The mountain loomed, somehow seeming even larger than it had the first time they’d visited. By comparison, the temple at its base was small and insignificant. Yet, the only way to the pass that would lead to the summit was through the temple gate. Thankfully, the quest had been completed, as evidenced by the key Zeke held in his hand. The item itself didn’t seem particularly special. Just a large, brass key wrapped around an onyx gem. Yet, Zeke could feel the power wafting off of it.

“I hope the room isn’t as restrictive as it was the first time,” Zeke said aloud. He could traverse it, especially now that he’d upgraded [Triune Colossus] to [Titan]. Yet, if the restrictions were still in place, Talia would never make it through without being carried.

Which she most assuredly would not appreciate.

“I don’t believe it will be,” Talia stated in her raspy voice.

“Unless it’s another test,” he countered.

“Yes.”

“Not going to find out until we go,” Zeke said. “Stay close, just in case.”

After that, he stepped forward, climbing the steps into the temple. Inside, it was much the same as it had been the first time he’d passed through, though when they reached the gate room, he felt no restrictions.

“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at his companion.

She nodded curtly. “I feel nothing.”

“Good,” Zeke said. Then, he led her to the gate itself. There wasn’t anything so mundane as a key hole, which begged the question of how to proceed. However, the moment he came within a couple of feet, the door swung inward, revealing a large garden on the other side.

With Talia close on his heels, he strode through, and as soon as they had passed into the garden, the doors clanged shut. Zeke remarked, “I guess that means there’s no going back.”

“Not as if that was an option. Dungeons are about moving forward, not going backwards,” Eveline provided, having manifested next to him. She’d taken to doing that more often of late, so her illusory presence wasn’t as jarring as it once might have been.

Talia said, “I agree. The summit awaits.”

She stepped past Zeke and followed the winding path through the garden. Zeke came after, scanning the area for any threats. But it was just a normal – albeit beautiful – garden. Most of the plants were unrecognizable, but that was no great surprise. Zeke had never been a horticulturist, so one plant looked much the same as another to him. Still, he did see a couple of rose bushes, some tulips, and even a stand of orchids. Otherwise, the garden featured a host of water features like natural-looking streams and waterfalls, a few fountains, and a couple of large ponds stocked with fat carp.

In every way Zeke could see, it was an idyllic garden.

Which was why he found it so unnerving. For weeks, they’d fought for every step they took through the jungle. So, to finally find peace within the garden was more than a little jarring.

He knew it wouldn’t last, though.

“Just enjoy it while it does,” Eveline said, walking beside him. She took a deep breath, then let it out. “You really should put something like this in the tower. It’s important to take a step back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. How is the pie making going?”

“You know the answer to that question,” Zeke said.

“Why did you abandon it?”

“Do I seem like I have time to make pies?” he asked. Indeed, he already had so much on his proverbial plate. Between needing to push himself for progression, fight wars, work on his skills, and the quest to inoculate himself against his own destructive will, Zeke had more than he could handle.

“You’re going to burn yourself out.”

“I know.”

“But you’re not going to change, are you?” Eveline asked.

That was a good question. Zeke had long sought to develop interests outside of his quest for progression. But the reality was that, even if he had the time to spare, he’d have preferred to use it doing something productive. Like working on his skills, which was the closest thing he had to a hobby. It wasn’t precisely enjoyable – though that was close to describing it. Rather, it was satisfying, seeing everything click into place and work the way he’d intended.

“When your relaxing hobby has a chance of blowing up in your face and killing you, it doesn’t really count,” Eveline said.

Zeke recognized that as well. Certainly, he knew just how quickly meddling with runes could go wrong. He’d spent months as a half-armored monstrosity because he’d made a mistake while trying to create [Armor of the Colossus]. And that was probably the tamest representation of the consequences of skill-crafting mistakes. As Eveline had said, if he made a misstep while creating a skill, it could easily tear him to pieces.

Yet, that was part of what made it so enticing. The danger of it all heightened the whole experience. It was like doing battle with the underlying forces of the universe.

“You’re a thrill seeker, then,” Eveline remarked.

Zeke shrugged. “Maybe.”

