Zeth stood at the top of his staircase, right below the trapdoor that led out into the forest clearing, listening to the people who had just discovered evidence of his base.

“I felt it,” one of them said. “It was like a magically induced fear.”

“Now do you believe that there’s something here?”

“Yeah. Yeah, there is. Keep your guard up, there might be someone around.”

“What, like, listening to us?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you think they were listening to me pee earlier?”

“Shut the fuck up and keep your eyes on the treeline. They could be anywhere. If there’s magic going on here, that means it’s either some sort of automatic trap that’s been set, or someone did it manually. Either way, it means we’re in trouble.”

Zeth had to do something before they decided to retreat back to their base and spread the word. If the cabal heard about their findings, he’d have an army of Blood Mages—as well as Inquisitors, most likely—invading within hours.

As quickly as he could, he pulled out two hellfire circles with one hand and brought out his dagger with the other, bringing it down to make a small cut on his arm. As it sliced his skin open, he felt a stinging pain as he dabbed one of the ritual cloths on it to sop up his blood. It filled the completion percentage a bit, but then the wound quickly began closing back up, and he felt a small bit of the blood in his body being consumed to fuel Sanguine Renewal.

He breathed out, having forgotten about that Skill, and brought the knife back down, making a much larger cut in his forearm, a bolt of pain shooting up through his bicep and shoulder as he did. Holding the two cloths down on the opening and watching the two completion metrics climb upward, he looked inward and pushed back against Sanguine Renewal to temporarily prevent its effect from activating and automatically healing his wound.

The sickening sensation of blood being sucked out of his body by the two ritual circles spread through his veins until the moment the two rituals hit one hundred percent completion, and he released his mental block on Sanguine Renewal, suddenly feeling it go to work, consuming his blood to close the wound. It didn’t fully patch it up in so little time, but the bleeding almost instantly stopped, and he could see the skin slowly growing back to close over the wound before his eyes. That was good enough.

Now with two completed rituals, he climbed up the last couple steps, carefully laying his boots on the wood to ensure he made no sound, and pressed his ear against the trapdoor.

The two bandits were no longer speaking with each other, but Zeth could still hear footsteps. They were walking around the area, likely searching it for whatever created the magical effect they’d stumbled into. He had no idea how strong they were, or what capabilities they had; this wasn’t a good situation to be in.

But he had to do something. So, when he heard the footsteps start to grow softer, like they were walking away from the trapdoor, as slowly as he could, he pushed it open just a hair, so he could see through the tiny crack of light it created.

He looked through, gazing through the tall grass in search of the two people. After scanning back and forth a couple times, he spotted the bottom of a boot as it slowly took a step. Next to it, another pair. It looked like they still may have been facing his way, so he waited, staying perfectly still as he held the trapdoor in place, allowing him to watch for an opportunity to strike.

The two people kept wandering around, eventually turning to start heading toward the treeline, peering around the trunks for anyone hiding in wait.

“Maybe nobody’s here,” one of them said. “It could’ve been an automatic trap.”

“If that’s the case, it means there’s something here worth protecting. Keep looking.”

Zeth took that as his moment. As they were speaking, he used the noise of their own voices as cover to throw open the trapdoor and leap out of his hiding place. Thanks to his heightened Dexterity Stat, he felt more capable than ever of swiftly and quietly getting out of the hole and sprinting ahead, closing the fifteen-foot gap between him and his opponents in a matter of seconds.

The two people were dressed in padded leather armor made up of what looked to be monster skins, both of them facing directly away from him. The little noise he created caught the attention of the one on the right, but as he turned around to see him, his eyes widening and mouth opening to let out a shout, Zeth was already in arm’s reach, and he lunged ahead in his charge, holding out the hellfire cloth and pressing it against the man’s face.

Instantly, the crackle of lightning filled the clearing, and flames burst out across every inch of the bandit’s skin. They scalded Zeth’s skin, and he drew his hand back, feeling yet more of his blood being consumed to automatically repair the burns that’d spread across his palm in the split second it was touching the magic flame.

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As the flaming corpse collapsed to the ground, the man that’d been standing next to him, turned around and stepped back in surprise, holding his sword out to point at Zeth. “Step back!”

But Zeth didn’t follow his command. He stepped forth, sidestepping an attempt at a stab, grabbing the hilt of the sword out of its owner’s hand, and tossing it away. He kicked the man’s legs out from under him, knocking him to the ground, and knelt down on his gut with one arm holding his sword arm down and the other hovering the ritual cloth mere inches above his face.

“If this touches you, you die instantly,” he said. “Do not even think about attacking me. I’ll kill you in an instant, just like your friend over there.”

The man nodded shakily. “Yeah, got it. L-listen, I don’t want any trouble, alright? We were just poking around—didn’t mean to intrude.”

