Many times in his life before, Zayn had felt terribly lonely, unwanted, and alone. Being stared at by thousands…perhaps tens of thousands of eyes, he came to appreciate those moments.

  Oh, how he missed the silence of solitude!

  Every dune in front of him had undead treants crawling over it. Like a mat of insects. They ringed him in a circle, standing shoulder to shoulder on every dune crest, their rootslike tendrils squirming eerily as they glared at him.

  They wished nothing more than to tear the Mana sphere out of his chest. To devour it.

  God knew he wanted it out of him too, but not like this, not anything that involved turning him into a meat porcupine…or something worse.

  “There’s only one of me… and too many of you guys!” Zayn revealed a strained grin, “You should fight amongst yourself first! The victor gets to have me all for themselves!”

  The crackheads didn’t bite, creeping towards him from all sides. Steps slow, shambling, roots dragging furrows on the sand. Their dark, indistinct silhouettes morphed under the blood-red moon.

  Guttural whispers rang...like the muttering of madmen. The eyes in their chest seared holes at him—tracing him like a lamb for slaughter. The occasional mocking laugh was the cherry on the top.

  Zayn grinned and exhaled. His breaths burst in and out of his lungs, limbs throbbing as he revved Raka hard.

  The motorcycle tilted its headlight high up toward the moon and barked, “Lady Merisa, help us break out of here.”

  High above, the Battlewraith had been circling, diving down to swat away any treants that got too close, but even she couldn’t shrink their ever-increasing number. Heeding Raka’s call, she glanced down—and to Zayn’s surprise—nodded.

  Since when was she so agreeable?!

  Her flowing black hair thickened and tethered itself into a thrashing whip. Mopping the treants aside, she carved a straight path out of the encirclement. A jagged corridor was ripped open between two towering dunes.

  Tank mode activated!

  Raka suddenly grew wider, its frame thickened, turning as sturdy as a war machine. Its dense tyres dug deep into the sand, spraying them behind as it shot into the opening.

  Treants adapted fast, collapsing down from the slope, sealing the gap from both flanks. Murmuring who knew what as they jumped on him.

  “Yeah? Fuck you too, mate.” Zayn kicked the treants aside. Forcing his shaking limbs into action, he scoured out his only serviceable weapon—hollowfang—leaving the swerving and dodging to Raka.

  Blood spilled out of his limbs, worming onto the blades’ rough, chipped steel, enclosing them. Their edges pulsed with his heartbeat.

  Ba-dump!

  He activated Reinforced Strike, having already made his choice earlier. Bloodmetal became the conductor for the charges. Vermillion currents of mana—thin as silk threads—pulsed out of his heart into his limbs, crawling along the half-moon blade like a crimson tempest.

  Zayn stared at them unblinkingly as they pulsed in and out. The way this worked…seemed awfully familiar. Wasn’t this—

  “This is no time for aura farming, you bastard!” Raka snapped as he watched the mana movement.

  Snorting, Zayn slashed out diagonally. The blade turned into a red scythe of death and tore into the treants, shearing their flesh tendrils apart like a meat machine.

  Unlike the golems, their vital points were the eyes hidden within their body. But Zayn didn’t have time to care about that. He chopped away, and they burst apart like rotten pickles, letting out noxious fumes.

  But the real magic happened the moment Red touched them.

  Sizzle

  Their tendrils crumbled. Rotten vines fell in clumps, crawling like festering worms before disintegrating into nothingness. When the red reached their terrified, veiny eyes, they ruptured, utterly and truly disappearing.

  Level up!

  He kept at his wild swinging with a grin on his face, like he was chopping cabbage. The treants did back a strike or two occasionally, but the burst of blood and pain wasn’t enough to hold him back.

  To be in pain was preferable to becoming a meal for walking trees.

  His blade did not share his pain tolerance. It dented, the ceaseless impacts chipping away at its structural integrity.

