“Hello, drowned rats; desecrators of our holy landmarks.”

A burly dog-headed Grigori greeted them with a spiteful sneer that was mimicked by the warriors that served under him. A white tabard with a red cross covered their chest. A spiked collar clung tightly to their neck and an oversized war hammer that looked like a meteor taped to a stick rested at their side.

“What the fuck are you looking at me like that for?” I spat between water-filled vomits. I unsteadily rose to my feet and stared him down. “I didn’t do shit. Is living is all it takes to be guilty nowadays?”

“Friend, calm down,” Herzblatt begged before throwing up water. “Sir Leal, I plead for your patience and understanding. We defeated the boss and the Dungeon began to collapse. We are fortunate that we even made it out alive. I can assure you that we mourn this loss to the Church alongside the rest of you.”

I tried not to roll my eyes too hard. It seemed that bootlicking was as common in death as it was in life. The dog knight’s terse expression softened slightly with Herzblatt’s reverence for the Church.

“Be that as it may, we will be taking you in for thorough questioning,” Sir Leal explained apologetically. “I am sure that, as an ardent supporter of the Church, you understand the importance of getting to the bottom of this issue.”

Several iron coffins appeared around Sir Leal and slammed to the ground with a heavy thud. Doors of the coffins were forced open by the impact to reveal several spikes inside. The Grigori’s hands closeness to the weapons told me that we weren’t being taken in on our own two feet even if we surrendered.

“Look, Herzblatt, your reward for your belief. Death,” I cackled at the begging dog. “Don’t worry, this is all just a part of the Creator’s plan, right?”

“No!” Herzblatt called out to Sir Leal. “I’ve been loyal all this time. You must believe me! I didn’t fall into temptation!”

“Spare me your words. We will determine the truth,” Sir Leal responded. “Please, show decorum, my fellow of the faith. Your cooperation will make the unpleasant moments over quickly. Besides, you won’t stay dead.”

As the Grigori began closing in, my mind started to turn a million miles a minute to find a way out. I didn’t remember receiving a notification about it, but I knew what I had earned from defeating the boss. I activated [Urgent News] and sent a message to Yoshitsune.

Yoshitsune, don’t look at me. Buy as many potions as you can get. We’re going to try to get out of here. Wait for me to call for you.

I followed the second part of my own order. The shop opened inside of my eye. Like a drunk on Amazon, I began to recklessly spend to clear the sellers of as many potions as I could get my hands on. I managed to get a regional clinic’s worth of medicine before I was stopped.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

I looked down. My foot had moved ever so slightly. It wasn’t a conscious decision; my body had moved in anticipation. A skill that I learned to survive had betrayed my intention.

A purple haze covered the entire area within the Grigori, forcing the soldiers to stop their advance. My muscles felt like they were laced with iron as I was dragged lower and lower. I dropped into a squat, my knees and ankles popping from the unnatural pressure placed upon them. My joints could not withstand it for long and I was instantly dropped to the ground. I tried to lift my head, but it felt like even a stronger weight slammed it into the stone floor and caused me to see stars.

Sir Leal lifted his hammer and hefted it over his shoulder with a grunt that sounded like a middle-aged man getting out of a recliner. He marched into his gravity field; their eyes were locked onto mine.

Hysterical laughter broke out beside me. I was able to turn my head just enough to see Herzblatt’s body shaking from the belting laughter that left him. He managed to raise his hand just enough to smack the floor.

“I have learned something more valuable than gold today,” Herzblatt sputtered as his laughter caused another coughing fit. “All this time, I thought that the actions of the Creator moved me like a piece on a chessboard. How conceited of me to think that I was valuable enough to be a puppet directly guided by the hand of the divine. Why would God sully their hands by using a piece like me?”

“Shut up!” Sir Leal barked, displeased with the proselytizing of the dog priest. “Save your words for the interrogation.”

“When you pray to God, He gives you opportunities and tests for you to earn what you wish for using your own abilities,” Herzblatt explained. “Every time I prayed for something and saw a way to get it, I stayed put. God would bring it to me. He would not let me go without. Do you know what we call livestock that does not know how to graze from the field or use the trees to keep themselves dry in the rain?”

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“What?” I eagerly egged on.

“Dead,” Herzblatt laughed again. “God handed me a field to graze from and shelter to hide under. Yet, with those gifts, I stood far away from it and stared at Him stupidly with the hopes that He would cut the grass for me and build a shelter around me. I could have fought any of those demons, killed anyone that we faced. But I didn’t because I thought that God would kill them for me.”

“Thanks for thinking of me as God,” I jokingly complimented.

My mind was buzzing with satisfaction at Herzblatt's sudden turn. This was better than Squealer’s murder of that girl. It was far better than Yoshitsune’s revenge against Uragoe. No, this was a man who was fundamentally changing before my eyes. Beliefs and ideals were twisting and warping beyond recognition. His laughter was a cocoon that hid the metamorphosis inside his soul. This would not be the same man that flared my frustrations and triggered murderous fantasies. This would be a new soul; a beautiful soul.

