Jonathan awoke to the sound of bells ringing, and he gagged as something forced liquid down his throat. When he realized that liquid was water, albeit water that was quite unclean, he sucked at it desperately, drawing the liquid into his system. He drank too quickly however, and he sputtered as the water went down the wrong way. Someone near him laughed, and he slowly opened his eyes, blinking in the light. He was lying on a table in a large room that looked suspiciously like a tavern. A few lanterns cast the place, and its patrons, in a dim light, creating large, moving shadows on the wall as the people drank from large tankards. Hovering over him was a human, or at least it looked like a human at first glance. However, when the creature moved into the light, it clearly was not. It had reptilian skin, and a mass of scar tissue over its left eye. However, the way that it moved told Jonathan that it was feminine in nature. He tried to raise his head, but he was too weak for that, instead groaning as pain ripped through his spine.

“Easy there, wanderer. You don’t want to undo all my hard work, now do you?” The woman’s voice was soft and raspy, and there was a faint note of humor in it.

“What… Where am I?” Jonathan asked, his mouth wet enough to talk, although with some pain.

“You’re in Dreg, one of the many towns of the Ash Heaps. But you already knew that, didn't you? Unless you aren’t from here?” The woman leaned in, baring long fangs. “We aren't like the demons and monsters here, but we aren’t saints either. Tell me, do you have anything valuable on you?”

“What? No, I don’t,” Jonathan replied truthfully. All he had was his tattered clothes, and his life. The woman sniffed at him, but evidently sensed that he was telling the truth, as she withdrew her head.

“Very well. I believe you. However, you cannot stay here. We barely have enough food and drink to support our population, let alone feed another wayward soul. Dreg was never meant to be anything more than a homestead.”

“A homestead? Why would someone build one in the middle of Hell?” Jonathan wondered.

The woman’s face darkened in response.

“Do you think it was our choice, my choice, to live in a place like this? No, we were the souls of the damned that resisted the pain of the descent, and managed to come out the other side with our minds intact. We were all marked by that passage however. I assume you know what I am talking about?”

“I do. I remember that falling sensation, the hideous pain…” Jonathan trailed off, his mind lost in the horrors of what he had gone through.

The woman sighed and patted his arm gingerly, as if unsure of the impact it would have.

“Don’t be afraid. You avoided a far worse fate. Those Ash Imps would have carried you off to Granath. He would have done far worse things to you than a bit of pain. You see all those monsters on the way here? Well those all used to be damned souls.”

Jonathan stiffened at the mention of Granath, his current target.

“Granath?” He asked, hoping to get more out of the woman. “Who’s that?”

‘You don’t know-oh, right, you’re new here. Each circle of hell has a guardian, and the one for the Ash Heaps is Granath. He is a massive worm the length of a city block that feasts on the twisted souls of those who come here. He is monstrously powerful, at the top of Tier 2. Nobody can hope to stand against him. The soul of some hero came here a few decades back, and tried to kill Granath. We could hear his screams from here as he was tortured into oblivion.”

Yet again, Jonathan was hearing about the power system in this world.

“How powerful is the top of Tier 2?” He asked, trying as hard as he could not to sound suspicious.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The woman frowned.

“Were you some sort of fool in your past life? Did you never reach any sort of power level beyond level 1? Is that why you are so ignorant?”

“Eh, something like that.”

‘Well, I’ll give you a brief overview. Each tier has one hundred levels, and they all give more power than the last. Compared to us, a being like Granath is like a god. And there are more tiers after Tier 2, but I have only heard about them in myths. In any case, Granath could destroy a city in a matter of minutes, and not a small one either. To think that he is the weakest of the guardians…”

“Well, that sounds like trouble. Other than the hero, has anyone else tried to kill him? Did anyone ever get close to succeeding?”

‘What are all these questions about? Don't tell me you want to kill him? Are you chasing the myth of the Hellbreaker?” The woman asked, snorting in disdain.

Jonathan looked at her, having heard the name of his quest.

“Hellbreaker? What do you know about the Hellbreaker?”

“So you are. What a fool you are. You should try to eke out as best an existence as you can here, rather than chasing ghosts. As to what it is, I assumed that we all heard the same myths? The hero, destined to conquer the Infinite Hells and free the damned? Yeah, we all daydream about being the Hellbreaker, but we already knew that it is an impossible task. If Granath is impossible to defeat, then the Lord of Hell himself is beyond the reach of all.”

The woman paused and then gasped as a burly man shoved her aside. He was of a different race, with green skin and long tusks. If anything, Jonathan would have said that he was an orc. Curious, he analyzed the man.

Jorg

Half-Orc

Level 12

The man was of a higher level than him, and the look of brutish cunning in his eyes was not encouraging to Jonathan.

‘Well, well, well. Another foundling, brought in by Kyra. All I see in front of me is a sack of essence.”

The tone that the man was taking told Jonathan that he was probably about to be murdered, in full sight of everyone in the tavern. He looked around for help, but everyone studiously ignored him. Jorg reached down with one massive hand, and grabbed at Jonathan’s throat. Jonathan snapped his head to the side and rose up as quickly as he could, summoning mana to his hands. Jorg narrowed his eyes at this.

“So you have a bit of a bite to you after all. Good. The System will reward me more for this then.”

Jonathan ignored the man's words and got ready to fight for his life. Jorg’s hands glowed with red light and the man sped forwards, moving far faster than he had any right to do. Only Jonathan’s instincts, honed from his previous battles, allowed him to duck in time. The blow clipped his shoulder instead of his head, and he was sent stumbling back, with a crack in his collarbone. Jorg laughed bitterly, and attacked again. This time, Jonathan counterattacked.

Moving the ball of mana to the front of his fist, he punched as Jorg’s fist came in. To win this thing, he would need to take a bit of damage in return. Jonathan suddenly realized that he had no apprehension about killing the man in front of him. He had been attacked first, and it was within his right to kill the brutish half orc that was so willing to murder innocents for a simple level up.

As Jonathan’s fist connected, Jorg drove his own fist into Jonathan’s stomach, rupturing something there. Jonathan spat up blood, but maintained his course, driving the coruscating ball of power into Jorg’s chin. The ball of mana ate through the flesh and bone, turning it to molten slag. Jorg howled in pain, a noise that quickly turned into a whimper as his tongue melted. Jorg staggered backwards, and Jonathan followed up with another strike, straight into his face. With a rattling cry, Jorg died, his skull cracking beneath the power of the raw mana.

Everyone in the tavern went silent, staring at Jonathan in amazement. He wiped off his fist, trying not to let the pain on his face show. Jorg had ruptured some organ in his abdomen, and his only hope was a level up.

Power left Jorg’s body and drifted over to Jonathan, filling him with enough power to give him two levels. As the stat points settled into his body, he took a deep breath of pleasure, watching as his wounds healed over. Without a further word, he walked out of the tavern. Even if he had been in the right, he doubted that these people would want someone like him staying around. As he took in the tiny town, barely ten huts and the tavern, the reptilian woman, Kyra, rushed out of the tavern behind him.

“Wait! How are you so strong for your level?” She asked.

“Because,” Jonathan began, preparing to say something rash, “I am the Hellbreaker.” Without hesitation, he began turning, leaving the woman behind him. He had a demonic worm to kill, and a Tier to climb.