NeoRealm - Staring back into the Future

The first night didn't have anything setting off his alarm. Same for the second night, it was only on the third that it proved its worth. Jason's string and bells system never made a single sound. A reasonable enough thing when facing a sapient threat. Sure, he blacked the bells and so on, which made them harder to find. That was a laugh and a half against anyone who isn't fresh off the training field, basically only good against animals.

That alarm ritual, on the other hand, was well outside of any normal bandit or cultist's training. While available, the fact that the first place Jason got a crack at them came from a literal army sort of says something about their use. This meant that while the Quasit was able to sneak past said bells, Jason was more than ready for the little demon when it sneaked up to him.

That lone Quasit soon found itself back in the Abyss. Good thing the attack had come around dawn. Though honestly, that was around when Jason assumed it would happen. The whole "darkest before the dawn" thing wasn't just a fancy saying. While he wasn't going to assume anything about how NeoRealm as a solar system worked, it did seem to keep many familiar features such as the night being darkest right after dusk and right before dawn.

Combined with the fact that demons all have the ability to see in the dark and you end up with two points most suitable for them to pull off a sneak attack. On top of that, people are more likely to still be up after dusk and their fire probably still lit means dawn is the time to attack. Of course, everyone realizes that fact to some degree, but even then it can still work.

Not if you set off an alarm, though. Still, Jason wasn't going to have a peaceful morning. Instead, he packed up and moved out. While a Quasit could be sent out on its own, that isn't effective for scouting, which is presumably what the minor demon had been doing. So there was a summoner nearby who should have by now realized their summon had been banished.

Sure, if the Quasit had just been a random summon set to cause chaos, that would be a different matter. The fact that it decided to try and sneak up on Jason and kill him quietly says otherwise. Maybe a stronger demon would be able to somewhat control their chaotic nature, a Quasit? Not so much.

It should have charged right in to fight him or something. So there was a controller that managed to keep the thing on a short leash. And sure, Jason likely could take on whoever was out here. Most likely it wasn't even a team or anything. Rather, it would probably be some lone fanatic.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Jason wasn't going to wait around to find out and instead set off right away. Because, sure, he could take whatever was thrown at him. That didn't mean the others in the area would be able to handle the aftermath.

As it is, the controller has only a rough area to check and no idea what happened. If they pinned it down, there would be more than just one summoner coming. Jason would hate to be the reason that a swarm of demons and cultists ended up devastating the area.

Over the next week, Jason would find himself repeating the same sort of song and dance. Set up an alarm, get ambushed at night, and continue on his way. At first, every encounter worried him even more. After all, while the specific location of a summon isn't exactly reported on death, he was drawing a line on the map that happened to follow the road.

It wasn't until the seventh day that Jason was able to relax because for the first time since leaving the city; he came across one of the actual cultists. Boy, were they clueless. Jason hadn't really known what to expect out of them, after all, they had managed to form a hidden cult so there had to be some kind of structure.

That structure apparently started and ended with the head honchos who were all the way back on the other side of the city from here. While people had been set up to watch the road, they had been under orders not to actually attack anyone. This dude Jason was facing had apparently been in control of the last Quasit and he hadn't heard anything from those before. Well, he had been told there had been losses, but it was all blamed on the local monsters.

It seems that none of the guys over here were too keen on following the rules, who would have guessed? Not like they worship the primary force of chaotic evil in the multiverse or anything. So yeah, Jason felt a lot better about the last week of ambushes. While sure, it was an actual attempt at spying on people. The people in charge of it weren't doing their job all that well.

On the other hand, Jason also figured that the true leaders of this cult would realize something like this would happen. The fact that there were losses to monsters would be accounted for and if, say, a large number of Quasits started to mysteriously die from them, they would know something was up. Good thing Jason was just a single person so his actual effect on the numbers would be less than a blip.

Until now. There was the matter of a quite dead at this point cultist at Jason's feet. Sure, the guy had promised not to tell, but he worships the closest thing to literal chaos and evil. Can't exactly trust a guy like that. So after the idiot had finished monologuing about how evil he was and that the others would avenge him, Jason had snapped his neck and then applied an Energy blast directly to the heart.