A blast of black spikes rained down from the air above, erupting from the ceiling. Aiden ducked to the side. [Enchantment of Lesser Speed] made him quick as a whip in a vengeful punisher’s hand. He rolled along the ground, a sprawled corpse almost disrupting his escape.

  When he came up, it was with swords swinging. One missed its target by an inch. The other tore a clean line along a woman’s neck.

  [You have dealt Fariva a Fatal Blow!]

  [Congratulations! You have slain Fariva Lvl 49!]

  …

  [You have slain one with the title Cannibal]

  [You have slain an unnatural predator of your kind]

  Aiden ignored it as he charged the man who had used the spikes. His eyes caught a man at the edge of seeing and he pulled to an abrupt halt, darting left. The wall on the other side of him shattered.

  [Formless Bow], Aiden thought. He was probably wrong, but whatever the skill was followed similar rules. The man simply hadn’t drawn back his hand like an archer.

  He went after him.

  Something warm trickled down his forehead, just above one of his eyes. Aiden wanted to clean it but that would leave him with a momentary blind spot just in front of him. So he did not. The ceiling moved once more above his head and he ignored it. At least, he pretended to.

  The man in front of him was already preparing another skill. He could see it in the level of focus in the man’s eyes. The man was calculating, thinking.

  Aiden couldn’t blame him. You had to be careful when fighting against an opponent that had just slaughtered more than a handful of your companions out in the hallway and barged into your room just to slaughter more.

  Covered in blood and grime, Aiden probably struck a deathly visage.

  The ceiling above him turned black, spikes descended like falling rain, and he activated [Dash]. Spikes pelted the floor behind him as he scaled the distance, shattering the ground. His opponent thrust forward and Aiden watched a shimmer down the length of his hand.

  [Formless sword]? He wondered. [Formless spear]?

  It was just his curiosity. With a forward thrust what it was didn’t really matter. Aiden spun on his feet, threw himself to the side in an almost perfect pirouette, like a ballerina seeking to become the prima, wielder of the lead role.

  Swords held out to his sides, he was a spinning top with blades. He wasn’t sure which sword it was, all Aiden knew was that one blade dealt the man a fatal blow.

  Silence settled upon the room. Aiden’s spin came to an end. Left standing as one more body lost the life in its eyes and dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, his gaze settled on the only other living being in the room.

  The man wore a short coat in the Bandiv style. It was brown with stains of blood. The red blood splatter gave it something of a fashionable look, like an upcoming designer trying something new.

  The man backed up slowly. Aiden wasn’t bothered. The door out was on the other side of the room. He could get to it before the man.

  The man’s eyes twitched in their sockets as he fought not to look at the people he’d been laughing and sharing drinks with a moment ago.

  Aiden watched him fight against himself. Then he moved his hand ever so slowly, lowered the point of one of his swords until its point touched the ground softly.

  The man’s eyes moved straight to the sword, snapping back to Aiden almost immediately. He was wide at the eyes now, trembling, like a skittish horse.

  “Why?” The word slipped from his mouth in a low mutter, almost as if he wasn’t even asking Aiden, just questioning the world. Despair corrupted it as one would expect from a man with no hope.

  Aiden raised the tip of his sword lightly and tapped it against the ground quietly, almost soundlessly. “Does it matter?”

  “YOU KILLED THEM ALL!” the man bellowed, rage mixing with fear as tears ran down his face. “ALL OF THEM.”

  All of us, Aiden corrected but did not give the thought a voice.

  You did not correct a man who did not need to be corrected. Gently, he slid his sword arm back, kept it at a distance. The sound of the point of his sword scraping the ground was a gentle touch of sound in the room, like a lover’s whisper.

  “I don’t want to die,” the man sobbed. His hands trembled by his side. “I’m just… I don’t want to die.”

  “They didn’t want to die, too.” It was all Aiden could say. He tapped the sword to the ground once more. “They probably didn’t want to be eaten, too.”

  The man’s eyes widened. Now he knew why this was happening to them.

  Aiden nodded slowly.

  In the space of a heartbeat, the man’s eyes returned to normal. He let out a slow breath, calmed himself, steeled his resolve. Aiden watched it all happen with a simple-minded detachment.

  The man bared his teeth at him. “They were nothing but prey.”

  His hands came up and Aiden moved his arm as well. His sword crossed the distance before the man could do what he wanted to do, burying itself in his neck.

  The man fell backwards. Dead.

  [You have dealt Anaboi a Fatal Blow!]

