And that's all my stats allotted.
The system menu dimmed in front of me, numbers settling into place on the holographic screen.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[LEVEL 11 — STATUS UPDATED]
Stat Points Used: 13
Strength: 5 → 9
Intelligence: 1 → 3
Magic: 1 → 4
Resistance: 1 → 4
HP: 161 → 219/219
Mana: 132 / 156 → 214 / 214
Spell Compendium
-Kinetic Blast
-Resonance Shift
-Voidlash
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My breath slipped out in a slow, uneven exhale.
I guess leveling up restored my health and mana. Thank God.
The fresh HP and mana hit my body like a wave. It felt cool at first, then burning as everything tried to knit back together. The bruises didn't fade. The cuts stayed open.
But the worst of the pain was gone at least.
Strength first. I lacked brute raw force. Needed every hit I threw to actually matter against things bigger than me.
Resistance next. Not because I wanted it, because the Mawglut proved I wouldn't survive without it. My body had folded too fast under pressure. One more hit back there, and I'd have been paste on the floor.
Magic. I still can't believe magic exists, but I guess that's my life now. Kinetic Blast saved me, twice. I needed every bit of power I could squeeze from it. A bigger shockwave. A deeper push. A way to land a blow when I wasn't in arms reach.
Intelligence.
...Hopefully I can figure out what that does.
The menu faded out, taking the soft hum of system light with it.
I flexed my hands. My fingers still stung. My shoulder still felt like someone had wedged a stone fragment beneath the muscle.
But the pain in my head had cleared, and for the first time in… a while, I wasn't one breath away from collapsing.
Good.
Because the staircase to Floor 4 waited just ahead.
I dragged in a steady breath through my teeth and forced my legs to move. Each step throbbed with leftover damage, but at least I wasn't dragging myself anymore.
The air changed before I even reached the bottom, turning humid and warm, with an aftertaste of iron.
The stone under my boots softened, almost rubbery, the way heated metal does when it loses its shape. The walls curved around me in wide arcs, circular, cathedral-like, but warped, melting upward like wax to a flame.
A copper scent hit me like a punch.
Warm. Metallic. Blood.
A drip echoed.
Then another.
Can't really turn back now, can I? Let's not do the whole 'I'm scared' thing again, me.
The floor slowly came into view as I met the last stair.
TCH—
There—across the melted stone—stood a silhouette.
Tall. Motionless. Shoulders slightly hunched. Head angled down. Fingers twitching, barely.
Those empty white eyes tracked me the moment I entered, following the exact line of my breath, face shadowed by a crimson hood.
My throat tried to close.
tch-ta-ta-ta.
Its long bone finger clicked together in an eerie rhythm.
No. No, no—this… this sound.
"...Oh God."
A sound crackled across the chamber, bouncing off the warped walls like a broken metronome.
My stomach sank.
That sound. That impossible, crawling, clicking sound.
The same one that chased me and Sophia.
The one that stalked us through the dark.
The one we survived by inches.
But now—there was no light to run to. No escape hatch. No Sophia pulling me forward.
Just me. And it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ENTITY DETECTED]: Blood Wraith
Level: ???
[DOOMCYCLE: PROBABLE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Bloodwraith straightened—slowly, deliberately—vertebra by vertebra. Like it wanted me to watch every second of my own mistake.
Its head tilted, curious. Mocking.
A throb of panic ran down my arms. I spun toward the stairs, only to see a wall of dark red energy pulsing over the exit.
Of course.
Trapped again.
My breath hitched, shaking out of rhythm.
"I never asked for any of this…" I muttered. "But... whatever."
The Bloodwraith didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
It just stared at me like it was memorizing my fear.
I swallowed hard.
Then—without shifting a single muscle—its head twitched—
—too fast for my eyes to register—
—and the silhouette vanished.
Gone.
"...Shit."
I tightened my grip on the sword, scanning the warped cathedral walls. Every melted curve looked like it was hiding something. Blood dripped from the angled roofing in an imperfect rhythm.
But I didn't see... it.
"Okay…" I whispered. "Fine. Stay invisible. That's cool."
This thing wasn't like the others. It wasn't charging me. It wasn't roaring. It wasn't trying to overwhelm me with force.
It was studying me.
Learning me.
Waiting to see what I'd do.
TCH-tch-tch