Chapter 3

Zeth tossed the minced monster corpse onto his ritual circle. Empowerment Ritual Ranked up to two upon receiving the sacrifice, and…

[Ritual complete: Empowerment Ritual.

Sacrifice given: Large amount of moderate-strength monster blood.

Level Up!]

[Blood Magus’s Level has increased to 2.

+3 Endurance. Your Endurance is 12.

+1 Awareness. Your Awareness is 2.

+2 Poise. Your Poise is 4.

+7 Shaping. Your Shaping is 14.

+3 Skill Points. You have 10 Skill Points.]

[Requirement fulfilled: Blood Magus Level 2.

You have unlocked Blood Magus Skill: Unholy Strength.]

It looked like this new unlock, Unholy Strength, was also out of his budget—this time even more than the thirteen-cost Hellfire Ritual, this one would set him back eighteen Skill Points. So unless he really saved up, it wouldn’t come for a while. Though, its effect, temporarily increasing his Stats by a decent margin upon completion of a ritual, was certainly something he was interested in eventually picking up.

For now, though, he needed to continue into the cave he’d found. There was something lurking there, but ideally he’d get lucky and wouldn’t see it. And if he did, he just hoped…

Zeth wandered down passageways and through winding tunnels in search of a way out. Just a hint of natural light, and he'd be free. And he’d rather get out of here sooner rather than later; the longer he was down here, the more likely he was to run into one of those eye dog things while they were still alive.

Despite his caution, peering around every corner and hoping his light would reveal any nearby threats before he noticed them, Zeth was still left with very little to actually do as he walked.

He looked over Hellfire Ritual’s description.

[Hellfire Ritual - Cost: 13 Skill Points

Uses a ritual circle to create a hellfire trap. Upon completion of the ritual, the trap will become armed, and any being other than you who comes into contact with the circle will trigger it, causing it to burst into a powerful inferno.

Strength of sacrifice required: Low

Required ritual circle diameter: 6 inches

Minimum time required to draw: 1 hour

Upkeep time required each day: 20 minutes]

So, if he encountered a monster, all he’d have to do was lure it into the trap, and boom—it’d catch on fire, burn to death, and the fight would be won. Though, there was obviously a problem with that hour-long drawing time. He’d either have to somehow know he was going to get into a fight an hour beforehand, or he’d have to prepare an area with the trap and then lead the monster all the way back to that area in order for his strategy to work.

Either way, though, he’d rather have the Skill than not. But he couldn’t just sit down and spend hours down here drawing circles in chalk. Not just because of the possibility of being attacked, but Zeth was on a natural timer, too. His mouth was already dry. He needed water. He needed to keep moving.

Spotting a flat rock lying on the ground, Zeth got an idea, bending over and grabbing it. Turning it over and looking for a flat surface, he eventually decided on an area to draw, and began tracing his finger along the stone as he walked, lantern hanging from his belt.

The rock was relatively small, and the ritual circle seemed to refuse to go over edges or large bumps, so he had little surface area to work with, but it was enough. Once he’d finished the base circle, he decided to go further this time, mimicking the swirls and designs he’d seen in the mage’s massive circle. Instinct guided him as he worked. A short line there, a curve there, connect these two lines here, copy it on the other side for symmetry—

He hit something and dropped the stone, breaking his focus. Looking ahead, he realized he’d walked straight into a wall.

He picked the stone back up, looking at the surface he’d been drawing on. The chalk had been smudged. The knowledge given to him by his Skill told him even a small smudge like that meant the whole thing was ruined. He’d have to start again.

So he did exactly that, rubbing the chalk off and beginning the process from scratch, this time taking care to pay more attention to his surroundings. He remembered the line from Ritual Circle Mastery, “For each Rank in this Skill, the amount of mental effort required of you to draw ritual circles is decreased by 0.1% per point you have in the Shaping Stat.”

He definitely agreed that he could use a boost in his mental abilities while working, considering how much the circle seemed to absorb him the moment his finger touched the stone. But with the Skill only at Rank two and with a Shaping of fourteen that only translated to slightly below 3% in total. Not exactly useful yet. But that was just even more reason to Rank the Skill up.