  [Congratulations! You have slain Anaboi Lvl 49!]

  …

  [You have slain one with the title Cannibal]

  [You have slain an unnatural predator of your kind]

  …

  [Congratulations!]

  [You have gained perfect mastery!]

  [Basic Swordsmanship (Mastery 99.98% -- > 100.00%)].

  [Skill Basic Swordsmanship is evolving]

  [Skill Basic Swordsmanship (Mastery 100%) is now Intermediary Swordsmanship (Mastery 02.00%)]

  That’s surprising, Aiden thought.

  From what he knew about skills, it was very difficult to get a skill to its next level. Moving from ninety-nine percent to a hundred was almost as difficult as getting a manifesting skill.

  And all he had to do was kill a lot of cannibals.

  Walking up to the body, Aiden retrieved his sword from the man’s neck. He swung it in an arc, ridding it of what blood he could, and walked out of the room.

  Corpses littered the hallway. The walls were brown with the color of red from splatters of blood. The dismemberment charm had done more than just its fair share of destruction. Too many limbs had been severed from bodies. Too many corpses lay decapitated. Aiden noticed how often he went for the head in a sword fight and wasn’t surprised. The Order did not teach how to dally and flounder. They taught how to end a living thing’s life in the shortest amount of strikes possible.

  The greatest artists create the greatest arts with the fewest strokes.

  Before long, Aiden was walking up the stairs, making his way to the third and final floor. The lives behind him and below him had ended, but not without consequences. He had taken a few hits here and there, lost a few percent of his health and stamina. His mana was still up, sufficient.

  Halfway up the stairs, Aiden sheathed both swords. This was Nastild, a world of magic and mysteries. Even an [Enchanter] could kill an enemy with nothing but enchantments if they put their minds to it. Any class could kill anybody if it was tailored properly.

  After all, he’d seen the Order’s head baker kill a person. He had the [Baker] class and had quite effectively baked the woman to death.

  Unclipping a selected number of pockets on his soldier’s belt, he allowed the items within fall casually into his palms. He knew what item was in what pocket and knew what they were capable of. He would start his next fight as an [Enchanter]. The town of cannibals had scarred him as an [Enchanter]. It was only right that he end this as an [Enchanter].

  He placed his second foot on the solid ground of the third floor and stared ahead. There was only a wide space in front of him, a large hall like the first floor. But its dimensions were off. From outside, the layout of the building implied that all the floors within had the same dimensions. But this floor was smaller than the open space of the first floor.

  It was not as wide or as long. The length was explained by the door on the opposite end of the room, but not the width.

  Aiden paid it little attention as his fingers played with the enchanted items in his hands, balls, cubes and plaques. He would need to bind them, though. Luckily, there was an enchantment of lesser binding among them. all he needed to do was channel the proper amount of mana into it.

  He walked up to the door and was about to open it when his interface popped up in front of him.

  [Achievement unlocked!]

  There is no creature alive that does not have a predator. Even the strongest is the strongest because they are not aware of what hunts them. You have walked in the blood of an unnatural predator of your kind. You have slain them with the calm detachment of necessity. Even amongst your unnatural predator you walk with the mantle of fear.

  [You have earned a new title!]

  [Unnatural Hunter]

  [Effect: +20% increase in damage when facing natural and unnatural predators of your kind.]

  [Effect: +30% damage resistance when facing natural and unnatural predators of your kind.]

  [Effect: +10% increase in all physical stats when facing a natural and unnatural predator of your kind.]

  [Effect: You will be alerted when you are within attacking distance of a natural or unnatural predator of your kind.]

  In his past life, Aiden hadn’t gained this title. Then again, he hadn’t gained any of the titles he had now, except [Goblin Slayer] and [Giant Slayer], so there was that.

  I will be alerted when in attacking distance, he read. Whose attacking distance?

  Was it his own or the predator’s? Was it both?

  A sudden tingle ran up his spine. It was an annoying sensation, but Aiden took only a moment to realize that the tingle wasn’t what was annoying, he was just slightly annoyed. Like a mother sighting their child’s friend and just knowing on an instinctual level that the person was not a good friend.

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  A slight growl bubbled up in his throat but did not come out. His nostrils flared and, to his greatest surprise, his eye sight sharpened.

  He could see it. He could smell it. He could almost hear it’s beating heart.

  On the other side of the door there was an indicator hovering over a man. It read in the simplest of words: [Prey].

  Shaking the sensation from his head, he opened the door and walked into the room.

