All four of Jake’s legs quivered from the tendrils boring down on him, and from the black fire roasting his behind. He was trapped from all sides, leaving the demonic grey goat with a single overgrown horn wrapped around its neck to strut triumphantly up to him.

Uh oh.

His instincts told him he couldn’t fight, which didn’t leave him a whole lot of options.

“What unique skill do you bring me, Jake the Ripper?” William’s voice deepened.

Jake took a hesitant step backward, nearly tripping over a large piece of debris. “Baah!” Was all he could reply, pleading his apology for defecating on his farm.

Okay. Think, Jake. Think.

Can’t fly out. Can’t leave at all right now. He glanced at the black bars of fire huffing like an organ piano, trapping him in. If I’m somehow going to survive this… I have to wait out this horrific skill of William’s.

Shit, I wish I could talk like he could. I’d be out of this in a jiff.

Jake wondered if this was some twisted revenge from Sys, or perhaps just karma after far too much talking in his last life. Either way, he didn’t like it.

“It is useless for you, a level two spawn, to try and combat me.” William strutted closer, his tendrils descending quietly to follow.

All of William’s skills became more daunting the closer he approached. The black fire bolstered, making Jake drip with sweat, his mouth feeling dry all of a sudden. He gulped as the headless snakes dribbled sludge over him, and the worst of it… even the ground wasn’t safe.

His hooves sizzled, begging him to bleat when the dirt beneath him began to bubble like acid. Was there anything this Demon couldn’t do?

Trapped. I’m trapped.

Jake surveyed his surroundings quickly.

Wait… when I read his mind, he called his barn an ‘apothecary.’ Jake lifted his increasingly melting hooves. It’s probably where he does all of his demon work. You wouldn’t sink your own barn, would you William, you prick?

Jake scraped his hoof, mentally committing to his budding plan.

Welp. Nothing left to lose. Let’s fuck it up.

Before the ground could sink him, Jake activated Hot Run once more and exploded toward the barn – his vision instantly turning infrared in panic as he galloped past complaining tendrils trying to trip him, and leapt over a spike of dark flame.

“Playing with food is encouraged here, you lowly thing,” William spoke with mock pity, cracking noises emanating from him like his bones were breaking inside him.

Th-thump. Th-thump. Jake was terrified of what William was transforming into behind him, so he didn’t look back. He used his forehead to ram right through the decrepit walls, seeing stars for a moment, until his Hot Run ceased in a gigantic puff of smoke.

Leeches screeched as they fell off Jake’s head and sizzled to dust on the floor, making him shiver in place. He hoped those weren’t part of his skin. No, they must’ve stuck to him after crashing through the wall. Disgusting.

He looked around quickly, seeing a massive vat of bubbling liquid in the center of a mostly hollowed out space. Small bones littered throughout the cracked floor, glass vials simmered on the corner tables, and the room was full of the neon smoke making the entire roof a chimney.

Looks like I disrupted something pretty serious. Jake grimaced, and then quickly came to his senses when he heard the stomping of something gigantic heading toward the barn.

Right. Fuck it up.

“Baah!” Jake shouted his war cry and galloped hard toward the vat of boiling liquid. Every instinct in his body told him that knocking it over would cause a terrible setback for William, or maybe even damage him. It felt like a beating heart in his mind.

Dong. He saw stars again for a moment, and then quickly backed away when the boiling hot acid spilled over the edges.

“You dare interrupt my ritual?” William’s voice boomed from the outside.

Jake felt his limbs quiver with fear upon hearing him, but he refused to lie down and die.

“Don’t you know you’re only making it stronger?” William goaded.

He was lying. Jake could hear it in his voice.

“Jake, you’re adding flavor to my conjuring.” William laughed. “I sacrifice everything to the System. Everything in my path.”

This dude is off his rocker. And he talks way too much.

Jake took deep breaths, waiting for the acidic substance to cool around the cauldron’s cast iron sides, and then he rammed it again, hard, nearly knocking himself out in the process.

