David revealed the weapons' details to them. “The blood sword makes its wielder stronger with every cut,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “It also grows sharper, longer, and stronger. Probably more hardy. More effective the more blood it drinks. That’s a double boost. Sword and wielder. Turns kills directly into sustained physical power.”
He paused, then delivered the curse. “If it doesn’t get at least one kill every day, it starts feeding on its wielder instead. The amount it takes is unpredictable. It could be a little. It could be everything you’ve got. And the more it’s satisfied by killing, the faster its hunger comes back. The time decrease caps at two kills every twelve hours.”
He moved to the axe. “The poison axe strengthens its wielder. The wounds it makes rot and bleed without closing. Makes every hit worse over time. Killing converts the poison that’s eating the wielder into healing and raw strength. Empowers both the user and the weapon.”
He gave them the curse. “The axe is always poisoning its user from the inside. It will eventually kill them unless they keep killing. Killing dilutes the poison and converts it into raw strength. It’s a trade. Lives for power.”
Finally, he pointed to the spear. “The wraith spear strengthens its wielder. It exists half out of phase. It’s hard to track. It can strike things both physical and not. It’s the kind of weapon normal steel can’t replace.”
He told them the curse. He lied. “It summons hostile wraiths that relentlessly attack the cursed wielder,” he said. “They come every sixteen hours. Or if the wielder ever tries to rest. They prevent sleep and grind the wielder down through exhaustion until even strong fighters collapse. It’s bad.”
He then gave his honest assessment. “But killing things normal weapons can’t is tempting enough that I still want it.”
Everyone balked. Henderson and the linebacker-sized, laser-palmed sixteen-year-old, Son, both visibly paled. Some looked sick. Discouraged.
The group debated the weapons.
“A daily blood tax,” Evans said, his voice low. “With compounding interest.”
“The axe is a death sentence with a delay,” Corbin stated, his arms crossed. “You’d have to be killing constantly just to stay in place.”
Theo looked pensive and hesitant. “The power is… it’s real. But the cost…”
Chloe just shook her head, her hand on her mace. “I’m happy with this,” she said quietly.
The others were wary. They spoke over each other about locking themselves into the worst kind of trap.
David’s internal takeaway was clear. He wanted the spear. Whatever wraiths are, being able to kill them matters. The axe probably goes to the hob. It seems stronger than the sword. If the hob dies, I can resurrect it. But I’m hesitant to change the hob at all. Its martial skill makes it too valuable as a trainer to casually ruin.
Nobody wanted the other weapons.
David went to take the sword too, after claiming the spear.
Corbin and Evans stopped him.
“The weapons are for the group,” Corbin said, his voice firm. “Even if nobody’s willing to use them yet, we can’t let one person take everything.”
David looked at them. “You wouldn’t have them if it wasn’t for me.”
“We helped,” Evans said, steady. “If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t have them either.”
Rhea showed concern. Her eyes were on David, saying to him, ‘at least give them a chance to survive.’
David continued walking without stopping, waving away her concerns.
But Corbin and Evans didn’t back down. “It’s fine if you take one,” Evans said. “We can keep up for a short while. But all three puts the entire group in danger.”
David thought: Huh? Do they think they have a say in what I do?
He looked at Evans. And what does he mean ‘it’s fine’? Does Evans think he’s at my level? That him and Corbin are… what? Because they took out that giant wolf? The alpha’s mate?
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He didn’t know why, but both questions really pissed him off.
His demon, Cinder, stood beside him. A statue of lethality. His elite thrall rested a hand on its sword. Unbeknownst to all, his giant magic wolf, Fenrir, towered above them, twenty feet of fur and savagery, all of it invisible.
David looked at Corbin and Evans. “You think we’re safe?” he asked.
He laughed, a short, tense sound.
“Fine,” he said. “You have one day. If nobody takes those weapons by then, they’re mine. All of them.”
His corrupted Battle Sense skill, disinterested until now, suddenly ignited in his mind. It was a profound feeling of danger. More than a simple tug. It was a cold, factual statement: an explosion would occur, right among them, in the middle of the gathered group.
Then it showed him an image. A flash of visual—the image made David pale. His heart gave a single, hard shudder against his ribs.
He reacted instantly.
The paranoid foreboding he’d felt since returning had already kept his minions close. The commands were thought, fired down the thrall bonds in the half-second he had.