Zeth watched his hands. One was pinned down, but the other was lying free on the ground. Currently idle, but he didn’t want this guy grabbing a dagger from a hidden compartment, or anything. “Where’s your encampment?”

“U-um, it’s just over that way,” he nodded to gesture off in a direction away from town. “A decent walk away.”

“How many people are there? Did any of them know why you were coming out here? Or where you would be searching?”

He shifted nervously. “Just a few, shouldn’t give you any trouble. And—”

He made a strange motion with his one free hand—like he was grabbing an imaginary object and sticking it into something. Zeth tensed up, moving to press the ritual cloth against the man’s skin at the unknown movement, but before he could, a strange bluish light appeared in the corner of his vision. He glanced over to see a glowing spectral hand holding a dagger, flying forward through the air to stab it into his throat.

Zeth couldn’t move away in time, and the blade stuck into the side of his neck, driving several inches into his flesh. Intense pain spread all through his neck as his skin, muscle, and throat were split apart by the knife, and he fell over to the side of the man in shock. As he did, he dropped the cloth, leaving it fluttering downward, and the man attempted to sit up from his supine position and get back to his feet, but on his way up, he allowed the cloth to brush up against his face, and instantly lit aflame.

Zeth’s enemy was dead, but he was far from okay. As the man died, the spectral hand disappeared so it was no longer continuing to drive the dagger into his throat, leaving it to fall out of the hole in his neck and thump uselessly on the ground. Zeth, too, was lying on the ground, bringing a shaking hand up to apply pressure on his wound, attempting to prevent any more blood from escaping.

That dude had gotten him in the throat. The throat, where a massive amount of blood ran through. Liquid was squirting out of him as yet more was being rapidly consumed by Sanguine Recovery, attempting to do what it could to repair his body. But even with his synergies supercharging it, the Skill had its limits. It could only work so fast, and would need to constantly consume blood to do its work—blood which Zeth was currently losing extremely, extremely quickly.

He had to stop the bleeding. If he lost too much, the Skill would be left with no fuel, shut off, and he’d bleed out right here. That motherfucker apparently either hadn’t appreciated Zeth’s warning enough, and now was about to get Zeth killed as well as himself.

He glanced over at the still-burning corpse.

Getting an idea with very little time to think it over, he quickly crawled over, glancing over the charred body, all of the clothes already having burnt away, until he saw a reddish light coming from his waist—a belt buckle, now partially melted, and glowing with heat. Good enough. He reached down and grabbed the crumbling belt with his free hand, feeling his fingers growing hot even when several inches away from the buckle.

After taking a shaky breath, he lifted his other hand up from his wound, feeling blood instantly resume its spew out from the hole now that the pressure had been lifted, turned his head sideways so the wound was facing straight upward, and dropped the belt down onto his wound.

The red-hot buckle impacted his flesh, a sizzle sounding out as the metal seared into his skin, cauterizing the wound. He groaned out in pain; the sharp sensation from the stab wound was nothing compared to this. Gripping the charred leather of the belt in his hand, he used it to press the buckle harder into his skin for as long as he could bear to ensure he sealed the wound, then when the pain was too much, he pulled it back and tossed it aside, instantly feeling relief from the scorching of his skin.

Slowly, he drew a trembling hand up to feel the wound, finding what felt like a mess of raw, leathery skin. But no more blood was squirting out of it. His entire neck still hurt like nothing else, and he felt a further painful sensation whenever he breathed, but it at least wasn’t as bad as before, and he could feel Sanguine Renewal working to fix all the damage both his enemy had done to him and he had done to himself. Not that his current blood stores would be nearly enough, he could already tell.

He stared at the corpse of the one who’d stabbed him. Fucking asshole, he cursed internally, though he blamed himself for this. The man had been far too easy to disarm of his sword. As a bandit, he’d likely be a decent level, and the fact that Zeth could bypass his defenses like that proved he wasn’t a melee-oriented Class. He should’ve suspected magic from the start and killed the guy without trying to interrogate him.

But in the moment, he’d been too worried about something to consider that. He’d wanted to find where these people were based. Because if they’d told the other members of their little gang where they’d be searching tonight, and then never returned to base, those people would suddenly have a very good idea of exactly where Zeth’s lair was located. He looked at the two corpses, looking more like piles of ash than human people. They certainly wouldn’t be returning tonight. That would be an issue.

All he’d gotten before the guy died was a general direction to search in. But he was currently in no condition to fight—he doubted he’d be able to stand, with the pain still coursing through his body. The Blood Magus Class was powerful, and Sanguine Renewal was amazing, but damn if he didn’t wish he could just have a Skill that protected him from being wounded rather than something that’d heal him after the wound was made.

For now, he needed to clean this place up and get these bodies out of sight. After that, he could think about how he’d go about handling this situation in the future.