Ah, this is probably not good, though I can just fly away if I need to, so I wasn’t particularly concerned about my safety. The real problem was that he was aware that we were after the slaves. Now that he was staring me right in the eyes, I could get my first good look at the leader of the Gems. Honestly, he looked very appropriate for the job. If I didn’t know that beta testers had each been custom made based on the very first message I received, it would be hugely ironic.

He stood right around 6 feet and wore no clothing besides some underwear, so his crystalline flesh was on full display. It sparkled like cut gems, but it was cloudy and was closer in appearance to quartz than something clear like glass. Hexagonal crystalline growths were coming out of both of his shoulders, making him reminiscent of a hedgehog. He had no hair, and his facial features were rough. He might have once been attractive, but the edges and dimples in the crystal left his visage dirty and difficult to place. He was also incredibly monotone, and from this distance, I could only tell that he even had eyes at all because of the ridges beneath his forehead.

With a furious grimace, he bellowed across the courtyard, “What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?!?”

His loud exclamation distracted a few of the members fighting at the wall, which was probably a mistake because I watched as three more bandits were eaten by the wolves due to their inattentiveness.

I had no desire to stay here because I knew that a firestorm was coming, so I spread my wings and prepared to take off. I watched his expression change as he realized that I could leave whenever I wanted. Before I took off, though, I had an interesting idea.

He was without a doubt the strongest fighter in the fortress, and with his support, I imagine they would have no problem fending off the wolf monsters. Without him though, Cindy and Taylor would tear this encampment apart from range. I needed to lead him away. I just hoped he was as impressionable and foolish as he looked.

Tauntingly, I shouted across the clearing, “Did you really think the other gangs in Austin would just let you have your way? You’ve been getting up to some bad shit, and now we’ve come to take everything away from you.”

My words had an immediate effect, and once again he yelled at me, “You bitch!! Do you think I give a fuck what the other gangs are doing in this town? This town is mine by right! No one can compare to me! How dare you take my things! Who do you work for?”

Well this prick sure was full of himself. It was a bit too extreme, so unless he had an underlying psychosis, I bet his instincts messed with him a little bit too hard. It also made me furious when he called me a thief because I realized he was talking about the slaves we had rescued. Maybe I could fish for information before he got too angry. I was going to have to let him fill in the blanks to make this work. I was prepared to fly away at any moment, so Cindy could just nuke the whole compound.

“I think you know who I work for, and we’re willing to make a deal. I want information on how you managed to make those slaves, and then it’ll stop, and we can go back to hating each other, not active war.”

It seems I made the right move, because he looked thoughtful and his rage seemed to abate. I guess he didn’t care for his subordinates, after all. After a short pause, he answered, “Of course you come from the boss. I guess I should have expected that he was putting his foot down.”

After that he smiled. “It makes me happy that the leaders haven’t found out how to make slaves yet, but it makes sense. I guess I was pretty lucky. My second in command has the rare archetype ‘slave master’, which allows him to assign prisoners with the job ‘slave’. It doesn’t do too much, but it does let their owners inflict pain on them when they misbehave. Let the boss know that I’ll slow down expansion. I know he wants us to keep a low profile.”

Holy crap this guy was dumb. Someone just shows up and demands information, and this guy just freaking spills the beans. The fact that he was a subordinate to an organization was rather distressing though.

I almost laughed, until he, unfortunately, started to get suspicious. He asked, “What group are you from, anyway?”

All around the courtyard, crystal spires began to rise from the ground as his suspicion mounted. Each one varied in height, but they were all about five feet tall, and there were maybe 30 of them randomly scattered about. This guy had been fighting using magic for close to 30 minutes, and he still had the juice to do this? I was outclassed. If I was capable of sweating, I would be. No way could I control that much air, lightning, or water, and there was absolutely no way I could use it in combat like this. If this was what the upper limit on my magic control abilities looked like, I needed to seriously work on my own suite of them, regardless of my melee specialization.

He was the first monster beta tester I had encountered, besides Donny, and he was doing a good job of showing me up. I imagine his resistance was more than impressive as well, considering his almost lackadaisical attitude towards the monster wolves. I did not like my odds in a straight fight against him, and running away was looking like a better and better idea. I wanted more information on these guys, but was the risk worth it?

Fuck, I needed to be clever about this, or this crystal golem was going to destroy me. Wait! I have the Fascinating Eyes skill!

Fascinating Eyes

1/20

You apply charm status by looking someone in the eyes for one minute. Grows more powerful with each level. Costs 10 mana.

I tried to activate the skill, but I hadn’t been looking him in the eyes for a full minute yet. I needed to stall for more time. I should just try and pick a direction and hope I get it right. Keep things vague and let him fill in the blanks.

