Don made his decision.
He lunged for the cage, his weakened body protesting every movement. His fire dagger moved toward the crude lock, ready to melt through it—
The girl's arm shot out.
Fast. Too fast for someone who'd been barely alive seconds ago.
Her hand closed around a rock—a jagged piece of stone the size of Don's fist, stained with old blood.
Don saw it coming through his curse-slowed perception. Tried to pull back with his curse-weakened muscles.
Not fast enough.
The rock slammed into his temple with the force of a warhammer.
CRACK.
His vision exploded into white stars. His legs buckled. The world tilted sideways as blood poured down his face.
[WARNING: SEVERE HEAD TRAUMA]
[HP: REGENERATING…]
[MANA: 305/1150]
[WHAT—?!]
Even Madness sounded shocked.
Don staggered, his hands clutching at his head, trying to stay upright. His skull was cracked—he could feel it knitting back together, the sensation like fire ants crawling inside his brain.
His spear and dagger dissipated, the concentration required to maintain them beyond his current capacity.
The girl stood.
Her movements were mechanical. Precise. Wrong. Like a puppet on strings, or a corpse being animated by something that didn't understand how humans moved.
She looked down at Don with those clear, aware eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was perfectly calm:
"There are no allies in the Abyss."
Then she collapsed.
Just… fell like a puppet with cut strings. Dead before she hit the ground, her eyes still open, still staring at nothing.
Don's vision swam. His head throbbed with each heartbeat, his regeneration working overtime to repair the damage. Blood ran into his right eye—the yellow one—making everything tinted crimson.
The weakness curse was still active. 70 seconds left.
The twelve remaining goblins were circling closer.
The four shamans had their staffs raised, preparing what would probably be the killing blow.
Don was wounded, weakened, unarmed, and alone.
And then—
He laughed.
A short, sharp sound that was more shock than humor. Because of course. Of course the Abyss would do that. Dangle hope in front of him—a victim to save, a purpose beyond mere survival—and then twist it into another lesson.
Rule One: There are no allies in the Abyss. Everyone is your enemy.
The girl had never been a prisoner. She'd been bait. A test. The Abyss itself, reaching out through her, reminding him that mercy here was weakness. That compassion was death.
[Oh. Oh my. Little seed… are you LAUGHING? After that? AHAHAHA! YES! THAT'S IT! That's what I've been waiting for! You UNDERSTAND now, don't you? This place… it's PERFECT!]
Don's laughter cut off as abruptly as it started.
The goblins were closing in, their weapons raised, their eyes gleaming with anticipated victory.
The shamans were chanting, their final curse gathering like a storm.
Don's hand moved to his hip. His real sword—the steel one Diana had given him. Not a creation of fire and imagination, but solid, reliable steel.
He drew it.
The weakness curse was still there. 60 seconds. But it didn't matter.
Don stood slowly, blood dripping from his temple, his body screaming in protest. His yellow eye blazed like a sun through the red haze of his own blood.
And his smile—when it came—was something cold and terrible.
"Alright then," he whispered, his voice carrying a weight it hadn't before. "No more mercy. No more hesitation."
His grip tightened on his sword.
"Let's finish this."
The shamans unleashed their spell.
"VRAK'SHUL THAR!"
Four bolts of pure darkness screamed toward Don—not fire, not curse, but something that looked like concentrated absence. Where they passed, the air itself seemed to die.
Don couldn't dodge. His weakened agility wouldn't let him.
So he did something else.
His free hand came up, and he poured mana into his Imagination.
[SKILL: IMAGINATION ACTIVATED]
[MANA COST: 150]
[CREATING: PRIMITIVE FIRE WALL]
A wall of flames erupted before him—taller than he was, wider than the clearing, blazing with intensity. The darkness bolts hit it and simply… stopped. Absorbed. Consumed.
[MANA: 155/1150]
[You're running out of mana, little seed. Running out of time. Running out of LIFE. But you're not running out of WILL, are you?]
The wall dissipated. Don stood on the other side, his steel sword ready.
The shamans were staring at him with something that might have been fear. Or respect. Or both.
Good.
The twelve goblin warriors charged.
