"What are you doing out here at this hour?" Ravian said, looking at Lysandra, who had come out wearing something close to sleeping clothes—deep red, a color that suited her crimson hair—and yet even in that, she still carried the aura of a proud warrior without seeming to try.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said, her eyes dropping to the orc corpse Ravian was dragging behind him.

"This... I was thinking of selling it."

"I’ll buy it," Lysandra said.

"No—I’m selling it, just not to you."

Lysandra looked at him with open confusion.

"Why not sell it to me if you’re selling it anyway?" she asked.

"The poor come first," Ravian said, from absolutely nowhere.

"Hah?" Lysandra’s confusion only deepened.

"I mean... the rich come first," Ravian corrected himself, unable to find any real escape.

"And is there anyone here richer than me?" she asked, with a look of genuine inquiry.

’Damn—that was effortlessly good. I hope the day comes when I can deliver lines like that so naturally,’ Ravian thought, wiping imaginary tears from his face.

"I just have another use for it," he said, when no suitable lie presented itself.

Lysandra looked at him for two quiet seconds without speaking.

"I’m sorry for what you heard from me earlier," she said suddenly.

"I genuinely did not mean it the way it came across."

Ravian raised his eyes to her and said nothing.

"The squad was carrying more despair than they should have been—and despair is a killing thing on a battlefield. I wanted to break that atmosphere, whatever it took. That was all it was," Lysandra explained.

Ravian listened without interrupting.

"It isn’t that I wasn’t troubled when I heard the news. In the end—you’re new among us, yes, but you’ve already proven yourself worthy of the Death Squad. Worthy of all of our respect." She looked directly into his eyes as she said it, calm and steady, without the slightest hesitation.

"You didn’t push back against orders. You didn’t complain when you were attacked while you were supposed to be under the commander’s own protection. You didn’t retreat in front of an enemy stronger than you. All of that earned you the respect and trust of everyone here." She finished, then extended her hand toward him, offering something Ravian only now noticed she had been holding.

A black dagger.

"Here—I found this under my bed. I genuinely don’t know how it ended up there, but I came out to return it," she said simply.

Ravian took the dagger from her, his eyes widening slightly for a reason he kept to himself.

"I hope I’ve made my position clear. Good night," Lysandra said, having said what she came to say, then turned and walked quietly back toward her tent.

Ravian watched her go without speaking. Then he lowered his eyes to the dagger in his hand.

’...She was standing in front of me holding a dagger this entire time and I didn’t notice? What in the hell was I looking at?’ The answer arrived immediately in the form of the red sleeping clothes Lysandra had been wearing, and Ravian did not examine that answer further.

’Soul energy must make people perverted in some way,’ Ravian concluded in less than a second, shifting the blame onto something external as usual.

[In response to the host—no. Soul energy does not make people perverted. They are simply born that way.]

The system offered its answer, appearing from nowhere.

’Fuck you, you wretched system!’ Ravian raised his middle finger at the system window floating in front of him, then resumed dragging the orc toward the outer edge of the camp.

The Death Squad’s camp already sat at the farthest edge of the larger encampment, and everyone was asleep. The only ones still awake were two non-Awakened soldiers—a small number, even for their unit—carrying out the night patrol rotation.

Ravian would have to pass them regardless if he wanted to leave the squad’s perimeter, since his tent and the other elite members’ tents were positioned at the center, with the Tenth-Rank and non-Awakened soldiers’ tents arranged in a ring around them.

"Sir Ravian? You’ve recovered?" one of the two soldiers said, unable to quite believe what he was seeing.

"Wait—Sir Ravian?" The other turned and found Ravian actually walking toward them, dragging an orc corpse behind him.

Ravian looked at the two men—both clearly older than him, and yet both calling him "Sir Ravian" purely because of the gap in power between them.

He shook his head at the bitterness of it before lifting it again with a smile in its place.

"Yes, I’m back. It was a minor injury—I’m completely fine now. And there’s no need for ’Sir.’ Ravian is enough," he said, patting one soldier on the shoulder and then the other as he passed them, heading away from the Viera Empire’s encampment.

The two soldiers blinked, momentarily thrown by the unusual request—it wasn’t something one typically heard in a military camp—but they came back to themselves quickly when they noticed which direction he was walking in.

"Sir Ravian—where are you going? That’s not the direction of the Empire. That’s the forest," one of them called out.

"I know. And I did say there’s no need for ’Sir.’ Ravian is enough," Ravian replied, looking back at them with full seriousness.

"Right... Ravian. But it’s very late, and there could be spies or danger of some kind in the forest right now. We’d ask you to reconsider."

"It’s alright—I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry about me. Stay focused on your watch," Ravian said, and didn’t look back again as the treeline drew steadily closer.

With each step, the massive camp behind him fell farther away, and the tall trees at the forest’s edge grew larger in front of him.

After several minutes of steady walking—the orc corpse barely slowing him at all—he stopped and turned to look back at the camp.

Even from this distance, it was enormous. The lights burning throughout it lit up the darkness in every direction, glowing against the night like a second moon settled on the ground.

A tremendous amount of work went into building this place—felling trees, clearing the long grass to open the ground, spacing every tent close enough for coordination but not so close that it would compromise their defensive advantage. And the most significant part of all... Ravian’s gaze settled on the massive, imposing castle at the camp’s center.

’From what I heard at that meeting, this camp isn’t even close to the Empire’s greatest force. Not even remotely.’

’Things haven’t reached a truly serious stage yet—if they had, the Grand Duke wouldn’t have left his grandchildren out here with this level of protection,’ Ravian reasoned, thinking of Frank and Lysandra.

’And since newly Awakened are Tenth Rank, and it goes: Walker, Soul Liberator, Riftmaker, then Guardian—which is the Sixth Rank and the highest I’ve actually heard of—that means there are five more ranks above it, with power I can’t even imagine yet. Like that wretched serpent who forced his way into my consciousness like he owned the place.’ The Star-Coiling Serpent—Fate—surfaced in his memory as he thought it.

He turned back, and his feet crossed the threshold into the dense forest.

The sound of crickets filled his ears at once, layered with the distant calls of other creatures somewhere deeper in the dark.

’I need to increase my strength quickly and reach the Walker Rank—and choose a path first. That alone will multiply my chances of survival by a number I can’t calculate, and it will unlock another ability tied to Sovereign Pride.’

Ravian planned as he walked, dragging the orc behind him and hoping there was a cave somewhere nearby.

[The host should also remember to absorb monsters. This will accelerate the completion of the host’s physical constitution—the Sovereign Pride Physique—which will fundamentally transform the host’s strength. Upon reaching the Ninth Rank, the host will find that their path diverges somewhat from what they currently expect.]