Ch13. Into the Nest - 3

"Yes, and no." The man said, moving towards me. "You passed out after your battle with the Lizard folk and his leader, Tarhuk. Beautiful, what you did there."

I smiled, embarrassed.

But as he got closer, I felt something.

Something was off, but I couldn't for the life of me, put a finger on it.

I sharped my senses, and the closer the man got, the more threatened I felt, somehow.

That man, I had to back away from him, no matter what.

And I did.

I moved backwards with an impulse, my instincts screaming in my head 'DANGER, DANGER!'.

Right when he threw a punch at me, that grazed my nose by a hairsbreadth.

"WHAT THE HELL?" I stepped backwards once more, as the man lowered his hood.

Octavius Blake, my father, was looking at me with a raised brow.

I felt heat under my nose, and saw blood, when I cleaned it with the back of my hand.

"You grew a little stronger, boy." He said, but his voice didn't quite sound like my father.

He sounded, I don't know...

Kinda robotic?

I stepped back one more time, summoning [MIDNIGHT SISTERS] behind my back.

"You know," He spoke again "when I first saw you, I didn't have hopes in you, at all. But as you grew up, and I noticed that you just wouldn't awaken, and that made me really angry..."

He kept on babbling about how he wouldn't accept a son if he was a regular, but I already knew all that bullshit, and even more...

Something clicked in my mind, and I realized that the thing in front of me wasn't truly Octavius, but some distorted image of him.

So I didn't hesitate, and sprinted towards him, ready to attack.

But he blocked my attacks.

With the same pair of daggers that I held.

"How...?"

It was impossible, but it didn't shock me as much as I thought it would.

"[MIDNIGHT SET] is bound to the soul of the one who equips them. Curious, isn't it?"

"Yeah, very curious." I said, still clashing with the thing in front of me.

The gears in my brain furiously turning, searching for any hint of what I was experiencing.

But everything about the whole situation felt different from everything I had imagined.

My blades clashed against the thing's, but that was all.

He only blocked and parried, but every time he was about to connect, I felt it and evaded, blocked, or counterattacked.

He wasn't stronger than me.

So searched for the tiniest opening I could get, and kicked him hard in the chest, sending him a few good steps back.

"You're not Octavius. Who are you? What are you?"

The thing gasped and coughed a mouthful of blood.

"I'm you..."

"Bullshit!"

The thing's eyes widened in surprise.

"You're not me, because if you were, you would've foreseen the kick you just received. It would be a never ending fight, and we would die of exhaustion, nothing more."

It rolled its eyes, and sighed in boredom.

"You're a bit better than I expected, but don't expect me to go any easier on you next time. I'll keep watching you..."

And then it started to vanish, the place around me lighting up in a blinding explosion.

"Wait! WHO ARE..."

***

"... YOU?"

I woke up in Tarhuk's chamber again, heart pounding, confused about what just happened.

But before I could even try to understand it, there was the system's beep, followed by a message.

[THE PLAYER HAS BEEN GRANTED A REWARD FOR COMPLETING THE FIRST TRIAL]

[RETURNING STONE ACQUIRED]

[RETURNING STONE]

[DESCRIPTION: Item – Can be used once; Allows the player to leave the Hidden Nest; Upon exiting, the Hidden Nest will be closed off forever.]

[YOU HAVE 01 MESSAGE]

I laughed.

"First trial, huh?"

Things were slowly starting to get in place in my head.

I wasn't facing me, neither Octavius, in the dream I just had.

I was facing the system itself.

But why wasn't it stronger than me?

I thought that, if the system was able to bring me back right after I died, it would have some godly powers or whatever.

But it didn't seem to be able to fend against me.

Fuck, I was even able to hit it cleanly!

I sighed, sitting up.

The more I lived through this, the more questions I had.

And I didn't have an answer to any of them.

At least for now.

"Well... At least you seem to be showing some intentions here..." I murmured, looking at the description of the item I just acquired.

The [RETURNING STONE] wasn't an item I intended to use, unless my solo raid got really out of control.

I wouldn't waste this chance of leveling up, no matter what.

But the appearing of the item felt out of place.

Why would the system give me an item that would secure my life, but wouldn't let me get a second chance to go at it?

It felt fishy, but I let that suspicion set aside, opening the system window to check my stats, and the message.

NAME: KURT BLAKE

LVL: 10

AGE: 16

CLASS: Rogue

STAMINA: 245/245

HP: 210/210

MP: 165/165

BASIC STATS

Undistributed stat points: 5

Strength: 23 (+10)

Dexterity: 34 (+20)

Agility: 34 (+20)

Perception: 27

Intelligence: 21

Vigor: 37

INVENTORY

***

CONSUMABLES

Full recovery x1

EQUIPMENT

Midnight Ballad

Midnight's embrace

***

SKILLS

Steal LVL 1

Invisible hand LVL 1

Prying eyes LVL 1

Shadow walk LVL 2

[THE DAILY QUEST HAS ARRIVED]

I gasped at the message.

What time was it, for a new daily quest to arrive?

I checked my holowatch, and cursed to myself.

10:14AM

"FOR HOW FUCKING LONG WAS I ASLEEP?!"

The shout echoed through the stone chamber, and after the sound dissipated, a rift-like door appeared in front of me.

"For fuck's sake!"

Before entering the second floor of the Nest, I had to do some work, so I got down again, and started doing the sit-ups, then turned on my chest, and started the push-ups.

It was way easier than before, so, remembering the first time I completed the quest, when the sparring counter surpassed the ten minutes limit, I decided to go to one hundred of each, in two series.

After I was done with these, all that was left was sparring and running with weights.

But there was a difference from the previous daily quest to the current one.

[REWARD: ???]

