I flew through the orange glow and landed on a cracked road.

  Ash was drifting down from the sky like snow. The air stank of sulfur, and from somewhere in the distance came horrifying screams.

  Around me stretched a ruined metropolis, parts of it still burning. All buildings I could see were skyscrapers or similarly modern buildings, or well, their leftovers.

  Some buildings had been blown apart by explosions, others looked like they’d been sliced clean in two, and most at least toppled.

  I gasped for air.

  I couldn’t breathe, again.

  My lungs burned as if set ablaze.

  Behind me was the orange glow of the portal, and from the rubble to the side crawled out a metallic dog monster like the one from before.

  I scrambled to my feet and jumped back through the portal.

  I flew back through and landed at Isabella’s feet, my face a few inches from her heels.

  A ding echoed through my mind, a level up. Again?

  Isabella braced the tip of her shoe under my chin and angled my face so that I looked up at her. “Back so soon? What did you find?”

  “There are monsters in there,” I stammered, turning to the portal. The steel monster dog was visible through it now, sniffing around.

  Isabella’s face turned serious. “That’s what scared you?” she pointed at the dead monster dog back by the stairs. “Don’t tell me that little pest actually hurt you. Is your left arm messed up from fighting it?”

  I stared at her wide-eyed.

  She pulled a phone from her pocket and furiously swiped all over its screen for a few seconds. “Here it is, the resume of Peter O’Connor. Quote: Experienced combat mage with advanced shielding, extensive combat experience, and a passion for self-enhancement magic.”

  I blushed. “I might’ve… exaggerated this section a little.”

  She pierced me with a cold glare. “No kidding.” She pointed at the dead demon. “In the epistemology of demonic entities, that’s a cockroach. What exactly did you mean by extensive combat experience in your resume? Beating your meat? Have you ever actually fought anything?”

  In high school, I did a bit of karate and sometimes boxed with a punching bag… but I kept that to myself. I pointed to the demon. “I fought that.”

  Isabella shook her head. “Let’s go.” She turned and headed for the stairs.

  I scrambled up to my feet and followed her. This was going downhill fast. She went straight to the car, so I swiftly headed to the passenger seat.

  This time, I managed to buckle my seatbelt before Isabella stomped on the gas. I tried to think of something to say, but nothing smart came to mind. At least the ride went quickly. Isabella drove like every road was the German autobahn.

  We blasted through the highway at almost two hundred miles per hour, and only slightly slowed down when the traffic thickened.

  Isabella swerved among cars in a way that had to be illegal and then took an exit that brought us to the center.

  I sat frozen in the seat as traffic lights apparently meant nothing to her. The number of fees this one short drive earned was going to be biblical.

  Straight before the downtown, she turned towards a mid-rise apartment complex and drove straight to its underground garage.

  She stopped at the gate, rolled down the window, graced the camera with an annoyed glare, and the gate opened.

  I perked up.

  I’d never seen a residential garage with facial recognition before. And she arrived by jet, so why would she have an apartment here?

  We entered the garage, and Isabella parked across three spots. I got out of the car to keep up with her.

  Six other cars were parked in the garage, all positioned just as randomly as she just stopped. The worst car there was a Ford Focus, but I also spotted a Lamborghini and a Ferrari.

  “Luggage,” Isabella barked.

  I quickly snapped out of it and grabbed her luggage from the trunk, which she had already opened.

  I caught up to her by the elevator. We squeezed in together. She pressed floor five, labeled Training Floor.

  The other floors had labels too. The eighth was Apartment, seventh Pool, sixth Wardrobe, fourth Office, third Shoe closet, second Torture chamber, and the ground floor had nothing.

  Before I could fully process that, the elevator stopped, and Isabella walked out.

  I followed, and the suitcases fell from my hands.

  There were no apartments here. The entire floor was one giant open space with supporting pillars and the elevator in the middle.

  Training equipment was scattered around like in a gym, except without any arrangement or sense.

  Isabella walked into the empty area, turned, and imperiously tapped her heel. “Judgment day has come for you. Get over here.”

  I stared around the floor, still in disbelief. “You own your own apartment complex?”

