Ding! Ding! You’ve defeated a [Shambler Low Knight, Lvl 26]. Experience rewarded.

You’ve leveled up from Lvl 16 to Lvl 17. Cestus Art leveled up from Lvl 11 to Lvl 13. Experience rewarded.

John dumped his new unspent AP into [Endurance] without too much thought, raising it to 40 AP. He added his new available MCP to [Ratel Rookie], bringing it up to 15 MCP.

At the same time, his hands moved shakily to dig into his pouches and pull out a couple of vitality stones. He crushed them and absorbed the healing magic, saving himself from bleeding out. Only then did John allow himself to observe his latest masterpiece.

As he did so, Xanhilt and Noname ran out from the misty shadows of the forest and joined him in the basin. The three of them together regarded the crumpled form of the knight resting like a broken toy at the base of the evil tree. The breastplate was heavily dented inward from the hammering strike of John’s blessing. The war scythe had fallen into the ground point first and now stuck out between the teens and the fallen monster.

“I did it,” John said, still riding the high of the moment. Uncontrollable shudders passed through him, rattling him to the soul. “I fucking stared death in the face and punched it. Holy shit!”

John swooned. Although he wasn’t hurt anymore, he felt overwhelmed by intense emotions that gripped his core. Unable to keep his cool due to the exertion, he bent forward, bracing his hands on his knees. He howled like an animal, letting out the wild man inside of him that solo’d a stronger monster. The wild man that took the most daring avenue to victory and made good use of his one shot to success.

When he started to calm down, he looked over at Xanhilt and Noname, who were still tense. The smile on John’s face faltered. Before he could ask them what was wrong, he paid attention to their environment.

He listened to the mad utterings filling the air that he’d completely overlooked. The sounds came from the tree itself. Its branches trembled as if it was scratching at the blood-red air. The flesh vines and moss hanging on the boughs whipped about. The mist that was gathered close to the ground circled around the area as blood puddles bubbled up from the earth.

John let out an exasperated breath, straightening to his full height. He could feel himself getting worn out beneath the flesh⁠—his [Soul] had grown weary after a day of trials. But the evening had more in store for him and his companions.

“Why can’t things be simple with this place?” John asked, hopping up and down as if he was preparing for a second round.

“The gods are cruel and creative, I bet,” Xanhilt hissed, raising a hand in preparation to use his primary magic core.

“Look at the bright side,” Noname said, whirling around her reconnected rope knife. “You’ll never have a boring moment here.”

The girl assassin had a point, but John wondered if there would come a time when Urmatia would cease to surprise him.

“Ektor? Where art thou, Ektor?” cried the flesh tree as it shook more violently.

Oh hell no, John thought.

“Ektor? Has the time come for me to go home?” Its warbling feminine voice resonated around the basin, bouncing off the walls. “Will Brother play nice? Will Mother let me dance? Will Father leave his office? What more must I do, Ektor, to win their love and be reacquainted with my true garden?”

The air grew heavy with a sweet and rotten musk. A bubble formed in the middle of the trunk. From within the protrusion, a wide-mouthed face stretched the surface of the bubble. A sound like paper tearing joined the cacophony of noises coming from the horrid tree.

A woman’s skinless face appeared in the middle of the trunk, looking directly at the teens with bright blue eyes. Then she glanced down at the crumpled form of the dead knight.

“Ektor? Ektor, my dear friend, no!” she squealed, becoming identifiable as a [Shambler Low Dryad, The Young Mistress, Lvl 28].

John gaped at the latest monster Urmatia had to offer, his stomach churning.

Xanhilt aimed a shaky hand at the monster. It looked like he was as lost for words as John.

“I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff, but this is a little too freaky for even me,” Noname said dryly. “I’m gonna use my blessing now. Stay back, you two.”

Clawing hands erupted from the bloody earth before Noname got to press the attack. John counted at least two dozen pairs reaching, snatching, digging to escape from the muddy ground. One of them was coming up right in front of John, staring up with eyes just as blue as the young mistress’s.

“Rest your worries, sir,” said the [Flayed Servant Shambler, Lvl 20], crawling out of the hole it dug. “You will find refuge here. The young mistress will end all of your pain, rescue you from the hero gods, and make you one of us.”

“No, thanks,” John said, punching the monster in the face.

Its head snapped back, and the body followed a few steps. It nearly fell back into the hole it made. But then it swung forward with its hands fully extended. Stalks of bone like sharpened quills sprouted from its palm, wrists, and forearms.

“Rest your worries!” it screamed, taking a swipe at John.

