Chapter Forty-Four

You have entered a safe zone.

Dying did not get any easier. Having been through it before, Jackson would have thought it would be. Instead, he came to suddenly stand in the middle of what was once Bob’s camp. At least he still had his set that Lazarus had given him. Thinking of the spirit brought everything rushing back. Melanie's unconscious form, her face going slack as she collapsed to the ground. The overwhelming pressure of Delathorn’s aura, that horrible Domain of his. All of it was racing through Jackson's mind, along with one other thought. He was alone. There was no Melanie beside him, with her pragmatic views and quick thinking. No Lazarus to guide him, answer his questions, or give him that expression of his.

Just him.

It took a while for Jackson to notice his surroundings. He was slumped over, staring at the ground, yet not seeing it. His heart seemed to be beating slowly; in fact, time itself seemed to be a slow crawl around him. His head felt light, and his pulse was throbbing at a steady pace. He could hear it. In one fell swoop, he had lost everything he had in this place. Really, it was everything he had, period. He could not remember anything before the dungeon, so whatever he had then didn’t mean anything. But Melanie and Lazarus? They had been his friends and his companions. Now, they are gone.

Jackson needed to focus. Melanie and Lazarus were gone; this was true, but they weren’t dead. Delathorn had specifically stated that he was not going to kill Melanie. He got some sick-twisted pleasure out of seeing what Jackson would do to get her back. Well, he would get his entertainment because Jackson was willing to do anything. Jackson would show him that, and when he did get her back, he had a new mission. To ram his fucking fist into Delathorn's throat. The anger that lit up inside Jackson was a fire that consumed him. Time resumed, and he took a breath before screaming. The sound tore at the air, and he poured his rage and hopelessness into it, fueling it. The scream built, turning into a roar, a cry that was a promise.

When Jackson was done, his breath came in heavy sighs, his fists were clenched tight, and his skin was whitening. Finally, he looked up, and he found desolation around him. The tents had been torn apart, and bodies were strewn around the ground like broken and ripped-up trash. He was disgusted with himself because the blood that stained the ground smelled so sweet.

Delathorn had claimed he had cleaned the place. Jackson guessed this is what he meant by that. If he hadn’t already been so angry, this would have made him even more pissed off. He added it to the fuel—just another reason Delathorn needed to pay. Jackson unclenched his fists and took a deep breath; this one was calming, and he felt his muscles relax, releasing their tension. Priorities. He needed to get them in order. The first thing he needed to do was see if there were any survivors here. He doubted it, but if he could help anyone, then he would.

Jackson combed the camp, looking under torn-down tents and moving bits of the wooden wall that had been destroyed. It took him a solid hour of effort, but no matter how thorough he was, he found no one alive. Just bits and pieces of bodies, or broken corpses. He didn’t find Bob either, and it led him to believe that perhaps Delathorn had taken some people. For what purpose, he could not say. It wasn’t anything good, of that he was certain.

A painful surge of sadness rushed through Jackson, and he gritted his teeth. There was no Lazarus here to ask about any of this. Another breath. Priorities. The second priority was to scavenge anything of use. His bag had dropped when he had died, so he didn’t have it or any of the potions, or even the gems or that ring Frank had given him. Another pass through the camp left him with nothing. It wasn’t that frustrating. His regeneration would heal him from most anything that wasn’t Delathorn.

Next was to see where he was status-wise. He brought up his status page, given that he hadn’t looked at it in a while.

Name

Jackson Grey

Level

50

Race

Human (Shown) Vampyre (Hidden)

Lives

2

Domain Rank/Domain Aspects

Basic

Blood and Destruction

Class

Blood Lord (Hidden Class) The Lord Class (Shown Class)

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Attributes

Mind: 15, Strength: 16, Dexterity: 17, Constitution: 25, Will: 25

Skills

Phoenix Regeneration (Expert Level 2*), Consume Blood (Journeyman Level 1), Hidden Bloodline (Expert Level 1*), Enchanting (Apprentice Level 23), Analyze (Basic Level 23) Unarmed Combat (Journeyman Level 37) Blood Lord’s Gaze (Apprentice Skill Level 20)

Weaves

Blood Lightning Surge (Journeyman Weave Level 27), Ebon Eruption (Journeyman Weave Level 37), Veilstrike (Journeyman Weave Level 25)

Faction

Unsworn

Attribute points: 0

A couple of weaves had leveled up, in addition to a couple of skills. Jackson didn’t remember getting notifications of them having done so, but he remembered Frank telling him a while ago that the Judge wasn’t going to always tell him everything at any given moment. Nor did it seem like the Judge always rewarded him. He imagined he would get a massive reward for clearing the dungeon as a whole, but that remained to be seen. Analyze was almost to the apprentice rank, which was nice. He needed to focus on using that a bit more. He also needed to use Blood Lord’s Gaze more. He had a lot of weaves and skills, but he wasn’t using them as much as he could. Blood Lord's gaze would have been great to use on the ice revenant, and if he had, Melanie may have never been in danger.