“Um… I’m a bit new, but I’m from the northern group.”

He looked to be deep in thought once again and dramatically rubbed his chin like some bad actor. That didn’t bode well. I’m so close to getting the skill off, I know it.

“I wasn’t aware that the northern group was recruiting still. I thought they were trying to keep it small.”

Times up! I could tell that I was able to activate the skill now, so I triggered fascinating eyes, making sure to keep looking into where I presumed the bandit leader’s eyes were. When the skill activated, I could tell that he noticed something was up, but I just hoped that charm would let me get more information out of him.

I decided to respond again, saying, “Yeah, the northern group brought me on right after th-”

Critical Damage! -75! Bleed II Gained!

I was cut off by a white-hot pain shooting through my abdomen. Looking down, I could see four inches of crystal piercing my lower left torso. Grunting through the pain, I turned around, looking for the source. Of course. The crystal barrier had grown out into a spear that now pierced my body. It looks like he tried to get my heart from behind as well but couldn’t penetrate the feathers at the base of my wings. Fuck that hurt. I reached behind me and smashed the crystal at the base of my skin with a gauntleted fist. As well as that, all of the crystal spires had grown spikes as well and looked as if they were preparing to shoot out, not unlike the one behind me. This was definitely bad.

Looking back at the crystal bastard, I could tell he was smirking. Boastfully, he said, “Dumb bitch. You actually managed to fool me for a bit. Now, I get to experience the pleasure of killing you.”

Fuck this guy. I reached for my waist while keeping my eyes on the big crystal brute. As I moved, he raised his hand to attack me, but I knew what was coming. I spread my wings around me and dived to the left. The crystal still sticking out of me was agitated when I moved, causing shooting pain. I was definitely getting some pain tolerance skill levels out of this, but I couldn’t be jazzed about it. His crystal shrapnel ineffectually bounced off my cocoon of feathers, and I was able to reach the radio at my waist hitting the button twice to signal Cindy to cast her fire spell, and Taylor to get ready to send in Golems. The fire was coming soon, but I knew I could escape in time. This guy needed to die. I was tempted to immediately start casting heal on myself, but I knew that I enough health to tank the bleed for a bit. I wanted to try and do as much damage to this asshole as possible before that.

Seeing that his shrapnel attack was ineffective, he opted for more large crystal spears. With a roar of rage, the bandit leader spread his arms out in front of him. All around the square, crystal spears began to shoot out at me. I moved towards the leader, attempting to get close and strike, but every time I got near him another crystal would shoot out, blocking my path and forcing me to dodge. We continued our dance, neither of us managing to get in a strike on the other, but I knew he would run out of mana eventually. At the same time, my health was slowly ticking down from the bleed, and moving around with the crystal inside me was excruciating. My stamina was dwindling as well, leaving me more and more exhausted.

After 20 vicious seconds of combat, I could hear Taylor's wood golems begin to break through the front gate. A hole was made, and wolves started to creep in one by one, each of them going after the weaker bandits where they could before getting pulverized in a hail of gunfire. It was good for me that I guess they thought that their boss was enough because the vast majority of the bandits seemed to ignore me completely.

At this point, the central courtyard was covered with horizontal crystals making navigating to the bandit leader on the ground very difficult. Throughout the fight, I had been staying on my feet, hopefully making him think that I needed my wings in order to fly. Lucky for me that was not the case. I was working my way in a circle around him, forming walls that I could simply fly over, though he would be stuck behind. He had trapped himself in a little box of crystal, keeping him penned in, and I now had the ability to mount an attack that he could not defend.

I flew up into the air about ten feet with my wings shielding my body, hurtling over the crystal maze. From a small hole looking out, I could see him raise both hands, firing shotgun blasts of crystal shrapnel at me, but like before, it was ineffective against my metallic feathers. I threw myself at him will all of the power my flight could muster, feet first. On each foot, I activated storm fists (which I now realize was very poorly named) and gave the big crystal bastard the biggest aerial dropkick I could muster. I slammed into his chest with a crunch, knocking him back into one of his crystal pillars, my three-inch heels condensing the force of the blow.

C-C-C-Combo Critical! -60, -62!

That's it?!? A measly 122 damage?!?! What kind of fresh bullshit is that! His defense is insane!

With both feet planted on his chest, I kicked off, gaining a bit of distance, and it was just in time as well. From his left and right, two more spears shot out at me. They were coming too fast to dodge, so I brought both wings around to stop them from piercing my chest. They slammed into my wings, not doing any real damage, but straining the muscles and throwing me backward onto the ground. Unfortunately, I landed right on the crystal in my back, pushing it in deeper.

