Chapter 15

Luke stared into the beady eyes of a scorpion before quickly stepping back, unsheathing his sword as he did so. A few long seconds later, it clambered out of its chamber, the wall closing behind it with the same mechanized whir with which it had opened. Leaving Luke alone with the bug.

It was a translucent white that seemed to glow in the dim light of the torches along the wall. Luke would have thought that it looked cool if it weren't for the fact that it was the size of a large dog. Or if it wasn't staring at him from a few feet away.

Luke's eyes darted between its crablike claws and its large stinger poised for attack and already dripping a sickly orange venom that sizzled when it fell onto the ground.

Gulping, Luke strapped his shield onto his arm in preparation for what was to come. For the moment, at least, the creature seemed content to just stare at him. Not one to waste an opportunity, Luke pulled an explosive talisman from his inventory, already primed and attached to a rock for easy use. He counted down the seconds in his head, and right when it was about to blow, he rolled it under the scorpion, hoping for a repeat of how he and the others had killed the snake oh so long ago.

It exploded with a bang that echoed throughout the hall, temporarily blinding him with a flash of light and obscuring the creature in smoke. When the smoke cleared, Luke was dismayed by what he saw. The scorpion, other than having been pushed slightly back and flipped over, was unaffected. The explosive talisman had proved incapable of damaging its chitinous armor.

This just got a lot harder.

Luke shivered at the sound of its eerie hiss and watched it struggle to right itself before he decided to attack while it was off-balance, realizing that just standing there and letting it recover was a bad idea. Shield raised, Luke advanced carefully before slashing at the thing with his sword. His blade bit into its armored claw, but the cut was a mild inconvenience to the creature at best. Not deep enough to hinder its mobility.

I need to aim for its weak spots.

Luke struck again, this time aiming for the connective tissue between its main body and its arm, only to stagger back as the stinger sank into his shield with a thunk. He blinked in surprise as the sharp point of the stinger managed to poke through the metal of the shield completely, barely missing his arm. Watching a single drop of venom ooze out of the stinger, he vanished the shield, returning it to his inventory. Free of its weight, he gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and swung it with all his strength. He grinned in satisfaction as the scorpion's thin tail fell to the ground with a meaty thump. The creature had been too slow to retract it, giving him the opportunity to destroy its stronger weapon.

"Yeah, that's right!" Luke yelled out in excitement as it hissed again, this time in pain.

Stepping forward confidently, now that his foe was unarmed and considerably less dangerous, he stood just outside the range of its claws and stabbed his golden blade straight through its head, executing the creature without an ounce of sympathy. Its monstrous nature failed to evoke even a shred of sympathy in Luke.

+4 Stat Points

All right! Four whole points for that thing. It must have been stronger than those harpies. Twice as strong if the points that I got from it are to be believed.

Luke stared at the monster's corpse before collecting its tail and dropping the entirety of the scorpion's corpse into his inventory.

Who knows—might come in useful. Just the venom seems handy to have in this fucked-up world. If not, I might be able to sell it somewhere. If cultivators will pay for harpy wings, then they'll pay for this.

Resting for a moment longer, Luke retrieved the shield from his inventory and did his best to clean the venom off with a rag he'd sneaked into his inventory. Knowing that he'd probably need to use the shield again, and likely soon, it was better to make it serviceable in advance. Luckily, whatever the venom was, it apparently wasn't strong enough to eat through metal, and it wiped off without too much effort.

I should have bought a better shield, though, Luke thought, looking through the hole the scorpion had made. The one he had purchased was decent, but it lacked any enchantments that would let it withstand the enhanced strength of cultivators and monsters.

He sighed as he distributed the stat points. One into Strength, one into Agility, with the remaining two going into Constitution.

I'll get the Arcana stat next time. Spending points on it right now will make me weaker in the short term. I have a feeling that I'll need all the athleticism I can get. He clenched his fists. I keep forgetting how good it feels to add points to my physical stats. Really beats getting them by working myself to the bone all day, that's for sure.

All right. Enough waiting around. Let's get this over with.

Luke walked forward, watching his step carefully in case he triggered another trap. Perhaps one that was immediately deadly, unlike the scorpion. He felt that was unlikely, considering that this was supposed to be an inheritance, but it was better to be safe than dead.

Eventually, he reached the end of the corridor and walked into a large circular room. Hearing another whirring noise, he raised his sword and shield in preparation of an attack, only to see that the path he came from had closed behind him.

Well, this is ominous, Luke thought, frowning as he stepped onto sand. He took in the view around him. It made him nervous, as there was no way to get into or out of the place. Relaxing his guard slightly, he paced around the room looking for clues.

There's no way I'm just trapped in here, is there?

Avoiding panicking as best as he could, he walked around the room, his steps muffled by the sand on the ground. Frowning, he dug his foot into it, wondering if the way out was down. He found the same cobblestone as earlier, an inch or two deep.

Five minutes later, when Luke was really starting to panic, he heard another whirring noise. Thinking it was another monster, he readied himself for combat, only to blink in confusion as another person walked into the room. The second he was fully in, the wall shut behind him.