Jackson needed to be more aware of the tools he had access to, and he needed to apply them properly. By not doing so, he made things hard for no reason at all. He doubted the skill would have worked on Delathorn, so he didn’t feel too bad about not thinking of it then. What he should do is open up combat with the skill. Paralyzing a foe was a powerful ability, and he had two ways to do that. If he used the skill to freeze his opponent in place and then used Veilstrike, he could continuously assault them without them ever striking back at him. It was a good strategy, and he needed to keep it in mind instead of getting caught up in everything else going on.

As Jackson thought about it, he realized that he was very reactive. Something happened, and he responded. It was understandable why he did that, but if he wanted to be truly efficient, he needed to work on acting instead of just responding to whatever was being done. Decisions like these would save his life. As he only had two lives left, he truly needed to make sure he didn’t waste anymore.

Jackson needed to find a seed. He was guessing he could only have a maximum of three lives, but he wanted to make sure he actually had three at any given time. A seed meant demons, though, and those were dangerous. Jackson actually winced as the memory of the last abomination he had killed filled his mind. He blew out a breath. Next priority. He needed to go to the mountain. Apprehension filled him. He didn’t want to go. He confronted that thought as it pulsed through him, causing his muscles to tighten and his jaw to clench. Why didn’t he want to go? Because it meant he could fail. He could fail to save Lazarus. He could fail to save Melanie. Not just fail; he could die a final death and would do so if Delathorn showed up again. Anyone who could kill an actual god was not someone Jackson was ready to face yet, no matter how much the thought of vengeance spurred him on.

He couldn’t just do nothing, however. Doing that meant he was giving up, which may as well be the same as failing. No, it was the same, in fact. Jackson nodded at the feeling, acknowledging it, but knowing it wouldn’t stop him. Being afraid of failure was fine; letting it dictate his actions was very much not fine. With that thought echoing throughout his head, it was time to move out.

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Travel to the mountain was almost uneventful. Jackson did encounter a giant bird thing that was identified as a lesser Roc level 62. It looked like a giant eagle, though it was this ugly, light brown color. Its talons looked sharp enough, and the impressive beak didn’t look like it would be pleasant. Even so, it wasn’t really even a fight. Jackson activated Blood Lord's Gaze, and it fell right out of the sky, plummeting to the ground as if a heavy rock had been suddenly tied around its neck. It crashed into the plains with a resounding thud that shook the area around it, kicking up dirt in a fine dust cloud. Jackson didn’t wait and hit it with a Blood Lightning Surge, which killed it a few moments later. The beam of destructive lightning disintegrated the bird with almost casual ease.

After that, Jackson moved on and encountered nothing from that point on. Who knows, maybe the monsters saw what he did and decided he was too much for them. Jackson snorted to himself. He couldn’t allow himself to grow too confident. He had to admit that he was growing more powerful. That Roc hadn’t even registered as a small challenge. Killing it had been almost trivial. Even if Jackson could have handled the revenant in a different way, there was no denying that, at the end of the encounter, he had ended the revenant's life with brutal efficiency.

That didn’t mean he still didn’t have far to go. Delathorn had killed him as easily as he had killed the Roc, and he had been bored doing it. Jackson was less than a blip on his radar, noticeable only because he had done something that very slightly interested him. Like a dog that was trying to speak. Jackson would get there, though. He would do everything in his power to get to that level and kick that rogue bastard's teeth down his throat.

Jackson seethed, but let it go soon after. It was unhelpful currently. Soon, he came upon the mountain. No message about starting the trials greeted him, which likely meant he did not have to go through them again. That was a worry that melted off his shoulders. Instead, he had a steady climb up the mountain. He encountered nothing else on the way up, for which he was grateful. Jackson had wondered if the angel that was chained at the top was still there or if Delathorn had freed her and she had turned back into a bloodfyre wyrm. He didn’t know if he could win that boss fight if so.

Yet the rogue had seemed happy with the angels suffering, so Jackson doubted he would have freed her. He would have been more likely to just kill her instead. It was with some trepidation that Jackson made his way up the mountain, the summit growing ever closer. The air had begun to grow hotter and carried with it the smell of smoke, ash, and burning wood. The color was leached out of the mountain, making the rock and the stone path appear to be devoid of life. Some of the rocks actually appeared to be crumbling, tumbling to the stone path with sad little pitter patters.

Soon, the inevitable came to pass, and Jackson found himself at the summit of the mountain, with the purple lava pool still present and the black stone in sharp contrast to the lifeless rock and stone below it. In the middle of the pool of purple lava was the angel. Still chained up, but rather than enraged, she looked almost relieved to see him. Her violet eyes glowed with anticipation, and she spoke, her voice velvety smooth and seductive, with the hint of a razor's edge to it.

“Welcome back, mortal child. We have much to discuss, you and I.”