It was easy enough to dodge. But John’s worries wouldn’t rest so easily. He felt the air stir pretty hard from the missed attack. It might not be as strong as him, but there were two dozen of the suckers against three teens who were lower level. On top of that, John quickly noticed how the other [Flayed Servant Shamblers] started to maneuver around as if to enclose John and the others in a circle.

Xanhilt used [Gale Stream] to buffer the lead servant backward. The creature showed enough resistance to stay on its feet as parts of its flesh flew off. It screamed madly about wanting to give them aid until it finally returned to its rightful place⁠—the ground⁠—which was accompanied by a ding for John’s assistance.

But that one kill is easily replaced by two dozen more, John thought. The option to escape was closing. They would have to back out the way they came, and the shamblers seemed to know that. They moved around to close off the backdoor. Looking over at the others, John saw Xanhilt crushing a mana-stone and Noname standing back while she whirled her knife.

“Are you waiting for something?” John asked her.

“Yup,” she said. “Just give it a few more seconds.”

John stood still, trusting Noname. Xanhilt did the same.

The shamblers shut out their escape option. They made a circle around them and started to draw closer, cinching the noose slowly. They didn’t move very fast, but they didn’t move carelessly either. Spines and blades grew from their arms as they reached out toward John and his companions.

The shamblers filled the air with insane mutterings about the aid and safety and freedom they would provide while under the young mistress’s care. As they went on, the dryad itself wept fiercely over the crumpled knight at the base of her twisted tree body.

“I’ve never done this before,” Noname said, sounding incredibly serene. “But is it okay for you guys to trust me?”

“If it saves us from this nightmare, sure!” Xanhilt yelled.

“I’m game,” John said.

“Then get on the floor right next to me,” she instructed.

The shamblers sped up, taking long strides to close the gap. They were moments away from ripping them apart from all sides. The instinct to stand his ground and fight was strong, but John dove into the muddy ground beside Noname’s boots. Xanhilt joined him on the other side of the girl assassin.

The shamblers swung at Noname with their spiked limbs, aiming for her first before they would eventually pile on top of the boys. None got any closer than an inch before Noname’s blessing lashed out as a whirlwind of darkness.

It fluttered out from behind her shoulder blades and spiraled around her like a tattered cape of condensed shade. Its ends protruded long whip-like threads that cleaved through the nearest of the shambler hordes. Limbs fell freely. Whole torsos were split from the clavicle to the hip. Heads rolled. Blood gushed so heavily John got some of it in his mouth and started to retch.

“My [Cape of Bladed Darkness] is about to end,” Nonamed said. “Three, two, one, move!”

Despite his disgust, John scrambled to his feet. He could barely see where he was going with all of the blood covering his face. He wounded up running into someone⁠—Xanhilt⁠, and they both nearly tripped over each other. A little hand snatched his own. The hand holding onto him⁠—Noname’s⁠—led him in a certain direction that he trusted was the way to safety.

A screaming shambler assaulted his side, tearing the flesh off of John’s torso. Another struck his back, making John hiss in pain as he stumbled blindly with only Noname’s hand as his guide. Then the attacks stopped altogether, and John sensed that they were out of the worst of it.

He wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked back from where they ran. Half of the shamblers laid in pieces while the other half lumbered after them. The remaining ones lost a few arms, and one of them was crawling after losing a leg, but they looked a lot more manageable now after Noname cut their numbers down.

“That was kind of tasty,” Xanhilt said, licking blood off his scaly lips. “If I wasn’t moments away from getting ripped apart….”

“Please don’t say anymore,” John said, pulling out two vitality stones to crush and heal up.

“Wanna hear the good news or bad news first?” Noname asked as the three jogged together to keep away from the shamblers. They kept a wide berth of space from the center of their trouble, the dryad.

The mob was relentless, but they weren’t entirely quick. The young mistress was occupied with crying over Ektor, the knight John had obliterated. John and his companions had some space to talk.

“Bad news first,” John said.

“Unless Xanhilt has his blessing ready⁠ after resting—”

“It still hasn’t recovered,” the saurian said.

“Welp,” Noname said. “We’re going to have to kill the tree lady with less cheat power and more murder-strikes since she’s the source of this. It’s either that or we run away to keep from getting overwhelmed by the mob.”

“What’s the good news?” Xanhilt asked.

“I’m Lvl 15 now,” she said. “And I got lots of agility. That’s cool, right?”

Xanhilt furrowed his brow. “I expected better news.”

“It is better,” she said. “Better than your level.”

John hopped over a shambler hole, slowing down since they rounded far enough away from danger to catch their breath. So many shocking things happened in such a quick session he couldn’t really think straight until he got a moment to assess things. He wondered if they should continue to commit to this fight or let it go as Noname suggested. The girl would probably throw herself into a deathmatch no problem, but Xanhilt was obviously more concerned with survival.

