David and Rhea were high in the trees, suspended by Rhea's telekinetic tug. She held onto a javelin she was levitating, but for him, she was just straight up making him fly. No javelin for him. Just her skill keeping him in the air, holding him in the sky like a balloon with trust issues.

  Normally he would be thinking about combat applications for this. How to use it in a fight, angles of attack, tactical insertions. He instinctively felt he could resist her pull, test it. But he was too distracted.

  They were looking at the ogre's lair.

  The lair was far away. To him, the figures moving around down there looked like ants swarming a fire, with one ant that was noticeably bigger than the others. But Rhea's distant gaze skill was something else. For her, it was high definition, crystal clarity. She could probably count pores from here.

  David watched the distant shapes. He couldn't make out details. Just movement. Just the suggestion of threat.

  "Tell me what you're seeing," he said.

  Rhea's eyes stayed locked on the lair. She didn't blink.

  Together they watched. David asked questions. Rhea answered, her voice low as she described what her skill showed her.

  "What do you see?" David asked.

  The ogre sat on a boulder near the cavern mouth. It was big. That was the main thing about it. Even sitting, even from this distance, it dominated the space in a way that made the terrain around it feel smaller.

  "Ogre," Rhea said. "Sitting on a rock by the entrance. It's not moving. Just watching."

  "Anything else?"

  "Mind knight. Full plate armor. Standing near the bound ones. Helmet's turned toward them like it's studying something."

  David waited.

  "Swift-footed slayer," Rhea continued. "One arm. It's lounging on a flat rock off to the side. Looks like it's barely paying attention."

  "Anyone bound?"

  "People near the cavern wall. Humans. A handful of them."

  David stared at the distant shapes.

  "There are dungeon creatures there too," Rhea said. "Bound up right alongside them. Like they're all waiting for the same thing."

  "Harris?"

  "He's there. Alive. I can see him."

  "Anyone else?"

  "A few other humans. I don't recognize them. Not from our group."

  Other humans. Not from their group. Other survivors who'd ended up here, now tied up outside an ogre's cave alongside dungeon creatures, all of them waiting to find out what came next.

  David watched and wished he could enthrall something small. A bird. Something quick. Or something that could fly with too many wings. Even a critter would do. Anything with eyes that could get closer. He made a mental note. From now on, he would keep at least one thrall slot free at all times. For exactly this kind of situation. Never again would he be stuck up a tree squinting at a problem he couldn't see clearly.

  "What's the ogre doing?" David asked.

  Rhea watched for a moment. "Something brutal and horrific. And it's doing it like it's nothing."

  "What's that thing, eating? Cooking? What?"

  "It's sitting on a giant boiler. Cooking something over a fire. A warg. A big one. Alpha size, like the one we fought, but different color. This one's reddish-brown with a grey mane. The ogre's eating it."

  David processed that. Alpha warg. Same size as the one they had struggled against. Now it was being eaten.

  "There are bones at its feet," Rhea said. "A lot of them. Looks like a whole pack of wargs mixed in with various other types of creatures. Hard to tell what all of them were."

  David thought about that. Through the thrall link, he could feel that Fenrir was pissed. Had been pissed for a while before they even got here. Fenrir was an extremely proud wolf. Right now, through whatever senses wolves had, he could smell his own kind burning in the wind. Being treated like prey. Like cattle.

  That explained it.

  Rhea interrupted his thoughts. "On the ogre's hand, connected to a large leash-like chain, is a… creature." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What the fuck is that?"

  "What?" David asked. He couldn't see details at this distance. Just shapes.

  "It looks like a goat," Rhea said. "If the goat was made of pure nightmares. It's large and muscular. Bipedal, standing on two legs. Cloven hooves. Huge twisted ram's horns."

  David waited.

  "It has one enormous central eye. Takes up most of its head. The rest of the face is all jagged teeth. Its fur is moving, like it's alive. And there are these things sprouting from its back—two of them. Bones with claws on the ends—scythes. Like wings that grew wrong and turned into weapons instead."

  "The ogre feeding it?"

  "Throwing it meat from the pile. It's eating. The sound it makes is..." She winced. "Loud. Grating. Everyone down there winced except the ogre and the mind knight."

  "Level?"

