A mix of strange sensations pulsed through the back of Claire’s mind as her consciousness slowly returned. Her bed was hard as a rock, her fluffy pillows were nonpresent, and her warm blankets had somehow escaped her.

It took a few moments for her eyes to open. She immediately turned them on her chest as soon as they cleared and breathed a sigh when she found it intact. Her dress was still dyed in a deep, dark red, but the wound had closed, leaving not so much as a trace. She didn’t know how long it had been since the blade had gored her heart, but regenerating from the brink of death must have taken a few hours at least.

The ceremonial dagger lay directly in front of her. The blood smeared across its blade had already dried, but she shivered when she met its gaze. Her chest ached with a phantom pain, a reminder of the ritual she had narrowly escaped.

When she moved to pick the weapon up, she found her hands still trembling, shaking with a mix of fear and solace.

She had survived—she had finally, finally, outwitted her father and escaped his all-controlling grasp.

Smiling softly, the halfbreed brushed her bloodied, arctic blue bangs aside and looked around. A cursory glance confirmed that she was sitting on one of the many mossy boulders decorating the end of a long, damp hall. The cave was dim, pulsing with a faint blue glow, just bright enough for her to see.

Her excitement grew as she rose to her feet and gazed upon the infinite expanse that awaited—the Lost Library of Llystletein, the ancient archive that contained all the knowledge she required to overthrow the tyrant that had ordered her dead.

But it was nowhere to be seen.

There was no grand cathedral, no divine gate, nor even a single bookshelf anywhere in sight. Nothing. Nothing but a long corridor of mossy rocks. The dim blue lights she had immediately associated with an artificer’s devices came instead from the occasional bare stalagmite.

Gulping, she engaged the system and summoned a translucent blue box. She motioned at it with her eyes and selected a subitem marked with a quill and a scroll.

Log Entry 474

You have succeeded in completing the Lost Library’s Rite.

The tension drained from her body as she scanned the message’s contents. She was almost about to close her eyes and dismiss the menu, stopping only as she realized that there was more text to be read.

As a result of being affected by the Lost Library’s Magic, your non-racial classes have been purged. All skills pertaining to combat have been removed, and all classes you have previously unlocked have been sealed and are no longer eligible for selection.

She stared at the entry for a brief moment before shrugging it off and moving on. It was practically a death sentence for an established warrior, but Claire wasn’t losing much. Sword Mastery and Singing, her only combat-worthy skills, had barely been level ten to begin with.

Log Entry 475

You have entered The Ruins of Llystletein, in which the Lost Library lies. The monsters that lurk within this dungeon far outclass you.

“Oh, would you look at that? We actually made it. I thought we were dead for sure.” The voice came from her shoulder, spoken from the mouth of a translucent blue-white serpent. It was a tiny creature, measuring no more than twenty centimetres in length and two centimetres across.

“Shut up. I’m trying to focus.” Brushing the imaginary snake aside, Claire closed her eyes and dug through her memories for relevant information.

The Lost Library was a well-known deathtrap. It was an ancient dungeon with a peculiar method of entry and an even more peculiar survival rate. Dungeons were supposed to be trials crafted by immortals for those that sought their favour, and typically, it was possible to discern a particular trial’s progenitor through the examination of its quirks, or perhaps by querying the god directly. But no one knew the mythical database’s manufacturer. The gods of war and death were commonly suspected, but neither had ever stepped up and claimed it as their own.

Whatever the case, the survival rate was abysmally low. For every fifty thousand men sent into its depths, there was maybe one that would emerge unscathed. Their names were known and celebrated, for the library granted great power to those capable of clearing its tests, but the individuals in question refused to speak of their experiences. It was assumed by the public that they lived under a vow of silence, as was sometimes the case in the clearing of a sacred trial.

Career soldiers and death-row prisoners aside, only the dumb and desperate ever attempted to seize its power for themselves. And while the applicability of the former was up to debate, Claire was most certainly the latter. The tiny chance at survival—and vengeance—was far better than the end that she had otherwise awaited.

“This isn’t the time for this.” Shaking her head clear of gloomy thoughts, Claire returned to her seat and pulled up her status.

Claire Augustus

Health: 128/128

Mana: 670/670

Faith: 3/3

Health Regen: 20/hour

Mana Regen: 281/hour

Faith Regen: 5/hour

Ability Scores - 0 Points Available

- Agility: 30

- Conjuring: 198

- Dexterity: 21

- Spirit: 87

- Strength: 26

- Vitality: 20

Racial Class: Halfbreed - Level 19.34

- No affiliated skills

Primary Class: N/A

Unclassed Skills

- Dancing - Level 5.24

- English - Level 25

- Marish - Level 18.96

- Sneaking - Level 2.60

Surely enough, her mage class was gone. The effect it had on her ability scores was still present, but with no magical skills to her name, her once impressive conjuring stat was about as useful as the empty candle holder that lay at her feet.