He backed up frantically to avoid getting splashed.

It would be nice to have a good pair of horns right about now. He noted another wave of liquid pour over the edges, sullying some hard work. He then gasped when a hooded head fell out of it like an oversized meatball.

His eyes widened at the sight. There was hardly any skin left on it – just holes where the eyes should be, and some demonic lettering etched into the skull.

“I attracted five new cultists, Jake.” William’s voice came from the other side now, and it was deeper, much deeper, scaring Jake the other way and making his fur stand on end. “All of them are stirring and evaporating for the System’s evil glory. It will gain me level nine, easy. And you? You will get me my new skill. I simply cannot wait.”

He heard bone-crunching noises and liquid splashing on the other side of the barn, making Jake think some unholy metamorphosis was taking place, which was nearly confirmed when ten headless tendrils came whipping from under the cracked floor, inbound to snap Jake in half.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Jake had no idea why, but Steve Irwan’s voice kept shouting ‘Crikey!’ in his mind, adding to the horror.

He bleated fearfully and leapt high over the cauldron, glimpsing more heads bobbing around in the demonic stew, speaking truth to William’s claims.

Wtshhh. Wtshh.

Two tendrils whipped to thwart Jake, but one slapped the cauldron, and the other missed completely.

Is he still toying with me to make his ritual stronger?

Asshole.

Wtshh. Wtshh!

Jake turned around when he heard more walls crack around him from the tendrils wild misses. He smirked, realizing that perhaps… maybe William transformed into something too big too soon. Maybe he was flying blind in his own apothecary because he was too massive to break in without destroying it. Now he was inadvertently helping Jake tear the place apart.

He crept slowly towards the cauldron, peaking his head to glimpse the far barn wall, where William was undoubtedly waiting on the other side.

“Baah!” Jake bleated as loud as he could and backed up without a sound, grinning almost from ear-to-ear when all ten tendrils whipped violently at the cauldron, knocking it completely over and spilling the acidic strew all over the floor.

The barn moaned in horror, the tendrils shrieked, and William was no longer laughing.

Gotcha, bitch.

Jake showed his teeth and began shimmying, and then defecated more human bones in shock when a large section of the ceiling crashed down beside him.

Territory Marked. You have indicated your willingness to take over another demon’s home.

Oh shut up! Jake complained at the System, and frantically galloped toward the hole he created to get into William’s apothecary in the first place. He then willed up his Manic Juice meter:

Manic Juice [7/10]

His heart sunk into his belly when he realized the black flames on the outside still roared, and the demon face staring down at the situation from the sky seemed even more pissed than before – which he guessed meant William was pissed too.

Too bad. Shouldn’t have tried to eat me.

Jake scraped one hoof on the floor and activated Hot Run. He began galloping as closely to the decrepit walls as possible, using his extremely flammable hellfire to set sections of William’s farm aflame.

Ffff!

Ffff!

Jake rounded the barn edge fast, hearing vials burst from the heat on the other side of the wall.

“How dare you!” William’s voice lost its coolness as he stomped around to find the tiny goat, and as soon as Jake rounded the far side of the barn, he glimpsed something so horrific it made his Hot Run poof into smoke.

William erected to twenty times his normal goat size, standing on his hind legs, eyes bulging out of their sockets, singular horn branched off like a tree of calcified teeth around his neck.

“Rrrrru!” William roared, gore spewing from his muscular chest as he began ejecting headless serpents from his body like spears to impale Jake.

Holy crap!

“Baah!” Jake activated another Hot Run and began darting in the other direction, narrowly avoiding death, and again hugging the apothecary barn to further weaken its walls.

Sections of the siding crashed down behind him, sending leeches and black moss flying in every direction, until, finally, the barn collapsed into itself. A stampede of moaning souls escaped high into the air, and the green smoke splashed outward like a bomb had just gone off.

Pmfh. Pmfh.

William stomped through the haze with red-glowing furious eyes and black dribble leaking from his mouth.