  "Thirty. It's called an Undying Ram."

  David thought about that. Another problem. The name was probably misleading. Undying likely meant durability, or regeneration, or something along those lines. If it was truly undying, it wouldn't be on a chain.

  "What else do you see?" David asked.

  He strained, channeling demonic energy to his eyes, trying to boost his vision. It didn't help much. He could make out distant figures, the occasional arm or leg, a shape that might be a head. But Rhea's descriptions painted the bigger picture.

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  "There are a bunch of elite hobgoblins and colossal hobgoblins tied up on their knees," Rhea said. "They're blindfolded."

  David filed that away. The blindfolds meant something. They weren't supposed to see something—maybe the cave interior, maybe whatever happened before the killing. It also meant the ogre didn't trust them even as prisoners. Keep them in the dark so they couldn't fight back effectively if they broke loose.

  Rhea gasped softly. "There's a younger boy tied up. And one elderly human man. I don't know them."

  David watched the distant shapes. The kid and the old man were bait. They kept the others in line. But give them time, force them to watch enough executions, they'd pick up a sword too. The ogre was playing the long game. Keep them alive, keep them scared, keep the others in line. Harris was doing what he was told because if he didn't, he got it next. That was how you controlled people who could otherwise fight back. Though Harris would never fight back in this setup anyway.

  "Harris and some other woman are being made to kill the tied up prisoners," Rhea said, her voice tight. "Probably to force them to level up. Harris looks beaten and bruised, but..." She paused. "He has new legs."

  David processed that. The ogre had a healer somewhere. Harris didn't walk out of that cave with new legs. Someone gave him those. Either another prisoner with abilities or something in that cave that could regenerate limbs. Either way, that was a resource David needed to know about.

  "The ogre is eating the giant dead alpha warg," Rhea continued. "Seated on a large boulder, watching everything."

  The ogre was running a long-term operation. The mind knight and the slayer weren't just guards. They were overseers. Managers. The ogre didn't do the dirty work itself. It delegated. That meant it thought it was above the grunt work. It sat there eating and watching like it had all the time in the world. That meant it wasn't expecting company. Wasn't expecting rescue attempts. It thought it was safe. That was an advantage David could use.

  "Harris picked up a sword," Rhea said quietly. "He's raising it. He just cut off a colossal hobgoblin's head. He looks scared. Really scared."

  David watched the distant blur that was Harris. If Harris was being forced to kill, he was gaining levels. Unwillingly. That made him dangerous. Not because he wanted to be, but because the ogre was turning him into a weapon whether Harris liked it or not. By the time David got to him, Harris might be something else entirely.

  "He's limping off into the cavern now," Rhea said. "Didn't say anything. Just walked inside."

  The other woman killing alongside Harris—she'd either been there longer or she was more willing. Or more broken. Either way, she was a variable. Could be an enemy. Could be someone who helped. Could be too far gone to matter.

  David thought about the kid and the old man. Why keep them? Why not kill them with the others? There was a hierarchy in that cave. The ogre on top. The mind knight and the slayer as enforcers. Then the prisoners who did the killing. Then the ones waiting to be killed. But killing the old man broke the pattern. Was it because he was old? Maybe he had low levels. Maybe he was weak. Or maybe he refused to kill. Whatever the reason, David needed to know how deep that hierarchy went. There was probably more in that cave. More prisoners. More creatures. More levels. The ogre didn't build this operation overnight. It had been collecting. Farming. Growing something. David needed to know what that something was.

  The ogre was running an operation. Forced leveling, executions on a schedule. That meant it had a reason to keep this going. They weren't just killing prisoners for sport. The ogre was farming levels. Let the captives do the murdering, let them level up, then when they were ripe, take their dungeon fragments. Their pieces. It was a system.

  David needed a thrall in that cave. Something small. Something that could move without being seen. He needed eyes inside before he made a move.

  Rhea kept watching. David waited, straining his eyes, channeling what little demonic energy he could spare to boost his vision. It didn't help. Just distant shapes. Blurry figures against the gray rock. He needed her eyes.

  "The ogre picked up the woman," Rhea said. "The one I saw earlier with the others. It just grabbed her and threw her forward. She landed in a heap on the ground."

  David watched the distant blur that was probably the woman.

