Erich tried to retreat into the forest, but his feet felt like they had sunk ankle deep into the mud of the riverbank. He managed to take a step backward before the first of the imps dove toward him.

  He shuffled his feet, taking the first stance of Magma Blossom as he tried to track the swooping demons through his faltering and swimming vision. Erich swung his sword upward, struggling to invest mana into the blow. The imp swerved past his sword, unable to attack him as it buzzed well clear of his faltering attack.

  Another stroke from Erich’s sword drove a second imp back. His mana wasn’t flowing how it was supposed to. Rather than a steady stream of power it came in trickles and spurts. One moment there would be nothing but the flagging strength in his arms, and the next the electric thrill of magic would sputter throughout his body.

  An imp pounced over Erich’s guard, slamming into his chest and raking its claws across his battered armor. The frayed and rust chainmail stopped the worst of it, but the demon was too strong for him to escape from the attack unscathed.

  The world spun around him as the imp rode Erich to the ground. The impact of the muddy soil on his back knocked some focus back into him even as the small monster’s six claws dug into his flesh.

  Sudden clarity woke up the struggling mana in his body. It sputtered for an eyeblink and then surged through Erich’s system. The fever and disorientation that had been dragging at his muscles disappeared as his arms burned with energy. Erich’s right arm darted up, grabbing the imp around the neck despite his injuries and holding it steady while he used his right arm to ram a sword through its side.

  He tossed the imp’s suddenly still body toward the river, and a handful of its still flying companions dove toward the corpse. The remainder circled him, careful not to fly too close to the jungle and the thorny vines that covered almost every tree.

  An imp buzzed downward, ducking under the tree cover to attack Erich again before he could stand up. Mana pumped through his veins, scorching hot, as he swung his sword again.

  The swing was awkward. Erich was on his back and unable to exert anything near his full force as he flailed at his attacker. With his old image and sword, that would have been the end of things. The imp would have batted his weapon aside and painted the trees with his blood.

  Instead, mana coursed into his blade, and it arced smoothly through the air, connecting with the chest of the imp and cleaving the monster clear in half.

  Erich scrambled back to his feet. He could still feel the thumping headache and exhaustion from the poison, but it was an afterthought, drowned out by the heady mix of adrenaline and mana that filled him.

  Another two imps landed on the river bank, just out of his reach. The crouched on all six limbs, bodies tense as they prepared to strike even as another imp zipped toward him.

  He turned and ran. An ordinary first tier warrior might struggle with an imp, but that wasn’t necessarily the case for Erich. His new image and martial art made him faster and stronger than ever before, but at the end of the day, he only had one sword. Even if he could bring down an imp with a single stroke of his sword, that wouldn’t stop the other two from pouncing on him.

  Thorns scraped furrows in Erich’s flesh as he ran back through the forest, trying to follow the path he’d taken in. He could almost feel the poison seeping in through those cuts, but there wasn’t much he could do about it for now. Erich could worry about purging his system later if he was still alive. For now, the imps had taken to the air again, following him through the forest just above the tree tops.

  He couldn’t outrun them. Even without obstacles they moved more quickly than Erich, but it was impossible for him to move full speed down the narrow, winding path he’d hacked into the forest.

  Greenery rushed past Erich, pulling at his face and clothes as he ran. Above, the imps chattered at each other in a strange singsong language that he could barely make out over the constant hum of their wings.

  Erich wracked his brain trying to think of a solution to his problem. If he made it out of the forest, they would just surround and attack him on the open ground. If he stopped moving, they would chase him into the forest. There was no way of knowing whether the vines’ thorns would even hurt the imps. If they didn’t, the trees wouldn’t provide any cover at all, leaving him defenseless

  His thoughts whirring, Erich didn’t notice the root snaking across the path until his toe was firmly lodged under it. With an undignified scream he tripped, momentum sending him tumbling through the undergrowth.

  He instantly lost count of the number of thorns that tore at his flesh. Erich slammed his arms over his face as he rolled, doing his best to protect it even as the vines savaged him.

  Rocks and roots dug into his back and sides, bruising Erich where the thorns hadn’t already cut him. By the time he rolled to a halt, it felt like every inch of his body was in agony. Worse, the dull, exhausting pain of the thorns’ venom was already seeping into his body, robbing him of his strength even as it dug its claws into his nerves and bones, sending pulses of agony up and down his aching limbs.

  Erich rolled over onto his back and regretted his decision instantly. The scent of rotting flesh attacked his nose even as the oversized petals of one of the giant forest flowers filled his vision. Above, the red glow of hell’s sky glared angrily down at him.

