Trade you these cursed items… for one of you…
Around David, the others were frozen, a mix of raw fear and confusion. David ignored it. The floating hobgoblin ‘priest’ was still talking, which meant it wasn’t killing them yet. With the Calm Mind skill boosting his mental state, he used the space to check the notifications pinging in the back of his skull.
[Demonic Energy Lvl 3 ? Demonic Energy Lvl 4]
His background circulation had paid off. He pulled up his full stat sheet, a glowing list only he could see.
[Name: David Carter
Level 8
Demonic Realm: Floor 1/???
Difficulty: Impossible
Time left until forced ejection: 4y 363d 10h 17m 32s.
Primary Class: Locked
Sub-class: Locked
Strength: 9
Dexterity: 7
Constitution: 28
Mana: 28
Demonic Energy: 61
Skills: Battle Sense Lvl 3, Calm Mind Lvl 1, Energy Affinity Lvl 3, Demonic Energy Lvl 4, Demonic Energy Mastery Lvl 5, Portal Magic Lvl 1, Infernal Thrall Lvl 1,
Free points: 0]
He didn't get a level for the Flesh Golem. The System only ever gave those out when a fight was over. It must have counted enthralling the hobgoblin at the clearing as an end, which explained the two levels back then. That meant unless he found a way to trick the System into thinking a battle had ended, fighting a hundred things in a row would still only gain one level. A total scam—an impossible one.
It didn't matter. His Energy Affinity let him take power directly.
Demonic Energy: 61
It was forty-four. A total gain of seventeen. Base rate was two points per drained creature. New skill level raised the drain rate to three. Two creatures drained made six points. The skill level itself gave ten. That was sixteen. He had seventeen. There was an extra point.
Then it hit him; one creature was drained by proxy. Mara. She used her life drain on the golem. She couldn't handle that much demonic energy. Being his thrall let her siphon it without boiling, and the tether funneled almost all of it to him. His energy affinity boosted the transfer. A thirty percent boost on stats stolen.
On Impossible difficulty, the System locked power growth to its schedule. But with this? If they both upgraded their skills, he could be pulling tens of stats from one enemy. The thirty percent boost on the precious resource, could quickly scale past a hundred percent.
Holy—he thought. She's a bucket, he thought. I'm the drain. My energy affinity and the thrall link let me intercept the overflow. It was an exclusive loophole. Just for having her leashed. I just hacked in a multiplier. His path to ultimate power now depended on treating his necromancer like bargain-bin Wi-Fi. He now had an official reason to keep her alive.
David’s mental tally updated: a major exploit confirmed, and the main problem was now a floating demonic collector wanting to make a very bad trade.
Time to see what the going rate is for a soul, he thought.
David kept a thin, one-inch aura of demonic energy circulating outside his skin. Low-key, but ready—it was doing a convincing impression of nothing at all. He pushed further, pushing the tether to Mara, and fed a thin stream through her already-busy wiring. He pulled it back. Adding her to his circuit—two batteries in series—connected circulation. He felt her sharp recoil, masked but tense. Gonna need to work on her tolerance if I want to run this particular scam.
The priest floated, still holding three glowing weapons, its offer drifting among them without answer. It waited like it had all the time—and power—in the world.
Jamie exhaled, on edge, Rhea studied the priest’s shield; Henderson stayed pale but steady, and Corbin and Evans braced—they all felt the threat.
Chloe, the healer’s, hand trembled. Her whisper was a thin, frightened hiss. "What do we do?"
David kept his eyes on the priest and whispered back. "We do not negotiate with terrorists."
He sent an unspoken order down the tether to his thrall.
The elite hobgoblin spoke in its own language, the sounds like rocks being crushed in a vise.
The floating priest watched the thrall with an expression that suggested it was examining an interesting bug. It replied, its voice a dry rustle that carried across the clearing without any effort. “You are standing in my place. This entire floor has a master. A sovereign. He owns the ground, the trees, the air. When he learns you are here, breathing his air, he will want you removed. He will make it worth the while of others to see it done.”
