The euphoric feeling wore out within seconds, but Nathan was now whole. The multiple claw marks on his body had healed up, leaving no scar behind. He ran a hand over his face and confirmed that no scar was there.
It'd been difficult finding a girlfriend with this face; imagine having a scar to make it worse.
Speaking of ugly faces, he glanced up at big ugly. The master imp had stood there watching Nathan with a repulsive grin on its face. Nathan couldn't wait to wipe that stupid grin from its ugly face.
The damned thing would regret not killing him when it had the chance. Thinking about the Master Imp's weird behavior as he stood up, he came to the conclusion that Big Ugly just wanted to use him to level up.
He didn't know how monsters leveled up, but it had to be the same or similar to the way he did. So if Nathan was correct about his assumption, Big Ugly had thrown its subordinates at Nathan with the aim of helping him level just so it could kill Nathan and level up itself. If Nathan died while fighting the other imps, it would still be a win.
He had to hand it to the Master Imp—it had a very shrewd mind. Sacrificing those below it for the chance at power. Shaking his head to get his mind back in the game, he pointed his bloody sword at Big Ugly, whose response was a short screech. The damned thing just stood still, waiting for Nathan to make his move, and Nathan stood still trying to decide if it was a trap.
Nathan shrugged; the imp had time on its side, but he didn't. No point dawdling here and becoming unfortunate enough to face two or, God forbid, three master imps at once.
Nathan pushed off the ground, running towards the still-grinning imp, and slashed. He didn't know what he was supposed to expect when his sword made contact with the imp's scaly skin, but he hadn't expected it to bounce back, the imp completely unharmed.
Shit!
Nathan was so thrown off balance by the outcome of his attack that he couldn't raise his sword in time to block the clawed hand that reached for his unprotected head. It clutched Nathan's head with two hands like his head was a juicy orange.
It felt like the Master Imp wanted to crush his skull like its kin had done to another imp earlier. The imp probably didn't know that Nathan was thick in the head, at least that was how his literature teacher had put it.
While it definitely hurt, it still gave Nathan time to try other things—like stabbing the imp in the eye. It was almost comical to see the focused look of the Master Imp morph into confusion and then pain as Nathan's blade poked its left eye out.
Armored skin or no armored skin, an eye was always going to be an eye. Nathan had guessed the Master Imp had been utilizing one of its skills. Hardened skin meant hardened skin; it wasn't hard for Nathan to put two and two together. Considering the imp had both hands on Nathan's head and was confident enough in its impervious skin to shrug off anything Nathan could do, it made it way easier than it should've been for Nathan to take an eye out of the equation.
Big ugly let go of Nathan's head as it screeched out in pain, one clawed palm covering its eye as it mourned the loss. Nathan wisely put space between the two of them, wincing at the screech.
Well, that's going to attract unwanted attention.
The Master Imp bared its fangs, letting out a hiss at Nathan. Barely concealed hatred oozed off it, the scene in front of him making his hairs tingle.
Oh oh.
Big ugly barreled towards Nathan, its eye shining with bloodlust as it made its way towards him. Nathan sidestepped from the charge at the last second, slashing at the exposed back of the Master Imp and drawing blood, his sword going two inches before stopping.
Not wanting to repeat the same mistake twice, Nathan jumped back, putting space between him and the raging imp. Maybe it'd be less angry if Nathan could show it pictures of a Cyclops to make it feel less bad about itself.
Nathan pushed the stupid thoughts away as he considered the important thing. His sword had bitten into big ugly's skin, meaning that the skill the Master Imp used before had two limitations that he now knew: the eyes weren't covered by insurance, and it couldn't fortify its skin when on the move.
At least that was what it seemed like. Nathan had no idea if the imp was so angry that it had forgotten to activate its buffs. Well, his chance to find out was nigh—the outraged imp had turned back to face Nathan before charging at him.
Note to self: never go full berserk mode.
Rather than sidestep this time, Nathan decided to go head-to-head with the imp. They met midway, with Nathan being thrown away like a rag doll. He landed a few feet away from the already advancing imp; his chest was burning with pain. Nathan looked down to see four new claw marks now decorating his chest.
Aww man.
This was no time to be a pretty boy though. He took it on the chest and stood to his feet. He could feel that he'd lost a significant amount of health to that one slash. He had to be careful with how he dealt with the imp. They might both be at the same level, but the imp had been on level eight way longer than him, so he had to play his cards right if he wanted to have some roasted bird later.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Maybe I could go for the other eye. It'd sure make everything easier.
Nathan tried to move back as the imp moved forward, trailing him. Of course, going for the eyes sounded easy in theory; in reality, he didn't think there was a version of the shrewd imp that was going to stand still and let him poke its second eye out. On the other hand, the imp had just lost an eye—that meant that it should be a little disoriented.
Probably why it'd been taking him head-on. It was up to Nathan to figure out a way to attack from its blind side. How exactly he was going to achieve that, he didn't know.
