By the time the battle to annihilate the Iron Fang Bandit Gang was finally over, night had already fallen, so Ace, Mirajane, and Lisanna found a clean inn in a small mountain town to stay for the night.
The warm lights and hot food washed away their battle fatigue, though there was still no clue about the "Shadow Serpent's Claw" the master had mentioned.
The night was deep and still with moonlight veiled by thin clouds, and while the small town had fallen into a deep slumber, several blurry dark figures approached the door to Ace's room as silently as phantoms while a faint, almost invisible pale purple mist seeped in from under the door.
Inside the room, Ace had been feigning sleep with his eyes closed, but his eyes suddenly snapped open with a gaze as sharp as an eagle's because, through the shared acute senses of digimon, he had long since detected the anomaly outside.
"As expected... Kyubimon, be quick, but leave one alive," he whispered into the darkness.
An almost transparent figure flashed past Ace, followed immediately by a few extremely brief, choked-off grunts from outside the door and the faint thud of heavy objects hitting the floor.
The entire process took less than three seconds before returning to dead silence, and while Mirajane and Lisanna in the next room seemed to sense something, they just turned over and fell back into a deep sleep without truly waking up.
Kyubimon's figure quietly returned to the room, elegantly licking its paws as it sent a telepathic message and said.
"Ace, there were five intruders, four have been dealt with, and the last one is under my Fox Bewitchment so he has temporarily fallen into a slumber with his subconscious open."
Ace had previously wondered if Kyubimon's demonic power had other uses during training, so he rose quietly to see four men in night-crawling gear lying silently on the corridor carpet, each with only a thin wound on their neck.
Ace looked at the remaining man who was sitting against the wall with vacant eyes, placing his hand on the survivor's forehead while a purple light flashed in Kyubimon's eyes to delve deep into the man's psyche.
"Who sent you, and where is your base?" Ace asked in a low voice that brooked no refusal.
The hypnotized man's lips moved, spitting out information like, "Shadow Serpent's Claw... under orders from Lord fat rat... The base is straight north through the dense forest..."
A moment later, Ace had the information he wanted and his eyes turned cold because it was just as he'd thought, and their base wasn't far, located in the deep mountains to the north where it seemed they were conducting some kind of evil ritual.
"Clean this up," Ace ordered and Kyubimon understood, using its flames to turn the bodies and all traces of them to ash which scattered in the wind as if they had never existed.
...
The next morning, sunlight dispersed the thin mist in the mountains, so the three of them packed their things to return to the guild, and Ace spoke to Mirajane and Lisanna.
"You two take the spoils and the mission report back to the guild first, I have some personal business to take care of so I'll leave a little later."
Mirajane gave him a suspicious look but didn't press him, merely nodding coolly, while Lisanna told him to be careful.
As he watched Mirajane and Lisanna's figures disappear at the end of the path leading out of town, Ace's gaze suddenly sharpened as he turned to look toward the cloud-wreathed mountains to the north.
"The base of Shadow Serpent's Claw... How much data energy can I get from wiping them out, and should I start by evolving SkullGreymon again?" he muttered to himself, because for now, besides evolution, there seemed to be no other way.
He had actually always wanted a WarGreymon, but the probability of evolving it into one seemed very low.
"Forget it, it's my first partner after all, so if it evolves into Machinedramon... I'll accept it."
Following the information he'd obtained last night, Ace moved swiftly into the deep mountains to the north, and over an hour later, a guild building hidden deep within the dense forest appeared, faintly exuding a sinister, dark magical aura.
Ace took a deep breath, knowing SkullGreymon needed a thorough release and a massive amount of data energy to evolve, so he decided to use them all as a.... sacrifice.
He focused his mind, forcibly triggering the dark, violent contract in the depths of his soul until a huge, twisted, dark gray Magic Circle radiating a thick aura of death and malevolence abruptly unfolded before him, making the surrounding air bone-chillingly cold.
"Answer my call... Even if you have fallen into darkness, you are still my partner!" Ace's voice trembled slightly, but he didn't care if his lines were cringey since he had already transmigrated into a 2D world anyway.
"Descend! SkullGreymon!"
A deafening roar filled with an endless desire for destruction tore through the tranquility of the mountains as a colossal skeleton dragon, nothing but a frame of ghastly white bones, crawled out of the Magic Circle with steps that made the very earth tremble.
Its eyes burned with a frenzied crimson light, and its jawbone opened and closed with a grating sound that set one's teeth on edge.
"Destroy... everything in sight!" Ace pointed toward the mine entrance, unable to control it with precision and only able to guide its destructive instinct.
Accompanied by a deafening roar filled with wildness and madness, the enormous and terrifying SkullGreymon became extremely agitated, opening its cavernous maw to let out wave after wave of shrill shrieks to vent the fury in its heart.
The terrifying monster suddenly swung its giant bone claws against the wall, and with a thunderous boom, the ground trembled as the sturdy wall collapsed as if it were made of paper.
SkullGreymon, like a messenger of death from the underworld, stepped unhesitatingly into the pitch-black building to continue its rampage, and immediately after, earth-shattering explosions and blood-curdling screams erupted from within.
Ace stood outside the mine with a blank expression and summoned another digimon.
"Garurumon, guard the outside, leave no one alive!"
"Understood!" materialized in a flash of light, glancing at the terrifying commotion inside with a hint of gravity but faithfully carrying out the order to lurk near the entrance like a calm hunter.
Ace just stood there quietly listening to the final dirge of the dark guild coming from within the mine, while Garurumon spotted a few wretched figures darting out, instantly turning one who tried to resist into an ice sculpture with Freezing Fangs, burning another to ash with Fox Fire, and tearing open the throat of the last one with sharp claws.