Don met them with steel and determination.
His weakened strength meant his strikes weren't as devastating. His reduced agility meant he took hits he normally wouldn't. A club grazed his ribs—crack—breaking something. A spear opened his thigh. An axe bit into his shoulder.
But his sword kept moving.
Adept Mastery meant that even weakened, his technique was flawless. Every strike hit a vital point. Every parry was perfectly angled. Every movement economical, efficient, deadly.
[+20 XP]
[+20 XP]
[+20 XP]
His regeneration was struggling to keep up. Each wound drained mana. Each breath cost stamina. But he kept fighting.
[30 seconds left on the curse, little seed! Just 30 more seconds and you'll be STRONG again!]
A goblin got lucky—its knife found the gap in his armor, sliding between his ribs. Don felt it pierce his lung, felt the familiar sensation of drowning in his own blood.
[HP: CRITICAL - REGENERATING…]
[MANA: 125/1150]
He grabbed the goblin's wrist with his free hand, yanked it closer, and drove his sword through its skull.
[+20 XP]
Twenty seconds.
Four goblins left. Four shamans watching from the back.
Don's vision was darkening at the edges. His mana was almost gone. His stamina at 5/32.
But he was still standing.
Still fighting.
Still killing.
Ten seconds.
Two more goblins fell to his blade. His technique perfect even as his body failed.
[+20 XP]
[+20 XP]
Five seconds.
The last two goblins tried to run.
[WEAKNESS CURSE: EXPIRED]
[ALL STATS RESTORED]
Power flooded back into Don's body. His strength returned. His speed returned. His wounds closed faster, his mana regeneration kicked into overdrive.
He caught the fleeing goblins in three strides.
His sword flashed twice.
[+20 XP]
[+20 XP]
[28/28 COMMON GOBLINS SLAIN]
Only the shamans remained.
They tried to run.
Don was faster.
His body was whole again, his curse-weakened state a fading memory. His mana was low but sufficient. His stamina recovering with each breath.
The shamans split up, fleeing in different directions.
Amateur mistake.
Don's hand came up, flames coalescing.
[SKILL: IMAGINATION ACTIVATED]
[MANA COST: 50]
[CREATING: PRIMITIVE FIRE DAGGER]
He threw it.
The weapon spun through the air, a comet of flame. It took the first shaman in the back of the skull, punching through bone and brain. The creature died before it hit the ground.
[+40 XP]
[GOBLIN SHAMAN SLAIN]
Don created another dagger. Threw it. Another shaman down.
[+40 XP]
[MANA: 25/1150]
He couldn't create any more. Not enough mana left.
But he had his steel sword. And his newly enhanced strength.
Don chased down the third shaman. It had climbed a tree, was hiding in the crimson canopy, perfectly still.
But Don's yellow eye caught the faint glow of its staff. The slight trembling of leaves.
He picked up a rock. Hefted it. His increased strength made it feel weightless.
He threw.
The rock moved like a bullet. It caught the shaman in the chest, knocking it from the tree. The creature hit the ground with a sickening crunch.
Don's sword finished it.
[+40 XP]
[GOBLIN SHAMAN SLAIN]
One shaman left.
Don found it crouched in a hollow tree, frantically trying to prepare a spell. His sword silenced it before the first syllable left its lips.
[+40 XP]
[4/4 GOBLIN SHAMANS SLAIN]
[PERFECT CLEAR: PATROL GROUP ELIMINATED]
Silence fell over the clearing.
Don stood among the bodies, his chest heaving, blood dripping from a dozen slowly-closing wounds. His armor was dented and scorched. His sword was notched and stained black with goblin blood.
His mana sat at 25/1150. His stamina at 10/32.
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[TOTAL ENEMIES SLAIN: 32]
[TOTAL XP GAINED: 720]
[CURRENT XP: 725/1200]
╔═══════════════════════════╗
STATUS UPDATE
╚═══════════════════════════╝
Level: 5
XP: 725/1200
Mana: 25/1150
Stamina: 10/32
Madness: 19% → 20%
[MADNESS THRESHOLD CROSSED]
[PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES OCCURRING…]
╚═══════════════════════════╝
That last notification made Don's eye twitch. The threshold. He'd crossed it.