  Stiffness began to creep into his arms and legs, a complete lack of sensation replacing the aching pain. Erich could feel his tongue swelling in his mouth, making it hard to even swallow to clear the foul taste of the river water.

  Before he could process what was happening, the imps’ angry buzzing announced their arrival. Five of them flew overhead in a tight cluster. Evidently the rest had remained behind to feast on the bodies of the one he had killed. That might have been a small mercy, but as things stood, Erich didn’t even have the strength to lift his sword. A fairly imposing squirrel could defeat him. For a denizen of hell, they wouldn’t even break a sweat.

  Erich strained anyway. He could lift his arms after a fashion, but doing so with the sword in his hands was too much. Sweat beaded on his forehead and the scratches covering his body throbbed angrily from the effort, but try as he might, Erich’s weapon was as good as glued to the ground.

  The first of the imps swooped toward him. Erich pushed harder, putting all of his energy and mana into his numb arm but he only managed to make the tip of his sword tremble.

  It extended its claws toward him, six tiny hands covered in razors that glinted in the dull red light, wings buzzing behind it.

  Erich’s life flashed through his mind in a second. His youth, running around the family compound and Burrwood with nothing but vaguely sympathetic gazes following him. His years of training at the Green River School. His image. The crystal clear memory of his image, a flash of lightning turning the pine forest into a sea of fire, filled his mind.

  And then, with a disgusting slurping sound, a dark purple rope was launched into the air from the flower. The diving imp squawked in alarm as the tendril punctured its abdomen and jerked it downward. Erich froze, an easy thing to do when he could barely move his battered and bloodied body.

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  The rest of the imps tried to scatter, singsong chattering following them as their wings pulled them in multiple different directions. One of them wasn’t flying high or fast enough as they jetted away, and a second purple tentacle skewered it, yanking it out of the sky.

  Erich lay on his back, perfectly still with his eyes wide as the petals of the flower next to him curled upward. Barely five seconds later, it had transformed itself into an oversized bud, and both of the squirming imps had disappeared into its depths.

  Then, the sound of wet chewing filled the clearing, sending a shiver down Erich’s spine. He wanted to move, but the deadly flower next to him squashed that desire immediately. The petals undulated unnaturally as it devoured the corpses. Part of him vaguely wondered how a plant with no teeth was chewing on the imps’ bodies, but a larger party of him knew better than to seek out the answer to those questions.

  Instead, Erich remained as still as possible, feeling the stiffness filter into his limbs as he tried his hardest not to draw the flower’s attention. He might be able to escape by crawling while it was occupied, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure that he would have the strength to move more than a couple feet due to the poison.

  Where he was laying, directly underneath the flower, it didn’t seem that it would be able to notice him. For now, all he could do is stay perfectly still and hope that he survived the poison. There might be a chance to escape once Erich recovered, but he knew better than to challenge the carnivorous flower while he was impaired.

  Time passed at an agonizing crawl as the chill from the poison began to creep from his arms and legs into Erich’s torso. Above him, the flower was still wound tight and the sky remained the same shade of red. He didn’t have any way of tracking the time other than monitoring the slow but steady spread of the poison. He could have been laying there for minutes or hours.

  Numbness began to fill Erich’s chest, and his breath came in shallow ragged gasps as his lungs struggled to listen to his brain’s commands. Worry flooded him. Erich could feel himself beginning to grow light headed from a combination of low blood loss and low oxygen.

  Just as he was beginning to doubt that he’d ever manage to escape, the flower unfolded above him. Its purple petals were much darker and vibrant, and Erich was pretty sure he could feel the faint tingle of aether in them. Theoretically, it was just as much a monster that he could kill to grow stronger as the imps. In practice, Erich had seen how fast those tentacles were. Actually defeating a flower in a fair fight would be absolutely impossible.

  From the bottom of the flower, a pair of fist sized yellow fruits dropped down to the muddy ground. Almost immediately, Erich’s mouth began to water. Somehow, he could smell something delicious, like a fresh baked pie mixed with a sizzling steak, over the scent of rotting flesh that wafted off of the flower.

  Erich rolled over, his body fighting even that simple of a movement. The smell coming from the fruit was strange, a combination of everything good that he had ever eaten. Technically, the combination should have been foul, but that thought was pushed to the back of Erich’s mind.

  Instead all he could think of was putting one arm in front of the other as he clawed his way toward the yellow orb. It was only a matter of three feet, but it felt like a mile. Erich could only move his arm a half foot or so before he would grow tired, unable to budge it in the slightest until he rested to regain his energy.

  His breath was growing shallower. Erich could barely feel anything about his body other than his face, neck and throat. Still, he dug his fingers into the dirt, slowly dragging himself toward the base of the flower.

