The strange music and the trapped Hordred were quite the interesting mystery, but Miles could do little about it. He knew the facts well enough for his purposes, and thus invested his time into some other minor crafting.
While the blood-formed knife, the Pugio, felt like a great weapon whenever it was... summoned, he could not rely on its unreliable appearance.
Thus, he had fashioned a few shivs out of the remaining rat bones.
Though they were only half the length of the rock spike, they were far tougher, and by carefully sharpening the bone with Heating Touch, much sharper as well. Perfectly fashioned for a slaughter.
Detect seemed to agree, giving it quite the generous grade. [Bone Shiv - Hordred Rat - Uncommon].
Satisfied, Miles put aside the rudimentary weapons and decided to fashion some makeshift 'armor'. Considering the horde of rats that guarded the exit, the chances of having a hundred rodents crawling all over him were quite high. This was why Miles decided to use the cold iron to mold a few strips into some quick binding straps.
The system was quite a bit critical here, [Iron Bands - Inferior], simply categorizing them as 'bands'.
Miles could not disagree. Molded from metal, they were rather uncomfortable when worn and quite flimsy as well. But they wrapped quite well around the ends of his shirt sleeves and pant legs, ensuring nothing would crawl inside his clothes without breaking through the cold iron first. Inferior as it were, it would get the job done.
He had had little time for the former, as most of his time was invested in forging a neck piece. It needed to fit over his collar, ensuring the throat and neck were no longer directly exposed.
A helm of some sort would have done the job much better, but unfortunately, he lacked the equipment to make something actually functional here.
It would leave his face exposed, but that was fine, under the presumption that any injuries there would be non-fatal and regenerate soon enough. With Conditional Undeath he only had to worry about decapitation and fire after all.
[Shoddy Neck Armor - Cold iron - Common]
The task of molting metal by hand into something that resembled armor was a trial, and the end-result was quite hideous. But despite the 'shoddiness', for an equipment-less forging, it was pretty decent.
With that, Miles was done with forging, and the appraisal of his own creations.
His gaze shifted towards the exit ahead, the path that would lead to freedom. It was finally time to leave this accursed maze.
***
Miles could trace every strand of scent that reached his nostrils, directly to their sources as if he had seen it all with his own eyes,
The stench of decaying filth, the tanginess of rusting metal, the overpowering chemicals and leaking effluents, and more… of that living blood.
Calming his egregious desire for the scent of the latter, Miles slowed as he sneaked closer, just enough to properly observe what lay within the hall ahead.
He had to admit, it was not at all what he had expected. It was quite a change compared to the monotonic cold iron maze.
Jutting upward were mountains of loose material, of discarded circuitry, machinery and corroded metal, tied together by tangled wires crackling with latent currents as if the veins of sleeping giant.
The sights before him were reminiscent of the outer city, a graveyard of discarded tech, though a distinct difference were the lack of corpses of any kind.
The tech here was ancient, at least several centuries old, for even Miles had difficulty discerning what some of them were.
Still there were also many that he could recognize, some, as confirmed by Cadmus, could even be net woven into…
A short while later, Miles moved closer, stopping just a single step before entering. He inhaled that tantalizing scent of the living blood, but…
Blood Vision activated, covering his eyes in a sheen of red and revealing the horde of glowing red figures that awaited him. They were hidden, scattered all over the area, but there were none of the splatters of blood that he had come to expect from living blood.
Stranger still were the heart crystals of these rodents. Even before, when a few had been frenzied under the haunting melody of the flute, it had been so.
They were a persistent, yet dull light.
The lack of blinking, no, beating hearts, was ominous to say the least. Feeling the sense of foreboding wafting into the air, Miles prepared himself.
None of the rats reacted to his presence, not making the slightest movement or the faintest of sound.
There could not be any better evidence to suggest this was a planned ambush. Considering how close he was, the typical Hordred Rat Alarmer would have been screeching its head off by now.
‘But whether they shall succeed or not, remains to be seen.’
Miles let out a shaky breath.
Since they dared not make the first move, he would graciously make it himself.
There were many, a few hundred rats at the least, and Miles had made sure to don his gloves along with the cold iron neck armor and iron suit straps he had forged just prior.
Still, he remained patient.
He considered the arrangement of the hall, the paths he could see and the paths he could not. Enough that he had the makings of a reasonable plan.
Only after he had gone over it several times, confirming it was feasible and burned into his memory, was he truly ready. And now that he was, Miles extended his right leg backward, stretching and tightening his muscles. A cobra preparing to strike.