Warning! Bleed III Gained!

Fuck! Suddenly, I saw a flame sprite appear around the middle of the encampment, right next to the bandit leader. Cindy was done casting the spell. He moved to swat it out of the way, as he started to once again make his way towards me. I know I hurt him with my dropkick, but it didn't even seem like he was phased by it. That certainly didn't help my chances. I knew that I couldn't afford to get hit by Cindy's AOE right now, so it was time to get the hell out of here. I spread my wings about me and blasted wind beneath them to launch me into the sky. From below, I heard the bandit leader yell in rage as he blasted shrapnel up at me. Unfortunately, they were rather short-range blasts, so they didn't manage to reach me as rocketed up. I shot through the air, accelerating incredibly fast, only stopping my ascent once I reached around 200 feet. I watched as the sprites detonated, covering the whole area in roiling flames.

From my current vantage, I could see the real effects of the combat and the situation of the bandits in the encampment. The detonating flames were only centered within the fortress proper, harming bandits exclusively and leaving the monsters hungrily swarming outside unmolested. The blast had thrown the defending bandits on the walls forward into the monster swarm, and I did not consider their chances of survival that great. The vast majority of the monsters were wolfen in nature, though I also recognized some goblinoid creatures throwing rocks and debris over the fortress walls. The monster corpses were piling up against the fortifications, but there must have been over 200 of them hungrily waiting outside. Looking around, I saw one had a level as high as 22, while I couldn’t find a level lower than 3. I didn’t envy those defenders.

My time spent distracting the boss had allowed the wood golems to move into position to tear down the already weakened gate completely, and I watched as they opened the way, much to the dismay of the defenders, before the golems, too, were destroyed by the tide of monsters. Creating monster trains like this was truly horrifying to behold and would take an absolutely massive amount of strength to defeat. As I watched, I noticed more and more monsters run out of the shadows and join the horde. These bandits were done for. I tried to get a glimpse of the bandit leader, but I couldn't spot him in the chaos. His magic was so powerful, and he could do so much with it. It felt bad to tuck my tail and run away, but if he somehow managed to survive this, I would track him down and end him. As I turned in the air to rejoin my teammates, an alert appeared.

Alert!

Monster Horde had reached critical mass!

Boss monster: Bloodthirsty Frenzy Wolf has been spawned and is now the defender of the Rank 2 Luis’s Junkyard Ruin.

Oh shit. That is definitely not good. It seems like our plan to make a monster train worked a little bit too well. Looking beneath me once again, I noticed that the monsters on the outside of the ruin had stopped their attack, and were all laying down on the ground, seizing. After a brief moment, I watched as they began to rise to their feet again. I inspected one.

Frenzy Wolf (Rank 2): Level 19

There were dozens of the wolves, and they all had levels around 20, one as high as 26. I watched as a black liquid flooded out of the ground in the central courtyard of the junkyard, collecting into a massive lupine shape in the middle. Eventually, I watched the shape rise, and the black flood ceased. The boss monster was the size of a van, with four terrifying glowing eyes, and glowing teeth and claws to match. The fur was a midnight black and was dark enough that the actual shape of the beast was lost. I was so far outmatched by that thing; it was like a joke. As I flew it looked up at me, and I felt a primal fear sink into the pit of my stomach.

As I watched, the wolves outside the wall jumped, throwing themselves into the fortress. The remaining fifteen or so bandits were devoured in only a few minutes as the boss wolf watched. It almost looked like it was laughing. I kept looking for the bandit leader, but I couldn't see the crystal golem from where I was. We would have to assume that he survived, and would have to hunt him down later with Kaitlyn's help. She should be able to track him. Luckily, he was all alone at this point, but he was still a threat who needed to be stopped.

The boss wolf was moving. He looked up at me once again and released a roar that shook my brain within my skull.

Fear II effect gained!

I fled, telling myself that I needed to go meet up with my party, but I knew in my heart that I just wanted to get the hell away from that monster.

I flew towards the Chinese restaurant once again. I decided against removing the crystal spear until I was in a safe place and could be healed by Taylor or Steph, but I was able to keep the bleed effect at bay with my aqua heal.

Skill Alert! Level Up!

Class Skills:

Warrior’s Flight – lvl 58 -> 60 – (130 miles/hour, 130 ft.)

Magic Skills:

Aerokinesis - lvl 32 -> 33

Resistance Skills:

Pain Tolerance – lvl 4 -> 8 - (40%) resistance to pain

That came as a welcome gift, as well, though all of the skill increases did not come as a surprise. When I received the message about pain tolerance, I immediately felt the effects of the skill activate, and while I could sense the pain, it didn’t have so much sway over my thought process.

