Leo screamed as jagged teeth nearly two inches in length sank deep into the muscle of his shoulder. As the large cat pinned his arms at his side, preventing him from striking out with his sword, Leo turned his head and stared directly into the slitted eyes of the magical beast. His breath caught as he noted the intelligence in the beast’s gaze, and he tried not to panic. Grade 10 was around where certain magical beasts began growing smarter than ordinary animals driven by nothing more than instinct, and seeing as this was a tier 10 plane, that glimmer of intellect and the fact that the beast had pinned his weapon down could only mean one thing.

  This magical beast wasn’t just strong and fast.

  It was smart.

  Thankfully, it also had functioning taste buds. Barely a second after sinking its teeth into Leo’s shoulder, the cat’s eyes widened and it physically jerked back away from him, revealing a long, purple tongue as it began retching and trying to get his tainted blood out of its mouth. Leo hadn’t even had the Poisonous gem within his core for five minutes, and already the skill had saved his life.

  Taking advantage of the unexpected opportunity, Leo pushed himself up off the ground, shouting as he stabbed his sword into the magical beast. He’d been aiming for the beast’s chest, but the cat noticed his movement and shifted at the last second, taking the strike to its shoulder instead. Letting out a terrifying roar as dark red blood poured out of the wound, it snarled as it lurched forward, attempting to rake its claws across Leo’s throat.

  Rather than dodge backward, Leo dove into the magical beast, knowing if he tried to put space between him and the far more powerful creature it would simply pounce on him again. Narrowly dodging the powerful swipe, he slashed out with his sword, targeting the arm he’d already stabbed once. His blade bit deep into the already wounded muscle, and with a roar of his own, he forced it the rest of the way through, slicing the magical beast’s front leg clean off.

  If he’d thought the beast had roared before, that was nothing compared to the sound that escaped its mouth now as it howled in pain. Moving to attack him, the large cat reflexively tried to put weight on its missing leg, only to topple to the side unexpectedly as it discovered the limb was no longer attached to its body. Not willing to miss this chance, Leo pulled back with his blade, adjusted his angle, and thrust forward, hitting his mark this time as he stabbed deep into the fallen beast’s exposed chest.

  Rich, red blood poured down from the wound, and for a moment, Leo simply stood there, his face mere inches from the beast’s own as they stared at one another. Slowly, the glimmer of life in the beast’s eyes went out like a candle being extinguished, and the cat’s body went limp.

  Leo panted, his body shaking as he tried to convince it the danger had passed. The cat had leapt down from one of the trees, coming out of literal nowhere when it attacked. He was pretty certain the entire ordeal hadn’t even lasted ten seconds, and Leo still could barely believe he’d managed to get the better of not only a Grade 10 magical beast, but one with a hint of cunning as well.

  The trees… I need to get away from the trees, he realized, nervously peering up at the other tree tops hidden within the haze. Naturally, it made perfect sense. If he’d been able to hide up in the trees from the Planar Lords’ agents, hidden thanks to the poor light and concealing fog, then of course the magical beasts of this plane could do the same. In fact, as the brand-new wound began to throb on his left shoulder, he was a bit frustrated he hadn’t realized that sooner.

  No point whining about it now…

  As much as it physically pained him to do so, Leo turned and left the corpse of the unknown magical beast behind as he continued on toward the distant hill. A Grade 10 beast gem was far too much for his own rank 6 soul to handle, regardless of how strong his willpower was. Not to mention even if he was somehow capable of adding the power from that gem into his soul, doing so would take him quite a long time. And after that ambush, he wasn’t willing to spend a single second longer down here in the rolling fog than he had to.

  He’d gotten lucky that it was a cat-based magical beast that had ambushed him instead of some other kind. Like regular cats, cat-based magical beasts shared the same love of playing with their prey, preferring to bleed and bat them around for a little while rather than going for the immediate kill. It was most likely the reason the beast hadn’t targeted his throat with its initial strike, and therefore the only reason he was still alive.

  Keeping his eyes focused on the treetops, Leo slowly but surely made his way through the poisonous wasteland. Even if he was immune to the actual poison, his new gem didn’t do a damn thing for the smell rolling off the bubbling liquid pools, and he still gagged anytime he got too close to the base of any of the trees.

  As he walked, he actually spotted small fish of all things swimming around within the bubbling liquid surrounding a few of the trees. Either they were magical beasts themselves, or their scales had to have some sort of unique property to keep the acid at bay. Either way, he wasn’t willing to get close enough to find out, and Leo simply made a mental note of the potential food source as he continued onward.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t attacked by any more of the Grade 10 cats, and he managed to make it to the foot of the hill without incident. The throbbing in both his side and now his shoulder as well were beginning to grow pretty distracting, and Leo grit his teeth as he forced himself to start walking up the incline. With his shoulder wound, he wasn’t even able to fully lift his left arm anymore, which meant he was going to be in some serious trouble if he ran into anything else before he could patch himself up.

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  Though that begs the question… Precisely how am I planning to do that?

  Leo cursed as he put one foot in front of the other, mentally going through what options he had available to him. He’d lost his knife, but he did still have his sword, which meant he could cut a few more strips off his shirt and use them as makeshift bandages like what he’d done with his head. Though if he sustained many more injuries, he was going to quickly find himself running around the planarverse in nothing more than a crop top, which would definitely get him some confused looks.