  Instinctively, he ‘saw’ something within the moonsteel. Red stress lines flickered across the shattering moonsteel, spider webbing towards a collapse. Every pulse carried a warning; compression here, torsion there. He knew those signs. He'd worked with them for years.

  The moment he lost his focus, punishment followed. Whipblades lashed from all sides, carving hot lines of blood across his flesh.

  Soon, he looked as though he'd been hurled into a thornbrush and dragged back out.

  That was not his intention, but it worked in his favour.

  Bloodmetal seeped out of all surfaces, coating his arm. Squeezing, he inserted blood into the spine of the Hollowfang. Laying down reinforcements like he was dragging virtual girders in place.

  Clang

  Another impact, barely flicking away the whip coming for his head. More layers. He drove more blood in. More.

  It coated the entire thing.

  Shoring a weak joint before it sheared, sealing micro fractures. He didn’t know how he did it; he just did. Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he kept staring wide open, gazing back at the squirming monster in equal intensity.

  Charge regained!

  Current charge – 2/10!

  Charge regained!

  The fight became a blur. Slash, assess, reinforce—desperately keeping the blades alive for one more swing.

  Feat unlocked!

  Made for Mayhem II (Bronze): A hundred monsters! Damn, not that long before, you were falling on them. Now look at you, growing into a full-fledged monster hunter!

  Effect +3 Strength.

  The notification brought him little joy.

  He felt his vision turn wobbly, same as his muscles—screaming for rest. All that for…a fifty or so of them? By now, it should have been way more. It felt like more. Because a few dozen of them had…nearly taken his all…

  Charge gained – 3/10

  He closed his eyes, panting. Endless in number, the treants spawned more by the second, out of the ground. Staring at him voraciously, gloating.

  He hated to admit it, but those stares…they were getting to him. They were getting to his head.

  All these years, he thought he’d outrun them. Thought he’d left them far behind. Yet… even after the end of the world, they followed—crawling from the abyss of his mind to remind him they’d always be there.

  Always watching.

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  Always waiting for him to fall.

  He cut himself with his own blade.

  'Undying cockroach' active!

  “Fall?” He snapped his eyes wide open again. A maddened grin on his face. Like hell he’d fall this time.

  Yellow mana crackled out of his skin. It’d been stirring for a while now. Whispering like the temptations of the devil. Begging to be let out.

  He no longer resisted.

  Charge gained!

  Charge: 4/10….7/10…10/10…100/10! (Overload!!!!)

  Warning! Covenant 11 broken!

  His dried body was overrun with a raw, exhilarating river of mana. Skin gleaming golden; his muscles soaking it in, flaring themselves. He twisted his motorcycle and barged back in.

  “Zayn?!” The panicked voice of Raka became a lost echo. “You—”

  Bloodflare activated!

  ***

  Zayn munched on a blade—this time with no hesitation, almost enjoying the process. Raka avoided him, grumpily sitting on the other side of the bonfire.

  Understandable. After what he’d done back there.

  He'd rushed back with the belief he'd give them all a good beating as long as he had more mana. But the numbers were…truly overwhelming.

  And something about the yellow mana just made the treants much more manic. They became desperate and lost all semblance of will. And no matter how many he burned up, more of them spawned to replace their numbers. Stronger, more powerful ones.

  Thankfully, his senses returned soon, and he managed to tear out of the encirclement just in time.

  Though to say he’d gotten rid of them would be fairly disingenuous.

  In the distance, the treants encircled the dunes from all sides. Oogling him like a pack of piranha. But they were deterred. They didn't move forward.

  Old Gravekeeper, perhaps? Or was it the fire?

  Interesting.

  As long as they weren’t right in front of his eyes, they were a problem for another time.

  After devouring so much metal, he no longer felt the blood insufficiency; his stats had recovered. However, he still looked scrawny. Instead, his muscles were hammered like wires of metal. The physical toll was a clear, consistent sign of overusing Bloodflare.

  On top of that, he was also getting cooked by the system.

  Feat unlocked!

