“Ritualist. What do you want?” I asked. Might as well get to the heart of the issue as quickly as possible. I was going to kill this man.

“Want? I just wanted to see the look of despair on your face as I killed your friends.” So, this was the infamous villain monologue. Well, when you could do it remotely, I would probably be monologuing the heck out of my enemies as well.

“Well, time to test your control. That is a lot of monsters. Oh, so that is where you are hiding,” the last part was a bluff, but I was observing the monsters closely. His control was too good. The monsters all glanced to the Southeast in the direction of the city.

The Ritualist had exposed himself in an attempt to trap me. With my stats I was confident in escaping while not trapped in a tunnel. This move would also allow Naran and Aahan to escape as the Ritualist focused all his attention on me.

I had you now! I rushed forward. My sword cutting out. One swing and two of the werewolves went down, blood pouring from their wounds. I kicked off the ground again as monsters rushed to intercept me.

I leapt up into the air, over the head of multiple monsters. I kicked out mid-air and my foot impacted a tree. I shot off at an oblique angle. Unlike a lot of other people, I trained in the evenings when I wasn’t chatting to kill time, especially when I was in a level 1 zone with nothing else to do.

Parkour was a skill that I needed to develop as movement became increasingly more critical to combat and my fighting style. With Air Burst, being able to adjust at a moment’s notice was very important. The Body stat gave some kind of passive ability to adjust but taking advantage of one’s higher physicality required actual practice.

A horde of black ants poured out from behind trees. Keep your summoners nearby for protection. I would do the same thing if I was in a panic. I rushed over them, crushing them under my feet and zeroed in on the location the ants were coming from. They weren’t slimes and my Body stat was superior to these level 1 monsters.

There was no escape! In a gap between the trees, I saw the Ritualist on top of a scorpion. Acid Shot. I unleashed three shots at the same time, killing the hybrid monsters he had moved to block my path.

Something ahead of me, danger! I dodged to the side. The Ritualist was escaping. No. I couldn’t let him escape. Monsters were closing in and there was something I couldn’t see. No, I could see it, but it just blended in very well. A chameleon monster. It disappeared again as it moved behind a tree. How annoying.

I went to keep chasing after the Ritualist but felt danger and dodged again. Acid Shot. I used the energy for two more balls of acid. Multiple chameleon monsters were hit and collapsed to the ground. I raced forward with my sword in hand. The Ritualist was not escaping, and he only had so many tricks he could use. I believed I could exhaust them before he exhausted me!

“Ahh!” I screamed as several mental attacks hit me at the same time. Several white deer hybrids stepped out. The headache was immense. Focus.

I needed to focus. I quickly backed away and the pressure lessened. The Ritualist was at the center of a formation of monsters that could mentally attack me. I counted two white slimes and ten deer hybrids. Level 1 ants began to pour out from the surrounding trees focused on me. I had no doubt more monsters were rapidly approaching.

I was out of energy, and I couldn’t approach without being mentally crippled. The Ritualist and I stared at each other from a distance. I could see the hate clearly in his eyes and just hoped he felt the hate I was conveying towards him.

I looked at the sword in my hand. I swung my arm back and threw my sword like a spear. The Ritualist tried to move, but he was slow. One of his white deer human monsters moved in front of the attack, sticking out a hoofed arm.

The blade went through it and into the Ritualist’s left shoulder. I had been aiming for his head. “Ahhh!” He let out a scream of pain. Was there a chance? More monsters were already closing in on my position and I had no more energy. He was still able to control them. Trying to kill him risked an injury I couldn’t afford. I had no option but to retreat for now.

I gave him the middle finger and retreated in frustration. The monsters let me go as they moved to protect the Ritualist. How annoying. I made my way back to where Naran, Aahan, and the cart had been left. I quickly spotted them retreating to the West. I noted the dead werewolves on the ground. They didn’t turn to dust like the other monsters.

The Ritualist was truly forming human monster abominations that he could control. Just great, just freaking great.

Naran let out a sigh of relief when he saw me. “I take it by your expression, you didn’t get him.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“He is the most frustrating person to try and kill. Layers and layers of traps and monsters. I didn’t have the energy. It was a stupid choice to upgrade my skill,” I let out a sigh of frustration. “At least I wounded him a bit. Small comfort that it is.”

“Retreat to Purgatory?” I closed my eyes. I had been this close. If I had been a bit faster. If I hadn’t gotten that last upgrade. If I had predicted the Ritualist’s actions better. If my throw had been a lot better.

I never had regrets when I had played sports growing up. A loss was a loss. You move on. But this, this loss felt personal in a way nothing else in my life ever had. I had let victory slip through my fingers. The Ritualist was overconfident since his last trap had done quite well.