  While it was unfortunate he didn’t have any more of Jim’s herb-soaked bandages, the simple fact that he’d strengthened his soul up to rank 6 meant that his body was now more resilient and would heal faster than a non-gem holder. Unless they came from a magical beast or a hostile skill, he’d already be nearly immune to things like disease or infection, so that was one less thing to worry about.

  Granted, there’s no telling what that cat’s saliva contained… It really would be just my luck if my shoulder got infected.

  Eventually, Leo climbed the hill to the point where the rolling, toxic fog didn’t quite reach, and he paused, letting out a weary sigh as he surveyed the land below. The many dead-looking trees and small, bubbling ponds surrounding them stretched out nearly as far as the eye could see, intermixed with a few other hills here and there dotting the land. Finding his way back to that rift again was going to be a nightmare.

  While trying to familiarize himself with the path he’d taken to get here so he could backtrack if needed, Leo heard a scuttling sound off to the side, and he turned to find a large centipede unearthing itself from the dark ground. The insect was nearly as long as he was tall, which was pretty much a dead giveaway that it was a magical beast.

  “Oh, come on,” he muttered, gripping his sword with his good arm as he watched the centipede turn to face him. It didn’t have anything resembling eyes, but the two long feelers, each nearly the size of his entire arm, twitched in his direction, indicating that certainly wasn’t going to stop it from detecting him.

  Without warning, the centipede darted forward, its many long legs scuttling across the hill as the magical beast came for him, raising the front of its body like some sort of snake. Leo knew that some people, such as his father, weren’t the biggest fans of insect-based magical beasts. Thankfully, he’d never really had a problem with insects, and he was far too tired to start worrying about them now. As the centipede got close, he struck.

  Slashing forward, Leo sliced off one of the two feelers on its head before twisting out of the way. The magical beast didn’t show any sign of being bothered by the loss of its sensitive organ, instead lunging forward to try and pierce him with one of its front legs. Unlike the vast majority of legs lining its body, the ones at the very front of the beast looked far sharper and more dangerous than the rest. Leo managed to block the strike with the flat side of his sword, lashing out with his foot to kick the beast away and buy him some more space to work with. As the beast tried to recover from the unexpected shove, he slashed forward again, lopping off a few of its legs and finally getting an aggravated chittering sound from the giant insect.

  Leo’s excitement was short lived, as he heard echoed chittering sounds erupt around him in response. His heart sank as three more giant centipedes shook themselves free from the earth, quickly turning to assist their companion.

  Realizing he was about to be in way over his head, Leo lunged forward, narrowly dodging another stab from the centipede’s front leg as he lopped off its head. The first of the beasts went down, but now Leo found himself surrounded. Exhausted, injured, and quite frankly having a rather rough day, Leo could only laugh as the centipedes circled him. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but in his current condition, he had a feeling this was probably the end for him.

  “I guess trying to make it as a Cartographer all on my own with half the planarverse out to get me was a bit much to ask,” he told the circling centipedes, grinning as he felt the crushing weight of responsibility finally slip off his shoulders. After all, he very well couldn’t be expected to save the millions of people living within the Nexus if he was dead.

  With a roar, Leo charged forward, intent on at least striking the first blow on his would-be killers. He swung for the closest centipede’s head, but the beast leaned back, only losing a portion of one antennae from Leo’s wild strike. At the same time, Leo felt a sharp pain in his back indicating he’d been stabbed by one of the other beasts, and the searing pain of the other one biting his already injured arm. Twisting his sword around, Leo turned and lopped off the head of the beast that had made the foolish mistake of biting him, noting how the tight pincers actually kept the severed head lodged onto his arm even as the body fell away. Yet while he was busy killing that one, the first beast jerked forward, stabbing two of its legs into his chest and stomach, at the same time the one behind him stabbed three more legs into his back.

  Leo wobbled, supported more by the now six legs stabbed into his torso than his own frail legs. None of them were too large of wounds on their own, but based on the cold sensation he could feel spreading out from each puncture, he was pretty certain each leg was also secreting some sort of poison on top of having been shoved into his flesh. With another roar that was noticeably weaker than the last, he slashed down, lopping off both of the legs stabbed into his front before driving his sword deep into the centipede’s head as it went to finish him off with a bite to the throat. The sudden lack of legs supporting him from the front meant he fell forward, slipping off the legs shoved into his back as he crumpled to the ground. Despite having gotten free from the many legs, Leo shivered as that cold sensation continued to spread throughout his body, and his eyelids suddenly felt like they weighed twenty pounds.

  Weakly, he tried to turn and swing his sword up at the sole remaining magical beast, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to raise the blade, even with his good arm. Despite the rough shape he’d been in, he’d managed to take down three different magical beasts that were probably around his own soul rank in Grade, or perhaps even a little higher. Not to mention the cat from earlier, which had been four Grades above him. Both of those accomplishments were remarkable feats, even more so seeing as he still didn’t have an offensive skill to his name. But in the end, it hadn’t been enough.

  Not enough for him. And not enough for the millions of lives that the Planar Lords were going to claim when the Nexus started to collapse.

  As the final centipede scuttled closer, its pincers snapping open and closed and his own blood dripping from its many legs, Leo let out one last shaky breath as he finally gave up the fight and let his incredibly heavy eyes close for what was likely the final time. Whatever chilling poison the centipedes had injected him with must have had some sort of numbing property, because he didn’t even feel anything when he heard a horrifying crunch directly in front of him. Thankful at least that he would be spared the sensation of being eaten alive, Leo let the darkness take him, his consciousness fading away into the same eternal void that had swallowed his own home not long ago.

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