CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Run!
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The cave shimmered with lichen-glow. Walls, ceiling, even the gore-slick floor bathed in its cold, alien light. The carnage Abo had wrought was on full display. Blood and bodies marked the central choke point like tally marks on a prison wall. His EXP grinder. His chef d'oeuvre.
Abo's eyes squinted against the sudden shift from darkness to light. It was all blur at first, but shapes took form fast enough: direwolves, orcs, goblins—the survivors. Their formation, once scattered to counter his hit-and-run antics, was shifting again, closing in. The direwolves were the fastest, already crouched, ready to lunge.
"I think this is the time that we—"
"Run!" Abo interrupted himself, already bolting toward the choke point, back the way he came, back toward the portal, still maddeningly distant. Mid-sprint, he let go of the dragging shovel. It was dead weight, and every ounce mattered now, speed over sentiment.
The four remaining direwolves lunged after him, but the blood-soaked floor betrayed them. Their claws slipped, one crashing into another in a brief, clumsy pileup.
x_x SYSTEM ERROR
Strategic consensus achieved. Retreat is advisable.
Addendum: multiple orcs are also advancing on your location. Estimated contact in thirty-five seconds. Should they reach you—pause —fatality probability exceeds 99.9%.(Processing panic… ERROR: Panic containment failed.)
"Fucking hell! The gods are asking for the impossible in the first place," Abo snapped, panting as his corpse-body wheezed and stumbled. "The moment you showed me their stats, I knew I was screwed. Even if I slaughtered every single one, I wouldn't hit Level 9! And let's not pretend 5 stat points is gonna change a damn thing anyway!"
He risked a glance back, the wolves were recovering fast, gaining on him again. "You know what I'm thinking, right, System?"
⚠ SYSTEM ALERT
Affirmative. Pattern recognition indicates—error—extremely high probability of imminent fatalism. Prognosis: terminal. Recalculating—no, there's no recalculation—we're going to die.
"We're gonna die. I mean yeah, I've pulled off some clever shit. But miracles?"
The wolves caught up. They hit him like a living avalanche. Teeth, weight, claws all at once. He didn't even get to scream properly. Just— "Ah, fuck. That was quick."
Abo's body was halfway into a wolf's jaws, his head clenched between yellowed fangs. Another direwolf had clamped down on his rotting foot, chewing through bone. But before they could finish him, a voice cut in, hoarse and trembling.
"Wait."
It was the wolf whose hind leg Abo had left to bleed. The beast limped forward, dragging its useless limb like a curse, eyes dull with pain.
"He doesn't get a clean death, not after what he did to us," it snarled, its breath thick with blood and hate. "Look around you."
And they did.
The cave, once their den, was now a slaughterhouse. Piles of corpses slumped against the lichen-lit stone. Goblin heads caved in by warhammers. Orcs disemboweled, intestines steaming in the cold air. Limbs severed, eyes gouged. A pile of twitching meat where an orc had tried to crawl away, dragging its spine like a tail.
The floor was so slick with blood that even the walls shimmered with it, streaked where bodies had been flung, claw marks carved into the stone by the dying.
"He made us do this," the limping wolf growled, voice cracking. "In the dark. We tore each other apart. I chewed out my brother's throat. I remember the taste. It didn't even register it was him. Not until the light came back."
A goblin stepped forward, small, shivering. One eye was swollen shut, and her voice was high and hollow. "My parents tried to shield me," she said. "A goblin's head exploded next to us. Its skull split open like fruit. An orc slipped on the brain-matter. He crushed my mother's ribs. My father screamed. Then… nothing." She sniffled. Not like a child, just someone broken.
Another orc emerged from the rear, armor smeared with blood, dragging the bodies of two kin behind him. "I—I tried to warn them," the orc muttered, eyes flicking toward the back of the cave. "But Gluurk didn't listen. He'd just taken a strike to the stones, screaming, flailing. He panicked, and swung wild, he took off Uda's jaw." He glanced toward Gluurk, who now sat hunched beside his mate's mangled corpse, unmoving, his eyes two empty pits.
Another orc slammed a rusted greataxe into the stone beside Abo's pinned body, breathing hard. "Duur tried to help, thought Gluurk was under some kind of spell. He rushed in to stop him, didn't even see the kid. Next thing I know, Duur's on the ground with no legs, half his spine dangling out like a snapped rope, bled out screaming my name."
For a moment, all was still.
"Tear him apart."
It wasn't a roar or a declaration, just a simple sentence. The goblins came first. Small hands with sharp nails peeled the skin from Abo's arms, treating him like something contaminated. One stabbed a rusted dagger into his palm and twisted it, smiling as the tendon snapped.
The wolves bit slowly, tearing flesh with measured force. One bit through his fingers, breaking each joint in turn, another clamped its jaws around his chest and crushed his ribs one by one.
