4 Break Them

I grinded my skills for three days before I ran out of food from the back pack. I gained quite a few skill levels, but unlocking other skill trees would require character levels. I needed to kill a bat.

Over the course of these three days, I studied the bats movements and lifestyles. I found they were most active during the morning and afternoons. After that, they alternated between comas and napping. My plan involved waking up one bat during its coma before trying to kill one.

Most of the bats required more than a little rustling to wake them. When I got out of the circle of light at the beginning of the change, it had been during these comas. The only thing keeping me alive had been dumb luck.

Understanding that, I planned out the fight this time. I chose a flat, open location, since the bats had poor maneuverability. There raw power must be the trade off. I would kite one bat around until my agony aura finished them off.

Of course this would take a long time. I found that most rolls required 10 stamina, so I’d have four or five every minute. That meant I needed to dodge them without rolling as much as possible. A hefty task, but with all my new buffs, it shouldn’t be as hard as the first bat was.

With that in mind, I walked over towards the flat piece of ground before I activated agony. With all my damage reduction and willpower bonuses, I found the aura was around 8 feet from me in all directions. A serviceable distance for defense.

Time to get started. I toss a stone overhead at the landing place of a bat I saw earlier. The rock landed on the bat as I sprinted towards it. It hit the bat causing it to open its wings before squealing lightly. Now it was go time.

I reached the rock before catching it in my hand. I bent my knees as I caught it, reducing the impact and following noise. If it hit the ground, I’d be fucked. I increased agony until it reached about 8 health a minute. The bat passed by.

When it reached agony’s range, I darted sideways. The creature crashed into the rock like a truck, just like the other one. I ran towards it until it reeled back at agony’s aura. Now was the hard part.

I set up in my stance for boxing for the speed boost. The bat glanced around before echoing its signal. Turning towards me, it flexed its wings and bolted forwards, fast as a bullet. I rolled sideways, the monster passing by inches from me. The wind flew past my face. It was damn close.

I neared it once more, and the process repeated itself. The bat scratched me several times before clipping my shoulder with a solid gash. It hurt less than I expected, but more than I wanted, like pulling a tooth.

Soon, a sheen of sweat appeared on us both. The conflict dragged on, minutes turning to hours. By the time the bat had any wounds, we were both heaving for air. Gashes littered my body, but the bat fared no better. Blood poured from his mouth and pieces of his skin. His crashes had covered him in scrapes as well.

Once his teeth started falling out, I secured my victory. The bat’s movements slowed substantially before I began slipping in punches. I dashed in, jabbed, then dashed out. The monster always chomped where I hit it, but I pulled back just in time, every time.

The bat lost the ability to move after a while, its own tenacity working against it. I pummeled the poor thing as agony slowly whittled away its life. The body felt like slamming my fist into stone. After fifteen minutes of punching it, the damn thing finally died.

Level up! [360 exp](BloodHollow Bat(lvl 36) exp)X[2.3](Underleveled Bonus) = 828 exp gained. 3 levels gained.

Man, three levels. What a drop off, but I suppose it makes sense.The exp was less than last time, and I'm a higher level too. The attribute screen popped up. I added all three points into endurance. I figured 20 points in it would unlock the other perk, and that would be the perk I choose. Besides, endurance was my bread and butter stat.

The next set of perks appeared, this time for level 15. By my assumptions, you get a perk on level one, three, five, then once every five levels. I'm level 16 now, so 5 perks in total.

Perk Selection. Choose One.

[Unrelenting(endurance 20) - Your endurance is very impressive. +50 health and stamina, +5 health regen, +50 stamina regen. Adds 1/10th of your endurance to willpower.]

[Fledgling(Reach level 5) - You've just started learning. +10% to experience.]

[Beginner(Reach level 10) - Now you know a little. You can step out of the tutorial zone now.]

The choice was obvious. Unrelenting was ridiculous. It made sense though. 14 of my level up attributes had gone to endurance. That's some serious commitment, it deserves a serious reward.

I picked the perk and finalized my selection. Instantly, the pain of agony weighed less on my mind. Thank god. With that wave of relief washing over me, I focused on my status for a minute.

My attributes were starting to beef up by quite a bit. The extra willpower really helped too, since it made agony better and helped me keep focused. With that in mind, I check out my skill trees. I had 127 tree points after the last few days and the fight just now. My skills had started to slow down their level ups, but I had enough for what I needed.

| II Determinator(Tireless, Unyielding, and Unrelenting unlocked, all before level 20[0/100]), I Vicious(Fight in a battle with an opponent 20 levels over you for over one hour and win, Scorn, Desperation, and Death's Dance unlocked)[0/25] |

With a few quick thoughts, I put 100 points in II Determinator. Four notifications appeared.

Nothing can stop you. They tear your legs off, you walk with your arms. +15% to regen stats.