But nothing happened. No sudden loss of control. No personality shift. Just… a sense of Madness sitting deeper inside him now. More comfortable. More welcome.
What Don didn't notice—what he couldn't notice—was the change happening inside his chest.
His heart.
It beat once. Twice. And with the third beat, something shifted.
The muscle expanded—not visibly, not externally, but internally. Growing denser, stronger, pumping with more force. His blood pressure spiked for a fraction of a second, then normalized. His circulation increased.
More oxygen. More nutrients. More power flowing through his veins.
And mixed with the crimson blood—so subtle, so few that even if he'd cut himself open he might have missed them—were droplets of something else.
Golden.
Like liquid sunlight swimming through darkness. A handful of drops in an ocean of red, dispersing, spreading, integrating into his system without his awareness.
His heart beat again. Stronger. Hungrier.
Don felt nothing. Noticed nothing. The change was too deep, too subtle, too perfectly integrated.
But Madness noticed.
[Oh… oh my… little seed, do you know what just happened? Of course you don't. How could you? But I can TASTE it. That delicious golden corruption mixing with your beautiful red humanity. Twenty percent. We're only twenty percent there, and already you're changing in ways you can't even comprehend. I wonder… what will you become at fifty percent? At seventy? At one hundred? I can hardly WAIT to find out!]
Don didn't answer. He was staring at the girl's body—the cage, the lie, the lesson.
"There are no allies in the Abyss," he repeated quietly.
His hand moved to his potion belt. He pulled out one of the blue-glowing mana potions Diana had given him. Uncorked it. Drank.
[MANA RESTORATION: +500]
[MANA: 525/1150]
The warmth spread through his body, his mana reserves filling rapidly. His regeneration kicked into overdrive, closing the remaining wounds, repairing his cracked ribs, the punctured lung, the lingering damage from that rock to his skull.
Within minutes, he was physically whole again.
Mentally… that was another question.
Don looked up at the twisted canopy above, at the crimson light filtering through. Somewhere out there were six Generals. A Sovereign. Thousands more goblins.
And the Abyss itself, watching. Always watching.
Something felt different now. Not just the level up—yes, he'd felt that rush of power, but this was something more. Something deeper. His body had crossed a threshold. Level 5. The System had called it a "cultivation threshold," whatever that meant.
His muscles felt denser. His reflexes sharper. His mana flowing through channels that felt wider, cleaner, more efficient.
And those new weapon masteries—spear and shield—sitting in his mind like he'd trained with them for years. The knowledge was there, complete, ready to be used.
He'd need to understand what that meant. What had changed. What he'd become.
But first—
The war drums started.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Deep, rhythmic, massive. Coming from multiple directions at once.
And answering them—thousands of voices, howling in unison.
"SHRA'KETH! SHRA'KETH! BLOOD! KILL!"
Don pulled out one of his green stamina potions. Uncorked it. Drank.
[STAMINA RESTORATION: +15]
[STAMINA: 10/32 → 25/32]
The exhaustion didn't disappear, but the crushing weight lifted. His legs felt stable again. His breathing easier.
He started walking deeper into the Veiled Shadowfen, away from the drums, into the darker parts of the forest where the crimson light barely penetrated.
Behind him, thirty-two goblin corpses lay cooling in the moss. The girl's body—the Abyss's puppet—stared at nothing with dead eyes.
Rule One: There are no allies in the Abyss.
Don had learned that lesson in blood.
Rule Three: If the Abyss looks at you, do not look back. If it speaks to you, do not answer.
The girl had been the Abyss speaking. Don had answered by trying to save her.
And he'd paid the price—another piece of his humanity chipped away, another lesson carved into his soul.
But he was still alive.
Still moving forward.
Still hunting.
Level 5 now. Something had fundamentally changed inside him. His heart beat stronger. His body felt different in ways he couldn't quite identify.
New weapons mastered. Spear. Shield. Added to his arsenal as if he'd trained for years.
He'd need time to understand what that meant.
Time to explore what Level 5 had unlocked.
The war drums grew louder behind him.
Don kept walking into the darkness.