It didn’t take much time at all for Ritual Circle Mastery to reach Rank three. He absentmindedly traced his finger along the rock as he walked, doing his best to keep his attention primarily focused on his surroundings, and eventually received the notification telling him he’d pushed it even further, up to Rank four.

He got to his hands and knees, crawling through a tighter space as he smiled to himself.

Once he was on the other side of the crawlspace, he got back up and kept walking. If he just drew out a few more of those practice circles, he could finally afford Hellfire Ritual.

He stopped, frowning. He could hear a sound echoing through the dark cavern. Was that…running water?

Hurrying to the next corner, Zeth turned, hoping to see salvation. But as he did, he caught a whiff of decaying flesh.

He dashed back behind the cave wall, hurriedly covering his nose with his shirt, but it was too late.

[Poise check failed.]

Pain invaded his senses, assaulting his body and mind. He did everything he could to not scream out in agony, but fell to the stone ground all the same.

After an unknowable number of seconds, the sensation ended. Zeth was lying on the ground, drenched with yet more sweat. In the distance, he could hear something. Steps. Something was heading his way.

He scrambled to his feet and began backing away as silently as he could, protecting his nose with the fabric of his shirt, and watched as the hound’s figure prowled around the corner. Its massive eye that acted as a head stared into him. The warts covering its body twitched, growing more active the closer the beast came.

Then, in an instant, it charged. Zeth turned to flee, running off as quickly as he could move without tripping. He had no idea what that thing would do to him if it caught him—did it even have a mouth to eat him with?—but whatever it was, he didn’t want to find out. It could probably just suffocate him with that horrible pain smell.

He dove to the ground, sliding into the crawlspace he’d passed through, and frantically kicked his way to the other side. The warted dog was slightly too big to comfortably fit, but it bent down and began squeezing its way inside to try and get to Zeth.

Hurriedly searching the small room he was in, Zeth found a large enough rock to block the passage and rolled it in front. It didn’t block the way through perfectly, but it was at least large enough to stop the monster from squeezing its way through.

Seconds later, the dog got to the blockage and threw its body against it. The rock rolled slightly out of the way.

Zeth instantly got to the ground and pushed the rock back into place before the monster could hit it again. He stayed there, leaning back against the stone as the monster slammed into it in an attempt to get to him, and prayed.

After a few attempts, the monster stopped trying. Zeth waited a minute, then leaned over to peer through the gap left between the boulder and the wall, and…

The thing was lying down in the middle of the crawlspace, staring straight at Zeth. When it saw him no longer holding the rock back, it instantly stood and charged to ram it out of the way once more. Zeth rushed to push back against it and hold it down.

The thing had been waiting for him. He couldn’t leave, or the hound would just push the rock out of the way and start chasing him again. Maybe he could find a couple more boulders and pile them all up at this crawlspace entrance in time to keep it from getting through, but not only was that risky, it’d also block Zeth from getting to the other side, too.

He’d heard running water coming from down that tunnel. He knew he had. Zeth was tired and ready to lie down in a nice bed, but most importantly, he was If there was a chance to sate that need, he knew he had to take it.

Not to mention, if there was water running through this cave, it had to lead somewhere. And the surface was a likely guess as to the flowing water’s destination.

But lying in his way was this dog. Zeth took a cautious breath in from underneath his shirt, trying to think. What could he even do, other than hope he could wait this thing out? That is, hope that he could wait it out while it was on the side that had access to water, and he was on the side that didn’t.

Right. He needed to figure out a better plan than that.

Trying to calm his breathing, Zeth leaned over and started tracing his finger across the ground.

It took drawing two separate six-inch-wide circles, but eventually Ritual Circle Mastery Ranked up to 5.

[Ritual Circle Mastery’s Rank has increased to 5.

+1 Skill Point. You have 13 Skill Points.]

[Requirement fulfilled: Ritual Circle Mastery Rank 5.

You have unlocked Blood Magus Skill: Vile Focus.]

A second, unexpected notification came through notifying Zeth of a new Skill unlock, but he wasn’t extremely interested in that. Glancing at Vile Focus’s description, it seemed useful—a solid passive Skill to have later on—but it wasn’t something he was about to spend his valuable Skill Points on right now. Not when that hound was still waiting on the other side of the boulder, eager to slaughter him.