They tear off your arms, you crawl with your chin. +15% to regen stats.

They tear off your chin, you crawl with your tongue. +15% to your regen stats.

They tear off your tongue, you crawl with your teeth. You are a walking, breathing storm. +25% to regen stats and +10% to willpower.

What an amazing boon. Agony grows even easier for me to maintain before I put all twenty five points into vicious. Five notifications come as expected.

You will not go down without clawing at your opponent. +1% to damage dealt.

Your every intention is to kill your enemies. +1% to damage dealt.

You feast on hatred. +1% to damage dealt.

You live for their death. + 1% to damage dealt.

They will feast on your hatred too. +1% to damage dealt.

It was a nice little bonus to damage. Compared with the determinator trees, it was very little, though more than the fighter ones. Now that I settled my perks and attributes, I checked out my attribute then character screens.

Level 16 Attribute Totals(3)

Strength - Increases carrying weight, maximum speed, and physical power 8.8

Constitution - Increases hardness, density, and weight of your body 5.5

Endurance - Increases regeneration of stamina, health, and their totals 23.1

Dexterity - Increases ease of movement, flexibility, and reflexes 4

Willpower - Increases internal motivation, mana regen, and Mental Res 11.3

Intelligence - Increases memory, critical thinking, and total mana pool 4

Charisma - Increases likeability, persuasion, and decreases prices at shops 4

Luck - Increases money found, odds in your favor, and chance of rare events 3

Perception - Increases comprehension, the five senses, and awareness 4

Character Totals Regen Buffs/Debuffs

Health 301/301 29.24/min Agony - 5.15 Hp/min lost

Stamina 301/301 292.40/min Elemental Res - 0%

Mana 50/50 2.26/min Plasma Res - 0%

Phys Dam Reduction - [5.5]*1.15 = 6.1% Rad Res - 0%

Phys Dam Bonus - [8.8%*1.15] = 9.8% Mental Res - 11.3%

Its no wonder agony doesn't hurt near as much. The pain is relative to the percentage of my health bar being drained. Willpower also helps with the pain as well. My regen stats were insane compared with before. The health regen could be effective in a fight and the stamina regen was downright insane.

No matter how much I moved from here on out, I would never be tired. Well, close enough at least. If I full on sprint for over ten minutes straight, I'd start getting out of breath.

After that, I checked out Agony.

[Agony - Drains all nearby units health, including the caster. The more health the caster drains from themselves a second, the larger the effective range of the aura. Damage reduced by constitution and willpower. Current conversion: [1.11(Willpower bonus)/.939(Constitution bonus)] = 1.185]

So that meant around a 19% increase to agony's damage compared with its health drain. With my current health regen that would be what? 35?

Man, this shit's complicated. Fortunately I could just scope it out by feel. Of course, as I increased my health regen, agony would hurt worse. I'm not burning a small part of my health anymore. Without my regen and bonuses, I'd die in less than ten minutes.

Imagine a pain so intense, you die in less than ten minutes from it. When I turn agony up, that was what hit me, along with a notification.

Skill Level! Pain Tolerance(lvl 53)

I could notice the ever so slight reduction in pain with it. It didn't matter. This pain was overwhelming, like having a hot nail hammered through your hand. The pain never receded, and after a while, all I could do was exist.

I was bathed in that pain, forged in it. So much sheer torment that I hated every second of life. Everything became pain with agony at such an intensity. I turned it off after a ten or so minutes, leveling pain tolerance twice.

Glancing over at the dead bat, the corpse had deflated during my stay. Blood leaked out from it in all directions, like rivers of red. The bones softened, the skin dried. Agony destroyed the corpse at a basic level, and far, far faster than before.

Learning to move with this was going to be difficult. Likely, the most difficult thing I'd ever done.

Harder than my mother dying, harder than having to see my father break down after he lost her, even harder than coming home to the smell of cheap booze.

Just like then, I steeled myself. I swallowed this piece of me that wanted it all to end, to just let go. I would get out of here alive. I wouldn't break down like my father had. I will stand tall and towering in the face of this.

I'll sacrifice my soul for might.

*****************************

That night passed slowly. Hunger set in after several hours. I'd run away from the bat's corpse when other bat's came towards it, along with some other...things. At my cove, I grit my teeth and clenched my fists before turning up agony.

Hours had passed since then. My skin felt like fire and my bones like mush. This torture, this despair, this misery crushed me. I hated it. I hated this schema. I hated my father. I hated myself. I wanted it all gone, to all just wash away.

Why couldn't I just fight monsters anywhere near my level? Why couldn't I just have an easier way of fighting them? Why did I have to melt my body to fight them, to turn to human sludge?

There were no answers. I simply had to do this to live. I couldn't help but hate. What else was there for me. The seconds stretched out like minutes. After several more hours passed, they stretched out to hours.