The words hung there. Harris, the man in the torn suit, shifted his weight. He looked at Evans, then at the ground, then back at the priest. “We’re in someone’s territory,” he said, the statement quiet and full of a new kind of dread. “We’re trespassing.”
David listened. He understood the translation. We’re in a fucking kingdom. With a king who has a pest control budget.
He pushed the thought to his thrall psychically, feeding it the concept to translate.
The thrall growled another series of harsh syllables.
“I am a keeper of things,” the priest said. Its gaze swept over them again, pausing on Mara, on the zombies, lingering on David then staying on others just as long. “The sovereign’s attention is a weight that crushes. My interests are more… focused.”
Narrower, David thought, watching Jamie fidget like he wanted to build an ice castle out of pure nerves. Probably means it only collects specific types of doomed idiots.
The priest’s attention returned to David’s thrall. “You have taken tools that were not yours. You have strength that does not belong here.” It lifted the hand holding the three glowing weapons slightly. The axehead shimmered with a heat-haze distortion, the kind that suggested it could split a car engine block. The spear’s point seemed to drink the light around it. The hammer looked like it could pound a boulder into gravel. “I possess tools that can make you stronger. That can help you survive the sovereign’s cleaners. Again, I will trade them. For one of you.”
A cold silence followed, broken only by the sound of Chloe’s quick, shallow breathing.
One warm body for three magic can-openers, David thought. And it just told us the local government has a standing order for our extermination. This is going great.
David kept his attention split. The floating priest was the main problem, but the unconscious, tattooed werebeast in the cage was a close second. He needed to know how they connected. He fed the question to his thrall.
The thrall spoke again, its voice a low gravel-grind of syllables.
The priest’s eyes slid toward the iron cage. Its lipless mouth twisted into something that might have been disgust.
The priest’s eyes flicked to the iron cage. Its lipless mouth tightened, a shadow of revulsion passing over its features. “That? A beast of the Marked Legion. Brutes who mistake force for wisdom, treat this floor like a nail and themselves like hammers. They leave their filth in every corner they pass.” The hand holding the leashes waved lightly, almost disdainfully. The three muscular imps shifted, their glowing tattoos throbbing in unison.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
In the tense silence, Evans let out a slow, controlled breath. He kept his voice so low it was almost inaudible, meant only for Corbin and David. “So not the same group. But a ‘legion’, that’s a problem. The things that attacked us at the wreckage had those brands.”
Corbin gave a single, stiff nod, his hand resting on his holster. The hobgoblins, werebeasts, imps, the warlock that had tried to kill or capture them, the ones David’s thrall had come from—all of them had the same shoulder marking. The pieces locked together with a quiet, dreadful click. They’d already met one faction. This priest represented something else.
David filed the information away. Two teams. The branded brutes who sent capture squads, and the floating collectors who caged the brutes and offered trades. It sounded like a territorial dispute, and we’re the loose change everyone’s fighting over.
Jamie was now staring at the caged werebeast, his usual optimism buried under a layer of pale fear. Rhea’s gaze was fixed on the priest, her expression the same flat, assessing look she’d used when checking David’s wounds—calculating a problem. She was reading the creature’s posture, the way it held itself aloof from the mention of the branding, and likely coming to the same conclusion.
It turned back to David’s thrall. The trace of disgust vanished, replaced by the same composed, measured gaze. “They are not my concern. They do what they do. My people do what we do. That is your choice to consider.”
Those are our options—the Coke and Pepsi of horrible death and-or sacrifice. He felt the weight of the group’s attention, the unasked questions hanging in the air. They were all waiting for him to answer, to negotiate, to pick a damn side in a war they didn’t understand.
David sent the thought to his thrall.
He stopped.
The thrall growled out the translated words.
