Chapter Nine

Jackson was finally back on the first floor. The corridors were much the same as the lower floors, but they still felt familiar to him regardless. As he passed through them, he came across little challenges. Something told him that previous players had cleared them already, creating an eerily empty place lit by a faint torchlight. It wasn’t long before he passed the goblin camp, which was still filled with goblins, and like before, he stayed away from it. Finally, he came to the corridor where he had experienced his first death.

The giant rat was still there, and warily, he drew his katana. He approached the rat, which sensed his presence immediately. It turned and hissed at him, the sound filled with clear menace and red eyes glittering like angry orbs of hate. It charged him, mouth open, teeth glittering, dangerously sharp. He waited until the last second and flowed around it, slicing into its side, causing blood to spurt from it in a wave.

As Jackson neared the end of it, he slashed downward, cutting off the rat’s tail. It squealed loudly in pain; the sound of it was nails on a chalkboard. Jackson immediately turned, and a good thing too, because the rat whipped around, blood flying from the bloody stump of its tail. Its giant clawed paw tried to slash him, but he dove underneath it, came up, and slashed forward with speed, cutting open the rat’s chest. It squeaked and heaved and was not dead yet.

You have critically injured the giant rat.

It tried to flee then; it’s squeaking high, but he would not allow it to escape. He hurtled forward, blade high, and slashed his blade diagonally downward like an avenging angel. The blade bit into the back of the rat and cut through it as if he were slicing off a slice of ham.

Blood fountained, the rat squeaked a final time, and its body, slashed and bloody, dropped to the ground like a sack of rotting meat.

You have defeated a giant rat level 9. Your katana skill has increased!

There was no increase in level, causing Jackson to blow out a breath in disappointment, but he had been stronger than the rat. In fact, this encounter with it had been significantly easier than before. The more his katana skills increased, the better swordsman he became. Yet, ever since Dylan told him that he was lacking in it, he had worried over it. Oh, he hadn’t had much time to consider it at the time, of course, but once the danger had passed, that seed had bloomed. If Jackson acknowledged the truth, he felt like Dylan was right, too. The skill clearly worked for him; there was nothing wrong with it, but there was something wrong with him in the sense that he did not or could not, maybe, connect with the blade on a deeper level.

Jackson laughed; the skill had literally come from the very manifestation of his spirit, from his Domain, and yet it did not feel like a part of him, despite that. He did not like getting lost in introspection, but he felt it was important to identify this about himself because it could very well cost him his life. He had to acknowledge that even though the katana skill was a deep part of him, he was not a part of it in the way he needed to be. Yet, was that so bad? He thought that everyone had things about themselves that they struggled with. It came from thinking, feeling, and being.

Jackson nodded at this conclusion and then turned his focus towards the puzzle. He still had not solved it. Moving these pillars had caused that rat to appear, and logic dictated that more creatures would appear if he got it wrong. Yet he had no choice but to try. He pondered and looked at the symbols. A rat, a monkey, and a serpent. He rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing. He tried moving the pillar in the middle toward the monkey.

That was a mistake. Another flash of light, and suddenly a robed monkey appeared. The robes were a deep silver gray and had a deep hood that was pulled up. He could still see into it, however, and the monkey’s aged face stared at him, blue eyes ablaze with azure rage. The monkey had a flowing white beard falling into the robe, and it held a gnarled staff in one hand. He analyzed it.

This is a monkey mage level 12.

He readied his katana as the monkey flung a ball of silver, white, and blue flames his way. He cut into it with his katana, and the weaves burst apart as his blade sliced through them.

Your enchanting skill has increased!

Jackson grinned; his blade’s enchantment worked! The monkey mage’s eyes narrowed, and it began to run, bouncing over his head and twisting; its tail curled into itself. Its gnarled staff glowed with silvery white light, smoke curling from it as it hurled another ball of fire at him in midair. He twisted and rolled away. The fire detonated, an explosion of flame blasting outward. He raised his katana to a guard position, and it cut through some of the magical fire, bursting the weaves apart. However, he could not slash through all of the weaves, and a tiny bit of the fire licked his left arm.

He howled as his flesh burned, leaving an angry pink and singed patch of skin. It lanced through his arm like hot lightning, and he hissed, his eyes watering. He gripped his sword tighter and gritted his teeth through the pain. It wasn’t that bad, he told himself. It wasn’t, really. The monkey mage laughed at him, his lips parting over white teeth.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Jackson hurtled towards it, his hands tightening around the hilt of the katana blade, his vision tunneling. Just him and the monkey. It tried to hop over him again, but he was ready and raised his blade high, slashing through the air like trying to cut the very sky. The blade cut off the monkey’s left leg, taking some of the fabric of its robes with it. Blood rained down on him—a crimson shower. The monkey howled, crashing into the ground and clutching at its foot.

You have critically injured the monkey mage.