A lesser used movement in the Nameless Art, one used expressly for launching forwards with immense speed. It was slow prepare, but in situations like this, quite ideal.
Miles had even utilized a portion of his free points.
Since he had been unsure of what effect attribute enhancement could have upon the (Un)Balanced title, he had started with a single point and incremented from there until he had invested exactly five points.
[Agility: 33] (+5) ↑
Nothing adverse had happened, but he had decided to play it safe and stop there. To make up for the partial investment in attributes, Miles reached for the first skill he had ever received and activated it... tentatively.
Miles could only grit his teeth at the ensuing pain, as Blood Burn seared through his veins, molting his blood as if casting it into an inferno.
He let out pained breaths, his hands tightneing over the shuddering box of cold iron in one, and the Caucon cocked in the other.
Miles managed to endure the searing heat of boiling blood for a few minutes, until he was forced to let go of it.
Soon enough, the pain faded and what was left was a barely perceptible rush of latent energy. And a feeling of elation, genuine happiness, at the violence that awaited him…
A sharp grin crawled over his face, but Miles managed to pacify the excitement.
An inhale of cold air, focusing and grounding.
He allowed his agility, burnt blood and movement technique, all of it to gather as one. The combined power seemed to crackle through him as if liquid lightning.
Miles let out the breath.
An exhale of warm air, calming and relieving.
Then… he was no longer there.
Miles was airborne, bursting through the air like an arrow let loose. His sight blurred at the speed, his other enhanced senses being the only thing that allowed him to maintain his bearing.
Yet the wind kept up with him, whispering secrets and ever-present in its support.
He landed once and bounded forth once more, blasting through a small heap of trash, scattering it in a rain of trash and circuits.
Miles was quick but so were the rats. As if ripples through a disturbed lake, they came to life.
Their faded heart crystals blazed with light, beginning to blink, somehow beating as one.
He had made good progress, almost a quarter of his way through the space, but there were so, so many rats. Though he had a head start, Miles was bound to be overwhelmed sooner or later.
Well, that would have been true, had he not been prepared…
The hand that gripped the boxed infernal pulled back, and at just the perfect moment, exactly as he had planned before, it was hurled into the air.
Almost in slow motion, Miles watched the arcing path, as the box soared through the air to exactly where it needed to be.
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His target was far enough away from where he was, but exactly where most of the rats were concentrated. There was no way the vermin could react on time–
The wind was wrong.
It was… flowing backward?
Miles' throat burned at that familiar smell of living blood.
He barely reacted on reflex, ducking behind a massive pile of trash hoping to protect his back.
The wind roared.
He did not even get to see what that was about, for a massive something, struck him, through the trash and right into his back.
The suit protected him, even the neck ‘armor’ did something, but the blunt force hit him through it all.
Miles felt his bones cracking as his body bent at an odd angle, and he was sent rag dolling through the air.
His head spun and his vision swam, until he finally crashed into another one of the many mountains of garbage. It made for a wonderfully soft landing, padded with sharpened blades and pointed metallic components.
[-4.3 HP. 6/10 HP remaining.]
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -1.7 BP lost.]
Miles felt heat and cold all at one, and a wetness spreading over his torso. His left arm felt lighter, and did not respond properly, but thankfully, the Caucon was still stuck in his right hand. Somehow, he had maintained his grip upon the weapon.
As if to say his head was not perfectly well, Blood Vision was on the fritz, flickering red and black like a dying bulb, only serving to leave him confused.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.8 BP lost.]
Miles had the sense of mind to force the skill to deactivate, even though he could feel his strength seeping out of him and the eternal thirst rearing its head in response.
His ringing ears cleared quickly though, making room for the squeaks and chitters spreading through the hallway. Rising as one, the rodents were an awakened army.
The wind roared a second time, and Miles could feel that same something rushing down into him, aiming to finish him off once and for all. It was almost entirely pitch dark in the maze, but Miles still had his night vision to rely on.
His assailant was grotesque thing, a giant arm of metal and flesh, formed out of garbage and pulsing flesh, inter-threaded with swells of rippling, bulging veins. A hideous, unnatural thing had appeared in place of the rats that should have been within the trash. It was as if they had melted into the trash…
Huh. No wonder his attempt to hide behind a mountain of garbage had ended up like this. The trash itself was his opponent.
Miles struggled to get up, to get himself to move, but his wet, bloodied hands only settled upon sharpened debris, the exact opposite of stable support to prop himself up.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.6 BP lost.]
The wind was pleading, begging him to move, but he could not. His legs felt wrong, his own body slow to obey his thoughts.