The orcs waited. One grabbed his leg and bent it back until the bone tore through the skin. Another struck his hip with the axe handle again and again, using just enough force to break the bone slowly and make the pain last. Then he picked up the shattered pieces and handed them to the goblin girl as a keepsake.
At some point, Abo pissed himself.
Not from pain alone, though the pain was unholy, but from terror: raw, shameful, animal terror. It soaked through the dirt and blood beneath him. The goblins howled with laughter, mocking him in shrill, gleeful screeches.
"Look at it," one giggled, poking his side with a stick. "It leaks!"
"Little pissbag thinks he's alive," another sneered. "Cute."
Abo didn't scream, not out of toughness, but because his throat had been bitten halfway through. Then he moved.
The goblin girl recoiled, startled. The flesh of his chest, torn open and sunken, bubbled with green, luminous threads. His torn windpipe knitted. His shattered ribs, splintered and gnawed, clicked back into shape. Inch by inch. Pulse by horrifying pulse.
The orc holding his mangled leg dropped it like it burned. "He's regenerating."
The wolves stepped back, tails low. Even they, creatures of hunger and pack violence, could tell something was wrong. Abo's head turned, slow and deliberate. His eyes, spectral and crimson, looked up at them, half-lidded and filled with silent, seething hate. There were no tears, no cries, just that look.
"You seeing this?" one of the goblins whispered, backing up.
"The fuck is he?" growled the limping wolf. "Looks like a baby. But he's rotting. Undead?"
"He's not healing like normal," muttered an orc. "Too fast. Eyes red as blood, skin pale as death… and his heart's still beating under that rotten flesh."
A beat of silence.
"A vampire's spawn."
The goblin girl, her small hands sticky with Abo's blood, turned the bone fragment nervously between her fingers. "He's not even blinking…"
Another goblin crept closer, staring into Abo's eyes. "His gaze… it's getting worse. Like he's already plotting how to tear us apart." One of the orcs nodded grimly. "We put him down, now! Before he gets back up."
The creatures of the cave, what was left of them, closed in.
Axes lifted.
Daggers raised.
Fangs bared.
The goblin girl crept forward, her small hands reaching toward Abo's exposed throat.
Not the fucking neck again, Abo seethed internally, watching those grimy fingers inch closer to his windpipe. What is it with these bastards and my throat?
Abo made a choice. If he was going to die again… he'd take one of the vermin with him.
His mouth opened too wide, the corners splitting as muscle pulled and skin gave way. His lips peeled back, revealing rows of jagged teeth, crammed into every surface, not just the gums but tearing through the roof of his mouth and the inside of his cheeks. Some were still breaking through, raw and bloody.
Then he lunged. His jaw clamped down on the goblin girl's neck. No, her head. There was a sickening pop, followed by a guttural shriek that cut off as his teeth crushed bone and cartilage, tearing through the goblin's skull and connective tissue with brutal force.
Blood sprayed across the stone as Abo spat the goblin's head onto the ground, jaws slick with gore. The goblin's body twitched once, then slumped, headless. The cave erupted.
"No!" one monster roared, voice cracking with panic.
"Hurry! Kill him! Now!" An orc hefted his weapon, swinging hard to sever the nightmare's head.
"Ah, fuck. I don't want to wear orange," Abo muttered, swallowing reflexively, blood still thick on his tongue, as he snapped his eyes shut, bracing for the blow.
But before the impact—
ding!
ℹ SYSTEM NOTICE
Subrace Unlocked: Undead (Vampire)
Classification updated.
Initial designation: Human (Corpse).
Post-System Upgrade: Undead (Unclassified) — no origin pattern available for alignment.
Recent behavior has satisfied key parameters for strain identification.
Catalyst detected: Ingestion of sapient blood.
Alignment confirmed: Vampire-class Undead.
Resource Pool Conversion:
Mana → Hem
All recovery, advancement, and evolutionary processes now tethered to blood intake.
Abo's jaw muscles twitched and snapped back together with sickening, wet clicks.
He lay sprawled on the cave floor, chest torn raw, ribs shattered and half-regrown, flesh split wide beneath his bleeding, serrated teeth. Blood dripped from the ragged edges of his mouth, mixing with the grime and gore smeared across his cracked skin.
His voice dropped low, guttural, soaked in loathing.
✓ NOTIFICATION
System Filter: DEACTIVATED
"I'm gonna tear out your fucking entrails, cram them back down your goddamn throats, and beat you so hard you'll shit through your teeth. Then I'll use your ribcages as fucking drums while I dance on your worthless corpses, you miserable cunts! I'll make helmets from your fucking skulls!"
System: 😉👍
✓ NOTIFICATION
System Filter: ACTIVATED
✦ ✦ ✦
End of Chapter