Chapter 3: Blood in the Mud
The Whispering Woods lived up to their name. As Jack dragged himself deeper into the ancient forest, the wind whistling through the twisted, black-barked trees sounded like the hushed voices of the dead.
It was the third day of his seven-day limit.
A thick, suffocating fog had rolled in overnight, clinging to the damp earth and reducing visibility to a mere dozen paces. Every step Jack took was a calculated exertion of willpower. He was hauling over eighty pounds of rusted iron, high-tension steel wire, and a sealed clay jar of alchemical acid, all slung over his uninjured left shoulder in a burlap sack. His right arm, securely bound in its crude splint and leather brace, throbbed with a dull, rhythmic agony that synchronized with his heartbeat.
[Time Remaining: 4 Days, 16 Hours]
[Status: Extreme Fatigue, Minor Malnutrition, Fractured Radius/Ulna]
The system's crimson notifications occasionally flickered at the edge of his vision, cold and indifferent. Jack ignored them. He didn't need a glowing red screen to tell him his body was tearing itself apart. He knew it. He felt it in the burning of his lungs and the trembling of his calves.
By mid-morning, the dense foliage finally gave way to a clearing dominated by towering, moss-draped stone structures. This was the Ruined Aqueduct, a relic from an era before the current gods had descended, now reclaimed by nature and rot. The air here smelled heavily of turned earth, wet stone, and the undeniable, musky stench of a large predator.
He had found the territory of the Iron-hide Bristleback.
Jack dropped his burlap sack, his left arm shaking from the strain. He didn't have the luxury of resting. Carefully, methodically, he began to survey the terrain. The aqueduct consisted of massive stone arches, most of them collapsed, creating narrow, natural choke points. He found the perfect spot: a narrow corridor flanked by two indestructible, heavily rooted stone pillars. The ground between them was churned into deep, thick mud, marked with the massive, cloven hoofprints of a beast easily the size of a draft horse.
"Here," Jack whispered, his breath pluming in the cold air.
He went to work. With only one good arm, tying the high-tension steel wire was an exercise in pure torment. He wrapped one end around the base of the left pillar, pulling it taut with his teeth and his left hand, tearing the skin on his palm. He strung the wire across the choke point, exactly at the height of a large boar's chest, and anchored it to the right pillar. He layered three strands, braiding them together. The wire was dull grey, nearly invisible in the thick fog and dim light.
Next came the bear trap.
Jack dug a shallow depression in the mud just a few feet behind the wire. He hauled the massive, rusted contraption into the hole. Setting the heavy iron jaws required him to use his body weight, stepping on the levers while awkwardly prying the jaws apart with his good hand and a thick branch. The rusted metal groaned, fighting him every inch of the way.
Click. The trap locked open. It was a terrifying mechanism, its serrated teeth capable of snapping a grown man's torso in half. Jack carefully unpacked the clay jar of alchemical acid. His hands, usually steady, trembled slightly. A single drop of this sludge on his skin would eat through to the bone in seconds. He used a rag tied to a stick to carefully slather the thick, bubbling green sludge over the iron teeth of the trap.
He covered the mechanism with a thin layer of wet leaves and mud. The trap was set.
Now, he needed bait.
Jack drew a jagged, rusted iron spike he had taken from Groat's yard—his only weapon. He didn't have meat to spare, but he had something better. Something a Fallen Beast, starved for spiritual energy, would crave.
He unwrapped the bandages on his left hand, exposing the raw, split knuckles from his desperate training days ago. He took the iron spike and, without a moment's hesitation, dragged the sharp edge across his own palm.
A fresh, deep cut opened. Bright crimson blood welled up, dripping steadily onto the muddy ground right behind the trap.
"Come on," Jack hissed, smearing his blood on the surrounding stones to ensure the scent caught the wind. "Come get the garbage the heavens threw away."
He scrambled up the side of the collapsed aqueduct, finding a perch on a crumbling stone ledge about ten feet above the choke point. He lay flat on his stomach, the iron spike gripped tightly in his bleeding left hand, and waited.