Nose stinging with the stink of his own sweat, having kept his shirt pulled over his nose the entire time he’d worked, Zeth reached into his mind and purchased the Skill he needed.

[You have purchased Blood Magus Skill: Hellfire Ritual.

-13 Skill Points. You now have 0 Skill Points.]

He was banking on this working. The two circles he’d drawn in front of the entrance to the crawlspace were the right size for Hellfire Ritual, so all he needed to do was activate them with a sacrifice.

Only, the sacrifice was the difficult part. The requirement was “Low,” which was the same as what Empowerment Ritual showed when he wasn’t able to activate it using just his own blood. He hoped this was on the lower requirement end of the “low” spectrum than Empowerment Ritual, but there was only one way to find out.

Still keeping his back planted firmly against the rock keeping the monster away, Zeth picked at the scab that was just beginning to form on his finger, feeling that same irritated prick of pain as he opened the small wound back up so that blood began leaking out once again, and then wiped it on the ritual circle in front of him.

[Ritual progress: Hellfire Ritual

Sacrifice given: Minor amount of weak human blood.

Sacrifice requirement: 3% met.]

But then, Zeth heard movement from behind him. At first, he just assumed it was the monster guarding the crawlspace shifting its position like it’d done a couple times before, until he glanced back to check.

A second of the eye hounds had arrived.

The first stood and looked over at the other, each making strange gurgling sounds at each other.

As Zeth watched, the two dogs turned to stare at him, seeming to form an agreement between themselves, then charged at the rock together. He braced against it as they slammed into the stone, pushing him forward with much more force than just one of the dogs could have applied. They both began backing up as Zeth scrambled to reposition himself against the rock, pushing back with his legs as hard as he could.

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One lucky hit was all it would take for them to squeeze through. And the hounds seemed to know this, preparing to charge again.

Zeth took a shaky breath.

Placing the stone shard’s jagged blade against his forearm, Zeth grit his teeth, then sliced his skin open. Pain shot up his arm as blood seeped out of the long wound, and he quickly pressed his arm against the ritual circle, where the streaming blood sank into the ground below.

Sucking air through his teeth in a gasp of pain as he rubbed the open wound all along the rough stone surface, he watched as the percentage counter for Hellfire Ritual’s progress quickly ticked up from his sacrifice. Within a few seconds, he got a notification.

[Ritual complete: Hellfire Ritual

Sacrifice given: Moderate amount of weak human blood. seaʀᴄh thё Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Hellfire Ritual circle has been armed.]

The moment it finished, he frantically moved his arm to the second circle.

A sudden force jolting Zeth forward told him the monsters rammed the stone again. He fell forward, catching himself on his elbows, and blood from his wound went everywhere, totally wasted on the mundane non-ritual stone. Grunting in pain, he hurried to push himself back up against the rock with his feet as he planted his arm back onto the half-finished ritual circle, hoping to get it ready in time.

[68%]

[74%]

[80%]

Another force slammed him forward, and he rushed to press his bloodied arm back onto the circle once again.

[86%]

[92%]

[98%]

One last push came quickly after, stronger than the ones before, and Zeth was thrown to the ground as the two eye hounds came bursting through the passage, stone thrown aside.

He scrambled to his feet, facing them and slowly backing away, their features only partially illuminated by his flickering lantern. In the dim light, the whites of their gigantic head-sized eyes shined through the darkness, staring straight at him.

The quivering warts covering their bodies wiggled and pulsed with each step. Occasionally, one would burst, opening up like a flower and spewing tiny black motes of dust into the air. Zeth wondered if that was what created the painful scent.

One of them took a step forward, clearly ready to pounce on Zeth. The other did the same. Only, the second hound placed its foot into the space directly in front of the crawlspace entrance, which was where the armed Hellfire trap had been placed.

It lit up, pink electricity crackling for a fraction of a second before a much larger, brighter light source took its place.

Hellfire.

The hound’s entire body burst into bright red flame, illuminating the entire room and singeing Zeth’s skin even from his place a dozen feet away. The fire burned tall and wide, licking the cave ceiling and almost engulfing the other hound standing nearby.