  “I have about thirty of them around the world. I’m not staying in a hotel like some beggar.” She smirked, her hair swirling around her. “But that’s irrelevant. Raise your shields and touch me.” A few strands of her hair cracked the air like whips and slapped me across the face.

  Pain shot through my cheek, my head snapped sideways, and tears welled in my eyes. I remembered the specialization and skills that made what she just did possible. Transformation magic, level ten skill, mass alteration of self, and level fifteen skill, inanimate puppetry.

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  Isabella burst out laughing. “You’re not gonna cry, are you?”

  With my face burning, I reached for my power. I stepped away from the elevator, trying to think how I could possibly attack her. All I could do was to strengthen myself, so I had to get close to touch her. She stood more than twenty yards away, and obviously, I was already within her range.

  I charged at her.

  Her hair lashed through the air in dozens of strands. About six struck me like whips, and one grabbed my ankle, yanked me off my feet, and slammed me against a pillar.

  The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I screamed in pain. I crashed to the floor, gasping for breath.

  “Do you think I’m going to come to you while you lie there like a dead rat?” She lashed me a few more times with her hair, each strike burning like a real whip. “So, are these your extensive combat skills?”

  Another strand lashed at me, but I pushed through the pain and leapt to my feet. She clearly ran a dexterity build, so I grabbed a dumbbell from a nearby rack and hurled it at her with all my strength.

  She caught it mid-air with her hair, slapped me across the face again with another strand, and hissed, “Don’t make a mess.” She gave me three more strikes and gently placed the dumbbell back.

  I could barely see through the pain, and my knees wobbled.

  “Well.” Isabella clicked her tongue. “Let’s test your passion for enhancement magic, then.” Her hair turned into chains, shot through the air, wrapped around me, and flung me to the floor beside her, once again, face landing right next to feet.

  With the tip of her shoe, she tilted my face up to look at her. “Break the chains.”

  Matter alteration on her own body, a level fifty transmutation mage skill. Damn it. I clenched my jaw and focused all my energy on strength. I strained with everything I had.

  Nothing.

  The chains didn’t budge.

  “Come on, what’s taking so long? I’m getting hungry.”

  I tried again. Still nothing, but I started panting.

  “Clearly, you need more motivation.” She picked me up and dragged me to the elevator. The chains held me mid-air as if I were weightless. I just gasped for breath and tried to calm myself down.

  Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

  Ding, echoed through my head. A level up.

  Too late for that, though I realized what she was doing. She was testing my level and trying to figure out my spec.

  Except that since I haven’t put any points into anything yet, she had nothing to find. And while I could put points into a stat, I couldn't think of one that could help me right now.

  She carried me into the elevator and pressed floor two. The one labeled Torture Chamber.

  Suddenly, the label didn’t feel like a joke.

  The elevator moved, stopped, and she brought me out.

  The floor looked like the fifth, except it was littered with torture tools, many medieval, some disturbingly modern.

  Cold crept through my veins as I never thought I would see the Iron Maiden outside of a museum. Or gallows.

  Isabella tossed me into a steel bathtub. She sat on its edge, and a strand of hair turned into a long, thin dagger. She twirled it in her hand, smiled, and stabbed me in the thigh.

  I screamed in pain as blood poured from the wound.

  She laughed and propped her heels against my face. “Break the chains before you bleed out.”

  Panic seized me. I thrashed wildly against the chains. Then I remembered magic. I gathered every drop of power I had and strained again. Still no result.

  “Guess you’re not motivated enough.” Isabella stabbed me in the shoulder.

  I cried out. “I can’t get out of this! Nothing’s working!”

  “Relax, you’ve still got three to five minutes before you bleed to death. That’s plenty of time to beg me for your miserable life. It won't work, but you can try.”

  “Is that what you expect me to do? Beg and die?”

  “It’s one of the possibilities.” Isabella smiled smugly. “Or, alternatively, you could figure out how to get at least some performance out of your magic. Take your time. You’ve got like two to four minutes to think now.”

  I closed my eyes. Shadow?

  The world stopped, and Shadow appeared, looming above me. “I see your boss likes you.”

  “Very funny.” I exhaled and tried to calm down my thoughts a bit. The time stop really helped. “How do I get out of these chains?”

  “Well, if you had put points into strength, and hit the gym for a few weeks, you could have torn them apart.”

