Sun Wu watched the battles from high atop his mountain sanctuary. It had been years since he could build it again and not have that ravenous creature devour this region every day. He managed to place his pillows and round table right where he liked it. Sun Wu even had time to erect his temple, complete with red clay shingle roofing. It was a circular building with a flared peak to promote proper drainage. Although it never rained in the mountainous region of this prison. As he relaxed, Sun Wu noticed the amount of Disruption Rams were starting to thin out. They have a pesky ability that allows them to break down enchantments. That caused him to lose some of his favorite items when he first encountered them. He had since remade them over the years, but it was more taxing in this place. The little demon spawn was about to exchange blows with alpha ram. He would have to think of a proper reward for the three days of entertainment he received.

Deacon stood on a rocky outcropping, drenched in rams blood, and wearing the taters of what he once called a hoody. He didn’t dare change his clothes or expose his bag to these four legged menaces. Three full days and nights of dodging and counterstriking had filled the closest ditch with goat bodies. They had no interest in self-preservation. As the larger ones entered the fight, they began shooting azure beams of light from their horns. Spectral Dodge was a god send at that point as the beams cored deep grooves in the granite boulders dotted around the uneven grounds. The air here was chilly, but soul energy was thick. Deacon initially employed Ralphs teachings about not going all out and exhausting his soul energy bar. Especially in protracted engagements. He managed to use more simple attacks and less soul energy dependent ones.

Now he finally made it to the end boss. Deacon squared up and looked at his health bar. He was down to just fifty percent health and still suffering from a wound prior to entering the Wode. Once he catches up to Sun Wu, he’ll give him a piece of his mind, Deacon thought to himself as he watched the car sized ram with the thickest horns, he’d seen yet make his way over. It stamped its left foreleg down on a rock making spiderweb cracks race out toward Deacon. He used Spectral Jump to clear the crumbling ledge he was standing on and sailed over to the next one. He hadn’t seen any of the others use an attack that could change the landscape. Deacon spent too much time thinking about that and not anticipating what the big ram did next. It’s horns shone with an almost blacklight energy before firing at Deacon’s midflight. Unwilling to take the hit, he triggered Spectral Dash and slammed into the side of the mountain. Where the beam struck, rocks began to rain down on Deacon. It wasn’t long before the area he landed in was covered in a landslide. The noise was so loud it even made the wildlife in the nearby swamp region stir.

The big ram strutted around content it had asserted its dominion over the mountains once more. It jumped over to the newly formed slope and began prancing back and forth letting out a triumphant bleat. Several bleats were returned from further down the mountain as white fur could be seen scurrying around the base. Some of the blood from all the dead goats started running into the waters of the swamp region where the two met. A curious reptile surfaced above the water to peer into the region. It was summarily met with blacklight beam to the face.

Deacon was at his limit with these damn monsters. While alpha was taking his victory lap, Deacon was phasing through the loose stones and boulders behind it. He finally managed to slip out from the rocks and tried to find sure footing before returning to a fully corporeal state. The wholesale goat slaughter over the past few days left him with a decent chunk of soul energy. He changed his title to The Blood River, popped his claws, and prepared to attack the thing from behind. It’s ears twitched and the right one swiveled toward Deacon. Launching himself at its back, Deacon began to rake his claws back and forth. He used all forty seven points of his Speed to increase the number of attacks that landed in an effort to cause as much bleed damage as possible. The enormous ram began to buck and kick like wild destabilizing the area even further. It was now spraying blood with every pounce. Deacon took a mule kick to the chest sending him careening over an edge.

He flailed his trying to find purchase and snagged a ledge. Deacon held there for a moment to get his bearings. That’s when purplish light bathed the ledge he was hanging from. Deacon looked up to see a bloodied and woozy alpha ram pointing his horns in his general direction. Between that and all the falling rocks, Deacon had two choices. He could let go hoping he’d find another way to stop his fall from the edge or vault off toward the other side of the canyon and hope he could grab onto something over there without being intercepted by more debris. Luckily, he didn’t have to choose. As the light from the horns reached its peak a huge slab of rock detached from above the ram and stamped it flat. The following explosion of black energy and blood flipped the sheet of granite end over end into the chasm until it wedged itself firmly between the two sides of the chasm just two feet below the spot Deacon was hanging from. It was angled just so he could drop down and walk back up to his original fighting position.