Jackson let out a determined huff and readied his blade to finish the fight, but the monkey mage was suddenly suffused with golden yellow light, and before his very eyes, its leg was whole again. His mouth fell open, and his eyes widened. He stepped back, shaking his head. It had healed itself. As of yet, he had not seen anything, creature or player, do that. He knew that health potions existed; that was just obvious, but he had yet to see a single one.

Yet this monkey had used weaves—healing weaves—to weave a spell that not only healed itself but also restored a leg! Had the weave been granted by the Judge, or had it been a part of its Domain originally? He shook his head; those thoughts were unhelpful. He flowed forward, moving like water and striking like a serpent, attempting to vivisect the monkey.

The monkey mage rolled away, and Jackson's deadly slash met open air. The monkey had picked up its staff as it rolled, and now it was weaving again. The spell was a large one, as the flames had been nearly instant, and this weave clearly was not. He lunged forward, trying to distract the monkey and disrupt his spell. It was not having it, however, and hopped onto the wall at a run, dashing past him and landing behind him. He scowled, turning around to try again.

The monkey finished its weave, and a wave of golden light touched with silvery blue fire rushed towards him like an oncoming tide. He felt a hand squeeze his heart; his pulse quickened, but he acted with decisive speed, dropping low and slashing horizontally. He destroyed nearly the whole weave, unraveling it as if he had lit it on fire, but yet again, he could not entirely get rid of the weave, and he was blasted back with force, slamming into the wall at a weird angle. He dropped to the ground; his arm burned, and when he looked at it, a bone jutted out of his arm as if it had been stabbed through him.

Jackson's whole body shook, and his breathing came in haggard, labored breaths. The pain was rocking his world. The monkey stalked toward him, eyes glinting with undisguised satisfaction. Dangerous light and silver flames began to weave together, forming a beautiful pattern of impending death.

Jackson grinned at the monkey and laughed, his eyes narrowing as he produced a blood-shard bomb. The monkey eyed it, and its eyes widened. It tried to back away, but it wasn’t fast enough, as he said.

“This monkey business is over,” and he flung the bomb at its feet. It smashed with a crack and shattering glass. Crimson shards blasted outward, a cyclone of bloody crimson death that stabbed into the monkey and sank into him, and for the first time he saw the truly devastating effects. It vibrated, its eyes going dead and widening as blood began to leak from its eyes. That wasn’t all; blood burst from the monkey like a crushed leach, and its body began to pale as all of its lifeblood burst and bled from it.

It fell to the ground, lifeless.

You have defeated a monkey mage level 12! Your katana skill has increased and is now level 14!

Jackson slumped against the wall, completely spent. His body refused to move any longer, and the pain that wracked through him was simply too much for him to bear.

It was no surprise, then, when darkness took him.

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He didn’t die. So there was that, at least. The pain was still immense, but he was awake. Groggy, eyes blurry, mind foggy, but awake. His katana lay by his side. He reached up with his right hand and gingerly touched the bone that jutted out of his arm. That was a mistake, as pain pulsed, angrily letting him know what a bad idea that was. He hissed and took several breaths.

You are critically wounded. You are bleeding.

Jackson laughed at the Judge’s message. A way to state the obvious. He took off his vest and tore it into a long piece of cloth. He carefully, ever so slowly, wrapped it around his arm. It was still incredibly painful, throbbing with constant, burning fire, but he methodically pushed through it, wrapping it as tightly as he could. When it was done, he looked at the ceiling and simply breathed. In and out, steady and calm.

It helped, if slightly. Jackson regarded the pillars. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t get it right. He knew he could not afford another battle. He was near death as it was, and now he could not grip the katana with two hands. He had four more blood bombs, so he felt like he could kill anything else that appeared if he used them instantly. Yet he could not keep relying on them; eventually something would be too powerful, or it would not do the job. If that demonic abomination hadn’t been wounded by so many players trying their absolute hardest to kill it, he didn’t think it would have worked on it as effectively as it did.

Rat, monkey, or serpent. It had to be in order, so what was the problem? Jackson blinked; his thoughts were sluggish, and in his mind’s eye, he felt like he was watching a hamster move on a wheel. It was lazy and fat, but it was moving, and it picked up speed.

A light bulb went off, and he hurriedly stood up, ignoring the stabs of pain. Jackson rushed to the far-left statue and moved it to the rat. It clicked, the noise ringing around the room like a kind victory bell. Then he moved the far right stone to the serpent since the monkey was still in the middle. The moment he did, it clicked, and a rumbling split the air—a grinding of stone on stone as the wall lifted up towards the ceiling. It stopped until only a tiny part of it inched out from the ceiling.

He laughed, his heart soaring and his brain bursting with relief. He had done it! He had finally solved the blasted puzzle!

Jackson looked down the corridor the wall had revealed, and the glint of a chest caught his eye.

But that was nothing compared to the engraved fang he saw right above it.