Still, it was hardly a telling blow. Ritual magic was ill-suited for combat. Its activation required strict procedures, and its effects were rarely manifested in short order. Given the circumstances, she was better off with the empty slot.

The pruning of her class choices, on the other hand, could hardly be argued as a boon. She had always had her eye on the Sword Dancer class, but it was no longer an option. Gone alongside it were all the unlocks afforded by aristocratic education. Warrior, Ice Mage, Druid, and countless others were all thrown to the wayside and locked out of reach. Silently cursing her noble upbringing, she grabbed the tools that had accompanied her on her journey and got to her feet.

For a moment, she considered leaving the candle holder behind. Unlike the knife, the hollow bronze stick didn’t seem very useful. Its waxen taper was already melted into oblivion. Still, she could repurpose it into a projectile, or maybe a small bat. It was, at the very least, tougher than the sticks she called her arms.

Because her thin dress was strictly intended for ceremonial use, it lacked the pockets that a more practical garment would have featured. The escaped sacrifice was stuck holding a belonging in each hand as she slowly crept her way toward the only exit. She raised her massive ears overhead as she moved, scanning her surroundings for any signs of danger, and oh-so-many of them there were. She could hear towering beasts lumbering around the caves. They only got closer with every step she took, but it couldn’t be helped. There was only one path laid out in front of her.

She took a deep breath as she finally reached the intersection and stuck her head around the corner. Again, she was greeted by a long corridor, albeit one that extended in both directions. The left side was lit, like the path she had just walked, while the right was much darker, thanks to its mossier rocks.

The halfbreed pursed her lips into a frown as she returned her back to the wall. The brighter path appeared to be the correct choice—she didn’t hear as many monsters, and the few that she did were much further away—but that was precisely why she suspected foul play. The dungeon’s abysmal survival rate implied that there was something wrong with it, that common sense alone did not a victory make. After a few moments of internal debate, she settled on shying away from the light.

Driven by her curiosity, she continued sneaking toward the monsters with her ears as her guide. The sounds grew clearer as she drew closer. The crushing of stone, feral roars, and loud squeaks made up most of the soundscape. As she reached the end of a particularly long hall, she even started to make out the fluttering of wings and the whooshing of magical projectiles.

The fair maiden’s heart pounded as she inched closer and closer to the corner. It was loud, loud enough for her to worry that the monsters would find her, but she pressed on and peeked out regardless. Another corridor continued past the bend, but it didn’t go on for long. After roughly ten meters, it opened up into a large bright cavern. The glowing inscriptions embedded into one of the walls grabbed her attention, but only for a moment before the light drew her gaze to the monsters fighting within.

There were three of them in all, eight if the corpses were to be included. The two flying creatures were nearly identical. They each had four small limbs and two velvety wings attached to an eyeball that doubled as a body. She had seen similar monsters in encyclopedias before, and often too did the bards sing of creatures so grotesque, but she had never seen or heard of the particular species fluttering through the air.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Squaring off against them was a hulking, spiny behemoth whose body was covered in warts. Its unhinged jaw contained three distinct rows of pointed teeth, the most prominent of which extended from its lower mandible up through its widened snout. Unlike most pig-based creatures, it was not quadrupedal. The beast stood on its hind limbs in a forward-leaning, two-legged posture only emphasized by the bony quills protruding from its spine.

It appeared at a glance that the eye creatures held the advantage. Their wings allowed them to avoid the hog by darting through the air each time it approached. They countered its punches with attacks of their own, waves of gloopy purple missiles, fired from holes in their oversized retinas. Each time they struck, the bipedal pig would cry in pain as its flesh melted away. It was horribly injured all over, but worst off was one of its arms. The elbow was heavily eroded, bone already exposed on almost every side.

The bat-like creatures focused their attacks on the already damaged limb, slowly but surely erasing the bits of flesh still that remained. Once the entire forearm's flesh was stripped, one winged monster dove in and tore it off with a tackle. But while its rush certainly succeeded, the floating eyeball’s greed soon spelled its demise.

Its opponent’s other arm shot forward like a lightning bolt, snatching it out of the air immediately after the impact. The eye-bat struggled as best it could, flapping its wings and flailing its limbs in a desperate bid for freedom, but it was unable to escape the hog’s grip. It was taken, ripped out of the sky, and crammed between the ground dweller’s jaws.

One sickening crunch later, the first flier was no more.