  The office was illuminated by orbs placed at strategic points high up on the walls. It was a large enough space, small when you thought about how much space lay just outside the office. On Aiden’s left, the wall was covered in shelves that were half empty. To his right, the wall was bare. In front of him was a work desk with two chairs on his side of the room. All these were unimportant in the face of the figure standing behind the desk.

  The town chief was a simple man standing with strong eyes focused on Aiden. There was no way he had not heard the commotion down the stairs. And covered in all the blood that currently bathed him, there was no way he did not know what the outcome had been.

  Yet, he looked like a man who had just gotten a visit from an acquaintance. Not a friend, but also not an enemy. Aiden watched the man’s eyes move to the floor at his feet. He was probably noting the blood trail Aiden had dragged in with his footprints.

  The man’s eye twitched slightly, as if there was an expression he was trying to muster up. In the end, no expression came. It died like the urge to work kindling within the mind of a lazy man.

  “Are any of them alive?” the town chief asked. The look on his face told Aiden that the man knew the answer, at least suspected it. It was a question asked because it was a question that was supposed to be asked.

  Aiden answered him with a shake of his head. Above the man’s head remained the indicator [Prey]. It hovered in amber. Something about the color gave Aiden the sensation that the man was not a threat. That his interface did not deem him a threat. An enemy, yes. But not a threat, not capable of becoming one.

  The man gave a slow nod, an understanding nod. The answer had been expected, awaited even.

  “Where you sent by the crown?” he asked, moving down the list of questions that seemed to be his duty to ask in such a situation. “Does the king have a vendetta against me?”

  The thought of king Brandis saddened Aiden. That had come as a surprise. Brandis was supposed to be a good man. Perhaps, in some ways he was. But without even knowing it, Aiden had developed expectations for the man. With the [Sage] in his ears and his wife scheming for him where he couldn’t, Brandis was slowly working his way into becoming a good king.

  But that was the problem with being a good king. So very rarely was there a good king that was a good man. Aiden understood why Brandis had done what he’d done to Valdan. Understanding it, however, did not mean liking it.

  Aiden cast the thought of Brandis from his mind and answered the question with another shake of his head. He had not been sent by the crown. Brandis had no beef with such a small insignificant village.

  The man sighed. There was an axe not so far from him but he didn’t seem interested in reaching for it. It was large, a battle axe like the one Aiden currently had in his storage space.

  A moment later, Aiden felt the man’s eyes settle on him. He cocked a brow, knowing what was about to happen. Next came the sensation that came with having the skill [Detect] used on you. It was not strong or overbearing. Aiden was simply aware of it. The man was either not as strong as he’d expected or the title [Unnatural Hunter] gave him quite the boost.

  The man’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he squinted as if he was surprised by what he’d seen. It was probably his class, Aiden concluded. No one would ever expect someone with a class like [Weaver] to walk into their office covered in blood.

  Or maybe it was his level. Most of the people he’d killed had been of the same level, after all.

  Satisfied with whatever he had seen, the town chief placed a hand under the table in front of him. Aiden prepared himself for whatever was about to happen. In the end, it was not an attack. The man simply threw the table to the side as if in a display of strength or anger. It was possible that he was just clearing the path between them.

  Perhaps I should greet him, too.

  [You have used skill Detect]

  The information he needed appeared over the town chief’s head in amber.

  [Norlam Cannibal Lvl 59 (Prey)]

  That was surprising, Aiden noted.

  “Not a title,” Aiden mused. It was surprising. He had no idea that there was a class called [Cannibal]. He’d only known of it as a title. What did it say about Nastild if people could be offered something even deemed unnatural by the interface itself as a class.

  What does it say about him that he chose it?

  The town chief, Norlam, sucked in a deep breath, like a man preparing to take a dive. When he let it out, Aiden watched something interesting happen.

  Norlam grew in size. His shoulders grew broader. He grew wider. The shirt he was wearing began ripping at the seams. Letting out a low snarl, Norlam revealed teeth that were sharp, more canine than any other type of teeth. His nails grew slightly longer. Less wild animal and more of an increase from well kept nails to females who enjoyed keeping their nails naturally long.

  It was like watching a before and after video of a body builder. Norlam had gone from a normal sized man to a hulking body builder who’d supplemented with years of steroids and performance enhancing drugs in a matter of seconds.

  “I did not know you could do that,” he muttered as if on a side note.

