July 22 — Wednesday
Deaths: 42
Day repetitions: 5
Noah charged at the shadows of Floor 3 with a scream that had nothing strategic about it and everything to do with his suppressed rage.
Strike. Dodge. Strike. A shadow wolf tore through his forearm with its claws, but Noah didn’t even seem to register the pain. He drove the crimson dagger into its skull with a swift, decisive motion.
Another one lunged at his back, biting into his shoulder, and Noah knocked it away with his elbow, turning around to pierce its chest with [Echo Thrust].
“Is that all?!” he shouted, drenched in his own blood and the dark substance of his enemies, no longer able to tell which was his and which belonged to them. “IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT?!”
A giant beetle stabbed one of its legs into his thigh. Noah crushed it with his free hand, ripping the limb away as he roared in equal parts pain and rage.
‘I’m not going to just stand by and do nothing,’ he thought, driving the dagger into the next target with increasingly brutal precision. ‘I’m going to find a way to protect her. For that, I need to be fast. Much faster. As fast as Belle. She crossed an entire city in fifteen minutes. I need that. I need that power.’
“And for that, I need levels. Much higher levels than what I have now.”
He took out his frustration on every creature that stood in his way, without rest, without mercy, until something different emerged from between the leafless trees.
Four meters tall. A thin, almost skeletal body completely covered in dark fur that absorbed the faint light from his lamp. And on its face, a point of orange light where its eyes should have been.
It was faster. Stronger. Noah barely managed to raise his dagger when the creature’s arm descended, and the impact bent him in half, sending him crashing into a tree several meters away.
“Argh—”
He groaned, dragging himself up while spitting blood.
‘I’m still weak,’ he thought, his resentment directed more toward himself than toward the monster. ‘I’m still a pathetic Rank F. But I’m going to level up. Higher than any ordinary Rank F has ever reached.’
He charged forward again.
Steel clashed against claws, against fangs, against bodies that kept multiplying around him. Noah breathed like a cornered beast, throwing himself at every new enemy that appeared behind him.
“They’re just getting in my way!” he shouted, cutting down two wolves with a single slash.
That was when something pierced through him.
A two-meter-long spike emerged from the darkness without warning, stabbing directly through his back and coming out through his chest.
Time seemed to stop.
One second later, five more spikes pierced him from different directions.
Noah spat blood, falling to his knees, completely motionless, while the shadow wolves slowly approached, growling, their fangs shining with calculated hunger.
Noah smiled at them, covered in blood and sweat, his rage mixed with absolute contempt.
“Kill me,” he said, blood bubbling from his mouth. “Devour me completely. I’ll come back. And I’ll kill you ten times worse.”
The wolves lunged.
They tore through his skin, ripping his limbs off one by one, blood spraying everywhere as Noah screamed from a pain he could no longer tell was physical or something much deeper.
[Activating passive skill: Return.]
[Random skill theft activated.]
[Analyzing… analyzing…]
[Skill stolen: Scavenger]
[Rank F.]
[You Died.]
◇◆◇
Noah shoved Rick’s arm away without even stopping to look at him, moving forward with his silver eyes burning with a determination that left no room for anything else.
‘Such a useless skill that I won’t even bother remembering it. It’s completely useless to me. More levels. I need more experience.’
And the slaughter continued.
Hours and hours of uninterrupted combat, every enemy’s death only giving him tiny fragments of experience, insufficient, ridiculously insufficient for what he needed.
“They’re all useless!” he shouted, plunging the dagger into the last wolf of an entire pack. “I need the boss! I need a real increase!”
He threw another energy lamp toward a clearing between the twisted trees, revealing an open field where several of those elongated, furry creatures with a single orange eye emerged almost immediately.
“That’s where they’re coming from,” he muttered, charging forward without hesitation.
The battle was violent and reckless. Noah wasn’t fighting tactically, but through anger and recklessness. He jumped between them and blocked attacks whenever he could.
He managed to kill two before a third one drove its entire arm through his back, pinning him to the ground. Noah screamed, spitting blood, and before he could react, another one crushed his skull with one of its legs.
[You Died.]
◇◆◇
He appeared beside Rick again, completely ignoring him, immediately checking his system window.
[Skill stolen: Warm Vision] — Rank D
[Allows the user to see the surroundings in complete darkness.]
His eyes began to glow with a faint orange light beneath his messy hair, and the world opened before him: Floor 3, that endless forest of leafless trunks, was fully revealed, every tree, every monster, every trace of heat visible as if it were broad daylight.
The side effect was that his pupils remained illuminated orange. He stored the energy lamp in his inventory. He no longer needed it.
And with that, the new massacre began for hours.
“More!” he shouted, charging back into battle.
[You Died.]
“More!”
[You Died.]
“More!”
[You Died.]
“Much more strength!”
[You Died.]
“I need much more!” he roared, at some point having already lost count. “I’LL KILL THEM ALL!!”
[You Died.]
[You Died.]
[You Died.]
◇◆◇
Deaths: 71
Day repetitions: 34
Finally, he reached a dark, stagnant swamp, from which a colossal cobra emerged. Its eyes also burned with the same characteristic orange glow of the floor, releasing a hiss that echoed throughout the dead forest.
“At last,” Noah said with a tired smile. “The guardian. After this, there’s the floor boss.”
The battle began.
Noah moved with an agility that, now at Level 17, was only beginning to show itself, although he knew it still wasn’t enough.
‘I need to be much faster than this,’ he thought, dodging the snake’s first attack.
He cut a piece of its back, activating [Echo Thrust], but he only managed to scratch its scaly skin.
“Was that all?” he muttered, clicking his tongue in frustration.
The cobra responded with a brutal tail strike that sent him flying through the air, swamp water shooting in every direction as Noah crashed through tree after tree before falling and dragging himself across the ground, covered in blood.
“T-this is nothing…”
He stood up with difficulty, feeling his bones crack, while hearing the approaching hiss.
He jumped, dodging the next attack by mere centimeters.
‘I need to use [Devourer’s Hunger],’ he thought desperately. ‘I need a piece of its flesh, to become resistant against it. But my cuts are too weak.’
The battle continued, frantic and increasingly desperate, until the snake finally caught him between the coils of its own body.
It squeezed.
Noah’s bones shattered one after another, a wet and devastating cracking sound tearing a blood-filled scream from him. His ribs burst through his torso, and his spine broke at an impossible angle.
In the final instant of consciousness, before everything completely faded, a single thought crossed his mind with absolute clarity:
‘I’ll come back for you!’
[You Died.]
[Activating passive skill: Return.]
[Random skill theft activated.]
[Analyzing… analyzing…]
[Skill stolen: Pressure Trap.]
[Rank C.]