Hours bled into one another. The fog thickened. The cold seeped into Jack's bones, stiffening his joints. His Endurance stat of 24 was the only thing preventing severe hypothermia.
Just as the weak, grey daylight began to fade into dusk, the ground vibrated.
It wasn't a sound at first, but a rhythmic tremor. Thud. Thud. Thud. Jack's breath caught in his throat. He peered over the edge of the stone ledge.
Emerging from the fog like a demon born of the earth was the Iron-hide Bristleback. It was monstrous. Standing over five feet tall at the shoulder, its body was covered not in fur, but in thick, overlapping plates of hardened clay and stone that pulsed with a faint, sickly-yellow light—the manifestation of its Earth-element Divine Seed. Its tusks were as long as swords, chipped and stained black with old blood. Its eyes burned with a mindless, feral rage.
This was a Rank 1 Initial entity. To a Rank 0 Mortal, it might as well have been a dragon.
The beast snorted, a cloud of hot steam erupting from its snout. It lowered its massive head, sniffing the ground. The scent of Jack's blood hit it. The creature let out a low, guttural squeal that shook the leaves from the trees, its yellow eyes snapping toward the choke point.
It began to trot forward, heavy and inevitable.
Faster, Jack prayed silently. If it walks, the wire will just snap. It has to charge. Jack grabbed a loose stone from the ledge. He pushed himself up into a crouch, ignoring the screaming pain in his right arm, and hurled the stone with all his remaining strength.
It struck the Bristleback square between the eyes. It didn't pierce the stony armor, but it achieved its purpose.
The beast roared, a deafening sound that vibrated in Jack's teeth. It looked up, locking its burning yellow eyes on the frail human perched above. To the beast, Jack was nothing but an insect—an insect that dared to challenge it.
With a squeal of pure, unadulterated fury, the Iron-hide Bristleback kicked up a spray of mud and charged.
It moved with a speed that defied its massive bulk. The earth shattered beneath its hooves. It closed the distance to the choke point in a heartbeat, a juggernaut of stone and muscle.
Jack held his breath.
TWANG. The sound of the high-tension steel wire snapping taut echoed like a gunshot.
The beast hit the invisible barrier at full velocity. The braided steel wire didn't snap. Instead, driven by the creature's immense momentum, it dug into the beast's broad chest. The stone-like armor plates cracked and shattered under the concentrated pressure. The wire sliced through the thick hide, tearing deep into the muscle beneath, spraying a torrent of hot, black blood across the pillars.
The Bristleback shrieked in agony, its momentum violently arrested. The wire finally snapped under the immense strain, but the damage was done. The beast stumbled forward, off-balance, its chest ripped open, its front legs buckling.
Its right hoof landed squarely in the muddy depression.
CLANG. The rusted bear trap snapped shut with devastating force. The iron jaws, powered by heavy springs, bit deep into the beast's foreleg, crushing through the stone armor and shattering the bone beneath.
But it wasn't just the physical trauma. The alchemical acid slathered on the teeth instantly reacted with the beast's blood. A plume of foul, green smoke erupted from the wound. The acid began eating through the beast's flesh, melting muscle and sinew, directly attacking the corrupted mana within its veins.
The forest erupted into a cacophony of monstrous shrieks. The Bristleback thrashed wildly, ripping the heavy iron trap from its chain anchor, throwing its massive head side to side, blindly destroying the stone pillars around it in a frenzy of pain.
It was crippled, bleeding, and burning, but it was still alive. And it was still Rank 1.
Jack didn't hesitate. If he gave it time to recover, its Divine Seed would begin to heal it. This was the moment.
He vaulted off the ten-foot ledge.
He landed heavily in the mud right beside the thrashing beast. The impact sent a shockwave of white-hot agony up his broken right arm, nearly making him black out. He bit his tongue, tasting copper, and forced his eyes open.