Landing outside of the Chinese food place was agonizing as it forced my abs to contract, but I was able to hobble in through the broken glass door, dripping my white blood on the ground.

As I entered, I saw that the only ones there were Cindy, Taylor, and Donny. Kaitlyn and Steph must be taking care of the slaves, making sure we got them somewhere safe. Taylor looked up at me, and then her eyes opened in surprise. “Fuck, Vic! Get the hell over here and sit your ass down!”

Not willing to voice any complaints I did as she said, sitting in such a way that she could access the crystal shaft.

Looking serious, she whispered from behind me, “Vic, beautiful, this is not going to feel great. Get ready. I can heal you almost immediately after, but I still need to yank out this crystal. You ready?”

I nodded and closed my eyes. When she grabbed the end of the crystal shard behind me, I cried out in pain and shock, but quickly got myself under control. My eyes teared up, and I shouted out, “Just do it already!”

As soon as I cried out, I felt a wrenching pain combined with the horrifying sensation of the shard being removed, and them immediate relief as the first healing spell hit. After two more spells, I was back at max health and was feeling much better. I watched as the blood on my clothes evaporated into water vapor and steam, with the occasional spark of electricity, which was a very strange, though not unexpected, a sight to behold.

Finally, the night was over, and it was time to head home. I could use a good sleep after this chaos, and because of my new body, I could enjoy the sensation of a nice warm blanket once again. The flight back to the apartment was quiet and uneventful, just how I wanted it to be.

The night was finally catching up to me, and I was truly exhausted. When I entered the house, I floundered my way through the window at the fire escape and then wobbled through the hall to my bedroom. I pushed open the door, and then dived onto my bed.

WHAM

And rammed face-first into the egg that I had just ranked up in. The heavy, liquid-filled, solid metal egg. Ouch, that hurt. I knew I had been forgetting something. I picked up the egg, straining with its weight, and placed it on the ground. I was asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

That bitch!

That stupid, shitfaced, bird bitch. She ruined everything! I had everything in order. I had bought off the dumb ass politicians in the capital, had started gathering an army of servants, and had even prepared a delightful present for big boss of my gang in Houston. In a year I could have been the most powerful man in Texas! And it was all ruined, just like that, and in a single night no less.

I looked down at my crystalline hands, stained with blood from the people whose house I just broke into. They were so annoying, begging me to leave them alone. ME. They wanted the great Vincent Diamond to do something for them? Oh, I did something for them alright, and now they wouldn’t have to worry about anything else ever again. The weak rank 0 peasants should have known better than to speak to me.

It was time to leave. I had taken my fill of food from the kitchen, and now I needed to leave the city. By myself I was too weak to do anything in Austin anymore. The gems were not the only gang, though we were the most powerful, and I could still easily get overwhelmed by numbers. I had a safe house to the east outside of town, and I would regroup there to make my next move.

Leaving the city was painfully easy, and in my fury, I didn’t even bother to notice the things around me. The forest on the outskirts of the city was dark and looming, but I was unafraid. I walked into the woods with my head held high, looking for any landmarks to help me find the safehouse.

I walked for hours when all of a sudden, the ground beneath me collapsed and I fell, finding myself in a dark, wet tunnel. The tunnel extended before me, gently curving downwards out of sight. As I watched, glowing flames began to light themselves in wall sconces along the left-hand side, beckoning me deeper. Curious, I decided that I might as well see where the tunnel went.

Downwards I went, spiraling deeper into the earth. I was so deep underground that I couldn’t even gauge the distance I had traveled, but it must have been several hundred feet down. Eventually, the hallway opened up into a large chamber. The walls and floor of the chamber were black marble, and in the very center of the chamber was a black statue, depicting many humanoid shapes writhing in agony.

You have a unique mind.

“Who the fuck said that?”

With each word, my entire being shook. I could hardly stand, much less run away.

I can be your best friend if you’ll let me.

“Get the hell out of my mind! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Hmmm… My name doesn’t matter right now. You can call me… Labyrinth.

“What the hell do you want? What is this place?”

I have a proposition for you. Tell me, Mr. Vincent Diamond, do you desire power? I have a job in mind that I believe only you can accomplish.

“Why would I work for you? What’s in it for me?”

I can offer you something you sorely desire, Vincent. I can offer you a seat of power, and vengeance against the one who wronged you.

That was an appealing offer. I was used to working under someone else, and I needed to start again. If I could pay that bird bitch back, it would be worth it as well. Even remembering her smirking face brings a white-hot fury to my mind.

“Fine. What the gig?”

End of Volume 1