  "Now they're dragging the elderly tied up man over to her. The old one. Two of those dungeon creatures are pulling him by the arms. He's not fighting. Can't really fight from the look of it."

  He could imagine it. Couldn't see it, but he could imagine.

  "They're forcing a sword into her hand. Wrapping her fingers around it. She's not taking it. They're prying her hand open and putting it there."

  David waited.

  "She's refusing," Rhea said. Her voice was quiet. "She's sobbing. I can see her shoulders shaking, her whole body. She's screaming no. Screaming it over and over. She won't take the sword. They keep trying to make her hold it and she keeps dropping it."

  David watched the distant shapes.

  "The ogre just teleported." Rhea's voice went flat. "One second it was on the boulder. The next it was right next to her. I didn't see it move. It was just there."

  Teleportation. Another thing to track. Another ability to account for.

  "It smashed her into the ground. Punched her down. Hard. Really hard. She's just lying there now. Not moving much. Her arm is bent wrong. Her leg too. Probably ribs broken. A lot of them. She's a mess."

  David thought about that. The impact. The sound it would have made.

  "The ogre cut its own palm," Rhea said. "With something. A claw maybe. It's pouring blood over her. Over the wounds. They're healing. But slow. Much slower than yours. Really slow. She's twitching on the ground while it happens."

  David knew from experience what that felt like. The slow heal. The most painful thing you could experience. Every nerve waking up at once. Bones grinding back together at a crawl. Feeling every second of it. She was feeling all of it right now.

  "She's standing up," Rhea said. "Shaking. Really shaking. Can barely stand. She's staring at the ogre. Just staring. She's terrified. You can see it in every part of her."

  David watched.

  "She picked up the sword. From the ground this time. She turned around. Walked over to the old man. He's just kneeling there. Watching her."

  The scene played out in his mind.

  "She raised the sword. Both hands. She's crying. Still crying. She brought it down."

  Rhea paused.

  "His head came off. Clean. She did it."

  David said nothing.

  "She’s stumbling over to the ogre. Handed it something. It looked like that thing the Level 80, that Demon Slayer, was holding. The crystal thing—but it was much smaller and dimmer than the one he held back then. Then she limped inside the cave. Same way Harris went. Didn't look back."

  David processed that. He knew straight away—it was a dungeon fragments. The woman was broken now. Not just her body. That kind of fear, that kind of choice—or lack of choice—it did something to people. She'd do what she was told from now on. Probably wouldn't even need the chain.

  The ogre was building something. An army of broken people who'd kill on command. Level them up, take their fragments, send them back inside to wait.

  The ogre rose from the boulder.

  David saw it. The shape was big enough that even from this distance, even with his unaugmented vision, he could tell something massive was standing up. Like watching a building move.

  "It's getting up," Rhea said.

  "I know."

  Rhea's distant gaze was locked on the scene. "It's holding out its palm. There's something in its hand."

  David strained, channeling energy to his eyes. Nothing. Just the distant shape of the ogre, an arm extended.

  "What is it?"

  "Looks like thirty of those magic dungeon crystal things—the Demon Slayer ones," Rhea said. "Different sizes. Different colors. Some are small and dull, some are bigger and brighter. It's sorting through them."

  The ogre was doing something. David could see it moving its hand.

  "It's separating a few out," Rhea continued. "The small weaker ones. Dim glow—about ten of them. Holding them apart from the rest. Just staring at them."

  Then the air around the ogre changed. A distortion. A ripple. Something was forming from nothing.

  Even David saw it. A massive shape materializing in front of the creature. Dark. Solid. Completely metal and black. The weapon was giant, and the gravity around it warped visibly, the metal itself seeming to bend light and space.

  The floating rocks and debris around the cavern, the ones that had been drifting lazily, were already there. That chaotic gravity field was already present. But now the environment shifted further, the landscape tearing and floating more violently as the gravity wells spread outward.

  Rhea's voice cracked. "Wha—what the hell? It just— did you see that? It made a fucking magic weapon. And it twisted the gravity around that whole area even more. What— how?"

  Rhea broke poise, a rare thing for her.

  They were speechless.

  David watched the distant shape of the ogre turn and walk into the cavern, the weapon disappearing with it.

  Was that a… ritual?