Chapter 20 - Before

It was time to give my [Ranger] training to some use. I followed the tracks carefully. It looked like about five humans and three or four quadrupeds. After following the tracks for about two hours I heard what sounded like a bear in battle. I made sure I wasn’t being charged and kept moving forward.

As I suspected five humans and four wolves were fighting a bear.

I made sure to hide behind a tree and observe the fight from a distance.

The wolves were in the front, keeping the bear back, while the humans were using ranged attacks. That is three humans were throwing spears, while the other two were just strangely staring at the bear. I presumed they were casting spells. What was sort of weird was that the humans were wearing clothes made from wolf pelts. I guessed there was a number of wolves that would die anyway and using their skin seemed practical, however the thought of wearing wolf skin while hunting with wolves gave me the shivers. It just seemed so wrong on a gut level.

Anyway, the group managed to put down the bear swiftly and efficiently. Whatever the spellcasters did must have been very effective, as the bear was even more sluggish, than after being filled with my venom.

After the bear was downed they started to cut up and skin the animal. After they finished, one of them yelled in my direction, making a cone with his hands: “You can come out of hiding, we see you.” So much for stealth. Everything being stronger here also applied to [Perception] as it seemed.

Sheepishly I stepped out from behind the tree. Skadi also came around from her hiding place.

One of the humans, a man with wild hair and a scraggly beard, gave a short whistle and said: “What a beautiful creature. How much?”

I didn’t get what he was asking “How much what?”

“I wanna buy your wolf. How much for her?”

“She isn’t my property. I am not selling her.” I crossed my arms, as I was getting kind of pissed at this guy.

He put on a fake looking smile and told me “Listen kid! This here is our part of the forest. Any Wolf here is our property. I am being nice by offering some compensation. We could just take her.”

This guy wanted it. I extended my blades and said: “Try.”

His smile became wider as he said “OK.” and snapped his finger.

Instantly I felt pain. More pain than ever before. It is hard to describe, but imagine red hot needles with fish hooks being repeatedly stabbed and withdrawn from your genitals. Only it is all over your body, mind and (somehow) soul. I crumbled to the floor. I couldn’t feel, or hear, or see, or think anything but the pain. It was all encompassing. There was nothing but pain. I had felt pain before, but not only was it never this harsh, but it was never this holistic. Everything hurt. EVERYTHING. There was no point in differentiating the kind of pain I was feeling, because pain had stopped being a sensation, and started being my only reality. It was that bad.

You have been beaten. [Aspiring Apex] will not level up, until you have defeated those that defeated you. Should you get beaten again, without remedying your loss, you will lose your class.

I awoke an indeterminate amount of time later. I was lying on the floor with tears on my face. If I had still been capable of such things I am sure I would have soiled myself and thrown up. Val was standing over me. “Before you do anything stupid. They took Skadi, but she is alive and well-ish. They won’t kill her, they will be trying to tame her. That gives you quite a lot of time.” I hadn’t even thought about that. I needed to rescue Skadi.

I let the encounter pass through my mind once again. I couldn’t hide from them, they had seen me from far off, while I was trying to hide. They obviously weren’t going to be persuaded by me, so that was also a dud. Could I have fought them? No. Actually, now that I think of it, why am I still alive? They could have killed me. Even with [The Flesh obeys], I was going to run out of Biomass eventually and since I couldn’t defend myself, so it would have been a matter of time. I could have died.

I could have died.

My life was in their hands.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

This was the first time I truly grappled with my own mortality. Ironically at the point I thought I had become unbeatable.

I spent a long time lying on the floor just thinking about death. How it was luck, or mercy that made me still take a breath right now. I had ‘died’ twice before, according to [Hard to kill], but that didn’t feel that bad. In those cases I would have died, if I didn’t have that perk, but since I do have it I wasn’t really at death’s door. Now though? Now I may as well be dead right now. I thought about death.

And I realised something.

I was absolutely terrified of death. Real honest terror was washing through me in increasing waves. I couldn’t stop thinking about the cold oblivion of death. My Village used to believe, that the dead souls merged with the forest. I never really bought that. Now my lack of faith proved to be a real handicap. My thoughts kept on spiralling. The terror now visible, as [The Flesh obeys] shrunk my body more and more, which fed the vicious cycle even more. The pain of shapeshifting, even involuntary, reminded me of my helpless state, which made me shrink more. I was locked in a spiral of existential terror.

