It's been nearly two hours since Alec left the room. This whole place is like a maze. He didn't know how high he was but after taking five stairways, he was pretty sure that he was somewhere near the ground level. Strange. The inner castle was huge but he had yet to encounter any living soul or even a deceased one. Every hallway was eerily empty. Rooms with doors lit with runes, he ignored them just in case they triggered any defense mechanism. The hallway was about to take a sharp right when he finally heard a sharp creaking voice. Huh

[Mystic]

Alec quickly hid behind a nearby vase while activating mystic and holding his breath, the voice got closer and closer until his field of view made it clear what it was.

A Centipede?

Down the hallway, the creature stood. Creaking, it's armoured limbs down the dark floor, clacking it's scythe like mandibles. It shifted it's metameric body segments and stood just a few meters away from Alec. It stirred it's head and scythes left and right signifying it's confusion. It was looking for something. Just like a hunter lost the signs of it's prey.

Alec stood there, breathlessly hiding behind the vase. After a few moments, the centipede finally straightened it's structure and moved towards the right hallway in a serpentine motion.

Alec looked towards the armoured carapace, approaching the right hallway and vacating his field of view.

[Sanguis Scolopendra Lv10]

No, don't even think about fighting that thing.

When the creaking finally faded in the hallway, Alec finally released mystic and let out a heavy gasp.

That was close. He looked towards the hallway the centipede left. Guess I'll move down the opposite way. He shook his head and took off towards the left end. Mystic puts too much strain on my little kitty brain, I just used it for a few moments and now my carnial nerves are hammering against my skull. Just before he was about to step down the next stairway, the creaks returned, along with something more unexpected.

What the fuck?

New Sub Quest generated

Due to abundance of blood mana on the ground floor of the fortress, blood beasts are spawning at an increased rate. Eliminate the spawned beasts.

Difficulty: SS

Reward: skill(Blood chains)

Objective: Eliminate the blood spawns 0/67

Clear condition: Collect every blood mana essence.

[Sub Quests can not be rejected]

Alec just stood there, frozen, eyeing the quest screen for a moment. He stared wide eyed at the number of spawns. Sixty seven? Are you fucking kidding me? How the hell am I supposed to defeat even a single one of them? He recalled the memory of the armoured centipede upstairs, sending a cold shiver down his spine. No way in the hell am I fighting that thing! The creaking sound drew closer and closer. Alec hastily activated Mystic and and ran towards now darkened hallway. He paused for a moment when he noticed something.

It stopped.

The creaks stopped. Alec looked up, towards the only source light in the dark hallway, the stairways he came from. A red centipede stood there. Shifting it's head left and right in confusion.

A sudden wave of awareness passed over Alec.

This bastard wasn't tracking something, it was tracking me. The moment I lift off Mystic, that shitty insect's gonna chase me down. It's nine levels higher than me. If I faced it directly, am pretty sure those bladed mandibles are gonna slice against my defenses like a hot knife through butter. There's no way in hell I am going to outpace that thing. I can't keep mystic on forever. I'll need to pull a classic.

Let's see how nuts you've truly gone, Alec. He started sprinting inside the darkened hall he just arrived. His vision finally adjusted to the amount of darkness spread inside the wide hall. After letting go of Mystic, to avoid meltdown inside his small brain, he proceeded towards the opposite hallway across the extensive empty hall.

The creaks resumed, along with additional thumps and clicks. Sounds like it's bumping against the walls. Not a fan of darkness, I see. Ends of his mouth curled upwards, displaying the sharp canines and eyes took a crescent shape. This is gonna be fun.

***

After running for nearly fifteen minutes, Alec finally reached the source of light he was searching for. At the end of the hallway, when he finally noticed a brightened hall. He bolted inside the spacious corridor, straight towards the hall. Entering the hall, his eyes widened.

A library?

Two humongous bookless bookshelves adjoined the high ceiling of the library. Benches and circular desks filled the dark obsidian floor. He looked around. A thin layer of dust was present on the polished wooden desks. Alec swiped his paw across the smooth surface. He cast his gaze around the library. No signs of damage, even the layer of dust is thin, it hasn't been long since this place was abandoned. The bookcases are empty, perhaps the owner of this place took them when they left? A sudden creak interrupted his inner thoughts. Oh, it's finally here. Alec shifted, right below the weird chandelier. He activated Mystic and scurried across the library towards the nearest bookcase. He jumped across the racks one by one, finally reaching the top of the bookshelf.

The centipede was already there, confused at the sudden disappearance of its prey. Alec shifted his gaze towards the circular chandelier, nearly one meter away from the edge of the bookshelf. Noiselessly, he jumped, reaching the chandelier and grabbing it with claws.

I hope this works. He knew that the centipede was somehow tracking his location. He didn't know if it was following the trail or it just sensed his location. But following him all the way like this was nearly impossible with a single one. Alec concluded that it was following the trail as well as sensing his location. If it works like a radar system, would it scale with altitude?

He lifted off Mystic, while standing on the heavy iron bar across the diameter of the circular chandelier. The centipede moved, clacking it's scythes of death and stopped right below the chandelier, where Alec once stood.