That characterization fit pretty well, if Zeke was honest. He loved fighting. Part of that was his competitive nature, but the sheer adrenaline rush of a life-and-death struggle was at least as impactful on his demeanor. The same could be said for war, which was just a larger scale fight.

And the painful process of inoculating himself against his will was just a war of a different sort. A battle against a piece of himself, and one he needed to win if he had any chance of survival.

Finally, there was the addictive process of progression. That appealed to his most basic personality, which was built around constant improvement. It had been the driving force of his life back on Earth, and that hadn’t changed with his death and reincarnation. He didn’t just want to reach the top. He needed it. And he knew that if, for whatever reason, he failed, it would absolutely devastate him to the point where recovery would be nigh impossible.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Glutton for punishment and an adrenaline junkie,” Eveline said with a shake of her head. The image shimmered slightly, evidence that she wasn’t physically there. “That’s what I like about you, Ezekiel. You’re simple.”

“I like to think of it as uncomplicated, but okay,” Zeke said with a wry smile.

After that, they continued along the garden path. It continuously sloped upward, going on for what seemed like miles. That wasn’t so surprising, considering the sheer size of the mountain and the trail’s winding nature. However, it did lull both Talia and Zeke into inattentiveness. When nothing changed, it was natural to let one’s mind wander, after all.

Eventually, they reached a large, tranquil pond. Atop the surface of the water were drifting lily pads, each one at least ten feet wide. However, Zeke was more concerned with the creatures encircling it.

Like the other factions they’d encountered in the jungle, these new monsters were humanoid beasts. This time, though, they were clearly based on frogs. With huge, bulbous heads, rubbery skin, and legs that looked capable of propelling them huge distances, the monsters paid no attention to Zeke and Talia. Instead, they stood around the pond, their hands raised in exultation.

Zeke used [Inspect] on the nearest one:

Amphibinid – Level 61

“What do you think?” Zeke asked aloud. They were far enough away from the creatures that he felt secure in the expectation that they would not be heard. Besides, the creatures looked completely distracted by whatever activity in which they were engaged.

“We must kill them,” Talia said.

“You think?” asked Zeke. “Maybe we could sneak past.”

Eveline let out a chuckle. “You are many things, but stealthy is not one of them,” she said. “The girl could likely do it, though.”

“They could be peaceful. The ratongi were at first,” he argued.

“They are summoning something,” Eveline stated.

“We don’t know that,” Zeke countered.

“I think we do. Look,” Talia said, gesturing to the pond, where the water at the center had begun to bubble. Even as the bubbling increased in intensity, so too did the croaking chants of the amphibinids.

It was not a pleasant chorus.

After a moment, a giant tentacle lashed out, grabbing one of the creatures and dragging it into the pond. Then, one by one, more tentacles erupted from the water and snatched the frog-like creatures until, at last, they were all gone. The water stilled, and the peace of the garden returned.

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Zeke asked.

Just then, another notification flashed before his inner eye:

New Quest Acquired!

Quest: The First Challenge

Objective: Defeat the Guardian of the Deep

Reward: Safe Passage to the Second Challenge

“You get that, too?” Zeke asked. Talia nodded, and he added, “Pretty sure those tentacles belonged to the guardian of the deep.”

“That is a fair assumption,” Talia said.

“How do we get it to come up?” he asked.

Neither Talia nor Eveline had any answers for that, so Zeke leaned into his straightforward manner. He approached the pond cautiously, ready to fend off any tentacles that might emerge. However, when he reached the shore, nothing happened. He waited there for a few minutes, even splashing the water a bit, but it remained just as calm as ever.

“I really don’t want to do this,” he muttered, eyeing the water.

“Go on. Be our bait,” Eveline said with a giggle.

He said, “You’re riding shotgun in my head, right? If I’m bait, so are you.”

“That…well, let’s not talk about that. Go on. Dive in and fetch us a tentacle monster,” she said cheerfully.

Zeke sighed. Truthfully, it was probably smarter to send Talia. She was much faster, and her abilities wouldn’t sink her to the bottom like using [Titan] would. However, he wasn’t willing to foist that responsibility onto his companion. So, after stripping down to his underwear, Zeke waded into the pond. However, when he dove in, he found something incredibly surprising.

