“Dazel!” she called. “Did you die, or just get lost somewhere?”

“Oh, me?” she heard him call, voice dripping with indignity. “I’m just over here cowering beneath some of these charred, stinking dog corpses. You know; just Ashtoreth’s familiar things.”

“Boss is dead,” Ashtoreth announced. “You can come out.”

She saw one of the burning hound carcasses shift a bit, and a moment later Dazel appeared and padded his way over, glaring at her the whole time.

“Look,” she said. “Sorry about willfully getting dogpiled by hellhounds while you were on my back. It was a good plan, though. I got pretty much all of them and then scared the rest off.”

“I smell like a burning hellhound,” Dazel said accusingly.

“So do hellhounds,” Ashtoreth said. “Get past it. You’re the one who said to kill the dogs first.”

“‘Kill the dogs’ and ‘try to have so many dogs attacking you that your overall bodily surface area isn’t sufficient to accommodate them’ are different things, boss. Very different things.”

“Uh-huh!” she chirped. “And I’d say the fact that I paired them both so well together really shows a lot of creativity.”

Dazel moaned. “I’m useless,” he said. “You could have just let me hide and cower like I wanted. Why did you have to bring me along?”

“One second,” Ashtoreth said, reaching out a hand to tear the boss’s heart out. She watched as his breastplate opened up, metal peeling away to make a big enough hole for his heart. Evidently even metal armor was no barrier to her [Consume Heart] ability.

She ate it with a quick squish and took a look at the benefits:

{You gain a [Devoured Flesh] buff: +18 DEX | +45 STR | +35 VIT | +48 PSY | +58 DEF}

{You gain a [Connoisseur] buff: + 23 Death Resistance | + 23 Fire Resistance | + 23 Shadow Resistance | + 23 Profane Resistance | + 16 Frost Resistance | + 16 Lightning Resistance | + 16 Physical Resistance | + 16 Poison Resistance}

“Well, would you look at that!” Ashtoreth said, beaming. “I guess he had good [PSY] to help command the hounds,” she said. “Mad high [DEF].” She looked down at the smoking, headless corpse on the ground, a hole in its chest where its heart had been torn out. “Which I really appreciate, by the way.”

The buff from [Devour Flesh] would overlap, not stack. She brought hers up to check on it:

{Your [Devoured Flesh] buff: +18 DEX | +65 STR | +44 VIT | +3 MAG | +48 PSY | +58 DEF}

“Lookin’ pretty good,” she said. Still, her only increase to the magic stat was still from the human heart she’d consumed, and her dexterity bonus was comparatively low. “Just need to fight an uncharacteristically agile wizard.”

There were still some burning bushes and even one tree, so she absorbed the hellfire on each of them before going to find Frost.

“Do you really need to do that?” Dazel asked, watching her suck up the flames. “Surely eating that boss’s heart gave you all the [Mana] you need.”

“It’s a pretty forest,” she said. “I don’t want to burn it down if I don’t need to. Plus, who knows what kind of attention a forest of hellfire will attract. I can’t imagine it’ll bring the humans to us, which is the goal. Also, I have [Bloodfire], not [Mana].”

“Right.”

She’d give him the cores he needed to get his third aspect… or at least, she’d give him the hellsteed and hellhound cores, which would hopefully do it.

For now, she’d most certainly earned herself a treat:

{You absorb [Boss Core: Diabolic Huntsman]}

{Ding! Ding! Ding! You gain 3 levels. You are now level 5.}

{You gain 33 DEX, 33 STR, 45 VIT, 39 MAG, 21 PSY, 21 DEF}

{Reaching level 3 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armament].}

“Ding! Level 5!”

“Congratulations,” Dazel said tonelessly.

She couldn’t advance the same progression path twice in a row, so she had to choose between [Drain] and [Hellfire].

She’d seen the [Hellfire] options when she’d gotten an upgrade by taking the aspect, so she decided to look at the [Drain] ones.

“Drain, please!”

{Choose an advancement to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Blood Drain] with [Blood Memory]:

You can glimpse some of a creature’s memories when you consume their blood.

Upgrade [Devour Flesh] with [Satiated]:

Buffs from [Devour Flesh] last 18 hours, not 12, and no longer fade in intensity before they expire.

Gain the [Energy Drain] ability:

Spent a low amount of [Bloodfire] when you touch an enemy or strike them with a wielded weapon to drain a small amount of each of their stats and restore your [Bloodfire]. The debuff from [Energy Drain] stacks.

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Undead are immune to [Energy Drain].

“Well would you look at that,” Ashtoreth said.

As with before, upgrades that had appeared in her racial progression and been retained had shown up in her aspect progression as well.

But more importantly, there was a new ability available. [Energy Drain] was the obvious choice as far as she was concerned, as it would help her outlast and exhaust anything she couldn’t kill quickly.

The real question was: did she retain [Satiated] and hope to take it later? It wouldn’t be useful until the end of the day, when she went to sleep. At that point it would help her preserve at least some of her buffs until morning.

