Nic watched from the deep undergrowth of the forest as four Invaders laid out a crude camp. There was a defensive spell woven through the air, forming a golden web of light around a small clearing. In the center of the web floated a sword made of that same goldish light. Beneath it, two badly wounded elves were laid out, one fully unconscious with blood leaking from their face, the other groaning and clutching a bandaged stomach.

“Will you give me that medicine already? You saw the announcement! They’ll be coming for me next!”

The third elf looked up from a boiling pot. Even from several dozen feet away, Nic could smell the rich, bitterly medicinal fragrance within. The ladle in his hand was a treasured thing. It was made of bronze and etched in the kinds of inscriptions Nic had only dreamed of making. “It’s too hot.”

“Damn you. It’s too hot?! I’m not like you. I can’t afford another Invasion if this goes wrong. I have debts just for coming here. Give me the damn medicine.” The man was fighting back tears, but his lashing out and complaining only made the healer click his tongue.

Clearly, the injured man wasn’t well liked.

“If you drink it this hot it will scald your throat until you can’t breath. Then you’ll die anyway and in more pain.”

“But-”

“Will you shut up?” The fourth man was the only one who wasn’t an elf. Or rather, he was a mix of elf and horned devil-kin, with blue-black skin and a short ring of dark horns around his forehead. His face was covered by tattoos that shifted and ran across his skin as he spoke. “They’re already here.”

And they were.

Apes and raptor-like birds perched in the trees. Serpents slithered along the earth. They were surrounded. The glowing web of their camp’s defenses wouldn’t convince the beasts to hold back forever.

The devil-kin paced around the edges of the camp, hand on the hilt of a beautifully curved scimitar. His eyes lit up like golden embers as he scanned the undergrowth with an Essence ability.

Nic knew he’d been seen. His original plan had been to distract them with a thrown rock and try to kill their wounded before retreating, but that was so, so obviously childish compared to the dead serious air the devilish man gave off.

Nic shrank back, but the fiery gaze passed right over him. There was only one creature that seemed immune to that terrible stare. One creature the devil-kin walked past without noticing at all.

An enormous black panther with shadowy fur that blended into the darkness. As soon as the devil passed by, the panther stepped out of the brush with one long paw, moving through the warding web with a ripple. Whatever ability or Shard protected it from the devil-kin’s sight protected it from the defenses as well.

A savage smile came across the panther’s face as it realized it had slipped in undetected. It drew back, preparing to leap for the man’s undefended back-

Nic threw a stone.

No sooner did it clip against the ground then the devil-kin swung around, blade instantly in his hand. A thin blue line cut with the trailing edge of the scimitar and swept outwards like a wave of force. The forest exploded.

Splinters of wood shattered from the trees as deep gouges were ripped into their trunks. The undergrowth was mowed down, leaves and branches flung into the air. Dozens of creatures were simply- gone. And the very edge of the wave smashed into the panther as its claw sliced through the air.

The man dropped to one knee. His face bled and his ear hung by a thread. The panther hit the ground gasping for breath with a deep cut sunk into its ribcage.

The man lunged forward, caught the beast by the throat, and lifted the panther into the air while his blade flicked across its belly. Red guts tumbled out and he kicked it aside, turning.

An enormous lizard with a skeletal head had burst out of the undergrowth, charging for him with long, curved tusks.

Nic didn’t wait for the fight to play out. It was a rolling brawl now, more and more creatures swarming inside the web of light. The defenses had yet to make a single move - the web just buzzed as each creature passed through.

There was no time to lose. Nic only had the beginnings of a plan as he grasped a second rock and plunged forward alongside the pack of beasts heading for the wounded. Only the healer stood in their way.

Raising his hand, the mage sent a blazing bolt of energy forward to incinerate the first beast in the stampede. Then another and another, cutting them down as quickly as they could come. The fury was endless. Relentless.

Hungry for the prize.

The first in line - a white wolf with six legs and eight eyes - closed the gap over its brothers bodies. It flung itself forward, hungry jaws open.

The healer swung his ladle like a club. Brilliant light infused the weapon as it cut a blazing arc through the air, and as it collided, the wolf was flung back by a massive force. Bones visibly crunched and broke underneath the fur and it landed half-dead, whimpering miserably.

As the beasts closed in the ladle swung in all directions. Each blow ate up some of the light and left the weapon dimmer than before but sent an enemy flying through the air.

Until suddenly, there was nobody in front of Nic. He stood before the elf stricken with panic. The ladle rose-

Unfreezing, Nic reeled back and lobbed his stone forward like a prize pitcher. It sailed in a perfect arc over the elf’s shoulder. The healer was so unimpressed he actually paused to scoff, before swinging his weapon down towards Nic’s skull.

The stone rattled off the lip off the cauldron, and bounced down into the stewing medicine with a plop-

Nic threw himself out of the way, scrambling backwards to evade the blow. The spray of dirt and force from the impact on the ground flung him back but the healer had no time to spare finishing him off. Instead, he had to turn and fire off a beam of light as an enormous dragonfly shot for the wounded.

Nic ran for the treeline.

“An Nuada. Immel, An Nuada.”

The words filled the air like song. The sky darkened.