"They would not.” The priest’s eyes tightened slightly, as if the query was both expected and mildly irritating. “New pieces are a rarity. To find so many, unbroken... it is a significant event."
David noted the word. Piece. The ogre had called them 'new pieces.' The priest was using the same term. Every creature that used it meant it literally. They weren't being metaphorical—but a piece of what? He pushed a question through the tether.
The thrall relayed the question in its grating language.
The priest's gaze drifted over the clustered survivors again, as if counting them. "A piece is a piece. It is a resource that was not here before. You are all new pieces. That has a value." It completely ignored the question about definition.
Henderson's knuckles were white around his sword hilt. He looked from the priest to the others, his voice a strained whisper. "We're... some kind of resource?"
Jamie didn't look at anyone. Harris's breathing was shallow and quick. No one answered Henderson.
Its dry voice continued. “Think of it as an investment. The cursed tools will preserve the rest. A single piece spent to armor the remaining pieces. This is how value is balanced here.”
A low sound escaped Chloe. Henderson’s jaw worked, his eyes darting between the others. "No," Jamie said, his voice strained, pushing the word out through his fear. Beside him, Mia simply shook her head, over and over, her cat clutched so tightly it squirmed in silent protest.
Living currency, David thought.
The next thought was immediate and specific. How do we scam, kill, and rob this idiot?
That was the only true question on David’s mind. The priest was higher level, floating. It had a magical shield. It had three juiced-up imps on chains. It saw them as valuable, collectible pieces. It wanted to make a deal instead of just taking them. But they had numbers—range. That was the weakness. The confidence was the flaw.
The loophole was the trade itself. An open gate to ‘Stab-the-priest town.’ The shield was the main obstacle. The imps and the flight were secondary complications.
David’s mind worked on the shield. It had visibly strained when Evans and Corbin fired. It had a limit. You had to hit it with more, or you had to get something past it before it activated.
The priest’s gaze finally shifted from the thrall, sweeping over the humans again. It paused on Corbin’s tight grip on his halberd, on Evans’s carefully controlled breathing. “You have discipline,” it observed, the comment offhand. “You have not broken. That increases your value. For now.”
Harris’s voice was strained. “We are not currency.”
“You are what you are traded for,” the priest replied. “That is the economy. I am merely a facilitator.”
David gave a sharp, subtle jerk of his head toward his thrall. He sent a psychic pulse to Mara and a hard look to Corbin.
His thrall edged sideways as it spoke, almost casual, sauntering to use the bulk of the redwood as a partial screen. Mara’s zombie archer took two stiff steps to the right. The colossal zombie ground one foot forward, widening its base. The movements were slow, casual, disguised as the natural shuffle of mindless undead.
Around him, the living survivors’ postures shifted. Rhea planted her back foot, her spear held low and ready. Henderson braced his shield, his sword tip rising an inch. A shell of pale blue ice sheathed Jamie’s forearms. Son’s palm glowed with a suppressed, hot light. Even Mia’s floating sword drifted back to hover just in front of her shoulder.
Chloe stood utterly still, her knuckles bloodless on her mace handle. Corbin spoke in a low, urgent murmur to Evans and the pensioner, his eyes never leaving the priest. “Hold your ground. Steady. Do not move unless it does.”
The priest observed the silent repositioning. Its head tilted a fraction of an inch. It did not move. Its three imps remained still. It simply watched. "You are arranging your pieces," it said, its voice devoid of alarm. "An orderly display."
David clapped his hands together once. "Alright. I'm done hiding. I might consider your deal, for the sake of my friends." Ha. Yeah fucking right. It was the tactically safest position.
He started walking to the priest. Rhea and his thrall followed many feet behind.
The floating priest drifted lower. "Good. You are an exceptional piece" It extended the glowing spear. "See for yourself."
"All three weapons, not just one," David said, stepping forward.
The priest smiled and moved to hand them over directly. The air rippled as an invisible force intercepted the three weapons, Rhea’s telekinesis holding them in the air for inspection.
