I looked out on the rough maze below me that I'd meticulously erected over the past month. It was a chaotic mix of highs and lows. Stone pillars jutted into the sky, taller than some tenement buildings, and valleys terminated in complicated mining tunnels hollowed out with precise Earth manipulation. I had every inch of the place memorized thanks to my perfect memory.
A low mystical mist hid most of the valley from my Seventh Sense, which had reached level nine by now, and scattered throughout the maze of an island were one hundred lower demons summoned by Constantine and Shelim.
He'd requested to be excused from the mist spell's effective radius to stand more of a chance against me since I'd gained an electricity resistance. He'd also, very reluctantly, asked that I limit myself to one Cursed Technique.
Naturally, I chose Cursed Inventory, one of my two original techniques and by far one of my most versatile.
To squeeze even more out of the encounter, I decided I'd use no reinforcement during our fight.
Why?
My Heavenly Restriction. One of these days, I'd need to flip it on, likely in a fight against Artisan. Higher stats translate to better performance, especially with Curse Piercer and my bone weapons. It was also why I'd kept up with all of my skills.
Several of them had crossed the level 10 threshold, and several more were on the cusp, but I knew they weren't going to be enough, not when I was up against a sorcerer who had just as many techniques, a body that was stronger, and a Domain Expansion.
I suppose that's what Shelim and the twins were for. Constantine swore by his plan, but I had my doubts.
Letting out a short breath, I summoned my new and improved bone armor around me. Creaks and hard joints had been tweaked to perfection, and my undershirt was made from tiny bone scales. The visor left my sight unrestricted, and two short javelins manifested in my palms as I took a step over the edge and sprinted on my way down.
A pillar of fire speared up to meet me but crashed into Curse Inventory, vanishing into its maw. My back and arm muscles swelled with blood and stamina as I called on Body Control and launched my javelins. One went in the direction the fire had come from, and the second in the direction I saw a distant flicker of red.
The air split twice, and then there was a crash, kicking up a dust cloud that I cut through as I summoned a boar spear nearly twice as tall as I was and pointed it downward.
It caught the recovering demon in the back, burying him deeper into his freshly dug-out crater. It was a large, vaguely dragonoid-looking thing with webbed wings far too small to give it lift. It had skin with the texture and color of human leather, and musculature that vaguely resembled those Blockbuster monstrosities.
It let out a strangled scream that sounded like nails dragged over a chalkboard. The unnatural pitch rattled my soul.
With a mental tug, I commanded the blade of the spear to morph. It pulled bone matter from the spear's length and warped, growing spikes that perforated what passed for organs inside the demon. Blood gushed out of its wounds, and experience poured into me, alerting me to its death.
I broke off the tip of the spear as I leaped back, narrowly avoiding a fireball that swallowed up the demon's carcass.
The other flame breather emerged from the mist, a javelin still stuck in its shoulder as it hissed at me and charged. Lightening my body with Body Control, I slipped around the charging beast, opened up its side with the freshly shaped glaive blade of my spear, and finished it off with a stamina-enhanced stab to the jaw.
My system rewarded me with some experience points.
That was a lot less exciting than I'd hoped, but it was still early days. Shaping some bone to add to my spear, I took off into the mist, seeking my next challenge.
—
I battled imps, fast blade dancers, and a magma manipulator that melted a quarter of the maze and forced me into the air, where I summoned a bow and arrow made from flexible bone and tendons and started pelting him with giant arrows the size of spears.
I eventually ended the fight the way I did the first, descending with a massive spear pierced through the magma demon's eye.
My most challenging fight by far was with an eight-eyed witch that twisted my perception of reality and made me relive my worst memories.
It was raining again, and I was as helpless as I had ever been, watching over and over as Black Mask's thug executed my brother, my best friend, in front of me. No amount of shouting, resistance, or rage changed anything.
After the fifth death, I realized this wasn't some convoluted test I could beat; it was some sick torture device designed to make me despair, transform me into prey so that the demon could consume me.
By the tenth run through the first memory, I'd deadened my heart to the sight of Ed's death and forced my mental tormentor to get more creative. I was transported back onto Priya's cutting board, taken apart over and over again in the arenas by the dead and living faces of sorcerers I was now supposed to be allying myself with, and, worst of all, I watched Sasha and Candice die over and over and over again.
It went on for days. Dull, repetitive mental anguish. The demon began speaking at some point, their voice barely above a whisper. It was insidious, almost successfully disguising itself as my inner monologue.
It blamed me for their deaths. Directly and indirectly, it claimed that I was somehow responsible.
At first, it was easy to tell it to fuck off, but it grew more aggressive, more varied in its torment, subtler, and more vicious too. Gritting my teeth was what kept me going after what must have been day twenty, and then the invisible dam inside me broke.
Mental Resistance has reached level 10
90% resistance against psychic attacks and intrusions
Subskill: Psychic Mirror. Reflect a mental attack received at double the strength back to the attacker.
New Adaptation Completed
Psychic Resistance has evolved into Psychic Control.
You've unlocked the Willpower Stat, and it allows you to psychically interact with and manipulate the world around you.
Current Willpower: 201
The notification was like a jolt to the heart and gave me the second wind I needed. And so, bit by bit, inch by inch, I ripped, tore, and pushed back, triggering my new subskill.
A storm of psychic energy raced up the psychic tethers linking me to the illusion demon. It shrieked, and blessed reality returned.
My armor was shattered, the larger pieces nearly gone, and my left hand was a bloody stump. Claws extended from the tips of my remaining hand like I was some kind of wild animal.
And across from me stood the bloodied demon, covered in dozens of scratch marks. Two of its eight eyes were missing.
For a while, I doubted my eyes, convinced that this was yet another trick, even as my chest rose and fell and hot breath fled my lungs.
The eight-eyed mental demon shouted something in a demonic tongue and tried gathering magical energy again, but he was cut short by the reversal of Cursed Inventory: Feast
The fire I'd stolen from the first demon I'd fought belched out, swallowing the creature whole. It ignited instantly in a foul-smelling pyre, and experience poured in—enough to get me to level 49.
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