And the floating sword at the core of the web of golden light flashed.

The sword broke apart and a beam of light descended for each and every creature that had crossed the barrier. They rained down to pierce through hearts and slice open throats. One by one every creature in the clearing was cut down. The battle had become a massacre.

Nic turned and watched in horror as a shooting star of light fell towards him.

He dropped onto all fours and ran as fast as he could. The impact came anyway. It bucked him off his feet, and made the whole world go blind with white-hot pain. He felt wrong. He felt too light. Nic tried to keep running, but instead he crashed against the ground in a pool of his own blood.

His right arm was gone.

He still tried to run. Standing onto two legs he began to sprint forward. Within three steps the sprint became a jog. Three more steps and the jog became a limp. Three more, and all he could do was stumble blindly, his eyes slowly misting over as the blood poured out of him.

Warning: Traumatic Shock. Death Imminent.

Diverting Essence. Please rotate your cultivation base.

Obediently he pushed against his core. It felt sluggish and heavy in his veins, but he slowly made the Essence begin to turn and flow. The pain ebbed back slightly.

Warning: Blood Loss. Death Imminent.

Diverting Essence. Please rotate your cultivation base.

The vague, desperate hope Nic clung to as he staggered on was that they’d be too busy finishing off other survivors to find him. That the healer wouldn’t realize what he’d done. That this latest desperate gambit would pay off.

But it had been foolish.

It had been unforgivably greedy and utterly reckless.

“Oh come on. How much trouble could I get into?” His own words rang in his head to taunt him as he stumbled into a hollow log, curling up miserably. His stump was slowly sealing over. Grey-blue flesh rushed across the red innards and closed the wound.

Essence.

It really was wonderful…

Darkness claimed him.

You have slain an Invader (Footsoldier, F-Class). Rewards will be distributed.

Your bounty is 2383.41 Essence.

For two days, all Essence bounties will be doubled.

You have slain an Invader (Footsoldier, E-Class). Rewards will be distributed.

Your bounty is 9261.71 Essence.

For five days, all Essence bounties will be doubled.

You have earned the attention of Pathos and the Low Tomb.

Wake up, little devil.

Even in his dreams Nic knew what had happened. The fight had ended as it had to. The Invaders were triumphant.

And when the healer went to feed his wounded companions the medicine, what they’d gotten was the poisonous aura he had wrapped around the stone he threw into the cauldron. It had infected the elixir and filled their veins. They were weak. Barely holding on.

One shock of medicine fighting venom in their body had been enough.

Two kills. One stone.

He could be proud of that. In his dream he was a million miles tall, and he ripped open the concrete sky of City Layer d23 to reveal the blue beauty of a true sky beyond. Clouds drifted around him. He was only getting taller, and the sun was in his reach…

His brow furrowed up.

Nic was somewhere between consciousness and dreamland, trapped in a hazy mire of pain in the boundaries of the two. But he could tell that last message was different. The first were impartial announcements. The last felt like someone talking to him.

Yes. To you. Now stand up, or you’re going to die.

His eyes cracked open. Fighting to stand without the use of his right arm, he stared upwards. There was nobody there.

I am a construct of the System, gifted to you by Pathos.

Call me Sofia, or Sophont.

Remember that you’re very close to dying. And listen to me very carefully.

He slowly licked his lips and nodded.

Do you remember the medicine you poisoned?

You have to go back.

Some of that medicine should still be there - nothing else can consume it, anyway.

It made sense. He was hurt so he needed medicine. In a stupor, barely conscious or alive, Nic turned and began to stagger back towards the campsite. He walked through blood and gore, the ruined stains of dozens of animals.

His arm ached too bad to wonder why there were no bodies.

When he reached the clearing his heart stopped.

The cauldron of medicine had been knocked to the ground, spilling out its contents. The shock sent pain coursing through his body- the result of being woken from his daze by the sheer despair. Only a glimmering shallows remained in the upturned side of the cauldron.

Beside that, the elven healer lay with his throat slit. His punishment for not noticing the poison.

It will have to do.

Get inside.

Nic crawled into the cauldron, curling up with his stump-arm pressed into the puddle of remaining medicine. It began to hiss and steam, energy filling him from beyond, pouring into the severed nerve endings and the stub of muscle in a way that made them spark and howl in pain.

I am inserting a technique into your mind.

Rotate your cultivation core and push energy into the rune I am developing.

He tried. Alone, it would never have been enough. All his outer energy had been sapped by cauterizing the wound, and what remained was the sluggish, ill-tempered dregs of his Essence. All the mental strain in the world couldn’t have made that reserve move, much less properly rotate and form a current within his veins.

But the medicine was potent. It was pouring into him, flavored by his own poison. Adjusted to suit precisely his body. The agitating streams of power pushed against the sluggish flow of Essence and forced it into rotation.

Something clicked and his body resonated.

A rune formed just above his heart, and with the last of his energy, all the will to live he had left, Nic shoved all the essence he’d won down into the design.

The sensation was a like a hammer blow.

It knocked him through a world of red, angry pain and into the comforting black void of dreamless sleep. He drifted there. Asleep. Alone. Comfortable in the dark. Thinking he was dead.

Until the voice spoke again.

Let’s review your performance.