The beast saw him. Even with half its chest carved open and its leg trapped in melting iron, its killing intent was suffocating. It swung its massive, sword-like tusk in a brutal, sweeping arc toward Jack's torso.
Jack couldn't dodge completely. He threw himself backward into the mud. The tip of the tusk caught his thick canvas coat, tearing through the fabric and slicing a shallow, burning line across his ribs. The sheer kinetic force of the glancing blow sent Jack tumbling through the muck.
He scrambled to his knees, gasping for air, clutching his rusted iron spike in his left hand.
The Bristleback struggled to turn, its broken leg dragging the heavy, acid-smoking trap. It prepared to lunge again.
"Die!" Jack roared, a sound of pure, feral desperation.
He didn't retreat. He lunged forward, diving inside the beast's guard. He slammed his left shoulder into the creature's bleeding chest wound, using his own body weight to keep the beast off balance. The stench of acid and rotting blood was overwhelming.
The beast snapped its jaws at him, tearing a chunk of flesh from Jack's left shoulder. Jack didn't even flinch. His eyes were wide, completely consumed by the abyss of his own survival instinct.
With a guttural scream, Jack drove the rusted iron spike upward, aiming for the soft tissue beneath the beast's jaw.
His Rank 0 strength wasn't enough to pierce the thick hide on the first strike. The spike glanced off the bone.
The beast bucked, throwing Jack off. Jack landed hard on his back, the breath knocked out of him. The Bristleback reared up on its hind legs, preparing to bring its massive, uninjured hooves down to crush Jack's skull.
Time seemed to slow down. Jack saw the shadow of the beast descending. He saw the rain mixing with his own blood.
I am not dying in the mud.
As the beast crashed down, Jack rolled violently to the right. The hooves smashed into the earth where his head had been a fraction of a second prior, burying deep into the mud.
Using the last dregs of his kinetic energy, Jack sprang up, closing the distance instantly. The beast's head was lowered from the missed strike.
Jack grabbed the beast's ear with his bleeding left hand, pulling its head down to expose its eye. He raised his right arm—his broken, shattered arm, strapped in wood and leather. He bypassed the pain. He bypassed his mortal limits.
He didn't use the spike. He used his elbow.
With a sickening crunch, Jack drove his right, splint-wrapped elbow directly into the beast's burning yellow eye, putting every ounce of his 24 Endurance and sheer hatred into the blow.
The force shattered the beast's orbital bone. The beast went entirely rigid, a final, wet gasp escaping its maw, before its massive body collapsed sideways into the bloody mud, completely lifeless.
Jack fell to his knees beside the carcass. His breathing was ragged, wet, and shallow. He was bleeding from his ribs, his shoulder, and his hand. His right arm was completely numb, the splint cracked from the final impact.
He had done it. A Mortal had slain an Acolyte beast.
Before he could even process the victory, the world around him shifted. The ambient mana in the air, which had always ignored him, suddenly rushed toward him, completely bypassing the corpse of the Fallen Beast.
A blinding, blood-red light erupted in his vision, and the mechanical, sinister voice echoed in his mind, louder than ever.
[TARGET ELIMINATED: RANK 1 (INITIAL) IRON-HIDE BRISTLEBACK.]
[FIRST QUEST COMPLETED: BLOOD FOR BLOOD.]
[EVALUATING PERFORMANCE...]
[HOST UTILIZED NO MANA. HOST UTILIZED PURE BRUTALITY AND TACTICS.]
[RATING: PERFECT SLAUGHTER.]
[REWARDS INCOMING...]
[Initiating Forced Breakthrough to Rank 1 (Acolyte - Initial).]
[System Upgrading to Level 2.]
[Granting 1x Mythic Skill...]
A sensation unlike anything Jack had ever felt exploded in his chest. It wasn't the warm, gentle light of the Heavens that the nobles spoke of. It was a searing, violent inferno of dark, heavy energy that ripped through his veins, forcibly widening his mortal meridians, burning away his weakness.
The God Slayer had taken his first step.