The fist-sized rock shot through the air like a bullet, and after only an instant, crashed into a troll shaman’s cranium. The rock itself shattered into a million shards, but the troll didn’t fare any better. The blow didn’t kill the sturdy creature outright, but Zeke felt certain that it wouldn’t be casting curses anytime soon. A second later, another rock was in the air, and it took out the party’s other shaman.

Once the two spellcasters were out of the fight, Zeke sprang into action. He leapt from the crown of the mushroom, Voromir singing as it arced through the air in an overhead strike. The trolls were caught entirely off guard, which only served to cement the notion that they weren’t dealing with much upstairs. It was like shooting fish in a barrel; the monsters never even bothered to look up, much less watch for an ambush.

Not that Zeke was about to start complaining. During his rampage through the fungal forest, he’d killed fourteen hunting parties and over a hundred trolls. A dozen shaman had already fallen to his hurled rocks, and by his count, there couldn’t be very many more. Waging a guerrilla war had brought with it a plethora of benefits, but none were more appreciated than the fact that he’d only picked up a few superficial wounds. It was a drastic change from his usual tactic of charging in and hoping he didn’t take an unlucky blow. In addition, he’d also managed to gain quite a bit of experience, and he found himself on the precipice of another level. It was quite a gain, considering that his previous level had only come after more than a month of killing trolls.

His mace crushed the skull of the first troll warrior, but Zeke didn’t pause to admire his handiwork. Instead, he was already swinging his weapon in a horizontal arc intended to destroy another troll’s ribcage. It wouldn’t kill the creature, especially considering its healing capabilities, but it would certainly slow it down. And given that he was facing eight of the monsters, any small advantage he could muster would make all the difference in the world.

The troll warrior tried to dance back, but agility wasn’t its strong suit. So, it only managed to lessen the blow by a small fraction. Its ribs were still crushed, but Zeke could tell that it wasn’t entirely out of the fight. So, he followed up that strike with another, which was enough to tip the balance and send it to the ground, where it writhed in pain.

Two warriors and two shaman down, Zeke thought, already stamping his foot down on the shaman who hadn’t died to his initial volley. Six warriors to go. He definitely liked those odds.

Over the course of the past year-and-a-half in the cave system, Zeke hadn’t only benefited from his increased stats and evolved race. Those factors had certainly contributed to his survival, but almost as important was the development of his battle instinct. It wasn’t anything overwhelming in nature. Just a sense that showed him the flow of a fight, often warning him of a dangerous situation before it coalesced into something life-threatening.

So, he felt more than saw the axe blade swinging at him from behind. He ducked without a second thought, quickly pivoting and swinging his mace in a vicious uppercut which took the ambitious troll warrior on the chin. The blow very nearly disintegrated the creature’s jaw, and Zeke could hear its neck crack from the force. After sailing through the air for a handful of feet, it settled onto the moss-covered ground, never to move again.

Power and instinct could only take a man so far, though; eventually, skill would have to play a part. And throughout his many battles, Zeke had begun to cultivate his own style, which incorporated his titanic strength, his battle instinct, and his talent with his chosen weapon. By contrast, the trolls swung their axes and thrust their spears with undeniable strength but little real prowess. The result was predictable, and if Zeke weren’t so grossly outnumbered, he’d have found their attacks laughably easy to parry or dodge.

So, armed with his well-developed prowess, Zeke managed to kill the trolls without taking more than a few flesh wounds that were easily healed by his natural vitality and the life force he’d stolen via [Leech Strike]. In the end, he stood over a pile of mangled troll corpses, barely even breathing hard.

Zeke had come a long way from struggling with a couple of croco-rats, that was for sure. And he couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at his progress. However, he still had a long way to go, so he quickly searched the bodies for anything useful. When he didn’t find anything, he climbed back to the top of the mushroom and set off to look for another hunting party.

So it went for the next couple of days, with Zeke slowly whittling down his adversaries, and when he was finally satisfied that he’d killed them all, he was disappointed to find that he still hadn’t reached level nine. He was frustratingly close, but going by the amount of energy he’d gained in the past few days, it would take a hundred or more kills to pass that threshold. Maybe more, considering how little experience he got from each individual monster.

