The thing is that the Knight could send the Yiril back, including itself. It was not sending the Yiril back because it was a scoundrel, and it could not be trusted, who's to say it will be found again, being a being with such high knowledge stats, one can see how it would be valuable to a being with the will of wisdom.
Itself was not willing to go back because of the previously established reasons, greed, reward, punishment, need to grow stronger, and one more, to explore the world of the living, with the hope of remembering what it was when it was human. For now, it had this monster, this dangerous beast out for the life of the Knight.
"Yiril, can I store you in my inventory"
Still terrified, but a steady voice answered, "It only stored equipment and souls, not all beings' possess it, it's an acquired attribute of strong beings, but some like yourself are born with them, and in all cases, it cannot store other creatures. At least you don't need a soul collecting core, you can just put them in there."
"Okay, then do you have a skill to allow you to be immune to death for a while?"
"No."
'I guess, even if I did manage to fight off this monster there are more that are even stronger deeper down this dungeon we go, so then I will have to send it back, it is dead wait anyway'
The Knight was still hesitant about this, but there was no way it could unleash its full might while still protecting the Yiril. "Listen Yiril, I will be back in less than two cycles, maybe even three, so you better be close to the blood river to welcome me back, I still have secrets to trade."
With that, the Yiril was gone, not even given the time to process anything, with good cause, any more wasted time, the more the monster will destroy the Knight. And with that burden gone, the Knight was going to do something that seems foolish, since it will notify all other monsters of its presence, and even worse, the weaker will run, and the brave will come, and the stronger will rush in, to destroy the intruder. Not like coming here was not deadly to start.
Then silence covered the world. The air became still. The whole area of the Knight became devoid of meaning, scurrying further from the Knight as it could. If the Knight was human still, it would be dead, there was nothing moving, the air did not flow, space was growing, shifting to avoid the Knight. Absolute silence. Nothing could be spared the terror the visage of the Knight exerted on the world. This much use made the world want to cough out blood but did not in fear of letting any of it offend the Knight. In the simplest manner, the World was sick with terror. Fear that consumed it utterly.
On this day one would not hear anything, even the passage of time came to a standstill, and the Retcher could feel it too. It let go of the armour and stood there. This is the undeniable fear, the unrestrained expression of a dreaded power, the manifestation of fear as it is, pure in every form, not living, not dead, no object, none could ignore the Visage of Terror.
The Knight stood up and looked down on the thing; after all the Knight was a whole meter taller. The dark and disturbing green on the armour shifted. The Knight slowly lowered its hand towards the chest of the still monster. Before the edges of the gauntlet could even touch the monster, the scales parted, the lathery skin beneath tore open, the lean fibres of muscles loosened up and severed itself, all making a path for the Knight. A cave to the centre formed, and not even a single drop of blood fell from the upper edges. The Knights arm moved seamlessly, not even touching any flesh, skin, scales, or blood, all of it moving away on its own. Terrified of the thought of even touching the Knight, blemishing its splendour.
Once at the centre, the hand clenched, the fingers winding into a fist, and whisps of dark indigo appeared from the wall of the gaping hole, stagnant, as if being held in place to the walls by a force of gravity, not really, it was hesitation. The whisps were hesitating, the fist tightened up and all the whisps flowed towards the hand, glowing lightly around the gauntlet. The scales of the monster lost their sheen, its eyes grew lifeless, and the monster slowly descended downwards, and without even a thud, it landed on the ground, not even a single sound escaped from the fall. Once out of range of the gauntlet, the flesh of the beast started to resemble actual flesh, it flowed in with the blood, towards the gaping hole, like rubble on the sides of a grave, collapsing inwards, barely covering the wound.
The Knight then turned the visage of terror off.
Sound returned, like a boom, the world was sighing. Time continued to flow, and the gushing of the open wound of the monster came to life, unlike the monster, the tension in the air dissipated, and the Grain of Darkness finally spoke, announcing the kill which happened a while ago, almost as if it couldn't do it any second earlier.
You have slain a level 119 monster, Retcher. Soul acquired. Store or Use Crimson smith skill to craft?
The Knight was lost in thought, the visage of terror seems to be far deadlier than it had imagined. At best the Knight thought it would incapacitate it, and it would fetch the mallet to crush it, but once activated to such a degree, it was straining. Terrifying any being stronger seems to take a toll on the soul, no damage but it seems to empty out the motivation to live, meaning even the soul exerting this pressure, was not spared, not fully anyway. That was why the Knight was going to attempt slicing the abdomen, it could not sustain it for much longer, since it might be weaker, the mallet was too far to fetch, when the flesh parted, in benevolence, nope, fear. 'I guess I should decide what to do with the soul'
"I will craft. What can I craft?"