But his will, his intent was not. Even while delirious, his mind screamed.
Liquid crystallized, shards tinkled, all solidifying into something behind him. It pushed him away, and the next thing he knew, he was moving through the air.
Miles fell headfirst into another pile of trash, pushed to the side into just as much of a 'soft' landing as before, but…
BOOM!
The shockwave of the strike was all that hit him, blowing through the air and sending him rolling a bit further.
Something cracked and shattered, biting into his back. It sounded like glass, but Miles was unsure if it was something in the garbage or whatever it was that had saved him from being a stain on the floor.
The attack had missed, but Miles felt the wind begin to rile up again. He was face first on the ground, but he could sense the subtle shifts in illumination. He could tell when he was covered by the massive shadow of a monstrously malformed arm.
Reeling from the first strike, Miles struggled to gather his bearings, but he could not escape. Not when whatever had saved his life before seemed to be intent on not repeating it.
Suddenly, his hair stood on end, and a blood chilling cold settled within the area...
Eerie whispers, hundreds and thousands of it reverberated through the silent air, and in an instant, the shadow over him scattered. It literally fell apart.
A rain of debris pelted him, striking and drawing blood, but it was nothing serious.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.12 BP lost.
Blood Points (BP): 7/10 left.]
Thunderous booms rang out from a distance, shockwaves trembling through his own body, but it was no longer targeted at him.
Finally, the Infernal was doing something, but this did not mean he was safe. It did get him enough time though, for before an errant arm managed to crush his prone paralyzed form…
[Conditional Undeath Activated.]
Instantly, Miles felt his skin crawl, slowly covering his wounds with scabs. The regeneration was not instantaneous perhaps owing to how injured he was.
It was a tad itchy and quite uncomfortable, but it allowed him to recover, enough to think clearly.
Miles had lost a massive amount of blood, now splattered all over his clothes from wherever he had been wounded, and his throat burned...
An errant glance at the source of the booming crashes revealed a sight that sent a chill down his back.
The garbage had formed into dozens of gigantic arms, almost blindly pelting the same spot over and over, crushing steel and rubble as if heaven sent punishment.
He was unsure of the point of it, but he knew that if it had been him there, only a Miles-shaped stain would have been left on the floor.
That was not the case here.
Impossibly, every punch just caused parts of the arms to… rot and fall apart. As if decomposed and cremated within a matter of seconds, only dust scattered, leaving nothing behind.
Threads of flesh would ripple through the mountains of garbage and bring more monstrous arms to life, but numbers mattered little. They were imply throwing themselves into a metaphorical fire.
Miles blinked.
Something imperceptible shifted, and he could see the 'fire' now.
It was as if he had changed lenses, because all of a sudden it was no longer invisible, and he could see it all.
The shadow of a demonic figure, eyes darkened to an abyssal black. The creature was half smoke, half incongruous monster, with near uncountable tentacle-like limbs formed from its back, as if to match the garbage flesh arms that were its opponent.
The sight instantly reminded Miles of the Beast, but there was a distinct difference between the two. This was no animal. This was something different.
It was Infernal. Even the monstrous arms that had almost shattered his spine would be helpless.
These creatures were energy, mere contact causing even the imposing living garbage arms to disintegrate. They were entropy incarnate, and could not be harmed, only contained or transformed.
However, the Infernal here seemed rather stagnant, as if it were bored…
Miles was forced out of his hapless staring, by a sharp jab upon his back.
Instinctively he grabbed it and crushed, exploding the brazen rat like an overripe fruit. He barely heard the Ding, for the sharp bone stabbed his palm, but he had no time to nurse his wounds.
More squeaks and chitters gathered around him, forcing him to act.
He could feel his body shifting, innards moved about as Conditional Undeath mended broken bones and popped them back where they should have been. He was nowhere near recovered, but...
It would have to be enough.
Miles grit his teeth through the pain, somehow swaying onto his feet. He allowed Blood Vision to cover his eyes, quite relieved to see that it was no longer flickering like before.
The skill helped, highlighting the flesh threaded through the giant arms, and surprisingly, even the obviously non-blooded Infernal remained visible.
He could not ignore the gigantic arms just because the Infernal was keeping them distracted. The same with the Infernal.
Still, the more immediate problem were the waves of red figures rushing towards him, swarms of Hordred Rats.
The majority of their numbers were gathered around the infernal, dozens disappearing into the garbage whenever a new arm was formed.
Still, a considerable number was making their way towards him as well.