  He heard movement somewhere else in the clearing, but he didn’t care. The only thing that he could see or think about was the fruit, its soft skin glistening in the dull red light. Then, his fingers brushed against it.

  One more push brought him close enough to grab hold of the fruit. Erich couldn’t even feel his arms through the icy numbness, but he managed to find the strength to grab hold of his quarry and bring it to his mouth.

  Erich bit into it, and his world exploded. It was sweet and juicy like a fresh watermelon, but heavier. Its pulp was full of seeds but he didn’t even think about that as he frantically swallowed the fruit.

  Energy rushed through his body, and Erich could feel a faint trickle of aether filling his image, just as he had when he had killed the two imps with his sword. A second later, he hissed in pain as pins and needles began to prick his chest.

  He took another bite. The annoying sensation had increased, but more importantly he could feel almost his entire torso now. What he could feel was pain, but that was still much better than the suffocating numbness that had enveloped him before.

  A third bite almost finished the fruit, but now he could feel his arms up to his elbows. Whatever was in the fruit, it was quenching his thirst, filling his stomach, and curing the poison from the thorns, all at the same time.

  The flowers were a miracle. The first thing that had gone right in the angels' be damned wasteland that was hell. He noisily finished the fruit, and finally felt his energy levels starting to return to normal.

  Erich still had a number of scratches from the thorns and puncture wounds from the imps he had fought, but now they felt like ordinary injuries. Something he would have to watch for infection, but not an immediate threat to his life.

  As he reached for the second fruit, an angry hiss drew his attention. Some two feet away was a large slug, about three feet long and just under a foot high. It glared at Erich through eyestalks that stood some six inches off the top of its lime green body, but that wasn’t what concerned him.

  Behind the slug was a trail of slime that hissed in the mud, letting off faint tendrils of acrid smoke. More importantly, wherever the slime trail crossed vegetation or sticks, the plant matter was completely eroded and destroyed, melted in nonexistence simply by coming into contact with the creature.

  Another imp.

  The slug imp glared meaningfully at the fruit. Erich’s mouth was still watering, but for the first time he realized that he had abandoned his sword during his feverish crawl toward the fruit.

  Reluctantly, he began crawling away from the base of the flower, not taking his eyes from the slug monster. It hissed contentedly, and began sliding across the mud toward the fruit. Evidently, it was here for the exact same purpose as Erich.

  Then, just as it was about to reach its goal, Erich’s hand brushed the flat of his sword. He reached back cautiously, taking hold of his weapons hilt, all while making sure to keep an eye on the slug.

  The imp didn’t change its course. Apparently, it was just as hypnotized by the wonderful smell of the fruit as he had been.

  Mana filled Erich’s arms as he drew upon the Magma Blossom’s sword style. It was hard to use while prone, but even using mana inefficiently quickly erased the prickles that plagued his recently sleeping limbs.

  He thrust forward with the sword, its tip easily punching through the side of the giant slug. It thrashed once, swiveling its eyestalks toward Erich in betrayal and surprise. Another wave of mana erupted from his image, and Erich jerked his sword sideways, cutting the creature right down the center.

  It popped like a waterskin, hissing slime bubbling out of it and covering the muddy ground just shy of the fruit. Once again, the delicious smell filled Erich’s nose and reason fled him.

  His sword lay abandoned in the mud as he crawled toward the base of the flower a second time. One of his hands dug into the slime covered dirt where the imp had died, and his arm screamed in agony as acid began to burn away his skin.

  Erich didn’t care. He really wasn’t there mentally enough to care now that the immediate threat of the monster was gone.

  He reached out with his partially burned hand, grabbing hold of the second fruit and bringing it to his mouth. It tasted just as good as the first, and once again a faint hint of aether filled his system. On his arms and legs, the bleeding from the thorn cuts stopped. The injuries were still there, but it felt like they were healing at an abnormal rate.

  None of that fully registered. The only thing that Erich could think of was the wonderful taste of the fruit as he gorged himself upon it.

  The second his meal was finished, the strangeness of Erich’s situation hit home. He was completely sated, filled with more energy than he’d had in weeks. But despite the benefits, he couldn’t help but feel worry churning in his guts. Hell was filled with monsters and vegetation that he clearly didn’t understand, and that lack of understanding could easily kill him.

  More importantly, something had robbed him of his self control. Poison, monsters, hunger, and thirst. Those were all enemies he was prepared to fight. Erich had trained his body and fasted to make himself ready for situations like this.

  But his mind being his own worst enemy? A shiver ran down his spine. How was someone even supposed to approach that?