“Ain’t that a bitch!” Deacon said loud enough to echo around chasm.

Deacon managed to walk back up to where this all began. He floated some water out of his bag to rehydrate himself. He felt extremely hungry after all the fighting. Deacon grabbed some bread out of his bag, finding it hard and crumbly. This would do for now, but he was going to have to get some real food in him soon. He needed to find a way out of here. It was taking far too long, and the goblins were bound to have reached the town by now. Making his way over to the pancaked body of the alpha ram he noticed the head was still round and the horns remained unblemished. The rest of the body was smashed flat. Guts and organs spread everywhere. Once he reached the body, he felt a cool sensation as he claimed the soul receiving a twenty percent boost to his soul energy bar which now sat at two hundred and ninety five percent. His health on the other hand was down to ten percent after that kick. He managed to angle the ram’s horns into the opening of his bag and the head disappeared.

“Why is your blood green?” asked Sun Wu from atop the mountain.

“Does it matter? Also, go fuck yourself. You didn’t lift a single hand to help me,” said an irate Deacon as he peered up at the top of the mountain.

“Not true, who do you think dropped that slab of rock?” responded Sun Wu.

Deacon just shook his head. He needed to do something about his health before going up there. Sitting in the lotus position he floated some ingredients out of his bag. Deacon switched to channeling the Infernal Plane since he was going to have to boil some water to distill the petals of the Valiso flower down before adding in the

Coralis Lichen and animal fat. He even pulled out that Infernal glass he picked up before putting The Unsatiated to sleep. That was the first time he thought about that thing in several days. He absent mindedly wondered how long it would sleep. The glass was warm to the touch, but it wasn’t hot enough to boil the water. He gathered some rocks with Polterheist and placed the glass atop them. The glass itself was about a foot wide and a foot and a half long. Deacon used his mind to imagine the circumference of a bowl and poured water into it. He needed to hold that shape until the water began to boil. Then he floated it over the glass. To help with that he pushed his aura beneath the glass. Just enough that some of the small rocks below it began to turn into coals. Since Infernal flames would just continuously burn, it should increase the temperature enough that he could bring the water to a boil. While he waited for that to happen , he scrapped some of the fat from the alpha out of a nearby flap of skin.

Combining the Coralis Lichen and the fat into a small bead, he dropped it into the bowl shaped boiling water which was now the distilled Valiso substance. He removed the Infernal energy from beneath the glass and just let the potion simmer and cool off. Deacon thought he might have made maybe six vials worth of the potion. He had some empties in his bag from after the trouble at the coliseum. He managed to create ten vials worth. After spreading the fluid out with his powers, he filled all ten vials. Nine went into his bag and looked at the one he was about to drink.

New Potion Discovered: Infernal Regen- This potion will not only replace lost health at a rate of ten percent of your total per minute but will also regrow limbs once max health is reached. Take repeated doses until all damage is repaired. Please note that it burns going down!

Skill level increase: Alchemy has reached level 4.

Deacon usually just ignores skill level increase messages but this one was a welcome sight. He had several messages waiting and decided now was as good a time as any.

You have consumed energy from six out of ten hells, New Class Specializations will be available to you at level twenty.

Deacon was shocked. He wondered when that happened. It seemed like meditation was in his future so he could see if a new celestial body was in his mind space. That meant he only had four more hells before he could actually gain his specialization.

“Are you going to drink it?” Sun Wu yelled down from atop the mountain.

“Keep your armor on,” Deacon replied before downing the potion in one gulp. It felt like a legion of fire ants were chewing their way down his throat. His wounds began to rapidly heal as his health bar shot up to full in a matter of minutes.