Zeth could only barely hear the monster’s howl of pain over the crackling of the hungry inferno, and that howl only lasted for only a moment before being cut short as the thing collapsed to the ground. The fire died shortly after, only lasting a few seconds in total. All that was left behind was a charred corpse, barely resembling the monster it had been mere moments ago.

The other hound had leapt away from its companion the moment the flame appeared, and was now left in the corner of the room, staring cautiously at Zeth, clearly wary of accidentally catching itself aflame, too.

“Uh, shoo!” Zeth said, trying to motion the hound away, while also clutching his still-bleeding arm to his chest. “Get!”

Its stare seemed to bore through Zeth’s skull. Then, slowly gaining confidence, it took a step forward.

“No, no no no, get out of here!” Zeth shouted from beneath his tunic, voice shaking.

But the monster paid his words no heed, now approaching more quickly.

“What are you even gonna do to me?!” he shouted, hoping his words could function as an animal’s roar and miraculously scare the thing off. “You’ve got an eyeball for a head! What, do you plan on beating me to death with your own eye?! Get out of here!”

Now just a few feet away from him, the monster paused.

And then its eye-head opened up, four flaps splitting at the pupil and unfolding to reveal a mouth filled with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth. It let out a gurgling screech, and pounced straight at him.

Ducking down and throwing himself to the side as quickly as he could, Zeth barely managed to avoid the teeth of the eye-mouth-head monster thing.

He heard a wet impact behind him as he dashed away, turning back to see it picking itself off the ground, seeming confused at the fact that it wasn’t munching down on tasty human flesh right now.

Once it was back on its feet, Zeth expected it to take off after him. But instead, it paused, folding its mouth back up into an eye, and glanced around the room.

The moment the monster spotted Zeth, it ran at him again. But once again, when it got close, it was forced to take a moment’s pause to unfurl its eye into a mouth before pouncing, and during that moment it was blind, meaning Zeth could once again just barely dive out of the way to avoid the attack.

He frowned.

In the moment of freedom he had where the monster was getting back to its feet after the missed strike, Zeth turned and ran to the opposite side of the room with the crawlspace’s entrance. With no time to struggle through the tight tunnel, he was effectively cornering himself against the wall.

The monster saw Zeth once again, turning and charging at him, but he didn’t move from where he stood. He bit his lip hard, tasting the iron flavor of his own blood seeping out onto his tongue.

The hound’s gigantic pupil dilated with excitement, seeing its prey backed against a wall. It stopped just a couple paces from him for the half-second necessary to unfurl its eye and reveal its salivating mouth…

…And Zeth spat on the floor below it. His saliva mixed with the blood that’d leaked from his lip splattered against the ground the hound stood on, marked with his almost-complete ritual.

[100%]

It sparked to life just as the monster pushed to leap at him, electricity crackling to life between the lines of the circle. And then flames illuminated the room once again. From just a foot away, Zeth could feel the full brunt of the heat the hellfire brought, like he had built a tower to the sun and stood atop it.

He slid along the wall, away from the burning monster as it collapsed to the ground, killed almost instantly by the absurdly powerful magic. Breathing heavily, he stared, enraptured by the horrible beauty of such deadly flames.

And then, a few seconds later, they died out. Zeth stood alone in a dark room, his lantern’s dim light seeming like nothing in comparison to the blinding fire.

He was frozen for a few seconds, catching his breath and simply trying to process what had just happened.

Then, he chuckled. His expression grew into a smile, and soon he burst into full-on laughter. His howling cackle echoed across the cavern.

“Haha! Holy shit! Take that, fucking , bitches!”

It was like this was the first time he’d ever been alive. Like every other day he’d experienced—working on his parents’ farm during childhood, working in Garon’s mine in adulthood, all of it—he’d lived through it while in a half-coma. Not truly experiencing anything.

He threw his fists into the air, boundless energy dancing through his body from the victory. “Dumb as shit eye-mouth-dog things, no matter how many fucking teeth or weird-ass pain spore warts you have, you can’t beat my badass fire magic!”

He couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face. His hands were shaking, breath heavy. He knew this was objectively probably the worst day of his life, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how it was somehow It was pure exhilaration. His pounding heart seemed to agree.