“You will pay for my setback, lowly spawn. Your recycled bones will be the foundation to a new cauldron.” He growled, multiple voices escaping him. “It will level me to one hundred… where I will claim the number one spot. It will—”

Jake stopped listening and scarfed down the gnarliest piece of debris he could find, bringing him back from three MJ to five. Just enough for one last Mind Raid:

“The spawn cannot know I’m vulnerable since I sacrificed my cultists and failed my ritual. Ah! Four minutes of drained life force. This is madness!”

“I’ve toyed too much with my food. I was goaded by greed.”

Some might even say… goated. Jake snickered to himself as he kept reading the thoughts flowing into his mind.

“He cannot know the Imminent Domain is about to be undone. I must kill him now!”

“My limbs feel weak. Arh. I’m vulnerable still.”

Vulnerable huh? Maybe my hellfire could damage him. Maybe I can set him aflame like I did those two farmers.

This Mind Raiding stuff kind of feels like rigging the card games.

I like it.

Jake’s eyes rolled to the front of his head once more. Hah. I always wanted to give the Undertaker eyes to someone. Now I can finally do it.

Focus!

A System prompt rushed into his vision:

Beware: If *Mind Raid is cast too many times on a specific target, such target may begin building up a tolerance, and in worst case, become aware that they are being raided.

He ripped another torn-up can from the ground and stuck his chin up to consume it in one gulp.

Manic Juice [2/10]

Just enough for a Hot Run.

Jake narrowed his eyes, staring at the incredibly large demon stomping toward him.

“Let’s see how you fare… against my Storm of Snakes.” William snarled and vomited what looked to be a funnel of endlessly long serpents.

“Baaah!” Jake yelled back, scraped his hoof, and burst into a ball of flame.

He galloped straight toward a horizontal cyclone of whipping tendrils, his thoughts becoming a jumbled mess, his vision inverting to red, his instincts… amplified.

Wtshh!

Jake leapt diagonally at the last second, where a tendril uselessly slapped garbage flying into the air. And when he noticed a hydra of thickly laced snakes rearing its eyeless heads, he flexed harder to bolster his hellfire and pick up the speed.

‘Fly into the danger zone’ blared in his mind, making him bob his head like he was at a rock concert, forgetting in his crazed state that there was an incredible amount of danger in front of him.

He jumped three more times in opposite directions, throwing off each and every snake attempting to wrap its stringy body around him. As he galloped closer, William’s giant demonic frame loomed with the vicious cloud face echoing the same sentiment above. It was as if Jake was looking up through the layers of hell in that moment, but the overwhelming music only amped him further.

William swiped down his enormous muscular arm, creating calcified bone wrapping around it like armor as it descended to crush Jake.

Jake’s heart hammered in his chest, pulsing through his ears.

Adrenaline.

So much adrenaline.

He gritted his teeth as the giant spiky hoof plummeted, blocking out all his surroundings for a fraction of a second, until…

Boom!

Jake willed his Batwings to guide him swiftly out of harm’s way, where he felt the vibration of William’s enormous armored hoof slam into the remains of the apothecary.

“Baah!” He landed in between William’s legs and focused hard on concentrating his flame into one spot of his body. In a shocking discovery, it worked. He blasted his last bit of hellfire upward from his fur, burning William’s genitals and leaving a budding flame to quickly catch fire throughout his whole body.

A very goaty bleat exhaled from William, speaking to his agony.

Jake finally came to his full senses and slowed down as Hot Run dimmed to a smoky end.

Hot Run: Basic Mastery Increased by +1

[2/10]

At 10 Mastery, a new ability – Hot Breath [-10 MJ] – becomes unlocked.

Well that’s new. He blinked away the bold text and turned to see the level eight Serpent Tamer writhing in flame. William’s tongue melted into black blood dripping from his mouth as he flailed. Headless snakes slithered desperately out of his body like people trying to escape a burning building. It was a satisfying sight.

Hell yeah. That’s what you get, Willy.

Don’t ever underestimate the little guy.