He sighed, sitting on the edge of a mushroom, his legs dangling under him as he took a moment to rest. Idly, he took out a piece of fish from his satchel, desperately trying not to remember what the sack was made of. If he could’ve afforded to discard it, he would have. But he had to carry his supplies in something, and his clothing had long since been ripped to shreds. Even if he was willing to go naked – which, if he was honest, he really wasn’t far from being – the cloth wouldn’t be suitable.

Zeke chewed on the fish. In the days since he’d caught and cooked it, it had dried out and grown chewy. He suspected that without his increased strength and durability, he wouldn’t have even been able to chew it. Certainly, he wouldn’t have dared to eat meat that had been sitting in a skin sack for days. That was a great way to end up eating tainted meat. But Zeke was confident in his sturdy constitution, so he didn’t think twice about it – especially considering the fish still retained quite a bit of its restorative property. Truthfully, that was the primary reason he even bothered to eat; with his improved vitality and endurance, he felt certain that he could go quite some time without sustenance. But there was no reason to chance it, given the fact that there were plenty of streams – and thus, plenty of fish – in the underground cave system.

After a while, Zeke slipped off the edge of the mushroom and began stalking through the fungal forest. He was confident that there weren’t any trolls left in the area, so he didn’t really need to sneak, but old habits were difficult to ignore, and he found himself flitting from trunk to trunk, his mace at the ready. It was a good thing, too, because a pair of wall creepers tried to ambush him after only a couple of minutes. However, he was well used to the danger they posed, and he dispatched them without much trouble.

Eventually, he came to his destination. A yawning opening loomed over him, the ground sloping upward on a sharp incline. He’d entered the fungal forest on the other side of the cavern, so it only stood to reason that the exit lay in this direction. The path’s grade only served to reinforce that surety, and Zeke set off without much hesitation.

For nearly a day, he climbed until he came to a branching path. On his right was the way up. He was certain of it. But he smelled trolls on the left. Given that he hadn’t forgotten the larder filled with human remains, he didn’t even consider ignoring what he knew from experience was a troll village. Sure enough, he only had to travel for a couple of hundred yards before a cavern spread out before him, filled with stone huts. In the center was a raging bonfire, but there were plenty of the hated monsters populating the village, even if most were asleep in their stone huts.

Zeke unhesitatingly went to work, unceremoniously exterminating the village’s population. Hundreds of trolls fell before him, most entirely unaware of the death that walked among them. Zeke no longer had any qualms about assassinating the monsters in their sleep, so the extermination went off without a hitch. He left only corpses in his wake as he turned back to the path and continued his climb.

Another couple of months passed like that, with Zeke following the same pattern, and he destroyed six more villages along the way. In retrospect, his earlier estimate that he would only need a hundred more kills in order to level seemed laughably erroneous. He had lost count of how many trolls he’d killed since then, but it had to be over a thousand. The problem was that he barely got any experience from assassinating the monsters in their sleep. However, he couldn’t really change his tactics, because he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance in a pitched battle against a hundred warriors, regardless of how powerful he’d become.

The only good news was that he knew he was drawing close to the exit. The air had changed, and it no longer smelled stale. Instead, it had an aura of life about it that he knew wasn’t possible within the cave system. Even the fungal forest, despite its abundance of life, had only managed to smell mustier than the rest of the cave system.

As he trekked through the cave system, the entire thing became something of a monotonous blur. The caves themselves were so similar that they were virtually indistinguishable from one another, and the villages he destroyed only differed in their varied sizes. Finally, almost two years after his rebirth, everything changed when he emerged from a tunnel and into an enormous, cylindrical cavern that stretched upward far enough that he couldn’t see the ceiling.

A spiraling ramp had been cut into the cavern walls, and Zeke could tell from how smooth its surface had become that it was a well-trod path. That assumption was further supported by the thousands of openings that dotted the cavern’s walls, presumably leading to the trolls’ domiciles.

He hadn’t just come upon a village. He’d found a veritable nation of trolls. And judging by the smell of the air, they all stood between him and freedom.