The priest’s free hand twitched. The three chained imps snapped to attention in unison, muscles coiling. Runed skin flaring. The priest’s personal shield pulsed with a soft, concentric ripple. David’s vision tagged them.
[Corruption-Touched Imp - Lvl 8]
[Corruption-Touched Imp - Lvl 10]
[Corruption-Touched Imp - Lvl 11]
A guttural snarl rang from the iron cage. The tattooed werebeast warlock twitched, rousing. Its clawed hand slamming against the bars. The black iron shuddered, runes flaring crimson.
The priest’s head jerked toward the cage, its expression flashing pure, irritated possession.
Chloe, the healer, cracked. A small, terrified sound escaped her. She stumbled back a step, her mace clattering to the ground. The priest’s eyes snapped to the noise, all diplomatic pretense vanishing. "Your fear is tedious."
"Guys," David said, his voice flat. "Now."
Rhea’s telekinesis wrenched the cursed weapons from the priest’s proximity, sending them flying as she retreated. At the same instant, Son turned and a continuous, searing red laser erupted from his palm directly into David’s back.
The beam burned a hole straight through him before the torrent of raw heat energy flooding his system began sealing it shut from the inside out. He was a lake, overflowing.
David’s body thrummed. A container over-pressurized with Son’s laser heat and the sudden, screaming backflow of demonic energy from Mara’s unleashed life drain. He forced it all into circulation, his personal energy field igniting into a visible, spinning, shuddering aura of violent heat and corrosive darkness. He managed the torrent, siphoning the lethal feedback from Mara through the thrall tether to keep her intact, channeling it all into the maelstrom around him.
Mara’s zombies lurched forward. The priest hissed a command. The three imps surged, chains falling away.
The zombie archer was instantly destroyed. An imp lunged, and a violet-tattooed fist punched through its chest in a spray of rot and splintered bone.
Corbin fired. One shot. The bullet froze in the distorted shield. Corbin adjusted, fired a fourth round. It struck a suspended bullet, driving it a fraction deeper into the shimmering field, just like they had agreed in their huddle.
A survivor’s skill triggered. Rhea’s telekinetic tug yanked at the priest’s robe, jerking it inches sideways as she ran. A minor effect. The priest’s gaze didn't waver from David.
David focused the storm inside him—Son’s relentless laser heat and the torrent of Mara’s siphoned demonic energy—and forced it down the shaft of his spear. The wood vibrated violently in his hands, releasing a high, piercing whine like a boiling kettle. The spearhead ignited in a sheath of visible, seething black flame that dripped corrosive embers onto the ground.
He exploded forward. Dirt sprayed behind him from the force of his push. As he closed on the priest’s shimmering shield, he didn’t swing. He stabbed the air directly in front of the distortion and tore.
A jagged, black-rimmed portal ripped open in the fabric of the shield itself. David immediately flooded that unstable hole with a massive surge of pure mana. The skill wasn’t made for mana, the conflicting energies—demonic spatial tear and raw magical force—collapsed.
The spatial explosion was soundless and violently physical. It hit David like a mountain. He was flung backward, crashing into the dirt. He felt ribs snap, his shoulder dislocate, parts of him simply gone. Son’s laser found him again, the torrent of heat energy flooding the voids, knitting bone and flesh with agonizing speed.
David pushed himself up from the scarred earth. Mad dust swirled in the air. The ground between him and the priest was a crater of churned soil and blackened, smoking grass.
David scanned through the storm of twisted space, clouds of dust and debris, his senses hyper-extended, looking for the remains, or trap, the flaw, the one thing he could use.
Through the swirling smoke, three fleshy raisin-balls clattered to the ground and expanded with wet, tearing sounds into three hulking flesh golems. Son’s laser and Mara’s constant demonic stream still poured into David.
"I guess stealing his toys really pisses him off," David said.