Chapter 4: A Choice of Paths
The Infernal Devil-Ape died not with a roar, but with a wet, gurgling sigh. Leo stood over its massive form, chest heaving, the indestructible staff planted firmly in the earth. The two remaining cultivators, a young man and woman in now-tattered verdant robes, stared at him with a mixture of awe, terror, and desperate hope.
"Senior! Thank you! Thank you for saving our lives!" the young man, Lin Feng, stammered, bowing so deeply he almost toppled over. His companion, Mei, simply wept with relief, clutching her wounded arm.
Leo's Perception, a formidable 45, mapped their fragile Qi cores, flickering like candle flames in a storm. They were children. Pampered sect disciples who had ventured too far and found only a meat grinder. The System's notification hung in his mind.
[Quest Complete: Protector's Path. Slay the 'Infernal Devil-Ape'. Reward: 1000 EXP. Reputation with 'Verdant Sword Sect' increased to 'Neutral'.]
[Level Up! Host is now Level 3.]
He allocated the EXP without ceremony. 500 into Strength. 500 into Vitality. A familiar surge of power and resilience flooded his system, washing away the fatigue of the battle. The numbers on his status screen ticked up, still modest by this world's presumed standards, but each point a fundamental rewrite of his physical reality.
"Senior," Mei said, her voice trembling as she found her courage. "Please, you must escort us out of the Ashen Abyss. Our sect leader, my father, will reward you beyond your imagination! Spirit stones, rare herbs, powerful artifacts... anything you desire!"
The offer hung in the corrupt air. Safety. Validation. Wealth. A place in the human world he had been denied since his arrival. He could almost taste it—the warmth of a real bed, the safety of walls, the company of his own kind.
But his Perception was already reaching past them, stretching deeper into the northwest. There, the air itself vibrated with a deeper, more ancient malice. A pulsating wrongness that called to the new, hardened thing growing inside him. It was the source of the demonic energy. The heart of the darkness.
The human path led to comfort, but also to scrutiny. How would a blind, Qi-less man explain his strength? Would he be a curiosity? A specimen to be dissected? His freedom, hard-won in blood and solitude, would be traded for a gilded cage.
The other path led into that pulsating heart. It promised only more blood, more terror, and an eternity of grinding solitude. It promised stronger prey. It promised a challenge worthy of the System burning in his soul.
The choice was no choice at all.
"The way out is southeast," Leo said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that brooked no argument. He pointed with his staff, the direction crystal clear in the sonic map of his mind. "The terrain is difficult for five miles, then it slopes downward. Follow the sound of the Crimson-Feather birds; they nest only near the safer outskirts. Travel fast. Do not stop for anything."
The disciples stared, their hope crumbling into confusion and disbelief. He was refusing? He was choosing to stay?
"But Senior!" Lin Feng pleaded, a note of desperation in his voice. "You cannot stay! The stories are true! The deeper you go, the closer you get to the Netherworld Gate itself! Real demons pour forth from it! Not beasts—intelligent, cruel, organized demons! It is certain death!"
A gate. The word resonated with the malignant pulse he felt. It wasn't just a story. It was a destination.
"Good," Leo said. A slow, cold smile touched his lips. It was not a smile of joy, but of grim, terrifying anticipation. It was the smile of a honed blade finally finding its purpose. It was a smile so devoid of human fear that it made the two cultivators take an involuntary step back, their blood running cold.
Without another word, he turned his back on them, on their rewards, on their world of Qi and humanity. He walked northwest, towards the thickening gloom, the oppressive energy, and the promise of a truer, more dangerous hunt. The disciples could only watch, a mixture of awe and horror freezing them in place, as the blind man with the staff was swallowed by the malignant shadows of the Ashen Abyss, leaving them to their path to safety and him to his path of carnage.
The forest died around him. The twisted trees became petrified skeletons, the ground hardened into jagged black glass. The air grew thick, tasting of ash and ozone and a metallic tang that was the very breath of corruption. The sounds of normal monsters faded, replaced by an eerie, intelligent silence.
