The alley never saw sunlight. Filthy water ran along the ground. Green moss crawled up the corners of the walls. The air reeked of rot and made you queasy. Turning a corner, a woman’s moans drifted faintly. Mio glanced into the left-hand alley. A man and a woman were going at it hard in the shadows, with a busy street not far away. Poor prostitutes could only sell their bodies in places like this, just to pay for a day’s food.

The armed men had already caught up. Mio focused, brushing the darkness deep within her soul. Black sludge gathered in her palm, then solidified into brick-sized blocks. The green plastic shells had FRONT TOWARD ENEMY stamped on the face, and a considerate folding metal stand on the back. Two M65 directional anti-personnel mines formed in her hands. She fixed them left and right at the corner in inconspicuous spots, then armed their electronic fuzes through her tactical network.

The mines sat on standby. Anyone walking past their fronts would be bathed in a death storm of steel shot and preformed fragments. Inhumane? Maybe. But Mio didn’t feel like showing mercy. An ominous chill pooled ahead. A man in black stood in the shadow, smiling at her.

“Deus,” Mio asked, “since you’re here, that means something big, right?”

“Why do you talk like I’m a plague god? I’m the Reaper. The Reaper!”

“Alright, stop pouting.” Mio sighed with a helpless smile. “Sure, nothing good ever follows when you appear. But I’m not calling you a plague god.”

“Really?” Deus looked up at her with tearful eyes.

“Cross my heart,” Mio said solemnly. “So, what’s serious enough to bring you in person?”

“Actually—”

Before Deus could explain, two dull thuds sounded in the distance—boom, boom. Men started screaming one after another. The directional mines had done their job.

“Oh come on!” Deus clutched his head and yelled. “Don’t casually increase my workload!”

The drone feed came back: three KIA, two critical, the rest fled the alley in a panic. Outcome: near perfect. Mio blinked and closed the HUD overlays. Then Deus’s shadow suddenly widened. Darkness surged and formed a man exactly like him.

“The Reaper comes in twos now?”

“Split! It’s a split!” both Deuses said in unison. “I’m the Reaper. I’ve got ten thousand clones. Millions die on this planet daily—how would one me keep up?”

Two identical Deuses spoke the same lines and moved in sync. It looked ridiculous, like a sketch comedy routine.

“I’ll handle that side,” Deus No. 1 said.

“No problem.” Deus No. 2 nodded. “Leave it to me.”

One Deus headed for the alley corner. The other stayed with Mio. She glanced at the corner, then at the Deus before her, tilting her head with a slightly puzzled look. It was extremely cute.

“So which one is the real you?”

“All of my clones are the real me,” Deus said. “We share one consciousness. Everything you say to me, they all hear. And whatever they do, it feeds back to me.”

“Like cloud computing?”

“What’s that?”

“A tech from my old world,” Mio explained. “Hard to sum up in a few words. Let’s get back on track. What happened?”

“It’s pretty bad.” Deus took a skewer from her and talked while eating. “Souls have gone missing again. But this time they weren’t offered to an Evil Deity, or a fallen god, or any other nonsense. They disappeared for real. Completely annihilated.”

“What’s the difference?” Mio handed him an apple.

“Of course there’s a difference.” Deus bit the apple, alternating hands. “Souls are like water. They sublimate into clouds, then under the right conditions, condense back into water. Rain falls. Whether a soul was sacrificed or devoured, it goes through that process. It returns to the cycle as a pure soul. It just takes a detour. But if a soul is annihilated, it drops out of the system.”

“Like electrolyzing water into hydrogen and oxygen?”

“I don’t get your metaphor, but that’s basically it,” Deus said. “The soul gets destroyed and turns into something that isn’t a soul. It can never be a soul again.” He took another skewer from her and chomped down.

So the Reaper could eat? Mio was genuinely shocked.

“Why is that happening?” she asked. “I mean the annihilation.”

“Necromancers.”

“Necromancers?” Mio blinked. She’d just met one recently. “I know a necromancer named Aipron. He’s snarky, sure, but he doesn’t seem like what you’re describing.”