  A transformative manifesting skill, Aiden noted. There were few people on the human side of Nastild that had transformative manifesting skills. Torat was one of them, and Aiden certainly did not want to face Torat when he finally deemed it fit to use the skill.

  In the face of what Torat was capable of doing, Norlam was nothing but a body builder hyped on steroids. He wasn’t even as powerful or as big as the lycanthropes from the other side of the world.

  Maybe if he gains a few more levels, he thought.

  [You have found yourself against an enemy that is ten levels higher than you]

  [Title Giant Slayer is in effect]

  [You have gained 10% increase in damage dealt. All damage received is decreased by 10%.]

  …

  [You have found yourself against an enemy that is ten levels higher than you]

  [Title Unnatural Hunter is in effect]

  [You have gained 20% increase in damage dealt. All damage received is decreased by 30%. All physical stats are increased by 10%.]

  …

  [You are under two title effects Giant Slayer and Unnatural Hunter.]

  [Calculating effects…]

  [You have gained 30% increase in damage dealt. All damage received is decreased by 40%. All physical stats are increased by 10%.]

  Aiden cocked a brow at the notifications. It was definitely interesting. He would take every blow at almost half its strength. He could survive twice as long and be seen as a durable fighter. Titles were amazing to have.

  But in his current situation, it was not necessary.

  Bringing his hands out from behind him, he channeled mana into the enchanted items. Then he let them fall forward. Norlam’s eyes moved to the items. Aiden saw the moment the man realized what was happening. His eyes widened in horror and he moved to back away from the items.

  He wasn’t fast enough. Aiden’s interface exploded in a cacophony of notifications as he drew his sword and held it in both hands.

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Madness]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Binding]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Force]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Flame]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Gas]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Lightning]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Binding]

  …

  [You have used Enchantment of Lesser Light]

  The enchantment of lesser light went of first. Aiden closed his eyes to it as it went off. The flash of white echoed behind his closed lids, almost a little too bright to handle. Lightning went next. Aiden heard it in the crackling and Norlam’s violent grunts of pain as he tried to fight back. He was likely blinded at this point. There remained a possibility that he had survived the blinding light, though.

  With Aiden’s eyes closed to the light, if Norlam survived the enchantment, it would leave him at a disadvantage. But Aiden had that covered. The lightning enchantment would stop Norlam from moving forward. That, too, was not all the backup he had.

  Opening his eyes now that the light was gone, Aiden watched as dark blue vines erupted from two of the enchanted items. They reached up like tentacles from an infant kraken. Slapping and wrapping themselves all over the town chief, they kept Norlam down, forcefully bringing him to his knees.

  Norlam fought against them. As much as Aiden hated to admit, he had to give credit where credit was due. He could not deny Norlam’s strength. The vines from the binding enchantment barely kept him in place as he tried to move forward, eyes closed, blinded.

  Aiden held his sword and took a stance, sword drawn back beside his head in a stabbing motion. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He ignored everything, closed himself from the world as best he could.

  The enchantment of lesser Madness filled the office.

  Aiden felt the air around him tighten. His lungs struggled but he’d already stopped his urge to breathe. The world wobbled around him, but he was not looking. Sound disappeared but he did not let it phase him. When the world swayed, he did not sway with it.

  The chaos that came with the enchantment lasted for only a moment and the sound of a heavy object dropping to the ground drew Aiden back to the world around him. Norlam had dropped to a knee, and the vines of binding held him in place, pulling him closer to the ground. Pinning him there.

  When the gas popped from its enchantment, it was a small thing, almost inconsequential. It was preceded by the enchantment of lesser flame, with the weight of the enchantment of lesser force right behind.

  It was a small explosion but a powerful one. Powerful enough to rip Norlam from the grasp of the vines of binding as it threw him back and into the wall. Now it was Aiden’s turn.

  Norlam bounced off the wall, and [Dash] carried Aiden through the distance between them. He sank his blade, sheathing at least two feet of steel into the man’s chest. The weight of his speed forced Norlam back into the wall and Aiden’s sword pierced the wall as well.

  Aiden took a deep breath and stepped away. The world tilted around him, and he steadied his feet beneath him, regaining his balance. There were still residual effects from the enchantment of lesser madness. It messed with all five senses, throwing even your sense of balance off kilter.

  Certain that he wasn’t going to fall out of nowhere, Aiden finally allowed his sight settle on Norlam. The town chief, as large as he was, was pinned to the wall by a single sword running through his chest.

  Aiden had done his best with what he had not to pierce his heart or hit any vital points. If he failed, well, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over watching the man bleed out and die.