His new goal was clear: find the source. Find the Gate.
Days passed in a blur of relentless travel and sporadic, brutal conflict. The creatures here were different—smarter, more malevolent. He fought a pack of Hound-Fiends with obsidian teeth that tried to flank him, and a floating Wraith that sought to drain his warmth, its touch freezing the very air around it. Each victory fed him EXP, and he poured it all into the grind, his attributes climbing point by hard-earned point.
[Strength: 52. Dexterity: 48. Vitality: 55. Perception: 60. Intelligence: 10.]
The numbers were still low, but the effect was not. He was learning the true nature of the System. His points weren't additive; they were multiplicative. Each point was a fundamental optimization of his entire being. A cultivator might have a "Strength" of 100, but it was raw, unrefined power. Leo's "52 Strength" was that same potential force, compressed, focused, and delivered with 100% kinetic efficiency. He was building a precision instrument of destruction, not a blunt club.
He was deep in the territory of the wound in the world when he heard it. Not a bestial roar, but a conversation.
Two voices, clicking and hissing, speaking in a language of sharp consonants and guttural rhythms. They were just ahead, around a bend of jagged, weeping rock.
[Detecting unknown demonic tongue: Abyssal. Analyzing vibrational patterns, syntax, and intent... Analysis complete. Upload 'Abyssal' language package? Cost: 50 EXP.]
Upload, Leo commanded.
A sharp, ice-pick pain lanced through his temples as grammar, vocabulary, and colloquialisms flooded his mind. A moment later, the alien clicks resolved into words.
"...the harvest from the Third Human Province was weak. The Qi was thin, pathetic," one voice, reedy and annoyed, complained. "The Blood-Maw Clan will not be pleased.They demand stronger tributes for the gate's maintenance," a deeper, more rasping voice replied. "If the next hunt is poor, it will be our hides on the altar."
Leo stepped into the open. The two demons were lean, bipedal creatures with slick, greyish skin and heads that seemed too large for their bodies. They fell silent, their large, black eyes widening in shock.
"A human?" the reedy one hissed, its head tilting. "This deep? How… amusing."
"It looks starved and broken. And blind?" the deeper-voiced demon chuckled, a sound like stones grinding together. "A scrap of meat that has lost its way. I'll take the eyes. You can have the rest."
"I don't have eyes to give," Leo said, his voice calm. He spoke for the first time in Abyssal, the words feeling foreign and corrosive on his tongue. "But you can give me your EXP."
The demons' amusement vanished, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. A human. Speaking their tongue. And saying words that made no sense.
The deeper-voiced demon recovered first, its shock turning to rage. It lunged, claws extending, moving with a speed that would have blurred to a normal human's vision.
To Leo's Perception 60, it was a clear, predictable motion.
He didn't block. He sidestepped, the movement an inch perfect, and his staff lashed out. It didn't strike to maim or warn. It struck to obliterate. The indestructible wood, driven by his 52 points of exponentially efficient Strength, caught the demon in the side of the head.
There was a wet, explosive crack.
The demon's head snapped around at an impossible angle, its body crumpling to the ground before it even knew it was dead.
The reedy demon stared, its jaw slack. It took a stumbling step backward, all fight gone, replaced by primal terror. "W-what are you?" it squeaked.
"I'm the grind," Leo said, and ended its existence with a thrust so fast it was barely a whisper.
[Defeated: Two Lesser Abyssal Stalkers. EXP gained: 1500.]
[New Title Acquired: 'Demon's Bane'. Slight increase in damage dealt to demonic entities.]
Leo stood amidst the dissolving corpses, the demonic energy flowing into him. He looked deeper into the range, towards the intensifying pulse of wrongness. He could hear more of them now. Their conversations. Their plans. Their society.
He was the uninvited guest. The ghost at their feast. The blind wolf who had just learned the shepherds' language.
He was no longer just a survivor. He was an intruder in a demonic realm. And he had just declared war in their own tongue.
The true hunt had begun.