  Yeah, I figured as much. “Unless you can turn back time, that doesn’t help now.”

  “Can’t. Never was the charisma type.”

  The heck did charisma have to do with time manipulation? I frowned and left the question for another time. “You’re supposed to be my helper. Help me then.”

  “Well, you’re level five, and system intervention is at level twenty, so you can’t spec into that. You’re out of strength, bleeding, and tied up, so strength, dexterity, intelligence, willpower, and speed won’t do anything for you now. That doesn’t leave many options to try.”

  I knew all that, but his listing it up during a time stop helped me calm my thoughts. “Give me a moment.” I looked at the attributes, their perks, and skill trees.

  All magic-casting skills were going to be useless as I was out of energy. That left physical skills. Though with blood loss, I couldn’t really exert myself any more, anyway.

  Whatever I did had to stop the bleeding.

  I shifted to attributes. Endurance could have had something to do with bleeding. I remembered having seen that in there.

  Here, ten points perk, bleeding resistance, and then at twenty points, another perk:

  Name: Vampire’s Nightmare

  Effect: Seal all bleeding wounds, and stop all bleeding for the next thirty minutes.

  Usage limit: Once per day.

  Instructions: Focus after losing more than ten percent of one’s blood. Triggers automatically after losing over thirty percent of one's blood.

  Thanks to being level five, I had twenty-five points, so I could dump twenty points into endurance and use this to stop the bleeding.

  But then what?

  Then nothing.

  Alternatively, I could dump all points into charisma, and hope that it will enhance my begging for mercy enough for it to work.

  Damn it, there had to be a way out of this.

  If Isabella wasn’t testing what build I had, then I was done for.

  So, assuming she was doing that, I had to show something. This situation gave me the opportunity to showcase endurance or charisma. Clearly not by coincidence, as she had tested my speed, dexterity, strength, and probably intelligence earlier.

  Endurance was the worst stat, as far as I understood them, but what would I do with charisma?

  Live a peaceful and comfortable life, most likely. Or die in the steel bathtub, because begging wasn’t going to work on her.

  She did strike me like the type of woman who would love a good pincushion though.

  Fuck it.

  I allocated twenty points to endurance and unlocked both of the perks.

  With a smirk, Shadow vanished, and the time resumed.

  I focused, activated the perk, and my wounds all sealed. My strength didn’t return, though, as that didn’t really heal me, just stopped me from dying.

  The chains shifted, transformed back into hair, and withdrew to their normal shape.

  “There we go.” Isabella jumped down from the tub, grinning ear to ear. “See? It’s not impossible to please me. It just takes some blood, sweat, and effort.”

  I dragged myself out of the tub, from the pool of my own blood. My head spun, but I managed to straighten up to stand. “You’re insane.”

  “Have been for thirty years,” she cackled. “And one day, you will be too.”

  “No. I’m done. You’re completely crazy, and I want nothing to do with you. I quit.”

  Her hair grabbed me again, bound me, and forced me to my knees. I tried reaching for magic, but I had nothing left. She stepped in front of me, cupped my cheek, and whispered, “The life you knew ended yesterday. Now, you’ll go home, rest, pack your things, and bring them to work tomorrow. Then you’ll move in here with me. If you have a girlfriend, you will break up with her tonight. Understood?”

  Not a chance. But arguing with her wouldn’t help. One couldn’t reason with lunatics. “Understood.”

  She smiled and let me go. “The bathroom’s across from the elevator. I’ll prepare a doghouse for you tomorrow. And if you want to make me happy, buy yourself a collar on the way to work.” She left, stepped into the elevator, and disappeared with its door closing.

  Finally.

  I gave myself a minute to breathe it out, my entire body now covered with cold sweat. I circled the elevator, and found the bathroom where she said it would be.

  It was dusty, but the water worked. I peeled off my blood-soaked jacket and rinsed it off. Thin bruises covered my body. Every movement hurt, and I could barely stay on my feet.

  But at least nothing bled anymore.

  I cleaned myself up as best I could, took the elevator down to the garage. Isabella had left the keys in the car, so I grabbed them, got in, and drove out of the garage.

  The gate opened automatically on my way out, and I silently swore to myself I’d never return.

  TG