Surfacing, he shouted back, “It’s only about ten feet deep!”

“What about the tentacle monster?” asked Talia.

“I don’t know,” he said. After that, he dove back in and began a search. Yet, no matter how much he inspected the area, there was no evidence of the monster. It just wasn’t there.

Nor were there any fish, amphibians, or reptiles. There weren’t even any bugs. It was entirely desolate, as if the creature had eaten everything in the pond.

After almost an hour of swimming around, Zeke returned to the shore and climbed out. “What do you think?” he asked.

Talia admitted that she had no idea what to do. The quest was to defeat the guardian of the deep, but there seemed to be a hidden sub-quest to find the creature first. So, Zeke settled down, and as he air dried, he pondered the dilemma. Perhaps if they could find some more of those frog creatures, they could use them to summon the monster.

But wherever they’d come from, it wasn’t anywhere Zeke or Talia had seen. So, that plan seemed like a bit of a non-starter.

“Any suggestions?” he asked Eveline.

“Nothing yet,” she answered. “Which is frustrating. I’m supposed to be the brains of this operation.”

“That’s definitely not true,” Zeke said.

“Well, of course you wouldn’t realize it. Underlings never do,” she said.

Zeke wanted to argue, but before the words left his mouth, an idea sprouted in his mind. He didn’t give voice to it. Instead, he headed back into the garden, following the winding path until he reached another, much smaller pond. He looked down on the water, seeing exactly what he’d hoped to find.

“Carp?” asked Eveline.

“You can read my mind. You know what I have planned.”

“I do.”

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It might work. It might not.”

“Way to sit on the fence,” he muttered. Then, he dove into the pond. With his high stats, catching the fish proved trivial, and before long, he’d tossed five of the large carp onto shore. Over the next half hour, he gotten nearly every fish in the pond, and when he returned to the shore, they’d suffocated. Seeing that, he wasted no time before throwing them into his storage space.

“Think that’s enough?”

“I don’t know,” Eveline answered.

“You’re right. I should get more.”

After that, Zeke became a fisherman, and he visited every pond in the garden. After that first pond, he adjusted his method, though. Instead of diving in, he simply slapped his hammer against the water, and the resulting shockwave killed the fish. Once they’d died, it was simple to gather them.

Still, it took him nearly an entire day to finish the task, but by the time he returned to the larger pond at the end of the garden, he had gathered a huge pile of fish. He tossed a few hundred pounds into the pond, then arranged the remainder into a trail that led away from the water. There, he emptied his storage of fish.

The resulting pile was taller than he was.

“I hope that’s enough,” he said, his hands on his hips.

“You smell like dead fish,” Eveline said.

“You do,” Talia agreed. “It is not pleasant.”

Zeke was about to respond when he saw the water bubbling in the center of the pond. A moment later, a tentacle emerged. However, unlike before, it was tentative, creeping onto shore until it reached the first fish in the trail. It snatched its meal, reeling it back into the pond. But another tentacle replaced it a second later. Over and over, the same scene repeated until, at last, Zeke got a good look at the monster.

It was enormous, slimy, and equipped with a hundred bulbous heads. He used [Inspect]:

Cueyatl – Level 81

It crawled free of the pond, dragging itself across the ground toward the pile of fish and exposing its monstrous body. Zeke had never seen anything like it, but it looked like a hundred-headed frog that had been crossed with an octopus. But somehow, it was more nightmarish, a trait that probably had something to do with its high level and enormous size.

Its tentacles plopped against the ground, dragging it forward. The awkward motions told Zeke that, on dry land, it was completely out of its element. That gave him some hope that it would be a winnable fight. Because he suspected that if he tried to battle that monster in the water, he would be at an extreme disadvantage.

“Are we ready?” he asked in a whisper. He and Talia had positioned themselves a little further into the garden, where they’d hidden themselves behind a bush. From there, they watched as the cueyatl descended upon the small mountain of fish, sticky tongues snapping out from each of the hundred heads to reelin in another fish.

Talia nodded.

Zeke took a deep breath, then stomped on the ground, sending a line of destruction to erupt across the landscape. A second later, a column of fire, earth, and corruption exploded beneath the monster as the battle began.