There was nothing special about the corridor that Jayce was running through. There were thousands of similar two-person wide corridors spread throughout this world fragment to form an unsolvable maze. Because everything here was so uniform, Jayce could guess how long the corridor was once he entered it. However, only the masked man knew how many corridors connected to this one, as he had passed through this area earlier. Jayce couldn’t allow him to escape through a crossroads, so he had to stay close.

Dim blue mana flowed into Jayce’s eyes as he activated the secondary effect of Keen Eyes. The surrounding walls fell away, giving Jayce a clear, telescopic view of his target. His shoes slammed against the ground as he stopped, raised Seeker and took on a firing stance. The man had been glancing back every few breaths, and he saw Jayce preparing to shoot. Just like before, the masked humanoid moved to dodge before Jayce even pulled the trigger. Even in this narrow hallway, he still avoided death.

‘Fuck. Is that a class ability?’ Jayce thought bitterly. His Bloodrager class was only level 9 while his Marksman class was still level 8. If he had been lucky enough to grab a new Marksman ability at level 5, that bullet might have landed.

The masked humanoid rounded a corner, escaping to a connecting corridor on the right. Jayce grit his teeth as he watched him go. Now, he might be the one getting ambushed. Jayce stopped running and approached the corner carefully. He couldn’t wait too long, because that might allow the man to round another corner and escape into the maze. Jayce strained his ears, hoping to hear the sound of the man running away. That masked humanoid had his own orders, so it was possible he’d be forced to continue running and never attack.

Precious seconds passed, but Jayce didn’t hear anyone running through the maze.

Suddenly, a loud bang rocked the corridor and Jayce nearly jumped in fright. He saw flashes of light from the man’s shotgun pistols, but the bullets never came. Jayce kept still, ready to fire the instant an enemy entered his view. All the while, thunderous gunshots tore into the connecting corridor. Realization flashed in Jayce’s eyes and he swore.

Rushing forward, Jayce rounded the corner while debris rained down to block his path. The masked humanoid had decided to destroy the ceiling and cause a minor cave-in. The dirt behind those stone bricks was denser than he’d expected, though. At the same time, Jayce reacted fast enough and met him in the corridor before he could finish sealing it off.

Jayce leapt past the shattered bricks and dirt, arriving in front of the masked humanoid. Without any hesitation, Jayce raised his rifle and fired. He didn’t aim at the man’s chest, which was the easier target, instead choosing to go for the head. Jayce knew that they both still had energy barriers protecting them. A shot to the chest wouldn’t necessarily knock his enemy down. If Jayce didn’t stun the man with his first bullet, those small shotguns would tear him apart. To Jayce’s surprise, the man’s leg snapped up and kicked Seeker’s barrel. Jayce’s bullet flew wide, ricocheting off an adjacent wall. Before Jayce could think of a follow up, two thunderous gunshots rang through the corridor.

This outcome was something Jayce had imagined when he ran around the corner. Humans tended to imagine the worst-case scenario before they acted. It was a natural survival mechanism. And now, fear and despair filled his heart as he watched that unacceptable outcome play out. Jayce’s barrier was crushed under the hail of bullets. It managed to block some of them, but plenty more drilled into his vulnerable flesh. Warm blood gushed out of his chest while pain tore through his mind like a wrecking ball. Jayce stumbled backwards several steps, painting the corridor’s floor a sickly red.

Meanwhile, the masked humanoid lowered his guns. It was impossible to see his expression, but his trembling hands and slumped shoulders showed a clear picture of guilt.

And yet, Jayce didn’t fall. His pupils turned red and the pain faded from his mind. Before the masked humanoid could notice that something was off, Seeker vanished and Spirit Nail appeared in Jayce’s hand. His arm trembled violently, arguing that it didn’t have the strength to lift a weapon, but Jayce still managed to land three nails as his enemy leapt away.

When the masked humanoid regained his wits and raised his pistols, Jayce stumbled back even further, falling to the floor on the other end of the corner.

The battle had reset somewhat, as the two enemies were once again separated by a corner wall. The biggest difference was that the masked humanoid held the initiative now. If he wanted to escape, Jayce couldn’t chase him.

Clenching his guns tightly, the masked humanoid did something that would be impossible for a slave moving under orders—he hesitated. The humanoid’s cloak fluttered as he looked at the open corridor behind him. The way ahead was dark and uncertain. One path had an enemy at the brink of death while the other was filled with unknown monsters. Several seconds passed before the masked humanoid slowly turned back towards Jayce.

