“They won’t leave, huh?” Zayn wiped his eyes over the rising dunes on the horizon. Atop them were thousands of ghastly figures with tendrils for moustaches. Just standing there. Menacingly.

  “Shouldn’t have absorbed it in the first place,” Beside him, Raka muttered in a snide tone.

  Zayn snapped a glare at the motorcycle. “This whole thing was your idea; your plan! You told me fuck all about it and vanished!”

  “How was I supposed to know that you would be able to absorb—forget it.” Raka stopped, headlights staring into the distance. The more the day drew closer, the more its energy faded. It almost sounded…bitter.

  Often, its gaze would linger on the treants, lost in a trance.

  Something clicked in Zayn’s mind. “When the day phase begins, do you…go to the same place as them?”

  Raka stood silently; its hesitation spoke volumes. Eventually, it nodded, voice creeping with caution. “To be honest, they’re the least of my worries. They're scrubs. Mere ants to the actual dangers over there.”

  “Over where?”

  “‘The Shattered Abyss’, they call it. This part of the hell zone is… loosely connected to it. That’s all I know.”

  Zayn let out a breath and gazed at the ginormous moon. The moment he’d seen the ground swallow things, he’d suspected something sinister was brewing underneath. Having it confirmed added a strange weight to his chest.

  Rubbing its fuel tank, he tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t worry. Just find an old monster to make ‘friends’ with. You’ll be fineeee!”

  Raka coughed and looked away all of a sudden.

  “...”

  Zayn froze. What was that about? His blank stare gradually sharpened, turning razor cold. “…You did just that, didn’t you?”

  Its engine spluttered, preparing to bolt. Zayn grabbed the rear hugger, not one to allow it to bugger off. His voice was calm, almost cold. “You already found a new owner in the other realm?”

  “Backer! It's called a backer… Raka has no owner!” Raka’s voice shifted to a grave rumble. “Listen… one of ‘them’ looked at me, and I nearly melted into scrap metal. A single, casual glance almost erased my existence! What choice did I have?”

  “Them?”

  “Under no circumstances am I allowed to utter ‘his’ given name, or any of ‘them’. ‘They’ can sense any mention of themselves, and you do not seek their attention. Trust me.”

  Zayn let go and fell silent. The way it explained things, it was having a much worse time than him. He should be happy to know that there was something out there protecting it. He stood there silently, his desolate figure drenched in the crimson moonlight.

  After a while, he finally asked, “…Is ‘he’ strong?”

  Raka gave a slow, reluctant nod of its headlight.

  He turned around and slid down the dune without a word. The rancid, ashen air thickened and left a bitter aftertaste in his throat.

  Of course. It was not Raka’s fault.

  It was his fault for not being strong enough.

  He dragged himself back to the bonfire, its quivering light reflected in his eyes, slowly solidifying into iron resolve.

  He was no longer angry.

  But in his mind, the list of ‘I’ll break their teeth once I’m strong’ had gained one additional member.

  ***

  Crackle!

  Red charges wreaked havoc inside Zayn, his veins and arteries bearing the punishment as mana crackled through his body. Not because he was suicidal. A while ago, he realised the only way to improve Scarlet Veins was through self-mutilation.

  And after mutilating himself over and over, he’d finally succeeded in forcefully ranking it up.

  Scarlet Vein (Apprentice) has ranked up from low to mid!

  The number of veins and arteries surged; new lines surfaced beneath his skin, wider and sturdier than before. Matching them, his existing veins also upgraded themselves, as if they were scared to be left behind.

  Every vein was regrown with more resilient fibres and flesh, and his body began to look extra veiny. Strangely beautiful and eerie.

  Scarlet Veins (Apprentice - Mid): Your blood holds the secrets of life itself, storing them as charges inside your heart.

  Charge: 7/12. Your body regenerates a charge every 50 minutes. Additionally, you gain 1 Charge for every 9% of health lost and 1 charge each time a buff activates on you.

  Once a day, you can activate buff ‘Bloodflare’, Adding +14 in all stats. Effect and duration scale with your level, racial blood level, and number of charges left. Effect and duration scale based on the number of days ‘Bloodflare’ remains unused.

  Cooldown: 24 hours.

  “Neat.” He exclaimed. The bump was across the board; his heart could even hold 2 more charges than before. It looked insignificant now, but soon, it would stack up as he kept ranking it.