“No. I don’t mean the necromancers under the Mage Association.” Deus wiped grease from the corner of his mouth and went on. “Most necromancers are managed by the Association. They study death and obey strict codes. But mages are greedy by nature. Someone always falls to the lure of knowledge and strays. Among those degenerates, necromancers are the most dangerous. They try to pry into the root of death, to seek the truth of it. They end up wrecking the soul cycle and causing disasters. If I could, I’d kill those fools who throw the world into chaos with my own hands. Unfortunately, the Reaper can’t kill…”

“But I can,” Mio said. “That’s also why you made me your Chosen One, isn’t it?”

“More or less.” Deus laughed and scratched his head.

“So where’s the one who has to die?” Mio opened her tactical link, ready to designate a target. “Strike drones are on standby. If he’s in the Imperial Capital, a Hellfire Missile will erase him in three minutes.”

“No, no, no. It’s not that simple this time,” Deus said. “If I’m right, the one you’re up against is Samilian.”

“Samilian?” Mio asked. “He famous?”

“He’s one of Yao Ye’s Death Servants. They call him the King of the Dead. You tell me if that’s famous.”

“Understood.” Mio’s eyes turned sharp. “I’ll exterminate him for real.”

“Be careful, Mio,” Deus said. “Samilian’s lived a long time. His nature has drifted far from human. Even with a Fragment of Creation, don’t get caught by his tricks.”

“As you command,” Mio bowed lightly. “My patron deity.”

“Oh, right,” Deus leaned in. “Could I get more offerings?”

“Offerings?”

Mio followed his gaze and found him staring at the apples and skewers in her hands. Drool streamed from the corner of his mouth. So the Reaper was a foodie. She had no choice but to hand over all the food.

Taking a detour to buy more, Mio got back to the inn at dusk. As soon as she stepped into the yard, the gray horse turned its head. Its big, round eyes locked on the bag in her left hand. Mio pulled out an apple and tossed it over. The gray craned its neck, bit it in one go, and crunched away, wearing a blissful look. The moment she opened the door, Amber came pitter-patter and threw her arms around her. Stroking those fluffy cat ears, Mio felt her heart quietly heal.

“Welcome back, Lady Mio.” Talasha bowed properly to her. Her lowered posture was oddly endearing. She took the food from Mio and started prepping at the side.

Cradling Amber, Mio stepped into the bedroom, only to see someone snoring away on the bed.

“Up and at ’em, Aimee!”

“Uwah! Is it dinner time already?”

Whoosh—the curtains snapped open under Mio’s hand. The sky outside was dyed purple by the afterglow. Aimee rubbed sleepy eyes and gave a huge stretch. In armor, you couldn’t tell, but right now she wore only a thin linen shirt, and her chest looked unusually firm. Mio instinctively glanced at her own. A strange sense of defeat climbed into her heart.

“What’s for dinner?” Aimee asked as she put on her shoes.

“The canteen’s got bread and soup,” Mio opened the other window. “But I bought skewers and apples on the way back. They’re still hot. Want them while they’re hot?”

“Yes!” With a full-spirited cry, Aimee charged into the living room.

The foodie Sword Saint switched to combat mode. Nothing could stop her now.

Dusk draped the city, but the Imperial Capital Garrison Command blazed with lights. The fortress-like building stood inside the second wall. Soldiers in armor with red capes on their backs stood guard with spears and shields at the gate. Unlike ordinary Imperial Army troops, the garrison’s armor was more ornate, with molded pectorals and abs to highlight masculine bravado. Their commander, General Fisher Lucullius, was a veteran past fifty. A vicious scar split his deeply lined face. His blind left eye wore a black patch, leaving the impression of a battle-hardened veteran.

Lucius stood at attention before the general, waiting for the lecture.

“Decurion Lucius,” Fisher said, “I’ve read your report. This happened during the imperial election, so we need to treat it seriously. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, General.”

“Good.” Fisher set down the rough paper and burned it. “Tomorrow I’ll dispatch a hundred-man unit to sweep the Imperial Capital’s sewers. Your unit is in it. At 0800, you’ll enter through the access by the city wall. Don’t let soldiers act alone. I don’t want any accidents.”

“By your command.” Hand to chest, Lucius saluted and withdrew from the office.

A bad feeling clung to him. Those black beetles boiling out of the corpse’s belly were not natural. Someone had killed that poor man and used him as a nursery for beetles. How horrifying was that? For his wife and two children, he had to shoulder his duty and catch the culprit before things spun out of control.