I couldn't believe how long pain tolerance took to level after 60. Even after an eternity, I only reached level 73. I noticed, however, that something had changed since hitting that 70 mark.

I looked at pain tolerance again.

[Pain Tolerance(lvl 73)] - You tolerate pain better than others. -73% reduction to pain.]

It was as I thought. If pain tolerance reached 100, then I wouldn't feel pain. Every point as I got closer made a world of difference now. Time turned to normal, and eventually, agony's burn returned to what I remembered. The hardship was over.

Not a second too soon. Pain tolerance leveled to 83 as I fell asleep in my little cove of rocks.

**************************************

When I awoke, the bat's swarmed in all directions, but maintained distance from my spot. Pain tolerance leveled up to 85 as I slept. Agony was a dull ache rather than torment. Hell, I could sleep through it.

It was odd how I did that. I'd always just shut agony off when I fell asleep, but I passed out before I could. I suppose the increase to willpower had helped more than I thought it would.

Regardless, the bats felt my pain, literally. Any bat that flew within 40 feet of me howled before flying away. It seemed my new and improved agony was living up to its name by now. It was time to put it to some serious use.

At least, later. I didn't want a swarm of these bats on me. Not yet at least. I would bide my time till I could kill hordes of them at once. I glanced at my character menus and attributes before noticing a new skill tree.

| Ancient(Regenerate 100,000 health or 100,000 mana or 10,000,000 stamina)[0/100] |

Awwwwwwwwwwwww yeahhhhh. I guess the schema judges age by how much you've used your stats. considering how quickly I regenerate, I'm burning through time quickly. I put all 38 of my excess points into it.

It rewards me with a notification as always.

Some measure their time in seconds, others in eons. You are the latter. +10 health, mana, and stamina. +10% experience and skill gain.

Fuck yeah. Little boosts to my stats, but that experience and skill gain increase is sick. With that in mind, I try learning some new skills while waiting for the bats to settle down. When coming back from the second bat I killed, I grabbed my backpack. With all the books and materials, I studied in hope of new skills. I found them.

I got mathematics, history, biology, and patience. The only useful one at the moment is the latter.

[Patience(lvl1) - Patience is the willingness to endure. +1% to willpower when waiting.]

It's an alright bonus, and I just wanted the new tree points these skills would offer. With all my stamina regen, I could go for many hours without sleeping. By the time the bats entered their coma, I'd drilled in these core subjects. In fact, I probably studied more in the last 8 hours than I had in all my years of school.

I kept studying until I reached two more ranks in ancient. They have awesome notifications.

Many move through life in a haze. You wandered out of that haze long ago. +10 health, mana, and stamina. +10% exp and skill gain.

Your ways are the olden ways. Your ways are the ways of legends. +10 health, mana, and stamina. +10% exp and skill gain.

At this point, I'm ravenous. I haven't eaten in two days. With my resolve steeled, I step out into my clearing before throwing another stone at a bat.

Skill gained! [Throwing(lvl 1)]

I catch the stone again as it falls. The bat squeals before diving towards me. This time I dodge with a little side step, keeping myself in agony's range. I learned from my last fight that these things are basically bulls in bat form. You can lead them pretty easily once your used to it.

The bat continues squealing slightly, more out of pain than echolocating. The bat tries catching me, even cutting me a few times. Some even form gashes, but the bat's body melts. I can see its life ebbing away under the might of agony.

Twenty minutes later, the bat dies as I maul it with my fists.

Level up! [350 exp](BloodHollow Bat(lvl 35) exp)X[1.9](Underleveled Bonus)1.3(Ancient Wisdom) = 865 exp gained. 3 levels gained.

The attribute screen pops up, and I place all three points into endurance. Unrelenting made the stat a core necesity for me. The Determinator skill trees made it even better. It fed into the machine that was agony. Once I killed a few more bats, these monsters would be child's play for me to handle.

From what I could tell, they had 20 health for each level. A level 35 bat had 700 health. If I could get agony to a large enough area, I could kill these things to extinction. In fact, I likely would out of spite.

As a bat came down to eat the other bat's corpse, I stayed and fought with a smile on my face. This bat fell within the expected twenty minutes, just like the last. He gave me a massive gash on my chest during one of his charges, however. If not for my high pain tolerance, I'd have died there.

But I had very high pain tolerance, and the bat did not.

Level up! [330 exp](BloodHollow Bat(lvl 33) exp)X[1.4](Underleveled Bonus)1.3(Ancient Wisdom) = 601 exp gained. 1 level gained.

I put my attribute point into endurance, giving me well over the twenty five I needed for the next perk. When I read its bonuses, I grinned a wide, malicious smile. These monsters will scream and suffer and die until none of them are left.

I'll break them just as they tried to break me. One bone at a time.