The second bat didn’t pause for a moment. It engaged while the pigman was preoccupied and flew directly over its head. It split its massive oculus in two as the feral beast chewed and dumped a glob of glue murkier than any other. The extra potent acid ate right through the swine’s head. It melted its flesh, destroyed its snout, and exposed its bone.

Somehow, not even that was enough to fell the beast. The eye-bat generated another acidic blob, but the hog’s bony spines flew out of its back and pierced it before it could unleash the purple poison.

They were like harpoons, tiny terrifying harpoons. Once the tips pierced the ocular creature’s flesh, they expanded and locked themselves in place. The hog reeled its bones back into its body with an angry squeal and pulled the winged monster along with them. Even with its frame impaled in multiple places, the winged monster struggled. It desperately flapped its wings and worked its magic. But to no avail. Like its partner, it soon found itself grabbed and consumed.

The bipedal pig raised its remaining arm and roared at the top of its lungs. A declaration of its hard-earned win.

Claire continued to eye the beast as it retreated. Its steps were unsteady, each accompanied by a splotch of blood from its many open wounds. Its right arm was missing, and the same leg was clearly lame. The distinct sizzling of flesh rang throughout the hall as a misty vapour drifted off its skull.

The runes in the room flared to life as soon as the beast departed. Light flowed through a series of artificial magic circuits, pouring into a centrepiece that soon came to life. The mechanical pyramid unravelled to reveal a massive gemstone, from which an old man’s figure was soon projected.

“Welcome to the Lost Library of Llystletein. If you were unimpressed by the fight that you just witnessed, then I offer my sincere apologies. In all likelihood, you will die.”

His voice was perfectly clear, but Claire paid it no mind, not even sparing a glance as she passed it by.

“In fact, you are likely to die regardless of how you felt, but I suppose that is simply how this dungeon is configured. If you have chosen to enter it regardless, then I have no doubt you are already aware of the ramifications.”

It outclassed her in every way. Speed, strength, stamina, there was not a single metric where she came out ahead, but it was close to death, and the monsters responsible for its damage had already fallen. If she engaged, then every last drop of experience would surely be hers for the taking. And something in her gut told that she could succeed. But if she simply let it be, its wounds would soon heal; she could lose her opportunity to slay it in as little as a matter of minutes. Every moment she dallied was a point of health returned, but it wasn’t like she could simply chase after it without a plan.

Still ignoring the recorded speech, she took a moment to examine the beast’s detached, skeletal arm. The material was too tough to break and too heavy to swing around.

While her experiments with it proved fruitless, those with the eyebat acid did not. She pressed the candle holder into the liquid in hopes of sharpening its tip , but the golden stick emerged from the experiment unblemished. She was annoyed at first, but her pout soon twisted into a grin as she took a second look at the makeshift weapon. Its bottom was a dish, a large, curved dish with more than enough space for a swig of poison.

Filling the container to the brim, she rose from the corpse-ridden pile and chased after her prey, stalking it with both weapons firmly gripped in her hands.

Despite the minute-long headstart, the pig-like beast had hardly made any distance. Its steps were excruciatingly slow, with each covering only the slightest bit of ground. Its hesitation further added to its lethargy; the spiny creature stopped once every few steps to clutch its still-open wounds.

Claire far outpaced it, but she couldn’t find an opportunity to leap atop its back unnoticed. The bipedal pig spun around with every pained grimace, scanning the rocks behind which the halfbreed was hidden. Her mind raced as she continued to stalk it, her focus on the many weaknesses that lay readily exposed.

Turning down another corridor revealed the creature’s home. It had a nest in the middle of the hall, an alcove dug into the wall and guarded with a short bone fence. There were clear traces of a pit meant for a fireplace, as well as a tent, a wooden chair, and a sleeping bag a third the size of the giant beast. Items that had once belonged to the humanoid skeleton lying in the furthest corner.

The camper’s bones were by no means the only set present. The entire recess was filled with skeletal remains. None stuck the blueblood as particularly familiar, and the haphazard layout hardly aided her efforts. But at the very least, the many skulls laid bare confirmed that they had come from a variety of different creatures.

A bloody mess was added to the collection as the beast regurgitated its most recent meal. Claire was filled with the same urge as she watched it dig through the pile and return the half-digested pieces to its bloodied maw.

It was then, as the creature ate, that she finally made her move. Setting down her acid-filled candle holder and grabbing a particularly pointy bone from the nearest pile, she tiptoed behind the pig and prepared to strike its flesh. And that was where her problems began.

She stumbled over a skull right as she kicked off the ground and committed to the attack. The pig perked and turned its gaze directly upon her, just in time for its eye to be met with a pointed rib.