On a whim, Nathan rushed the imp, who was more than happy to meet Nathan charge for charge. Nathan sidestepped to its blind side at the last moment. It was the wrong move as the imp seemed to have anticipated it. A clawed hand ripped through his side.
Warning: 75% health left
Damn, that much health was lost after three exchanges—how powerful was this thing? It was almost as if it'd thrown its whole stats into strength while Nathan had spread his evenly.
Not giving time for Nathan to respond, the imp went for another slash with its right hand. Nathan bent his head, ducking under the swing—it was a feint. Nathan felt rather than saw the imp's left clawed hand tear through his exposed back. He felt the claws narrowly miss his spine as the imp pulled back its hand.
Tears threatened to fall from Nathan's eyes at the fiery sensation spreading at his back, but he persevered. The good thing about the new pain was that it strengthened his resolve and cleared his mind to his next course of action.
Nathan thrust his sword towards the imp's remaining eye; two clawed hands shot up to cover the eye just like Nathan had expected. Shifting the trajectory of the blade a little, Nathan watched as the blade tore through what remained of the damaged eyeball, heading straight into its brain.
Feint for feint.
It took almost dying for him to realize that he could do feints followed by an attack instead of always sidestepping, but Nathan had learned that lesson the hard way. He watched the imp carefully; both clawed hands were still covering the working eye, so Nathan wasn't sure if the imp was dead or maybe it didn't even have a brain and he'd just stabbed his blade into empty space. After all, he didn't know what their physiology was like.
He didn't have to wait too long to find out—the big imp started to tilt towards his direction, and Nathan quickly kicked it while holding the sword as the imp fell in the opposite direction.
One down, four to go.
While Nathan hadn't leveled up after killing the Master Imp like he'd hoped, he was still sure that he'd hit the next level pretty soon. He was midway close to the next level; he could feel it in his... uhm, let's just say he could feel it.
Nathan hated the fact that there was nothing to loot on the damned imps. He'd been hoping for some armor, clothes, or something, but none of the imps seemed to have any of those—they didn't even have weapons.
Whatever the system had in store for him as a reward for clearing up these filthy beasts better be worth it. Heck, his clothes were almost drenched in black blood.
No time to complain though; he still had a couple more imps left for him. With a sigh of exasperation, he pulled up his stat screen with a thought.
Status
Name: Nathan Orion
Moniker: N/A
Level: 8
Archetype: Blood Berserker
Class: Blood Pawn
Imprints: Balls of Steel, Skullcrusher
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 10
Vitality: 11
Stamina: 8
Perception: 7
Dao: N/A
Ra'hal coins: 5,450
Free points: 3
What stat should I invest in right now?
Dexterity?
Stamina?
Naah, probably strength. The hits I managed to land on big ugly didn't even go that deep. I can't have that repeating itself.
Two points to strength
Strength: 13
##
Free points: 1
Quests
Active Quests:
1. Slay 35 imps (29/35)
2. Slay 5 Master Imps (1/5)
3. Conquer a dungeon (0/1)
4. Eradicate the Mayhem of Imps (0/1)
Special Quests: N/A
Locked till level 50.
Nathan closed the status screen with a thought. He'd made improvements on his strength, and it'd have to be enough for the hunt for the other two groups.
He casually began his walk back towards the extreme end of the clearing. The next group should be somewhere around there. Nathan evaluated his fights with the imps as he walked. They were certainly smart and adaptable, coldblooded when they needed to be. He'd seen two Master Imps killing their subjects: one had done it directly while the other had used Nathan to do it in hopes of gaining a level after it killed him.
Bollocks.
The whole situation made no sense to him. Why were demons here, and if these ones were the lesser demons, then what were the normal or higher demons supposed to look like?
Nathan wasn't even sure if the other demons had made it to Earth. From what he could tell, the system was still populating the world, and if Nathan's guess was correct, it'd started by spawning weak monsters first—hence the squad of level-one monsters that had nearly killed him.
More importantly, what was the end goal of all this? What did the system hope to achieve by bringing this apocalypse onto Earth? What had it called the apocalypse again... Crimson Apocalypse.
The name certainly fits his experience so far; it wasn't an apocalypse that gave out fluffy rabbits and teddies. No, this was something else entirely.
High risk, high reward system.
Nathan shoved that line of thought to the back of his head; he couldn't be thinking about things he had no idea about. He should be thinking about how he was going to handle the other Master Imps.
The eye trick had been nice, but he didn't think that it'd work all the time, so he'd better come up with a reasonable plan. Brute force against the master imps was out of the question. They were the same level as Nathan, and they'd probably have the same skill as Big Ugly.
Nathan's constant thoughts must've somehow alerted the Master Imp at the extreme end of the camp, as he couldn't understand why he turned sideways to see the big imp staring straight at him.
First off, creepy.
I'll call you big ugly 2.