  Until now, he've had a frequent problem of Charges expiring too fast. Even if he was at full health and lost most of his health during the fight, he'd barely have enough charges to do a few full combos. Less if he wanted to throw something that packed a...real punch.

  Since intelligence was still his lowest stat, his body was poorly attuned to mana. Though he didn’t think it was a problem, it made his charges regenerate slowly too. Both combined to cause this terrible problem where he was not recovering mana fast enough and losing them too early. Yet, the fact that yellow mana recharged it showed him a solution—just add mana!

  He only needed more mana to recharge his skill faster.

  And he did just that, by devouring more. Since earlier, he’d been chewing on mana crystals like candies. The result was fascinating. Like metal, the crystal was torn apart and taken up by his heart and dispersed to his entire body.

  It was wasteful, sure. Most of the mana diffused out of his pores, but he kept a measly amount of it running through his bloodstream. He watched as pure mana diffused in and out of his heart, aligned to his blood circulation system.

  Every time mana was pulsed from his heart, it came out a tinge smaller—like nineteen twenty difference. Over several circulations, however, the shrinkage was rather noticeable.

  What was this? Rent? Taxes?

  Charges: 9/12… Next charge regenerates within 2 minutes and 33 seconds.

  He laughed. He'd found a loophole in the system. Every crystal regenerated about one charge in fifteen minutes. Still not feasible during battle, but it could let him recharge within a few hours or so.

  Compared to his body’s natural regeneration, it was a huge leap! How about that?

  That was not all he was doing. On one hand, he was regenerating charges. On the other hand, he was making use of them to experiment in ways he'd not dare before. Pulling just a tiny string of Red, he made it sprint across his mana channels. Other mana gave way to the crimson string of menace, as though it wanted no trouble with this local hoodlum.

  He couldn’t use the cursed sphere, but nothing stopped him from copying mana patterns. No way that’d anger the ‘Gods’. If it still did, screw them; he’d rather join the ranks of demons.

  Recalling how the cursed mana sphere collapsed into oneself, he attuned his mana to it. Curled the red charges onto itself, threading together like a double helix.

  Two-fold.

  He heaved, long hair getting soaked from the sweat. Exhaustion aside, his eyes burned brightly. The mana was finally holding together! He’d found a way to tether the mana strands to itself.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Threefold.

  It crackled through him, ripping flesh and vessels wherever it passed, but the pain was nothing compared to its awesome power. It was more explosive than a grenade now, wasn’t it?

  Not stopping there, he attempted a fourth fold. Soon, he came to the realisation he’d underestimated red. With a bolt, it unfolded back to its natural state, wheezing through his veins like before.

  Holding his aching head, he watched the mana string doing a victory lap around his circuit. Was it asking for a competition?

  Fine. He’ll show it who’s the boss.

  Heartbeat roaring, he rushed to bend the string of mana. Teeth clattering, on the verge of breaking. Again, and again, until his heartbeats struck his head like a hammer.

  Fail. Repeat. Fail.

  After dozens of attempts, he finally forced it down to the fourth fold.

  Feat unlocked!

  Mana Convergence (Iron)!

  To seek convergence is the natural state of all matter, including mana. You’ve understood a fundamental concept of mana movement.

  Effect: Intelligence + 1

  Eyes wide open, he stared at the collapsing drop of red mana. Without his input, it kept folding onto itself, fifth fold, six, nine, growing denser by the second.

  Then it pulled onto the nearby mana like a black hole.

  It was at that moment…Zayn knew he fucked up. An hourly occurrence by now, though. He knew better than to panic and went straight into action.

  Jaws firm, he forced the mini black hole of mana to his left hand and slammed it onto the sand, hoping the loose sand would drink the backlash—its shifting grains the perfect sink for runaway mana.

  BOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!

  The shock was still too much, even with the sand. It pelted his skin, scalded flesh from his finger, while the sand hissed and fountained into countless tiny impacts.

  And down he fell, buried underneath the sand.

  Everything went pin-drop silent. The faint whistling of the air. The chitchat between the ‘two old souls’. Even the treants in the distance stared at each other, second-guessing what’d just happened.

  With a groan, Zayn hauled himself out, sand pouring from his jacket, hair, and mouth. Coughing, he brought out a bottle of water and rinsed the gritty taste away.