One after another, the sound of footsteps echoed through the corridor. Soon, the faint sound of splashing joined them as the man passed through the pool of Jayce’s blood. He rounded the corner and prepared to raise his pistols.

At that critical moment, the man hesitated again. Not out of guilt, but because he saw two blood red eyes staring up at him in the dim corridor. Those eyes were like two tiny spirits of violence, ready to fight death himself if he came to take them.

Something grabbed the masked humanoid’s arms tightly and he let out a surprised yelp. The blood and viscera that had been scattered across the floor had congealed and lunged onto his wrists. Spreading out, the red bindings plastered his arms to his waist. He panicked, falling to the ground as he struggled to free himself.

The bindings weren’t actually that tough, but once his arms were pinned, he couldn’t muster much of his strength. On top of that, his movements and thoughts were being slowed by those spirit nails.

The pupils of the masked humanoid turned red as he activated Bloodrage, but in the next instant they were shrinking in fear. The man watched as Jayce crawled onto his ruined stomach and pulled a gun out of thin air. That gun looked noble with its sleek design and white and gold colors but the being that held it seemed like a freshly born demon. Jayce gripped the gun in his weak hands and pointed at the masked humanoid. He didn’t need to lift it, since they were both lying on the floor.

The first shot cracked the masked humanoid’s energy shield and sent him rolling into a wall.

The second shot pierced the shield, but Jayce didn’t have the mental leeway to aim for a vital area.

The third, fourth and fifth shots mostly struck true.

By the sixth, the light in the masked humanoid’s eyes had gone dark.

“Raphael…” A faint hoarse voice just barely reached Jayce’s ears. “Brother…Why are you here? I don’t…want to find you…in this…world.”

After that, the corridor returned to silence.

---

Back in the open room, Liza suddenly swore, causing Mize’s vicious grin to grow even wider. The battle’s conclusion was already set. With the feathered dragon’s timely assistance, Liza’s slaves weren’t able to finish off the centipede’s main body. Liza was forced to risk further injury to help her stone-like doll escape while Mize’s team harried them. They weren’t able to return to the corridor they’d entered from, and so they ran through the wide, coverless room until they found another opening.

Mize didn’t want to push them too far, since Liza could definitely kill one of her slaves if she drove her into a corner. The elder sister slowed her attacks and let her slaves lag behind. Then, just as Liza was entering a new corridor, Mize’s spear vanished, and another jet-black javelin appeared in her hand.

Liza had already gone in and the flatfish had vanished long ago, but that large doll was still squeezing through. Its plodding figure was bleeding from dozens of places and bones could be seen through its most heinous wounds. Still, as long as it was alive, Mize knew that Liza wouldn’t let it succumb to those injuries. She also knew that Liza had likely started the process to return the doll to her bracelet the instant she left Mize’s vision.

A javelin ripped through the air as if it were ready to tear space to hunt down its prey. It didn’t target the doll’s head or its heart. Instead, it pierced an inconspicuous area on the doll’s lower spine. The adjacent vertebrae were shattered, instantly crippling the doll.

“You’ve been practically begging me to spear that stone-kin from the moment the battle started. How could I not know you had reinforced the barriers covering its vital areas?”

Liza ground her teeth in fury, but she could only abandon her slave and keep running. As Mize had said, she’d placed a second set of barriers around the doll’s most vital areas. She knew it was a huge target and that her siblings wouldn’t let it roam freely during the deathmatches, so she made sure it could withstand their precise blows. After battling the centipede, its wider barrier had been destroyed. Mize had even ordered her slave to carve out the skin on the doll’s lower back—something Liza had only just noticed. Mize had chosen the perfect moment and attacked a weak spot that Liza never anticipated. The younger sister had nothing more to say.

“Haah, that’s one down,” Mize sighed, instantly discarding her ferocious look. “Liza can’t recover after that.”

Her golden eyes swept the dim room and her brows furrowed. “No one from our team is dead. I already cancelled the order, so why hasn’t he come back?”

Mize’s figure darted through the open space, leaving her exhausted slaves in the dust. She came to the corridor where Jayce and that masked humanoid had entered and smelled blood. A few instants later, she reached the end of the corridor and saw a ghastly sight. Two figures lay prone in a blood-soaked space. One was pushed up against the far wall and five wide bullet holes told a clear story of the figure’s death. Nearby, there was a figure who looked even more dead but was still hanging on by a wavering thread. He was lying on his stomach, nearly drowning in a pool of his own blood. Laid by his outstretched hands was an expensive-looking rifle. The bloodstained weapon was still pointing at its victim.