Luckily I had a mentor with me.

Val slapped my face and said: “You need to get your shit together! Skadi is in danger!”

That woke me up. She was right. Skadi was in danger and I had sworn to protect her. My terror slowly changed into anger. These lesser beasts have attacked me. How dare they? I will not let this stand. Every one of those five will be put to death. I will see to it. This disrespect will not stand. Not before the APEX. Then my thoughts continued onwards, my anger turning into white hot rage. They attacked my pack, my family! They will not be put to death, that would be far too merciful. I swore to protect Skadi, so I will make all of them pay. If Skadi is held in a settlement, then all residents are guilty of not releasing her. I will not rest, until all of them are erased from history. Lastly the practical side of me chimed in and my hot rage turned into cold hatred. There will be no sacrifice to great. Skadi will be free, her captors will wish for death.

I thought about the next steps. I had to overcome this pain, they could inflict. But how? Well, I know a bit about how the System operates.

I resolved myself to the fact that the next part was going to suck. “Val, how much can you hurt someone?”

“Are you asking, what I am thinking you’re asking?”

“Valeria, I need you to torture me, until I can withstand what they did.”

With a resigned expression she gave me a sigh and said: “This is going to suck. But at least I know I chose right with you.”

Valerias POV:

Val was ecstatic. She couldn’t show it, of course, but she was overjoyed. James had a near miss, with existential dread there, but he had pulled through and the journey of his thoughts she could read in his eyes was perfect. The arrogance of thinking you could take on an entire village by yourself, combined with the pragmatism to first seek immunity from their main source of control, was just the mixture Val was looking for. Monstrous in attitude, reasonable in thinking. Perfect.

Val agreed with James’ plan to torture him while sparring. It was the quickest way to raise your tolerance, if you can withstand it, that is. She was also glad that James was too filled with hatred to even think about Stealth. Sure, they had good [Perception], but a tiny snake in the snow was still basically invisible. Her little monster didn’t consider any of that. He just wanted to slaughter them too much. She would have to teach some proper stealth skills at a later date, but right now it was more important for James to continue his path toward a shapeshifting engine of destruction and carnage. Subtlety could be added to his repertoire later.

Val was somewhat sympathetic towards James’ priorities that being:

1. Save Skadi

2. Kill

3. Sleep?

Val chuckled internally at her own joke. In reality though, she may be cold, but she would still regret it if Skadi died. She had grown to like that pup.

Anyway, onto training. The kind of spell the Tribesmen had used was easy enough for her to replicate. A third tier illusion spell that flooded the senses of a target with pain. Crude but effective. Valeria could literally cast such a spell all day without stopping. So she did.

She slowly increased the spells power. Always just above the threshold where James could handle the pain. They were sparing during this whole process, as James wanted to be able to fight under such amounts of pain. Val allowed James a one hour break every eight hours to communicate with Skadi, making sure she was still safe. She was. The tribe was trying to make themselves seem like allies. Luckley Skadi was way too smart for such an approach.

It took over a week. Nine days to be exact. At the end of the ninth day James suddenly stood up straight during the torture-sparing. Then his eyes glowed green, his flesh rippled and he fell over.

James’ POV:

Congratulations! For enduring enough pain to break a normal person’s mind several dozen times over you have gained the personal Perk [The Pain stops]

[The Pain stops]

The torture is over. You may now numb yourself to any kind of pain …Oh no. That would be boring. You get something more fun.

[Touched by the Eldritch] has absorbed [The Pain stops]. You have gained the personal Perk [The Pain ebbs]

[The Pain ebbs]

Pain has become an old friend. You are unable to numb yourself to pain, but you may store it. Stored pain need not be felt immediately, instead you can exert a mental effort to contain it. The more pain, the harder the effort. The pain will be felt when the mental effort drops, it will be magnified by 20% for every hour delayed.

Now go forth and slaughter them, Apex.

I could delay the pain? That wasn’t perfect, but it would allow me to slaughter my enemies. I would take it. I wasn’t even mad at the eldritch ones. Who knows? Maybe the rest of [The Pain stops]’s description would have included some caveat that would have prevented my rescue operation. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I had my tools, and now I was going to go to work.

I stood up and looked at Val. She had a questioning expression on her face. I told her: “I am ready.”