Well, Miles had his plans. He would have spoken the command out loud if he could, but he did not trust his vocal cords right now. Thus, as he had agreed with Cadmus before, all he did was reach for the Lykaon Ring and give it a light tap.
BOOM!
A series of explosions, so perfectly coordinated, rocked through the hall sending mountains of trash exploding in clouds of fire, the ensuing force raining metal and debris all over the place.
The AI had successfully let loose the self-destruction daemons they had previously net weaved into every single network interfaceable components here. It had paid out.
The Infernal seemed to go crazy, excited by the chaos around it.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The cacophony of notifications and the sudden reduction of the rat population suggested it had been a much more effective explosion than what Miles had expected from ancient machinery.
He could not celebrate. The air smelt burnt, and the searing heat of the explosions, though distant, sent a wave of primal fear through him.
Felling revitalized by it, Miles began to hobble forwards, moving through the shortest path he could see.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Despite the fact that he had culled so many rats, he could see no end in sight. It was as if nothing happened, for groups of surviving rodents lunged at him soon enough.
Miles kept them off, with the defense of his makeshift cold iron armor, and his careful use of the Caucon, and his newly forged shivs.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.2 BP lost.]
He was injured by a few surprise rats that managed to get him despite everything, but Conditional Undeath was already underway, and those wounds were quickly healed.
Miles continued to limp his way through, not forgetting to set wary eyes upon particularly suspicious piles of trash.
This situation had to be approached carefully. He was regenerating quick, he could almost properly walk now, but he was nowhere near recovered enough to dodge a giant metal arm.
He only had one option.
From then on, Miles ensured that he was always in close proximity to one of the larger piles of trash, specifically those that contained blobs of pulsing writhing red within them, rat shaped or otherwise. Almost coincidentally, he would always place himself between the closest mountain of trash and the exit...
Yes, Miles could see the exit now, leading into the next hallway. The area had a few mountains of garbage as well, but there was not a single blooded figure in sight.
Safety was so, so close. All he had to do was reach it.
There was only a quarter of the distance left, when... it happened.
The ominous whispers in the air increased in amplitude and a chilling cold swept over him.
Miles’ breaths came out as puffs of cold smoke. As if a specter manifesting out of his own breath, the Infernal was suddenly before him.
The hellish creature was grinning like a devil, reaching mangled hands of rotting, towards him.
Miles reacted on instinct, swiveling upon the balls of his feet.
[Discipline: Haemomancy molds the blood.]
The blood upon his body and clothes answered a familiar call, crystallizing into a familiar grip.
PUGIO.
The assassin's blade ripped through the head of the infernal instantly decapitating it.
The head disappeared into the fading smoke, but the Infernal did not seem to be harmed, as it should have been, but it was also confused, as one would be when they lost their head.
There was no time to dally for Miles heard it first, the telltale tinkle of forming garbage.
A third party was aiming to take advantage of the situation, but unlike the sudden appearance of the Infernal, Miles had been expecting this. He also knew it was going to hurt...
[Discipline: Haemomancy molds the blood.]
Miles was not sure how he did it, but he heard the familiar crackle of forming crystal and sudden, strange weight upon his back.
The wind roared, bursting into him from the side.
Miles knew that he could not move fast enough to dodge it, not as injured as he was. Yet, he exploded forth, rushing towards the exit with maximum speed.
Yes, he managed that despite his injuries, at least until… the barely recovered bone in his right foot twisted in an unnatural direction.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.6 BP lost.]
He didn’t feel the pain. It was all muted and faded, barely causing him to stumble.
The wind roared, bursting into his back now.
'Yes.'
And this time, Miles let it hit.
Blood crystal shattered and barely healed bones snapped again, as Miles was sent rag dolling through the air for a second time.
[-2 HP. 4/10 HP remaining.]
Somehow, he held onto the Caucon, at the cost of losing his grip over the blood crystal knife.
[External and Internal Bleeding detected. -0.8 BP lost.
Blood Points (BP): 5/10 BP remaining.]
He was airborne, hurling through the air like a stringless puppet. His vision swam, and the pulses of agonizing pain threatened to knock him out, but something kept him awake.
A part of him feared what would happen. His heart was beating the loudest it had since its re-awakening.
But...
Miles couldn’t help but crack a bloodied grin.
He didn’t even care that what he crashed down into next was a hard cavernous floor.
How could he not be pleased?
He had feared that he would hit an invisible wall, revealing that like the rats he too was trapped here.
But no. That strike had sent him flying right through the exit and into the hallway beyond.
Somehow or the other, Miles escaped the maze.
Relief overwhelmed him, muting even the torture of his battered physique. He was finally free.