The pale rays of yellow light from the robed man’s lantern wavered in the water before her, his mouth of too many needle-point teeth still smiling.

Lucy looked around, expecting to find herself in a similar place to the one the Goddess had taken her to. To her surprise, she was still in her half-cell half-human form, and the area around her remained the scene of her dream, a strange and bloody underwater place that could only exist in a nightmare, though the other “people” in it seemed to have disappeared.

All except the black-haired man. The one who had been constantly trying to interrupt her talk with the Goddess Jade. Lucy didn’t know a thing about him, but if the Goddess of Life wasn’t on good terms with him, it probably wasn’t the best sign.

“Simon,” Lucy said, trying to sound calm. She kept reminding herself it was a dream, but it felt no different from her time with the Goddess. In terms of how real it felt at least.

The scenery, on the other hand…

The blood that had once been the track beneath her feet had spread, forming a wide pool of red that now seeped upward, trickling and mixing with the blue water.

“Yes!” he said, sinking down into the pool of blood with a beaming smile and a satisfied sigh. “I’m so pleased you remembered me.” Then he stopped and just stared at her as the two of them treaded water in the blood, their upper bodies in water. Lucy felt her throat twitching as she thought about what to say.

It wasn’t that Simon looked terrifying, except for the teeth. It was more that he just…felt that way. Despite their grotesque and mutated forms, none of the other creatures in her dream had given off such a palpable sense of wrongness as Simon. Every movement of his eyes or twitch of his smile put Lucy in mind of the serpents she’d seen on a rainforest field expedition. Always waiting to strike.

Her body wanted nothing more than to get away from this thing it recognized as a threat, but she didn’t move. She was in a lake of blood in an ocean of dark water, for christsakes; where would she even go?

She kept silent. Presumably he was the one who had changed her dream into this nightmare, so if he wanted so badly to talk to her, he could go ahead!

His expression didn’t change, but after a few very long moments he continued on like he’d just arrived.

“And just so you know, I am so happy you agreed to do this for Jade. She has been such a bore recently, and I know this will—”

“I’m not doing it for her, I’m doing it for…me.”

Lucy felt blood rise to her cheeks, but kept her eye contact as she interrupted the man she suspected was another God. Part of her mind asked her just what the hell she was thinking right now. But the rest of it was so flush with victory and exhaustion that she couldn’t bring herself to care. This guy was interrupting her very well earned sleep! He could have at least waited until after her second fight or something.

Simon nodded like he agreed.

“Certainly, certainly. In any case, I just wanted to stop by to make you…an offer, of sorts.”

Lucy waited, and this time the man smiled.

Serpent, she thought again. Anglerfish. His teeth were long and wickedly pointed, and there were far, far too many of them. As quick as it came, it was gone, and he was just staring again with blank and unmoving eyes.

“Lose,” he said finally, in a flat voice, and Lucy scrunched her brow in confusion. Hadn’t he just thanked her for getting involved?

“String it along for a week or two,” he continued, “a month if you must. Then give up. Die.”

The two of them had different ideas about what an offer was exactly, since it usually involved some sort of…something in return. Lucy waited some more, but Simon said nothing.

“Umm…no?”

During salary negotiations for her new job, Lucy had been quite proud of herself for asking for a modest increase from the company’s original offer. This was a bit more difficult. Simon sighed.

“There’ll be a reward, don’t you worry about that!”

Why did that sound like a threat? Lucy wasn’t sure if he’d meant it as such but it sure felt that way.

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Give up the chance to be a champion blessed by the Goddess of Life just because this guy said so?

“No, thank you,” she said politely. It was getting vaguely absurd to still be swimming in the blood while they chatted, but here they were.

Lucy kicked her feet cautiously, rising upwards until her body was out of the blood and into the salt-water of the ocean. It was cold, and tendrils of blood still clung to her like strands of grasping seaweed, but she felt a bit better about it.

Simon smiled again, and this time his teeth were human movie-star perfect. She guessed he was going for charming. Which, again, might have played better if he wasn’t swimming in blood.

Effortlessly, he kicked his own feet once and rose to join her, the red liquid below swirling up to form scarlet robes around him seemingly without his notice.