  [Heretic practitioner (Bronze)]: Your intentional use of ‘Cursed’ mana sphere has displeased the Righteous factions. Watch out for random divine thunder smiting your existence!

  Effect: +3 Vitality. The factions of the Righteous will not allow you any [Boon] or [Blessings] until you undergo the [Repentance] protocol.

  Zayn slumped. How was that an intentional use? In that situation, his options were to use it or face death. But protests were futile.

  They only cared about what he did, not why he did it. Classic boss behaviour.

  If things went on like this, landing himself a "???" feat named [Know thyself, know thy enemy gods] wasn’t too far away.

  He perked his lips. Not like he wanted nice Boons and those precious Blessings! Not like he was a fan of the righteous gods, anyway! He’d always been more of a Loki, Sun Wukong type of guy!

  He munched on the metal indiscriminately. His appetite had turned inhumane. To replenish his bloodmetal, he fed himself more than ten ornaments and weapons, which would weigh just about the same as his bodyweight.

  Yet, his hunger lingered behind, haunting him like a ghost sitting over his shoulder. It wasn’t something that was going to be solved with more food, it appeared.

  To ignore his hunger, he checked the newest notification.

  Class quest III —The Hunt Begins—Completed!

  You’ve siphoned 33% blood of a single race or species!

  Well, he was just bursting through the class quests. These would have been much harder to achieve had he not been here and had an available assortment of Fae to beat up. Not sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

  You can now choose to imprint one of the following traits:

  {One with the forest (Gold)}: All trees and vegetation become your eyes and ears, allowing you to perceive dangers better when you’re within a forest.

  Success rate - 04%

  {SoulsClock (Bronze)}: With a natural understanding of time and place, you'd never get lost.

  Success rate: 26%.

  {Weeds (Bronze)}: Your body gains improved natural regeneration up to a 100%.

  Success rate - 15%

  The chance of imprint is factored by your personal traits. If you fail to imprint the trait, the chance of imprinting the same trait will be doubled on the next attempt. Each attempt requires 30% of Racial blood Fae(E).

  Zayn ruminated, rubbing his chin. He liked all three of them, SoulsClock in particular, but it was almost a no-brainer which one he would choose.

  Imprinting {Weeds}!

  Healing was one thing he was in desperate need of. His class and titles naturally gravitated him towards a messy, bone-breaking, muscle-tearing style of fighting, and even though gravefruits were fine at the beginning, he had to consume too many now to make a difference.

  This was exactly what he needed.

  Zayn felt his body burning with weird runes and sigils. His veins gained a green sheen, flashing with an unbearable verdant light that overpowered his vision.

  When he opened his eyes, he suddenly found himself in the middle of a forest with immensely large trees around him. Even the grasses were taller than him, like swords stabbing towards heaven.

  Huh?

  His feet were rooted in place; his thin body swaying due to a wild gust of wind. But even the gale became unbearable, for he was just a teeny, tiny strand of grass…

  What?!

  He was a blade of grass now?! A green strand in the middle of nowhere!

  Those trees—were they actually of normal size? It was he who’d become tiny! He waited, hoping to see a change, but nothing happened.

  One after another dreadful thought popped up.

  He couldn’t just have been isekaid as some random grass, right? No way! Haha! This was just a vision. And it was going to end soon. Maybe he’ll fail. But he can try again next time. Nothing to worry about. Turned out, he had something to worry about.

  What he waited for didn’t come, other than the occasional gusts of wind. Days went by and nights passed, becoming a blur. At some point, he was forced into a lucid dream-like state, where seasons went past one after another.

  He persisted, hoping something or someone would put an end to his misery.

  Until one day, his wish was fulfilled.

  A massive thing flew down from above. A giant blue bird, or probably normal-sized to others, but it was giant to the grass version of him! With its beak, it tore him apart, breaking him into two pieces, and flying away with the bigger part.

  But soon, it lost the grass while fighting with another bird.

  The smaller piece of him was rooted to the ground, while the other part went along with the wind. Without a sense of self, he hovered along, twisting, twisting, twisting, going wherever the wind takes him.

