Bitter Bat lunged at Elijah with talons out and making grabbing motions at him. The little monster could teleport, but so could Elijah. Bats swarmed quickly around him, depositing him where his thrown sword lay. He didn’t have to reach down to grab it; the weapon reacted to his presence. Little bat wings unfolded from the weapon’s sleek surface and with a single powerful stroke the blade lifted into the air, right into Elijah’s open hand.

  The little monster wheeled around to find his target, but Elijah was already moving forward, intent on ending this before Bitter Bat could vanish in a cloud of sulfur. Off to the side, Bitter Root was still fighting with the swarm, but that wouldn’t last forever. The bats were a fast-acting, powerful spell, but not a long-lived one.

  “Wait, me sorry boss!” Bitter Bat shouted, catching Elijah off-guard just enough for him to miss his strike. With a stupid grin; the creature vanished again. Elijah couldn’t believe he had just fallen for such a mediocre trick. He turned in circles trying to figure out where the attack was going to come from. From above, exactly where Elijah should have expected it to come from but hadn’t, Bitter Bat dropped. This time though, Elijah did something stupid. He could feel exactly where the creature was on his back. Shifting the hold on his blade, he clenched his teeth.

  This was going to hurt.

  The blade slid into his chest and out his back, catching the bat creature off-guard. The necrosis debuff activated, but he cancelled it with his ‘Reality Warp’ skill. Bitter Bat wasn’t so lucky. The tip of the sword caught him in the gut, driving deep and dealing significant damage. The necrosis effect didn’t have to do much; within seconds, Elijah felt the weight of the creature disappear from his back, and a flash of blue light shone behind him. And just like that, he felt the same returning sensation as he had felt when he’d slain Bitter Dryad.

  Two down and one to go. This fight was going to be the most brutal; he was sure of that. Not even considering the damage he’d just done to himself.

  [Player]

  Name: Elijah

  Class: Reality Warper+ | Level: 17

  HP: 35/100

  Last time they fought, Bitter Root had done almost thirty points of damage to him, and he’d leveled up his familiar since then. Not to mention, at that time their bond had limited them. Now Bitter Root was completely unfettered.

  [TARGET INFO]

  Bitter Root (Level 8)

  HP: 24 / 35

  In any normal game, Elijah would have the upper hand in this battle, but this wasn’t a normal game, and he’d seen Bitter Root face off against two legendary-tier opponents with little issue.

  Elijah’s vision blurred and darkened at the edges as he pulled the weapon from his chest. The sudden thrust in hadn’t given him much time to consider the pain, but now that he was pulling it out, he felt every inch dragging through his bone and organs. There was no reason he should even still be breathing, but game logic is going to game logic.

  The bats were dissipating now, falling to the ground and slithering across the floor in their shadow form to merge with Elijah’s main shadow. Bitter Root was climbing out of the cage covered in dozens of lacerations and cuts, and looking very, very pissed off.

  “Boss! Me tell you, me no like bats!” he roared, lunging forward at Elijah. Elijah backpedalled, though he couldn’t resist the smile that was creeping across his face. His friend was still in there somewhere. The goblin swung its cudgel at his legs at the same time Elijah swung his blade. The cudgel cracked hard into Elijah’s knee, taking off another ten health points, and caught the blade in his teeth—the little freak—luckily the Necrosis effect activated.

  He wrenched his neck to the side, pulling the weapon from Elijah’s grip. The blade went clattering to the floor as the goblin turned its teeth towards Elijah’s hand, biting into the flesh of his wrist. Elijah let out a scream. The pain was even worse than driving the sword through his own chest. He didn’t know how that could possibly be the case.

  “Mmmm. Boss taste good,” Bitter Root chuckled around a mouthful of hand, still grinning like a little maniac.

  “Bastard,” Elijah grumbled through gritted teeth, bringing his elbow down onto the goblin’s skull. Pain shot up his arm as he bashed at Bitter Root’s face.

  He ran through the options in his head. He couldn’t teleport; Bitter Root was attached to him and would wind up just coming along. His sword was lying on the ground several feet away, too far away to call to him. His mind flashed back to Bitter Root sucking on the bat’s head, and a truly disturbing plan formed in his head.

  “You like the taste of bats?” he asked, flexing his hand inside the goblin’s mouth. “Want some more?”

  Bitter Root’s eyes went wide as he got the notion of what Elijah was planning. He tried to spit out Elijah’s hand, but reacted too slowly. Shadows sprang forth from Elijah’s palm, forming up into the shape of his scout bats. He felt bad for the bats; they didn’t deserve that, no living creature did.

  But it worked. Bitter Root let go of his wrist and fell backwards, clutching at his throat as his body tried to reject the bat-shaped object in his neck. The goblin only had a handful of health left, and, honestly, Elijah was mad at him for biting him. Elijah dropped onto the goblin knee first and bent down. He pulled Bitter Root’s hands away, then his teeth met the goblin’s throat. He bit down as hard as he could, feeling the skin and veins burst in his mouth. The warm tang of copper filled his mouth and throat. Before Bitter Root’s final health point drained away into Elijah’s mouth, he heard the goblin mumble a single word with a bloody chuckle.

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  “Kinky.” A simple word spoken the second before Bitter Root’s form shattered into blue mana, dropping Elijah onto the ground. He sprawled onto his side. Choking up the gore and trying to breathe.