Mize sighed as she looked at Jayce’s prone figure. She felt relieved, glad that her pawn wasn’t destroyed before it could fulfill its purpose. At the same time, Mize felt something else when she stared at the remains of this battlefield. With her incredibly sharp senses and specialized knowledge, she could practically see each step of the desperate struggle that Jayce had undergone. Mize wasn’t entirely sure what she felt when she imagined this scene play out. It certainly wasn’t pity or any tender emotion. All she knew was that it made her feel agitated.

Snapping out of her trance, Mize quickly knelt beside Jayce and carefully flipped him over. She sliced a large cut on her palm and brought her hand to his lips. Slipping her fingers in, she opened his mouth and guided her blood to flow down his throat. That blood was mostly red, but around a seventh of it shone like glittering gold.

Slowly, very slowly, Jayce’s injuries began to close up. Mize watched over him silently while she continued to help him drink her blood.

---

Jayce dreamt that he was lying in a world of pure darkness. While he was resting peacefully, drops of water started to fall on his face. One fell into his mouth and he tasted something so delicious that it roused him from his sleep. Sticking his tongue out, Jayce greedily lapped up the water. He had no restraint because he felt that he would never become tired of it.

“Ah, that tickles.”

A tired, almost monotone voice swept through the darkness, but Jayce ignored it. He didn’t react until he felt the source of the water draw away from him. Jayce pressed forward, refusing let it leave.

“Why are you biting me? Erilin, wait! Don’t kick him, he’ll die.”

Several minutes later, Jayce was lying with his back propped up against a wall. His eyes were resolutely turned away from Mize, who was resting nearby. He also didn’t acknowledge the cold glare coming from a seemingly empty spot in the room. Though he barely had any blood to spare, Jayce sensed that a large amount of what remained was being used to heat his cheeks. He covered his face with his palm.

‘Don’t think about it. Mize wasn’t mad, so I can live happily once I purge that incident from my memory.’

Desperate to think about anything else, Jayce recalled the new information that had entered his head at some point.

Bloodrager has reached level 10.

Your vital energy has massively improved (+25).

Jayce groaned internally.

‘I fought my way to the brink of death to level up and you can’t even give me a new ability?’

He grumbled a bit more before realizing that this message was slightly different than the one he’d seen before. Back when he reached level 5 as a Marksman and increased his mana capacity, there was no adjective before the word improved. This time, his vital energy hadn’t just increased, it had been improved ‘massively’. Jayce didn’t know exactly what that or the ‘+25’ meant, but they sounded quite good. Vital energy, as he’d learned from Mize, was like his stamina. Having a large amount of it meant that he wouldn’t get tired easily and he would have more of it to spend on abilities like Flesh Control.

While he thought, Jayce reached behind his head and pinched the tag on his jacket. White lights lit up across his entire outfit as the ruined parts of his clothes knit themselves back together. The servant’s clothes that Erilin had given him were high quality artifacts in their own right. They were much heavier than they looked, but that was because they compressed a large amount of fabric to fit any owner. At the same time, he could use that extra fabric to repair it.

Jayce waved his hand and the dried blood that covered him became dust in the air. Maybe because it had been away from his body for too long, or maybe because the blood had become small particles, his Flesh Control ability stopped working after that. Jayce felt he was lucky that all of that blood was his own. The barrier from his artifacts couldn’t remove blood that was already soaked into his clothes.

“Are you done collecting yourself?” Mize’s tired voice pulled him out of his head. “You’ll recover faster if you rest in my storage device.”

“Alright, just let me do one more thing.”

Jayce wobbled as he sat up for the first time since the battle. Using the wall as support, he arrived in front of the masked humanoid’s corpse. Jayce knelt down and hesitated for a moment before removing the man’s mask. Beneath it was a man in his late thirties. He had short black hair, a wide nose and a large jaw that reminded Jayce of an action hero figurine. Most notably, his entire face was covered in scars. They seemed to have been made with a wide blade, and all of them were fairly new.

However, Jayce hadn’t processed any of that. Not his hideous scars, not the shape of his face, not even his hair color. Once Jayce recognized him as human, he didn’t see anything else.

Jayce quickly shuffled to the side before he threw up.