Crafting options; Retcher mallet, Retcher compass, Retcher medallion.
The mallet can change its size, the compass leads to anything hiding, the medallion hardens anything to the level of the Retcher scales.
"Craft medallion"
This will help with defence against stronger foes, using this power repeatedly is not a wise idea.
Then the soul resting in the palm glowed and formed into a medallion. A dull silver blue scale tethered on a chain, which the Knight placed around its neck, and its armour hardened, it was already repairing itself, it seems the Knight has no blood, the holes with teeth marks were not dripping at least. Even while still battered the Knight marched forward. It was right most monsters in the immediate vicinity seem to have ran.
The deeper the Knight travelled the more eerie it felt, until it spotted a string of bodies, it seems the monsters ran into a stronger one and by the looks of the bodies, the grain of darkness identified these monsters as ranging from 100-110, about ten of them. That means that Retcher was up here to hunt the weaker monsters. If these were the weakest, then they must have bumped into a truly terrifying monstrosity, considering that it did not run, it might be level 120 or higher. The knight did not have to eat flesh, only souls, more specifically human souls, but leaving those bodies lying there would be a travesty. Their killer must have deemed them worthless, not even filling, but being a smith the Knight had another idea. It striped the flesh off the bones, which was surprisingly easier, considering that the armour was now harder, and with mighty, it was easy work. Stripping the bones and shells of any monster, the claws and eyes.
It used the eyes to see if it could replace its own, being a void being and not human, thinking it might enhance its vision. They were all useless. Next the bones were used to make a chair, tied with rope fashioned out of the tough skin. The Knight did not have to sleep, but the chair was not a bad idea, ever since sitting in one, by the lords manor, it has been something the Knight wanted, this journey will take a while, having a chair was tantamount to having water in the desert if one was a rock, it cools down the surface but is not needed. Just a refreshing change of things.
***
A year had passed. Delving deeper into the dungeon was gruelling, fighting anything up to level 120 was doable, hard but manageable, and occasionally when the Knight ran into anything close to level 125, it used the visage of terror, not too much though, as it could incapacitate it too, and what would happen if another monster was lying in wait. The Yiril was not kidding when it said, the difference between levels is terrifying, just to place it into perspective, if there was somehow a normal playing field, as fair as possible, even after a drawn out or instant battle, a level one could never hope to fight a level two, it was like day and night. That's why most of the monsters around here are sly, making themselves stronger, weakening the opponent, or both. Some hid in these hidden caverns, which the Knight found because it eventually crafted a compass from another Retcher soul, this one way weaker, level 112, it still gave the Knight trouble. This past year, the Knight learned a whole lot, still stuck at level 105 though. One of these lessons was, there was no way in hell it could defeat a level 130, even defeating a level 127 was a stretch, unless it committed double suicide, killing it with visage of terror, and itself dying immediately afterwards due to strain on the soul.
Right now, the Knight was contemplating its next set of actions, using a hidden cavern to hide from the monsters. It was at a standstill. It really was unprepared, the killing of monsters up to level 110 was already a feat on its own, killing the ones up until level 120 was merely the luck of managing to kill the first Retcher with a level of 119, and even that was due to exhausting its strength to use its visage of terror power, pulling it off again was nearly impossible. The medallion made from the level 119 soul, which was a mere application of its smithing skill, otherwise, it would be a soul in the inventory. Now its strength, added to the mighty skill, with a wise use of the power, it was capable of things that would make the lords laugh to death with how preposterous it all sounded; 'a level 105 really making a habit of killing level 120's!'. At least if true it makes the dreaded soul part more believable, if only slightly.
"That book of souls better be worth it. At least it will explain some of the mysteries around souls, and what makes my dreaded soul so rare, or outright impossible."
Now it was time to get back to the problem at hand, how was it supposed to defeat all these monsters, the ones it faced so far are stragglers, basically the monsters that stay higher up to avoid the real predators, like the one the Knight almost bumped into once. The mission is clear -kill ALL monsters present in the dungeons. The actual monsters that rule these lairs are at level 130 minimum like the Yiril said, the rest are the ones that survived by hiding from the slaughter, just like the Knight itself was too. Killing one with a suicide attack is possible, but the Knight did not come here to die. Each passing day reminded the Knight just how impossible this was.
Maybe it could abandon the task, skip back to the void, it could sell these souls its collected, join the lord's army and hope for the best, maybe the loss of those power levels won't be too crimpling. Instantly the image of how powerless the Yiril would be in here, and the Knight knows how life for the weak is, survive by scrounging for scraps and hoping the strong will take pity and ignore. A painful existence of passivity.
"Never!"