  He winced at the faintest of air currents. One of his fingers had gotten terribly messed up, bones exposed and bent, but that was still a much better conclusion compared to losing the entire hand.

  Clack! Clack! Clack!

  He noticed the coffin sneakily leaping towards him. Rather excitedly. Hmm? What is it doing?

  Its lid creaked open, then shut. Then it opened again.

  Eh?

  It was inviting him to lie down inside of it!

  ‘Do it properly this time, you coward!’ He could almost hear the cheeky thing say.

  Snorting, he hurled the empty bottle of water at it.

  The coffin darted aside, continuing its antics.

  As for the three sitting beside the bonfire, he ignored them. They definitely hadn’t seen that. Those stares burning into his back?

  Illusion, all of it.

  ***

  From the new blood burned, you can choose one of the following active skills!

  Entangle - (Initiate) - Summon vine-like extensions out of your body, capable of binding and tangling your enemies. The size and strength scales of Wood affinity.

  Poisonous Protrusion - (Initiate) – Your skin grows poisonous protusions that spew out a corrosive burst of liquids. Scales based on Wood Affinity.

  Spore - (Initiate): Form and release spores that deal passive ‘Corruption’ damage over time. This damage is unavoidable. Applied to any entity within 20 meters of your position. Scales with wood affinity.

  Now, the skills were a rank higher. He made his choice without much rumination. Poisonous Protrusion was cut off without any consideration, and Spore wasn’t what he needed right now.

  Entangle - (Initiate) has been chosen! Recalibrating!

  He exhaled, hoping the wood affinity was not again turned into intelligence. And he’d won the bet this time around.

  Blood tangle (Initiate - low) gained!

  Blood tangle - (Initiate) - Summon vine-like extensions out of your body using your blood, capable of binding and tangling your enemies. The size and strength of your vines scale with your talent [???] and your trait [Weeds].

  Cost: Your metallic reserves will be variably used to summon vines.

  “Hell yeah!” He laughed. The earlier failure of Sylvian Spear Arts and Thronburst not synergising well stung him. He’d not expected this to have gone so well.

  Without any wait, he activated the skill, and all surfaces of his body screamed as blood sought to burst out of his body. He quickly made a vine erupt from below the heel of his hand.

  A pair of thick vines emerged, tangling onto each other to create a rope-like thing that was almost three meters in size, and as wide and thick as his arms….

  Puzzled, he brought out Hollowfang and tried to hold the sword with it. To his surprise, the vines did become a hand-like extension and grab it.

  Huh? Isn’t this like an extra hand?

  Zayn had always thought it unfair that men came with three legs but only two arms. Now he finally had a third arm.

  Perfectly balanced as all things should be!

  He made it wrap around his body, controlling the size of the extension with a thought, and the force strangling him was no weaker than that of a coiling boa constrictor.

  This would be useful, sure.

  His Talent and Trait were starting to colour his skills. As he learned, his talent didn't work on mana. That's the only thing that made it different from skills, though it did cost metal to sustain. His trait was the same. When he asked about traits earlier, Old Gravekeeper basically said every race seemed to have a few trait that was available in most of its members. He summed up Traits as racial talents.

  It was a weird way to describe it, but it made sense when he thought about it more and more.

  Bloodflare cooldown is over! You can now use Bloodflare again!

  “Huh?” Cooldown was never the problem, since he could just use the yellow mana to force activate it.

  His question was, how could the twenty-four-hour cooldown be over already?

  He’d used it just a few hours ago.

  Just...a few hours ago.

  His mind suddenly rang with a possibility.

  He checked his clock, which told him fuck all, and then turned to the right, “Raka, how long are the nights here?”

  Raka tilted its headlight towards him and blinked it with a hint of perplexity, then continued, “According to Earth’s time, I’ve been here for about 43 hours and 26 minutes. But I hadn’t returned right away, so the night has been going on even longer than that.”

  He stared at the motorcycle with disbelief written all over his face. What? More than 43 hours? No wonder he felt like the night wouldn’t end, no wonder he was done tinkering with all his skills and still had time left.

  All the information combined into a single realisation, the night cycle alone was equivalent to roughly two entire days on Earth, or more. If the day cycle were just as long, he might’ve been here in this dungeon for far longer than a week.