“Jade has had champions attempt challenges like this before, you know,” he mused. “You won’t really be killed if you fail. Permanently, at least.” His smile grew. “The last one did end up down with me for a while after failing, but if you quit now, it won’t happen to you. If you wait…” His smile stayed steady, and Lucy was put in mind of a car salesman trying to close a deal. But when his voice came out, it was strangely serious, almost genuine. He looked her in the eye, and for a moment appeared as nothing more than a man. “There are few guarantees, Lucy. In life or death. Take it.”

Lucy hesitated. She could back out. In a way, it was tempting. She had already proven something to herself just by going back and facing the monster that had killed her, and for the first time in her life she had struggled for her survival. But she had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. And if one of the two gods she’d spoken to so far was lying, Lucy hardly thought it would be Jade.

And besides, she’d come out on top once, and the feeling of it had been like nothing she’d ever experienced. Raw, unfiltered, uncomplicated victory. Who’s to say she wouldn’t keep succeeding?Lucy steeled herself against Simon’s words, half-tempting though they were.

“I already said no. And I’m not about to break a promise I just made, so if you would please leave me alone, I would really appreciate it.”

Simon stared at her, then shrugged.

“Alrighty then. I’ll see you soon I’m sure. Say hi to Dragtharanok for me!”

Then he was gone, and Lucy was left in a dream that lingered, swimming in a dark ocean with trickles of blood rising up below her and wondering who, or what, Dragtharanok was.

***

When Lucy woke she had a lot on her mind.

She had made a deal with one God, shot down another, and won a fight that had been, so far, the most exhilarating and terrifying experience of her life.

Turns out fighting for your life gets the adrenaline flowing a bit more than staring into a microscope.

She wasn’t sure if the fight had given her any particular insight into the meaning of life, but it was the first step on her journey to the stars, and she was proud of herself. Her dream had been…disturbing, to say the least, but she was awake now and still in a new world, and she had things to do.

After the fight, Lucy had found a small crevice in the wall nearby and nestled in to sleep, leaving the remains of the spike monster behind her. Every few minutes she heard the rumble and roar of the intermittent bursts of heated water and gas nearby. She wasn’t sure if her own body would stand up to the heat, so right now it was as much a threat as anything else. She had some ideas about what that level of kinetic energy could accomplish, but they would have to wait.

For now, she decided, it was time to figure out exactly what the hell was going on. Jade hadn’t explained much about her System, so Lucy wanted to sit and piece together the bits of information she had gathered so far.

After waking, she had briefly nosed around the tunnels nearby. She wasn’t confident in her ability to swim all the way back up the way she’d come fast enough to avoid the blasts of hot water, so she worked her way deeper into the stone.

She hoped to find somewhere nice and safe to settle down for a few hours more while she figured out her System. Sleeping in a crevice had been a risky enough move as is, and she didn’t intend to let a lack of safe surroundings end her journey so soon.

The ‘room’ she found was dark and empty, and the tunnels she’d wriggled through to get there had been more or less the same, so it wasn’t like there was much else to do until she understood enough to make more progress.

On the way over she’d glimpsed a number of bacteriophages in ones and twos, and she wanted to know what she was working with before going up against the spider-like organisms that she was pretty sure also skittered in larger packs around the wider tunnels.

Okay, what do I know about the System?

One: It’s class based, and Evolution Points are awarded for defeating enemies, along with at least some other activities.

As a test, Lucy focused on using Oxidize Sulfur. Unlike when she had struggled to make use of Gene Stealer, she had oxidized some sulfur completely by accident before, so she assumed it was a much more passive skill that her body could do on its own, or with just a bit of focus.

She focused on using the skill and felt her membrane channels widen slightly, but nothing happened, and after a while she stopped, reasoning that the sulfur concentration wasn’t high enough where she was. She had hoped to be close enough to use it, but apparently the sulfur didn’t spread out all that much from the area where the bubbles rose.

Still, it would be an option for the future, if she could work out the timing of the blasts and wanted to risk it. Or if she gained some kind of heat resistance, which, given that most organisms here had no doubt evolved some form of it, would likely be an option.

Which brought her to the next point.

Two: The System lists my skills, but it’s not clear if it actually awards them to me or if it just keeps track of abilities I’m already capable of. Gene Stealer definitely didn’t just activate automatically; I had to understand it. But there could be some sort of talent tree or shop that—

As she thought the words, two notifications popped up in her vision.

[error: LOCKED]

[Opening Shop of Life]