Still keeping his nose covered with his shirt, Zeth took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm himself slightly. He let his shoulders relax and closed his eyes, counting backwards from one hundred in increments of seven.

Technically, these were techniques his mom had taught him to calm his anger after he’d gotten into two fistfights in a single day when he was younger. The first was with a teenager for pushing his younger sister down a hill, and the second was with the guy’s dad when he tried to break the fight up. The dad had given him a black eye, so he wasn’t able to hide the fight from his mom that time, and she decided, “you need to learn to calm yourself down.” In this case, it actually worked quite well.

He opened his eyes once he was finished with the exercise, gazing around the room with a slightly calmed mind.

Part of him wanted to drop to the ground right here and start drawing an Empowerment Ritual circle to feed the two dead monsters into so he could get another Level Up before departing. However, not only was he desperate to find that water source so he could finally sate his thirst, he also wasn’t sure if sticking around in this place was a good idea. The whole fight had been loud and bright, these corpses probably smelled quite strongly to whatever in this cave was hunting them down, and this area was clearly crawling with monsters. If any came to check out the disturbance during the six hours required to draw the circle, he’d be in trouble.

But still, it seemed like a waste to just leave these perfectly good corpses behind. For a moment Zeth considered hauling them along with him or something, but then he realized.

He glanced down at his empty waterskin.

It took some time to figure out how to drain the monsters’ blood into the container, but eventually he figured it out. The waterskin didn’t quite hold all of it, but it certainly held a lot—hopefully enough to fuel his next Level. He’d also gotten two Rank-ups for Hellfire Ritual that he’d ignored during the fight, meaning his Skill Points were looking to recover from the purchase pretty quickly.

Once he was finished, he stood and headed out, toward the sound of water.

As he walked, ducking through tunnels and glancing every which way to avoid getting surprised by any more monsters, he listened for the sound growing louder and louder to guide him.

And then, ducking past a hanging stalactite, Zeth saw it. A river! A massive, rushing river that ran straight through a large room that was full of boulders. A manic grin spread across his face.

He ducked behind the nearest boulder, eyes wide.

He was right. That thought he’d tried to forget—the origin of the hound monsters. They certainly weren’t mundane animals from his realm, so what other realm could they have come from?

Standing hunched over at the river’s bank was a large humanoid figure, arms and legs much too long to actually be human. It must’ve been at least nine feet tall, skin so pitch black that Zeth hadn’t even seen it until his light illuminated the thing’s silhouette.

He’d heard about it during some particularly horrible bedtime stories—the kind parents told bad kids to scare them into not making trouble anymore.

Monsters came from realm portals, naturally opening at random points across the world’s surface and connecting the mundane human realm to the fantastical. The most common realm that portals connected to was the Second Realm—nicknamed the Beast Realm for its massive monsters. They were dangerous, more so than any normal animal, but manageable for people with a decent combat-oriented Class. Next was the Third Realm—the Dwarven Realm—with its underground tunneling beasts and its natural inhabitants of dwarves living among them. Then the fourth—the Elven Realm—with the magical monsters that would kill you in the most beautiful way possible. The Fourth Realm was more dangerous than the Third, which was more dangerous than the Second, which was more dangerous than the base realm that humans inhabited, the First.

Oceans were particularly dangerous, with how a portal to the Fifth Realm—the Submerged Realm—would occasionally show up and let countless horrible krakens and leviathans through to haunt the seas. But as you moved further and further into deeper and deeper realms, while they get more dangerous, they also became much less common to see portals to. So most people would rarely ever see creatures that came from anything deeper than the Third, maybe Fourth Realms.

Zeth heard the monster standing on the other side of the room move, scraping its heavy feet along the stone ground.

It was called a fleshtaker. The hallmark monster of the Sixth Realm—the Realm of Horrors. That was where the hound monsters had come from. And this monster was their natural predator.

Zeth thought, taking a shaky breath.

He’d barely caught a glimpse of the thing, only seeing its silhouette before diving to cover, but he knew what it was. At least, what he’d seen was what all the stories agreed on. Tall, dark, lanky, dangerous. They disagreed on the rest of the details—what their faces looked like, what they sounded like, and how, exactly, they actually killed people. Zeth supposed anyone who got close enough to figure any of that out ended up unable to spread their knowledge.