To Cinder he thought:
To Fenrir:
His demon moved, a dark tower shield. His Wolf twisted. His elite hobgoblin thrall’s hand was already on its sword, its body a coiled spring at his impulse.
Then the explosion hit.
No one saw flames. Or even an impact. Just a deafening CRUMP of imploding air and a smell of sharp, biting ozone. The shockwave followed, a visible ripple in the world that slammed into everything.
Most of the group fell or stumbled, cries cut short as they were thrown to the dirt.
Not everyone.
Jamie yelled, throwing his hands out. Walls of thick ice erupted from the ground in rapid succession—crack-shatter, crack-shatter—each one dissolving under the force until a final, fractured wall held, glistening with stress lines.
Rhea and Mia, standing close, raised their hands in unison. A visible wall of distorted air, a force barrier, snapped into place before them. The impact sliced into it, shearing the edge, and they grunted with strain, their arms trembling.
Theo, his face a mask of panicked focus, glowed briefly. He deflected the main wave of force away from himself, but the backdraft, the chaotic eddy, caught him and sent him tumbling sideways to the ground.
Corbin and Evans simply braced. They took the shockwave head-on. Their jackets whipped and tore. Thin, sharp cuts appeared on their faces and hands. Their boots skidded backwards, carving twin grooves in the dirt for several steps. They did not fall.
David planted his feet. He had to brace. He had already sent a frantic surge of energy, every available reserve, into a crude reinforcement of just his bones and the muscles of his legs. The force hit him like a physical truck, demanding he fly backwards. He leaned into it, tendons screaming, and held his ground, refusing to slide backward.
The cause of the shockwave towered in the midst of them.
One second, empty air. The next, a colossal figure occupied the space beside the central fire pit. It appeared out of thin air. Teleportation.
The ogre.
It stood there, having arrived instantly. The teleportation left fading signs: the shimmering air distortion, the ringing in the ears, the acent of ozone now mixed with the scent of wet earth and old iron.
It was labeled in David’s sight, the text burning an angry, deep color:
[Ogre, Lvl 48]
It had levelled. Significantly.
The ogre stood twenty feet tall, a giant of mottled grey, leathery skin crisscrossed with thick veins and old scars. Its tree-trunk arms ended in a three-fingered hand that gripped a massive warclub—a metal-studded pole with a hilt wrapped in stained leather and yellowed bone. Coiled muscles shifted beneath its pallid hide. A low, wet growl rumbled from its chest. Its face was a brutal slab under a heavy brow, dominated by two small, fierce blue eyes that burned like trapped gas flames.
The survivors froze where they stood. The only movements were the subtle tremors in their limbs and the rapid rise and fall of their chests. Somehow it looked worse than before. More present. Dangerous. It had new scars draped over old ones. Trophies. Its glowing blue gaze passed over each of them, and the clearing fell silent. All David could hear was breathing the sound of his heart hammering against his chest.
Cloaked, a wave of cold dread punched through David’s chest. His breath stopped. Every instinct shrieked, a raw scream in his skull. He choked it down. He forced his lungs to work. The panic refused to recede. It clawed at the edges of his vision. It tightened like a fist around his spine.
No.
Fuck
FUCK.
Everyone else stopped moving. Every survivor—they all just locked up. David could see the tremors in their hands, the tight fear in their throats. Their breathing was the only sound, fast and shallow. The ogre’s low growl vibrated in his ribs. It was looking them over, picking its next move, and the whole clearing waited.
A paralysis of pure fear locked the camp. The ogre was a monument of layered muscle and gray, hide-like skin. It held a crude tree trunk studded with black iron spikes. Its small, deep-set eyes scanned the stunned survivors with a detached, predatory interest.
Then, everyone saw the two figures standing calmly beside the giant, as if they were its natural entourage. They had arrived with it, shielded within its teleportation. One human wore a full set of heavy, silver-toned armor, a patchwork of plates stained with old and new blood. The other wore lighter gear, leather armor strapped over a simple, dark t-shirt. This one’s left sleeve was empty, pinned up at the shoulder. He only had one arm.
They were not prisoners. They stood as wards, as enforcers. Their presence was almost overshadowed by the ogre, but now the group’s terrified attention found them.
Their tags flashed into David’s perception, another set of hostile identifiers:
[Human, Lvl 25 - Swift-Footed Slayer]
[Human, Lvl 27 - Mind Knight]
The humans were with the ogre. They were hostile. They were high level. And they had classes.