  Disgust welled up in Elijah’s stomach, and he felt the need to puke. Not just from the blood in his mouth, but also from the absolutely degenerate comment his familiar had made. There was something truly warped about that creature’s mind, but to be completely honest, Elijah would have found it hilarious if he weren’t currently on death’s doorstep with a mouthful of ichor.

  He could sense Klix hovering nearby, but the Beastmaster was giving Elijah time to recover and for his game-enhanced natural healing to at least soothe some of the pain in his chest.

  Finally after several minutes, he sat up, realizing that he’d never felt Bitter Root return to him. Cautiously, he stood up, afraid that the ordeal still wasn’t over. In Klix’s hand, was a spinning blue orb of energy. He could feel it as clearly as seeing it. It contained Bitter Root’s essence, the very thing that allowed him to summon the creature. He didn’t realize it could be formed into a physical object, and fear shot through him at the idea that Klix may not give it back.

  “He’s mine,” Elijah grunted through the pain, reaching his hand out towards the orb. Tears welled up in his eyes. He tried to tell himself it was just from the pain. But the fear of losing his oldest friend in the game was at the forefront of his mind. “Give him back!”

  Klix put his other hand out to soothe Elijah. “Calm yourself, my liege. I am adjusting your power, but not harming or changing the creature in any way.” The orb sped up in his hand as he stepped closer to Elijah. “This may sting.”

  Klix wasn’t joking. He pushed the orb against the top of Elijah’s head, and a white searing pain burst into his skull. It was nothing compared to everything he’d felt in the last fifteen minutes. Especially when the pain mixed with a sense of fullness, the sensation of being whole again. When the pain finally subsided, a notification popped into his vision.

  [SKILL UPGRADED]

  Summon Familiar has upgraded to the new skill:

  Bitter Dominion

  Description:

  Allows the user to summon any number of their subjects.

  Current Subjects:

  Bitter Root

  Bitter Dryad

  Bitter Bat

  ~~~

  [Level Up]

  Skill: Bitter Dominion has reached level 9!

  ~~~

  [Level Up]

  Skill: Bitter Dominion has reached level 10!

  ~~~

  [Level Up]

  Skill: Bitter Dominion has reached level 11!

  ~~~

  [Level Up]

  Class: Reality Warper has reached level 18!

  He could call all three of them to fight for him. Considering what an absolute nightmare it had been fighting with them, even with his overpowered classes, he could only imagine what trouble a normal player would have against them and him working in unison.

  He slowly got to his feet, the Beastmaster reaching out his other hand and casting some sort of spell. The energy that washed over him felt similar to Sasha’s ‘Cure Wounds’ spell, but much more powerful. When the light cleared from his eyes, he saw that his health and mana were fully restored. His shirt was in tatters, and he felt the sticky remnants of blood covering his throat and torso, but he was whole.

  “There is one challenge left before you can ascend to the throne room and cleanse the corruption that has taken root on the Blood Oath Throne. It will be a struggle, but I have my faith in you, my liege.” Klix smiled at him before turning away and slipping through a portal similar to the ones that Elijah had been using to move about through these trials.

  Stepping back to where his sword lay fallen, he reached a hand out and cancelled the spell that held its form. The shadows curled along his arm, though they did not immediately settle into his own. They seemed to squeeze his arm, as if reassuring him they were there, that they would always fight for Elijah. He focused on his new skill and summoned the three familiars.

  No, not familiars, his subjects. He was their liege, even if he was also their friend. At least with Bitter Root that was true, he hadn’t really had a chance to get to know Dryad, and Bat was brand new. He planned on changing that now that he could summon all three of them simultaneously.

  Ten mana was all it cost to summon all three of his familiars. Bitter Root reclined back on the ground, picking his teeth with a bone shard like nothing had happened, while Dryad and Bat were going back and forth. It sounded like Bat was trying to teach Dryad how to speak the Dragontooth language.

  “Do we need to talk about what just happened?” Elijah asked cautiously. His finger was resting on the thread that connected the three of them to him. It felt more vibrant, more powerful, than ever before. Strengthened by whatever magic Klix had forced into the sphere that was Bitter Root’s essence.

  The goblin shrugged his shoulders. “Me no know boss. Does we?” He rubbed the side of his neck with a wiggle of his eyebrows. Elijah closed his eyes to get the memory out of his mind.

  “Okay,” Elijah said with a vigorous shake of his head. “We have one more challenge. Let’s get it over with.” He stepped towards the far wall intent on opening the portal to the next trial.

  Bitter Bat’s voice cut through the tense air. “Boss dummy. Boss not allocate.”

  Elijah stopped. “Dammit,” he whispered under his breath. He’d been about to go into the next challenge with the three stat points from his level up un-allocated. Stupid mistakes like that could be the difference between life and death. And one of the creatures who he considered to be quite dim—especially considering they only had a single point in intelligence.

  Intelligence. That would be a good stat to continue raising. The three points brought him up to a respectable nineteen. Nearly to the Journeyman-tier. It was interesting to him that the one stat he’d thought useless for his build when he first unlocked the class—considering none of his skills at the time consumed mana—would likely become his second stat to reach that tier after constitution. After that, it would be dexterity. His strength was still important, but being able to quickly cast his ever-expanding list of spells would be more useful.

  The bats in his shadow flooded past his dam and feasted, and the four of them stepped through the portal that he created.