Sitting back against the boulder, Zeth waited, and listened. He listened for more footsteps, hoping he would hear none. And he didn’t.

But what he heard instead was sniffing. From behind the rock, Zeth could hear the fleshtaker smelling the air. Feet shuffled across the floor. It was slowly moving toward him.

That was the other thing the stories all agreed on. The things had a supernaturally intense sense of smell. And it seemed that the fleshtaker had smelled him.

Zeth grit his teeth and stood up, creeping to the other edge of the boulder he hid behind. He wouldn’t be able to conceal his presence much longer, with how steadily the monster was currently making progress toward him.

With a shaky breath, he took a moment to gather his confidence, then leapt out from behind the boulder. Sure enough, standing in the middle of the room, between Zeth and the rushing river, was the hunched-over silhouette of the fleshtaker.

It was hunched over, slowly stepping toward the boulder he’d hid behind. Only, even as Zeth stood in plain sight, it didn’t move toward him any faster. It didn’t seem to see him at all.

Looking closely at the monster’s face, he discovered that such a thing only made sense. It had no eyes.

Zeth also immediately understood why descriptions of the fleshtakers had always been so conflicted. Covering the entire thing’s head were holes. Some were obviously mouths, with long pointed tongues lashing out of them and flinging themselves every which direction, while others were less obvious. He had to assume the other holes were either nostrils or ear canals, but it was impossible to tell them apart. And, scattered across the rest of the face and head, like acne on a teenager, were teeth. Yellowed and whitened alike, they simply protruded from its skin at random points in random directions. Some were sharp, some blunt; it didn’t seem to matter. But nowhere on this one’s face were eyes.

He stared at the fleshtaker as it smelled its way to his previous location. He was frozen for a moment, surprised he was even allowed to get a glimpse at one of these things in person without dying instantly. But after the moment passed, he realized two things—one, he was about to die once that thing reached the end of his scent trail, and two, he would rather die. Which meant he needed to move.

It would probably be best to move fast. He still had no idea what its capabilities actually , just that it was apparently unstoppable once it actually found people. But he wouldn’t give this thing the opportunity.

Full speed, Zeth sprinted toward the river. The instant his feet impacted the ground, the fleshtaker’s head turned in his direction, as though it were trying to get as many ear canals facing him as possible. Moments later, it tore off after him, still partially obscured by the shadows of the room. The thing bounded away on all fours, too-long arms tipped with spiked fingers digging into the stone ground, propelling it toward Zeth—its marked prey.

But by the time it noticed him, he was already by the edge of the river. He breathed, giving a mock salute to the pursuing monster.

Then he fell backwards into the rushing water, and it quickly began carrying him away.

From his position, being tossed around in the river as it pulled him downstream, Zeth barely caught sight of the fleshtaker stopping by the edge of the river, sniffing the air but not finding its target.

But then, it turned back around, following the original scent trail it had followed, to the rock Zeth had hid behind, and then further, up the tunnels where he’d come from.

he thought.

And then the river followed a downward slope, pulling him underwater and slamming his head against a rock.

Zeth awoke in the middle of a lake, heat beating down on his face.

The moment he opened his eyes, he closed them back immediately, unused to the intense brightness. He felt like he hadn’t been exposed to the sun in years.

He opened his eyes again and glanced around, quickly pushing his body upright and treading water. Trees and dirt surrounded him, floating out in the middle of a wide lake. Off in the distance, he saw a short waterfall coming from inside the mountain his town was built around.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, a grin spreading across his face. He laughed. “I’m out of the cave! I’m alive!”

He ducked his head under the water, then threw it out, shaking the moisture from his hair.

“Haha! Fuck you, cave! Can’t kill me no matter how hard you try! I’m fucking immortal, bitch!”

His memory was fuzzy as to what had happened in the moments before he’d been knocked out—something about leaping into the river and hitting his head?—but that didn’t matter for now. Immediately, Zeth started kicking his legs, swimming to the nearby shoreline and feeling his side for his waterskin full of monster blood. It was still there.