Apparently not.

The chandelier wasn't attached to the ceiling. It suspended freely in the air without any support. Alec gazed at the rune glowing right at the center of the circle and another one adjacent to it on the ceiling. Both were glowing with a light blue hue. Alec shifted his claws, right below the ceiling rune.

[Blood Claw]

His claws charged with dark red crackles of lightning and tore the surface of the ceiling rune. Nothing happened. Yet, he charged again and again, scratching against the runic ceiling. Finally, on the 27th attempt, the bright blue hue dimmed before vanishing entirely and blanding back to torn ceiling. Gravity took hold, accelerating the massive chandelier downwards. Alec jumped immediately, slamming against one of bookshelves and landing on one of the desks with a thud.

That fucking hurts!

Before the centipede even had a chance to react, the heavy chandelier crushed down on the hard carapace and mangled it down to a pulp. The giant centipede let out a loud shriek. It struggled, shrieking and waving its barbed tail violently, splattered its own gore around the edges, red blood pooled on the library floor before its head was torn off from violent effort, revealing the gore inside, finally its movements came to a halt.

Alec groaned as he looked up to the sudden window, appeared with a loud ding.

Defeated [Sanguine Scolopendra Lv10]!

Additional experience is awarded for defeating an opponent ten times your level!

Level up! 1→2

STRENGTH +5

ENDURANCE +1

VITALITY +3.

MIND +5

CLARITY +1

AGILITY +4

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Level up! 2→3

STRENGTH +4

ENDURANCE +2

VITALITY +3

MIND +4

CLARITY +2

AGILITY +4

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Level up! 3→4

STRENGTH +5

ENDURANCE +2

VITALITY +3

MIND +5

CLARITY +1

AGILITY +4

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Level up! 4→5

STRENGTH +5

ENDURANCE +1

VITALITY +3

MIND +5

CLARITY +1

AGILITY +5

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Level up! 5→6

STRENGTH +5

ENDURANCE +1

VITALITY +3

MIND +5

CLARITY +1

AGILITY +4

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Sub Quest Progress: 1/53 eliminated.

His heart was hammering down his chest. In his previous life, he never would've thought of pulling a stunt like this. He looked up to the quest screen. One down, sixty six more- Hold the fuck up. Fifty three? Am pretty sure there were a total of sixty seven initial spawns according to the quest. He pulled up the quest quest screen.

Sub Quest

Due to abundance of blood mana on the ground floor of fortress, blood beasts are spawning at an increased rate. Eliminate the spawned beasts.

Difficulty: SS

Reward: skill(Blood chains)

Objective: Eliminate the blood spawns 1/53

Clear condition: Collect every blood mana essence.

It actually went down. Alec thought about this. There were only two possibilities, first, there was someone else hunting them or second, they were hunting each other or probably both?

Whatever it was, it made the work easier for him. Alec rolled over and got up. Grinning, he checked the new notifications. That's a lotta stats, holy crap, my base strength, mind and agility nearly tripled. His smile dropped when he eyed the total gain in Endurance and Clarity. What was the role of endurance? It definitely was related to his defenses. Like what the name suggests, in theory, it must be what it says. He had no intention of testing it. Way to be a glass cannon, I guess. He sighed, he still had 20 additional stat points but he had no aspirations of spending them on his Endurance. He didn't know how much of a difference an additional twenty defense would be but he sure as hell had no desire of testing it against those death scythes.

There were no increments in wisdom. Why? As much as I can see, it's directly related to my mana pool. My mp is what, like ten times the mean of my base wisdom and clarity. He had no idea. But he decided to hold on to his free points for now.

Oh! Speaking of scythes. He looked towards the dead giant centipede. He jumped off the desk and cast his gaze upon the once slithering incarnation of death. Bloody hell! That's one bigass centipede. His own size was about half of it's mandibles.

It's kinda scary how big this thing is.

Gazing at the tail portion, he charged his claws with blood mana and slammed them down on the hardened carapace. The claw pierced through the upper carapace, only to be blocked by inner bone defenses. What the fuck? Wasn't my strength tripled? I am still unable to sever this multilegged abomination. This isn't good. I can't even think to kill this thing, it's got a monstrous Endurance.

I need to look for a different way to do it. I can't just throw a chandelier at them and expect them to roll over and die. Though, it would be nice if they do. He pulled his claws out, stained in sticky red blood. You sure it's blood centi boy? Why the hell is it so sticky? Gross.

The hall was silent, yet he could not relax. He kept his guard up. If one of those things was tracking him, there was no guarantee that there weren't more.

He was pretty sure that it was the ground floor. He just needed to look for the exit. There wasn't any time limit to any of the quests and even penalties. When a sword is hanging down on survival, quests can go fuck themselves. I just have to survive and escape from here. He hurriedly got on his feet, eyeing the blood puddle forming below his paws. Gross. Jumping, he got on one of the circular desks.

I've got multiple skill points. Can I use them? He looked around the library walls, over the bookshelves, nothing in sight. I'm safe, for now, at least. Perhaps, I'll find something that will help me survive this chaotic mess. Taking a deep breath, he opened up the status page.