Claire thrust her knife into its throat as soon as she blinded it, but the ceremonial blade failed to perform. It only cut halfway through the monster’s neck before snapping in half and leaving her with nothing but a broken hilt. She was forced to release her other weapon as well. But even with the rib decisively discarded, she was too slow to retreat.

The Llystletein monster delivered an incidental strike to her gut as it raised its remaining hand towards its face. It was a light touch, but standing almost three meters tall, the giant pig was more than twice her size. Even the glancing blow had enough strength behind it to send her tumbling away.

Claire desperately fought back the urge to howl in agony, even as she hit the mossy ground. She couldn’t afford to give her location away to the blinded beast. A quick glance at her status informed her that she had only thirty points of health remaining. Dread pulsed through her system. The urge to flee only grew as fresh blood dribbled from her lips, but with her teeth grit and her whole body trembling, she crawled back towards her acid-filled candle holder. She grabbed a bone in one hand while tightening her grip on the broken dagger in the other. Neither weapon was sharp, but the halfbreed was unconcerned. She dipped the dysfunctional blades in the thick, purple goop before forcing herself back to her feet and stumbling toward her target.

The lady-turned-assassin remained behind the boar while it flailed its arm around at random, breaking pieces off the stone walls and smashing both stalactites and stalagmites alike as it attempted to locate its assailant. Only after feeling a burning pain in the back of its functional knee did it finally realize where she was. It swept its claws in a targeted, deadly attack. But again, found nothing.

The next attack came from right between its legs. An acid-laced dagger straight to the groin.

Again, the pig loosed a feral scream. But the terrifying roar only encouraged her. She grabbed a fang off the ground, the one the creature had torn out of its eye socket, and jammed it into its thigh. Once it was as deep as she could get it, she grabbed the protruding ivory with both hands and pulled downwards with all her might.

Blood streamed down her arms, leaking from the wound like a crimson cascade. When the pig beast finally fell to its knees, she forced the makeshift weapon into its armpit, tearing at the muscles it used to flail its only functional limb.

She had the beast in check. But even with all the momentum in the world, victory continued to elude her. The arm she thought she had disabled lashed out the moment she withdrew her fanged blade. The monster grabbed her, wrapping its thick muscular fingers around the maiden’s shoulders and holding her arms tight to her chest.

The former sacrifice was taken to its face, where its maw awaited with all three sets of sharpened teeth ready to consume her, the very same teeth that had so easily ended both the foes she had watched it defeat.

She would have been doomed, had the blinded beast understood the nature of her form. But it didn’t. She kicked it in the nose, inflicting just enough pain to force it to reel back and loosen its grip.

Slipping out of its grasp, she jabbed the sharpened enamel into one side of its neck and her broken dagger’s guard into the other. The bits of acid still covering its contours allowed her to eat through the creature’s flesh. But not even that was enough to end its life.

Ducking under another grab, she retrieved her acid-laden dish and returned to the fray. She carefully maneuvered underneath its armless shoulder and drove her candleholder into the open cut upon its neck. The thick purple goop nearly spilled from the metal container as she jammed it through the gaping wound in the creature’s throat, its viscosity the only thing keeping it in the dish. As soon as the package was delivered, she flipped it upside down, dumping its contents into the hog’s flesh.

As the monster fell forward, she grabbed the chair by the campfire and bashed it against the back of the thing’s head, over and over and over until the old, brittle wood buckled and creaked, driving splinters into the pig’s exposed internals. When the chair’s legs finally broke, she grabbed them one by one and shoved them into its neck.

The beast struggled. It desperately tried to shove her away, but it lacked the strength it once had. Its resistance amounted to pitifully pushing its arm against her as she tore at its flesh. It grew more limp with each passing moment, more powerless, more vulnerable. And eventually, it succumbed, lifelessly collapsing beneath her with its throat jammed shut and its innards fully dissolved.

Log Entry 476

You have slain a level 47 Osteog.

You have been awarded the following first-kill bonus:

- 9 points of agility

- 17 points of dexterity

- 8 points of strength

- 4 points of vitality

“I did it…” she muttered quietly as she collapsed onto her rear, her hands still shaking with excitement.

Log Entry 477

You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored, and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your racial class, Halfbreed, has reached level 22.

You have gained 6 ability points.

Log Entry 478

You have acquired the Tracking and Makeshift Weapon Mastery skills.

Log Entry 479

You have unlocked the Rogue and Barbarian classes.

Celebratory messages appeared in her logs one after another, but she couldn’t be bothered to read them. Her breathing was still ragged, and her heart pumping with adrenaline. It wasn’t exactly her first kill—her father had set many up for her before for the purposes of bolstering the efficacy of her ritual magic—but it was certainly the first that she had earned.