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It was a difficult, painful, and loud process, but Zeth eventually got the two bodies of his enemies down into his base, dragging them over to the staircase and shoving them down the steps.

As he kicked them down each step of the spiral stairs, holding onto his aching neck whose stab wound had still far from healed, he slowly approached the bottom. The bodies tumbled to the stone floor, echoing out loud thumps and splatters along the way.

As he leaned against the wall and caught his breath, he heard another voice—though this one he thankfully recognized.

“Zeth?” Astrys called from the main room.

He tried to shout back to her, “In here,” but what came out of his mouth was a garbled cough, followed by an intense stinging in the inside of his throat. He winced, taking a shaky breath as the pain throbbed all through his windpipe. Right. Stab wound.

“Zeth?” she called again. “Was that you?”

He heard footsteps approach the entryway, then watched as Astrys’s eyes peered out from around a corner, clearly on-guard.

When she saw him standing at the bottom of the stairs, she relaxed. “Ah, good. I was afraid there may have been…”

Her voice faded away as she glanced down at the floor, eyes landing on the two corpses he’d kicked all the way down here. They’d both gotten quite beaten up, tumbling down so many steps after being scorched to a crisp, so they were more messes of burnt flesh and leaking blood than anything else.

“...Were there intruders?”

Zeth nodded.

“Why did you not tell me about them? I could have assisted in battle.”

He wasn’t sure how to express ‘They weren’t aware this base was here, but had found evidence of it, and seemed to be about to leave and report the evidence they’d found to the Blood Mage cabal, which would’ve been very bad, so I was forced to act fast and attack them on my own before they left’ without using his words, so instead he moved the hand clasped around his stabbed and seared neck wound and turned his head, showing it to her. Then, he pointed to his lips and mouthed, ‘Can’t talk.’

Her eyes widened as she saw his neck. Zeth hadn’t seen it himself, but from how it felt, he assumed it looked pretty gnarly. “I assume human skin is not supposed to look like that.”

He shook his head.

“Are there any more enemies?”

He shook his head again. But then, after thinking about it, he changed his mind and hesitantly nodded. There weren’t any more bandits around here, but there was a whole camp of them somewhere around the area, and they’d come looking for their lost friends soon.

She frowned. “What do you mean? There are more? Where are they?”

Zeth waved his hand, trying to gesture the idea of ‘far away.’

Astrys stared at him, confused. “I do not understand.”

He breathed out, feeling another sting as air passed through his windpipe. Not being able to speak was frustrating. Just then, he had an idea. He turned around to face the wall, and brought up a finger to draw his ritual chalk on it, dragging his finger to trace out words. It was difficult to write using the magical substance since he didn’t have any practice doing anything with it other than drawing ritual circles, but he managed.

After a moment, he stepped back to reveal the message to Astrys. “Bandits. Found us. Killed them, but more in camp far away. May attack us later.”

She nodded as she read the words written on the wall. “I see. Do you know where their camp is?”

He raised his hand, wiggling it back and forth to communicate ‘sort of.’ Then he turned and pointed in the direction that the bandit he’d interrogated had given him.

“And they are powerful enough for it to be an issue if they attack?”

He turned and drew on the wall again. “Don’t think they are too strong. But lots of them, and will tell Blood Mages and Inquisitors if they find us. Have to kill them before they do that.”

“So this is time-sensitive, then? When will you be departing to attack?”

He frowned, unsure of the answer, himself. With his current injury, not only was he in bad fighting shape, but Sanguine Renewal was running him low on blood. That meant he’d be unable to heal if he was hurt again, but it also meant that he was generally feeling unwell. The Skill said it would only consume blood for as long as he had a “healthy” amount, but ‘healthy’ didn’t mean ‘top shape.’ Zeth was tired, lightheaded, and felt weak. Trying to do something like infiltrate a bandit encampment was unlikely to end well for him. At the bare minimum, he needed a full meal and a full night’s sleep before he could consider doing something like that.

Astrys seemed to sense the uncertainty on his face. “Shall I find them for you?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Once again, Zeth didn’t immediately have an answer for her. Not because he didn’t think it’d be helpful to have her act while he was unable to, but because, unfortunately, he still didn’t know what Astrys’s actions would be. Letting her out into the forest, unattended by him, brought with it the possibility of disaster. Especially in his current state, unable to speak, he wasn’t capable of doing what he normally did, giving her a long list of orders and restrictions to ensure she wasn’t able to betray him. Not only would writing all of that out simply take too long, but he wasn’t even sure if giving orders through writing like that would work in the first place.

Essentially, he was faced with a single question. One which was simple in its wording, but extremely complex in its implications. Did he trust Astrys?

So far, he’d effectively been playing both sides. Empathetic and understanding during interpersonal conversation, but rigid and cautious when actually giving orders. Now, he wasn’t able to do so. Either trust her and hope she didn’t use the newfound freedom to go on a rampage through town, or don’t, and hope these bandits were slow-moving and wouldn’t do anything for another day or two. Either way, he was opening himself up to danger.

Zeth breathed out. If Astrys was going to be staying here forever, he’d have to trust her eventually. He’d simply have to make a calculated gamble here and let her loose. If she didn’t betray him at this moment, it would mean she was loyal, and could be trusted in the future. If she did…Well, he didn’t know what he’d do. But he would just have to hope she didn’t.