"Hi," Luke said, looking at the person who came in with curiosity, carefully noting his drawn blade and black robes.

He looks vaguely familiar. Probably an Outer Disciple from the society.

"Hey," the Outer Disciple responded, looking surprised to see Luke. "I'm Nafik." He started walking forward, sword lowered, but not sheathed, only to stop when Luke stepped away from him. Irila's warning played over and over inside his head.

"Luke," he eventually responded.

"It's nice—"

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted as a metal plate fell from the ceiling right at his feet. Luke watched him lean over it, reading something inscribed on it, before peering over and attempting to read it himself. Only for Nafik to step on it, stopping him from doing so.

"What are you doing?" Luke asked, stepping away the next moment. The other disciple rapidly closed the distance between them and slashed his sword, aiming right at Luke's neck.

Tanking the attack with his shield, Luke's arm shook under the strain. Nafik was a lot stronger than he was.

He stepped back, and the two of them stared at each other with caution, their weapons raised defensively.

Either he's insane, or the thing said something about one of us killing the other. Likely the latter—he seemed inclined to play nice before it fell. Either way, I'm at a disadvantage. He isn't at the late stage, unless he changed out of his robes, but he's still a lot stronger than me. If I'm going to win this, I'll have to be clever. One mistake, though, and I'm dead.

The thought sent chills down Luke's spine. He'd been in a hundred fights at the society's arena up till now and had even fought monsters straight out of legend. He'd never been in mortal danger, though. The fights in the arena were as civil as a fight could be, and when he had fought monsters, it had been with confidence—confidence that he was safe. With the benefit of having allies more experienced than himself watching over him.

If he lost here, though, he was dead. Using a charge would call Arke down, and he wasn't sure it would be enough to get away from her. Not that he wanted to use a charge in the first place. To Luke, those were his largest aces, and he was beyond reluctant to waste them on someone who, while stronger than him, didn't hold a candle to his real enemies.

Their standoff lasted a moment longer before Nafik started probing for weaknesses in Luke's stance. Circling him slowly, occasionally shuffling forward in what Luke thought was meant to be a feint before stepping back when Luke didn't take the bait.

After a few attempts, Luke's opponent decided that his strategy of trying to lure Luke in wasn't working and instead backed up, leaving ample room between the two.

He's strong, but not a fighter. He also looks like he's in his early twenties. Probably one of those people who couldn't develop his mana sense.

"All right, let's talk." Nafik lowered his sword.

"Why?"

Luke enjoyed the flabbergasted look on Nafik's face as he struggled to come up with a response.

"You don't want to know what the plate said?"

Luke peered at it lying on the ground.

"I think I can guess."

His opponent frowned before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an explosive talisman. He ripped it carelessly and crumpled it in his grip.

Luke blinked in surprise, taken aback by the reckless action, as his opponent held on to the slip of paper, clearly waiting to run down the time on its countdown before throwing it at Luke.

This would be bad … if I didn't have an already activated protective talisman in my inventory. How should I play this?

Luke grinned at him. When the talisman was two seconds away from bursting, he retrieved his protective talisman from his inventory and ran toward his opponent. He savored the look of shock on Nafik's face as the distance between them shrank.

This guy really is an idiot. Did he really think I would just stand there and take the hit? Whatever he is, he's not a good fighter, though. I should be grateful for that, at least.

He slung the crumpled talisman at Luke, only to have it bounce off the blue bubble surrounding him with unexpected force and ricochet back where it came from.

Nafik raised his arm to slap it away—

BANG!

Luke blinked the spots of color out of his eyes before realizing that his protective bubble had vanished just in time to deflect a crude attack from Nafik, who had survived the detonation. Not unscathed, though. He was missing half the fingers on his left hand, and blood dripped out of every orifice on his head.

Gross.

Luke stepped back to avoid another poorly executed attack and watched as his opponent stumbled and fell to his knees a moment later, dropping his sword and grabbing his mangled and bloody left hand with his right. He squeezed tightly in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

"Arghhh!" he screamed.

Wincing in sympathy, Luke stepped forward and kicked his sword away, watching Nafik carefully as he inched toward the plate.

It read: "Amid the chaos, a victor emerges strong. Loser fades away, dead."

A pretty rosy way of saying "kill each other." Luke frowned.

It would be easy to do it. Luke had learned, firsthand, what death was like. Having experienced it personally, and by killing other things. Monsters, but still. To Luke, it counted.

Killing another human, though, wasn't something he was sure about. He'd thought that it might happen eventually. It was hard not to, after he heard Irila's little speech. Except, now that it was actually happening, he found himself frozen.

Frozen and angry.

Why couldn't he have just died in the explosion? Or kept fighting. At least then it would be in the heat of the moment, and not a fucking execution.

He paced in front of his defeated opponent.

"You don't have to kill me," Nafik pleaded, having regained some composure under the looming threat of death.

Luke glared at him but didn't say anything. Finally, he sighed and walked up to him, his sword glinting ominously in the light of the torches.