Now he would be even more cautious to expose himself to risk. I considered attacking Heaven and trying to secure the store so his injury would remain. But the same risks of entering the city still existed. It was just too easy to be ambushed.

This last ambush only worked due to the massive scale the Ritualist was working at to surround us. Going into the city, the terrain made it difficult to manuever. “Yes. We retreat. We lost this second fight.” It was hard to admit, but the first step to correcting failure was to admit it.

“I would call it more of a draw. You did wound him,” Naran said as we set off.

“A draw. An effing draw. Ahh!” I let out a shout of frustration. I had been so close. We traveled a bit in silence before Naran spoke up again.

“Are we coming back here or grinding?”

“Grinding. I need to raise my Spirt up a lot more. I haven’t come up with a good place besides exploring or going back to that frostlands with the dark blue rats.” I really didn’t want to go back there. “Perhaps South or East of Neo Brasilia. Now that I am thinking on it, that seems like the better option. If it doesn’t work out, it is only a short trip to the West for the blue rats.”

“Then we would base out of Neo Brasilia?”

“Yes, I was thinking we should keep our crystal count under half a million at most. Also, it gives us a direction to retreat to.” The real question was what the Ritualist would do. Purgatory would need to prepare for an attack. A large attack.

There was a way I could be alerted at distance. Someone could break into my home and damage something, and a mental alert would kick in. I often sensed when Clarissa and other people were inside. It was weird to just know something like that, but it did create the opportunity for long distance communication.

Scouts could be kept on the East edge of the zone. At the first sign of the Ritualist, they could retreat and warn the city. It would take me two days to get back at least, and that was pushing myself. Still, it was better than nothing.

I hated being on the defensive, but I couldn’t force a decisive engagement. Everything revolved around that issue. Both myself and the Ritualist could escape each other too easily. “You think he will attack?” I asked Naran.

“Maybe. Hard to say with someone like that.”

“If you were in that position, what would you do?”

“Increase my grind speed, aiming to get level 3 monsters and skills.”

“There has to be a hidden cost of some kind. There were very few level 2 monsters that I saw. What about you?”

“Few as well. If the cost scales, what are you thinking?”

“Well, he was able to maintain a large quantity of monsters. So, the upkeep of a level 1 monster has to be around 1 energy or less per every 100 minutes.”

“Probably 1 energy. Then if the power of 10 is applied, that means a level 3 monster would require 100 energy to maintain,” Naran said.

“Exactly. A few stronger monsters, or a lot of smaller monsters. Then there is probably a cost to summon them. He isn’t doing it in combat, which means it either takes preparation based on the name of Ritualist-“

“Which is unlikely since people were transformed rapidly based on the information we managed to get,” Naran finished for me.

“Exactly. That means there is probably a higher energy cost at the start. If there was no upkeep, then his army would have been larger. If there was no upfront cost, then he would summon more monsters mid-combat to replenish his forces.”

“So that mean an initial cost and an upkeep. Also, the range limitation. Otherwise, he would have never left the safety of the city.”

“His range in the city appears to be much larger. Perhaps some kind of limitation tied into the zone, but I would need to get a better idea of his range in a level 2 zone first,” I said.

“So, the plan for Purgatory?” Naran asked.

“Purchase the tower gates and secure the entrances into and out of the city. If he does attack, we can slowly wear him down outside the city and have a place to retreat to. Then it becomes a question of speed. His grinding speed versus my grinding speed.”

“You think you can win? With his horde, he could grind higher level zones,” Naran said.

“Level 3 monsters have area attacks and the environment itself is hostile. They aren’t simple in the slightest. Also, they are obvious for the most part. A few big targets are a lot better than a lot of smaller targets. The main advantage he has with low level monsters is their unnatural ability to dodge and adapt. I will only need one Acid Shot to kill one each.”

“With the upkeep and summoning costs, it doesn’t make sense. Also grinding will be difficult. There will be attrition and he could always get a bad matchup,” Naran said.

“Exactly. Also, skills aren’t a big concern, since I am 90% sure there is an energy cost for his summoning. His Body stat is nowhere high enough. Also, if he equips his weremonsters, it is even better. More of a point sink.”

“If his weremonsters can get skills and stats?” Naran asked.

“Then he has to divide his attention. While he can coordinate, he can get flustered. Since I managed to catch up with him. He clearly wasn’t thinking about creating decoys to hide his true position. He views the monsters as extensions of himself if I had to guess.”

“He naturally orients towards a focal point. Attacks from multiple directions would overwhelm him, but what about the plaza attack?”

“It was chaos and surprise more than anything else that gave him the advantage. Against an organized group of people that can adapt, I suspect he will struggle. The larger the army the more he will struggle. At least that is the hope. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was forced to invest into Mind to keep up with everything.”