About thirty feet up the spiraling ramp, a troll emerged from one of the openings. For a moment, it only stared at him, obviously confused. But then, it barked a harsh, guttural shout that echoed throughout the enormous cavern. Zeke’s heart sank as he saw more of the monsters emerge from the walls. Hundreds. No, thousands of trolls gathered on the ramps, and they were all looking at him with murderous intent.

Zeke sighed, then rolled his shoulders. It had been a good run, and he’d almost made it. But he wasn’t optimistic about his chances of getting even halfway up the long ramp. Given the size of the cavern, it would take him hours to cover that much ground, and that was if he met no resistance. But now? If he had to wade through thousands of trolls, it would be days before he reached the top. And that was if his endurance could hold out for that long.

But he’d died before, hadn’t he? Perhaps this time, he could be reborn into a more hospitable situation. Or not, and he’d have the peace of oblivion to look forward to for all of eternity.

As hopeless as the situation was, though, Zeke didn’t really have it in him to simply give up. Nor did he relish the thought of retreat. He hadn’t yet acknowledged it, but he was exhausted, mentally, physically, and morally. Being on guard all the time for almost straight two years had affected him far more than he wanted to acknowledge, and that wasn’t even considering that he’d forced himself to ignore the moral implications of decimating an entire population of thinking creatures. Sure, he didn’t think he’d had much of a choice, especially given the contents of that larder he’d found. But it being necessary and him being okay with it were two very different things. He’d only shoved his objections to the side in favor of survival.

No - he would either go through the trolls, or he’d die. Those were the only real choices. And if he was going to go down, he’d do so fighting.

So, Zeke began his ascent with slow, steady steps that soon took him to the first group of trolls. The first troll swung a wicked looking iron axe, its jagged, uneven blade aiming to end the conflict before it even began. Zeke easily ducked under it, swinging Voromir with practiced ease. It connected with the troll’s kneecap, shattering it to the point where it almost ripped the entire leg in two. It instantly collapsed, clutching its ruined leg as it screamed in pain. As Zeke marched past him, he spared only a single stomp to the thing’s howling face, crushing its skull without a second thought. By the time he reached the next, he’d already forgotten the dead troll.

Zeke continued in that manner for hours, slaying innumerable trolls. The only solace of his climb lay in the relatively narrow ramp. It was only wide enough to accommodate three trolls standing abreast, so it severely limited their numerical advantage. And three-to-one was far from enough to overwhelm Zeke, who’d been killing much larger parties for months now.

Every now and then, a curse would sail out of the darkness to latch onto his body. Each time, Zeke felt the accompanying weakness, but over the course of the past months, he’d grown quite adept at unraveling the harmful runes. Thankfully, he didn’t have to spare much mental power to continue his steady ascent, because he needed everything he could spare to dismantle the curses. It wasn’t easy, but the alternative was to let them build up to the point where he eventually succumbed to overwhelming weakness. And while he’d resigned himself to death, he wouldn’t stop fighting so long as there was breath in his body.

Zeke lost track of time. There was only one more step. One more dead troll. One more curse to unravel. Over and over until it all became a blur of blood, death, and pain. His wounds began to accumulate, but with [Leech Strike] providing a surge of vitality with each swing, he managed to stay just ahead of his mounting injuries.

The minutes turned to hours, and the hours stretched into more than a day. But still, Zeke managed to keep going. Frightening amounts of experience flowed into his body, and on that ramp, he killed more trolls than he could count. But it never seemed to be enough. For every one that fell, another took its place. It felt like Zeke had fallen into some macabre version of hell that forced him into an endless battle with the hulking, scaly humanoids.

But just when he thought he couldn’t take one more step, Zeke reached the top. He looked around, his eyes wild, but there was nothing left to kill. He glanced back and saw the mountain of troll carcasses he’d left in his wake. He shuddered at the sheer volume of death he’d left behind.

A roar broke through his reverie, and he jerked his head back around to see a hulking form looming in the near distance. His fingers tightened on his mace, and he rolled his shoulders before stepping forward, ready to meet the latest challenge.