They were all out of blessings, the [Flayed Servant Shamblers, Lvl 20] still had a good amount of life to them despite their injuries and reduced numbers. John didn’t really know what the tree lady could do, which worried him. She hadn’t been an active participant yet. She could probably ruin their entire evening once she got going if they allowed it to happen.

All and all, they were incredibly fortunate right now to be ahead in this game.

When y’know you’re winning on the scoreboard, just take it easy and ride out, Coach Jackson would say. He had been a tough guy in the old world, but he was sensical, too. Outboxers took their points and went out with the win so they could keep fighting and winning later.

“Alright, let’s make one more pass, grab that war scythe, and duck out of here,” John said. “I think this is the most we can do without having to put our lives on the line any further.”

“We’re going to follow the compass now and not get off track?” Xanhilt asked, perking up as they started jogging again. The shamblers had split off to go around their young mistress. But there was plenty of room to avoid the shamblers and holes.

“No more detours, I promise,” John said. “It’s straight there. We live to fight another day.”

Fleshy roots shot out of the ground all around the basin. Every escape route had roots barring the way like cage doors. John’s heart plummeted as the roots reached up to thirty feet while remaining slick with blood. They also grew thorns as long as John’s forearm for good measure.

“So, the option to run never really existed,” Xanhilt said bitterly. “It was an illusion of an option.”

John sighed.

“Should I grab the knife and weapon art up?” Noname asked nonchalantly. “I’ll do it if you tell me. Other than that, I can use the long sharp stick, but it doesn’t show up as a weapon art option.”

John took a few seconds to think about it as they reached the [Low Knight’s War Scythe, Good]. He grabbed it and offered it to Noname, which would give her +5 [Strength] and +5 [Poise]. “I still think we can do this without that weapon art. If we take each shambler down together, then finish off the boss, it’ll be a wrap.”

“Kind and ambitious,” Noname said.

“Agreed,” Xanhilt said.

John flashed them a brave smile despite how gross and scared he felt inside. It was sheer willpower that kept him going while faced with horrid evil with no real way out. That cool edge he had while facing the knight was gone. All that remained was an intensely frightened guy making sense of the grim game as it progressed.

Soon as the girl assassin took the war scythe, the young mistress emitted an ear-piercing scream. It forced John to hunch over, grasping at his ears from the sheer pain drilling into his head. He saw Noname use the war scythe as a prop to hold herself up. Xanhilt leaned against John for support.

When the screaming stopped, the shamblers started moving a little faster. Their eyes glowed red with hatred and murderous intent. They stopped muttering lies about aid and howled like animals.

The young mistress sprouted knobby arms on each side of her face, giving her a wingspan of thirty feet. She reached out with a giant, skeletal hand that could wrap around any of their torsos.

John and Xanhilt recovered quickly enough from the shocking scream. Noname was still reeling when John grabbed her and yanked her away from the young mistress’s grab attempt. He turned and saw Xanhilt opening up on the nearest shambler with [Gale Stream].

When they were about to join the saurian’s side, John felt the muddy ground rumble underneath him. He looked down. A hundred red, grass-like blades pushed upward in a circle about ten feet wide.

John’s eyes widened with realization. It had to be the work of something divine⁠—outside of Urmatia’s pantheon of gods⁠—that reminded John of Reggie’s hatred for area of effect attacks.

Xanhilt just finished killing a shambler when John grabbed him by the back of his tunic. He held Noname like a rag-doll as she clung onto the war scythe. With a hasty burst of [Dash Step], John flew with his friends off the AoE. A split second later, bladed tendrils shot up like spikes where they had been standing. A geyser of blood and mud rained around the area, splattering them.

John slipped on the landing, dropping onto his back. Xanhilt rolled into a hole. Noname used the war scythe to bring herself to a halt while staying on her feet. The three of them barely had time to recollect themselves as shamblers pressed at them with an aggressive charge.

They came from the front, the left, and the right.

Behind them, parts of the fleshy-thorny cage formed thin and barbed whips. The whips weren’t quite close enough to strike, but if John and his friends moved any further back, they would enter a masochist’s wet dream.

But wait, there was more. The young mistress didn’t seem to get the memo about the levels of shit John and his friends were in and decided to pile more on them. She scooped up mud and threw it.

She threw lots of it in scattered sprays.

It did little to no damage.

But it was distracting.

It was heavy and disgusting.

And it’s pissing me the fuck off! John thought angrily. He let [Ratel Rookie] take over from here, unable to tolerate this cluster-fuck any longer.