His spear became a whirlwind as he moved among the ghūl, leaving a trail of blood and viscera in his wake. His body thrummed even as their claws and fangs bit into him. It was easy to ignore their sting, a barely perceptible itch beneath the steady pounding of his heart.

  The light in the cavern stretched and waned, bruised purple dipping into sanguine red, bathing the battlefield in a bloodstained twilight. The branches of the [Great Nemesian Bloodroot] continued their dance, the sound of its leaves melding with the ghouls’ howls of rage, creating a symphony of violence and death.

  Sam had never felt more alive. He was movement. He was purpose. These beasts were how he enacted his vengeance against the gods. It didn't matter that they were just as trapped as he was—they were merely an obstacle to be removed.

  Unlike the trance-like state he’d sometimes entered when he was in combat, he was keenly aware of everything around him: the sounds of scrambling feet on the roots above, the swipe of a claw targeted at his gut, the gnashing teeth that lunged at his throat.

  It was as though his senses had been kicked into overdrive, giving him a profound feeling of hyper-awareness. He'd take snapshots with [Arcane Eyes], still not capable of leaving the skill on for any length of time. It allowed him to pick out those ghūl lurking in the shadows, their auras shining in the gloom like blazing torches.

  His head was pounding. Whether from the repeated use of the skill or the massive influx of information that it forced in through his optical nerve, he couldn't be sure. His eyes were bleary and wet, and when he wiped them, his hand came away slick with blood.

  As the fight wore on, the information became less and less valuable. The swirling pollen coated everything. Its mana-rich substance drowned the battlefield in a sticky red glow, and he soon found himself taking more serious injuries from ghūl who managed to sneak past his defences.

  There seemed to be no end to the horde. While most were juveniles, there were some [Ghūl Stalkers], and even a [Ghūl Apex Hunter] among the masses. The latter scored a direct hit to his back, piercing straight through his [Enchanted Warrior Cuirass] and puncturing a lung. He’d managed to stun it with the butt of his spear before it turned invisible, finishing it with a stab to the gut.

  The pain of the wound was enough to force him to stop and consider his situation. The gurgling in his chest should have terrified him, but he barely registered it over the pounding in his head. The world was red. The air itself had taken on the tang of blood.

  His moves grew sluggish as his body deteriorated, slower and slower to respond. He accrued another dozen injuries as he was forced back towards the trunk of the massive tree.

  Sam teetered at the edge of consciousness, almost unaware of the final few ghūl who closed in around him.

  His spear slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground, followed closely by his shield. His fingers twitched, unable to hold onto the blood-soaked implements. He was dying. The suppressed animal part of his mind battered against the cage of anger that had trapped his instinct for self-preservation. Maybe the monkey was making some sense, maybe he should retreat—

  BA-DUM

  The sound of his own heart nearly bowled him over. He has the wherewithal to check his HUD and saw multiple statuses in effect. It was the last on the list that drew his attention.

  [Bloodhaze]. It seemed the condition required him to be unarmed to activate. His newly opened [Mana Network] screamed as molten energy was pushed through uncertain channels. Everything went white, and he heard a distant roar. The sound grew louder, the world snapping back into focus.

  The final three ghūl lay dead at his feet, their bodies crushed and maimed. He looked down at his shaking hands, aghast. They were covered in blood up to the elbows. Bits of bone and hair clung to him like gory trophies.

  He’d completely blacked out, his memories of the fight coming back in bits and pieces. All around him lay the bodies of fallen ghūl. He counted at least ten corpses from his position, but knew that there were more among the tangle of roots.

  The gurgle in his chest brought his attention back to his ruined body. His newfound consciousness was receding, the edges of his vision going black and hazy. Panicked, he tried to force his healing to focus on the wound, but he could instantly tell the damage was too severe. Blood was pooling in his chest, compressing his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. His undergraduate degree in biology brought him swiftly to the inevitable conclusion: the wound was fatal.

  He collapsed to his knees, trying to focus all of his energy on breathing. Maybe if he could hold out long enough, [Basic Regeneration] and [Rodent's Resilience] would be able to close the wound.

  He wasn't given long enough to find out.

  A lone howl pierced through the relative stillness of the Dungeon. Its lilt was almost haunting, as much pain and agony as it was anger.

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  Sam forced his head up, eyes landing on a lone figure which stood perched on a root a hundred feet away. Even at this distance, he could tell it was the largest ghoul he’d ever seen. The beast wore crude armour over its leathery hide, bits of bone tied together with scraps of metal.

  It stood frozen like a statue, taking in the carnage.

  Like a statue.

  Sam’s eyes went wide, and he opened his inventory, finding the folder marked for potions. He summoned the [Restoration Potion] into his blood-soaked hands and nearly dropped it, his fingers refusing to respond.