I hungered to see what sort of creature would burst from it.

“I heard your conversation with the bronze woman while I meditated. I know that it was only a lucky coincidence that I survived long enough to gain these rewards that I did not earn on my own. If you had abandoned me, would I have stared at the sky begging for the next chance to squander? Oh, it looks like I’m doing it now. God, give me one more chance to show you that I’ve learned.”

Herzblatt devolved into another laughing fit that bordered on sobbing; one that he didn’t seem capable of breaking out of anytime soon.

“Looks like he broke,” Sir Leal remarked before hovering his war hammer above me. “But I’m going to start with you.”

The dog knight lifted the weapon high over his head. Wreathed in purple flame, the hammer came down with enough force to exterminate the dinosaurs. My scales did nothing to stop the damage. The weight shattered my skull like a fishbowl. I felt my teeth squeezed out of the gums and my eyes tumble out of cracked sockets. My HP bar instantly evaporated and I knew that it was the end for me.

But I didn’t die. Stranger still, my skull was still intact. It hurt like a fucking bitch, but I was somehow alive. In my disbelief, I noticed a tiny gold skull by my health bar before a message popped in my eyes. It was a gold skull that I had not seen since my first fight.

Invulnerability.

image [https://i.imgur.com/ceWWQzl.jpeg]

Message

I found something you might like with a little bonus because you look so weak. You're welcome.

-Passion

image [https://i.imgur.com/x3WukXs.jpeg]

Skills

Too Angry To Die - Passive

There are stories in battlefields throughout history of warriors that should have been dead. Arrows pierced their eyes, swords lopped of their arms, and spears dug into organs. Yet, somehow, they lived long enough to kill a few more before succumbing.

Ability activates when HP reaches 0. If health is at 0 when duration ends, the user dies.

Duration of ability lasts your current Level (16) seconds. 10 minute cooldown.

+25 Strength

“What the fuck?”

Before Sir Leal had the opportunity to understand what had happened, I slammed both of my feet into his chest and sent the knight stumbling backwards. The lapse in focus caused the gravity spell to fade temporarily.

Herzblatt was the first to rise. His weapons were already materializing in his eager hands. Hoarse laughter erupted from their mouth as a crazed expression conquered his face.

“Thank you for the opportunity, God!” Herzblatt shrieked as he charged directly at the nearest Grigori. His infinite weapons swung violently towards the soldier, who had to do everything in their power to not be killed instantly. Blood sprayed from the demon's arm as his comrades moved to save him from the crazed priest.

“Yoshitsune!” I shouted to my traumatized partner as she weakly waved her hand and created a portal next to both of us to escape into. I quickly rolled to my side and slid into the pocket space before Sir Leal had a second opportunity to crush me. The amount of times I stepped into it made me more acclimated to the alien feelings. Without wasting any time, I uncorked my newest purchases and finished off the contents before the timer ran out. The gold skull disappeared and I continued to live.

“What’s next?” Yoshitsune asked. Her hands were shaking from the close escape. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“We need to make as much distance as possible. Kill anyone who gets in our way. You saw what they’re going to do to us.”

“But we’re innocent,” Yoshitsune argued. Her head tilted and she looked at me with a pleading expression that caused an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. “Right?”

I never thought I could break eye contact with someone who didn’t possess any, but I found myself looking away from Yoshitsune first. My mind swirled with strange feelings that I could not process. Why did it matter if I hid some things from Yoshitsune? It wasn’t like I was going to ditch her. But, what if she didn’t approve of my interactions with the follies? She couldn’t run away from me because of our contract but…

Would it feel right to have Yoshitsune on a leash if she hated me? Why did I care if she hated me?

“It doesn’t matter,” I brushed aside, incapable of considering those thoughts any longer. “I know these types from my time in prison. They are going to kill and torture us until they get the answer that they want. I’ve lived with many people who deserved freedom but were robbed of it because someone needed a convenient solution. If they catch us, we will never be free again, I can guarantee it.”

“I just want you to talk to me,” Yoshitsune muttered under her breath.

I gritted my teeth but kept the first words that came to my mind to myself. I pressed my flaring emotions deep down inside me and took a breath. My hands grabbed onto her shoulders and I looked her in the face.

“I need you to focus, Yoshitsune,” I ordered. “We’re not going to make it out of this if your mind is thinking about unnecessary things.”

“Promise me! Promise that you will speak to me when we get out of here.”

Why was it so difficult to just say yes? What did it cost me to just go with her demands? It didn't matter if she hated me. It didn’t matter if she thought less of me for ripping the tower down. I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want and I didn’t want to talk.

“Fine,” I sighed, my audacious thoughts rendered meaningless. “We’ll talk after we survive. Now, are you feeling up for a little bloodbath?”