot of them.

Roman counted what he could see and stopped counting at thirty.

He pulled up the Soul Bank.

And this time, he did not select one entry.

He decided to select all three!

[Soul Summon: Blade Ant Queen, Blue Goblin King, Dire Wolf Alpha.]

[Do you wish to summon all three Soul Servants simultaneously?]

"Yes."

Three splits of amber light opened side by side in the ravine air ahead of him, and one by one they stepped through.

The Blade Ant Queen on the left. The Blue Goblin King in the centre. The Dire Wolf Alpha on the right.

They stood in a line, and for one strange moment the entire Ravine of Bones went completely silent, every Bone Crawler freezing where it was as if the three figures in front of them had broken something in their instincts.

Roman stepped up behind them and looked out at the ravine.

"All of them," he said simply. "Leave nothing."

The silence lasted one more second.

Then all three moved at once, and the Ravine of Bones stopped being quiet entirely.

And Roman? He was done watching his Soul Servants entertain him.

After watching them for a moment, he set out and dashed into the chaos.

.

.

[A/N: Let’s do well to boost our Golden Tickets votes to keep the author’s spirit up. Thanks for reading! I adore y’all!]