  It took all of his force of will to open the stopper without breaking it, but he did. The first drops of liquid down his throat were like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day. It rushed over him like a wave, washing away the pain of his injuries.

  The cuts on his arms scabbed over, but didn't fully heal. Sam could feel that the majority of the potion's efficacy was being spent mending his punctured lung. He retched, coughing up a frightening amount of blood. He was already sitting in a pool of it, though it was easy to tell which was his against the near-black ichor of the ghūl.

  His head cleared, and he felt a rush of clarity for the first time since the fight began. The anger and despair that had washed over him tasted sweet in his mouth—artificial and cloying.

  It had been a trap.

  The Ghūl were as much victims of the gods as he was, and even their chosen patron had no qualms about sacrificing them in droves. He was vaguely familiar with Nemesis from Greek mythology, mostly due to her association with the word. She was the Goddess of Revenge, of Vengeance. What had happened to these creatures that they'd turn to a god like that to help them?

  He didn't have time to contemplate further, as the lone ghūl methodically descended from the root and picked its way through the battlefield. It walked upright, taking time to check each body it passed, bending down to say something to the fallen.

  While the other ghouls were thin and stringy, this one was a whipcord of muscle. At well over seven feet tall, it almost looked like a different species. Could this be the Matriarch? He tried identifying it, but his vision went white and his head pounded as his [Mana Network] screamed in protest. He really needed to speak to Arther about the restrictions on using magic.

  It took a few seconds for his vision to clear. The ghoul stood twenty feet away, its rough snout curled back in a snarl. While its eyes still shone with a crimson luminance, it did not bear the wild and manic frenzy he’d seen in the others.

  It spoke, its voice a guttural growl that sent shivers down Sam’s spine. “Many of these pups were my children. I was there when their mother birthed them in our den. I took them on their first hunts. I watched them grow.” It paused, “I will not watch them grow old, because of you, Warrior.”

  The heat of the malice in its voice was an eerie contrast to its frigid demeanour. When it first spoke, Sam wondered whether it would be possible to negotiate with it. He retained no such illusions.

  Pups, so this wasn't the Matriarch. The father then. The Patriarch? He wasn't sure how Ghūl society functioned, but it was clear the males were lower in the hierarchy.

  “How do you know I'm a Warrior?” Sam asked, words coming out in a hoarse rasp. His lung was still tender, but his breathing had almost returned to normal.

  “They do not know where we are, but the elders do. I know why you're here, and can guess at the task you've been set. The Arbiter never informed us when it moved our domain, but we are not so blind as not to feel the change in the ground above us. We are not animals, despite what the Chosen would think.”

  “Chosen?” Sam replied, trying to buy as much time as possible for the potion to do its work.

  The ghoul let out a low growl. “Those species chosen by the gods. It is said they seeded many worlds across the cosmos, but only seven were worthy. We had shared our planet with the Var for millennia when they were chosen. Whatever balance our two species had was broken.”

  “What happened?” Sam asked, surprised by the sadness in the creature’s voice.

  “They did what all beings do when given power. They used it. We became slaves in all but name. Relegated to servants as the Var cemented their name in myth.”

  Sam frowned, “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I am going to kill you, human, and leave you here to feed the great tree. Yet if I somehow fail—if you are able to defeat me and my kin—then I want someone to know what happened to us. Know of the gods who punished us for daring to raise a hand against our masters.”

  “Is that why you're down here? Is that what caused the Great Cataclysm?” Sam’s mind was still reeling from the [Bloodhaze], but he could feel the pieces fitting together.

  “Yes. We led our final and greatest revolt. Ghūl all across the planet rose up in unison, sworn to break our shackles and make a better future for our young. Just as we were approaching the halls of their government, the sky erupted in fire. Millions died in an instant, turned to glass and shadow. But the gods overplayed their hand. While the revolt was crushed, so was the planet. All that remained were forced to flee underground. We chased the Var leaders into their sacred crypt, and the battle has continued ever since.”

  Sam could only imagine a cataclysm that could envelop a whole planet. Would the gods have stepped in the same way if humanity were on the brink of destruction?

  “So you've been down here a long time?” Sam asked, feeling the final trickles of the potion close the hole in his back. He was still a mess, but a fight against the [Ghūl Patriarch] was no longer certain death.

  “Those of us who first fled here can no longer recall the light of our star, or the faces of our moons. All we know is stone and decay and darkness. But we are close, closer than we’ve ever been. The will of that foul necromancer is close to breaking. A few more weeks and we’d have the strength to take the Court of the Primordial Dawn. It seems that the gods have the sickest sense of humour, sending you here now, moments before our final victory. But you will not stop us, Warrior. You will not stop me. Nemesis has promised us our victory, and we will have it.”

  With that, the ghoul lunged forward, claws extending with a loud click. Sam watched the shadow extend ahead of it, coming for him like death itself.