  The sword wasn’t the only injury inflicted on Norlam. There were tears running across his body from fighting against the vines that had tried to bind him. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth. A massive burn covered his entire torso. With his pants singed and tattered, he was left on full display. A lesser man would have turned away from the sight with a grimace.

  Aiden stood. He’d gauged the distance so that he was just beyond the reach of Norlam’s arm. The village chief settled angry eyes on him. Even beyond the pain, he had his entire attention on Aiden.

  So even as Aiden said the words that came out of his mouth, he knew they were simply petty. “Do I have your attention now, Norlam?”

  Norlam stared him down with defiant eyes. At least anyone watching would have thought of them as defiant, and they most likely were. But Aiden saw beyond the silence and the defiance. He saw the truth because he had seen it more than enough times in more than enough people. Norlam was fighting his pain.

  He was not defying Aiden. He was defying his pain.

  Aiden folded his arms over his shirt, suppressing how gross being soaked in blood felt. The warmth of his shirt plastered against his chest, sticky and viscous. The trickle that was already seeping beneath the fabric and running down his skin. It was the thing the stories didn’t tell you. Killing of this extent was a messy business, not just in the action itself but in the side effects of it.

  Aiden really wanted to take a bath.

  “I will not insult you by offering to help with the pain.” He stepped into Norlam’s reach. “You are not so weak that—”

  Norlam’s arm swung at him and Aiden caught it with a raised hand. Then he broke it. Blood and spittle spilled from between Norlam’s gritted teeth as he grunted in pain, refusing to cry out.

  His arm fell limp by his side.

  It showed in his eyes that he would’ve swung the other hand if Aiden’s sword in his chest hadn’t made the action impossibly painful to carry out.

  The indicator [Prey] had remained hovering over the man’s head the entire time. Now, it had gone from a simple amber to a dull grey. It felt unimportant now. Its unimportance made the man himself feel unimportant. Like an unworthy prey.

  “I am not here for your cannibalistic actions,” Aiden told Norlam, watching his eyes twitch in surprise. “I am not even here for the noble girl that is missing. You and I both know that she’s dead and gone. There’s nothing that can be done about that. I am here for something else.”

  “Kill me,” the man groaned.

  Aiden nodded, expecting it. “I will. You are the kind of person that would rather die than be spared, emboldened by your own hubris. However, what is important to me is necessary. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll end you in a single blow. Make it difficult and I will take my time killing you. Is that understood?”

  Norlan’s nod was slow, and he dangled from the wall, one side of him held up by the sword running him through the chest. His legs could barely keep him up.

  Aiden folded his arms back, an action that was designed to let Norlam know that he was not worried in any way.

  “You all normally get your tourists and divide them up with the other cannibals,” he began, ignoring the smell of blood that choked his lungs. “But something changed a month or two ago. The numbers increased. The bodies increased. You started finding more, hunting more. You weren’t even killing them yourself for the level increase. I can tell because your level is way too low.”

  These were all pieces of information Aiden had gotten after they’d returned to the palace in his past life. Norlam had never even been caught after the entire fiasco. The town had just been overtaken, eventually, then forcefully assimilated into Elstrire. It was during all these events that he’d heard all this news.

  He’d never found out what had happened to Norlam, and at some point, he’d just told himself that the man had been hunted down and killed. It made him sleep better at night. He’d never seen or heard of him again so that was a conclusion he was more than happy to believe.

  “Ask your question,” Norlam said in a tired voice.

  “The missing people, the confused town. All of it.” Aiden looked the man in the eye while wondering if Elaswit had met with the knight, Sir Thompfer, and if Valdan had found the corpses he knew the man would find. “You and your little renegades are not strong enough to do what you’ve been doing in the last three months. So how?” He leaned in, looked Norlam in the eyes. “What changed?”

  Slowly, like the rising sun, he watched realization push through the pain and defiance in Norlam’s eyes and take a front seat. It was followed by a feral grin, a cocky smirk.

  “You not here about the missing persons, are you?” he said, still smiling.

  “I am not.” Aiden ignored the smile. “You know why I’m here.”

  There was a moment of silence where Norlam looked as if he wasn’t going to answer. But it passed quickly, easily.

  When Norlam answered Aiden, it was with words Aiden would never have expected or even considered he would hear so soon—not even half a year on Nastild.

  Norlam looked him in the eye with pity and spoke. His words were simple.

  “You’re here for the Demon.”

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