He nodded, then wrote on the wall, “Do what you can. Handle it.”

She seemed surprised by his response, but simply nodded and said, “Understood. Now?”

He nodded again. And with that, she turned and began walking up the stairs.

Zeth tried to tell himself she’d still be under the general restrictions he’d laid out in the past, and wouldn’t be able to hurt innocents even if she wanted to, but he’d also thought that would be the case with the previous demon he’d summoned, and that one had still managed to kill several dozen people. Astrys was strong, and she was smart. If she really wanted to, out in the woods with nobody watching her, she’d be able to find some way to do it.

But he just hoped something good would come from this. If she was able to find the encampment, then she could watch it and ensure no communication went out to the Blood Mages, and he could go with her the next day to take them out for good.

For now, though, he just stumbled down the hallway and into the main room, where he collapsed face-down onto his makeshift bed, where Astrys had been sleeping before him. It still had a distinct smell—very unique from anything else he’d been around in his realm, but still pleasant—like a mixture of old herbs and a hint of burnt metal. The new sensation calmed him, allowing him to focus on anything but the pain still radiating from his neck.

Unfortunately, Sanguine Renewal’s description made it work in a very particular way. It consumed one percent of his current amount of blood every second, meaning the amount it consumed would decrease over time. But the amount it healed depended on how much blood it consumed. So, while it would start off consuming a rather large amount of blood and healing him very quickly, as time passed and Zeth’s internal blood reserves ran lower and lower, it would heal him more and more slowly.

And so, while it had initially been swiftly patching up his neck wound, stopping the bleeding and closing up the hole, quickly changing the situation from certain death to significant inconvenience, it was now working much slower. And soon enough, he’d likely run out of blood for it to safely consume, and it’d stop working altogether until his body produced some more. His Endurance would help increase that rate of production, as would Self-Destruction, most likely, but it would still take a while.

Zeth just hoped he’d be alright by the time he woke up.

[Sanguine Renewal’s Rank has increased to 5.

+1 Skill Point. You have 15 Skill Points.]

[Sanguine Renewal’s Rank has increased to 6.

+1 Skill Point. You have 16 Skill Points.]

Zeth awoke to two more Sanguine Renewal Rank-ups, on top of the one he’d gotten earlier. It really seemed to improve quickly, though he supposed that was only natural, considering he was getting severely injured pretty often these days.

Thankfully, his neck had healed by leaps and bounds in his sleep. He still felt some pain, but it was more of a dull ache rather than a stabbing reminder of his dwindling life. Though he still felt extremely lightheaded—it was clear his body had been having its blood drained out of it constantly throughout the night, and still hadn’t recovered.

As he stirred, sitting up in his bed, he realized what had woken him up. There was a loud thumping coming from the entrance to his base—like a crowd of people were running down his staircase.

He leapt to his feet the moment he recognized the sound, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, fighting to push the little blood that still remained in his veins through his body. Had the bandits found him? The Blood Mages? It certainly sounded like an entire army was rushing down, considering the cacophony of stomps that echoed out from the entrance.

Zeth hurried to his storage room, which held just a couple more scraps of cloth with Hellfire Rituals painted on them. Definitely not enough to fight off what he was hearing, but it was something. Maybe he could threaten them and stall for…something? He had no idea what he’d even be stalling for. Where was Astrys? Was she still watching the bandits? Or doing something else? Maybe he could hold them off and hope she’d come soon. Or maybe he could use the traps already set up throughout the base to pick off his enemies one by one.

He had to see what was going on. Stowing the hellfire circles in his pocket, he rushed off to the entrance hallway, preparing to use every defensive circle he had set up to fight off his enemies.

He crept through the winding hallway, painted with hellfire circles all along the ground throughout it as he listened closely. The pounding was still echoing out, though noticeably less now. It seemed like most of the people had come down the stairs, with just a few left. Were they waiting for everyone to get down here before they attacked? Why didn’t he hear anyone talking? Was this an ambush? Would they strike the moment they saw him?

Nearing the final curve in his hallway before the entrance would be in sight, Zeth steeled his heart, getting ready for his final stand. They wouldn’t kill him. They wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t let them kill him.

With one last deep breath, he leapt out from around the corner, ready to attack.

But what he saw wasn’t an army ready to invade. It was an army, though.

Zeth stared at a pile of corpses—at least a dozen, if not more, lying at the bottom of the staircase. They were all dressed in the same armor as the two bandits he’d killed had been in, and all had massive gashes through their bodies, some of them having been torn fully in half, spilling intestines across the stone floor.

As Zeth watched, one more body tumbled down the staircase, making the same thumping sound he’d mistaken for footsteps earlier. Now that he knew what it was, he realized it did sound very similar to the sound he had caused when he’d pushed his own two enemies down the stairs the previous night. This, though, was on a whole different level of scale.

Astrys calmly walked down the stairs, following after the torn-up corpse. She was utterly covered in blood, her red skin having been painted a brighter, more vibrant shade by her victims. Her hair was soaking, dripping droplets of blood and chunks of gore alike onto the wooden planks she stood on, as she nodded to Zeth.

“Good morning. I handled the bandit situation, as you asked.”