"The Hollow Queen, huh?" Curtis said, striking a pose, his blade disappearing into his inventory again. "Sounds interesting."

  Trying to look past the other Integrated's annoying personality and arrogance, Luke took a deep breath. "So, you want to do this together, or what?"

  "No," Curtis said. He turned and walked off down the street.

  It wasn't a great idea to antagonize others as a healer, perhaps. Damage output wasn't Luke's specialty, and dealing with monsters took more than resilience. Still, Curtis was an ass. It was time to learn how to deal with a dungeon on his own, then, at least until more people arrived.

  The portal stood in place, shimmering in that inviting light blue. Luke walked up to it and through, risking being locked out just to test its functionality. Returning to that empty street was as easy as leaving it. Sirens blared in the distance, approaching. He turned around and stepped back inside. The portal let him through again without issue. Good to know.

  Curtis stood there with a sullen look on his face, spatters of blood on his dark leather armor.

  "Changed your mind already?" Luke asked.

  With no warning, Curtis leapt at Luke, throwing them both to the ground. The back of Luke's head thudded against the pavement, and he saw stars as he struggled to push the contender for worst person in all of Chicago off him. Curtis's fingers grew and elongated into claws that raked Luke across his shoulder. Pain flared, and Luke grunted, shifting Curtis to the side so Luke could roll away and get to his feet.

  "Curtis! What the fuck!?" Luke shouted, watching as Curtis got to his feet.

  That’s when it sunk in. This wasn't Curtis.

  "Hollow," Luke spat, summoning his new quarterstaff into his hands.

  The Hollow twitched, its head tilting as it opened its maw to show teeth growing longer. Again, it threw itself at Luke, but this time, he had ample time to defend himself. Attempting to swing the quarterstaff into the side of the Hollow's head, he missed and instead struck its raised arm, breaking the bone and rendering the monster's arm useless. The force of the blow threw the Hollow to the side, and Luke followed up, putting as much weight as he could muster into another strike. This one hit its back and didn't seem to do much in the way of damage.

  The wound in his shoulder pulsed with pain, stealing strength out of his arms when he needed it most. Luke put a hand to the shoulder and released healing mana into the wound, closing it in an instant, but burning through half of his available mana. The cost stung, but this was no time for stinginess. Holding the staff felt awkward, like he didn't know what he was doing, because the last time he'd swung a stick around was as a kid.

  Stepping in for another swing, Luke got a decent blow in on the monster's shoulder, but then it rose without a sound, the flesh in its arm undulating. A loud snap sounded as the bone set itself.

  "Self-healing," Luke muttered. "How nice for you."

  It came at him again, charging in a straight line.

  Inspected: Monster. Hollow. Level. 5.

  "Oh no, you don't!" Luke shouted, slamming the quarterstaff down into the Hollow's head with a crunch. There was something satisfying about doing that on something wearing Curtis's face.

  The monster crumpled to the ground, twitching but not dead. Luke watched as its head writhed, like the arm just did. Self-healing.

  "Even from a head wound?" Luke shouted, exasperated.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Another decisive attack from the quarterstaff slowed its healing progress, but it didn't stop. Blunt force trauma was not a good match against these creatures, Luke deduced. Another few attacks on the thing's arms forced it to use some of that self-healing on its limbs too, slowing the regeneration of its head. That gave Luke a brief window where it wasn't flailing around with its claws. Putting the quarterstaff into his inventory, Luke leapt on top of the twitching bastard and put a hand to its forehead.

  Needle of Life affixed to a Thread of Mana pierced its head, ignoring the skull to attack the brain itself. It didn't have a brain, not exactly, but the inside was a complicated mess of mana channels. Luke severed them, but even that was not enough. The damn things regenerated too! Still slashing at the mana channels in its head, he put his other hand on the Hollow's chest. Just as with the Flesh Golem, it had a monster core for a meta-heart.

  Pain flared in Luke's side, and a wet, warm feeling washed over his midsection. His concentration wavered, and he lost control of Needle of Life as he looked down to see several of the monster's claws disappearing into his side.

  "Fuck," he groaned, gritting his teeth against the pain as he renewed his efforts. This time, he didn't attack its head. It would do no good. The monster core was his target. Without that, the Hollow wouldn't survive. Luke grabbed the core in one thread and affixed Needle of Life to another, cutting away in a frenzy, squeezing the core to disrupt the Hollow's instinctual attacks.

  With its head still bashed in, it wasn't coordinated enough to attack in any meaningful way, but the flailing was enough, and those claws raked at him, cutting through cloth and drawing lines of red on his legs and chest. Luke heaved a breath and chopped at the monster core, severing the main mana channel.

  The Hollow twitched, then fell back. It was dead.

  Luke rolled off, panting, the Hollow's core in his hand. He felt a weakness come over him now that the rush of adrenaline no longer forced him into action. Blood loss. Staying like this would be his end. He needed to heal himself.

  "Level 5, my ass," Luke muttered, closing his eyes to focus.

  No matter the thing's low level, it was dangerous. Again, gritting his teeth, he threaded through his own flesh, working to close the worst wound. Having used so much mana to heal his shoulder, he didn't have enough left to just wash his injuries away. Instead, he closed up the wounds one at a time, working with Needle of Life and Threads of Mana, bearing the pain. And a lot of pain it was. Luke cried out as he finished up his arm by putting his slashed bicep back together.

  "No pain, no gain," he croaked, setting himself laughing as he worked. That only made the pain worse. "Ow."

  After a grueling few minutes, he allowed himself to relax. The wounds were dealt with. He'd be fine. With the loss of blood, some wooziness was to be expected, but that wouldn't last long, and Luke used almost no mana in healing himself. The pain aspect was something he needed to look into. If more healers turned up, he'd never get invited to adventuring parties if he kept torturing the party members as he healed them.

  Luke sat up and took the Hollow's corpse into his inventory, reaping a few credits from its loot, then held up his palm and let a thread of mana drift out and up. It looked like a half-transparent, blueish wisp of water, almost. He affixed Needle of Life to it, but that didn't change its form at all. Without this little wisp dancing to his will in Luke's hand, he'd be dead by now. It worked as an instrument of death, not just one for healing.

  He grinned. "Death is a part of life, after all."

  Getting to his feet, Luke looked around, then narrowed his eyes, peering into the distance. He didn't see anything out of place, but he could swear he'd heard a sound. His ears pricked. There it was again. A scream. It sounded human, and the Hollows he'd seen hadn't made a peep, not even in death. This could still be a trap, but he couldn't ignore it.

  He ran, following the sound. Turning onto a side street, he saw movement quite a bit farther down the street. Luke eyed the run-down and half-collapsed buildings as he ran, jumping over quite a few Hollow corpses. They'd been left there on the street, almost like a trail for him to follow. Not that Luke needed much of a trail, seeing as Curtis was the one shouting. As Luke approached, it became clear the asshole Reaver might be in trouble. He was surrounded by several Hollows, some wearing Curtis's face, another couple of them looking just like Luke, while one or two were blank and faceless.

  Curtis swung his sword in wild arcs, taking off clawed limbs like the creatures were made of pudding. By the time Luke even made it to the group, only two of the Hollows still stood. Luke launched into an attack right away, striking one of the remaining Hollows over the head with his quarterstaff, then pulling back to tangle the second's legs, forcing it to the ground.

  Luke drew in a breath and repositioned himself to help if Curtis needed it, but when he looked up, that mad bastard was already mid-swing, that huge slab he used for a sword only inches away from Luke's head. Curtis's face was twisted in rage, his eyes blazing with hatred and with a determination to kill.