[PENALTY: LEVEL DECREASING]

The system must be trying to fuck with me, somehow...

And no way I would let it happen.

I had to think of something, before the day ended.

So I activated [SHADOW WALK], and walked towards the entrance to the next floor.

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ENVIAR PRESENTE

Ch14. Into the Nest - 4

The Nests usually had two to three floors, according to the books I read on the topic.

Each floor was harder to conquer than the one before, that's why they needed full, well-balanced teams to raid the Nests.

And I was still a bit surprised that I was able to conquer the first floor of the [HIDDEN NEST] all by myself.

But as I passed through the threshold to the next floor, I felt a different kind of pressure.

The corridor ahead of me was completely empty, except for dozens of rusted armors standing in line, with their backs to the walls.

It was like someone had used them for decoration purposes.

There weren't any torches illuminating the place. Instead, regular braziers hanging on the ceiling cast an eerie light upon the armors and the walls.

But I didn't feel any presence ahead of me, and since I had [SHADOW WALK] on, I took that opportunity to test something out.

I took a pair of gauntlets and a breast plate from one of the armors, and it weighted really heavy when I put them on.

'Okay, that should do for a while.' I thought, and started to run, with my quest window open, so I could check on my progress.

[DAILY QUEST: THE STRONGER SELF]

[REQUIREMENTS:

RUNNING WITH WEIGHTS 0/10KM

SIT-UPS 100/50

PUSH-UPS 100/50

SPARRING 0/10MIN]

[REWARD: ???]

[PENALTY: LEVEL DECRESAL]

As I thought, all the exercises I did before were there, one hundred of each.

What kind of reward would I get if I surpassed all goals?

With that thought in mind, I started to run as fast as I could with the weight of the breast plate and the gauntlets I had on.

I didn't follow a fast pace, because I had to conserve as much stamina as possible for the fights ahead.

Even though I couldn't see a single beast on my way to the end of that floor.

'It looks too easy for the second floor of a Nest.'

But then the smell came with the full brunt.

I immediately felt nauseous, and stopped running.

The corridor stopped a few dozens of meters ahead. There was a closed double door, and from inside it I could smell it.

Death.

I didn't need to get in there to know what I would see if I stepped inside.

Corpses.

Countless corpses.

My quest window showed that I ran seven kilometers to get where I was, so it left me with three more kilometers, and the chance to see if a fight with whatever that was inside that room, counted as a spar.

I checked my stats, and saw that I only took four minutes to get there, leaving me twelve more minutes of [SHADOW WALK], so I stepped forward, and opened the door.

It was dark, but I was right.

The smell was even worse on the inside. And the creature that did all that I was witnessing was looking straight at the door.

Straight at me, if I wasn't cloaked with [SHADOW WALK].

It was a vulture-like beast, bigger than me.

Luckily, though, not close to being as big as Tarhuk.

And it was feasting on a...

Human corpse?

It was gruesome to watch.

But what shocked me the most, even more than the smell or the countless bodies all over the floor, what that human corpse.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the one the vulture was feeding on, wasn't the only human corpse in the vast room.

How did they get here?

It was a vast place, and it didn't seem to have walls or a ceiling.

The place was all covered in darkness, despite me being able to see the floor and the dead bodies.

And the beast was just looking at the door, breathing, exhaling something like vapor from the nostrils in its beak.

Somehow, I felt as though it could see me, even though I had [SHADOW WALK].

Was it powerful?

But then I looked over its head, and the name explained everything.

[THE BLIND GUARDIAN: KOTUR'AH - LVL 11]

'You gotta be kidding me...'

So I've been spending mana points until now for nothing?

I unconsciously huffed, and turned [SHADOW WALK] off, frustrated, noticing my mistake right after.

The beast let out a raspy, drawn-out hiss, and opened its wings to take flight.

"NO!"

Shit!

And I watched as the blind guardian of whatever it was, vanished in the darkness, leaving nothing but silence and death below.

I summoned the [MIDNIGHT SISTERS] and prepared for anything, because if that thing was as silent and fast as it was big, I would be in trouble if I couldn't think of anything.

But before I could even try to conceive any ideas, I felt what could only be the beast's claws digging into my shoulder.

"ARGH!"

I couldn't think properly because of the pain.

Despite my stats, the bird's claws felt like hot metal against my skin, and the strike lasted no more than a single second, leaving me bleeding, losing HP by the second.

Now that wound was bad, and I had to think quickly, of anything.

I didn't want to die inside that room.

I didn't want to become a part of that disgusting bird's meal.

So I ran, checking my stats window to see how bad I looked.

[STAMINA: 200/245

HP: 150/210

MP: 115/165]

I couldn't hear the damn thing striking, but I could feel the air current right before it rose up again.

'Wait...'

The air current! That's it!

I suddenly stopped, almost tripping over a few carcasses, and quieted all my muscles.

The pain seemed to make everything feel harder to be done, but I focused all I could into that single action.

I'd have to use all my dexterity and agility in the move I was thinking about.

Because I had a split second to accomplish it.

Or die trying.

'All stat points available into [DEXTERITY]!' I ordered the system, in my head.

Suddenly, I felt my muscles sensibly sharper than before, and with the level of perception I had, I tensed my skin and ears, to be able to listen to any changes to the air current around me.

I hoped it would work.

'Please, let it work. Please, please, please!'

I rose my hand, as I felt a slight change to the air in front of me, and summoned [MIDNIGHT BALLAD], that appeared right into my raised hand, and I lowered it with all I had.

I wasn't so strong, but the additional ten points of strength from [MIDNIGHT BALLAD] helped a lot.

And the movement was so swift, I almost felt the air being cut along with the damn bird.

It didn't even have time to squawk, its body cut in half, falling to the ground.

[LEVEL UP]