She frowned. After all, she’d retained [Blood Memory] because it looked incredibly powerful, but it also didn’t seem to have any immediate use….

If she kept retaining them both, she’d only have one new [Drain] advancement available every time she leveled. But the more she thought about this, the more she didn’t mind: she had other paths to level, after all. And they were both fairly strong advancements.

She retained both, then took [Energy Drain].

{Gained [Energy Drain] ability.}

{Reaching level 4 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Drain].}

“No secret that my sword is doing most of the heavy lifting,” she said, mouth curling into a smile. “Armament, please!”

{Choose an advancement to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Proximate Telekinesis]:

You can telekinetically move Luftschloss in any direction while it is close to your body (within three meters). This telekinesis does not apply any counterforce.

The maximum force you are able to apply to the blade depends on your MAG and PSY stats.

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Mighty Wielder]:

While Luftschloss is conjured, you gain a 25% bonus to your base STR.

Upgrade [Conjure Luftschloss] with [Luftschloss: Mighty Strike]:

You can spend a very high amount of [Bloodfire] to launch Luftschloss at incredibly high speed using your [Luftschloss: Counterforce Telekinesis] upgrade.

Ashtoreth regarded the new arrival with some curiosity. She could already launch her blade hard enough to bury it in a stone wall. Just how fast was the “incredibly high speed” the system was referring to? And how fast would the counterforce throw her backward when she used it? Catapulting a sharpened slab of steel into an enemy had a certain appeal to it, but did she have the [Defense] to survive being thrown backward when she did?

It looked neat, so she chose to retain it along with the other two.

{Gained [Luftschloss: Proximate Telekinesis] upgrade for your [Conjure Luftschloss] ability}

{Reaching level 5 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armament].}

The new upgrade would help her swing her sword around much faster and more precisely. Once she had [Mighty Wielder], she’d be a force to be reckoned with.

“Hellfire, if you please!” she said to the system, grinning.

{Choose an upgrade to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Efficiency I]:

The cost of conjuring hellfire is reduced by 20%.

Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Aura]:

Creatures in close proximity to your hellfire are affected by any auras you possess.

Gain a beneficial aura that renders allies immune to damage from your hellfire.

Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Consumption]:

You may choose to have your hellfire ignite fallen enemies, converting their blood and flesh to hellfire. The amount of hellfire created is the determined by how much [Bloodfire] you would have gained if you had consumed their heart.

“Oh, wow,” Ashtoreth said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be keeping so many of these if the new options are so nice.”

[Hellfire Consumption] could not only be used offensively, but could streamline the process of converting dead enemies into [Bloodfire]. After all, it was easier for her to absorb the flames then it was to tear out a heart, catch it, and then consume it through her palm. She couldn’t carry hellfire in a makeshift bag, however.

But she was with Sir Frost, now, and she wanted him to stay alive. Standing in a pool of her hellfire would certainly protect him from many enemies—and he did have a ranged weapon. Plus, he had no fire resistance to speak of: at present, he probably had to stay further back from her flames than other infernals.

There was also the hope that taking [Hellfire Aura] would lead to more aura abilities appearing in any given path. She knew she was due for some when she got her racial advancement, after all. And which abilities the system offered you were partly based on your pre-existing abilities and class.

If she’d had the ability to consume the dogs in the fight with the huntsman earlier, she probably could have ignited all of them and set the entire forest on fire, then finished the fight right then. Her ability to convert hellfire into [Bloodfire] would let her reave through groups with ease.

And she was trying to snowball, after all. She could come back and get the defensive skill later.

She took [Hellfire Consumption] and retained the others.

{Gained [Hellfire Consumption] upgrade for your [Hellfire] ability}

“Thanks!” Asthoreth said.

“Do you really say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the system?” Dazel asked, coming to sit near her feet.

“The system is a universal entity of order that can bestow godlike power and control time,” Ashtoreth said. “If you’re ever going to be polite in your life, it should probably be to the system. Did you find the boss chest?”

“I’d love to tell you that it’s in the pile of scorched dogs,” said Dazel. “But it’s not.”

“So you didn’t find it?” she said, looking around.

“Oh I found it.” He pointed. “It’s over there, sitting on a rock between those two trees. It’s just that it’s free of the stink, is all.”

“Good,” she said, moving for where she could see the flat top of the black iron chest through the foliage. “I don’t know why that’s disappointing, I’m sure I also smell like burning dog. They were all over me.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Do you want me to go find Frost and bring him here? I don’t think we should leave him on his own for long.”

“You don’t want to see what we get?” she asked. “You have to stay and see what we got.”

Also, she thought, glancing down at the cat, I don’t want to leave you alone with the human. There’s no telling what you’ll tell him.

Dazel only sighed.

The chest clicked open at her touch, and she leaned forward in anticipation as the lid popped up. She knew that her diadem would be inside—had to be inside. But it was 88% complete after a different boss.

Didn’t that mean there would be something else, too?

Inside the chest, resting on a folded rectangle of felt, were two pieces of jewelry and a snazzy new accesory. Her mouth fell open as she saw each item.

“They’re… beautiful!” she cried.