  Season changed, time passed, until the two strands were close again.

  Crackle!

  Lightnings struck. The clouds above coated the skies black. Going haywire, turning the skies oppressively dark, thunder flashing across them. The wind tried to take him apart once more, but somehow, both parts of him remained close.

  The moment the first drop of rain fell on him, the broken parts began renewing themselves. He grew a new root, slowly standing upright once more. The other half regenerated, becoming a complete blade of grass. Then, they divided and grew even more, becoming like weeds.

  Success!

  Trait gained {Weeds}!

  He returned to his senses, huffing. It took a ridiculous amount of time to figure out what just happened. How long was he there? Months? Years? Perhaps decades? He lost count. He eagerly checked to see what changed about him, but everything seemed just about the same. He didn’t feel any difference.

  Oh, right. Only his healing improved.

  Naturally, he would not really understand until his body was damaged and broken.

  Not again.

  He sighed and made the blood clump together inside him. It grew sharp edges inside his veins, about to cut through his veins—

  “Congratulations! You succeeded!” A figure interrupted him mid-way, disrupting him.

  His heart thundered in his chest, and refused to placate even when he knew who it was.

  “Say something before you stand close like that!” Zayn snapped.

  He had it with the antics of the old man. Screw him. He was going to do something about it.

  Just as he turned around, he froze.

  The old man looked at him with a smile and held the stone bowl out towards him.

  A bowl? Why? Do you want me to smack you with it? He looked at him and the bowl with clear displeasure all over his face.

  “For you.” The old man said as he pushed it again.

  He took it reluctantly.

  A sweet and sour smell found its way to his nose, making him sneak a peek at the contents of the bowl. It was a semi-liquid. Small, bite-sized roots were sprinkled on top like garnishes. A porridge with a purplish hue. Or...was it a soup? The consistency was weird.

  He couldn’t really tell.

  "Merisa used to make it for me. It’s delicious!” He said once more.

  Zayn felt his face go green. If appearance were anything to go by, it barely looked like food.

  If the old man had not saved his life before, he’d have surely assumed this was an assassination attempt.

  A precalculated murder!

  The battlewraith gazed at him from the left. Not the usual hostile gaze. Rather, there was a hint of curiosity in her stare. Surely it would turn into a murderous glare the moment he refused to eat. Surely.

  He gulped.

  After surviving on the fruits and dry rations for so long, he almost forgot the taste of real food. Even if this barely looked like food.

  Fuck it.

  Did Verdant skin cover food poisoning? It was time to find out.

  Taking the bowl, he closed his eyes and sipped a small mouthful in caution.

  It tasted just as it smelled. The sweet and sour taste struck his taste buds. And when he swallowed it down, it left a rich aftertaste. The roots melted with a chew, and he found himself gulping down the entire bowl within seconds.

  Blankly staring at the now-empty bowl, he felt an immediate regret strike him.

  Good things always ended up being short-lived.

  The old man smiled and brought him another bowl.

  Zayn gazed at the bowl and then the old man.

  Always, the old man wore the same damned smile. Always, he was...always so happy. What was he so happy about, stuck here like this? Why was he so kind?

  They had barely known each other for a day.

  It annoyed him because he didn’t understand. Moreso, he was annoyed that the old man understood him.

  Taking the bowl, Zayn turned away.

  This time, he took his time to savour it. No, it was not the best food he’d ever had. Nothing that dramatic. Rather, it filled the hollowness that had long lingered around his chest. The hunger that’d been growing inside of him…since forever.

  He soaked his tastebuds with its sour aftertaste. It smelled safe…like home. Reminded him of a time when everything was perfect. When he could still have food made by Ma.

  Before he ruined it all.

  He sipped the soup bit by bit. As though he feared that it too would end too quickly. Hesitation flooded his face as he looked at the final bits.

  “Don’t worry. We have more.” The old man said with a cheerful voice.

  Goddamnit. His shoulder faintly shook as he passed the bowl again. Fucking telepaths.