  He gazed in the distance, where the treants grew ever so closer. Inching closer by the hour, now almost encroaching upon their dune.

  He exhaled a pent up breath.

  All the preparation he could’ve done against the waves, he had done it. But the ever increasing stares were still fucking with mental stability. He could feel his heart roar out in defiance.

  Air turned thick with an ashen smell as they started muttering. He had prepared for the forthcoming battle. It was inevitable. The treant's desire for the cursed sphere had overridden their fear of fire.

  Tang

  The old gravekeeper absent-mindedly played the Andolin. Pretending to, at least. More and more, he suspected the old man just didn’t want to be a part of this mess.

  He signalled Raka with his eyes. Maybe it could convince him to help.

  The motorbike understood immediately and asked, “Sir gravekeeper—”

  “I am incapable of any further interference,” Gravekeeper replied in a monotone voice, putting a stop to it before they could ask. “Or he would awaken.”

  “Who?” He asked immediately. "Who would awaken?"

  The dungeon boss? Or something else?

  The old man refused to reply, going back to the song and paying him no heed.

  Zayn sighed and braced for the incoming battle, bringing out his hollowfang. At least thirteen cracks covered its frame, but his understanding of bloodmetal had grown far stronger since the last battle, so he could sustain that.

  “You are at full power, and you have Raka; this isn’t a hopeless situation,” He muttered to himself, thinking of all the possible solutions, making mental calculations.

  “Zayn!” Rakas panicked call rang out.

  Heart dropping, Zayn quickly stared at it, only to find it staring towards the horizon where the moon met the dunes.

  He followed its gaze.

  An immense, oppressive silhouette rose in the distance, something even larger than the ape. A being so immense that it towered above everything in the desert. The upper half was that of a woman the size of the Eiffel Tower, and her rootlike hair was swimming like snakes in the air. While the lower half was that of a twisted stem, stabbing tendrils out to stabilise its massive size.

  Plumes of ash and flesh sloughed from her body like fallen leaves, scattering into the air. She raised her six, branch-like arms wide and wailed out.

  Swarm mother - Lv ???

  Alarmed, Zayn almost stepped back. His heart thundered, roaring back, placating his instinct of retreat. But that didn’t reduce the horror he felt at this moment.

  Three question marks!

  All the bloodmetal pulsed out instinctively, coating his body. But what could he hope to do against a creature like this? ‘Bloodflare’ only increased his chance of survival minimally. If he could escape, that is.

  No, he wouldn’t go without a fight. In his mind, escape plans and routes had already formed. With Raka, nothing was impossible.

  But things went entirely differently from how he expected.

  Instead of attacking, the treants had begun to retreat. Worming into the sand, vanishing one by one. The waves that had covered the dunes like a mat soon emptied, one by one, leaving behind a stubborn few treants kneeling.

  They pleaded something to the Swarm mother.

  Another shriek silenced their protests, like the rebuke of a mother when their children were disobedient.

  A bit familiar.

  Reluctant, they glared at him with anger as if it was his fault before jumping into the sand. Zayn mutely watched it all happen. His gaze turned towards the swarm mother, but she was already staring back.

  In her gaze, there was no desire for devour. Instead, her expression was coloured with a mix of complicated emotions beyond his understanding. A sense of deja vu stitched inside of him, and it couldn't be suppressed no matter what he did.

  He’d seen her before.

  But...where?

  When the swarm mother broke down and left, Zayn felt his legs shake and finally give up, sweat drenching him in rivulets. He'd almost shat himself there; no matter how indifferent and death-defying he may have looked there, he was still without any solution against someone of her straits. In that minute, he’d gone through the entire fucking emotional spectrum.

  She was way too strong, stronger than the stone ape and the treant knight combined!

  Three question marks! That meant she was at least level one hundred or higher.

  Everything he faced so far was like a child in front of her. What was she? No, she clearly was the main figure of the treants. But why?

  Why would she come to save him?

  At least, the system hadn't asked him to slay her, or he really would have been doomed. But then again, he couldn't help but wonder---would the dungeon boss be similarly and...unreasonably strong?

  His stomach squirmed funnily in that realisation. Lying down, he stared at the moon in faint complaint. And finally, a laugh left his throat in sheer disbelief.

  “What the hell?!”